Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism-2012

Christian Leaders’ Comments
Dr. Earl D. Radmacher, President Emeritus of Western Seminary: “I have been teaching
systematic theology in seminary for 45 years and published numerous books and articles, but I have
never found anything on the biblical doctrine of salvation as helpful and thorough, especially on the
controversial areas.... Olson exercises great care in the word studies and is faithful to the biblical
context. Furthermore, his attitude and style of writing is gracious rather than pugnacious. I wish
I had it in my earlier days of teaching but, praise God, I am still learning.”
Dr. Robert L. Sumner, Editor, The Biblical Evangelist: “...one of the finest on the subject...
Olson annihilates the ideas of irresistible grace, limited atonement, and unconditional election.... we
highly recommend this volume.”
Dr. John F. Walvoord, longtime President of Dallas Seminary, before his homegoing told
me that he thought he agreed with me and wrote a proviso: “At my age of 92 I find it difficult to read
through very detailed arguments in theology that would have been taken in stride years ago.” He
then affirmed, “In [God’s] plan some people will be saved and some would be lost but on the basis
of their own choices. God did not condemn them Himself.” In 1991 he wrote, “I do not believe
either the words ‘unconditional’ or ‘conditional’ are properly added to the doctrine of election.”
Dr. Leith Anderson, President of the NAE: “What I have so far read has been interesting
and challenging. Thanks for all your hard work and all your research/scholarship. May God use
your writing to bless, benefit and shake-up students of soteriology.... I hope you will receive broad
readership as you have sought to bring new scholarship to old issues.”
Dr. Elmer L. Towns, Co-founder, Liberty University and Dean of the Seminary: “Olson has
moved beyond theology into inductive Bible exegesis to demonstrate his solution to the long existent
controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism. He comes down just about right, and those from
both sides should read carefully, study deeply. ... a great contribution to Christianity.”
Dr. Don Fanning, Director of Global Ministries, Liberty University, was the first to use it
as a textbook in a theology course: “I have thoroughly enjoyed devouring its contents. Naturally
one is especially delighted to read something that helps define one’s own beliefs.” He told me that
Dr. Jerry Fallwell had read it and agreed with the viewpoint.
Dr. James Bjornstad, Cedarville University: “... your exegesis and thinking are
fascinating–very refreshing.... Included are frequently neglected exegetical considerations,
inferences from history, and other important insights. A tremendous contribution....”
Tim Johnson, Exec. Director, MN Church Ministries Assoc.: “... a welcome perspective which
...a great number of evangelicals embrace and would be encouraged to see laid out in a systematic
way.... a blessing and underscored so much of what I have believed and taught for years.”
Dr. Thomas Edgar, Professor of New Testament at Capital Bible Seminary: “...a thorough
and biblically based discussion of soteriology.... All who believe the clear and most probable
meaning of the numerous biblical passages on this subject will appreciate this work.”
Dr. Glenn Carnagey, late President of Austin Seminary of Biblical Languages: “A breath
of fresh air has just wafted over the realm of theology. Olson’s book takes a mediate position,
avoiding the pitfalls of both extremes.... Many issues are explored–all fascinating and different. He
covers all the issues one might want to study in connection with the theology of salvation.”
Dr. Edward P. Meadors, Taylor University: “...a word of appreciation for your fine book on
salvation theology.... The Scriptures are taking me in a very similar direction.... Thank you for your
comprehensive, detailed work.”
BEYOND
CALVINISM &
ARMINIANISM
AN INDUCTIVE, MEDIATE
THEOLOGY OF SALVATION
Third Edition
Expanded, Revised, & Updated
C. Gordon Olson
Foreword by Tim LaHaye
Global Gospel Publishers

2012
BEYOND CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM
AN INDUCTIVE, MEDIATE THEOLOGY OF SALVATION
GLOBAL GOSPEL MINISTRIES, INC

adba GLOBAL GOSPEL PUBLISHERS
221 Farley Branch Drive
Lynchburg, VA 24502
Telephone: 434-582-5049
cell: 973-906-9274
e-mail: gordolson@att.net
website: www.mediatetheology.org
Copyright © 1981, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,
2001, 2002, 2005, 2012 by C. Gordon Olson.
Second abridged edition entitled, Getting the Gospel Right: A

Balanced View of Salvation Truth (0-9624850-5-5)
All rights reserved ISBN 0-9624850-7-1
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the New American
Standard Bible © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the
Lockman Foundation and used by permission.
The diagram by George W. Peters on pg. 44 is taken from p. 56 of his book, A

Biblical Theology of Missions, copyrighted 1972 and is used by permission of
Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL.
Olson graphic on p. 122 improved and digitalized by courtesy of Walter Gramm
Cover layout is by the courtesy of Gerry Pruden of Bible Basics, International,

Odessa, FL
First edition: November, 2002

Second abridged and improved edition: November, 2005
Third substantially revised, updated, and expanded edition: October, 2012
1 2 3 4 5 6 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1-12
What Is the Gospel? 1; Biblical Doctrine Foundational - 2; A Crisis in Theology -3; How to
Be Sure to Get It Right - 4; Defective Interpretive Methodologies - 7; Distorted Perspec-
tives & Attitudes - 9; Testing Theology - 9; My Personal Theological Pilgrimage - 10; The
Importance of Details - 11; Major Exegetical Discoveries - 11; Unique Features of this
Book - 12
1. What Is a Mediate Theology of Salvation? 13-24
The polarized views in general - 14; What are the specific views? - 15; Evaluation of
general views - 16; An Overview of a Mediate Soteriology -17; The Resultant Plan of
Salvation - 23
Part I - The Foundations of Salvation Established 25
2. What Is Meant by God’s Sovereignty? 27-38
God Before the Foundation of the World - 28; The Meaning of God’s Sovereignty - 30; A
Mediate Theological View - 35; Excursus: Ray Ortlund Article on Sovereignty - 37
3. Whatever Happened to God’s Image in Humanity? 40-53
God’s Awesome Creation - 40; Humanity’s Created Nobility - 42; The Impact of Human-
ity’s Fall - 45; Excursus: Trichotomy - 51
4. How Did World Redemption Dawn before Christ? 54-68
Early Anticipation of the Gospel - 54; The Call of The Patriarchs - 56; Israel’s Redemption
out of Egypt - 60; The Giving of the Mosaic Law - 63; Humanity’s Record of Depravity -
64; Israel’s Davidic Dynasty - 65; Prophecies of the Coming Messiah - 65
5. Is Christ’s Passion More than an Atonement? 69-81
Old Testament Atonement - 69; The Uniqueness of the One Sacrificed - 70; A
Substitutionary, Expiatory Sacrifice - 72; A Propitiation for Sin - 75; Two Dimensions of
Redemption - 76; Reconciliation with God - 79; Objective/ Subjective Diagram - 81
Part II - The Terms of Salvation Clarified 83
6. Why Must Proclamation Be on God’s Terms? 84-96
The Bedrock, Christ Himself - 85; Building the Church - 90; The Gates of Hades - 90; The
Keys of the Kingdom - 91; Proclamation on God’s Terms - 93; Conclusions and Implica-
tions -94; Excursus: Hebrew/ Aramaic Words for Rock - 95
7. What Must I Do to Be Saved? 97-110
John’s starting point - 98; Repentance and faith - 98; The message of repentance - 99;
The appeal to believe - 100; Conversion the result - 102; The centraliity of the passion -
102; The gospel in His final orders - 103; The gospel in apostolic preaching - 103; Clarify-
ing other issues - 108; Excursus: Repentance & Conversion - 110
8. How Can the Dead Believe? 111-122
The Determining Scriptures - 112; Its Historical Actualization - 117; The Extent of Convic-
tion - 120; The Nature of Conviction - 121; Pre-Pentecost Conversion - 121
9. How Can Salvation Be Instantaneous? 123-135
Justification defined - 124; Based on faith alone - 126; The harmony of grace and faith -
v
128; The gracious nature of salvation - 128; Instantaneous new birth by faith - 130;
Justification & sanctification -130; Repentance, faith, & conversion - 132; The compro-
mises of faith alone - 133
10. Are We Saved by Discipleship? 136-148
Christ’s Discipleship Teachings - 137; Christ’s Salvation Witness - 141; The Issues of
Discipleship Salvation -146; Comparison of Discipleship Discourses -148
11. Is Baptism Essential for Salvation? 149-159
The Inductive Biblical Development - 150; The Doctrinal Crystallization - 158
12. Is Christ the Only Way of Salvation? 160-172
The Uniqueness of Christ and His Gospel - 161; Are the Unevangelized Really Lost? -
164; A Critique of Inclusivism - 169
Part III - Eternal Salvation Assured 173
13. Can We Really Have Full Assurance? 175-187
Are all real Christians assured? - 176; What misunderstandings hinder assurance? - 177;
What is the basis of assurance? -178; Life factors undermining assurance - 181; Doctrinal
errors undermining assurance - 184; Why so many struggle with assurance? - 186
14. Why the Struggle with Eternal Security? 188-199
Clarification of the Doctrine - 189; The Positive Biblical Basis -192
15. Is the Bible Ambiguous about Eternal Security? 200-213
Two Foundational Parables - 201; The Real Thrust of Hebrews - 203; Warnings - 205
16. Can Security Problems Be Resolved? 214-226
Issues Relating to True Believers - 214; Issues Relating to Apostates & Counterfeits -
220; Individualizing Corporate Entities - 224; Passages Pulled out of Context - 224
17. Why Not Believe in Security? 227-238
False Presuppositions of Denial - 227; Can Sin Negate Salvation? - 228; Can Failure of
Faith Negate Salvation? - 233; Why Believe It? - 236
18. What Other Errors Has Arminianism Spawned? 239-250
Denial of Substitution in the Cross - 239; Wesleyan Entire Sanctification - 240; The
Pentecostal/Charismatic Movements -243; The Prosperity Gospel Heresy - 243; Open
Theism - 244; Openness to Liberalism - 249
Part IV - Calvinism Inductively Examined 251
19. Does the New Birth Really Precede Faith? 253-266
Faith Prior to the New Birth - 253; What Is the Source of Faith? - 259
20. Does Depravity Really Imply Total Inability? 267-281
The Fall and Human Depravity - 269; Prooftexts for Total Inability - 272; Other Problems
with Inability - 277; Excursus: Critique of R. C. Sproul, Willing to Believe - 280
21. Did Christ Really Die for Every Sinner? 282-297
What about Limited Atonement? - 282; Key Scriptures Exegeted - 283; Serious Implica-
tions of a Limited View -291; Excursus: Calvin Quotes on General Redemption - 296
22. Is Foreknowledge Really Selective? 298-313
Outstanding Questions - 299; The Meaning of Foreknowledge -299 Complete New
Testament Usage - 302; Excursus: Word Studies of yada’ & ginoskein - 309
vi
23. Are We Chosen to Salvation or Appointed to Service? 314-329
The Commissioning of the Patriarchs - 314; A Word Study of eklegomai and
Cognates -315; Other Considerations - 327
24. Is Predestination Really in the Bible? 330-344
A Word Study of proorizein and Cognates - 330; Theologically Significant Usage - 334;
God’s Open Secret - 339; The Corporate Nature of God’s Plan -341
25. Has God Really Determined Each Person’s Destiny? 345-360
God’s Sovereignty in Salvation -345; Problems with All-Inclusive Decrees -352; Excursus:
Critique of John Piper’s The Justification of God - 358
26. Is God’s Calling Really Irresistible? 361-376
A Word Study of Calling - 361; Presuppositions of Irresistible Grace - 364; Prooftexts
Examined -366; Passages Refuting Irresistibility - 371; Problems of Coherence - 373
Part V - A Middle Way Confirmed 377

27. Were There Really Middle Ways in History? 378-398
Augustine, the First Predestinarian - 379; The Medieval Scene - 384; The Reformers and
their Successors - 384; The Reformation Spread and Modified - 387; Modern Mediate
Theologians - 393; Excursus: Review of Peter Thuesen, Predestination - 395
28. Which Theology Really Supports Global Witness? 399-418
Evangelism and Missions Axiomatic - 399; Obstacles to Global Witness - 402; Theological
Basis of Modern Missions - 404; Theological Lineage Chart of Personalities - 406;
Determinism Inconsistent with Evangelism - 415
29. Is a Middle Way Really Cogent? 419-431
Philosophy’s Historical Hegemony - 420; Attempts at Logical Resolution - 424; Determin-
ism as a Massive Extrapolation - 429
30. Does It Really Matter? 432-442
The Impact on the Christian Life - 432; The Impact on God’s Truth - 435; The Impact on
Preaching - 439; The Impact on Apologetics - 439; Resorting to Philosophical Sophistries
- 440; Missing the Heart of God’s Great Plan - 441
Appendix A - How Does This Relate to Dispensational Premillennialism? 443-445
Appendix B - Does the Character of Theologians Matter? 446-448
Glossary 449-452
Indices 453-461
Bibliography 462-467
Table of Charts and Diagrams

Two Models of Divine Sovereignty 39
Balancing the Attributes of God 44
The Objective vs. Subjective Dimensions of Salvation 81
The Sequence of Salvation 122
Comparison of Christ’s Discipleship Discourses 148
The Diverse Warnings to Hebrews 205
The Theological Lineage Connecting Key Missions Personalities 406-407
vii
DEDICATION
Dedicated to the human instruments God has used in my life:
C. Herbert Hage, whose witness pointed me to Christ and whose

fellowship in studying God’s word led me to conviction about the
eternal security of true believers
Rosalind Rinker, whose wise and discerning counsel crystallized
God’s calling into ministry of the word of God
Howard G. Hendricks, whose first course in inductive Bible study
methodology made this book possible
Charles W. Anderson, whose ministry equipped and sent both of my
wives to the mission field, provided a venue for 24 years of
teaching at Northeastern Bible College, and whose preaching
directly challenged my own life and ministry
Miriam Moffatt Olson, whose love and “selfish prayer” for me in
Pakistan helped spare my life, and who for 48 years stood with
me in serving Christ until the Lord took her in 2006
Dottie Wagner Olson, whose love and expert editing has helped to
make this edition possible, more readable, and comprehensible
What in the World Is God Doing?

The Essentials of Global Missions
“It is simply superb: . . . mastery of the entire global situation; . . . fine biblical exposition; command of
history, world religions; and very practical approach.”
-- Dr. Keith J. Hardman, Author, Professor Emeritus, Ursinus College
" concise, highly readable . . . a strong biblical and historical framework to view the world from God's
perspective. . . . solidly conservative and biblical." -- Mike Stachura, in Evangelical Missions Quarterly
"an introductory text that respects missiology's interdisciplinary nature, and treats the areas of concern
for modern missionary ministry."-- Dr. Keith E. Eitel, Southeastern Baptist Seminary
"Gordon Olson has saved me a lot of time and effort. He has already published the book I planned to
write! It will be a pleasure to use it in my classes." -- Dr. Justice C. Anderson, Professor Emeritus,
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
"Succinct yet comprehensive, solid but readable, creative yet biblical. . . a boon to mission teachers,
students, and practitioners alike." – Dr. David J. Hesselgrave, Emeritus Professor, TEDS
"I like your book’s readability.... the best introductory guide I have seen."-- Grover G. DeVault, OCSC
"The best introductory text available--excellent." -- Dr. Paul Lund, Vennard College
"not only valuable for teachers in schools, but also for Missions pastors and committees who wish to
build missionary vision in their churches." -- Charles Hall, Temple Baptist Seminary
Published by: Branches Publications and Global Gospel Publishers --

Paperback: 488 pages, ISBN 0-9833290-5-3, 6th ed., June 2011, List Price: US $ 24.00
Available from: Scripture Truth Book Co. (540-992-1273); Wm. Carey Library (1-800-MISSION);
Amazon.com; Barnes & Noble.com; John Ritchie, Ltd., Scotland
FOREWORD
by Dr. Tim LaHaye
A decade ago I was introduced to the delightful writing style of Gordon

Olson when I read his classic book, Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism.
He articulated in scholarly yet easy to understand prose what has been my
long-standing belief of what the Bible really teaches on these controversial
subjects. He is a master at inductive Bible study and uses it to solve the
age’s long controversy that exists when writers use the proof-text method to
prove their previously held position. It has been enthusiastically received
by many ministers, missionaries, seminarians, Bible professors, and Chris-
tian laypeople. What I find interesting is that in spite of its incredible distri-
bution, no scholar to date has attempted to refute it or anything in it. As
another who was impressed with the book said, “The reason no one has
attempted to refute it is that they cannot.” I would agree.
Now he has produced a third edition of that scholarly book, which will
be accessible to many more knowledgeable Christians. His well defined
position is unadulterated Biblical truth. The polarized positions he exam-
ines are based on the writings and thought of two men (and others);
Olson’s position is based on the Bible. It should be called “the faith of the
early church” for at least four hundred years, or “the evangelical position
about salvation,” which it is. In fact, I think that most evangelical Christians
believe it, even if their pastor holds a different view.
This book should be distributed everywhere. Gordon Olson is to be
commended for having the courage and stamina to produce such a well
researched, yet easy-to-understand book on a subject that has confused
Christians for centuries. Every serious Bible student, preacher, and Bible
teacher should read this book. It can truly be a life changing experience.
ix
RESOURCES
BIBLE TRANSLATIONS USED:
Unless otherwise identified, all Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, 1995.
AMP The Amplified Bible. GR: Zondervan, ©1965

ASV The American Standard Version. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1901
BECK Beck, William F., The New Testament in the Language of Today, St. Louis: Concordia,© 1963
CONF The Confraternity Version, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, © 1941
DIAG Benjamin Wilson, The Emphatic Diaglott, 1941
ESV The English Standard Version. Wheaton: Crossway, ©2001
FFB Bruce, F. F., The Letters of Paul: An Expanded Paraphrase. Eerdmans, ©1965
HCSB The Holman Christian Standard Bible, Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, © 2004
KNOX Knox, Msgr. R. A., The New Testament: A New Translation. NY: Sheed & Ward, ©1953
MLB Verkuyl, Gerritt, ed., The Modern Language Bible: The New Berkeley Version (rev. ©1969)
MOFF Moffatt, James, The New Testament: A New Translation, NY: Hodder & Stoughton
OLS Olson, C. Gordon, These are my personal renderings based upon careful exegesis.
NAB The New American Bible. NY: Catholic Book Publishing, ©1970
NEB The New English Bible: New Testament. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, ©1961
NIV The New International Version, International Bible Society, ©1984
NKJV The New King James Version, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, ©1982
NLT The New Living Translation. Wheaton: Tyndale House, ©1996
NRSV The New Revised Standard Version, Oxford, © 1989
PHIL Phillips, J. B. The New Testament in Modern English. NY: Macmillan, ©1962
RSV The Revised Standard Version. NY: Thomas Nelson, ©1957
ROTH Rotherham, Joseph Bryant, The Emphasized Bible. Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1897
LXX The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, with trans. by Brenton. London: Bagster, n.d.
TNIV Today’s New International Version, International Bible Society, ©2001
WAY Way, Arthur. The Letters of St. Paul, London: Macmillan, ©1926.
WEY Weymouth, Richard Francis, The New Testament in Modern Speech. Boston: Pilgrim, 1943
WILL Williams, Charles B. The New Testament. Chicago, Moody Press, ©1958
SYMBOLS USED:
All words defined in the Glossary are identified by an asterisk. *
Underlining in quotations are my emphasis, both in Scripture and other sources.
The various editions of the Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Danker lexicon are designated:
BAG - First edtion, A translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer’s work by W. F. Arndt and F. W.
Gingrich, 1957, mostly used in this work
BAGD - Second edition, 1979, edited by F. W. Danker
BDAG - Third edition, 2000, more radical editing by Danker
EDNT - Balz & Schneider, eds., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 3 vols. (Eerdmans, 1991)
NIDNTT - Colin Brown, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 3 vols. (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1975)
TDNT - Gerhard Kittel, ed. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley,
10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-76)
TDOT - Botterweck & Ringgren, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 15 vols. (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974-2007)
TWOT - Harris, Archer, Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Chicago:
Moody Press, 1980)
x
PREFACE
As the gospel of Christ penetrates worldwide into thousands of people

groups and His church is planted among them, the global church is increas-
ingly becoming non-Western. An astounding phenomenon of the last forty
years has been the explosion of tens of thousands of majority-world mission-
aries of the cross, who have joined their Western colleagues in fulfilling the
Greatest Decree of the Sovereign of the universe. The decline of the
churches in Europe, as the battleground of the Reformation, raises real
questions about the soundness of the form of Christianity which developed
from the Reformation. It was the radical Reformation which sought to break
free from the overhanging legacy of medieval scholasticism and coercive
theology, and thus took the lead in world evangelization.
Paul, the greatest theologian of the church, was also its greatest mis-
sionary. Western churches desperately need an inductive biblical theology,
which breaks free from the deadening influence of deductive scholasticism
and polarized traditions, a crippling legacy of Western church history. We
must move on to a missions-centered theology conducive to world evangel-
ization since Christ died for the whole world of lost sinners.
In setting out positively the actual Bible teaching about God’s wonderful
plan of salvation, the legacy of the past requires dealing with the widespread
serious misconceptions and distortions of God’s truth. There is such a strong
tradition of misinterpretation and even of mistranslation of the Scriptures
that a radical paradigm shift in our approach to God’s word is desperately
needed. I have been on a more gradual theological pilgrimage for forty
years, and many readers may also need to undergo a paradigm shift. Many
are thoroughly dissatisfied with the polarized traditions of Western theology,
but many in those traditions will be upset with this book. It is greatly
encouraging that the Lord Jesus spent much of His ministry countering the
religious traditions of a nation which desperately needed to repent. He
spared no words in rebuffing adherence to human traditions.
Keep in mind that Calvinists, Arminians, and those in between are
brothers and sisters in Christ, not sub-Christian or enemies. Yet much of the
literature of the last five centuries reflects the intolerance of the post-Refor-
mation period, when Christians persecuted other Christians! We have an
overwhelming responsibility to manifest love to fellow believers, even in the
way we dialog doctrinally. If I have failed to do this in this book, I ask your
forgiveness. However, I cannot apologize if the truth makes you angry!
The first edition was received with enthusiasm. The abridged and
revised edition under the title Getting the Gospel Right has also sold out.
Many have been disappointed that the first edition is no longer available.
xi
This new edition seeks to retain much of the scholarly discussion from the
first edition in footnotes and excursuses at the chapter ends. It is consider-
ably shorter than the first edition and radically restructured from the se-
quence of the previous editions. The first section deals with foundational
truths and should not be a problem for those not theologically trained. The
second section deals with the terms of salvation and is more challenging.
The third section deals primarily with eternal security and Arminian issues,
while the fourth, containing heavier doctrinal issues relating to Calvinism, is
more challenging in requiring constant reference to the original languages.
Since the first edition, four new chapters were added, and the chapters on
God and man were rewritten since a ‘Biblical Theology’ approach is more
inductive. A survey of Old Testament anticipations of the gospel springs
from teaching a diachronic Old Testament theology for a quarter century.
Assurance is the bottom line and required more extensive discussion. The
expanding extreme outgrowths of Arminianism also demand treatment.
New significant research on eklegomai is included for the first time, as is
a reason for the silence of the early church fathers on ‘election’ and ‘predesti-
nation.’ Providentially, I stumbled across new evidence on the doctrinal
roots of the modern missions movement, some of which are new to this
edition and very significant in perceiving the spiritual lineage connecting key
personalities. I have “connected the dots,” in telling “the rest of the story.”
This research into the primary sources of this lineage reveals the connection
between theology, evangelism, the Great Awakenings, and missions.
Readers will note some stylistic peculiarities. After years in the Muslim
world, I find it unthinkable to refer to “Jesus” without giving Him His proper
titles. Since Muslims never refer to Hazrat Isa without using terms of
respect, do Christians show less respect for God incarnate than Muslims do,
despite their denial of His deity? This must be a key reason for the weakness
of our communication of the gospel. Also, the proper translation of the
Greek titles of John is ‘the Baptizer,’ or better yet, ‘the Immerser.’
I have had no support staff to get this work to press but am grateful to
the many, too numerous to mention, who have helped and encouraged me.
I am especially appreciative of the editorial help of Dr. Harold Holmyard (1st
ed.), Vicki Burnor, and Dr. Keith J. Hardman (2nd ed). Shortly after the
second edition came out, my dear wife, Miriam, went to be with the Lord.
God has provided a wonderful second wife, Dottie Wagner Olson, who has
been extremely helpful in editing this edition, both because of her extensive
missionary and teaching experience, and also her advanced degree in
English and intercultural studies. We trust that it will be more readable than
the first edition and more in-depth than the second.
C. Gordon Olson, October, 2012
xii
There is a great danger, when once we have adhered to
one particular school of thought or adopted one partic-
ular system of theology, of reading the Bible in the light
of that school or system and finding its distinctive fea-
tures in what we read. . . . The remedy for this is to
bear resolutely in mind that our systems of doctrine
must be based on biblical exegesis, not imposed upon
it. -F. F. Bruce
INTRODUCTION
What Is the Gospel?

The goal of this book is to get the gospel right. Since the word ‘gospel’
means ‘good news,’ it is crucial to make sure that the message really is
‘good news’ for all humanity. It is the good news that Christ and His Apos-
tles proclaimed to a lost world of sinners–Jew and Gentile. Its essence is
His person and work and how the benefits of His life, death, and resurrec-
tion are realized in the lives of individuals. Most Evangelicals agree about
the person and work of Christ: that He was God incarnate in human flesh to
provide eternal life to spiritually dead humanity through His death and
resurrection. However, many who accept this might not agree with each
other as to how a sinner can be saved. Indeed, there has been a serious
polarization among Evangelicals in regard to salvation truth.
We are proposing a mediate theology of salvation, intermediate to
Calvinism and Arminianism. The thesis of this book is that any sinner can
be saved by grace only through explicit repentant faith in the finished work
of Christ alone. This means that the gospel is a valid offer for every human
being, available by God’s unmerited favor apart from human performance
either before or after conversion. It is the privilege of every true believer to
have assurance of present and ultimate salvation. Christ is the only way of
salvation, and no one can be saved apart from explicit trust in the merits of
His person and work. Although the new birth and right standing with God
are given instantaneously upon the exercise of saving repentant faith, there
is a process by which unbelievers come to trust Christ for salvation.
It is clear because of liberalism many oldline Protestants do not agree
with Evangelicals about the deity and passion of Christ. Traditional Catho-
lics and Eastern Orthodox might agree about His person and work, but they
don’t agree about how people can be saved–the crucial issue of the Protes-
tant Reformation. However, shortly after the Reformation a sharp division
developed among Protestants. Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Calvin
(1509-64) had followed Augustine (354-430) in a deterministic approach* to
1
2 BEYOND CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM
salvation with doctrines of absolute predestination and irresistible grace.

This means God decreed who will get eternal life and who will be left out
and go to hell. Calvin’s successor, Theodor Beza, developed a more ex-
treme form of his doctrine by adding the notion of limited atonement.1
A century after the Reformation a reaction against this extreme Gene-
van Calvinism developed around Amsterdam pastor and theologian, Jacob
Arminius. After his untimely death in 1609, some of his followers, the
Remonstrants, pressed his denial of Calvinism in five points. At the Synod
of Dort (1618-19) they were banished from the Netherlands Reformed chur-
ches by the Calvinists, who set out their doctrine in five opposing points, the
famous acronym, TULIP. Most Protestant groups, except Lutherans, Ana-
baptists,* and Mennonites,* go back to either Calvinism or Arminianism.
The burden of this book is to show that both Calvinists and Arminians
have got it half right and half wrong, the truth being in the middle. Diligent
inductive study of the Bible without traditional or philosophical preconcep-
tions confirms the above definition of the gospel. A mediate view is also
confirmed by early church fathers* and a score of evangelical movements
reacting to the determinism of the Reformers and is especially harmonious
with Christ’s Great Commission. I. Howard Marshall expressed this goal so
aptly: “The full Arminian position is as much open to error as is extreme Calvinism. My aim
is to reach beyond the Calvinist-Arminian controversy to a position which is biblical, and
which therefore accepts whatever is true in both Calvinism and Arminianism.”2
Biblical Doctrine Is Foundational

Since God uses true Christians on both sides, why should we be con-
cerned about who is right? Many Christians have the notion that doctrine
divides and is unimportant in the life of individuals and the church.
However, sound doctrine is simply the teaching of Christ and the Apostles.
In his first letter to Timothy, Paul repeatedly emphasized the impor-
tance of sound doctrine and teaching. He showed great concern for the
truth of the message Timothy was to teach and spoke frequently of the
imperative of holding “the faith” as an objective body of essential truth. He
encouraged Timothy to stay in Ephesus to deal with false teaching in the
churches there (1 Tim. 1:3-11). In emphasizing God’s desire that all men
might be saved, Paul made their coming “to the knowledge of the truth” synon-
ymous with this (2:3-4). Therefore, it is essential that local church leaders
be “able to teach” (3:2) and hold “to the mystery of the faith with a clear con-
science” (3:9) since the church is “the pillar and support of the truth” (3:15).
Paul warned that “in the latter times some will fall away from the faith, paying
attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (4:1) and to “be a good ser-
vant of Christ Jesus” Timothy would not only have to be “nourished on the
words of the faith and of the sound doctrine” but also point out this apostasy to
the brethren (1 Tim . 4:6). Paul exhorted him to “command and teach” that
“the living God . . . is the Savior of all men, especially of believers” (4:10-11) and
INTRODUCTION 3
twice reminded him that by giving attention to his teaching he would insure
the opportunity for salvation of his hearers (4:13, 16). He also showed a
great concern that Timothy teach “doctrine conforming to godliness” and warn
those who were moving away from “the faith” (5:8, 17; 6:2-3, 10, 17). Paul’s
letter to Titus emphasized these same concerns (Tit. 1:1, 9-14; 2:1, 7, 10).
Based on this, it is clear that biblical doctrine is foundational to the life,
witness, and ministry of individual Christians and to the life of the church.
We must do God’s work in God’s way with a clear uncompromised mes-
sage. Yet today, we see little concern for doctrine in most evangelical
churches. This situation is so serious that it must be called a crisis.
A Crisis in Theology
Theology used to be called the “queen of the sciences,” but today
evangelical theology is in a sorry state. Works of evangelical theology are
not best sellers, and there is little doctrinal preaching in evangelical pulpits.
Much of this can be attributed to the relativistic culture in which we live.
There are no absolutes either of truth or morality. Christians are greatly
influenced by this kind of thinking. We theologians are mainly to blame!
Evangelical theologians with scholarly credentials have come to radically
differing conclusions in important areas of theology and have developed
contradictory systems. As a result, the whole theological process is dis-
credited. This would be a matter of concern in less significant areas, but we
should hope that in the theology of salvation (soteriology) things would be
better. Salvation truth should unite Evangelicals, but the opposite is true.
For over four centuries, salvation theology has been radically polar-
ized. Calvinists and Arminians are at opposite poles as to how God applies
the merits of Christ’s saving death to sinners, with little dialogue between
the two camps.3 Furthermore, there is little recognition that there is a
whole spectrum of distinct positions between the extremes. To make
matters worse, there are now many extreme forms of Arminianism. Joseph
Dongell described the massive diversity of evangelical views in theology
and the many Christians who want to “escape from the swamps and quagmire of
theological debate,” being satisfied with “theological minimalism.” This is true even
in evangelism, where a hyper-Calvinist’s approach to sharing the gospel is
so diverse from that of Arminians. Although claiming a hopeful outlook, he
stated, “Our survey indicates that none of the resources available to us can definitively
resolve the challenges we face in interpreting the Bible.”4 Roger Olson agreed, “After
twenty-five years of studying this subject, I have concluded that appealing to Scripture alone
cannot prove one side right and the other side wrong.”5 Most Calvinists also say that
we should not try to unscrew the inscrutable. However, nothing could be
farther from the truth! We do have resources available to resolve the tre-
mendous diversity. Sound, inductive study is essential! There is a strong
mainstream in the middle, who are not committed to either system. Unfor-
tunately, there are few voices articulating a clear middle position, but this
book provides such a resolution! Actually, it is the fossilized systems of

Calvinism and Arminianism which make a solution seem impossible!
Lutherans are ambivalent, feeling that the paradox need not be resolved.
How Can We Be Sure to Get It Right?

A crucial aspect of this book is the use of an inductive or bottom-up
approach to the Bible, rather than a deductive or top-down approach. It is
imperative to have an honest, scientific approach to the Bible, since Christ
said that good, fruit-bearing soil represents those with an “honest heart” (Lk.
8:15). The attitude of our hearts and our perspective must be right, as well
as our methodology. An inductive approach must be primary.
The priority of inductive methodology

It is axiomatic, both in science and theology, that inductive, empirical
evidence is far more dependable than deductive reasoning. For half a
century, many have learned inductive Bible study methods as taught by
Robert Traina, Merrill Tenney, Howard Hendricks, and their disciples.
Students were taught to observe, observe, and observe again what the
Scripture actually says. But theologians have yet to get the message! What
do these terms mean? Induction is defined as “the process of reasoning from
particular instances to general conclusions.” In logic, it is “reasoning from particular facts
or individual cases to a general conclusion.” In science it parallels the empirical or
scientific method, which involves gathering a large number of data points
from many experiments and then drawing a general principle from this.
The more data points the scientist has, the more certain the generalization
derived from them. On the other hand, deduction is “reasoning from a known
principle to an unknown, from the general to the specific, or from a premise to a logical
conclusion;” and “from the general to the particular, or from the universal to the individual.”6
Thus, the inductive theologian draws many data points from careful
interpretation (exegesis*) of many Scriptures and derives a general conclu-
sion from them. The number, clarity, and relevance of those many pas-
sages is crucial to the certainty of the theological conclusions drawn. Build-
ing a doctrine on only one or two verses, or passages which are unclear or
not directly related to the issue, compromises the conclusions. This book
gives priority to an inductive, exegetical approach to interpretation since we
have quoted over a thousand verses of Scripture in bold with full discussion.
On the other hand, deductive theologians start with what are per-
ceived to be certain axiomatic general principles, such as the sovereignty of
God or human depravity, and reason logically to specific doctrines derived
from them. This is the scholastic approach* common before the Reforma-
tion but unfortunately since carried over into Protestant theology.7
To illustrate, for years the medical consensus was that eggs, being high
in fat and cholesterol, contribute to high blood cholesterol and heart dis-
ease. Since Christ, as Creator, confirmed that fish and eggs are good things
INTRODUCTION 5
to give to children (Lk. 11:11-13), I became impressed with an alternative

approach in 1995 and included eggs in my low carbohydrate diet with
dramatic results in correcting my blood cholesterol. In 1999, researchers
reported a radical reversal of advice on eggs. The direct data now, coming
from the medical histories of thousands of nurses, showed that the previous
advice was based upon “hypothesis and indirect evidence rather than direct data.”8
The previous advice was deductive rather than inductive and empirical; it
was a priori rather than a posteriori. And it was dead wrong!
Careful exegesis of the determining Scripture passages gives the par-
ticular facts, which must be the starting point of all theology. Only after the
inductive process has been exhausted may a deductive method be used.
Deductive reasoning is valid only in confirming and testing the results of
inductive study or in filling in the gaps where the inductive data is missing
or incomplete. It must never be given priority over induction.
Avoiding problematic deductive, presuppositional approaches

Substituting history of doctrine for exegetical theology. Denial of
the sufficiency of biblical revelation takes three forms. One is reliance upon
the historical development of the church as being not only providential but
also authoritative. A second is deferring to the views of the church fathers.
A third is the scholastic practice of extensive discussion of the historical
views on a point before turning to Scripture.
Substituting survey of theologies for exegetical theology. Survey
of contemporary views is helpful as background for our theological study,
but it is just that—background! The history of Christian doctrine is not
theology, nor is a survey of contemporary theology. Yet some theologians
have published works which never make it into the field of theology, per se.
Giving priority to philosophic presuppositions. Deductive theology
brings philosophic presuppositions into the theological process too early.
By beginning with such, it is given priority over inductive, exegetical data.
Giving priority to personal experience. After the Reformation, there
were three sources of authority: Scripture, church traditions, and reason.
John Wesley added subjective experience, and developing Pentecostal/
charismatic movements also give great weight to personal experience in
the determination of truth. The question is essentially whether we interpret
Scripture through experience, or interpret experience by the plumbline of
Scripture. With the relativism of post-modern culture this subjectivity isn’t
objectionable today. If varying human experience becomes our criteria,
increased subjectivity corrupts the process.
Starting with a denominational or traditional bias. Many Christians'
understanding of theology is seriously colored by their denominational
traditional background. But we should not expect it to be so rife among
scholars, but an emotional bonding to tradition is far more pervasive than

most will admit. Christ explicitly warned about giving priority to the tradi-
tions of men, in saying to the Pharisees, “you invalidated the word of God for the
sake of your tradition" (Mt. 15:6). Paul warned the Colossians about the dan-
ger of being taken “captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to
the tradition of men, . . ." (Col. 2:8). F. F. Bruce warned:
There is a great danger, when once we have adhered to one particular school of thought
or adopted one particular system of theology, of reading the Bible in the light of that
school or system and finding its distinctive features in what we read…The remedy for this
is to bear resolutely in mind that our systems of doctrine must be based on biblical exege-
sis, not imposed upon it. The authors of this work [Forster and Marston] bear this in mind,
and make a special point of asking what the Scriptures really say.9
There is a serious danger of giving undue reverence to the Reformers, or
any other leaders, living or dead, as great as they might be! They should not
be made the touchstone of truth!10 The 'cult of personality,' used in refer-
ence to communist leaders, is relevant here also. Augustine, Luther, and
Calvin are too highly reverenced by many Protestants today. This is the cult
of personality. Christ alone should be so reverenced!
Presupposing an intuitive concept of God. Our concept of God and His
attributes inevitably colors our whole theology, but many theologians start
with a deductive concept of God. Calvinists identify holiness as the fore-
most attribute of God; Arminians (and liberals) focus upon the love of God.
Why should any attribute be seen as more important than another? Paul
Enns stated this explicitly: "In the study of God's attributes it is important not to exalt
one attribute over another; when that is done it presents a caricature of God.”11 This is a
far better starting point for our study of the theology of salvation.
Ignoring the unity of missiology and theology. The great scandal of the
Protestant Reformation was that Protestants did not send out missionaries
for almost two centuries after the Reformation. Even then, the first mission-
aries represented the radical fringe, rather than the 'mainstream' of the
Reformation. Somehow, Protestants lost sight of a central theme of God's
word: world evangelization, despite Paul, the greatest theologian of the
apostolic church, being also its greatest missionary. Indeed, many promi-
nent Protestant theologians were most ingenious in rationalizing away the
force of the missionary mandate.12 This bled through the fabric of their
theologies. Today, theologies are constructed oblivious of evangelism and
missions and perceive only a small part of God's agenda.13
Ignorance of the Biblical-Theology discipline. Most theological writers
ignorantly see the ‘Biblical-Theology’* discipline as inferior and preliminary
to systematic theology. Teaching both disciplines for decades convinced
me that this is not the case. A western-cultural way of thinking prejudices
us to favor systematics over Biblical Theology. There is a greater openness
to it in non-western, majority-world cultures.14 Since the ‘Biblical’ discipline
INTRODUCTION 7
is tied in more closely to exegesis and predisposes toward a more inductive

methodology, it should be given a larger place in evangelical scholarship. A
chronological or diachronic approach is the most valuable form, since it
brings out the progressive, historical context of biblical revelation.
Defective Interpretive Methodologies

As in everyday life, the method we use to get a job done is exceedingly
important to its successful completion. According to Dr. Kenneth Cooper,
failure to wind down properly after jogging can have catastrophic conse-
quences. Unfortunately, I had not read his book before the one and only
time I failed to wind down. An hour later I had a massive, almost fatal heart
attack and am now very meticulous about methodology in exercising.
Methodology is just as vital in theology. Erroneous methodology results in
erroneous theology. What are some current defective methodologies?
Violating literal interpretation. Although we cannot discuss hermeneutics
(the science of interpretation), essentially literal or grammatico-historical
interpretation is imperative. Scholars debate endlessly about the meaning
of this, but it is clearer than many admit. There is obviously a crass literal-
ism to be avoided, that is, failure to recognize common figures of speech,
such as metaphor, simile, or hyperbole. But we must not spiritualize!
Proof-texting. Cultists are guilty of proof-texting by using a barrage of
Scripture references, out of context or otherwise misinterpreted. Indeed,
Jehovah's Witnesses have a book of proof-texts for their doctrines available
only to their workers. Not only is it selective in leaving out references which
contradict their position, but it assumes that a superficial reading of these
verses out of context will lead to the truth. This implies that careful exege-
sis is not necessary. But many evangelical theologians fall into the same
error. Proof-texting is a violation of the old axiom that “a text out of context
is pretext (excuse).” It is failure to do the necessary work of exegesis and
violates the first law of interpretation, “context is king." But when theolo-
gians fail to discuss the context of each passage referred to, they violate this
rule, even if the verse is quoted in full. It is not just adjacent verses, but also
the whole chapter and, indeed, the flow of thought of the whole book.
Ignoring the historical, cultural context. As westerners approach the Bible,
we tend to ignore our own cultural bias in interpretation. We must become
sensitive to how much our cultural cognitive process* (way of thinking)
differs from that of the Hebrew way of thinking and expressing ideas, which
we find in the words of Christ Jesus and the Apostles. Not only must we be
aware of the cultural context issue in our interpretation, but also of the
cultural shift even within the New Testament itself from the Hebraic culture
of the Synoptic Gospels to the Greek in the Epistle to the Romans.
Failure to check the original. Frequently scholars do not research in the
original languages but build theology on erroneous English translations,

especially when many translations are imprecise or defective. Translators
are prone to the rut of a translational tradition going back to the Latin Vul-
gate, rather than courageously representing the original in a fresh way.
Word studies. The value of word studies is questioned today. Granted,
they were abused in the past. In themselves they cannot uncover the
meaning of the text since words must always be understood in context.
However, we must not throw out the baby with the bath water! Word
studies give us the range of meanings to which a word is susceptible so as
to select the correct meaning by considering the context. But in so doing
we must be careful to avoid the abuses of this tool.A D. A. Carson suggested
sixteen word-study fallacies.15 An important principle is to not confuse the
meanings of distinct words derived from the same root, as Chamberlain
explained: “The student should learn once and for all that every single letter
added to a Greek root adds something to the idea expressed by the root.”16
Grammar and syntax. Although Carson emphasized the flexibility of
Greek grammar,17 grammatical and syntactical studies must be carefully
done. Although language is not mathematics, advances in understanding
grammar and syntax have made coming to sound conclusions most viable.
Old Testament quotations in the New. We frequently neglect the absolute
necessity of carefully studying the Old Testament context of quotations in
the New. It frequently casts a totally different light upon our understanding
of the flow of thought of the author. A related error is failure to examine the
Old Testament background of New Testament concepts.
Not considering all the options. Interpreters frequently do not consider all
the exegetical options. Sometimes it is a failure not only to consult the
original language, but also the grammatical, syntactical, or linguistic options
which might solve a problem. This assumes, of course, that the interpreter
has even recognized the problem. Related to this would be a cavalier a
priori dismissal of certain options because they are not thought to be re-
spectable in academic circles due to prejudice. We easily get into an inter-
pretive rut. A colleague used to drill into his students a question for induc-
tive Bible study, “What is God doing here?” Frequently we fail to ask the
right questions of the text, and thus fail to get the right answers.
A. Ironically, a major hindrance to doing primary word-study research is the availability of excellent
lexicons and theological dictionaries. But for serious theological study we cannot always trust secondary
sources, even Kittel's TDNT. Geoffrey Bromiley warned, “When this is understood, Kittel is safeguarded
against the indiscriminate enthusiasm which would make it a sole and absolute authority in lexical and
exegetical matters.” Articles on the meaning of metanoia (repentance) in both TDNT and Colin Brown's
NIDNTT were not only guilty of bias and faulty judgment, but most heinously misstated the basic linguistic
data upon which the reader is to make a judgment (cf. Ch. 7, Excursus). Since there are outrageous
errors in these tools, we must use them with discrimination.
INTRODUCTION 9
Distorted Perspectives and Attitudes

All people approach theological study from a preconceived perspec-
tive and attitude. In reading scientific instruments, we sometimes get a
wrong reading through parallax error (not 90E). Approaching data from a
skewed angle is even more harmful in theology.
Denial of the inspiration and sufficiency of Scripture. The most serious basic
problem comes from a weak view of Scripture. It inevitably colors the
results. Many insist that their difference from Evangelicals is interpretive,
when in reality it is more basic. Their view of inspiration gives them a dis-
torted perspective. They have the liberty to focus on certain passages at the
expense of others since they do not believe that “all Scripture is God-
breathed.” We must give weight to all of God’s revelation in Scripture. If
priority is given to the church fathers and philosophy, the sufficiency of
Scripture is seriously denied or compromised.
Emotional reaction to opposing views. Humans are emotional
beings in reacting emotionally to views different from their own. This is a
major obstacle to complete rationality since most of mankind is caught up
in irrational behavior and Christians are not exempt. Berkouwer put it well:
Reaction is a phenomenon in Christian thought that has played a large role in the history
of the Church and its theology. Reaction from some unbiblically one-sided proposition
has often landed theology in another unbiblically one-sided proposition. Theologians
attacking a caricatured theology have often created their own caricature of Christian
thought. Observing that a given aspect of faith was neglected, Christians have often
proceeded to accentuate that aspect so much that it became the be-all of the faith, with a
resulting neglect of other aspects.18
Scholarship and motivation. Most theologians would like to earn the
respect of peers for their scholarship. It seems praiseworthy for an evangel-
ical scholar to gain the respect of liberals. Sometimes these natural desires
distort the methodology and color the results. Out of this motivation we
end up bowing the knee to the Baal of affected intellectualism.
Failure to honestly understand opposing views. Basic to integrity
and spiritually minded discussion is an honest attempt to understand op-
posing viewpoints. We must be careful not to misrepresent opponents, lest
we set up straw men. We must not quote them out of context or draw
false inferences from their statements. Not only is this basic scholarly integ-
rity, but especially for Christians it is imperative not to so sin against fellow
believers. Yet this is a continuing problem in theological discussion.
Testing Our Theology

Although we must never fall into pragmatism in developing our theol-
ogy, it is important to test our theology in the real world of human beings.
There is a tendency to develop ivory-tower theology irrelevant to real life.
Three other tests of theology are applied in this book. The test of patristics
and church history is commonly overused. We add a missiological test– is
it conducive to global evangelism? Last is the test of logic and philosophy.
Although the use of logic is important, philosophy too often intrudes as a
presupposition rather than as a test after the fact. For a fuller discussion
well exemplified, see the Prolegomena in the 1st edition (2002).
My Personal Theological Pilgrimage

This book is the result of a personal theological pilgrimage. When I
came to salvation as an engineering student, I was active in an Arminian
church. Within a few months, through inductive biblical study I became
convinced of the doctrine of eternal security. A year later I heard Assyriolo-
gist, Dr. Francis Rue Steele say if we pray about problems, do our research,
and are patient, God will give us answers. This has since been my motto
because neither engineers nor theologians can be complacent about un-
solved problems. At seminary I accepted moderate Calvinism and taught it
for a score of years. Because my childhood buddy abandoned the iner-
rancy of Scripture, I wrote my master’s thesis defending it.
I am not an ivory-tower theologian, having struggled for eight years to
get an evangelical student ministry established in Pakistan. Providentially,
God gave us some great Pakistani successors to develop this ministry, so
today 1700 Pakistani college students are involved in 90 Bible study groups.
Extensive ministry there in indigenous assemblies was also most encourag-
ing. After pastoral ministry, teaching theology, the life of Christ, and the
book of Acts at Northeastern Bible College forced me to re-examine Calvin-
ism. A defining moment was a question posed on a radio call-in program
about the relationship of foreknowledge and ‘election.’ I realized that what
I had been taught was wrong! Dialogue with hyper-Calvinists also helped
move me to a mediate position intermediate between Calvinism and
Arminianism. Although I had constantly used Greek in my theological study,
I came to this view in the mid 70s from the English Bible. Afterward I kept
finding additional support from more in-depth research into the Greek.
An exploratory paper presented at the Evangelical Theological Society
(ETS) in Toronto in 1981 drew considerable interest and dialog. The results
of in-depth research on sub-topics presented at various ETS meetings after
that are the basis of this book. It is very exciting to see how all the pieces
have come together and how this mediate position resolves the supposed
contradictions and antinomies* plaguing theology over the ages. This is
really not surprising since all Scripture has one Author, the Holy Spirit, and
there should be no real contradiction in a biblical theology. In 2002, an
academic edition sold out quickly, followed by a popular, abridged edition,
Getting the Gospel Right. This present edition makes this study available to
all serious Christians, not just theologians, while retaining academic re-
search in footnotes and various excursuses at the end of some chapters.
INTRODUCTION 11
The Importance of Details

A major flaw in a deductive approach to any subject, whether it be
science, medicine, or theology, is the tendency to make sweeping general-
izations without adequate attention to the details of the data. Carl Sagan
got plenty of media attention for his sweeping generalizations about evolu-
tion in the universe, but when we read the incredible detail from such
writers as Michael Denton and Michael Behe, we see that evolutionists’
sweeping generalizations get demolished by a host of details of fact.19
The major advantage of an inductive approach is that it forces us to
pay attention to the details of the data. Indeed, biochemist Michael Behe
alerted the readers of his book to the daunting task they face because of
the incredible multiplicity of details he must discuss in order to do justice to
the subject. Many readers will face the same problem in this book since I
am forced to go into great detail of linguistic, grammatical, syntactical,
exegetical, and historical material to do justice to the subject. If you really
want to get to the bottom of these issues, bear with it even if the details at
times get tedious. There is no other way to get to the whole truth.
Major Exegetical Discoveries

Four decades of research for this book have uncovered some major
exegetical discoveries. The most significant is that proorizein is a rare word
and should never have been translated ‘predestination,’ as rendered by
many translations following the Latin Vulgate. This explains why the church
fathers until Augustine were not aware of a doctrine of predestination. Also
important is that the words transliterated as ‘to elect,’ and ‘election’ come
from Greek democracy and have to do with appointment to an office and
should not usually be translated as ‘to choose,’ ‘chosen.’ Usage of the
expression ta panta shows that it most probably should not be translated, “all
things” but rather “all these things” in Ephesians 1:11, which seriously un-
dercuts the notion of omnicausality.* Paul’s use of ekzçteein in Romans 3:11
is an intensified compound of the verb ‘to seek’ and in the participial form
speaks of a diligent and continuous seeking for God. The use of the middle
voice of tassein in Acts 13:48 corrects the view that some individuals were
appointed to eternal life over other people. Arminians also need to recog-
nize the meaning of parapiptein in Hebrews 6:4, not as ‘to fall away’ but rather
‘to fall into sin.’ They also need to see airein in John 15:2 as not meaning ‘to
cut off’ but ‘to lift up.’ All need to see that some Greek words for redemp-
tion are objective and others refer to the subjective liberation aspect of
Christ’s work of salvation. Finally, foreknowledge (proginoskein) should be
given priority of order in the plan of salvation and not spun selectively.
Unique Features of this Book

1. God frequently delegates the exercise of His sovereignty to people.
2. Refutation of omnicausality, wrongly based upon Ephesians 1:11
3. Refutation of total inability, wrongly based upon Romans 3:11

4. There is only one soteriological divine decree in the Bible–Psalm 2:7.
5. Distinguishing objective ransom and subjective liberation in the cross
5. Gross misconceptions of Christ’s teaching at Caesarea Philippi clarified.
6
7. Convicting grace replaces notions of irresistible or prevenient grace.
8. A sequential study of Christ’s discipleship discourses (Mt. 10, Lk. 9, 14)
9. Baptismal regeneration based on Mt. 3:11-12; Acts 2:38; 22:16 is refuted.
10. Affirms eternal security of true believers while rejecting Calvinism.
11. A unique clarification of Hebrews 6:1-9
12. Survey of extreme Arminian outgrowths, such as open theism
13. Saving repentant faith is not the direct gift of God.
14. The new birth and eternal life are conditioned on repentant faith.
15. The Greek word for foreknowledge does not have a selective meaning.
16. ‘Election’ and ‘predestination’ are mistranslations of the Greek original.
17. Six of 30 quotes from Calvin that Christ died for all without exception
18. Abraham and Christ not chosen to salvation but appointed to office
19. God’s omniscience is not limited to events He has determined.
20. Identifies a dozen movements opposed to Reformed determinism
21. Documents the non-Calvinistic origins of global missions
1. In my original unabridged edition (2002) I have given 30 unambiguous quotes of Calvin showing that he believed
that Christ died for all mankind, without exception and without distinction (App. E).
2. I. Howard Marshall, Kept by the Power of God, 3rd ed., (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1995), p. 16.
3. Roger E. Olson, “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m an Arminian!” Christianity Today, 43 (Sept. 6, 1999), pp. 87-94.
4. Jerry L. Walls and Joseph L. Dongell, Why I Am Not a Calvinist (Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), pp. 34-35, 42.
5. Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Inter-Varsity Press, 2006), pp. 69-70.
6. Webster’s New American Dictionary, p. 478; Webster's New World Dictionary (New York: Prentice Hall, 1986),
pp. 368, 718; Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: G. C. Merriam Co., 1943), p. 262.
7. Kenneth Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty (Nashville: B. & H. Academic, 2010), the first 20 pages are devoted
to Molinist philosophy before any reference to the biblical data, a scholastic approach.
8. Walter C. Willett, “Old Beliefs Challenged by New Data,” in Nurses’ Health Study Newsletter, vol. 6 (1999), p. 5.
9. F. F. Bruce in Roger T. Forster and V. Paul Marston, God's Strategy in Human History, p. vii.
10. Earl D. Radmacher, What the Church Is All About: A Biblical and Historical Study, pp.79-85.
11. Paul Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), p. 188.
12. C. Gordon Olson, What in the World Is God Doing? The Essentials of Global Missions , 6th ed., pp. 133-42.
13. George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago: Moody, 1972), pp. 19-31.
14. In 1979 I wrote a paper on this for David Hesselgrave, "The Utilization of Biblical Theology in the Third World."
15. D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984).
16. William Douglas Chamberlain, Exegetical Grammar, p. 11. He gives a list of 20 distinct words derived from the
root dik, which is most instructive in illustrating the Greek word-building process.
17. Carson, p. 67ff.
18. G. C. Berkouwer, "Election and Doctrinal Reaction," Christianity Today, 5:586.
19. Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1985) and Michael Behe, Darwin’s
Black Box (NY: Free Press, 1996).
The full Arminian position is as much open to error as is
1
extreme Calvinism. My aim is to reach beyond the
Calvinist-Arminian controversy to a position which is bibli-
cal, and which therefore accepts whatever is true in both
Calvinism and Arminianism. -I. Howard Marshall
Calvinism emphasizes divine sovereignty and free grace;

Arminianism emphasizes human responsibility. The one
restricts the saving grace to the elect; the other extends it
to all men on the condition of faith. . . . The Bible gives us a
theology which is more human than Calvinism, and more
divine than Arminianism, and more Christian than either of
them. - Philip Schaff
WHAT IS A MEDIATE
THEOLOGY OF SALVATION?
Evangelicals are divided into two or three polarized camps regarding

the doctrine of salvation. We are told that one must be either a hard-core
five-point Calvinist or an Arminian “enthusiast,” and there are no other
viable options. This polarization of positions among Evangelicals is divisive
and does not foster honest inquiry into what the Bible really teaches. Is it
possible that one of the polarized views is totally right and the other is to-
tally wrong and that half of Evangelicals are total idiots and the other half
are right on? It is imperative that a less polarized, mediate position be
developed by the careful use of a radically fresh inductive* study.
A proposal. In proposing a mediate theology of salvation, I call it
Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism, because it is clear we must progress
beyond the giants of past ages to a more inductive intermediate doctrine of
salvation. Indeed, there is significant evidence that John Calvin did not hold
to what passes today for Calvinism, and Jacob Arminius never really be-
came ‘Arminian’ before his untimely death. Thus, it was their followers
who significantly polarized the traditions. Luther’s view was quite paradox-
ical, virtually self-contradictory, and Lutheranism reflects that tension.
Rather than persisting in going back to them as touchstones of truth, we
must go beyond them and their followers’ systems and do fresh and more
careful study of Scripture as the sole foundation for our theology. Only after
we have developed a doctrine of salvation inductively from the Bible may
we go back to Christian history to find any confirmation of our conclusions.
This theology of salvation is best described as a mediate theology of
13
salvation for two reasons. It is intermediate to Calvinism and Arminianism

and also emphasizes God’s mediate mode of carrying out much of His
plan— through His agents.
A neglected legacy. This viable middle position has been grossly
neglected, even repressed. Indeed, among Evangelicals there is a substan-
tial centrist mainstream who see themselves somewhere in the middle and
might facetiously refer to themselves as ‘Calminians.’ Some might call
themselves Calvinists because they hold to eternal security but don’t accept
much of rest of the Calvinistic system. After the Reformation there were a
score of movements which sought to moderate deterministic theology,
some of which could rightly be called mediate or intermediate.
Dispelling the fog. In the light of history, it is astonishing that reputed
scholars can claim that there is no middle ground between Calvinism and
Arminianism.1 Not only opponents of a mediate view, but its advocates
also, seem naive of its historical foundations. However, B. B. Warfield
distinguished six distinct salvation-theology positions among Evangelicals.2
Actually there are more since we can distinguish at least ten distinct evan-
gelical views–three kinds of Calvinism, three kinds of Arminianism, the
Lutheran, Anglican, and several intermediate views, as well.
Mediate writers. Over three centuries ago Richard Baxter (1615-91)
refused to be called either a Calvinist or an Arminian and surely influenced
John Eliot, the father of modern missions, to this view.3 In 1895, Johnson
and Weston took a mediate position in An Outline of Systematic Theology,
as did the Scofield Reference Bible (1909). Scofield’s protègè, Lewis Sperry
Chafer, did not seem to be a Calvinist when he founded Dallas Seminary in
1924, nor were some of his early associates, such as Harry Ironside. We
can add many other advocates of a mediate view: Henry C. Thiessen, Roy
Aldrich, Samuel Fisk, Roger T. Forster, V. Paul Marston, William W. Klein,
Laurence M. Vance, and Dave Hunt. Fisk has shown that there were hun-
dreds of scholars who were looking for a mediate view.4 However, it seems
that no one has written a complete mediate theology of salvation, which is
the goal of this book.
The polarized views in general
Philip Schaff graphically contrasted Calvinism and Arminianism:
Calvinism emphasizes divine sovereignty and free grace; Arminianism emphasizes
human responsibility. The one restricts the saving grace to the elect; the other extends it to
all men on the condition of faith. . . . The Bible gives us a theology which is more human
than Calvinism, and more divine than Arminianism, and more Christian than either of them.5
On the popular level, Calvinism is understood to affirm eternal security,
which Arminianism denies, and this is the most basic dividing line. Many
might connect predestination with Calvinism and conditional election with
Chapter 1 WHAT IS A MEDIATE THEOLOGY OF SALVATION? 15
Arminians. However, the differences are far more profound. There is wide-
spread confusion about these views, even among their spokesmen.
Calvinism. The sovereignty of God and human depravity are empha-
sized. Penal substitution in the cross is affirmed. Monergism and sovereign
grace in salvation are essential features. They are divided on the issue of
general redemption, with hyper-Calvinists limiting it to the ‘elect.’ Eternal
security is usually described as the ‘perseverance of the saints.’
Arminianism. Beyond conditional election and the denial of eternal
security, Arminians emphasize human free will and synergism (man in-
volved with God) in salvation. They affirm human depravity but believe that
prevenient (preceding) grace explains how sinners can be saved. Some,
but not all, affirm penal substitution in the cross, with others holding a
governmental view. All affirm general redemption.
What are the specific views?
Lutheranism. Although Martin Luther got a strong determinism from
Augustine, he did not move far enough from the Roman Catholic depend-
ence upon sacraments still seen in Lutheranism today. His colleague,
Philip Melanchthon, drew up the Lutheran creeds in a more moderate way,
so many evangelical Lutherans tend to be more Arminian. The Missouri
Synod split off from other Lutherans over predestination.6 Representatives:
Henry Muhlenberg, Samuel Schmucker, Carl Walther, and Herman Prues.
Moderate Calvinism. The essence of Calvin’s theology, which he got
from Augustine a millennium earlier, is in the doctrines of unconditional
election and irresistible grace. According to this view, God predestined
some individuals to salvation for His own hidden reasons. He directly gives
faith and the new birth only to those elect individuals. Christ died for all
mankind, without exception or distinction, but only the elect can respond
to the gospel and be saved. This view is commonly referred to as four-point
Calvinism. Representatives: Moise Amyraut (1596-1664), A. H. Strong, Lewis
Sperry Chafer, John F. Walvoord,7 Millard J. Erickson, Charles C. Ryrie,
Gordon R. Lewis, Bruce A. Demarest, and Norman L. Geisler. These writers’
works are most valuable in moving away from hyper-Calvinism.
Extreme or hyper-Calvinism. Calvin’s successors, especially Theodor
Beza, extended the implications of his views to become the five-points of
the Synod of Dort (1618-9) and the Westminster Confession (1648). The
acronym TULIP stands for these points. Total Depravity means that man-
kind is so depraved that sinners can do nothing to please God, including
repentance or faith. Spiritual death means total inability to respond to God
in any way. U is for Unconditional Election or absolute predestination. L is
for Limited Atonement, that Christ died only for the elect and not for the
“non-elect.” (Some prefer ‘particular redemption.’) Irresistible Grace
means that the elect are directly and immediately given regeneration to
enable them to believe. Perseverance of the saints means that the truly
elect prove their election by perseverance in faith and obedience to the
end. Representatives: William Perkins, John Owen, Charles Hodge, Loraine
Boettner, L. Berkhof, R. C. Sproul, and John Piper.
Classic Reformation Arminianism. Some Arminians go back to the
moderate views of Arminius himself. Although he only had doubts about
eternal security, they reject it and the other points of Calvinism. Represen-
tatives: John Goodwin (1593-1665), F. Leroy Forlines, Stephen M. Ashby,
Robert E. Piccirilli, J. Matthew Pinson, and Roger E. Olson.
Remonstrant Arminianism. The Remonstrant associates of Arminius
not only rejected all five points of hyper-Calvinism, but many also denied
the substitutionary death of Christ, as an attempt to explain how Christ
could die for all sinners without all mankind being saved. Representatives:
Simon Episcopius (1583-1643), Hugo Grotius, and Philip Limborch.
Wesleyan Arminianism. Over a century after Arminius, John Wesley
(1703-91) restored an “Evangelical Arminianism.” He rejected the extreme
views of the Remonstrants by holding a stronger view of human depravity
and God’s sovereignty. However, he began to teach that believers can
attain sinless perfection which became the basis for the subsequent ‘holi-
ness movement.’ Representatives: Richard Watson (1781-1833), H. Orton
Wiley, Thomas C. Oden, Robert Shank, and J. Rodman Williams.
Open or free-will theism. An extreme form of Arminianism developed
in the end of the 20th century. The late Gordon C. Olson (obviously not me)
was likely a precursor, arguing that the future is totally open, and even God
does not know the whole future. Representatives: Clark Pinnock, Gregory
A. Boyd, David Bassinger, Richard Rice, John Sanders, and William Hasker.
Evaluation of the general views

Calvinism. From a mediate point of view, eternal security is the great-
est strength of Calvinism. It is important to emphasize the sovereignty of
God and the depravity of man, but both must be carefully defined. Penal
substitution in the cross is an absolute essential.
Calvinism’s weaknesses come from its deductive approach, often
colored by Greek philosophy. God’s love for the whole world gets lost in
the doctrine of unconditional election, which is plagued by its inability to
shake the idea of reprobation. There is a determinism which tends to
undermine human responsibility. Many aspects of Calvinistic doctrine are
extrapolations or exaggerations of biblical data. On the experiential level
there is the widespread insecurity of not knowing whether one is among
the elect, which results in a tendency to introspection and legalism. A
weakness in evangelism and global missions is also evident. Hyper-Calvin-
ists put regeneration before faith and limit ‘atonement’ to the ‘elect.’ Lastly,
there is a narrowness of spirit on the part of some hyper-Calvinists, who
write off other Christians as being “barely Christian.”B
Arminianism. Arminianism’s emphasis upon general redemption
along with universal gospel proclamation is vital. Arminians today are way
ahead in the use of modern media in world evangelism with growth far
outstripping the Calvinists. God’s foreknowledge is rightly seen as the basis
for conditional election. Their emphasis upon free will and human responsi-
bility is important.
The foremost weakness of Arminianism is its denial of eternal security,
resulting in lack of assurance. Generally, its theology has been marred by a
denial of imputed sin and substitution in the cross by affirming a govern-
mental* approach. Grace and simple faith have been undermined by
adding continuance in works as a condition for justification, which leads to
legalism in both salvation and Christian growth. There is also a strong
tendency toward sinless perfectionism. In some Arminian circles, there is
weakness in the area of the inerrancy of Scripture, which frequently opens
the door to liberalism.8 More broadly we could say that there has been a
de-emphasis on doctrine and overemphasis on experience as a basis for
truth. At times God’s love is not balanced off with His justice and holiness.
The above are generalizations and obviously not rigorously true of all
Calvinists or Arminians. Resolution of the serious problems raised by these
polarized positions is to be found in a mediate view.
An Overview of a Mediate Soteriology

A distinct, cohesive, and viable mediate system can be derived induc-
tively from Scripture. The Synod of Orange (AD 529) affirmed Augustine’s
emphasis upon grace but rejected his doctrines of unconditional election
and irresistible grace, which is a semi-Augustinian view. Over a dozen
movements after the Reformation rejected the determinism of the Reform-
ers and sought to find a middle position. Research for this book has con-
firmed a mediate position as the most biblical one.
It is not a truncated form of Calvinism, or on the other hand, of
Arminianism, but stands in its own integrity. Those holding a mediate
position are accused of Arminianism by some Calvinists and of inconsistent
Calvinism by some Arminians. While utilizing insights from many writers,
we must emphasize the priority of fresh inductive study of Scripture. A
mediate view also finds support from a broader synthetic approach and
deductive methodology confirmed in its historical antecedents, its impact
upon global evangelism, its cogency, and the spiritual health of the chur-
B Those who deny general redemption are hyper-Calvinists because of many quotes of Calvin affirming
general redemption unambiguously. No creed denied general redemption until the Synod of Dort, long
after Calvin’s death. See Excursus, p. 294 & Appendix E in my 1st edition for 30 quotes.
ches. Crucial word studies bolster the evidence for mediate theology. The
following key elements are supported in subsequent chapters, with Part III
dealing with eternal security and Part IV with Calvinistic issues.
In creation God limited the exercise of His sovereignty.

There is polarization even in the basic area of the attributes of God.
The God of hyper-Calvinism has determined everything that comes to pass
in the universe. This was called ‘universal divine causation” by Richard
Baxter in 1675, who rejected it. On the other hand, the ‘Open Theists’ say
that God has determined very little and doesn’t even know the whole fu-
ture. However, the truth is in the middle.
An inductive study of terms related to sovereignty reveals that God has
not determined beforehand all that transpires in His universe. Starting in
Genesis, God began to limit the exercise of His sovereignty by creating
creatures with free will and delegating significant areas of autonomy to
angels and mankind. Satan’s revolt against God and humanity’s long his-
tory of self-determination are major factors. This is confirmed by rampant
human sin in the historical narratives of Scripture. Study of terms such as
God’s kingdom, decrees, counsel, and purpose reveals no hint of the Cal-
vinistic view that God’s decrees are all-encompassing. And no such decree
is mentioned in the Old Testament; God’s decrees are never mentioned in
the New. Far too much dependence has been put upon one clause of
Ephesians 1:11, which has been made to say far more than the grammar,
syntax, and context allow.
God created humanity as the noblest of creatures, uniquely made in His
own image, suitable for the ultimate incarnation of the Son of God. Inher-
ent in that creation were moral attributes like God’s: a God-conscious
human spirit and a delegated autonomy which means free will. Man’s
original tripartite nature helps us understand salvation issues.
God’s image in fallen man implies ability to respond to Him.

Having been created in God’s image made mankind responsible for
disobedience. In the fall, that image was marred, but not lost. The human
spirit became inoperative, which meant spiritual death and alienation from
God. Spiritual death is not just a figure of speech but literally involves the
human spirit distinct from the soul. Human morality was corrupted, and
although mankind became a slave of sin, the God-given autonomy was not
withdrawn although being abused in rebellion against God.
‘Original sin,’ involves the imputation of Adam’s sin to all mankind, as
well as a transmitted sin nature and personal sin. As God’s message was
being witnessed to sinners, He consistently expected them to exercise their
wills by responding in faith to His revelation. Indeed, people are frequently
commanded to choose and even to seek God (Acts. 17:27).
Christ died for all, but only believers are saved.

Most discussion over ‘limited' versus ‘unlimited atonement' is beside
the point since ‘atonement' is not a New Testament word and relates only
Israel’s sacrificial system. When we focus upon the picture of Christ’s
death as a sacrifice, we find evidence in the prophecy of Isaiah 53, John the
Baptizer’s statement (Jn.1:29), Christ’s teachings, and the epistles, that He
died as a substitute and satisfaction for the whole world of sinners.
Propitiation means the objective satisfaction for the sins of the whole
world (1 Jn. 2:2; 4:10). The usage of the eight Greek terms for redemption
is diverse– some are used in the objective, universal ransom sense, while
some relate to the subjective redemption-liberation phase and are limited
to believers. The words for reconciliation are used of the subjective recon-
ciliation of sinners to God and tie in with the redemption-liberation aspect
of salvation. Thus there is a general propitiation, a ransom price paid for all,
a limited redemption-liberation, and a limited reconciliation.
We must proclaim salvation on God’s terms.

Christ’s most important instruction at Caesarea Philippi (Mt. 16) has not
only been distorted and usurped by the Roman church, but ignored and
misunderstood by most Evangelicals. Despite the diverse opinions about
the Rock upon which the church was built, the evidence for Christ Himself
being that Rock is actually quite one-sided. The victory of the church over
the gates of Hades refers to His impending resurrection as the basis for the
church’s victory over death and Hades through gospel proclamation.
As the Lord gave Peter the awesome responsibility of opening the door
of salvation to the nation Israel and subsequently to the Gentiles, He also
charged him with the responsibility not to bind on earth what God has not
already bound in heaven (as the Pharisees were doing), nor to loose on
earth what God has not already loosed in heaven (as the Sadducees were
doing). Thus, this is an admonition to proclaim the good news on heaven’s
terms, unadulterated by human traditions and philosophies.
The Spirit’s conviction mediately prepares sinners for faith.

The convicting work of the Spirit, announced by Christ in John 16:8-11,
prepares hearts for faith and regeneration by breaking through the spiritual
death and blindness which obstruct faith.9 People were saved by faith
before Pentecost but conviction is an additional aid for sinners to believe.
Since Christ predicted the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost,
Acts 2:37 is the first example of the conviction as promised. The Holy Spirit,
the divine Advocate, used Peter to charge the nation with the sin of crucify-
ing Christ, and as a result, they were “pierced to the heart” and cried out,
“Brethren, what shall we do?” They were under conviction but had not
yet repented as seen in Peter commanded, “Repent!” As the message is
proclaimed the Holy Spirit uses it to bring people under conviction.
Repentant faith is the only condition for the new birth.

Tracing through the Gospels and the apostolic proclamation of the
good news, it is clear that repentance and faith are not two separate condi-
tions for salvation but two parts of the one condition. It is important to
biblically define repentance and faith. Baptism clearly is not a separate
condition of salvation but rather required for full discipleship.
The Reformation teaching of justification by faith alone is updated,
defended, and developed in Chapter 9. We need to clarify the definition
and relationship of faith alone (sola fide) to repentance, conversion, regen-
eration, and sanctification since some of these terms have been grossly
misdefined, which compromises simple repentant faith. Various theologi-
cal movements have compromised the simplicity of the gospel.
The priority of repentant faith is basic to a mediate theology of salva-
tion. Hyper-Calvinists put the new birth before faith since they believe that
spiritually dead humans cannot exercise faith and, therefore, need to be
born again before they can believe. It is revealing that the five points of
‘Calvinism’ do not even mention as central a reformation doctrine as faith.
Related to this issue is the Calvinistic concept that faith is the immedi-
ate gift of God, in other words, the Holy Spirit gives faith to the ‘elect’ di-
rectly. However, it is people who are responsible to exercise repentant
faith, not God to give it. There are many statements of the Lord Jesus and
the Apostles which contradict the idea of God directly giving faith to the
‘elect.’ Although the new birth is an instantaneous work of the Spirit of
God, the process by which people come to faith involves heavy human
involvement. New Testament case studies confirm this. It may be hard to
understand how those who are spiritually dead can hear, believe, and live,
but as to the fact, Christ's words are clear in John 5:25.
We are not saved through discipleship.

Another serious compromise of justification by faith alone is the ten-
dency of both Arminians and hyper-Calvinists to interpret our Lord’s disci-
pleship teachings in Matthew 10, 16, Luke 9, and 14 as conditions of salva-
tion, rather than a challenge to disciples’ lifestyles.
It is especially important to examine these teachings in their contexts in
a sequential way. The foundational pattern was set in Matthew 10, where
the Lord sent out His regenerate Apostles with an extended warning of the
persecution which they would face as they proclaim the good news. The
exhortation to cross bearing is not a condition for salvation but rather of
being worthy disciples (Mt. 10:37-9).
The Lord picked up the same theme at Caesarea Philippi (Mt. 16:24-27;
Lk. 9:23-26) by first announcing the founding of His church and the first
prediction of His impending death and resurrection. Then He repeated the
challenge for cross-bearing and added self denial. The crucial word in this
discourse is in Luke 9:23 where daily cross-bearing is stipulated, which
clearly eliminates any possibility of this being a condition for salvation. The
third context in Luke 14:25-35 expands the teaching to include counting the
cost of true discipleship. To think that Christ is saying that we have to pay a
price for salvation contradicts salvation by grace.
Examination of Christ’s salvation interviews with individuals, such as
the Samaritan woman, Nicodemus, Matthew, the man born blind, the rich
young ruler, and Zaccheus, confirms this. We must critique ‘lordship salva-
tion,’ which really should be called ‘discipleship salvation’ teaching.
True believers are eternally secure in Christ.

Although salvation is conditioned upon faith, the truly regenerated
believer now participates in an unconditional aspect of salvation truth, the
assurance of ultimate salvation. Overwhelming Scripture promises of ulti-
mate security are contradicted in the minds of both Arminians and some
Calvinists by the warnings of Scripture, especially in the book of Hebrews.
Our inductive analysis of these passages in Chapter 15 and 16 shows no
contradiction with eternal security, especially a fresh, contextual approach
to Hebrews 6. Far too much of the interpretation of these passages has
been colored by the Calvinism/ Arminianism debate.
Foreordination is based upon foreknowledge.

There are only two passages which relate foreknowledge to foreordina-
tion and so-called election, and both maintain the same priority of fore-
knowledge (1 Pet. 1:1-2; Rom. 8:28-31). Realization of this simple fact
forces us to reexamine the linguistic data upon which the Calvinistic
understanding of a pregnant meaning for foreknowledge (proginoskein)
was built. There must be an essential and significant distinction between
foreknowledge (proginoskein) and foreordination (proorizein). We con-
clude that there is no basis for a selective meaning since nowhere in Greek
literature does proginoskein mean more than ‘to know beforehand.’
In a different way the very rare word for foreordain (proorizein), used
only once in classical Greek before the New Testament and rarely after
that, was given a deterministic spin. Examining the cognates horizein and
aphorizein uncovered the fact that the idea of ‘destiny’ is totally absent
from these words. Thus, ‘predestinate’ is a totally inappropriate translation,
derived from the Latin Vulgate (ca. AD 406).
Examination of Romans 8:28-30 in the light of these word studies re-
vealed that Paul focused upon the certain glorious future of those who love
God and said nothing about unconditional predestination to salvation.
Since the theme of Romans is a righteousness “by faith from first to last”
(1:16-17, NIV), faith must not be left out of the plan of salvation.
The verb eklegomai should not be transliterated as ‘to elect’ since the
word comes from Greek democracy, and there are no democratic elec-
tions in the Bible. It means ‘to appoint or commission someone to an of-
fice.’ Similarly, the adjective eklektos means ‘selection of the best, the
choice, excellent.’ Christ is the ‘choicest One,’ and we have been made
God’s ‘choice ones’ positionally by His work of grace. This must be under-
stood in the light of the choice of Israel, Christ as the “choicest One” of the
Father, and the church as God’s new choice people.
In the light of these word studies, exegesis of Ephesians 1:3-14 reveals
that the church has been appointed “in Christ,” an emphasis repeated twen-
ty times in the first two chapters. In this church epistle the context militates
for corporate, not individual, appointment to an office and inheritance.
Since Peter and Paul are consistent in their order, we must not exclude
God's foreknowledge from His plan. So-called ‘election’ is really appoint-
ment to an exalted office, and must therefore be seen as conditional and/or
corporate, since salvation is clearly conditioned on faith.
God’s calling to salvation is not irresistible.

The doctrine of irresistible grace, like the doctrine of unconditional
election is based upon a number of unstated presuppositions. Foremost is
that ‘calling’ necessarily implies irresistible grace, and that repentant faith is
the immediate gift of God. This dogma is loaded by the doctrine of uncon-
ditional election and the notion that regeneration precedes faith. John 6:37-
65 is misused as a proof-text by failing to see the context in which Christ is
speaking about the remnant of regenerate Jews who belonged to the Fa-
ther and are being turned over to the Son and will certainly come to Him
(such as Andrew, Peter, James, John and the other Apostles).
Upon examining the many occurrences of the Greek words for calling,
the following definition emerges: calling is God's action in bringing the
sinner to salvation, thus commissioning the believer to an exalted position
for service to God. It is used of the process and circumstances of our com-
ing to faith viewed from the divine side, as contrasted with conversion,
which is the human side. The ‘called’ are those who have responded to the
general invitation, and thus, by hindsight the calling is seen as effectual.
There are a number of passages ignored by Calvinists which stand in
direct contradiction to the notion of irresistible grace: Luke 7:30; Acts 7:51,
54; Matthew 13:1-43; 23:37; 1 Corinthians 4:15 & Philemon 10.
Christian history is replete with mediate antecedents.

Although we must not derive our theology from church history, we
should check the results of our theological pursuit by the test of history.
While recognizing the imperfection of the historical record and the devel-
opment of Christian doctrine over the centuries, we should find some con-
firmation in the history of Christian thought. There is significant support for
a mediate doctrine of salvation in many historical realities, as follows:
Before the Reformation. For four centuries before Augustine, the
church fathers all defended free will. It is widely recognized that Augustine
was the first predestinarian and the originator of the doctrines of uncondi-
tional election and irresistible grace after AD 417. The Synod of Orange
(Aurasio, AD 529) approved Augustine’s emphasis upon grace but without
his doctrines of predestination and irresistible grace. Its decision was semi-
Augustinian, not semi-Pelagian*. Little is heard of these doctrines until the
Reformers revived them a millennium later.
After the Reformation. Luther, Calvin, and the first-generation Reform-
ers did not hold to limited atonement, which was not included in any creed
until the Synod of Dort (1619). There were a score of movements reacting
against the Augustinian emphasis of the Reformers. These were initiated
by men who had excellent spiritual and scholarly credentials, such as,
Balthasar Hubmaier, Hans Denck, Theodor Bibliander, Philip Melanchthon,
Menno Simon, James Arminius, Richard Baxter, Philip Spener, August
Franke, Thomas Boston, Nicholas von Zinzendorf, Theodore Frelinghuysen,
John Wesley, the New Divinity preachers, and Timothy Dwight.
World witness was restored by non-determinists.

The first test of our theology of salvation should be its harmony, histori-
cally and logically, with carrying out the Great Commission of the Lord
Jesus, which is central to God’s plan, both in local evangelism and global
missions. Paul was the church’s greatest integrator of missions and theol-
ogy. Since global witness was central to Christ and His Apostles, obedience
to this core value is a valid test. If our theology is counterproductive of
global evangelism, we must re-examine our theology. The history of mis-
sions indicates that the main thrust came from the radical reformation
movements which began to distance themselves theologically from the
determinism* of the mainline Reformation. The theological cause for the
“Great Protestant Omission” of missions for 200 years after the Reformation
is traceable to determinism, which has been an obstacle to evangelism and
revival as well. Fresh research into the theological roots of the modern
missionary movement in Europe and America reveals that the pioneers and
their mentors rejected determinism.
The Resultant Plan of Salvation

To understand how God applies salvation to the individual, the follow-
ing plan of salvation (ordo salutis) emerges from our conclusions:
A. God made an eternal plan for the cross, church, and kingdom.
B. God foreknew those who would repent and believe in Christ.
C. God appointed the church in Christ to be set apart for service and
a future inheritance based upon His foreknowledge.
D. Sinners are summoned and responsible to repent and trust Christ.
E. Conviction by the Spirit prepares human hearts through human
instrumentality as the word of God is proclaimed.

F. Justification, positional sanctification, and new birth are condi-
tioned on repentant faith alone.
G. Believers are marked out as children of God for an eternal
inheritance.
H. Outward conversion results from justification and regeneration.
I. The truly justified and regenerate believer’s salvation is eternal.
J. Discipleship and progressive sanctification are a believer’s respon-
sibility by the Spirit’s power and will be rewarded in the kingdom.
Conclusions
Thus, we propose a distinct mediate theology of salvation based upon
inductive exegesis of Scripture, focusing on context, word meaning, gram-
mar and syntax. It is confirmed by historical roots found in four centuries of
church fathers, the semi-Augustinianism of the Synod of Orange (AD 529),
and a long line of postreformation leaders and theologians who reacted to
the determinism of the Reformers. It is also confirmed the centrist testi-
mony of the initiators of global outreach and its logical cogency.
It is intermediate between the opposing views of the exercise of God’s
sovereignty. While affirming God’s initiative in salvation, it recognizes
God’s demand for human response as a condition for salvation. Mediate
theology alone is able to avoid compromising justification by simple repen-
tant faith with human performance and recognizes the essential place of
the convicting work of the Spirit wrought mediately. Finally, it is the sound-
est way for believers to experience the full assurance of security in Christ
and best avoid the insecurity of Arminianism and of hyper-Calvinistic disci-
pleship salvation.
1. Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Downers Grove, IL, IVP, 2006), Chapter 2.
2. B. B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation (Eerdmans, 1935), p. 33.
3. Richard Baxter, Catholick Theologie (London: Robert White, 1675), I, I:27. (I have a photocopy of this most
significant work.)
4. Samuel Fisk, Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom (2002) and Calvinistic Paths Retraced (1985).
5. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. VIII: 815-6.
6. Peter J. Thuesen, Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine (2009), pp. 150-75.
7. Dr. Walvoord shifted his view from unconditional election. I have two letters from him dated 1992 and 2002 which
both state that he was not willing to affirm either conditional or unconditional election. Norman Geisler also has
moderated his 4-point Calvinism in suggesting that from God’s point of view election is unconditional, but from man’s
perspective it is conditional (Chosen But Free, pp. 67-71, 116).
8. In a regional ETS meeting, Bill Arnold of Asbury Seminary lamented that many Arminians cannot join the ETS
because they can’t sign the inerrancy statement.
9. Chafer, Systematic Theology, VI, pp. 88-99.
PART ONE
THE FOUNDATIONS OF
SALVATION ESTABLISHED
INTRODUCTION TO PART I
AN OVERVIEW OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF SALVATION
It is close to impossible to understand the New Testament doctrine of

salvation apart from an understanding of its Old Testament foundations.
First, all must understand who the God is who created mankind and pro-
grammed the plan of salvation. God is certainly Sovereign, but what is
meant by that sovereignty? It must be carefully defined so that people do
not come to the New Testament with a distorted concept of who He really
is. Theologians for centuries have speculated about God’s sovereign de-
crees in eternity past without any real inductive basis Scripturally for such.
This book focuses on the objective, historical aspects of God’s eternal plan
of salvation in Part I.
In Chapter 2, the revelation of God’s activities before the foundation of
the world are surveyed. The notion of universal divine causation is critiqu-
ed. Then a definition of God’s sovereignty is attempted, especially in the
light of minimal reference to God’s decrees. Then a God who created
humanity in His own image with free will is revealed. Even though Adam
and Eve became fallen creatures in disobeying God, they did not lose that
image or its implicit free will. It would be very strange if we have free will
to sin but no free will to meet God’s terms of salvation. Then the first dawn-
ing of God’s eternal plan to provide that salvation is seen and the commis-
sioning of Abraham to begin a witness for Him in a strategic land. The
prophecies given to His appointed people of the coming of His appointed
Messiah are surveyed. By Chapter 5, the many Greek words for Christ’s
passion are seen to go beyond Levitical atonement to provide both an
objective ransom basis for the subjective dimension of salvation in
redemption-liberation and reconciliation truths.
The first Bible college course I taught was the book of Genesis. For a
quarter century, I taught a diachronic (sequential) Biblical Theology course
using Erich Sauer’s great text, The Dawn of World Redemption. The genius
of a sequential study is that it shows more clearly how God revealed Him-
self and His program in its historical context. The Old Testament itself sets
the agenda for Old Testament theology and thus helps to assure that we
understand it as He gave it. Not only is God’s revelation progressive, but
there is also a progressive working out of His plan. As Sauer explained:
The course of salvation thus shows itself as a richly coloured chain of periods, a
stairway leading upwards, divided into the most manifold articulated parts of a historic
organism. Indeed this character of graduation so rules the whole plan of salvation that it
must be described as its chief external visible feature, as the principle of the entire structure
of the history of revelation. . . . The Holy Scripture is plainly not a spiritual-divine-uniform
“block,” but a wonderful articulated historic-prophetic spiritual organism. “It must be read
organically, age-wise, according to the Divine ages.” (Dawn of World Redemption, p. 193)
The foundations will be studied in a progressive way in revelation history!
26
Evidently we must use greater care in formulating our
2
concept of divine sovereignty than has sometimes been
shown among theologians....“ “(S)overeignty”” is a more
complex concept than we often imagine. Use of it
requires some careful thinking rather than jumping to
conclusions that seem intuitive. What seems intuitive
for one theologian will be counter-intuitive for another.
Intuition misleads us, because generally intuition does
not make fine distinctions. Intuitively, we tend to
formulate divine sovereignty by excluding anything that
looks like it might be a “limitation” on God.
-John M. Frame
WHAT IS MEANT BY
GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY?
Any attempt to develop an inductive theology of salvation must start

with the character and attributes of the God who saves sinners. This is
foundational. The main themes of the Bible all focus on God, mankind, sin,
and salvation. Just a few verses into Genesis, God is described as creating
humanity in His own image (Gen. 1:26-7). An accurate biblical picture of
God’s character and in what ways humanity resembles God and in what
ways mankind is different is essential to salvation truth. How Adam and
Eve’s fall into disobedience and depravity affects the image of God in hu-
manity is another essential element. Our goal is to understand who God is,
who Adam and Eve were created to be, and our own fallen human plight,
as a sound basis for a balanced view of God’s wonderful salvation.
Careful study of Scripture shows that none of the polarized views de-
scribed in Chapter 1 gives a true picture. The key question is: what is
meant by the sovereignty of God and the depravity of mankind? All sorts of
questions are raised by the diverse viewpoints. Years ago, Doris Day used
to sing, “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever will be, will be).” Is this true? Is God
the author of sin? Does God actually change His mind? Is God responsible
for atrocities, such as the holocaust, 9/11/2001, or nature’s calamities? Has
God really decreed before creation all that transpires on earth? Is life really
a ‘stacked deck’? Does God really answer prayer, or does it just seem that
way? If God doesn’t control everything, how can the future be certain? Can
anybody really get saved, or has God already decided the issue? Who is
responsible to live the Christian life, God or me? The ultimate question is:
what kind of a god is God and in what sense does humanity bear His im-
age? Answering this first will help answer the other questions.
27
28 THE FOUNDATIONS OF SALVATION ESTABLISHED
It is imperative that sovereignty and depravity be defined biblically,

using an inductive approach by drawing concepts directly from Scripture.
This approach must begin in the first chapters of Genesis to get the whole
picture of who God is and how He relates to the human race.
God Before the Foundation of the World

The earliest verses of Genesis imply that the God who created the
heavens and the earth is not a solitary singleness, but an interpersonal
Being. The word for God in the Hebrew is ELOHIM, which is a plural noun
(3 or more) with a singular verb. Plural nouns and pronouns are frequently
used to refer to God. Moses described the Spirit of God as involved in the
work of creation (Gen. 1:2) and in striving with sinful humanity (Gen. 6:3).
There are later references to the divine Messiah, who is called God’s Son
(Psalm 2:7; Isa. 9:6; 48:16; Micah 5:2). Thus a Tri-Unity of God is revealed.
In the New Testament the Lord Jesus is depicted as the prophesied Mes-
siah. He and His Apostles explained His integral relationship to the Holy
Spirit sent from the Father. The New Testament is more explicit in reveal-
ing that God is a Tri-unity, that is, one God existing eternally in three per-
sons. The Hebrew Scriptures emphasized the oneness of God because of
humanity’s early lapse into polytheism. However, all Scripture is consistent
in affirming the Tri-unity of God.
This is an eternal reality, since in referring to the Lord Jesus, John
wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was Himself deity. He was in the beginning with God.” (Jn. 1:1-2, OLS). The
grammar here emphasizes that the Christ had the essential quality of deity
in the pre-creation eternity.A This also is clear from His prayer: “Now, Father,
glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world
was” (Jn. 17:5). The Scripture is also very clear that an essential attribute of
God is love (1 Jn. 4:16). This is a glimpse into the eternal council of God
from Christ’s high-priestly prayer: “. . . for You loved Me before the foundation of
the world” (Jn. 17:24). Augustine wrote: “If God is love, then there must be in Him a
Lover, a Beloved, and a Spirit of love; for no love is conceivable without a Lover and a
Beloved. . . . Where love is, there is a trinity.”1
There are other indications as to what God did before the foundation of
the world. The Apostle Paul was appointed:
. . . to bring to light what arrangement was contained in the secret, that had through
the ages been hidden with God, the Creator of all. . . . so that the many-sided wisdom
of God may now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in
the heavenly spheres (Eph. 3:9-10, MLB).
A. Only the Williams translation comes close to bringing out the full meaning of the Greek: “The Word
was God Himself,” based upon the fact that the word theos is in the emphatic position at the beginning
of the clause. Being without an article theos, connotes the quality of deity. However, Christ is not the only
divine person, as Williams’ rendering implies, thus my modification (cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar, p. 269).
Chapter 2 WHAT IS MEANT BY GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY? 29
Before creation God made a plan for the salvation of the world to be made
known through Israel and the church. Paul, writing about the church, also
revealed that “. . . He appointed us in Him before the foundation of the world, so that
we would be holy and blameless before Him in love” (Eph. 1:4, OLS).B The future
for all His saints is to participate in His future kingdom: “Then the King will say
to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt. 25:34). The only way God
could prepare His church and kingdom was to send His Son into the world:
. . . knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold
from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood,
as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown
before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake
of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and
gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God (1 Pet. 1:18-21).
God’s eternal decrees. Unfortunately, theologians of past centuries
developed elaborate notions of a comprehensive decree or decrees of God
in past eternity, by which He determined all that was to take place in the
world throughout time. In letting their imaginations run, they got involved
in sometimes bitter debate about the order of these supposed decrees of
God. The New Testament is absolutely silent about any decrees of God,
and there is only one soteriological in the Old: “I will surely tell of the decree of
the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You [brought You
forth]” (Ps. 2:7),C a reference to the resurrection of Christ, the unique event
of human history upon which all of God’s eternal plans were founded!
Therefore, God was careful to implement His decree by raising Christ Jesus
from the dead. There are a few other references to God’s decrees relating
to His creation and judgments, but not a hint of a decree about all events or
of individual salvation (Job 28:26; 38:10; Ps. 148:6; Prov. 8:29; Jer. 5:22).
Universal divine causation. In 1649 the Westminister Confession
stated, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely,
and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the
author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contin-
gency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” In 1675 the great English
evangelistic preacher and theologian, Richard Baxter, wrote extensively
against this notion of what he called “universal divine causation,” the
dogma that everything which happens in the universe was decreed by God
in eternity past. In 1973 Reformed editor and professor, James Daane,
wrote The Freedom of God to show that the notion of exhaustive divine
B. The Greek eklegomai has a more precise meaning than ‘to choose,’ which is ‘to appoint or
commission someone to an office,’ as explained in Ch. 23.
C. Some cultists imagine that this speaks of the origin of Jesus the Messiah, but the Apostle Paul made
it clear that it speaks of His resurrection from the dead. Cf. Acts 13:33; Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5. Both the
Hebrew and the Greek should be translated metaphorically, “brought forth” from the tomb.
decrees means that God is no longer free to do whatever He wants. In this

decretal theology, God has become the prisoner of His own decrees! More
recently Calvinist Richard Muller has also rejected “omnicausality.”2 The
following study shows that these men were absolutely right. Since no such
universal decree is mentioned in the whole Bible and careful study of Ephe-
sians 1:11 is unsupportive, this notion is purely deductive. Although claim-
ing not to do violence to the will of the creatures, no explanation is given
how this might be possible. If God no longer has liberty to do anything
other than what He has already decreed, how can mankind possibly have
any free will? Simply put, the Westminister statement seems to be an oxy-
moron, self-contradictory, and without any Biblical proof whatsoever.
The Meaning of God’s Sovereignty

The notion that God eternally decreed all that happens in the world
lacks explicit biblical support. Reformed theologian John Frame warned:
Evidently we must use greater care in formulating our concept of divine sovereignty than has
sometimes been shown among theologians. . . . “(S)overeignty” is a more complex concept
than we often imagine. Use of it requires some careful thinking rather than jumping to
conclusions that seem intuitive. What seems intuitive for one theologian will be counterintui-
tive for another. Intuition misleads us, because generally intuition does not make fine
distinctions. Intuitively, we tend to formulate divine sovereignty by excluding anything that
looks like it might be a “limitation” on God.3
Calvinists have developed an extreme intuitive concept of God’s sover-
eignty. What explicit evidence is there for this decretal* view of sover-
eignty? A number of word studies and an inductive investigation of the
biblical data will help clarify the concept of God’s sovereignty.
Key word studies

Although one modern translation renders YHWH-ELOHIM as “Sovereign
LORD,” there is no word for sovereignty in either the Old or New Testa-
ments. Since sovereignty relates to political relationships of governance,
the terms most directly related to it in the Old Testament are king, kingdom,
decrees, and counsel, and in the New, counsel (boulç), purpose (prothçsis),
and will (thelçma). Understanding in what sense God is governing over
mankind as spelled out in the Scriptures is critical in correctly defining a
theological concept of ‘sovereignty.’
Kingdom. Four Hebrew terms for kingdom come from the same root
(melek).4 Usage concerning divine activity falls into three major categories:
the Davidic Covenant promises, prophecies of the Messianic kingdom, and
a few references to the general rulership of Yahweh over the nations of the
earth (Ps. 103:19; Ps. 145). There are many more references in the Psalms
and prophets in which Yahweh is addressed as King. Some are references
to the Messiah as King (Ps. 2 & 24), but most stress God’s mighty acts as
ruler of Israel and the nations, as manifested in His works of creation, judg-
ment, deliverance, protection, and cleansing of sin (Ps. 2:7; 5:2; 9:10; 10:16;
20:9; 24:7-10; 44:4; 47:2,6,7; 68:24; 74:12; 84:3; 89:18; 95:3; 98:6; 145:1; Isa.
6:5; 33:22; Jer. 8:19; 10:7, 10). However, there is not a hint in any of these
passages of any exhaustive direct control by which Yahweh decreed every
event to take place in the universe.
Indeed, the imagery of king and kingdom could not possibly communi-
cate such an idea to ancient middle-eastern peoples unless it were spelled
out explicitly. These terms were not only used for the rulers of great em-
pires, but also for the heads of small cities and thus do not support such an
idea.5 Not even the greatest kings exercised direct control of all events in
their domain. Their decrees were carried out indirectly by government
officials. Therefore, there is no way that direct control of all events by a
sovereign could be indicated by the cultural usage of the words ‘king’ or
‘kingdom.’ This is an exaggeration of the analogy of human kingly sover-
eignty: a notion which Calvinists impose upon these words.
Counsel in the Hebrew (‘etsah). The next word which relates to
sovereignty is ‘counsel.’ The Hebrew ‘etsah is widely used on the human
level for counsel or advice. On the divine level, there are a score of usages.
In Psalm 33:11, in emphasizing the eternality of God’s counsel in contrast to
that of the nations, it was made parallel to “the plans of His heart.” God has
an eternal plan or program. Then the Psalmists looked for guidance from
God’s counsel (73:24) and rebuked Israel for not waiting for but rather
spurning it (106:13; 107:11). In Proverbs, ‘Wisdom’ gives her counsel (1:25;
8:14), and the permanence of God’s counsel is highlighted (19:21).
The prophets speak of the Messiah’s wise, Spirit-given counsel (Isa.
11:2) and of the greatness of Yahweh in His counsel and deeds, which are
wonderful, omniscient, and abiding (Isa. 28:29; 46:10-11; Jer. 32:19). In
Isaiah 46:10, the establishment of His counsel is linked with the accom-
plishment of His pleasure. However, there is not a hint in any of these
passages of any exhaustive efficacious decree in eternity past such as is
held by Calvinists. Translators render it as “plan” in contexts which have to
do with God’s plans of bringing judgment (Isa. 25:1; 46:11; Jer. 49:20; 50:45).
Therefore, the most that can be said about Yahweh’s sovereignty directly
revealed in the Old Testament and warranted by inductive word studies of
usage is that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God sovereignly
intervenes in human affairs according to His wise plan as He implements
His general rule over the nations and His plan of redemption.
Counsel in the New Testament (boul). It is even more astounding
that the New Testament makes absolutely no reference to any of God’s
decrees. Boulç means ‘counsel’ or ‘purpose’ and has a secondary meaning,
‘resolution’ or ‘decision.’ Luke used it five times of the divine counsel. In
His affirmation of John the Baptizer and rebuke of Israel’s leadership, the
Lord Jesus stated that “the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose
(boulç) for themselves, not having been baptized by John” (Lk.7:30). Is it not
ironic that the very first (and only) connection of this term with God in the
Gospels, does not imply some exhaustively efficacious carrying out of God’s
eternal plan, but quite the opposite brings out mankind’s ability to frustrate
God’s plan for themselves? God had a plan for the nation Israel, but over
the centuries they failed to conform to that plan, and now their leaders
outright rejected that plan for themselves and the nation. The Greek word
which comes closest to ‘decree’ is boulçma, which is only used once (Rom.
9:19). Paul put it in the mouth of an objector to what he says about God’s
sovereign dealings with the nation Israel corporately.
First, we find Peter’s very relevant charge in his Pentecost sermon: “. . .
this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan (boulç) and foreknowledge of God,
you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts
2:23). Peter used the strongest possible language to communicate divine
sovereignty in the outworking of God’s plan for the crucifixion. He used a
participial form of horizein (ordain, appoint) to modify boulç (counsel). Peter
acknowledged the outworking of God’s pre-temporal plan by foreknow-
ledge and placed full responsibility for the crucifixion upon the evil men
who did it. There is no hint or implication that God forced the will of the
Jewish leaders, Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate, King Herod Antipas, or the
Roman soldiers. They were doing their own thing in their own sinful way.
For example, Harold Hoehner has shown how the political situation in
AD 33 better explains Pilate’s motivation than the situation in AD 30.6 It
would be no problem for an omniscient God to orchestrate events by His
intensive knowledge of each of the players and circumstances. Indeed,
Peter explicitly included God’s foreknowledge in the implementation of His
plan (Acts 2:23). Since the cross is at the very center of God’s plan, God
was directly involved in this event. However, the force of Peter’s words
must not be extended or extrapolated to other less central events.
In the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch, Paul stated that David served the
boulç (purpose) of God in his own generation (Acts 13:36) and reminded the
Ephesian elders that he had declared to them the whole counsel (boulç) of
God (20:27). If the boulç of God were all encompassing, how could it in-
clude David’s sin and how could Paul possibly have declared the whole of
it to the Ephesian church in under three years? The writer of Hebrews
argued that God showed the unchangeableness of his boulç by making an
oath (6:17). There is no hint that God’s plan or counsel exhaustively in-
cludes every event in the universe, including all the worst eruption of
Satan’s and mankind’s evil over the whole of time. This leaves just one
crucial verse so crucial for universal divine causation.
The main proof-text. Ephesians 1:11-12 contains the last usage of boulç
in reference to God’s eternal plan and is the crucial proof-text used by
Calvinists to support their extreme concept of sovereignty7:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will (KJV).
In Him we too were made His heritage, as foreordained according to His purpose,
who works out everything in agreement with the design (boulç) of His own will, so
that we, the first to put our hope in Christ, might bring praise to His glory (MLB).
Most translations blindly follow the mistranslation of the KJV so we include
the MLB, which is an improvement. At this point, a reminder is needed
concerning the extreme cruciality of context in interpretation. Has Paul
been discussing anything relating to all-encompassing decrees of God in
this context? Quite the contrary, Paul is focusing on God’s glorious plan of
salvation. The word ‘decree’ is not found here, or for that matter anywhere
in the New Testament of God’s decrees. In Ephesians 1:3-6, Paul was focus-
ing on the Father’s eternal plan of salvation, and then in 1:7-12, he surveyed
the Son’s past work of redemption and the inheritance He purposes for us
in the consummation (“the fulness of the times”). Verse 12 is a transition
into vv. 12-13 in which the Spirit’s work of applying salvation is described.
Thus the total context before and after verse 11 is salvation-oriented.
The grammar of this clause warrants closer examination. Note that the
article ta (the) with panta (all) most probably has a demonstrative force, that
is, “He works all these things.”D This would make it clear that the “all things”
of 1:11 has to do with ‘all these things’ of the redemptive plan of God just
alluded to, not with all human events. Any universalizing of the outworking
of God’s sovereignty to all ‘secular’ events is totally absent from the context
and not supported by the grammar.
In sum, the weight of usage of this clause in 1:11 militates for the dem-
onstrative force, referring back to the outworking of the Father’s eternal
plan for the church (1:3-6) as implemented by the Beloved Son through the
blood-redemption of the cross (1:7-11).E Use of this verse as a proof-text for
wall-to-wall determinism by God is crass Scripture twisting. If there were
some antecedent development of such a notion in the usage of the terms,
such proof-texting might be doubtfully justifiable, but there is not a shred of
such development in either the Old or New Testaments!
While noting the importance of context, the same expression (ta panta)
D . “The Greek article was originally derived from the demonstrative pronoun ho, hç, to, and is clearly
akin to the relative pronoun hos, hç, ho. It always retained some of the demonstrative force. This fact is
evidenced by its frequent use in the papyri purely as a demonstrative pronoun” (Dana and Mantey,
Grammar, p. 136). “The article was originally derived from the demonstrative pronoun. That is, its
original force was to point out something. It has largely kept the force of drawing attention to something”
(Daniel Wallace, Grammar, p. 208). He stated the article intrinsically conceptualizes, also identifies an
object, and at times definitizes (pp. 209-10). Cf. A. T. Robertson, Short Grammar, p. 68.
E. To verify this interpretation of Eph. 1:11 it is vital to do a study of the use of the article with the Greek
word ‘all’ (pas), about 47 times in the New Testament, usually in the neuter plural (ta panta). A careful
examination of the context of these usages shows that about 18 times the article has the demonstrative
force mentioned by the grammarians, which restricts its meaning to some referent in the context. About
21 times the demonstrative force is absent, giving a more universal meaning to the expression. About
8 times there is a general reference not intended to be universal or referent.
is used in the preceding verse (Eph. 1:10), where it is clear that Christ is to
head up “all these things,” that is, all believers in the Church (1:22), whether
now in heaven or on earth. If its demonstrative force is ignored here, uni-
versalism results. Thus, on what basis do Calvinists universalize it in verse
11? The same issue arises also in Colossians 1:20, where universalizing ta
panta clearly teaches the heresy of universalism.
It is also very important to note that Paul was referring to the objective
work of the Son of God two millenniums ago as the antecedent of “all these
things,” and that he began to make reference to the present subjective
work of the Holy Spirit in applying salvation after this in verses 12-13. The
cross was an eternally determined work of God; the same cannot be said
about the application phase of the Spirit’s work in the life of the individual,
at least as far as this passage is concerned.
Thus the heavy weight which Calvinists put upon this one verse, after
careful scrutiny, leaves their viewpoint in serious doubt. Although it only
takes one verse of Scripture to be a basis for truth, the correct interpretation
of that verse is absolutely crucial; otherwise serious error results. Butler put
it so well: “We hold a few texts so near the eyes that they hide the rest of the Bible.”8 In
this case, it is just one clause in one text!
The verb ‘to will’. The verb boulomai (‘to purpose,’ ‘to will’) is used
three times with God as the subject. In James 1:18, the participle boulçtheis
is used adverbially to describe the new birth. Although the translators tend
to render it, “Of His own will,” more literally it is, “purposefully” or “inten-
tionally” that God gave us new birth. Does this verse clarify whether the
new birth is implemented according to an unconditional or a conditional
plan of God? Not at all! It is not explicit in this regard.
“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient
toward you, not wishing (boulomai) for any to perish but for all to come to repen-
tance” (2 Pet. 3:9). This verse has proved to be a major problem for the Cal-
vinistic view. Indeed, it is in harmony with the whole tenor of Scripture
concerning the eternal plan of God, which is, that the gospel of Christ be
made available to every last human being before Christ returns.9 God’s
purpose that all should come to repentance, makes the offer of the gospel
a legitimate, bona fide offer. God’s motivation is not ambivalent in this
regard, lest He be accused of insincerity. God is in no way double-minded.
(A third reference in Heb. 6:17 is not relevant to the current investigation.)
Purpose (prothsis). The word prothçsis occurs five times in reference
to God’s plan. The BAG lexicon gives as meanings: “plan, purpose, resolve, will,
. . . design.”10 Three usages have to do with God’s plan of salvation (Rom.
8:28; Eph. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:9) and two with His plan for the transition from
national Israel to the Church in the general outworking of His plan of
redemption. (Rom. 9:11; Eph. 3:11). There is no reference to a comprehen-
sive plan for every event in human history. The question is how individuals
come to be included in this salvation plan. In Romans 8:28, Paul first men-
tions “those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose (prothçsis).”
Here God’s salvation plan or design is seen as including those who love
God. Paul makes it clear throughout the epistle that their calling to love
God involves repentant faith. Their calling and justification are by faith.
Faith must also be a prominent factor in his reference to foreknowledge
and foreordination, since this is part of an unbroken sequence of five steps
in Romans 8:29-30. In 2 Timothy 1:9, Paul confirmed that salvation and
calling are according to His own gracious plan or design (prothçsis). Whether
this is worked out conditionally or unconditionally is not stipulated. (Rom.
9:11 is discussed in Ch. 25, pp. 348ff. as part of a broader discussion of Rom.
9-11.) Thus there is no explicit support for the Calvinistic view here either.
Will (thelma). A study of the usage of thelçma is mostly marginal to the
concerns of this investigation. It is used about eighteen times of the moral
will of God in some regard, five times of God’s salvation plan in some form,
twice of God’s guidance of a believer’s walk, numerous times of Christ’s
own desire to fulfill the will of the Father, and a number of other general
references. Again there is no revelation of a comprehensive determinative
decree for the universe which is all-encompassing. However, determinists*
take it that “God’s decree is synonymous with God’s will.” This is based
upon Beza’s statement: “Nothing falls outside of the divine willing, even when certain
events are clearly contrary to God’s will.”11 Again the inductive data in the use of
thelçma does not support this notion.
A Mediate Theological View

The solution to the serious polarization about who God really is and
how He relates to humans is found in a mediate view. Both extreme posi-
tions are in serious error, and the truth is in the middle. These extreme
positions in the understanding of God lead to extreme positions on His plan
of salvation also, since all of the divisions of theology are interrelated.
Therefore, it is absolutely imperative to develop a correct definition of
God’s sovereignty in order to grapple with the one-sided theologies of salva-
tion proposed by Calvinists and open theists.* Likewise, the biblical teach-
ing of God’s absolute foreknowledge exposes the errors of open theism. A
mediate position resolves the tension in a most satisfying way.
Even though J. O. Buswell, Jr. was nominally a five-point Calvinist, he
took issue with some of the concepts of God’s attributes traditionally held
by Augustine and the Reformers. His theology sensitized me to some of the
problems with what has been called the “classic concept of God.” His
theology text also alerted me to a fundamental philosophical error in what
I had been taught, which is, that God cannot foreknow that which He has
not determined. In reacting to such a notion held by hyper-Calvinist Loraine
Boettner, Buswell stated:
But it is presumptuous for man to claim to know what kind of things God could or could not
know. There is a mystery in knowledge which will probably never be resolved for us. . . .
For men to declare that God could not know a free event in the future seems to me sheer
dogmatism.12
Buswell’s most perceptive statement is a double-edged sword, since it also
cuts off the head of open theism* as well. The biblical evidence for God’s
infinite omniscience should be clear enough, without twisting its meaning.
There is another closely related error evident in the writings of both
opposing viewpoints. Many confuse the certainty of a future event with the
determination of that event by God.13 God knows all future events as cer-
tain, whether He has determined them or not. His omniscience is unlim-
ited. Both Calvinists and open theists err in making the certainty of the
future contingent upon God’s determining it, but with differing out-
comes—the Calvinistic future being totally determined; open theism’s,
partially open and uncertain. Both views are in error because God’s acts
(decrees) must flow from His attributes (omniscience), not the reverse.14
A mediate view affirms the essentials of the classic concept of God, as
tweaked by Buswell. The absolute foreknowledge of God is affirmed as
part of His omniscience, His absolute omnipresence, and His absolute
omnipotence, the exercise of which He has chosen to limit in significant
ways. The sovereignty of God is affirmed, but it must be defined in the light
of that self-limitation. The Greek philosophical concept of the simpleness
of God is rejected, since God reveals Himself as a Tri-unity, and His works
of creation are incredibly complex. The concept of a single all-embracing
decree of God must also be rejected, since it derives from the notion of the
simpleness of God and is totally without biblical support. Likewise, the
impassibility of God (no passions) must be rejected as incompatible with
the biblical narrative and is probably derived from Greek philosophy. God
certainly has revealed Himself as emotionally moved by the human condi-
tion. Lastly, while affirming the immutability of God, we must recognize His
genuine dynamic interaction with humanity, which is not a frozen immuta-
bility. His attributes are unchanging, but His relationships with mankind are
dynamic and changing.
Conclusions
God is the omnipotent Creator of the universe, who can do what He
pleases consistent with His attributes. In creating autonomous beings,
namely, Lucifer, the angels, and the human race, He has intentionally lim-
ited the exercise of His own sovereignty. Like human sovereigns, God
exercises His sovereignty by punishing disobedience to His will at what
times and what ways suit His eternal plans. He further limits the exercise of
His sovereignty by delegating to mankind dominion, which is an essential
part in the image of God with which He created man. Man was intended to
reflect all of God’s moral attributes in his relation to Himself and to one
another. There is no direct biblical evidence for the idea that in eternity
past God decreed all that would transpire on the earth or that He irresistibly
brings about the outworking of His will. Indeed, this notion is contradictory
to the creation of autonomous creatures who have free will, and is heavily
derived from a misinterpretation of just one clause in Ephesians 1:11. There
is absolutely no reference to God’s decrees in the New Testament, and Old
Testament references are totally devoid of such a concept. But to get the
whole picture, the impact of the Satanic revolt and human disobedience to
God must be investigated in the next chapter.
EXCURSUS: Critique of Ray Ortlund, Jr. on Sovereignty 15

Ray Ortlund, Jr. surveyed some Old Testament case studies to support a Calvinistic view of the
sovereignty of God. His treatment is badly flawed. First he quoted without specific comment five
passages as being “striking testimonies to God’s supremacy over us” (Ex. 4:11; Isa. 45:7; 63:17; 64:7-8;
Lam. 3:37-38; Dan. 4:34-35). Since most Christians believe in God’s supremacy over us, these
passages are irrelevant to the issue. The Isaiah 63-64 context speaks about the severity of God’s
judgments of Israel in language reminiscent of Paul in Romans 1, referring to God giving up the hea-
then to their sin. It is in this judgmental sense that God had made Israel wander from His ways and
hardened their hearts. It is not that God has sovereignly reprobated individual Jews to hell. He has not
made his point. The next three passages which Ortlund discussed are all about the providence of God
in the lives of believers, not about universal divine causation in everything which happens in the world.
Ortlund put a deterministic spin on Psalm 139. Commenting on the verse 5 reference to God
hemming him in: “David is confessing his vivid awareness of God’s unrelenting attentions bombarding
the fortress of his soul from all sides. As a result, God has David under his control, as the second line
implies. All David can do is yield.” Certainly we can agree that God is actively involved in the circum-
stances and many details of David’s life, including Nathan’s confrontation of his sin. But was this
exhaustive in God determining that David would sin? This is what Ortlund implied! Then in comment-
ing on verse 14 he took the phrase “your works” as a reference to the unfolding of events in David’s
life as being solely divine works. The immediately preceding context, however, is a reference to God’s
forming him in his mother’s womb, so Ortlund is guilty of isogesis here. In verse 16, he focused on the
statement that David’s days were ordained or planned by God, they were written in God’s book. This is
the heart of his argument: “He means that his life, considered not only as a whole but also right down to
his daily experience, was determined (what other word fits?) ahead of time” (p. 32). Again, would
Ortlund include David’s sins with their terrible consequences upon the children of Israel in this? We
should hope not! His discussion hinges upon the meaning of yatzar in v. 16. He didn’t examine this
word (as he should have done), but BDB lists: “2b. Fig. for frame, pre-ordain, plan (in divine purpose)”
(p. 427). Yes, God has a general plan for every believer’s days. The RSV uses “formed,” which may
be on target since we can understand how our days are formed of God’s workings and ours. Would he
say that every detail of David’s life was a direct work of the Holy Spirit? Even as Calvinistic a writer as
R. C. Sproul acknowledges that there is a synergism in the Christian life. Would Ortlund extrapolate
this to also say that the days of unbelievers’ lives are also pre-ordained?
Secondly, Ortlund focused upon God’s statement to Jeremiah in 1:4-5: “Before I formed you in
the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” His whole argument hinges upon a
deterministic spin on the common verb yada’ based upon a few supposedly supportive usages in Gen.
18:18-19, Ps. 1:6, Hos. 13:4-5, and Amos 3:2, which we have discussed in great detail (cf. Ch. 22, pp.
309-312). There is no linguistic basis for assigning a pregnant meaning to yada’ in these few contexts.
As to God’s knowledge of Jeremiah before He formed him in the womb, it can be understood in the light
of the parallel, “before you were born I set you apart.” Certainly Jeremiah, like the Apostle Paul later
(Gal. 1:15), was a unique instrument of God, so we should not extrapolate determinism from the
statement that the omniscient God had set this key prophet apart for His service before he was born.
Even if we extrapolate this statement to all believers being foreknown and set apart as God’s witnesses
in His omniscient mind even before we were born, this still does not justify the idea of unconditional
election to salvation or of “sovereign” reprobation of the “non-elect.” So when Ortlund stated that “God
does not foreknow events with bare prescience, so that he must look on as events unfold in history out
of his control” (p. 45, ital. mine), he is making a caricature of his opposition. God is not a mere ob-
server, but neither does He pull the strings of mere puppets. The truth is in a mediate position.
Thirdly, Ortlund tried to develop his view of sovereignty from the book of Jonah. Certainly God’s
sovereign dealings with man comes out clearly in this book, but not the deterministic concept. Time
and again God had to confront Jonah to move him to even minimal obedience. But never did He work
any “irresistible grace” on Jonah. This is the pattern in God’s dealings with man over the ages—He has
to confront mankind (Cain, the pre-flood peoples, Israel, Christians today, etc.) to bring about repentant
faith and obedience. The book of Jonah says nothing about exhaustive control of humans. Indeed, did
God in eternity past decree Jonah’s disobedience? Ortlund then quoted Job 12:13-16 about how “God
retains ultimacy in all things.” He seems to imply that God is ultimately behind man’s deceiving and
being deceived, whereas Job’s point is more simply that the deceiver and his victim are both in the
hands of God, just as the song goes, “He’s got the whole world in His hand.”
In any case, Ortlund’s whole discussion misses the point! All the passages deal with God’s
providence in the lives of believers, not with God’s exhaustive control of all the events transpiring in the
whole world. Omnicausality was an unbiblical notion that Genevan-influenced hyper-Calvinists got put
into the Westminister Confession of Faith, which came out of a politico-religious conference, after all.
It is not even essential to Calvin’s Calvinism, as Richard Muller claimed, was rejected by Richard
Baxter, and most importantly, has no basis in the one clause of one verse (Eph. 1:11) which is claimed
by its proponents. To conclude, Ortland’s discussion has no force against a mediate soteriology.
1. Aurelius Augustine, cited by Erich Sauer, The Dawn of World Redemption, p. 18-19.
2. Richard Baxter, Catholick Theologie: Pacification of Dogmatical Word-Warriours (London: Robert White, 1675),
1, 1:27ff; James Daane, The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and Pulpit (GR: Eerdmans, 1973); Richard
Muller,”Grace, Election, and Contingent Choice,” in Schreiner & Ware, The Grace of God/ The Bondage of the Will,
II:271; Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology (Peabody, MA: Prince , 1998), I:28.
3. John M. Frame, “The Spirit and the Scriptures,” in D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, eds., Hermeneutics,
Authority and Canon, pp. 223-4.
4. Francis Brown, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon, pp. 574-5.
5. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr., & Bruce K. Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
(Chicago: Moody, 1980), I:507-9.
6. Harold Hoehner, “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ: Part V,” Bibliotheca Sacra 524 (Oct. ‘74) pp. 340-8
(Also published in book form).
7. John S. Feinberg is typical in the weight he puts on Eph. 1:11 in David and Randall Basinger, eds. Predestination
and Free Will, pp. 29-32. Also in Feinberg’s, No One Like Him, pp. 680-693.
8. William F. Butler, cited by Norman F. Douty, The Death of Christ, p. 66.
9. C. Gordon Olson, What in the World Is God Doing? 6th ed. (2011), pp. 30-97.
10. Arndt and Gingrich, p. 713.
11. Patrick H. Mell, A Southern Baptist Looks at Predestination (Cape Coral: Christian Gospel Foundation, n.d.), p.
53; Theodore Beza, cited by Vance, pp. 479, 481.
12. J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, vol. I, p. 46.
13. Gregory A. Boyd, God of the Possible, p. 32; Norman L. Geisler, Chosen But Free, pp. 43, 45.
14. A most helpful book on God’s omniscience is William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God.
15. Ray Ortlund, Jr., “The Sovereignty of God: Case Studies in the Old Testament” in Schreiner & Ware, I, pp. 25-46.
I find then that man was by God constituted free,
3
master of his own will and power; indicating the pres-
ence of God’s image and likeness in him by nothing
so well as this constitution of his nature. . . .
-Tertullian (AD 155-225)
He also placed man at the head of the world, and man,

too, made in the image of God, to whom He imparted
mind, and reason, and foresight, that he might imitate
God; . . . He willed that he alone should be free.
- Novatian of Rome (200-258)
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO
GOD’S IMAGE IN HUMANITY?
Our inductive biblical study began with an examination of God’s revela-
tion about Himself. Now we look at creation and His relationship to His
creatures in the pristine period before the fall of mankind. It is imperative
to understand the implications of the image of God in mankind, such as the
early church fathers understood it (as above). Then, since most human
history has been lived under sin, it is important also to look into the conse-
quences of Satan’s revolt and Adam’s disobedience upon the whole human
race. Distorted conceptions of humanity’s original nobility and the impact
of our fall in sin have distorted our understanding of the plan of salvation.
Before Augustine’s debate with Pelagius, earlier church fathers believed
that the image of God in man involved free will, and that image was not lost
in the fall. After the Reformation Luther and Erasmus picked up the debate,
which has continued up till the present. First, we must understand human-
ity’s wonderful uniqueness in God’s wonderful creation.
God’s Awesome Creation

Our sovereign God is so awesome that He created heaven and earth
out of nothing (Gen. 1:1)! Scientists are abandoning the idea of a steady-
state universe, with matter and energy being eternal. A recent theory is the
“big bang,” which says that there was an incredibly massive explosion of
matter and energy billions of years ago, resulting in our present rapidly
expanding universe. Not only are scientists having to admit that the uni-
verse had a beginning, but increasingly many are recognizing an intelli-
gence behind it all.1 Although the Genesis account does not affirm a “big
bang,” it does indicate that they are getting closer to the truth. Since the
Bible is clear that God created the universe out of nothing, ex nihilo, matter
40
is not eternal. Genesis 1:1 is an absolute sentence affirming the creation of
the heavens and earth in the very beginning.2
The earth. There is considerable debate about the formation of the
earth, plants, animals, and human beings in six days. Erich Sauer affirmed:
Christ and the New Testament guarantee the historicity and literality of the opening chapters
of the Bible. Everywhere the Lord and His apostles treat them as accounts of actual events;
indeed they even draw from them dogmatic conclusions. Matt. 19:4-9; Rom. 5:12-21; I Cor.
15:21, 22; I Tim 2:13, 14; Jas. 3:9; 1 Jn.3:12; Rev. 20:2.3
Astronomers focus on God’s macrocosm, and incredible discoveries
about the vastness and complexity of our universe occur almost daily. The
vastness of the expanding universe is implied in Genesis 1:6-8, which
speaks of the “expanse” of the heavens. Atomic physicists focus on the
microcosm, and knowledge of the incredible complexity of the building
blocks of our universe is escalating. The universe almost seems infinite to
us creatures, but we know that it is not nor could be. The majesty of this
time-space universe is growing testimony to the majesty of the infinite God
Who created it all (Psa. 19:1-6; Rom. 1:20; Heb. 1:2-3).
As we marvel at the immensity of the universe, the question arises: how
could an insignificant planet like earth be the focus of God’s cosmic plan of
redemption? Geographically and spatially our planet is just one small
planet in the solar system of one star of billions in an insignificant galaxy in
an immense and expanding universe. Furthermore, human beings on this
tiny earth are a minuscule part of its biomass. This question arises out of a
confusion between spatial significance and spiritual significance. The Cre-
ator of all things has invested our earth with a unique significance by creat-
ing mankind in His own image upon it and sending His eternal Son to be-
come incarnate among humans so that He might die and rise again to
procure eternal life for them. The carrying out of this divine drama on earth
makes it the most significant place in the universe. Waterloo is an insignifi-
cant village in Flanders, but the battle fought there to defeat Napoleon
Bonaparte gave it incredible historical significance. People are expending
billions of dollars vainly searching for life on other planets because they do
not believe in the centrality of God’s eternal plan for the earth. But God
chose to make humanity on this earth the central focus of His eternal plan.
Angelic beings. Scripture tells us that God not only created the mate-
rial universe, but also the angels, the first pair of human beings, and the
animal and plant kingdoms. Scripture says very little explicitly about the
creation of angelic beings. But there is a connection between the stars and
these angels, as Erich Sauer observed:
The Word of God knows of thrones and lordships, of principalities and authorities (Col.
1:16), of sons of God and morning stars (Job 38:7), of the host of the high in the height (Isa.
24:21), of cherubim and seraphim (Rev. 4:6-8; Isa. 6:2, 3), of archangels and angels (Jude
9; Rev. 5:11; 12:7). And all these it describes by the same term, “host of heaven”, as it uses
41
for the stars.4
Probably the connection is best understood by identifying the universe as
the dwelling place of these heavenly beings. In any case, there are indica-
tions that the angels take part in the history of human salvation.
Ezekiel wrote about Lucifer’s original created beauty and status in
God’s presence, symbolized as the “king of Tyre” (Ezek. 28:11-19). The
language transcends that of any earthly prince (28:1-10) in Ezek 28:11ff:
You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in
Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: . . . On the day
that you were created they were prepared. You were the anointed cherub who covers,
and I placed you there, you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the
midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were
created until unrighteousness was found in you. . . . Your heart was lifted up because
of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.
Similarly Isaiah prophesied about the “star of the morning, son of the dawn”
under the rubric of the king of Babylon, another grossly idolatrous city (Isa.
14:12-14). Satan was created with free will to revolt against God, into which
he drew a vast number of other angels. Both the creation of angels with
free moral agency and their rebellion limited God’s control of the universe.
Humanity’s Created Nobility

A unique creation
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let
them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God
created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female
He created them (Gen. 1:26-7).
Moses, in the usual Hebrew way, then gave a parallel explanation: “Then the
LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life (ruach hayyim); and man became a living being (nephesh hayah)”
(Gen.2:7). Since the animals had been described in Genesis 1:30 as having
nephesh, it is clear that nephesh hayah refers to physical life. However, since
hayyim is the plural for ‘lives’ and since ruach can refer to ‘breath’ or ‘spirit,’
this expression could well indicate the unique spiritual qualities of mankind
implied in the image of God emphasized in 1:26-7. This was reinforced in
Genesis 5:1-2. What then is the meaning of that image?
The meaning of God’s image in man

In the very act of creating humans in His own image, God voluntarily
limited the exercise of His sovereignty. We struggle to understand the
meaning of His image in man. Some cults assume that it implies a physical
image, but it is clear from the rest of Scripture that it involves the moral
image of God. There are three common explanations. Some emphasize
the image of God enabled mankind to relate to God and other humans, the
Chapter 3 GOD’S IMAGE IN HUMANITY 43
relational view. Others focus on the rule over the animal, vegetable, and
mineral domains of the earth which connects with that image, the func-
tional view. Others focus on the constitutional nature of man as unique
from the animals, the substantive view. There is truth in all three: What
man does (relate to God and other people) and is able to do (exercise rule
over nature) is dependent upon who he is (the substantive reality).5
What is this substantive reality of the image of God? The major differ-
ence between man and the animals is in the eternality of man. God cre-
ated mankind with an everlasting spirit, unlike the animals. Since the Gen-
esis context emphasizes humanity’s distinctiveness from the animal cre-
ation over which he was given rule, immortality is clearly a major part of
mankind’s uniqueness. Animals were not created in God’s image, but that
image resides in mankind, whether or not they recognize Him or His works.
God’s moral attributes reflected in His image. Since Genesis does
not explain the meaning of the image of God, we must understand it from
three New Testament passages which allude to its full restoration through
salvation. The Old Testament has much to say about the knowledge of
God’s wisdom and truth (Hos. 4:6). Paul referred to the knowledge of God
being restored to the believer in Christ: “. . . and have put on the new self who is
being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created
him—” (Col. 3:10). The context makes it clear that Paul’s focus goes beyond
man’s intelligence to his knowledge of God’s revealed truth, which needs
to be restored in fallen man through the new birth and the ongoing renewal
process of the Spirit in the mind and heart of the believer (Rom. 12:1-2).
In the same way the parallel in Ephesians 4:24 indicates the moral
qualities of righteousness and holiness are also part of the image of God: “.
. . and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteous-
ness and holiness of the truth.” It is widely understood that Adam was created
in innocence with the possibility of attaining righteousness and holiness by
continued fellowship with and obedience to God. Thus man was created
as a moral being faced with moral choices of which animals are incapable.
Another clue is here: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror
the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). We infer from this a certain
aspect of God’s glory was reflected in the highest example of His earthly
creation, mankind. A pattern emerges from these references. Here is the
basis for seeing all of the moral attributes of God are part of His image in
man, even if a specific attribute is not explicitly referred to in Scripture.
God’s love, holiness, and spirit nature were a part of the original image (Isa.
6:3; Jn. 4:24; 1 Jn. 4:8). Thus, just as God is a personal God with intellect,
emotions, and will, the image of God in man must involve intellect, emo-
tions, and will. Seeing the many aspects of His image in man, the full spec-
trum of God’s moral attributes should be included in our understanding.
It should not need to be mentioned that this includes every race of
humans and both men and women. However, human history is replete
with outrageous examples of society denigrating women and other races as

less than fully human. Many professing Christians have also been guilty of
the same abominable discrimination. All are created in God’s image!
BALANCING THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD6
God delegated limited autonomy. God is an autonomous being, totally

omnipotent over His creation. By creating Adam and Eve in His image, they
became autonomous beings, with only one limitation to their autonomy,
just one fruit which they could not eat. They were created to reflect His
glorious attributes of holiness, love, righteousness, mercy, and justice and
to remain in fellowship with Him. God created Adam with a human spirit,
distinct from the soul. The spirit is the God-conscious part of man, with the
soul, the self-conscious part, and the body, the world-conscious part.7 The
animals were created with only nephesh, which means soul-life (Gen. 1:30),
but man was distinct in having a spirit (ruach) as well.
What is the evidence for distinguishing the human spirit from the soul?
Those who deny this distinction base it upon the interchangeable use of
soul and spirit in describing fallen humanity. However, the nature of unfall-
en Adam and Eve is quite another question, and the nature of fallen man is
not really direct evidence for the original condition of Adam and Eve or of
regenerate believers. Although the human spirit died in the fall, and spiri-
tual death spread to all people, when we trust in Christ our spirit is actually
made alive and functional again, so that we can relate to God personally.
Before we look into the implications of the fall, we should seek to under-
stand Adam’s created autonomy. (For full discussion of the distinction of
soul and spirit see the Excursus at the end of the chapter.)
The creation account twice connected God’s delegation to Adam of
rule over the animal, vegetable, and mineral creation with his uniqueness
as being in God’s image in Genesis 1:26-28. This delegated rule or domin-
ion is in itself a further self-limitation of the exercise of God’s sovereignty.
Adam was to be God’s regent over the earth. Although God was the ulti-
mate authority, Adam was given a trusteeship of the world, further evi-
denced in that God told Adam to name the animals (Gen. 2:18-20). In
giving a pet to a child, we allow the child to name it. Adam had free will in
this and everything else, with the one exception of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. In these delegated areas God was no longer
exercising His immediate control. So when Adam and Eve disobeyed
God’s command, did they really exercise free will or had God already de-
cided what they would do, thus determining the outcome? Some Chris-
tians influenced by Augustine’s determinism would even deny that Adam
and Eve had free will, thus making God the author of sin.
The Impact of Humanity’s Fall

Universal depravity and spiritual death
Evangelical Christians and traditional Catholics are unique in believing
that Adam and Eve’s disobedience plunged the whole human race into a
sinful condition. Although Judaism and Islam agree that Adam and Eve
disobeyed God in Eden, they do not recognize that their descendants be-
came sinners as a result. They, like followers of all other religions, hold that
man is essentially good. However, the Genesis account is very explicit that
God had warned them: “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat
from it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). The immediate consequence of
their sin was expulsion from the garden and access to the tree of life, which
represented the spiritual life they had enjoyed in fellowship with God.
Since they did not die physically when they disobeyed God’s explicit
command, the implication is that they died spiritually. Some suppose that
this was just the beginning of the process of physical death, but the Bible is
quite explicit about the spiritual impact of Adam’s sin upon the whole hu-
man race. There was a constitutional change in Adam and Eve evidenced
by several things: their eyes were opened so that they attempted to cover
their newly acquired sense of shame of nakedness (Gen. 3:7). Their alien-
ation from God is seen in trying to hide from Him and passing off the blame
for their disobedience (Gen. 3:8-13). Now they knew good and evil
experientially. Although the account of God’s judgments upon the snake as
Satan’s mouthpiece, the animals, Eve, Adam, plants, and the ground (Gen.
3:14-19) is very terse, the effects of those judgments are far reaching
throughout human history (Rom. 8:18-23).

The immediate impact of their sin upon their first son reveals how
quickly depravity spread throughout all his descendants. This is evident in
the way in which God confronted Cain for his deficient offering. Moses’
account is brief and implies that God had told Adam and Eve that He re-
quired blood sacrifices to atone for their sins. Remember that God had
covered the shame of their nakedness with the skins of sacrificed animals
(Gen. 3:21). In obedient faith Abel brought what was called “a more excellent
sacrifice” (Heb. 11:4). But Cain, in his unrepentant pride, brought only vege-
tables, so “for Cain and his offering [God] had no regard” (Gen. 4:5). When God
rejected his offering, Cain got angry, but God didn’t give up on him and
exhorted him: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well,
sin is crouching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7,
RSV). God was well aware of the depravity of Cain’s heart, but nevertheless
gave him opportunity to repent and to come in faith with an acceptable
offering. Cain’s destiny had not been predetermined, and although he didn’t
repent and went on in envy to murder his brother, this was not inevitable.
Even after Cain killed Abel, God continued to deal with him patiently.
Cain’s depravity was passed on to his descendants. Cainite civilization
degenerated morally, even while it was advancing by leaps and bounds
culturally. Jude spoke of the “way of Cain” (Jude 11), which was derived
from Satan, the evil one (1 Jn. 3:12). This is a self-righteous religion by
which Cain and his descendants sought to attain right standing with God by
their own works, ignoring God’s way of blood sacrifice. Cainite civilization
developed rapidly since he built a city for the exploding population of his
descendants (Gen. 4:17). It became technologically advanced as seen in
Tubal-Cain, who developed iron and bronze technology, and Jubal, who
developed music and the arts (4:21-22). Lamech violated God’s original
marriage plan with a bigamous relationship and used poetry to magnify his
violent manslaughter (Gen. 4:23-4). This set the pattern for the civilization
which magnified revenge to the extent that “the earth was filled with violence”
(Gen. 6:11) by Noah’s time. The number of true believers on earth declined
because “the sons of God [believers] saw that the daughters of [unbelieving] men
were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose” (Gen.
6:2). The notorious Nephilim (“fallen ones”) were renowned for their
deeds of violence (Gen. 6:4). This pre-flood period shows human free will
gone amok! Violence spread throughout the whole human race.
Paul later confirmed this understanding: “There is none righteous, not even
one. . . . For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. . . . Therefore, just as
through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death
spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 3:10, 23; 5:12). Since in Romans
5:13ff Paul made a contrast between the reckoning (imputing) of Adam’s
sin to all mankind and the reckoning (imputing) of Christ’s righteousness to
all believers, it is clear that he was not just referring to our personal sins, but
especially to universal guilt and depravity (Rom. 5:17). Then he summa-
rized: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). In writing to the Ephesian Christians, Paul
explained Satan’s continuing involvement in man’s spiritual plight:
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked ac-
cording to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of
the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all
formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the
mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest (Eph. 2:1-3).
Therefore, people not only commit personal sins and bear personal guilt for
their sin but also have inherited a universal sin nature from Adam and Eve
and universal guilt, which result in universal spiritual death.
Spiritual death carefully defined

A precise definition of spiritual death is now essential. Some are prone
to use the illustration of the impossibility of evangelizing a corpse in a fu-
neral parlor as a picture of spiritual death. How valid is this illustration?
The constituent nature of mankind was just examined. If soul and spirit
are not distinct, spiritual death has to be taken as a figure of speech. The
soul=spirit could not have died literally because fallen man clearly retains
a soul. But since the soul and spirit of man are distinct, with the human
spirit being the God-conscious part of man, spiritual death is best explained
literally as the death of the human spirit, and the new birth as the literal
making alive or resurrecting of the human spirit.
This was confirmed by Christ Himself in John 5:24-29. He used the
imagery of the new birth as a spiritual resurrection: “I tell you the truth, a time
is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and
those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the
Son to have life in himself” (5:25, NIV). This is set in parallelism with the pro-
mise of bodily resurrection in similar language in vv. 28-29. Since the sec-
ond is a literal resurrection (of the body), so also must the first be literal (of
the human spirit). Note that the spiritually dead are able to hear Christ’s
voice and respond. Thus, neither spiritual death nor the new birth are
figurative language. The human spirit died literally in Eden, and the human
spirit is made alive literally when one is born again.
Our understanding of this truth is significantly dependent upon the
definition of death. A comprehensive definition must fit spiritual, physical,
and eternal death to be adequate. The common element of all three is
separation. Spiritual death is separation from God (Isa. 59:1-2); physical
death is separation of the soul and spirit from the body (as well as separa-
tion from loved ones); and eternal death is eternal separation from God
(Rev. 19:20; 20:10, 14). As Paul explained in Ephesians 4:18: “. . . being dark-
ened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance
that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. . . .” Resultant definition:
the rendering of the God-conscious part of man inoperative and, as a conse-
quence, the separation of man from God.
Delegation of sovereign control

The disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden not only explains
human depravity but also is most instructive about God’s relation to man-
kind. It should be obvious that, having created them as autonomous be-
ings, God allowed but did not cause them to sin. By granting them this
autonomy, He thereby chose to limit the exercise of His sovereignty. Being
sovereign, He could have prevented them from sinning or manipulated
them to sin. But it is unthinkable that a holy God would in any way do such
a thing, for this would make Him the author of sin. James made this clear:
“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be
tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted
when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust” (Jas. 1:13-14). God created
Adam and Eve to reflect the glory of His being, but they became fallen
creatures; their offspring continued to grow in their disobedience to Him.
Satan’s limited autonomy. Satan’s success in causing the fall of man-
kind in the garden is later seen as a usurpation of that rule previously given
to man. The book of Job is the earliest indication of Satan’s evil autonomy
and authority (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-6). He was not acting as an agent of the
sovereign God but as an accuser working in opposition to God and His
people. Again in Daniel 10, the heavenly conflict between God’s angels and
Satan’s is worked out in conflict between people here on earth.8 When
Satan tested the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus, in the wilderness (Mt. 4:8-
11) and offered Him the kingdoms of this world, Christ did not question
Satan’s authority. Later He called Satan “the prince of this world” (Jn. 12:31;
14:30; 16:11), and Paul called him “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) and “the
prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). Most astonishing are the words of
Hebrews 2:14: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their
humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of
death—that is, the devil. . . .” Even the power of death was delegated to Satan.
Obviously God’s exercise of His sovereignty has been greatly limited there-
by. God retains the ultimate sovereignty but has allowed Satan and fallen
man to do their own thing in opposition to Him.
Humanity’s rebellion. The violent behavior of the human race before
the flood (Gen. 6:6) was just the culmination of God’s allowing mankind to
‘do their own thing.’ Some have appropriately termed the pre-flood period
“the dispensation of human self-determination.” It was human free will
gone amok! The period of Israel’s judges was also a time when “every man
did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Even though Israel was
God’s chosen people, He allowed them to go into apostasy for centuries,
which implies that He limited the exercise of sovereign control.
Covenant promises. Every promise and covenant God made with
mankind is an additional limitation of His sovereign freedom. He has thus
bound Himself and will not go against His word. He made many covenants
with mankind, with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the New Covenant
of Christ’s blood. These are all really contracts God made with mankind.
One is bilateral (the Mosaic); the rest are essentially unilateral (although
they have some contingent features). In these covenant promises God
limits the exercise of His sovereignty even more overtly.
Kingdom predictions. The Bible is full of prophecies about the future
kingdom of Christ, by which the coming Messiah would personally rule in
righteousness, justice, and peace over all humanity. Since the first-coming
prophecies were fulfilled literally, we must take second-coming prophecies
as literally true as well. These prophecies clearly imply that God’s rule and
dominion were not yet manifest on the earth, certainly not before Messiah’s
advent, and not literally in the two millenniums since then. Is this not a
limitation in the exercise of His sovereignty at present? God is not exercis-
ing the fullness of His sovereign rule now. We have to wait for the coming
kingdom glory to see the fulness of His sovereignty manifested. This must
be factored into a definition of sovereignty.
The image of God defaced, not erased

One dimension of the fall which has been seriously overlooked is its
impact upon the image of God in humanity. Many of the early church fa-
thers expounded this important issue and connected it with free will (cf.
Chs. 19, 20, 22, 26 for quotations from them).9 It is very clear from Scripture
that the image was not lost in the fall.
Genesis 9:6. Moses, inspired by the Spirit, gave an important clue at
this strategic juncture in the history of revelation—immediately after the
deluge. Before the flood, violence escalated into a vengeance syndrome
bringing on God’s judgment of a worldwide deluge. But God, in making the
Noahic Covenant with a remnant humanity, affirmed that Adam’s sin nature
had been transmitted to all mankind: “I will never again curse the ground on
account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never
again destroy every living thing, as I have done” (Gen. 8:21). Now a new provi-
sion for human violence and depravity must be initiated—the death penalty
and attendant civil government necessary to implement it. “Whoever sheds
man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man”
(Gen. 9:6). In so doing, God affirmed that man still retained the image of
God, and thereby, offered some positive hope for mankind’s future.
Further important insight about God’s self-limitation emerges. Here
God gave up the responsibility to directly punish murderers. That responsi-
bility is now in the hands of judges and magistrates, whose God-like author-
ity is confirmed in Psalm 82:6, Matthew 22:15-22, and Romans 13:1-7. Even
though the Roman government abused that authority in crucifying Christ,
that delegated authority has never been rescinded. This is a further self-
limitation of the exercise of God’s sovereignty. Which participant in homi-
cide is referred to in Genesis 9:6? Probably all three parties are in mind.10
The victim of murder was created in God’s image, and thus, murder is an
assault upon God’s image in man. The perpetrator was also created in
God’s image and is responsible for his actions and should accordingly be
judged by the shedding of his own blood. The magistrate or ruler who must
impose the death sentence also retains enough of the image of God to be
deemed competent to judge the case (Psa. 82).
Apostolic confirmation. Paul in his message on Mars Hill used the
words of a Greek poet to reinforce the truth of Genesis (Acts 17:28): “. . . that
they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far
from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets
have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’” Paul implied that men are able to seek
God based upon the image of God, even though he doesn’t use that lan-
guage to the pagan Greeks. Deterministic theology’s concept of depravity
does not leave room for man to seek God despite the dozens of injunctions
in Scripture to do just that. Paul’s exhortation to seek God is based upon
the remnant image of God.
Some of the other supporting references are:“With it [the tongue] we bless
our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of
God” (Jas. 3:9). Here is a straightforward passing reference to the retained
image of God in fallen mankind. “For a man ought not to have his head covered,
since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man” (1 Cor.
11:7). Again, this is a reference to man’s creation in God’s image as part of
Paul’s argument on the relationship of men and women in the church.
Although the truth of the remnant image of God is nowhere directly
developed in Scripture, it is an underlying presupposition of discussion of
other doctrinal issues. Therefore, this foundational truth must be factored
into the biblical doctrine of sin. It seems that most deterministic writers
have not taken the image of God into account, but a balanced biblical view
must include it. Although certain aspects of the image of God were dam-
aged, it is clear that the reality survived the fall, and His image was not lost
or erased. This implies that fallen mankind, still in God’s image, is able to
respond to God’s entreaties. Depravity does not mean total inability!
The church fathers. The first four centuries of Greek-speaking fathers
confirm the connection of the image of God to man’s free will (cf. quotes at
the head of this chapter): Irenaeus (130-200): “. . . God made man a free [agent]
from the beginning, possessing his own soul to obey the behests of God voluntarily, and not
by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will [toward us] is
present with Him continually” (Against Heresies, XXXVII); Bardaisian of Syria (154-
222): “And how, in that case, would a man differ from a harp, on which another plays; ar
from a ship, which another guides. . . . But God in His benignity, chose not so to make man;
but by freedom He exalted him to above many of His creatures” (Fragments).
Conclusions
Thus, it was seen that not only before the fall, but also after, God contin-
ued to delegate to mankind areas of authority, which are self-limitations of

the exercise of His sovereignty. The fall did not cause man to lose the
image of God with which he was created, so he retained his free will, al-
though now polluted by sin. Indeed, the spiritual death into which he was
plunged involved alienation from the life of God as seen by his exclusion
from the tree of life. This most affected the human spirit with depravity.
This is not to be understood as inability to respond to God, since humans
are expected to respond to God’s entreaties based upon the retained image
of God and its consequent free will. (See Chapter 20.)
EXCURSUS on Humanity’s Tripartite Nature

The controversy over dichotomy versus trichotomy in man’s original creation is age-old, that is,
are spirit and soul distinct? In answering this question, we must not be distracted by the nature of fallen
man, which is quite another question. This issue is significant to our understanding of the nature of
spiritual death and of regeneration. Most dichotomists ignore this. Let us clarify the issues.
Explicit evidence for trichotomy. Paul’s most explicit statement is in 1 Thessalonians
5:23: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and
body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Charles
Hodge dismissed its significance by saying that Paul “only uses a periphrasis for the whole man.”11
This is possible, but we must consider other evidence that in Paul’s mind, soul (psuchç) and spirit
(pneuma) are distinct since we twice see a contrast between the adjectives derived from these two
nouns, psuchikos and pneumatikos:
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which
is in him? . . . But a natural (psuchikos) man does not accept the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because
they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual (pneumatikos) appraises all
things, yet he himself is appraised by no one (1 Cor. 2:11-15).
The development of Paul’s logic confirms the reality of the distinction in his mind. Speaking of the
process of revelation in 2:10-13, he compared the role of the Holy Spirit in searching God’s mind to the
human spirit, which searches man’s mind. This implies a correspondence between the two in the
revelation process. Then in 2:14 he described the unregenerate man as merely soulish (psuchikos),
not only devoid of the Spirit of God, but deficient in the realm of the human spirit as well. Paul set the
spiritual (pneumatikos) man in total contrast in 2:15. He clearly used these two adjectives in marked
contrast. Although Lewis and Demarest12 made the most serious attempt to refute trichotomy, they not
only miss the implications of this passage but totally skip reference to the similar passage in 15:35-49:
It is sown a natural (psuchikos) body, it is raised a spiritual (pneumatikos) body. If
there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, “The first
man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. How-
ever, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44-46).
The flow of logic of this passage is important for the full implications of the distinction between the
two adjectives, but certainly pneumakikos and psuchikos are distinct in Paul’s mind and not synony-
mous. After contrasting the different kinds of physical flesh of various kinds of bodies in 15:35-39, he
contrasted the distinct types of celestial bodies (earth, sun, moon, and stars). This brings him in 15:44-
46 to characterizing our present bodies as psuchikos soma and resurrection bodies as pneumatikos
soma. Although there is some connection between our present bodies and our resurrection bodies just
as a seed connects with the plant (vv. 42-44), Paul markedly contrasts the two. Thus it is clear in
Paul’s Spirit-guided mind the distinction between the soulish nature of our present bodies is in strong
contrast with the spiritual nature of resurrection bodies, and therefore soul and spirit are distinct.
Most significantly, the impact of Hebrew 4:12 is minimized by dichotomists. “For the word of
God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the
division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and
intentions of the heart.” The usually dependable Henry Alford wrote, “The logos pierces to the
dividing, not of the psuche from the pneuma, but of the psuche itself and of the pneuma itself;”13
However, he erred here in not observing the anarthrous use of both nouns in the Greek, by inserting
them in the English. The BAG lexicon gave the force of merismos as “division, separation,” rendering
the clause, “to the separation of soul and spirit, i.e., so as to separate soul and spirit Hb. 4:12."14
Two other significant passages are usually omitted from discussion. J. B. Heard,15 linked together
James 3:15 and Jude 19: “Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven, but is earthly,
unspiritual (psuchikç), demonic” (Jas. 3:15, TNIV); “These are the people who divide you, who
follow mere natural instincts (psuchikoi), and do not have the Spirit” (Jude 19, TNIV).
A response to arguments for dichotomy. In essence, the major argument for the
dichotomy view is the interchangeable use of soul and spirit in much of Scripture. This is not debatable
but is explainable in harmony with trichotomy. Since most of Scripture describes the anthropology of
fallen man, this is not really direct evidence for the original condition of Adam and Eve. Heard sug-
gested that another reason why the Old Testament does not show a distinction between soul and spirit
relates to the progress of revelation. Since God did not choose to reveal His triune nature explicitly
before the coming of the Messiah, there is a parallelism in His not revealing the tripartite nature of man.
“It would be out of harmony with the ‘analogy of faith,’ if the tripartite nature of man were fully described
in those books of the Bible which only contain implied hints of the plurality of persons in the Godhead.”16
Therefore, Hodge’s objection that the creation account does not mention a distinct spirit (ruach) of
man is easily explainable. Indeed, the reference to God blowing into man’s nostrils the breath of lives
(pl.) may well have been intended to communicate both the imbuement of physical life and breath and
also the impartation of the human spirit. This is seen in two exegetical features. First, the word for
breath (neshmah) also means ‘spirit’ or ‘mind’ as it is used in Proverbs 20:27: “The spirit of man is the
lamp of the LORD, searching all the innermost parts of his being.”17 This truth was later reinforced
by Paul: “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is
in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11).
Secondly, the word for life (hayah) is in the plural here. But God was only breathing one physical
life into Adam. The breathing of physical life is coordinate with the imbuing with a distinct human spirit.
The Lord Jesus gave us a later analogy on the day of His resurrection when He breathed on the
Apostles and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn. 20:22). Contrariwise, some might argue from
Genesis 6:17 and 7:22, where ruach hayyim seems to be used of animal life and that the above
interpretation of neshmah hayyim in Genesis 2:7 is not cogent. However, the context is not at all clear
in these two passages that ruach hayyim refers to animal life.
Thirdly, Hodge argued that soul and spirit are used indiscriminately of men and of irrational
animals, for which he gives Ecclesiastes 3:21 as a proof text: “Who knows that the breath of man
ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?” This is a flimsy
basis for his point since it is clear that Solomon is speaking phenomenally of life “under the sun.” In its
context, this question came out of a cynical stage in Solomon’s thought processes. In Hodge’s day
there was little insight into the importance of genre in hermeneutics, so we can excuse his lapse.
Another argument is that ‘soul’ is ascribed to God in a number of passages. These, however, can
easily be understood as anthropomorphisms, since the Bible has many other such figures of speech.
Another is that the highest place in religion is ascribed to the soul in Mark 12:30, Luke 1:46, Heb. 6:18-
19, and James 1:21. Christ’s command to love God with “all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mk. 12:30). He does not imply that the soul is the
highest faculty of man, as alleged. Quoting from the law, the Lord is stressing that we must love God
with all of our faculties, from the highest to the lowest. Other writers have argued, however, that if we
were to press the point here, the Mosaic Law would be delineating a four-fold division of the immaterial
part of man. However, at this point in the progress of revelation, it would not have been appropriate for
God to give an analysis of man’s constituent parts. The statement is designed to best communicate to
contemporary Jews that man must love God with the totality of his being, without giving a theological
breakdown. Neither is the wording of Mary’s Magnificat (Lk. 1:46) a problem for the trichotomist. We
should exalt the Lord with both our soul and spirit, and her coordinate usage does not imply synonymity
at all. It is also appropriate for the writer of Hebrews to speak of our hope as “the anchor of the soul”
since the soul, which probably includes the emotions of man, is the part of our personhood that most
needs an anchor. James 1:21 is one good example of the Scripture’s frequent use of synecdoche, a
figure of speech in which a part, the soul, represents the whole of man.
Finally, body and soul are frequently represented as constituting the whole of man (Mt. 10:28; 1
Cor. 5:3; 3 Jn. 2) and that to lose the soul is to lose all (Mt. 16:26; Mk. 8:36-7). This is clearly a case of
metonymy, a part for the whole. But we have given significant other evidence for a distinction between
the two in regenerate believers, which must not be lightly dismissed without careful examination.
Although many theologians are fearful of affirming trichotomy because of Plato’s view and the
supposed association with ancient heresies, such as Gnosticism, Semi-Pelagianism, Annihilationism,
and Apollinarianism, Plato’s view bore no relationship to biblical trichotomy since the parts do not at all
correspond. He divided the soul into two parts: a rational, immortal soul and an irrational, mortal soul.18
As the theological center shifted from the Greek world to the Latin in Augustine’s day, trichotomy fell
into disfavor. Heard suggested that Latin does not easily cope with the distinction of soul and spirit.19
Trichotomy may have been restored by Luther, and the advocacy of Delitzsch, C. J. Ellicott, Henry
Alford (tentatively), H. P. Liddon, and R. H. Lightfoot must not be ignored.20 Thus all the data adduced
for dichotomy are fully explainable in terms of trichotomy, but the NT data for trichotomy cannot be
adequately explained by dichotomists.
1. Michael Denton, Earth’s Destiny and Evolution a Theory in Crisis.

2. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, Creation Out of Nothing.
3. Erich Sauer, The Dawn of World Redemption, p. 38.
4. Ibid., p. 28.
5. Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, II: 495-515.
6. George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago: Moody,1972), p. 56. Used by permission.
7. Ian Thomas, The Mystery of Godliness .
8. Roger T. Forster and V. Paul Marston, God’s Strategy in Human History (Bethany House, 1973), ch. 1.
9. Geisler, pp. 145-54; Tertullian, Novatian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa. Many others could be found.
10. Vos, Biblical Theology,
11. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, II, pp. 49-50.
12. Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology (Zondervan, 1990), II:167-9.
13. Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1958 [1846]), IV:84-5.
14. William F. Arndt and J. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon, p. 506.
15. J. B. Heard, The Tripartite Nature of Man: Spirit, Soul, and Body (1866).
16. Ibid, pp. 67-68.
17. Brown, Driver, & Briggs, p. 675.
18. Ibid, p. 137.
19. Ibid, p. vii.
20. H. D. McDonald, The Christian View of Man, p. 76.
He said to them, “How unwise and slow you are to believe
4
in your hearts all that the prophets have spoken! Did not
the Messiah have to suffer these thing and enter into His
glory?”Then beginning with Moses and with all the Proph-
ets, He interpreted for them in all the Scriptures the
things concerning Himself.
- Luke 24:25-7, HCSB
Only by a gradual leading on has God made known His

plans in the history of salvation. . . . Nor did this leading
on take the form of a uniform progressive advance --
comparable to an ascending straight line; but in the form
of sections of time with fixed boundaries, like steps of a
staircase leading upward. - Erich Sauer
HOW DID WORLD REDEMPTION

DAWN BEFORE CHRIST?
The last chapter focused on the plight of fallen humanity. This chapter
will revisit the Old Testament narrative to see the beginnings of the out-
working of God’s plan for the redemption of the whole world. A chronologi-
cal, sequential approach will prove to be the most helpful.1
Early Anticipations of the Gospel

Eden. When God judged Adam and Eve for their disobedience, He
gave the first hint of His wonderful plan to redeem lost mankind from sin. It
is found in His curse upon the snake as Satan’s mouthpiece: “And I will put
enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall
bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Gen. 3:15). This
most remarkable statement is both a judgment and a prophecy about the
continuing conflict between God and Satan and their representatives. The
language is very terse and enigmatic. The Hebrew word ‘seed’ can be
either singular or plural, as in the English. However, it is not hard to under-
stand the reference to Satan’s seed (or descendants) since so many people
in the world are under his power. It is seen in Christ’s strong words to some
religious leaders: “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of
your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth,
because there is no truth in him” (Jn. 8:44). One wonders at the unique expres-
sion, the seed of the woman. The only human being to whom it could
accurately apply is the Lord Jesus who was virgin-born of a woman without
54
Chapter 4 HOW DID WORLD REDEMPTION DAWN BEFORE CHRIST? 55
a human father (Isa. 7:14; Mt. 1:20-25; Lk. 1:30-35). Biblical history confirms
the enmity between Satan’s people and Christ. Although all of fallen hu-
manity is under the sway of Satan, it is clear that some key people are at the
forefront of hostility against Christ and His people, as shown below.
This understanding clarifies the last two clauses of Genesis 3:15. The
symbolism of a snake is developed here: Satan, like a snake, will attack and
bruise the unique seed of the woman, Jesus, the Messiah. Approaching His
crucifixion He said, “I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world
[Satan] is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (Jn. 14:30). Satan had entered into
Judas Iscariot to betray Him (Jn. 13:26-7). The cross was Satan’s supreme
attempt to destroy God’s Messiah. When Christ died it seemed like a victory
for Satan, but the resurrection turned the tables. It enabled Christ to bruise
or crush the head of Satan. Note the apostolic clarification: “. . . that through
death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,”
(Heb. 2:14). So here in veiled and symbolic language, God intimated that
He was beginning to implement a plan of salvation for lost mankind.
God rejected Adam and Eve’s futile attempt to cover the shame of their
sin with a garment of fig leaves since it did not involve the shedding of blood
so necessary for forgiveness (Heb. 9:22). He Himself provided garments of
the skins of sacrificed animals. The expulsion from access to the tree of life
had the positive impact of impressing them with their lost condition. They
were now under God’s judgment and needed an atonement for their sin.
Abel understood this; Cain did not! In his self-righteousness he tried to
make a vegetable offering to God. Two others of the Sethite lineage who
also clearly understood this were Enosh, who began to call upon God for
salvation, and Enoch, who walked by faith in fellowship with God (Heb.
11:5).
Noah. This godly Sethite lineage became so corrupted by the godless
Cainite civilization that only Noah was left: “But Noah found favor in the eyes of
the Lord. . . . Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with
God” (Gen. 6:8-9). Moses does not tell us how Noah became a righteous
man, but again there is an apostolic clarification (Heb. 11:6-7, NIV):
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who
comes to him must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who
earnestly seek Him. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen,
in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the
world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
After the flood Noah worshiped by making an altar and offering up animal
sacrifices as God had stipulated (Gen. 8:20-21). He blessed him and his
family and made a covenant with them. An important part emphasized the
sacredness of blood, which should not be eaten by man (Gen. 9:4). The
death penalty for murder emphasized the sacredness of human life. Instead
of revenge, there must now be civil justice administered by governments
operating under God’s authority.
The incident of Noah’s drunken nakedness confirms the indication in

the garden of Eden that nakedness is a sign of the shame of sin. Note the
carefulness of Shem and Japheth not to look on their father’s nakedness
(Gen. 9:20-23). Noah’s prophecy over his sons seems to indicate that Shem
had a deeper relationship with God, which was perpetuated in Abram’s
faith generations later. The terse statement, “May God enlarge Japheth, and let
him dwell in the tents of Shem” (Gen. 9:27), predicts the widespread influence
of Japhetic peoples and their coming under the influence of the faith of
Shem. This was fulfilled as faith in the Jewish Messiah has spread most
widely among descendants of Japheth. Ham’s indifference to the shame of
his father’s nakedness was passed on to his son Canaan, who came under
God’s curse. Centuries later the Canaanites became a corrupt and grossly
immoral people whom God judged through the Israelites.A
Idolatry. A most significant descendant of Ham and Cush was Nimrod,
a powerful leader and hunter in his day. He was the founder of Babel (Bab-
ylon) and of Nineveh in Assyria (Gen. 10:8-12). God judged the builders of
the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). This tower is easily identifiable as a ziggu-
rat, remnants of which have been excavated in the Mesopotamian plain.
Ziggurats had a religious significance as a place for idolatrous worship. This
identifies Nimrod as the originator of idolatry, from which a whole system of
idolatry spread over the Middle East.2 This is the ultimate insult to the
Creator God and yet continues to be a major problem in human culture.
Gentile nations. Just before the record of the call of Abram, the lin-
eage of the seventy peoples descended from Noah (Gen. 10) is given. It is
fascinating to connect them to nations in history and modern times.3 A
major point is that in calling out one special people to be the bearers of the
promise of redemption, God did not forget the Gentile nations. Although
from this point on, the rest of the Old Testament focuses on the nation
Israel, the goal was the salvation of all peoples. This is alluded to through-
out the Old Testament but only comes back into focus in the end of Christ’s
ministry.
The Call of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel

Over half of the human race is connected to a religion, whether Jewish,
Christian, or Muslim, which believes that Abraham was an outstanding man
of faith. God called him from the descendants of Shem, who had degener-
ated into idolatry at Babel on the Mesopotamian plain, in order to start a
new nation which would not only worship the one true God, but also spread
the message of His coming Messiah and Redeemer among the pagans.
Abraham wasn’t the only true believer of his day. His nephew Lot, who
A. The curse on Canaan had nothing to do with race, since the Canaanites were not black. The
descendants of the four sons of Ham are represented in Egyptian hieroglyphic friezes as having vastly
differing racial characteristics. The issue here was moral failure, not race.
accompanied him at first; Melchizedek, king of Salem, whom he encoun-

tered in the promised land; and Job, a likely contemporary, are others. So
this was not a call to salvation. It was a call to a land at the crossroads of
the continents from which the message of the one true God could go out to
Africa, Europe, and Asia. God made the purpose of the call very clear: “And
I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so
you shall be a blessing; . . . and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed”
(Gen. 12:2-3). Abram was commissioned to be a witness and a missionary
reaching out from the promised land to the pagans of the world.
It was over forty years after God called and commissioned Abraham to
be a blessing to the whole world, that He revealed how he would ultimately
become the unique channel of blessing. When he obeyed God in starting to
offer up his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, God gave additional intimation of
the coming Messiah: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,
because you have obeyed My voice” (Gen. 22:18).B God’s plan was that Abra-
ham himself and his family were to be a blessing and channel of truth to the
nations, which was only partially fulfilled, and moreover that His unique
descendant would be the ultimate cause of salvation’s blessings to the
nations. A major part of God’s plan for blessing the nations was to be the
nation Israel itself. This is why most of the Old Testament focused upon the
Jewish nation and its successes and failures in being the recipients of God’s
blessing and therefore channels of blessing to the world. Ralph Winter has
suggested that the common assumption which minimizes the call of Abra-
ham himself and the Jewish nation to be witnesses, should be called the
“Theory of the Hibernating Mandate,” that is, that the mandate hibernated for two
thousand years until Christ. In this connection he said, “The greatest scandal in
the Old Testament is that Israel tried to be blessed without trying very hard to be a bless-
ing.”4
God made many promises to Abraham, mostly confirmed with a cove-
nant contract. Some were unconditional, such as the ultimate giving of the
land to his descendants. Others were conditional, such as, the enjoyment
of the land by each generation of Israelites (see Deut. 19). The most impor-
tant feature of Abraham’s life, reinforced in the New Testament, is his trust
in God’s promises and being put into right standing with God as a result.
When Abraham was yet childless and God promised him descendants as
numerous as the stars and seashore sand, Abraham’s trust in this incredible
promise is declared to be the basis of his salvation: “Then he believed in the
LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Remember that
Abraham was almost one hundred years old and his wife Sarah, ninety.
Two thousand years later, Paul made this the basis for explaining the truth
of justification by faith alone (Rom. 3:24–4:25). Paul made clear that faith in
the salvation promises of God is the only condition for salvation.
B. This is the only one of the many times God made promises to Abraham which precisely fulfills the
Apostle Paul’s explanation in Galatians 4:15-16 of this as a promise of the Messiah.
Although his faith was the only condition for his right standing with
God, Abraham continued in faith to worship God by building altars in differ-
ent places in the promised land and making the stipulated blood sacrifices
thereupon (Gen. 12:7, 8; 13:4, 18, etc.). The covenant God made with him
was sealed with the shed blood of animal sacrifices to certify to Abraham
that God would surely give him the land (Gen. 15:9-21). This was clearly
unconditional since only God passed between the parts of the sacrificed
animals in Abraham’s dream. Unfortunately, Abraham and his descendants
did not always walk in obedience to God and enjoy the promised blessing
in that land. Still, the promise of ultimate Messianic blessing was secure.
Ishmael. Abraham and Sarah compromised with the local corrupt
culture in the birth of Ishmael through her handmaid, Hagar. This was a
carnal way of trying to help God out in providing offspring for themselves as
childless. Although Ishmael was not to be the channel of Messianic bless-
ing, God did promise to bless him and his descendants (Gen. 17:20-21): “As
for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and
will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will
make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will
bear to you at this season next year.” God’s blessing upon Ishmael (whose
name means ‘God hears’) is a clear indication that he was a believer. Previ-
ously when Hagar fled from Sarai, she came to know God as “the living One
who sees me” (Gen. 16:13-14). She must have shared that knowledge of the
true God with Ishmael. The covenant to be reaffirmed to Isaac and Jacob
did not exclude Ishmael and his descendants from faith and salvation but
was rather about the appointed lineage through whom the Messiah would
come.C When Sarah insisted that Hagar and Ishmael should be expelled
from the family, Abraham did not do it in an ethical way, so God had to
intervene to preserve his life (Gen. 21:9-21). In recounting this story, Moses
reaffirmed: “God was with the lad, and he grew; and he lived in the wilderness and
became an archer” (Gen. 21:20). Clearly the selection of Isaac over Ishmael
was not an issue of salvation. Unfortunately, the circumstances of Ishmael’s
expulsion must have negatively affected his walk with God and that of his
descendants, who ultimately reverted back into paganism.
Birth and resurrection. There are two significant things about Isaac
which in a wonderful way look forward to the salvation God was to provide
through his descendant, the Messiah. The first was his miraculous birth.
For Sarah to bear a child at the age of ninety long past the child-bearing age,
was an incredible miracle. Her barren womb had to be totally rejuvenated!
C. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were commissioned or appointed, as the Heb. bãchar and the Gk.
eklegomai mean. It was used only of people appointed to an office with a responsibility attached, such
as Moses, David, Solomon, etc. (cf. Ch. 23). It is significant that probably more Arab descendants of
Ishmael today are believers in Christ than Hebrew Christians and are turning to Christ by the millions.
Some misread Romans 9 to imply that God had sovereignly elected Isaac to salvation and Ishmael to
go to hell. If God blessed him and “was with the lad,” he must have been a believer.
Although Isaac had a human father, this is anticipatory of the miraculous

birth of the Lord Jesus of a virgin. God was conditioning the minds of
Isaac’s descendants to be open to a miraculously born Messiah. For Abra-
ham it involved a tremendous step of faith explained in Romans 4:17-21:
. . . in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead
and calls into being that which does not exist. In hope against hope he believed, so
that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been
spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” Without becoming weak in faith he con-
templated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years
old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he
did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being
fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.
The second signal event in Isaac’s life was his being offered up as a
sacrifice by his father. Adherents of all three monotheistic world religions
believe that Abraham offered up a son on Mount Moriah, even though the
Muslims think it was Ishmael. Although God did not allow him to be actu-
ally sacrificed by providing a ram, this anticipated the sacrifice of God’s own
Son two thousand years later on that same mountain (2 Chron. 3:1). It was
not just in the sacrifice that this anticipated the passion of Christ, but also in
the anticipation of resurrection. “Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with
the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to
you’” (Gen. 22:5). Abraham expected to bring the lad back with him. There
is a New Testament explanation of this in Hebrews 11:17-19:
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received
the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said,
“In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” He considered that God is able to raise
people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
In this connection Martin Luther said, “Faith reconciles contradictions.” Thus
Abraham had a resurrection faith, even though there was no actual resur-
rection necessary in this typological anticipation of Christ’s resurrection two
millenniums later. This indicates how God was laying the foundation for the
ultimate realization and implementation of His plan of salvation through the
cross and resurrection of Abraham’s ultimate descendant, Jesus Christ.
Two nations. Isaac was not a major player in the drama of the dawn
of redemption. But when his wife Rebekah was barren, he prayed and God
gave them twins, Jacob and Esau. When she asked the LORD about her
difficult pregnancy, He answered, “Two nations are in your womb; and two peo-
ples will be separated from your body; and one people shall be stronger than the
other; and the older shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23). From the subsequent
narrative we know that God chose the younger, Jacob, to be the father of
the Jewish nation. But God’s choice of Jacob over Esau did not pre-deter-
mine their salvation. God’s word to Rebekah makes it clear that the issue
was all about two nations, the Jews and the Edomites since the unfolding
story shows that Esau never personally served Jacob. Indeed, Jacob served
Esau a stew getting him to give up his birthright and years later bowed
down in obeisance to his brother. But Esau’s descendants, the Edomites,
did indeed serve the nation Israel from King David’s time until the Babylo-
nian captivity.D
Jacob’s relationship with Esau went from bad to worse. Defrauding
him of his father’s blessing indicates Isaac and Rebekah had not nurtured
their sons’ faith in the LORD (Gen. 27). Rather there seems to be little indi-
cation of any faith until Jacob had the dream at Bethel of the ladder from
heaven to earth and God’s promise that the covenant would be perpetuated
through him (Gen. 28:10-22). His understanding of God’s ways at that point
seems minimal, and until his wrestling with the Angel of the LORD at Peniel
years later, his lifestyle did not show much impact of his faith.
Before his death, Jacob’s prophecies over his twelve sons was the high
point of his life, especially since it included the clear Messianic reference to
the Messiah coming through the line of Judah: “The scepter shall not depart
from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it
belongs, and to him, shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gen. 49:10, NAS,
margin).E Although Joseph was not so honored, his life of faith and godli-
ness was an outstanding testimony both to his own family and to the idola-
trous Egyptians. God’s choice of Judah for the Messiah’s lineage and Jo-
seph’s far superior faith and life are hard to connect. In Roman 9, Paul
argued for God’s absolute sovereignty in His commissioning of the lineage
of His choice people and of the Messiah. This was a national issue.
Israel’s Redemption out of Egypt

God’s plan of redemption seemed to have been on hold for four centu-
ries, while Israel was growing to be a great nation in bondage in Egypt and
the situation in the promised land was ripening for Israel’s conquest in
judgment upon the polluted Canaanites (Gen. 15:16). Egyptian religion was
also due for God’s judgments. Since idolatrous and naturistic religion was a
continuing insult to the one true Creator God, His plan for emancipating
Israel from slavery in Egypt had a double purpose. Egyptians worshiped the
Pharaoh as divine and many animals representing their polytheistic deities.
The ten plagues which God brought upon them were judgments upon the
blasphemous divine claims of Pharaoh and the absurd worship of God’s
creatures by the Egyptians. The descendants of the patriarchs were badly
D. Some Christians have misused reference in Romans 9 to this verse to teach that God sovereignly
elected Jacob to salvation and Esau to hell. Although Esau was an unbeliever who despised his
birthright (Heb. 12:16-17), his lack of faith is more attributable to the poor spiritual dynamic of Isaac’s
family life and the impact of the pagan culture surrounding their family. God specially commissioned
Jacob to be the father of His choice people, Israel. Salvation was not the issue.
E. The Lord Jesus was the last possible candidate to fulfill this messianic prophecy because the
scepter of government had already departed from Judah before He was crucified. Herod did not have
the authority to execute Him, which was retained by the Romans through Pontius Pilate. By the
destruction of Jerusalem (AD 70), any shred of governmental authority had totally departed from Judah.
compromised by the polytheism of the Egyptians and were also subject to

grueling slavery. Due to the rapid growth of the Hebrews, the Egyptians
began a kind of genocide by killing the male Hebrew babies. God not only
spared Moses but also gave him an upbringing in Pharaoh’s household. His
abortive attempt to mitigate the slavery of his people forced him to spend
forty years in the wilderness in preparation for leading Israel out of Egypt.
When the Hebrews cried out to the God of their fathers, He not only
sent Moses to be the instrument of liberation (Ex. 2:23-25), but also began to
reveal Himself more fully by His personal, covenant name, YAHWEH, the
self-existent One (Ex. 3:14-16; 6:2-8).5 Redemption out of Egypt is a wonder-
ful picture of our redemption in Christ. Israel had to recognize their need
and cry out to God (Ex. 2:23-25). This is basic to our salvation as well.
Moses first had to deal with an arrogant Pharaoh. Five times he de-
scribed Pharaoh’s heart as being characteristically hard (Ex. 7:13-14, 22;
8:19; 9:7) and twice that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (8:15, 32). Since
God had a purpose to bring judgment upon this idolatrous nation and its
leader, He stated His intention beforehand, “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart
that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt” (7:3).F God
fulfilled this in the five times He hardened Pharaoh’s heart judgmentally (Ex.
9:12; 10:1, 20; 11:10; 14:8). Note carefully that Pharaoh had hardened his
own heart first! God later said to Pharaoh, “But, indeed, for this reason I have
allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My
name through all the earth. Still you exalt yourself against My people by not letting
them go” (Ex. 9:16-7). So God’s purpose was clearly to make an example of
Pharaoh and his idolatrous system as a testimony to a whole world of idola-
ters.
On the first confrontation with Pharaoh and his magicians, God dem-
onstrated their impotence by the miracle of Aaron’s rod. The ten plagues
which God then poured out upon the Egyptians can be directly connected
with their worship of the elements of nature. They worshiped the Nile River
so God turned it into blood (Ex. 7:14-25). They worshiped the sun so the
ninth plague was darkness over the land. The issue of each confrontation
was the Hebrews’ request that they be allowed to go out of the land to
make animal sacrifices to the LORD (8:25-29).
Passover. The Passover judgment on the firstborn sons of Egypt most
clearly foreshadowed Christ’s redemption. The Hebrews applied the blood
of sacrificed lambs to the doorposts and lintels of their homes so that their
firstborn sons would be passed over by the angel of death (Ex. 12:1-32).
God’s emphasized the centrality of blood: “The blood shall be a sign for you on
the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no
F. Paul quoted this verse in Romans 9, not to prove that God reprobated Pharaoh to hell, but rather to
make an example of this blasphemous leader of idolatrous religion as a testimony to the other nations,
that they might see that He alone is the true God, the Creator. Paul had stated the principle in Romans
1:24, 26, 28 that God judgmentally gave the most hardened pagans over to a depraved mind.
plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt” (Ex. 12:13). In
all the plagues, God said He had set a division or ransom between the
Egyptians and the Jews (Ex. 8:23, see note). He made the Passover feast
the center of Israel’s worship as a memorial to His powerful intervention.
When Christ’s herald, John, said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29), the Jews should have understood the implica-
tions. Christ was crucified on the Passover feast and in celebrating the
Passover with His Apostles transformed it into a new memorial feast, the
Lord’s Supper. Paul confirmed the connection: “For Christ our Passover also
has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). Not only were the Jews to eat lamb each
year in the Passover feast but also to observe the feast of unleavened bread.
Christ claimed to be its fulfillment by saying, “I am the bread of life; he who
comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst” (Jn. 6:35).
Not only was the blood of the lamb shed but had to be applied to the
lintel and doorposts to be effective. In a parallel way Christ’s blood not only
had to be shed, but also it must be applied by faith in Him to be effective in
our lives. Christ emphasized the imperative of believing to receive eternal
life (Jn. 6:35, 40, 47). Then He used the symbolism of hyperbole to empha-
size the importance of personal appropriation by faith: “Very truly I tell you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in
you” (Jn. 6:53, TNIV). This could not be a reference to the Lord’s Supper
which had not yet been instituted. Rather it emphasizes the necessity of
appropriation of Christ’s sacrifice personally by faith.
Another important detail of the liberation out of Egypt God wanted
Israel to remember was that He had ransomed them out of slavery. Al-
though not explained explicitly, the blood of many lambs was the ransom
price, and the main point is that they were liberated. This clearly is a picture
of Christ’s redemption, which liberates us from the slavery of sin. Indeed, in
bringing them into the promised land, God was beginning the process of
freeing Israel from the idolatry and sin with which they had compromised in
Egypt.
When Israel grumbled against God in the wilderness, He judged them
with poisonous snakes, killing many people. When they pled for mercy,
Moses lifted up a bronze image of a snake on a pole and those who looked
on it were spared from death. Christ referred to this: “As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:14-15). The bronze
snake represented judged sin, as did the cross of Christ. Sin was judged in
the cross, and just as the Israelites needed to look to that bronze snake to
be healed, just so people must look by faith to the Crucified One to receive
eternal life. There must be a personal appropriation by faith.
The Giving of the Mosaic Law

A rule of life. The Ten Commandments were the foundation of the
moral code spelling out in great detail the rule of life for this new nation. It
also provided judicial laws for providing justice among the people. An
important purpose in the giving of the law was to bring the people under the
conviction of their sin so that they might look to God and His Messiah for
salvation (Rom. 3:19-20). At its heart are the Levitical sacrifices, which were
offered by the Aaronic priests in the tabernacle according to God’s pattern.
This would provide temporary atonement (covering) for the sins of the
people until the coming Messiah could pay the full penalty (Rom. 3:24-6;
Heb. 9:15). In addition, it provided a system of worship for God’s people.
Thus in a sense, it was both a way of death and a way of life for the nation
Israel. (The gospel is also a way of death and a way of life, cf. 2 Cor. 2:15-
16.) As the New Testament clarifies, a major purpose of the moral code
was to help people see themselves as lost sinners. Thus, it pointed to the
sacrificial system as the remedy for sin, albeit only temporarily. The law
was only a shadow of the full reality to be provided ultimately in God’s
Messiah.
Why the Law? After seeing the glories of the Abrahamic covenant,
one wonders why God gave the law. Abraham came into right standing
with God by faith alone and had an inward, simple, and personal relation-
ship with God. Why add the law with its complexity, outwardness, and
seeming negativity? But significant failures in the lives of Abraham, Isaac,
certainly Jacob, and especially his sons demonstrate the need for more
specific guidance in living a life pleasing to God. Only Joseph seemed to
have been able to live an exemplary life of faith without the burden of the
law. Their descendants fell into such deep compromise with the religion of
the Canaanites that it took centuries of living under the law to root out the
worst pagan influences from the nation. Even in the golden age under
David and Solomon, compromises with idolatry and a heathen lifestyle
were only too evident.
Symbols and types. Each feature of the Mosaic law was significant
both for their day and also as pictures of the coming realization of salvation
in Christ. A most important part of the Mosaic system was the animal sacri-
fices since the shedding of blood is so important in the sight of God. As
emphasized to Noah, blood is sacred since it represents life. He made this
clear in the law: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you
on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life
that makes atonement” (Lev. 17:11). Just as the blood atoned for the sins of
the Israelites by covering them, far more profoundly the blood of Christ
provided a complete propitiation and redemption price for the sins of all
mankind.
God gave Israel a tabernacle in the wilderness as the only place where
sacrifices could be made. The pagans made their sacrifices on every high
hill, but God emphasized that there was only one place where acceptable
sacrifices to Him could be made. That tabernacle was later replaced with
the temple in Jerusalem. It was called the ‘tent of meeting’ because it was
the special place where people could meet with God. The ark of the cove-
nant in the ‘holy of holies’ in the tabernacle was the ultimate place where
the sins of Israel were dealt with on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) by
the sprinkling of the blood by the high priest. Correspondingly, today we
know that the fulfillment in the sacrifice of Christ’s blood is the only way of
salvation for sinful mankind (Jn. 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5-6).
The Aaronic priests were the only ones permitted to offer up sacrifices
on the brazen altar in the tabernacle, and the high priest was the only one
allowed to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the ark of the covenant on
Yom Kippur. Since Jesus Christ is the only one qualified as the supernatural
Son of God, He alone could make the ultimate blood sacrifice for our sin.
It should be emphasized that the whole Levitical system, having been
perfectly fulfilled in Christ’s offering up of Himself, was therefore only tem-
porary. We must not in any way perpetuate features of the Levitical system
today.G Indeed, forty years after the sacrifice of Christ, God shut off any
possibility of restoration by having the Romans destroy the temple in Jerusa-
lem (AD 70). There are now no qualified Aaronic priests, and God is no
longer impressed with the blood of animals, since the blood of His Son is far
more precious. It should also be noted that the token of the Mosaic Cove-
nant, which was the sabbath, was also a temporary sign given only to Israel
(Ex. 31:17) and is no longer binding on the church today, but it was rather a
picture of the coming salvation rest in the finished work of Christ.
Humanity’s Record of Wilful Depravity

In surveying redemption history up to this point, it is clear human de-
pravity was manifest on every hand. Before the flood the godless Cainite
civilization had so corrupted the godly Sethite lineage that only Noah and his
family remained true to God, and revengeful violence had become domi-
nant (Gen. 6:11-13). “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on
the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in
His heart” (Gen. 6:5-6). It might be said that human free will had gone amok!
The record after the flood was not any better with the development of
idolatry at Babel, the sexual depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah, and wars
among nations escalating. Even God’s commissioned nation, Israel, lapsed
spiritually in Egypt, and after the liberation became so godless that He
threatened to destroy them in favor of Moses’ lineage (Exod. 32:25–33:5).
After the repeated cycles of apostasy and deliverance during the period of
the Judges, God’s verdict was: “everyone did what was right in his own eyes”
(Judg. 21:25). All this is human free will gone amok!
The biblical narrative raises two theological questions. Did God eter-
G. There is a striking correspondence between the Levitical and Roman Catholic liturgical systems.
Both have a priesthood, temples (cathedrals), and multiple sacrifices (the unbloody sacrifice of the mass).
The New Testament church knows nothing of priests, temples, or sacrifices.
nally decree explicitly all this human sin and depravity? There is not a shred
of evidence that He did! Human free will fully accounts for the record. Did
God give free will to mankind to sin and disobey him, without any free will
to respond to His gracious offer of salvation through Christ? This is what
many Christian believe, but it is inconceivable!
Israel’s Davidic Dynasty

After the wilderness wanderings, God brought Israel into the promised
land under Joshua’s military leadership and His own supernatural power.
Israel did very poorly in the land under a sequence of judges. God gave in
to Israel’s demand for a king like the nations around them. But it was a
judgment upon them for rejecting Him as their King since the first king, Saul,
sinned in usurping the place of the priesthood in himself offering up sacri-
fices (1 Sam. 13:8-12).
God overruled their sin and disobedience by giving them a good king,
David, the father of a kingly dynasty. David was in the prophesied lineage of
Judah (Gen. 49:10). After David proved to be a man after God’s own heart,
God made a covenant with him which promised, not only a kingly dynasty
but also especially one unique descendant who would establish an eternal
kingdom (2 Sam. 7:12-16). This was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus from the
lineage of David, both from His actual mother, Mary (Lk. 3:23), and also
from His legal father, Joseph (Mt. 1:24-5). It seemed that the Davidic dy-
nasty came to an end when Jerusalem was destroyed and King Zedekiah
was taken captive to Babylon in 586 BC, the last of a lineage of good and
bad kings. Unfortunately, the priestly lineage of Aaron was also marred by
many who were not faithful to God. But God in His own time restored the
kingly dynasty of David in a supernaturally born Son. He would not be just a
King, but also a Great High Priest and the ultimate Prophet of God.
Prophecies of the Coming Messiah

At the end of his ministry, Moses had alerted the nation Israel that: “The
LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your
countrymen, you shall listen to him” (Deut. 18:15). In the first instance, it is a
reference to the true prophets who would speak God’s message to the
nation over the centuries. They were to be both fore-tellers of the future as
well as forth-tellers of God’s will for the present. The final fulfillment of this
prophecy is the Lord Jesus Himself. The Messiah was to be both a prophet
and the subject of prediction by the prophets.
His unique lineage. The prophesies of His unique lineage were seen
in Genesis 3:15, 22:18, and 49:10, which limited it to the tribe of Judah. The
prophet Nathan was sent to King David to give him God’s promise of a
perpetual dynasty (2 Sam. 7 & 1 Chron. 17). God also sent many other
prophets to reaffirm the Davidic dynasty. Isaiah was the channel for many
of the most graphic portrayals of the coming Messiah. In Isaiah 4 and 11,
there is a striking description of the reign of the Messiah, God’s branch from
the roots of Jesse (David’s father). Centuries later, Jeremiah prophesied at
the time of the Babylonian conquest, that although King Jeconiah had come
under a curse for his sin (Jer. 22:28-30), the Messiah would nevertheless still
come through David: “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I
will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He will reign as king and act wisely . . .
And this is His name by which He will be called, the LORD our righteousness’” (Jer.
23:5-6). God worked out this seeming contradiction in that the Lord Jesus’
legal father, Joseph, although Jeconiah’s descendant, was not his actual
father (Mt. 1). His lineage through Mary came down through another son of
David, Nathan (Lk. 3 ). Only a legal son of Joseph of Nazareth and one who
was not physically his son could qualify as the Messiah without coming
under the curse on King Jeconiah. The Lord Jesus is the only person in
history who could qualify to be the Messiah of prophecy.
A virgin-born divine Messiah. The explicit virgin-birth prophecy,
given over seven centuries beforehand (Isa. 7:14) and the miraculous births
of Isaac and John the Baptizer should have opened the minds of the Israel-
ites to the possibility of an even more supernatural birth of the Messiah
Himself.H Both Matthew and Luke gave explicit testimony to this birth—
Matthew from Joseph’s perspective, and Luke from Mary’s.
The prophet Micah gave the place of Christ’s birth, Bethlehem, which
was David’s hometown (Micah 5:1-5). In this remarkable prophecy a clear
indication is given that the Messiah would be not merely human but also
divine. In Isaiah it is clarified that the Messiah, although born in Bethlehem,
would arise in Galilee, where Nazareth is located. The child to be born was
also to be the Son given by God, who Himself would be properly called the
“Mighty God, Progenitor of Ages, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6, Unger).I The way in
which this would be accomplished was revealed when Isaiah confronted
King Ahaz, a representative of the house of David, that the Messiah’s birth
would be an outstanding miraculous sign of a virgin birth, and that the child
born would actually be Emmanuel, ‘God with us’ (Isa. 7:10-14).
King David himself also proved to be a prophet. Psalm 110 is quoted
more times in the New Testament (7) than any other passage, and Peter
used it in the Pentecost sermon as proof of the deity of the Messiah:
The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies
H. The liberal translations, such as the RSV, sought to undermine this unique virgin birth prophecy by
rendering almah as a young woman, but all seven usages of this word in the Hebrew are consistent with
the translation ‘virgin.’ The Septuagint translators, over two centuries before Christ, rendered it into
Greek as parthenos, which can only mean virgin. It is not a reference to a woman in Isaiah’s day, as
Hengstenberg showed over a century ago, but rather by prophetic perspective is distinguishing Shear-
jashub, a sign for king Ahaz (7:16), from the sign for the future house of David, the virgin born Emmanuel.
I. My Hebrew professor, Merrill F. Unger, suggested that this is a more appropriate translation, which has
the advantage of avoiding confusion of the persons of the Trinity. This is confirmed by Hebrews 1:1-2,
where aion, speaks of the time-space universe. Cf. Unger, Commentary on the OT, p. 1168.
a footstool for Your feet.” The LORD will stretch forth Your strong scepter
from Zion, saying, “Rule in the midst of Your enemies.” . . . The LORD has
sworn and will not change His mind, “You are a priest forever according to
the order of Melchizedek.” (Ps. 110:1-2, 4)
The point is that David called the Messiah his Lord, while we know that
physically the Lord Jesus was his son (descendant). Two other Psalms
indicate Israel should have been looking for a divine Messiah. In Psalm
45:6-7, although the Messiah is clearly human, He is addressed as God by
God the Father and will rule over His kingdom: “Your throne, O God, is forever
and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved
righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, Your God has anointed You with
the oil of joy above Your fellows.”
His predicted passion. Secondly, Psalm 22 is the most extensive
Messianic prophecy from David’s pen which amazingly describes the cruci-
fixion hundreds of years before that cruel form of execution was even in-
vented. The Psalm opens with Christ’s words from the cross. In 22:6-8, the
prediction of Messiah’s rejection by His own people includes the words of
mockery by the rulers; in vv. 11-18, the mob of enemies surrounding Him,
the thirst, the nakedness, the stress on the body, even the piercing of His
hands and feet are described in 22:14-17, and the Roman soldiers casting
lots for his clothing (22:18). His prayer (Heb. 5:7) for victory out of it by His
glorious resurrection is implied in 22:22-31, the consequent global
evangelization and kingdom. Just as David described the physical realities
of the crucifixion, even so Isaiah described its spiritual significance in Isaiah
52:13–53:12: “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we
esteemed him striken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for
our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us
peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (53:4-5, NIV). Psalm 2:2, 7,
12 spoke of the glorious resurrection of Christ (cf. Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5; 5:4):
The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together
against the LORD and against His Anointed [Messiah], . . . I will surely tell
of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have
brought You forth.’ . . . Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry,
and you perish in the way (Olson translation).
Psalm 16:10-11 is the prophecy of the resurrection quoted by Peter on the
day of Pentecost, which confirms the truth of Psalm Two: “For You will not
abandon my soul to Sheol; nor will you allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You
will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your
right hand there are pleasures forever.”
Two centuries after Isaiah, God gave Daniel many revelations concern-
ing the Messiah including the time of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem
(Dan. 9:24-27). The angel Gabriel told him that “. . . from the issuing of a decree
to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince . . .” there would be a
period of sixty-nine weeks or heptads of years. Although the calculation is

complex, the best date for the decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus is 444 BC
and for the crucifixion is AD 33. This is a remarkably accurate prediction.6
The Jewish nation puzzled for centuries about two different and seem-
ingly contradictory lines of Messianic prophesies. Peter gave, what seems
obvious to us now, the answer of the two comings of the Messiah: “As to this
salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made
careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of
Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the suffering of Christ and the
glories to follow” (1 Pet. 1:10-11).
Conclusions
The Old Testament foundation for the New Testament gospel message
has been surveyed. In response to the depraved plight of a sinful human
race, God made preparations for the coming of a divine Messiah to deal
with sin once and for all by the shedding of His own blood. But before sinful
mankind could respond to the offer of salvation, they must first recognize
their sinful, lost condition. A major purpose of the giving of the Mosaic law
was to expose man’s sinfulness.7 The whole Old Testament looked forward
to the coming Messiah both in pictured anticipations and direct prophecies.
1. Erich Sauer, The Dawn of World Redemption.

2. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons.
3. Arthur C. Custance, The Three Sons of Noah.
4. Ralph Winter, “The Long Look: Eras of Missions History” Perspectives (1981 ed.), p. 168.
5. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology, pp. 114-118.
6. Sir Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince. Anderson’s calculation, made a century ago, was based upon 445
BC and 32 AD, but more recent research indicates that both should be adjusted by one year.
7. Trevor McIlwain, Building on Firm Foundations. (Sanford, FL: New Tribes Mission, 1988)
One of the most enduring errors, the root fallacy
5
presupposes that every word has a meaning bound
up with its shape or its components. In this view,
meaning is determined by etymology; that is, by
the root or roots of a word. - D. A. Carson
The student should learn once and for all that ev-
ery single letter added to a Greek root adds some-
thing to the idea expressed by the root.
- William Douglas Chamberlain
IS CHRIST’S PASSION
MORE THAN AN ATONEMENT?
A major problem in getting the message of salvation straight is fuzziness

in the definition of terms used. Erroneous definitions of words leads to
erroneous conclusions. Much confusion and tension in theology stem from
sloppy definitions developed over centuries. Massive recent linguistic work
has not corrected many of these past errors.
Communists talked about “rectification of terms,” but unfortunately they
frequently distorted word meanings to their own nefarious ends. In biblical
studies, honest and careful definition of crucial terms is imperative to arrive
at sound results in doctrine. The Old Testament picture of atonement and
New Testament terms, such as, sacrifice, propitiation, ransom-redemption,
redemption-liberation, and reconciliation, require precise definition.
Old Testament Atonement

There is a serious anomaly in theological literature in the widespread
usage of the word ‘atonement’ for the cross, when in fact this word does not
occur in the New Testament (except once in the KJV). Its continued use has
been justified on the basis of its overwhelming usage for centuries and the
difficulty of changing at this stage of the game. However, there may also be
theological bias in its continued use. Some feel that the difference between
atonement and the actual Greek words is so insignificant that change is not
worth serious consideration. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Lewis Sperry Chafer, John Walvoord, and Robert Lightner have high-
lighted the differences between the three major New Testament terms,
redemption, propitiation, and reconciliation and have shown their impor-
tance in understanding the cross.1 There are actually eight different Greek
69
words for redemption, and there is a significant distinction in meaning be-

tween these words. Thus, it is irresponsible to continue to use a blanket term
which obscures these unique meanings. To continue to call the passion of
Christ ‘the atonement,’ when in fact the word is never used in the New
Testament, is not conducive to the precision for which the science of theology
should be known. Such imprecision is blameworthy in the physical sciences
and ought also to be in the “queen of sciences” as well.
The term atonement is especially objectionable since it only describes
the Levitical sacrifices, which were not a final dealing with sin and only
anticipated the saving death of Christ. The anticipation clearly falls far short
of the fulfillment, as the writer of Hebrews emphasized (Heb. 7:18-9; 8:6-13;
10:1-14). Therefore, it would be helpful to suggest a better term for theologi-
cal usage which would be both accurate and comprehensive enough to
include the many New Testament words. Consider sacrifice, cross-work,
and/or passion as being more helpful. The benefit of distinguishing distinct
terms is to enable investigation of the distinction between objective and
subjective aspects of salvation, so essential to a precise understanding of the
cross. Most significant is the character of the One sacrificed. The Lord Jesus
was not just a man–He was the God-man!
The Uniqueness of the One Sacrificed

Jesus the Messiah is not to be compared with the animal sacrifices, but
rather contrasted starkly, even though they typified Him. He was not just a
man but God incarnate in human flesh. Many don’t adequately emphasize
His uniqueness in preaching and writing today. The unique prophecies of
His virgin birth, death, and resurrection were highlighted in the previous
chapter. No founder of a world religion has even made claims which at all
compare to Christ’s own claims of deity. Even the Qur’an gives testimony to
some aspects of the unique and supernatural character of the Lord Jesus.
His unique lineage. The prophesies of His unique lineage were seen in
Genesis 3:15, 22:18, and 49:10, which limit it to the tribe of Judah. Prophetic
testimony was also seen to His arising out of the promised Davidic dynasty
(2 Sam. 7; Jer. 23:5-6) and His being God incarnate (Isa. 7:14; 9:6-7; Ps. 2;
45:6-7; 110:1-4). Only a legal son of Joseph of Nazareth and one who was
not physically his son could qualify as the Messiah without coming under the
curse on King Jeconiah. The Lord Jesus is the only person in history who
can qualify to be the Messiah of prophecy (cf. pp. 65-66).
His unique virgin birth. The explicit virgin-birth prophecy, given over
seven centuries beforehand (Isa. 7:14) and the miraculous births of Isaac
and John the Baptizer should have opened the minds of the nation Israel to
the possibility of the even more supernatural birth of the Messiah Himself.
Both Matthew and Luke gave explicit testimony to this birth—Matthew from
Joseph’s perspective, and Luke from Mary’s (cf. p. 66).
Chapter 5 IS CHRIST’S PASSION MORE THAN AN ATONEMENT? 71
His uniquely sinless life. Not only did the Lord Jesus claim to be
without sin (“Which of you convicts Me of sin?” Jn. 8:46), but also the Gospel
records portray Him as such. Both Paul and Peter affirmed His sinlessness
(2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:21-4; 3:18), making it clear that for Him to be a sacrifice
for our sins, He Himself had to be sinless. The Levitical sacrifices had to be
without blemish or spot to portray Him adequately. Some skeptics have
picked at imagined flaws, but without success. For example, Bertrand
Russell criticized the Lord for cursing the fig tree in frustration, when it is
clear Christ was making an object lesson of the tree, as a picture of fruitless
Israel. No other world religious leader claimed sinlessness. For example,
although Muslims claim the sinlessness of all the prophets, Muhammad is
said to have repented ninety-nine times a day.
His unique miracles of compassion. Most of the forty miracles of
Christ recorded in the Gospels were interventions of love and compassion
for hurting people. This stands in bold contrast to the purported miracles in
the fabricated Gnostic gospels from centuries later, which had absurd
miracles performed like a magic show. Giving sight to the man born blind,
restoring the centurion’s servant, the nobleman’s son, the man with the
withered hand, the ten lepers cleansed, and most of all, raising the son of the
widow of Nain, Jairus’s daughter, and Lazarus– all come to mind. No other
founder of a world religion claimed to have done anything like this.
His unique mastery over nature. Most of the rest of Christ’s miracles
show an incredible mastery over the forces of nature, starting with turning
water into wine, the miraculous draft of fish, and walking on water. The
multiplication of bread and fish to feed many thousands happened twice,
having Peter catch a fish to supply the coin for the temple tax, and most
impressively, the stilling of the raging storm are a few of the more significant
miracles. No other founder of a world religion claimed to do these.
His unique and penetrating teachings. The teachings of other found-
ers of world religions are chaff compared with the Sermon on the Mount and
the other significant teachings of the Lord Jesus. Even the great Hindu
political leader, Mahatma Gandhi, thought that the Sermon on the Mount
was the best but did not become a Christian because of the exclusivity of the
gospel. The Golden Rule alone stands above all their utterances (Mt. 7:12).
His gentle, confrontational witness. Nothing in the life of any other
religious leader compares with the witness of the Lord Jesus to Nicodemus,
the Samaritan woman (and subsequently the people of Sychar), the rich
young ruler, Matthew the tax collector, Zaccheus the extortioner, etc.
His bold confrontation of apostate religious leaders. Time and again
Christ came into conflict with the leaders of His own nation, who had fallen
into the opposing errors of Phariseeism and Sadduceeism. He exposed their
hypocrisy, ostentatious externalism, and evil motives (Mt. 15, 23, etc.).
His unique prophetic ministry. Although Islam recognizes the Lord

Jesus as one of the prophets, the Bible is very clear that He was much more
than a prophet. Although they call Muhammad the capstone of the prophets,
he did not make any predictions. But the Lord Jesus was not only a forth-
teller of God’s truth, but like the Old Testament prophets He was also a fore-
teller. In His upper-room discourse, He predicted the coming of the Holy
Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In the Olivet discourse, He predicted the
destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which happened in AD 70, and
implied a longtime Gentile occupation of Jerusalem (Lk. 21:5-6, 20-24).
Some of the end time prophecies are beginning to be fulfilled already:
earthquakes, plagues, famines, continuance of warfare, lawlessness, perse-
cution of Christians, false Messiahs, love growing cold, etc. (Mt. 24:4-12; Lk.
21:8-19). Most striking is the persistence of the Jews and the restoration of
Israel as a nation (Mt. 24:32-34, genea= race or nation). The recent cata-
strophic tsunamis fit the warning of Luke 21:25-6.
His predicted, intentional passion. Few Christians seem aware that
the Lord Jesus predicted His own crucifixion and resurrection a dozen times
in the last few months of His ministry. Here are the references for further
study: Matthew 16:21; 17:9; 17:22-3=Luke 9:43-5; John 10:1-21; Luke 13:31-4;
17:25; Matthew 20:17-9=Luke 18:31-2; Mark 10:45=Matthew 20:28; 26:2;
26:12=Mark 14:8=John 12:7; John 12:20-36; Matthew 26:26-9.
His victorious resurrection and ascension. Muslims believe that
Muhammad’s body is in a tomb in Medina, but that the “prophet Jesus” has
ascended to heaven (although they deny His death and resurrection). This
is an embarrassment for Muslims to explain and illustrates the uniqueness of
the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A Substitutionary, Expiatory Sacrifice

Pre-cross predictions. The basic representation of Christ’s death, both
in prophecy and New Testament fulfillment, is as a substitutionary sacrifice
to take away the sin of mankind. The prophecies are so explicit that a basic
theology of the cross can be developed from them alone. Although Psalm 22
mostly focused upon the physical details of His crucifixion, my tenth-grade
English teacher explained why Christ cried out from the cross, “My God, my
God, why have You forsaken me?” Although I was not yet a born-again Christian,
her explanation stuck in memory that He was pointing onlookers’ attention
to this marvelous prophecy of His crucifixion. Because He was bearing the
sin of the world, the Father had to hide His face from Him.
But Isaiah 52:13–53:12 gives much more of the significance of His sacri-
fice; indeed, the word guilt-offering is used in 53:10. Nine times His sacrifice
is said to be for sin, iniquity, and transgressions. Three times it was said that
the LORD did it. The contrast between the reference to “all” in 53:6 and
“many” in 53:11 & 12 is most significant. Since the identification of “all of us
like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (v. 6) is clearly
a reference to the whole human race, the usage of the same expression
must be the same: “But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him”
(53:6). Two truths emerge. His death was substitutionary, and He became
a substitute for all sinners. But in 53:11 a limitation is found: “By His knowledge
the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.”
Here the beginnings are seen of a contrast between the objective, historical
aspect of His sacrifice and the subjective, personal dimension.
Centuries later, the last prophet of the old order, John the Baptizer, gave
testimony: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn.
1:29). This allusion to the Passover lamb must have been enigmatic to the
disciples, but in the light of subsequent revelation it is loaded with meaning.
By the Holy Spirit, John confirmed the emphasis of Isaiah 53:6, that Messiah’s
death was substitutionary, expiatory, and universal in its availability.
Christ’s own statement. The Lord Jesus dealt first with the highest
priority issues in His ministry. Much of the Gospel accounts is taken up with
the issues of human sin, His deity, and the demands of the proffered king-
dom. He said little about the significance of His coming sacrifice and even
less about the nature of the salvation which would be based on that sacri-
fice. Thus Matthew 20:28=Mark 10:45 stands out: “just as the Son of Man did
not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” He left
it for the Apostles to explain the full significance of the cross doctrinally, but
the word ransom implies substitution.
Apostolic testimony. Peter’s testimony is substantial in First Peter:
. . . knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from
your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a
lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ (1:18-19). . . . And He Himself bore
our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness;
for by His wounds you were healed (2:24). . . . For Christ also died for sins once for all,
the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death
in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit (3:18). . . . since Christ has suffered in the flesh,
. . . (4:1).
Here also the substitutionary aspect is undeniable.
Curiously, the Apostle Paul made little use of this picture, probably
because he uniquely developed the two other pictures of redemption and
reconciliation. His passing reference in 1 Corinthians 5:7 is most significant:
“For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” This builds upon John the
Baptizer’s Passover lamb allusion. Reminiscent of Isaiah 53, he wrote, “He
made Him who knew no sin to be sin[offering] on our behalf, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Seeing Christ as the fulfillment of
Levitical animal sacrifices he wrote: “just as Christ also loved you, and gave
Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma” (Eph. 5:2).
The author of Hebrews made the most of this foundational understand-
ing of the Messiah’s death. In 1:3, he introduced the idea: “When He had made
purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Then in
developing the idea of Christ’s high priestly office, he contrasted Him with
the Levitical high priest: “who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer
up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people, because this He
did once for all when He offered up Himself” (Heb. 7:27). What a remarkable
picture of the high priest offering up himself instead of an animal sacrifice!
As he developed the analogy of the symbolism of the Levitical temple
and sacrifices, he reinforced the contrast (Heb. 9:12, 14):
. . . and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He
entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.... how much
more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without
blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
His blood obtained eternal redemption by cleansing the conscience of the
believer from the sin which the dead works of Judaism could not expiate.
A single sacrifice. After developing the covenantal (or better testamen-
tal) nature of salvation as a basis for this (Heb. 9:15-21), the author empha-
sized the singleness of the sacrifice (Heb. 9:25-28):
. . . nor was it that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy
place year by year with blood not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer
often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages
He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. . . . so Christ also,
having been offered once to bear the sins of many. . . .
Then the climax of his development is reached:

By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all. . . . but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the
right hand of God, . . . For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are
sanctified (Heb. 10:10, 12, 14).
Notice the seven times he reinforced the once-for-all nature of the sacrifice.
The consequence of this single sacrifice of the Savior is a once-for-all salva-
tion for the ones who have been sanctified by it. If there were no other
Biblical passages to teach eternal security, these alone would be adequate.
This book has more words for confidence, boldness, and assurance than any
other book. Yet it has been so badly misunderstood as to deny assurance to
so many believers. (See Ch. 15 for a fresh discussion of the warnings of
Hebrews.) When the Lord Jesus cried out on the cross, “It is finished,” He
signaled the completion of the objective dimension of His sacrifice by which
a complete salvation is available to all sinners who come by faith.
The basis of substitution. Although denied by many Arminians and all
liberals, substitution in the cross is unambiguous in the Isaiah 53 prophecy.
The use of the preposition anti in Matthew 20:28=Mark 10:45 and in 1 Timo-
thy 2:5-6 should be adequate proof since it clearly means ‘instead of.’ This
makes irrelevant the false claim that the preposition huper does not mean
“instead of” but merely “on behalf of.” In any case, the very idea of Christ’s
death as a ransom price for sinners is undeniably substitutionary. Moreover,
some of the clearer passages in which huper is used in a substitutionary sense
are: Romans 4:25; 8:3; 1 Corinthians 15:3; 2 Corinthians 5:14; and Galatians
1:4; 2:20; 3:13. Clearly the Levitical and Passover sacrifices were
substitutionary, and the book of Hebrews makes clear that Christ’s death
was a fulfillment of those sin offerings (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7). Christ died both for
our benefit and as a substitutionary sin offering.
A Propitiation for Sin

The New Testament words for propitiation or satisfaction (hilaskomai,
hilastçrios, hilasmos) come from the word for mercy, used infrequently in the
New Testament. The connotation of mercy comes out clearly in the prayer
of the publican in Christ’s parable as the verb hilaskomai was used: “God, be
merciful to me, the sinner” (Lk. 18:13). Take note this parable was given before
the cross, so the same words must not be used in our prayers. God is
merciful and has proven His mercy in the cross. This also comes out clearly
in the description of Christ as a “merciful and faithful high priest” (Heb. 2:17).
Hebrews 9:5 is the link to the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant in
the Levitical system: hilastçrion is used here of the mercy seat. Then Paul used
this same word for Christ’s sacrifice as the fulfillment of the mercy seat:
. . . being justified by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ
Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through
faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance
of God He passed over the sins previously committed (Rom. 3:24-5).2
Although Christ’s death is thus linked to the Levitical mercy seat, its efficacy
goes far beyond it. Paul alluded to this in his reference to God passing over
the sins previously committed, ie. of pre-cross saints (cf. Heb. 9:15). Now
God has displayed the cross as the new mercy seat by which He declares
that He is satisfied with the blood of Christ as a full satisfaction for sin and a
basis for justification. This is where He demonstrated His mercy.
The Apostle John used the noun hilasmos twice in 1 John:
And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those
of the whole world (1 Jn. 2:1-2); In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved
us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10).
For whom is Christ the propitiation or satisfaction? John’s use of the word
‘world’ clearly indicates that he is referring to all mankind. This would be
harmonious with the truth of Isaiah 53:6, just examined. This is the objective,
historical aspect of Christ’s death, which is available to all mankind. Chafer
had argued that propitiation is a God-ward work of Christ.3 How wonderful
to know that God is perfectly satisfied with the sacrifice of Christ for the sins
of the whole world.A This group of words could be translated, ‘satisfying

sacrifice.’ God is indeed propitious!
Two Dimensions of Redemption

Eight Distinct Words Investigated
The tendency of translators and theologians to lump together the diverse
ideas behind the eight Greek words related to redemption obscures a
significant distinction. These words fall into two categories, one group with
emphasizes the objective, historical payment of the ransom price which the
Lord Jesus paid through His passion and other group on the subjective
liberation of the individual captive from sin.
The usage of the different words must be carefully examined. It should
not be assumed that because they are all derived from two roots their
meanings relate to their derivation. Contemporary linguists emphasize the
importance of usage over derivation. D. A. Carson warned of the danger of
the root fallacy: “One of the most enduring of errors, the root fallacy presupposes that
every word actually has a meaning bound up with its shape or its components. In this view,
meaning is determined by etymology; that is, by the root or roots of a word.”4 The usage of
agoradzein, lutron, and antilutron refer to the objective ransom price paid by
Christ's death. On the other hand, exagoradzein, lutrotçs, and apolutrosis most
clearly refer to the subjective liberation of the captive. The verb, lutroein, from
which four of the nouns are derived, and the noun, lutrosis, are general words
encompassing both concepts.
Both aspects undistinguished

Lutroein and lutrosis. The usage of lutroein includes both dimensions,
the objective and the subjective. Indeed, the BAG lexicon listed both: “1. free
by paying a ransom, redeem. . . 2. gener. set free, redeem, rescue.” It cited 1 Peter 1:18
under the first and Luke 24:21 and Titus 2:14 under the second.5 This is
confirmed by Buchsel's study of the secular usage. The Septuagint and Jew-
ish usage, however, only minimally have the idea of the ransom price and
stress the liberation phase.6 The same is true of lutrosis as well. The BAG
lexicon listed the two phases separately, but listed the three scriptural usages
(Lk. 1:68; 2:38; Heb. 9:12) under the liberation locus and cited the Didache
under the ransom aspect.7
Focus on the objective, historical aspect: ransom

Three of the Greek words focus on the objective, historical dimension,
that is, a purchase by the payment of a ransom price.
A. Some hyper-Calvinists claim that John is referring to the sins of Jewish Christians and then to
Gentiles as well. However, no New Testament introduction says that First John was written to Hebrew
Christians. There is no hint of this in the epistle which is part of the “general epistles” so clearly universal
as having been written from Ephesus in the 90s.
Lutron. In secular usage lutron meant “price of release, ransom”8 It especially

referred to money paid for prisoners of war or slaves. The Septuagintal
usage is the same, especially as an equivalent to a forfeited life. Thus it is
clear that the focus of Christ's usage in Mk. 10:45 and Mt. 20:28 is on the
substitutionary ransom price: “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” There is no basis for thinking
that the consequent meaning of the release of the prisoner is in view since
most reject Christ’s ransom. This is totally objective, historical, and general.
Antilutron. Paul's usage of antilutron in 1 Tim. 2:6 was clearly based upon
Christ's ransom statement, except that instead of using the preposition anti
separately, Paul follows the Hellenic Greek liking for compounds: “For there
is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who
gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony borne at the proper time.” “Materially
antilutron is the same as lutron.”9 Thus, understanding the focus to be upon the
objective payment of the ransom price helps to explain how this ransom can
be for “all”. There would be a serious theological problem if the focus were
to be on the liberation of the captive, since obviously all have not been
liberated. Hyper-Calvinists have tried to solve the problem by insisting that
‘all’ does not mean ‘all’ in this and other contexts. A much simpler solution
is simply to note the objective focus of this word. There is no theological
incongruity to the idea that the objective ransom price Christ paid was
sufficient for all without exception, even though not all have been liberated.
Agoradzein. Least controversial would be the meaning of the verb
agoradzein since it has a vast secular usage, “to buy, to purchase.”10 Clearly the
overwhelming focus is upon the active purchase, and it is frequently used in
this sense in the Gospels. Paul's usage in 1 Corinthians 6:20 and 7:23 men-
tions the price (timç): “For you have been bought with a price. . .” This helps to
explain how Peter could use this word in reference to unregenerate false
teachers in 2 Peter 2:1: “. . . just as there will also be false teachers among you, who
will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them,
bringing swift destruction upon themselves.” Christ paid the objective price, but
the false teachers rejected the liberation. This is confirmed by his later
reference to the false teachers in 2:19 as “slaves of corruption.” The usage in
Revelation 5:9 and 14:3, 4 might possibly include the liberation dimension,
but its basic meaning makes perfect sense in the context.
Focus on the subjective, experiential aspect: liberation

The remaining three words focus upon the emancipation of the slave.
Apolutrosis. The abstract compound noun apolutrosis shows a clear
semantic shift caused by the prefix apo, from the ransom price to the release
of the captive. Thus the BAG lexicon only listed “release”, both literally and
figuratively.11 Buchsel in TDNT confirmed this understanding most explicitly:
How far is the idea of a lutron, a ransom or the like, still implied in apolutrosis? Are we to
assume that whenever apolutrosis is used there is also a suggestion of lutron? In none of the
apolutrosis passages is there any express reference to a ransom. . . . They think only of the
act of emancipation itself, and of what it implies. . . . The true rendering, then, is "redemption"
or "liberation," not "ransom." "Release" is also possible in Hb. 11:35 and "remission" in Hb.
9:15 (emphasis mine).12
Thus it is clear that the addition of the prefix apo has resulted in a very
significant semantic shift from the usage of lutron. Chamberlain's statement
in his grammar is very important, “The student should learn once and for all that every
single letter added to a Greek root adds something to the idea expressed by the root." 13
Lutrots. The one New Testament usage of the personal noun of
agency lutrotçs (redeemer, liberator) in Acts 7:35, also focused upon the
liberation phase by referring to Moses as the liberator. Moses did not pay any
ransom price to liberate Israel from Egypt. It is not used in the secular Greek,
and the Septuagint usage is harmonious with this.14
Exagoradzein. Paul's usage of the compound verb exagoradzein is also
harmonious with this. It is used in secular Greek in reference to the manu-
mission or emancipation of slaves. All New Testament usages are by Paul.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us. . . . in
order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the
adoption as sons” (Gal. 3:13, 4:5). His emphasis in Galatians on the liberation
of the Christian from the slavery of the Mosaic Law makes it is clear that he
had the liberation dimension in mind. Buchsel confirmed this: “The predom-
inance of an objectivising understanding of exegorasen has led most of the
exegetical and biblico-theological work on the passage astray.” He went on
to clarify, “exagoradzo also means, in accordance with the sense of the ek in
many composites, an ‘intensive buying,’ i.e., a buying which exhausts the
possibilities available.” He saw the usage in the prison epistles as harmoni-
ous with this (Col. 4:5; Eph. 5:16).15 Thus, the addition of the prefix ex=ek
(‘out of’) radically shifted the emphasis from the price paid to the liberation
of the slave. Agoradzein and exagoradzein are two distinct words, with contrast-
ing ranges of meaning. Chamberlain’s point is equally relevant here also.
Therefore, exagorazein is a subjective, personal term.
Clarification of the contrast

Thus it is clear, not only that the linguistic evidence supports a distinction
between the objective ransom phase of Christ's death and the subjective
liberation phase in the life of the Christian, but also that such a distinction is
of great value theologically. It helps to explain how the ransom price could
be connected with unregenerate false teachers (2 Pet. 2:1) and all mankind
(1 Tim. 2:5-6) when the liberation has been effective for only a limited
number. Thus, it helps resolve the tension between these two truths.
Christ's ransom price was sufficient for all mankind and provisionally avail-
able to all, but the liberation has been effectual only for those who believe.
An illustration helps to explain this distinction. When heiress Patty
Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army some years ago,
her father paid a ransom price of two million dollars. However, Patty, having
been brainwashed into sympathy with her captors, even joined them in a
bank robbery and refused to be liberated. The lutron (ransom price) had
been provided, the act of agoradzein (paying the ransom) had been fulfilled,
but there was no apolutrosis or exagoradzein (liberation) effectuated. The
objective provision was made, but the subjective release did not occur
because of the willful choice of the captive. Just so, like Hearst, the objective
ransom price for the sins of the whole human race was provided on Calvary,
but the subjective release of the majority of the captives has not taken place
because of their own willful rejection of the redeemer.
Reconciliation with God

Paul uniquely developed the picture of reconciliation through the cross
using three related words: katallassein, katallagç, and apokatallassein. There is no
controversy about the meaning of these words, the first means “to thor-
oughly change, exchange, reconcile”16 and is used twice in Romans 5:9-11:
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the
wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God
through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved
by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
This basic context makes it clear that reconciliation is directed at man’s
alienation from God, and that believers are said to have been reconciled to
God even from a state of total enmity toward Him. Since Paul designated
our prior state as enemies of God, it is clear that this is subjective and
individual rather than objective and historical. This happens in the life and
experience of the believer as a part of the conversion process. It is also clear
that the idea that God was somehow historically reconciled is not supported
here or in any other Pauline passage. Reconciliation is always manward,
and only believers have received this reconciliation.
This passage is also a wonderful basis for the security of the believer.
Paul made it clear that since God was able to reconcile us when we were at
enmity, He is even “much more” able to complete that salvation through
Christ’s resurrected and ascended life now interceding for us at the Father’s
right hand (Heb. 7:25). Amazingly, he said that our future salvation is even
more sure than the present.
The interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 is not as straightforward:
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and
gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to
us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though
God were entreating through us; we beg [sic. you] on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to
God.
Paul’s use of an aorist* participle in 5:18 in reference to the believer’s

reconciliation as a past event is harmonious with Romans 5. But Paul’s use
of a periphrastic* present participle in 5:19 in reference to the reconciliation
of the world is more difficult. The finite verb ‘was’ is imperfect and together
they have an imperfect force.17 Thus it could be fairly said that, in the cross,
God was in the process of reconciling the world. Obviously the world has not
yet been reconciled. But the cross was the foundation of that process of
reconciliation, which has been going on since then, as sinners one by one
respond to the good news.18 This is confirmed by Paul’s statement that God
gave to believers a ministry and a message of reconciliation. Then he
explained in 5:20 how this works— God entreats the world through us, His
ambassadors, as we plead with sinners to be reconciled to God (note that
the ‘you’ in v. 20 is not in the Greek). From this it is clear that the work of
reconciliation is subjective and personal, not objective and historical.
Paul used the stronger compound word apokatallassein in Ephesians 2:16,
speaking of the goal of the cross to thoroughly reconcile Jew and Gentile
together in one body, the Church. Abbott-Smith suggested that the prefix apo
signifies a more complete and thorough reconciliation.19 Then in the parallel
passage in Colossians 1:20-22, Paul expanded the purview to “all kinds of
people” to be reconciled in the end time, and the reconciliation of the
Colossians in their day. This is harmonious with his earlier use of these
words.
Conclusions
With so many distinct Greek words used to portray the cross of Christ, it
is fuzzy thinking which perpetuates the use of the Old Testament term
‘atonement’ in theological literature, especially since it only refers to the
prefiguring of the Christ’s sacrifice in the Levitical system, which was far
short of the reality. However, the pre-cross predictions are most instructive,
coupled with the apostolic references to His death as a substitutionary
expiatory sacrifice. The book of Hebrews especially contrasted the Levitical
offerings with the ultimate efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice, an efficacy which
guaranteed eternal redemption to the believer.
In the focus upon the words for propitiation, an objective universality is
revealed, which confirmed the picture of sacrifice. The work of propitiation
thus was God-ward in that Christ’s death was a perfect satisfaction to the
Father for the sins of the whole world.
Two dimensions in the broad concept of redemption emerged: ransom-
redemption, focusing upon the objective ransom price paid; and liberation-
redemption, focusing upon the subjective liberation of the sinner from
slavery. Ransom-redemption, like propitiation, is potentially universal in its
intent. However, liberation-redemption consistently is limited to believers,
as also is reconciliation. These terms portray a subjective application of the
merits of Christ’s sacrifice to those who claim it in repentant faith.
For centuries there has been endless debate over limited atonement vs.
general redemption.* The whole debate is beside the point. Atonement is

not a New Testament word! The best terms are an ‘unlimited or general
ransom price or purchase' and a ‘limited or particular liberation'. The whole
question arose because of failure to do the careful word studies needed as
a basis for sound theology. Chapter 21 builds upon this linguistic foundation
to examine the view of hyper-Calvinists that Christ died only for the elect.
OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE DIMENSIONS OF THE CROSS CONTRASTED

OBJECTIVE, HISTORICAL SUBJECTIVE, EXPERIENTIAL
UNIVERSAL/GENERAL LIMITED/PERSONAL
PROPITIATION RECONCILIATION
Romans 3:24-25 2 Cor. 5:18 - reconciled us (aorist)
1 John 2:2; 4:10 5:19 - reconciling the world (present part.)
RANSOM-REDEMPTION Romans 5:9-11
Lutron - Mt. 20:28=Mk. 10:45 LIBERATION-REDEMPTION
Antilutron - 1 Tim. 2:6 Apolutrosis - Heb. 9:16; 11:35
Agorazein - 1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23 Lutrotçs - Acts 7:35
2 Pet. 2:1 Exoragorazein - Gal. 3:13; 4:5; Col.
4:5; Eph. 5:16
1. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, III, pp. 86-96, 190-93; Robert P. Lightner, The Death Christ Died:
A Case for Unlimited Atonement, pp. 73-91; Sin, the Savior, and Salvation, pp. 117-27; John F. Walvoord,
Jesus Christ, Our Lord, pp. 163-90.
2. The NIV has reverted back to the erroneous use of ‘atonement’ here.
3. Chafer, III, 93-96.
4. D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, p. 26.
5. Arndt and Gingrich, Lexicon, p. 484.
6. Buchsel, in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, IV: 349-50.
8. Ibid., p. 483.
9. Buchsel, p. 349.
10. Arndt & Gingrich, p. 12.
11. Ibid., p. 95.
12. Buchsel, pp. 354-5.
13. William Douglas Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 11.
14. Buchsel, IV: 351.
15. Ibid., I: 125-8.
16. G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 236.
17. Wallace, Grammar, pp. 647-48.
18. There is exegetical criticism of the KJV and NAS translation that “God was in Christ” in favor of the NIV that
“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” However, it doesn’t affect the conclusions significantly.
19. Abbott-Smith, Lexicon, en loc.
INTRODUCTION TO PART II
AN OVERVIEW OF THE TERMS OF SALVATION
When people go to a bank to get a loan or mortgage, usually there is no
room for negotiation of the terms; the bank sets the terms. When we come
to God for salvation, there is absolutely no room for negotiation; He sets the
terms upon which people can be saved. Most people hope that they can
negotiate with God and claim some of their own good works. But the Bible
is clear that it is by His grace alone, and He alone sets the terms upon
which He will accept sinners.
In Part I this book has focused upon the objective, historical aspects of
God’s eternal plan of salvation. Chapter 2 focused on the God who created
humanity in His own image with free will and delegated rulership of the
world. Although Adam and Eve became fallen in disobeying God, they did
not lose that image or its implicit free will. It would be very strange if we
have free will to sin but no free will to meet God’s terms of salvation. We
saw God’s eternal plan to provide that salvation and the commissioning of
Abraham to begin a witness for Him in a strategic land, and the prophecies
given to His commissioned people that His appointed Messiah would come
to provide the basis for salvation. In Chapter 5, we saw the objective basis
of salvation in propitiation and ransom-redemption and then the basis of
subjective, personal aspects of salvation in redemption-liberation and
reconciliation truths. Now the focus must be on God’s terms of salvation.
It is hard to imagine the city of Newark, NJ was founded over a theolog-
ical controversy on the terms of salvation. When grandchildren were born
to the pilgrim fathers, the question arose about christening them if their
parents were not creditable Christians. The decision of the Congregational-
ists to allow it was called the “Halfway Covenant” since it implied a halfway
house to salvation. In 1662, dissenters from Branford, CT, under the leader-
ship of Robert Treat, settled in the newly opened wilderness of New Jersey
and founded New Ark, a place where uncompromised truth of salvation
could be affirmed. They insisted that the objective truth of the gospel is not
enough, there must also be a subjective, personal response to it.
What are the terms of this salvation? In Chapter 6, Christ’s claim to be
the Rock foundation of the church and His charge to Peter and the Apostles
to proclaim salvation only on heaven’s terms is examined. In Chapter 7, we
find a consistent pattern of repentant faith demanded. In Chapter 8, the
convicting ministry of the Spirit is seen as helping sinners repent and be-
lieve in Christ. In Chapter 9, instantaneous justification is seen only by faith,
as is the new birth. In Chapter 10, discipleship is not seen as a condition for
salvation, but rather a process which follows conversion and in Chapter 11,
baptism also is not a condition. Chapter 12 warns of the error of omitting
God’s non-negotiable demand for explicit trust in Christ and His work.
82
PART TWO
THE TERMS OF
SALVATION
CLARIFIED
On Christ the solid Rock I stand;
6
All other ground is sinking sand.
- Edward Mote (1834)
. . . by proclaiming ‘the good news of the kingdom,’
which by revelation Peter is increasingly under-
standing, he will open the kingdom to many and
shut it against many. . . . But the same gospel pro-
clamation alienates and excludes men so we also
find him shutting up the kingdom from men . . .
Whatever he binds or looses will have been bound
or loosed, so long as he adheres to that divinely
disclosed gospel. - D. A. Carson
WHY MUST PROCLAMATION

BE ON GOD’S TERMS?
One of the most misunderstood, abused, neglected, and yet vital portions
of Scripture is the dialogue of the Lord Jesus with His Apostles as He got
them apart at Caesarea Philippi for teaching, as recorded in Matthew 16 and
more briefly in Mark and Luke. Many vital issues arise from this passage
since it not only includes Peter's divinely revealed confession of the Messiah's
deity, the first mention of the church and its foundation, the investing of Peter
with the keys, the binding and loosing, and the first of a dozen predictions of
His passion. Not only has Romanism usurped this passage as the basis for
its cultic heresy, but Protestants seem to have only dimly grasped its mon-
umental significance. Critically, many of the commentators have not been
helpful in getting to the truth of the passage.
The evidence is really one-sided that the Lord Jesus taught that He
Himself is the Rock upon which the church was to be built, certainly not
Peter. Furthermore, the symbolism of the gates of Hades refers to His victory
over death and the church's subsequent offensive attack against Satan's grip
on the human race moving on the broad road to those gates of death. Peter
was given the keys as a commission to lead the charge against Satan's
domain by opening the door of faith to Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles. He
did this by proclaiming forgiveness on heaven's terms, not on the legalistic
terms of the Pharisees, nor the rationalistic terms of the Sadducees, but only
on the basis of God's word settled forever in heaven. Lastly, the building of
the church was to be based upon His predicted passion.
84
Chapter 6 WHY MUST PROCLAMATION BE ON GOD’S TERMS? 85
The Bedrock, Christ Himself

The first gross misinterpretation by many scholars is the identity of the
rock upon which Christ was to build His church: “But I also say to you that you
are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not
overpower it” (Mt. 16:18). This is a case where the hymn writers are correct
and the majority of scholars are dead wrong. We sing, “On Christ the solid
rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand,” “Jesus is the rock of our
salvation,” and “Rock of ages cleft for me.” But many Bible scholars don't
believe it! Although the most popular Protestant view identifies Peter's
confession of Christ’s deity or his faith as the rock, some ironically join with
the Roman Catholics in identifying Peter himself. Others associate all the
Apostles with Peter as the foundation-rock of the church.
In 1997, in sharing a series of meetings in Pakistan with a British scholar,
before we parted, having told him what I had preached the previous eve-
ning, he replied incredulously, “Gordon, you don't really believe that Jesus
is the rock, do you?” and referred to the ‘Aramaic problem.’ Unfortunately,
there was no time to respond, but that dialogue forced me to dig deeper into
the evidence. My discoveries have been astonishing!
The Old Testament background

It is unthinkable to claim to interpret this passage without researching the
Old Testament symbolism of the rock (which few have done) and doing a
word study of the Hebrew and Aramaic* words related to this (which
virtually none have done!). The symbol of God as Israel's rock is pervasive,
starting from the repeated allusions in the song of Moses (Deut. 32), right on
through. Two Hebrew words (tsur & sela’) are used 39 times of the true God
and once of false gods. This provides the background for understanding the
two different Greek words used in Matthew 16. Incredibly, many commen-
tators pontificate about the Aramaic, but none surfaced who had researched
the Hebrew/Aramaic words tsur/tur, sela’, or shu'ah, and few noted the domi-
nant symbolism of God as the Rock in the Old Testament.
The passage and its context

The geographical context of this passage is dramatic. Caesarea Philippi
is at the headwater of the eastern branch of the Jordan River, where water
gushes out of the side of a cliff. When the Lord Jesus had elicited the
confession of His deity from Peter and said, “You are Petros (ÐÝôñïò), and upon
this petra (ðÝôñá) I will build My church” (Mt. 16:18), the distinction between
these two Greek words is very significant. Since petra means ‘bedrock’ or
‘cliff,’ the cliff from which the Apostles were seeing the Jordan waters gush
certainly brought to mind the cliff-side out of which God brought water twice
in Moses’ day. The Old Testament symbolism cannot be ignored in this
most Jewish Gospel in which is found the record of the Jewish Messiah
instructing His twelve Jewish Apostles to the Jewish nation (Mt. 10:5-8)
based upon the Old Testament kingdom promises.
86 THE TERMS OF SALVATION CLARIFIED
My Greek professor, S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., suggested in class that Mat-

thew used the contrast of these two distinct Greek words to indicate what
he saw with his eyes, that is, the Lord's gesture with His hand toward His
own chest when He uttered the word petra, thus indicating that He Himself
is the Rock upon which the church was to be built. Matthew did not have a
camera to record that gesture. He was limited to the use of words to
communicate the whole picture and did this by using the genius of the
Greek language to its fullest advantage. The sequence of ideas is consistent
since Peter had just affirmed the Lord Jesus as deity. Therefore, the divine
Messiah alone is qualified to be the foundation of the church. What is the
contextual and linguistic basis for Johnson's suggestion?
Two major lexicons give helpful definitions of petra:
[in LXX chiefly for òìñ, øåö;] a rock , i.e. a mass of live rock as distinct from
ðÝôñïò [petros], a detached stone or boulder . . .; of a hollow rock, a cave,
. . . Metaph., Mt 1618. . . (emphasis mine, LXX=Septuagint) 1
1. rock—a. lit., of the rock in which a tomb is hewn . . . rocky grotto . . .rocky
ground. . . . It forms a suitable foundation for the building of a house. . . . The
rock at various places in the desert fr. which Moses drew water by striking it.
. . . b. in a play on words w. the name ÐÝôñïò [petros]; . . .2
Some object to making a distinction since the difference is just a matter
of gender between these two words, petros (m.) and petra (f.). However,
the usage of these words is in total contrast.A Chamberlain emphasized a
principle in the Greek word-building process: “The student should learn once and
for all that every single letter added to a Greek root adds something to the idea expressed by
the root.”3 A strong case can be made for a difference in gender having
significant impact upon connotation as well since these are two distinct
words. There is also Christ's usage in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 7:25) of
a rock foundation upon which a building is permanently erected. Here it
clearly does not mean stone, or even boulder, but cliff or bedrock.
Matthew’s demonstrative emphasis. Note well that Matthew used a
demonstrative with attributive force with the articular noun petra, thus
indicating that Christ was pointing to something. The construction is: epi tautç
tç petra. Examination of other usages of this construction indicates that
there is a strong emphasis in all of them.4 It comes out only in the transla-
tion of Acts 1:11: “This same [tautç]Jesus shall come” (KJV, NIV, Amplified). But
the context of all other usages confirms that the words 'same' or 'very' should
be used in every case to bring out the full meaning. Thus, this is essentially
A. Some scholars downplay the distinction between these two words, despite the clear evidence.
Cullman admitted that ðÝôñá (petra) is “predominantly used in secular Gk. for a large and solid 'rock.'
It may denote equally well the individual cliff or a stony and rocky mountain chain" and that ð¦ôñïò
(petros) “is used for more isolated rocks or small stones, including flints and pebbles for slings." He also
correctly noted that ðÝôñá (petra) is a rendering of tsur and sela', while eben is almost always rendered
as ëßèïò (lithos), and that "rightly understood, Christ alone is ðÝôñá (petra)." But then he strangely made
an irrational denial of the distinction (TDNT, VI, pp. 95-99).
a double demonstrative, that is, an actual demonstrative pronoun plus the

article which still retains some of that force.B The question arises whether
the Lord was pointing to Simon Peter to identify him or whether to Himself.
One authoritative grammar stated that the article with nouns tends to
designate persons, while the article is usually lacking with abstract nouns.5
So petra is not to be seen as an abstract noun since it has an article. This
further militates again the common Protestant 'confession' view. This could
be well paraphrased, “You, Simon are a stone; but upon this very bedrock [pointing
to Himself] I will build my church.”
The Aramaic question. Some scholars deny that Christ is the Rock,
based upon a supposed Aramaic original. But there is no assurance that the
Lord was speaking Aramaic here since Greek was widely spoken and used
by first-century Jews along with Aramaic and Latin.6 However, even if He
were speaking Aramaic, the argument is pointless. There is no language on
earth which cannot distinguish between bedrock or a cliff and a detached
stone, even if the speaker has to use an adjective or other grammatical
device. However, as already seen, in Aramaic as in Hebrew, the distinct
words were readily at hand. Kaipha (Cephas) is the name the Lord Himself
gave to Simon, and it never refers to a boulder, bedrock, cliff or mountain.
It consistently refers to smaller stones. Quite in contrast, tsur in Hebrew and
its Aramaic equivalent (tur, Dan. 2:35, 45) consistently refer to mountains,
bedrock, or cliffs, and shu'ah refers to smooth bedrock. Thus, this objection
is clearly groundless. The original Greek is the inspired word of God! (See
the Excursus on pp. 95-6.)
The analogy of Scripture. Since Peter was the one being addressed, it
is important to ask how he understood Christ's words. In his witness before
the Sanhedrin, he quoted Psalm 118:22 in reference to Christ being the stone
which they, the builders, had rejected, and who is the unique way of salva-
tion (Acts 4:11-2). Peter used lithos (stone) since that is the word used in the
Septuagint Greek translation. Years later, in his first epistle, he quoted Isaiah
28:16, Psalm 118, and Isaiah 8:14 in reference to Christ (1 Pet. 2:4-8):
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice
and precious in the sight of God, you also as living stones, are being built up as a
spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice
stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”
This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “The
stone which the builders rejected, this became the very corner stone,” and, “A stone of
stumbling and a rock of offense.”
Again, Peter mostly used lithos as in the Septuagint. But notably he used
B. Robertson and Davis explain that the article in the Ionic and Attic originally was a demonstrative
pronoun and is common in the New Testament as such and then refer to Broadus's statement that the
Greek article is a pointer in three ways, and that the most common of these is to distinguish one indi-
vidual from other individuals. (Robertson and Davis, Short Grammar, 10th ed., p. 275.) Wallace agrees.
petra skandalou in the Isaiah 8:14 quote, as did the Septuagint in rendering
tsur. The first two quotations use the symbolism of Messiah as the founda-
tion cornerstone of the church, the spiritual temple of God. Peter confirmed
that these are Messianic prophecies in their own context. Although the
Isaiah 8:14 symbolism is different, the reference is also clearly Messianic,
and Peter significantly quoted the Septuagint rendering of tsur as petra.
Peter gave an unambiguous inspired commentary that Christ is the bedrock.
Although the Apostle Paul was not present at Caesarea Philippi, in 1
Corinthians 3:10-15 he confirmed the symbolism of the Messiah Himself as
the rock. Although Paul was not referring to the church universal, he made
it clear that the foundation for the Corinthian church, which he laid, is Christ:
“For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ.” He picked up the symbolism again in 10:1-4: “and all drank the same
spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed; and the rock
was Christ”C Obviously Moses did not strike a small stone or even a boulder,
but undoubtedly it was a cliff rock-face from which the water gushed. This
is clear from the usage of the two Hebrew words used there. Paul, knowing
that Christ had invited sinners to drink of the living water of which He was
the source (as in Jn. 4:10-14; 7:37-9), drew from the symbolism of water
from the rock in the wilderness to point to Christ. Jeremiah also alluded to
this symbolism, that God is the fountain of living waters (Jer. 2:13; 17:13).
Paul gave another relevant reference. Opposing views depend heavily
upon one interpretation of Ephesians 2:20, without recognizing a viable
alternative view: “. . . having been built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, . . .” Many assume from the
English that the apostles and prophets are the foundation, but the Greek
idiom here can be translated in two ways. It is more probably a genitive of
reference, which refers to the apostles and prophets as those who laid the
foundation.D In the following context Paul emphasized his own unique
involvement in that process with the other apostles and prophets (Eph. 3:1-
10). This fits with his earlier statement to the Corinthians that he had laid
the foundation of their church, and others were building upon it. He then
made the unambiguous statement of Christ as the foundation rock (1 Cor.
3:10-11). Paul is presumably consistent in his symbolism. Peter was privi-
leged to lay the foundation of the Jerusalem church (Acts 2:14-38). He could
not be the foundation and also lay it, unless he were God. Only the divine
Messiah could be both the foundation and the builder as well.
The cultural gap factor. Western Christians question: “If the Lord
intended to say that He Himself is the rock, then why did He not come out
C. I have omitted the word 'them' from the NAS since it is not in the Greek. The rock did not follow the
Israelites, but rather followed in the biblical account. J. Sidlow Baxter, Studies in Problem Texts, pp. 27-8.
D. This involves a grammatically ambiguous genitive. Since Paul is referring in the context to the building
of the church, God's temple, upon the foundation, the question arises as to who the subject of the action
is. A subjective genitive would supply the answer: the apostles and prophets laid the foundation.
and say directly, ‘I am the Rock’?” This reveals the cultural gap between us
and Christ as a first-century Jew. In the Synoptic Gospels, He rarely used the
first person and normally referred to Himself in a third person manner such
as ‘the son of man.'E
Most revealing is our Lord's dialogue with the Jerusalem leaders in
Matthew 21:41-44. After quoting the Psalm 118:22 passage, He said, “And he
who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter
him like dust.” Note the off-handed third-person way in which He referred to
Himself. This clarifies where Peter got the idea of quoting Psalm 118 in 1
Peter 2. Contemporary Americans have the most ‘up front' culture in human
history in that we unabashedly use the big ‘I' so frequently; first-century Jews
did not, nor did Christ. He didn’t speak like a contemporary American.F
There is another cultural consideration here. It is probably accurate to
describe the way of thinking (cognitive process*) in ancient Hebrew culture
as concrete and relational, much like animistic tribal and Chinese cultures.7
This ‘concrete-relational thinking’ is pervasive in the Old Testament and the
Synoptic Gospels, in contrast with Western culture, which is more concep-
tual and abstract (from the Greeks). The common Protestant interpretation,
that the rock is Peter's confession, is a clear example of this abstract, con-
ceptual way of thinking. It is highly unlikely that the Jewish Messiah would
be referring to so abstract a concept as a confession by the symbolism of a
rock. Remember, this is a culture which did not even have an abstract word
for ‘sex.’ It is always made concrete and relational, i.e., “Adam knew his wife.”
Westerners can't communicate without abstract words like 'sex.' The
confession view is improbable on this basis alone.
Was Peter rock-like? Another question must be asked about the ‘Peter’
view. What was rock-like about Peter? As has been shown, Kaipha in the
Aramaic does not mean ‘rock.’ ‘Stone’ is a more accurate rendering. He
was one of the first living stones to be incorporated into the temple of God.
But his character was hardly rock-like. He is the only one of the eleven who
denied Christ overtly, even though the others deserted Him. He failed to
initiate the mission to Samaritans, as commissioned by the Lord in Acts 1:8.
God had to use two striking visions to convince him to bridge the cultural
gap to the Gentiles (Acts 10), and even then he struggled with the integration
of Gentiles into the church (Gal. 2). We have no record of his being involved
in fulfilling the last part of the Greatest Commission in pioneer evangelism
among the Gentiles. Indeed, Paul's statement in Galatians 2:8-9 indicates
that Peter continued to see himself as an Apostle to the Jews.
The church fathers. We need not be overly concerned to try to find a
E. Even His question in the KJV (“Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" 16:13) must be
corrected to: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (NAS).
F. Having lived eight years in a culture greatly influenced by middle-eastern Arab and Persian cultures
has sensitized me to the different cognitive processes of various cultures. I continue to come across
linguistic and cultural connections with the Aramaic and Hebrew OT.
consensus of the church fathers, especially since the records accessible

today are most probably distorted and fragmentary. Nevertheless, it is of
some interest to examine their views. Dr. Lannoy of the Sorbonne in Paris
tabulated that of the seventy-seven most credible church fathers* who have
commented on this verse, only seventeen interpret it as Peter, forty-four as
Peter's confession (including Justin, Cyril, Hilary, Chrysostom, Ambrose), and
sixteen as Christ Himself (Athanasius, Jerome, Augustine, etc.).8 Although
there is no agreement, a significant number confirm this thesis. It is in no
way a modern, Protestant, or obscurantist interpretation, as claimed.9
Building the Church

Our Lord's dialogue with His Apostles at Caesarea Philippi came three
years into His ministry and a couple of months before His passion. For three
years, John the Baptizer, the Lord Himself, the twelve Apostles, and then the
seventy disciples had been proclaiming the impending Messianic kingdom.
However, now that His enemies were set on His death, He announced a
radically new program, but related to the old, that is, His ekklesia, His assem-
bly. Its uniqueness was signaled by this first reference and the simple future
of oikodomein, “I will build my church [assembly].” It is not coincidental that this
context also contained the first explicit reference to His upcoming passion,
the first of a dozen such predictions which come in those few months before
their fulfillment: “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go
to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes,
and be killed, and be raised up on the third day” (Mt. 16:21). There were three
veiled symbolic allusions to His passion prior to this, nothing explicit (John
2, the Jonah allusion, and the good shepherd). There could be no ekklesia
until He would first die and rise to provide the basis for the church. There is
no reason to depart from the normal understanding of a simple future, that
the church was not yet in existence and would not be until after His passion.
Indeed, the foundational bedrock had not yet been laid to be able to start
construction. Furthermore there could be no church (assembly) until He
had gained victory over death and Hades. How was this to be accom-
plished?
The Gates of Hades

Most Christians visualize the word picture which the Lord Jesus gave
here in a reverse way: they see the church as under demonic attack and
somehow resisting and triumphing. Christians often have a fortress mental-
ity. But the Lord said nothing about the gates of the church, nor about
Satanic attack. The symbolism is straightforward and needs no sophisti-
cated discussion. The gates of hades cannot uproot themselves and attack
the church. Gates are always defensive!
What are the gates of Hades? Hades is, of course, a transliteration of
hadçs, which is almost always a rendering in the Septuagint of sheol, and
before the resurrection of Christ referred consistently to the abode of the
dead, both in pagan and Scriptural conception. King Hezekiah wrote about
his experience of being spared from entering the gates of Sheol (Isa. 38:10),
and the idea of death's association with Hades is virtually a given among
interpreters. (Lk.16:19-31 - The story of the rich man and Lazarus is not clear
whether Abraham was in a different part of Hades or in a distinct place.)
In any case, the post-resurrection conception is clear that Hades is the
temporary prison of the unsaved dead, and that the saved are in “everlasting
habitations” (Lk. 16:9), in Paradise (23:43), present with the Lord (2 Cor.
5:8), united with Christ (Phil. 1:23), in the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22),
etc. Since Satan is to be cast into the lake of fire at the end of the millen-
nium (Rev. 20:10), it seems he has no direct connection with Hades. But the
indirect connection is with the unsaved, who are under his sway and are on
the broad road to death (Mt. 7:13-14), Hades (Mt. 11:23; Lk. 10:15; 16:19-31),
and ultimately the lake of fire (Rev. 20:13-5).
Thus, the battle between Satan and the church is for the eternal souls of
mankind, and as Christians win the lost to salvation, they are snatched from
entering the gates of Hades as ‘brands from the fire.’ The issue is not Satan's
attack against the church, but rather Christ through His church snatching the
souls of mankind from eternal death, Hades, and the lake of fire.
The way that katischusousin is usually rendered as ‘prevail, overcome’
raises a problem. It does seem to imply that the gates of Hades are on the
attack. The problem is the translation of the verb since in the secular
literature it is usually intransitive, “be strong, powerful, gain the ascendancy.”10 (Two
other usages in Luke do not help.) This context logically requires the
rendering ‘withstand’ to fit the obvious symbolism. Louis Barbieri's sugges-
tion is the most cogent of all. He pointed out that since the Lord's passion is
mentioned subsequently in the context, the Lord “Jesus was thus telling the dis-
ciples His death would not prevent His work of building the church.”11 His resurrection
was the ultimate victory over the gates of Hades, and assures the believer's
victory over death as well. As Peter and the Apostles proclaimed this victory,
the gates of Hades would not be able to withstand the attacks of the church
as lost people are delivered from Satan's grip and eternal death.
The Keys of the Kingdom

The Lord Jesus then linked the gates with the keys: “I will give you the keys
of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in
heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” (Mt.
16:19). The Roman-Catholic-generated misconception that Peter was given
the keys of heaven should be obviously wrong, an error perpetuated in the
plethora of jokes about Peter at heaven's gates deciding admission criteria.
This sort of thinking assumes that Peter is here given papal authority with the
powers of absolution, inherent in the keys and the binding and loosing. This
springs from the simple observational error which overlooks that it is the
keys of the kingdom, not of heaven itself.
The issue is complicated by the fact that the keys are not to open the
gates of Hades, so there is a metaphor shift here. Keys have a twofold

significance: they open or shut doors and are symbols of authority. Christ
used the term ‘key’ in the first sense in Luke 11:52, that the scribes had taken
away the key of knowledge, not entering in themselves and hindering those
entering in. In a similar context of Matthew 23:13, He used the verb from
which kleis (key) is derived, kleiô to make a similar accusation: “you shut off
the kingdom of heaven from men; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow
those who are entering to go in.” The second meaning relates to the first and
seems evident in Revelation 1:18 and 3:7-8, where Christ has the keys of
death and Hades, and since He has the key of David, when He opens no one
can shut, and when He shuts, no one can open. Furthermore He set before
the Philadelphia church an open door of evangelism.
It seems that syntax, word study, and the immediate context alone
cannot clarify the Lord's meaning here. The broader context of the progres-
sive fulfillment in the book of Acts is necessary to clarify His meaning. The
most viable scenario which fulfills all the data was suggested by Henry
Alford over a century ago: “Another personal promise to Peter, remarkably fulfilled in his being
the first to admit both Jews and Gentiles into the Church; thus using the power of the keys to open the
door of salvation.12 It was Peter who preached the Pentecost sermon through
which three thousand Jews were saved. He had the keys to open the door
of faith for the nation Israel to enter into the kingdom of God (implicitly the
church). Christ had commanded the Apostles to be witnesses to Samaria
also (Acts 1:8), but Peter failed to take the initiative which caused a di-
lemma. Philip's preaching resulted in converts and baptisms. But the
converts could not receive the Spirit in the normative way (at the time of
exercising faith) because Peter had not officially opened the door of faith to
the Samaritans. The belated receiving of the Spirit through the laying on of
the hands of Peter and John was an anomaly caused by Peter's failure (Acts
8:5-24). God made sure that it was Peter who opened the door of faith to
the Gentiles by giving visions both to him and to Cornelius to make it happen
(Acts 10). Peter thus is pictured as a trustee (oikonomos), holding and using
the keys, thus fulfilling a temporary trusteeship until he completed the task.
It is noteworthy that the gift of languages (tongues) was a supernatural
sign certainly given to the nation Israel on all three occasions to attest this
official opening of the doors of faith (1 Cor. 14:20-3). (Although not explicitly
mentioned in Samaria, there was undoubtedly some external divine
phenomenon to attest the gift of the Spirit.) Later as Paul and Barnabas
followed through on that opening into the Gentile world, Luke used those
very words: “how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). In
the Jerusalem Council, Peter testified on that exact point: “Brethren, you know
that in the early days God made a choice (eklegomai=was appointed) among you, that
by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God,
who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also
did to us” (Acts 15:7). Having fully utilized the keys to open doors of faith to
all humanity, he relinquished any related authority. There was no continuing
primacy or even leadership in the subsequent record.G But the question of

the content of Peter's preaching needed to be addressed, and this is the
subject of the rest of Matthew 16:19.
Proclamation on God's Terms

In the beginning of Matthew 16, the context of the preceding events is a
major neglected factor in understanding this difficult passage. On the other
side of the sea of Galilee Christ had a confrontation with the Pharisees and
Sadducees. Then He warned the disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees
and Sadducees, their false doctrines (Mt. 16:11-12). Later in Caesarea
Philippi Christ developed this truth. Since the language of the binding and
loosing is rabbinic language, this context’s relevance is clear as Christ later
accused the Pharisees and Scribes of binding on earth what God had not
bound in heaven (esp. Mt. 23:4, 13). On the other hand, we know that the
Sadducees were the rationalists of Judaism, who loosed on earth what God
had not loosed in heaven. Robertson affirmed: “Rabbis of the school of Hillel
‘loosed’ many things that the school of Schammai ‘bound’.”13 Robert Gundry also noted
the “leavenlike teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees in v. 12. ” 14
Focusing on the syntax of 16:19, the future periphrastic* perfect passive
participial constructions (a future verb with a perfect passive participle) in
this statement are most significant. The problem is intensified by the failure
of most translators to represent its full force in English. Charles B. Williams
emphasized bringing out the distinctive Greek verb tenses in his translation:
“and whatever you forbid on earth must be what is already forbidden in heaven, and
whatever you permit on earth must be what is already permitted in heaven.”15 The
Amplified Version followed his lead, as did the NAS (1963 & 1995 eds).H
Chamberlain's grammar stated:
There are a few future perfect periphrastics: estai dedemenon and estai lelumenon (Mt. 16:19).
This is wrongly translated ‘shall be bound' and ‘shall be loosed,' seeming to make Jesus teach
that the apostles' acts will determine the policies of heaven. (Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 149f.)
They should be translated ‘shall have been bound' and ‘shall have been loosed'. . . . Cf. Mt.
18:18. This incorrect translation has given expositors and theologians a great deal of trouble.16
Robertson's brief comment is in agreement: “All this assumes, of course, that
Peter's use of the keys will be in accord with the teaching and mind of Christ. . . . Every
preacher uses the keys of the kingdom when he proclaims the terms of salvation in Christ.”17
This is a rare construction in the New Testament which implies that Mat-
thew must have had a clear intent to use it. Blass and DeBrunner stated:
“Periphrasis occasionally provides a rhetorically more forceful expression.”18 Gundry's
comment gave further confirmation:
G. After Acts 11, we see no real leadership or primacy by Peter, or for that matter by James. Many
wrongly assume that James was the lone pastor of the Jerusalem church.
H. Although the NAS committee waffled in between (1977), they ultimately realized the strong
grammatical evidence and corrected the 1995 edition.
The passives “will have been bound" and “will have been loosed" imply divine action. “In
heaven" is a reverential substitute for God's name and also implies divine action. The
periphrastic future perfect tense does not mean “will be . . . ," but “will have been . . ." (see J. R.
Mantey in JETS 16 [1973] 129-38). Thus God will not ratify at the last judgment what Peter
does in the present age, but Peter does in the present age what God has already determined.
In other words, Peter has received direction from God for his scribal activity. This direction
consists in Jesus' teaching.19
One wonders why translators have been so timid in giving full force to
this rare construction when the grammar is so clear. We can understand
why the Anglican King James translators, many of whom were just one step
out of Rome, would give a connotation supportive of the Anglo-Catholic
viewpoint, which dominated the translation process.20 But why do contem-
porary translators fall into the rut of past poor translations when doctrinally
it is so harmful?
Psalm 119:89 affirmed: “Forever, O LORD, Thy word is settled in heaven.” This
is the standard which Peter and the Apostles were to use in proclaiming the
terms of entrance into the church. They had been taught by Christ Himself,
but did not yet understand His death, burial, and resurrection and its impli-
cations (Mt. 16:21ff., cf. Lk. 9:44). So the Holy Spirit had to give them further
revelation as to its meaning for accurate witness as was fulfilled in the
apostolic preaching (kçrugma). So really Christ was charging Peter and the
Apostles to make sure they did not fall into Pharisaic legalism in proclaiming
the message, that is, making salvation's terms harder than God's standard.
Nor were they to fall into Sadducean rationalization, that is, making salvation
too easy and the door too wide. They must ‘tell it like it is' that repentant
faith in Christ is the only gateway to heaven.
Conclusions and Implications

Conclusions. A most significant conclusion is that the evidence is one-
sided that the Lord Jesus the Messiah indicated that He would build His as-
sembly upon His own divine person. The Old Testament background
symbolism of God as the Rock, the availability of several Hebrew and Ara-
maic words for Him to have used in the wordplay (if indeed He was speak-
ing Aramaic), the consistent distinction of the usage of petros and of petra,
the wordplay parallels in the literature, Peter's own understanding, the
cultural context, the broader context, and the analogy of Scripture—all
militate toward this conclusion. The most shocking aspect of this is the
absolute failure of most scholars to check out the other Aramaic options
before pontificating against this view.
The Lord further ensured the victory of the church over the gates of
Hades by His own entering into death and His victorious resurrection,
assuring likewise the church's victory over death. He then delegated to
Peter the responsibility to open the door of faith by proclaiming the message
of this victory, first to his own nation, then to the Samaritans, and lastly to the
Gentiles. With this He gave a charge that Peter and the church must pro-
claim it only on God's revealed terms, not corrupting the message by legal-
ism or rationalization.
Finally, He gave the first of a dozen predictions of His imminent death,
burial, and resurrection as the only basis for that church and its victory.
Implications. We should not draw our conclusions motivated by trying
to arrive at certain implications. However, we must not shrink from declar-
ing bluntly the clear implications of these conclusions. Exegesis and theol-
ogy must have their ‘so what?’
In this day of rapprochement between Evangelicals and Roman Catho-
lics, the ‘Peter’ view facilitates these dangerous compromises. It is impossi-
ble to hold that view without in some way magnifying Peter and denigrating
the Messiah Himself, despite the insistence of its evangelical advocates. The
‘confession’ view at least does not have that objection, and yet the focus is
still too much upon a mere man, not the divine Messiah Himself. The ‘Peter
and Apostles’ view, with slim Scriptural basis, also opens the door for
compromise with Rome.
The common connection of the gates of Hades with Satanic attack on
the church has led to a fortress mentality, by which many have failed to see
that the Church is to be on the offensive, not in a defensive posture.
Recognizing the unique, but temporary nature of Peter's stewardship of
the keys is significant also in avoiding Roman Catholic pretensions. It also
helps to clarify the anomaly of the belated reception of the Spirit by the
Samaritan believers in Acts 8.
Recognizing the normative force of the future periphrastic perfect passive
participial construction in the binding and loosing is additionally crucial in
avoiding compromise with Rome and also in avoiding making salvation's
terms either too hard by legalisms or too easy by modernistic rationaliza-
tions. It also helps us understand the charge of Matthew 18:18 for the
church's responsibility to set ethical standards by avoiding legalism and
permissive rationalizations.
Finally, recognition of the integral connection of this first reference to the
church with the first of a dozen predictions of His passion, helps us to grasp
the uniqueness of the church as set in contrast to the kingdom offer to Israel.
EXCURSUS: Hebrew and Aramaic Words for Rock

Two Hebrew words are mainly used in connection with Mt. 16: 9&7 (tsur) is used of God 33 times
and in reference to the incident of Moses getting water from the rock seven times. A standard lexicon
gives this definition: "n.m. rock, cliff—1.a. rocky wall, cliff. . . b. rock with flat surface. . . c. a block of
stone, boulder. . . d. rock with specific name. 2.a. fig. of God (33x.) as support and defense of his
people. . . b. of a heathen god. . . ."21 The second word 3-2 (sela') is used six times of God and six
times in Numbers 20 of the water from the rock, among others.
Another key is the word from which Peter was called Cephas: 4, (kaiph), used only twice, both in
the plural. Jastrow’s Aramaic lexicon suggested that it has the same meaning in Hebrew as in later
Aramaic, "rock, stone, ball" and then listed some other usages in the Targums and Talmud: pearls,
jewels, hail-stones, rocks (corals), precious stones, jewelry, shore, border, etc., mostly small detached
stones. Its two usages in Job 30:6 and Jer. 4:29 are consistent with this in indicating the reference to a
plurality of detached stones.22 This is exceedingly important to our understanding of the Messiah's
usage in Matthew 16.
Most significant is Dan. 2:34-5,45 in the Aramaic portion of the OT. Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the
stone cut without hands (eben) smashing world kingdoms and becoming a great mountain which filled
the earth used the Aramaic equivalent of 9&7 (tsur) to refer to the mountain, that is, 9&)(tur). Jastrow
confirmed subsequent Aramaic usage with the same meaning. This supports the understanding that
both the terms have reference to a solid bedrock, cliff, or mountain in contrast with the words eben and
kaiph, which refer to detached stones of various sizes, but in later usage shifting to smaller stones like
jewels, pearls, hailstones, and balance weights. Another possibility in the Aramaic, !3&: (shu'ah), used
in the targums of Prov. 30:19 and Ezek. 26:4 of a smooth, flat bedrock.23 It is also the most common
rendering of ðÝôñá (petra) in the Syriac versions, whereas ðÝôñïò (petros) is never rendered by shu'ah.
1. G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1937), p. 359.
2. Arndt and Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon, p. 660.
3. William Douglas Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 11.
4. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (GR: Zondervan, 1996), pp. 241-2. (Mk. 1:9; 15:39;
Lk. 7:44; Jn. 4:15; Acts 1:11; 1 Cor. 11:25; Tit. 1:13; 2 Pet. 1:18; Jude 4; Rev. 11:10.)
5. Blass and DeBrunner, A Greek Grammar, trans. Robert W. Funk, pp. 133-4.
6. Robert H. Gundry, "The Language Milieu of First-Century Palestine." Jour. of Bib. Lit., 83 (1964): 404-08.
7. David J. Hesselgrave, Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally (GR: Zondervan, 1978), pp. 223-34.
8. Luis Padrosa, "The Roman Catholic Church" in Howard F. Vos, Religions in a Changing World, p. 376.
9. D. A. Carson, The Expositors Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol 8, (1984), p. 368.
10. Arndt & Gingrich, p. 425.
11. Louis A. Barbieri, Jr. in John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, eds., The Bible Knowledge Commentary, pp. 57-8.
12. Henry Alford, The Greek Testament , originally 4 vols. (Chicago: Moody, 1958 [1849]), I: 173-4.
13. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament , 6 vols. (Nashville: Broadman, 1930), I:134.
14. Gundry, Matthew, p. 334.
15. Charles B. Williams, The New Testament in the Language of the People (Chicago: Moody, 1963 [1937]).
16. Chamberlain, p. 80.
17. Robertson, I: 134. See also his A Grammar in the Light of Historical Research, pp. 826, 878f, 887-889, 906.
18. Blass, et al, p. 179.
19. Gundry, p. 335.
20. Gustavus S. Paine, The Men Behind the King James Version (GR: Baker, 1977).
21. Brown, Driver, and Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon , p. 849.
22. Marcus Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature (N.Y.:
Judaica Press, 1982), pp. 634-5.
23. Ibid, p. 526; p. 1538.
. . . Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of
7
God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the king-
dom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the
gospel.” (Mk. 1:14-5)
. . . how I did not shrink from declaring to you any-

thing that was profitable, and teaching you publicly
and from house to house, solemnly testifying to
both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God
and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
- the Apostle Paul (Acts 20:20-1)
WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
“What must I do to be saved?” The Philippian jailor’s question to Paul and

Silas is the question of the ages demanding a clear answer. Although the
Bible is clear, people have incredibly complicated the issue because the
biblical answer seems too simple. Some say, “Believe and be baptized!”
Others: “Believe and follow Christ!” “Repent and confess all your sins,
believe in Christ, be baptized, and join the church!” “Let go and let God!”
“Pray through!” “Surrender to Christ!” “Repent and live a life of obedience!”
Some say there is nothing one can do; just wait on God to give faith you are
among the elect! Many say “Deny yourselves and take up your cross to be
saved.” Others say we must keep the Mosaic Law, especially the sabbath.
The Catholic Church makes it more difficult: “One must be christened,
participate regularly in the mass, keep on doing penance for sins, have
extreme unction just before death, and have relatives pay for masses to get
out of purgatory.” The late Pope was even trusting in Mary’s intercession.
The watchword of the Protestant Reformation was that salvation is by
grace through faith alone. What is meant by faith and what about all these
other conditions added onto faith according to various ‘Christian’ groups?
Did the Apostle Paul oversimplify the issue? Did Martin Luther?
The answer to all these questions is found in just one authoritative
source–the Bible. Human opinion and reasoning is useless, tradition even
more confusing, and the varieties of human experience even more mislead-
ing! The only source of salvation truth is God’s inspired word! From all the
above confused and contradictory answers, one might think that the Bible
itself is just as confused, but its answer is clear, harmonious, and simple–if
only we can rid ourselves of our presuppositions, biases, and traditions and
come to it with an open and “honest heart” (Lk. 8:15). A sequential journey
through the New Testament is vital, rather than jumping from passage to
97
passage, which frequently obscures the context. The best inductive study is
to see the progress of the revelation of God’s truth sequentially.
John the Baptizer’s starting point (John 1:29)

The herald of Christ summed up the essential foundation of salvation in
one statement as he introduced Him to Israel, saying, “Look, the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.” He made clear the Lord Jesus was the
fulfillment of all Old Testament blood sacrifices. However, the fulfillment far
exceeded the sacrifices pointing to Him. The shedding of blood to provide
garments for Adam and Eve (Gen. 3), the Passover lambs slain to redeem
the firstborn in Egypt (Ex. 12), the blood of the sacrificial animals–all were
temporary provisions (Heb. 10:1-4). But John declared that Christ’s sacrifice
would take away the sins of the whole world! John tersely focused upon
the two main issues of the ministry of Christ—who He is and what He came
to do. Some people wonder why the Gospels say so little about what He
came to do until the last months before His crucifixion. The first issue, who
He is, had to be made absolutely clear first. So only just before the cross He
spelled out why He came: “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but
to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28). Was this man just
a prophet, a miracle worker, a human Messiah, a deceiver, an egomaniac,
or was He really God incarnate? Israel had to face this issue first.
In the course of His ministry, Christ also focused upon the reality of sin
in the nation Israel and among all peoples. Until Israel realized how sinful
and apostate they had become, there was little point in His explaining the
nature of His future sacrificial work on the cross.
Repentance and faith

The description of the beginning of His ministry is significant: “After John
was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The
time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good
news’”(Mk. 1:14-15). This twofold demand relates to the two issues just
mentioned. Although there is much discussion about the nature of the
kingdom of God, one sure thing is that it centers on the King, Christ Himself.
The kingdom was at hand because the King had come (cf. Lk. 17:20-25). In
light of His arrival and the impending kingdom, Israel’s sin had to be faced
and repented of. But they would not see any need to repent unless they
recognized who He was, nor could they really believe in Him in the true
sense unless they had repented of their sin, their false views about God, His
word, and His Messiah. Repentance and true faith go hand in glove. A
better analogy for the terms of salvation is the two sides of one coin repre-
senting one condition: repentance is tails, the negative side, and faith is
heads, the positive side. Years later Paul spoke of the essence of his mes-
sage as, “repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21
NAS). His message was the same as Christ’s (Mk. 1:14-15)! These two sides
of the coin will be examined separately and then put back together.
Chapter 7 WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 99
The message of repentance

After many silent centuries Christ’s forerunner had again voiced God’s
demand to Israel for repentance: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near”
(Mt. 3:1). He emphasized God’s judgment upon sin by exposing Israel’s
sinful, hypocritical, ostentatious, and externalistic ways. His bold rebuke of
King Herod’s adultery brought his imprisonment. At that point, the Lord
Jesus took up John’s message in virtually identical language (Mt. 4:12, 17).
But what does repentance mean? There are many misconceptions about its
meaning current today. The Greek for repentance is metanoia, a change of
mind, heart, will, attitude, or mind-set (see Excursus, p.109-10). The Jewish
people needed to change their minds about themselves, both individually
and corporately as a nation, about their sin, and about God and His de-
mands. Coming to faith in Christ must involve a real change of attitude.
The Sermon on the Mount was Christ’s first major challenge to the
mindset and attitude of the Jewish people. He exposed the false Rabbinic
misinterpretations of the Mosaic Law by the contrasting expression, “You
have heard that it was said . . . but I say to you” (Mt. 5:21-2; 27-8; 31-2; 33-4;38-9;43-
4). He exposed the hypocritical externalism of publically giving alms,
praying, and fasting so as to be seen of men. He exposed their materialistic
view that wealth proves God’s blessing (Mt. 6:19-34). He warned especially
about the false prophets and leaders of Israel who used God’s name but
were counterfeits (Mt. 7:15-23). Throughout His teaching He warned about
the arrogant, self-righteous religious leaders who were leading the nation
astray (Mt. 23). Thus, this Sermon was a true, higher exposition of the
Mosaic Law to help the people see themselves as sinners before God and in
need of His salvation. The most shocking indictment he made was: “For I tell
you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers
of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:20).
There were few really righteous in Israel and only a small remnant of
believing, righteous Jews, such as Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah.
The majority were unregenerate sinners needing repentance. Through the
ministry of John, Christ’s early disciples, such as Peter, Andrew, James,
John, and Nathaniel, had become part of this repentant remnant (Jn. 1:29-
51). But even the pre-eminent teacher in Israel, Nicodemus, needed to be
born again (Jn. 3:1-36). When the Pharisees and Scribes grumbled at the
Lord’s connection with sinners at Matthew Levi’s feast, He said: “It is not
those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to
call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Lk. 5:31-2). Using two incidents in
which people were tragically killed as an example, He pressed His point,
“But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Lk. 13:1-5). When Zaccheus, the
crooked tax collector, came to repentance, He affirmed, “For the Son of Man
came to seek and to save what was lost” (Lk. 19:10). Thus, repentance involves
a radical change of mind or attitude about sin, self, and the Savior.
One misconception about repentance which developed in the church
after the time of the Apostles was that it meant a change of direction in
one’s lifestyle, turning over a new leaf in life. Instead, repentance is a

change of mind, and conversion is a change of direction or lifestyle. When
you are driving down the interstate and a sign alerts you that you are going
in the wrong direction, repentance is the decision to turn around. Conver-
sion is when you find an exit and make a u-turn. They are related, but
distinct. This is important because the Pharisees had the idea that as long
as things looked good on the outside one was all right with God. But the
Lord Jesus was more concerned with the issues of the heart (Prov. 4:23), as
the starting place for dealing with the external lifestyle. Unfortunately, many
legalistic scholars today fall into the same confusion by equating repentance
and conversion (cf. Excursus, p. 109-10). This same confusion resulted in
the Roman Catholic Douay translation, “do penance.” It implies that repen-
tance is something people do to gain acceptance with God.
Another false notion is repentance means sorrow for sin. This empha-
sizes the emotional dimension, whereas the Greek word puts the emphasis
upon the mind and will. Paul clarified this: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that
leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Cor.
7:10). Although godly sorrow can bring true repentance, sorrow in itself is
not repentance. This error is also connected with confusion between re-
pentance and remorse. Remorse is being sorry for getting caught in sin.
This is what happened to Judas Iscariot. When things didn’t work out the
way he had planned, he was remorseful and went out and hanged himself.
In contrast, Simon Peter repented of his denial of the Lord Jesus and was
restored (Jn. 21). Weeping and mourning are not conditions for being saved
since God is ready to save any sinner who comes in repentant faith.
The appeal to believe the good news by trusting Christ

The positive side of the coin is to believing the good news which is to
trust Christ. Repentance is emphasized in the Synoptic Gospels, and believ-
ing in John’s Gospel. The active verb pisteuein (to believe, to trust) is found 96
times in John, but the noun pistis (faith, trust) does not occur, although
frequently found in the epistles. Unfortunately, in English, the noun (faith)
and the verb (believe) are from two different roots, but the Greek words
come from the same root. Their meaning in Greek is a lot stronger than the
words belief and believe, which have been badly watered down in English:
“I believe it will rain today.” It would be better to use the word ‘trust’ both
as a noun and verb to more faithfully render the meaning of the original.
John gave a clear picture of this meaning. In the prologue of his Gospel,
he equated it with ‘receiving’ Christ: “Yet to all who received him, to those who
believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God . . .” (Jn. 1:12,
NIV). Speaking to Nicodemus, Israel’s premier teacher, the Lord made trust
in Himself the condition for receiving eternal life (Jn. 3:15-16). John con-
cluded the narrative with the words: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal
life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (Jn.
3:36, NIV). There is controversial Greek word used in this verse. The verb
apeithein (rejects) is translated “believeth not” in the KJV and “does not obey”
in the NAS. Since the positive verb peithein has the idea of being persuaded,
one authoritative Greek lexicon rightly supported the KJV and NIV against
the NAS: “Since, in the view of the early Christians, the supreme disobedience was a refusal
to believe their gospel, apeitheo may be restricted in some passages to the meaning
disbelieve, be an unbeliever.”1 John was not talking about obedience here, but
lack of faith and rejection. This indicates that true faith involves persuasion.
The Jewish leaders began to oppose Christ early in His ministry, eliciting
this wonderful claim from His mouth: “In very truth, anyone who gives heed to
what I say and puts his trust in him who sent me has hold of eternal life, and does not
come up for judgement, but has already passed from death to life” (Jn. 5:24, NEV).
Note the wonderful assurance which true faith engenders in the heart. It is
the assurance of a present reality (has hold of eternal life), a confidence for the
future (does not come up for judgement) based upon a past event (has already
passed from death to life). This is the verse God used in my life over sixty years
ago to bring me into assurance of eternal life, which has never left me.
The narrative of the Samaritan woman helps: “‘Everyone who drinks of this
water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never
thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up
to eternal life’” (Jn. 4:13-14). Christ used the symbolism of drinking living
water to explain that believing is like drinking, or appropriating the living
water for one’s self (Jn. 4:10, 13-4). Water symbolizes the Spirit. He used
the same symbolism in the bread of life discourse (Jn. 6:35, 53-4):
I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who
believes in me will never be thirsty. . . . I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh
of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my
flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
‘Eating’ symbolizes coming to Christ, and ‘drinking,’ saving faith. One must
appropriate or partake of Christ; it is not mere intellectual assent to certain
truths. At the feast of Tabernacles, He dramatically reinforced this essential
idea: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice,
‘If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the
Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him’” (Jn. 7:37-8).
Matthew recorded a unique invitation, which amplified the Lord’s
reference in John 6:35 to coming to Him as an aspect of believing: “Come to
me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28). Notice
the universality of this invitation. In the context, He had just denounced the
towns of Israel which were unrepentant despite the flood of light of His
presence which they had been privileged to witness (Mt. 11:20-24). This
implied that the invitation is now extended to the Gentiles as well as the
Jews, which means the whole world of people burdened with sin. This
brings us back to where we began–John 1:29, “the sin of the world.”
Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ had exhorted: “Enter through
the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction,
and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life,
and only a few find it” (Mt. 7:13-14). John recorded His words in a later dis-
course about the gate to the sheep pen: “I am the gate; whoever enters through
me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture” (Jn. 10:9). Note the
universality of the invitation, but also its exclusivity. Christ is the only gate or
door to eternal life. Just before this He had made it plain to the Pharisees: “I
told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim
to be, you will indeed die in your sins” (Jn. 8:24, NIV).
Thus, repentance and faith (trust) in Christ are together seen as the one
condition for salvation. We can rightly proclaim repentant faith in Christ.
Conversion, the result

The Greek words for conversion (strephein, epistrephein) refer to a change
of direction used in the literal sense of “turning oneself around” (Mk. 5:30;
8:33) or metaphorically of a spiritual turning toward God. It can refer to both
a change of the direction of one’s life and of lifestyle. Conditioned on
repentant faith, God gives the new birth as a total work of the Spirit in
imparting new, divine life to the spiritually dead. The outward result of this
is conversion. God’s way is to start on the inside with the new birth, which
then begins to impact the outward life in conversion.
The major error of the Scribes and Pharisees of Christ’s day was osten-
tatious externalism, without a change of heart. Many legalistic Christians
today have fallen into the same tragic error. The Lord Jesus did not actually
say much about conversion; He left that to His Apostles to clarify. The major
issue throughout most of His ministry was— who He is.
The centrality of the cross and the resurrection

It was not until the last months of His ministry that the Lord Jesus began
to speak explicitly about the cross. Beginning at Caesarea Philippi, He
began to predict a dozen times that He must go up to Jerusalem, suffer, be
killed, and rise from the dead (Mt. 16:21; Lk. 9:22). He only explained its
significance in Mt. 20:28: “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to
serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” This makes it clear that the cross
is the basis of the salvation He is offering.
However, before Christ could talk about the cross, He first had to deal
with Israel’s sin by explaining the true meaning of the Mosaic Law and His
higher standard of morality for the impending kingdom of righteousness He
was offering to Israel in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. Then He
had to show them who He was—God incarnate in human flesh. Only then,
upon their rejection of Him as righteous king, could He press on to Jerusa-
lem and the cross. This helps explain why the form in which His message
was proclaimed over most of His ministry, especially as recorded in the
Synoptic Gospels, seems quite different from the message proclaimed by
the Apostles in Acts and the epistles. But the core of the message is the
same: people must repent and then turn to Him as God’s Messiah in faith,
that is, as King and Savior. But before the proffered kingdom could be
inaugurated, He must first suffer and die according to God’s eternal plan. As
a consequence of His deity, He also claimed to be the only way of salvation,
contrary to the pluralistic ideas in vogue today: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way
and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6).
John recorded a number of incidents and teachings pointing to the
cross and resurrection, first in symbolic language and later more explicitly.
When cleansing the temple at the first Passover of His ministry, Christ said
to the leaders: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (Jn.
2:19). At the second Passover, after feeding the crowd He said, “I am the
bread of life; . . . This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (Jn.
6:35a, 51c). At the feast of Dedication (Chanukah) four months before the
cross, He described Himself as the Good Shepherd who lays down His life
for His sheep (Jn. 10:11-18). As the last Passover and crucifixion approach-
ed, in connection with the raising of Lazarus, He said to Martha, “I am the
resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” (Jn.
11:25). During passion week, referring to the Gentiles who wanted to see
Him, He said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and
dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. . . . But I,
when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all [kinds of] men to myself” (Jn. 12:24,
32). There are a dozen more explicit predictions He made of His passion.
The gospel in the Lord’s final orders

Christ laid the foundation for the “Great Commission” in His exhortation
to the fishermen: “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Mt. 4:19).
During the forty days after His resurrection and before He ascended on high,
He commanded: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you” (Mt. 28:18-20a). The incident later in Jerusa-
lem explained how they were to make disciples by proclaiming to all
peoples forgiveness conditioned on repentance:
This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the
third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his
name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these
things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in
the city until you have been clothed with power from on high (Lk. 24:47-9).
The gospel in apostolic preaching

Another excellent way to get at the heart of the salvation message is to
examine the apostolic preaching in Acts. Most of the proclamation is in the
words of Peter or Paul, and in Luke’s explanations along the way.
Peter’s messages to Israel. At Pentecost, after explaining the phe-
nomena of the gift of the Spirit, Peter focused on the cross (Acts 2:23),
resurrection, and ascension as proof that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah
(2:24-36). Many in the crowd came under conviction as Christ had promised
in John 16:8-11. “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to
Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37). Peter’s re-
sponse needs to be translated more clearly from the Greek:A “All of you [pl.]
must imperatively repent (and let him [sing.] be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ)
for the forgiveness of your [pl.] sins; and you [pl.] will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit” (Acts 2:38, Olson). Verse 41 made clear that only “those who had
received the word” were baptized; baptism of itself has no saving value. Then
in verse 44, the repentant converts are described as “those who had believed.”
It is God who saves, and nothing man does can contribute to our salvation:
“And the Lord was adding to their number daily those who were being saved” (2:47b).
As Peter’s second opportunity came through the healing of the lame
man, he focused on the cross and resurrection (Acts 3:13-18) and then
exhorted: “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that
times of refreshing may come from the Lord . . .” (3:19). They were on the verge
of a great revival, if only the nation would repent and turn to God. Tragically,
instead they arrested the Apostles. Still Luke says, “But many who heard the
message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand” (4:4, NIV).
Notice how repentance and faith are used interchangeably, and there is no
mention of baptism here. Note also that repentance is prior to conversion.
Some wrongly assume that because repentance and conversion are con-
nected by ‘and,’ they are synonymous.
It is very important in this pluralistic age to note that Peter confirmed the
Lord’s claim to be the only way of salvation: “Salvation is found in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved”
(Acts 4:12, NIV). When brought before the Sanhedrin, Peter did not waver
from the same message: “God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and
Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are wit-
nesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who
obey him” (5:31-2). Some have misused this verse to teach that God gives
repentance as a gift to some elect individuals. However, the context is clear
that Peter is talking about God giving the nation Israel the opportunity to
repent and be forgiven. Others have misused this verse to claim that only
obedient Christians receive the Spirit after their conversion. A unique verb,
peitharchein used here speaks of submission to Christ’s authority implicit in
repentant faith. Obviously, the Jewish rulers were not submitting to Christ’s
authority as Prince and Savior, whereas all true believers have submitted.
At his martyrdom, Stephen raised the same issue: “You stiff-necked
people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always
resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51). Salvation is not through some irresistible
work of the Spirit upon some elect group. Human beings have a free will to
resist the work of the Spirit, as most do. Luke recorded how Philip went
A. The standard translations have not made clear the marked shift from the second person plural
imperative (repent) to the third person singular imperative (let him be baptized), which is sometimes
called a cohortative. Since the verb ‘to repent’ is in the plural, as is the forgiveness and the gift of the
Spirit, these connect and are not conditioned upon baptism, which alone is in the singular.
down to the Samaritans to follow up the ministry of Christ there (Jn. 4): “But
when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and
the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women” (Acts 8:12).
The importance of human response to the message as the key factor in
conversion is confirmed by Peter’s miracle in Lydda of healing a paralytic
named Aeneas: “All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the
Lord” (Acts 9:35). These astonishing results have sometimes been experi-
enced by missionaries today, as whole tribes come together to Christ.
Donald McGavran termed this “people-movement conversion.” There are
some humanly caused circumstances leading up to such mass responses.
This cannot be harmonized with ideas of God saving only a few ‘elect’
people. These ideas will be studied subsequently (Chaps. 19-26).
Most significant is Peter’s message to the first Gentile converts after
Pentecost, Cornelius and his household. After preaching the cross and
resurrection, he said, “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes
in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43, NIV). Note that
all these Gentile relatives and friends, having been prepared by Cornelius’
influence (v. 24), received the gift of the Holy Spirit at the point at which they
came to faith, neither before nor afterward, as some erroneously teach.
Hyper-Calvinists teach that the new birth by the Spirit precedes faith, and
Pentecostals deny that we receive the Spirit when we believe (cf. 1 Cor.
6:19-20; Rom. 8:9). Peter based his conclusion that even these Gentiles
should receive baptism on the fact that they had already received the Holy
Spirit (Acts 10:44-8). Baptism did not contribute to their salvation.
In Jerusalem when Peter defended his baptism of Gentiles, he reaf-
firmed that their faith was the condition of receiving the Spirit of God: “‘So if
God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was I to think that I could oppose God!’ When they heard this, they had no further
objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, God has even granted the Gentiles
repentance unto life’” (Acts 11:17-18, NIV). Note that believing and repenting
are used here interchangeably as the condition of receiving the Spirit. In
their response, the Apostles and elders were indicating that now God was
giving Gentiles the opportunity to repent and receive eternal life.B
Accordingly, this is followed with the narrative of bringing Gentiles into
the church in the cosmopolitan city of Antioch of Syria: “. . . men from Cyprus
and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good
news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of
people believed and turned to the Lord” (Acts 11:20-21, NIV). The unique charac-
ter of the church was seen through including Gentile converts, resulting in
both Jewish and Gentile disciples first being called Christians there (11:26).
Paul’s missionary tours. The ministry of Paul and Barnabas on their
first missionary tour into the broader Gentile world is then recorded. The
sermon in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch is given at length. After preach-
B. Some suppose this shows that repentance is a direct gift of God to the elect, but this ignores the
context of the passage. The issue was Jews and Gentiles. God didn’t give all Gentiles repentance.
ing the ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ, they said, “Therefore, my
brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed
to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not
be justified from by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39, NIV). Both Jews and
devout Gentiles responded and the Apostles were invited back. The next
Sabbath, as a crowd gathered, the synagogue leaders opposed them,
causing them to say: “‘It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first;
since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are
turning to the Gentiles. . . .’” Luke reported, “When the Gentiles heard this, they
began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and all who had set (devoted)
themselves to eternal life believed” (13:46, 48, Olson).C As the Apostles moved
on to Iconium, Luke again contrasted the great number of Jews and Gentiles
who believed with the Jewish leadership, “who refused to believe . . .” (14:2).
At the Jerusalem church council, in defending Gentile salvation by
grace through faith alone, Peter was very explicit (Acts 15:7-9, 11, NAS):
Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you,
that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and
believe. And God, who knows the heart, testified to them [by] giving the
Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us; and He made no distinction between us
and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. . . . But we believe that we are
saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus, in the same way they also are.
On the second missionary tour, Paul and Silas got a positive response in
Philippi. God opened the heart of Lydia, who was already worshiping Him
by customarily meeting with Jewish women at a place of prayer.D After
baptism she called herself “a believer” (Acts 16:15). The conversion of the
Philippian jailor is so important. The incredible testimony of the Apostles
praying and singing hymns at midnight in prison with their feet in stocks,
must have brought conviction to the jailor, reinforced by the earthquake,
causing him to cry out, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Since he had already
had a change of mind, their response did not leave anything out: “Believe in
the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household,”(Acts 16:30-31,
NAS). They told the whole truth. Note that it was after they had believed
and were saved, that those who had believed were also baptized (16:32-34).
At Thessalonica, the Apostles went into the synagogue, “. . . and for three
sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that
the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead” (Acts 17:2-3). Luke said in
describing the conversion of many devout Greeks and prominent women
C. The perfect participle, tetagmenoi, can be either middle or passive voice. Since the Apostles had just
referred to the Jews’ rejecting and considering themselves unworthy of eternal life, the middle voice
reflexive meaning makes much better sense here. The verb tassein is used ‘to assign oneself,’ ‘to set
oneself,’ ‘arrange oneself,’or in 1 Cor. 16:15 of ‘devoting oneself to something.’ BAG, p. 813; BAGD, p.
991; Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 626; and Alford, Gk. Testament, II, 153-4.
D. This is not an indication of irresistible grace, as some suppose, because her heart was already right
with God, and she like other godly Jews just needed to be moved into the New Testament church through
the hearing of the gospel message.
that “some of them were persuaded.” Human persuasion plays a significant part
in people coming to faith. After the success of this persuasive evangelism
caused a riot, the Apostles arrived in the synagogue in Berea: “Now these were
more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great
eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
Therefore many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and
men”(Acts 17:11-12).E As Bible teachers have long stressed, we must always
ask what ‘therefore’ is there for. Luke is clearly showing cause and effect.
There is a connection between the Bereans’ mind-set and the fact that many
came to saving faith. In making this connection, Luke is simply reflecting
Christ’s own explanation in His parable of the four soils (Lk. 8:15).
When forced out of Berea, Paul left Silas and Timothy there and found
a great opportunity on Mars Hill in Athens among the Greek philosophers.
He told them that God created mankind “that they would seek God, if perhaps
they might grope for Him and find Him. . . . Therefore having overlooked the times of
ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, . .
.” (Acts 17:27, 30). Only a few believed there, possibly because of their
proud philosophical mind-set (17:32-34). Finding a synagogue in the cosmo-
politan city of Corinth, Paul again reasoned with the people and tried “to
persuade Jews and Greeks” (18:4). The results were most encouraging.
“Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and
many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized” (Acts
18:8). At the end of his eighteen-month ministry there, Paul also saw the
conversion of the new synagogue leader, Sosthenes (Acts 18:17; 1 Cor. 1:1).
With such success in Corinth, Paul continued the same persuasive
approach in the great religious center of Asia, Ephesus (18:19). He left
Priscilla and Aquila there, whose witness was greatly reinforced by the
arrival of Apollos, an eloquent and zealous man, who had only a rudimen-
tary knowledge of Christ’s person and work. After they ‘brought him up to
speed’ on the whole Christian message, he went over to Corinth and “greatly
helped those who had believed through grace, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in
public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 18:27-28).
On Paul’s third missionary tour, he interacted with a dozen disciples of
John in Ephesus reinforcing the same pattern. Since they had even less
understanding of New-Testament salvation than Apollos had, Paul had to
move them into the full reality of the church-age message and experience:
“John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him
who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus” (Acts 19:4).F Upon receiving the
Spirit through the laying on of Paul’s hands, they made the transition from
being godly Jews to becoming part of the body of Christ, the Church. Paul
rebaptized them to signify this (19:5-6). Since they had already been saved,
E. The NIV carelessly omits the ‘therefore,’ although the word oun is clearly in the Greek text.
F. Dispensationally speaking, these men were still in the pre-Pentecost epoch as godly Jews and
needed to hear the complete message of the cross and resurrection in order to receive the Holy Spirit
and be baptized into the Church. They were part of a spiritual ‘mopping-up’ operation.
baptism did not contribute to their salvation in the least, but God confirmed
it by giving them the Spirit at this point. Since they were part of this decades-
long transition to the full New Testament church, their experience was an
exception to the normal order, the giving of the Spirit at conversion.
Paul’s confrontational witness is emphasized: “And he entered the syna-
gogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading
them about the kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8). After completing his ministry in
the two Greek provinces, Paul returned to Asia and met with the elders of
the Ephesian church. His summary of his method and message in Acts
20:20-21 totally confirmed this: “. . . how I did not shrink from declaring to you
anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house,
solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ.” As we journeyed through the Gospels and Acts, we saw
repentance and faith linked in Mark 1:15 and continuously used almost
interchangeably throughout, and now Paul confirmed that both are integrally
connected. Thus when Ryrie wrote about “repentant faith,” it is an accurate
representation of the biblical message. This seems so obvious that one
wonders how some can emphasize one to the exclusion of the other.
Perhaps one further point will help to clarify the existing confusion. It
seems clear that while the message was being proclaimed to Jews (as in the
Synoptic Gospels and early chapter of Acts), the emphasis was upon repen-
tance. As the message went out to the Gentiles (John’s Gospel, later Acts,
Romans, etc.), the emphasis is upon faith, trust, and believing. The Apostles
contextualized* the message for their differing hearers. Missionaries have
learned that as they go into diverse cultures, the way of communicating the
message must be adapted for the particular culture (contextualization).
Clarifying other issues

Our journey has made clear the message is totally consistent and
simple; repentance and faith are the two aspects of the one condition for the
receiving of forgiveness of sin, the new birth and eternal life, all based upon
the death and resurrection of Christ. Baptism, when mentioned, is always
subsequent to salvation and a part of full discipleship. This pattern is also
confirmed in the Apostles’ preaching and epistles (cf. Ch. 11). However,
some question whether Christ’s discipleship teachings are not conditions for
salvation. Chapter 10 examines the three major contexts (Mt. 10:37-38;
16:24-8=Lk. 9:23-7; and Lk. 14:25-34) to answer this controversial question.
Conclusions
This journey through the Gospels and Acts makes it abundantly clear
that repentance and faith are both necessary for salvation, but not as sepa-
rate conditions. They are always integrally connected as confirmed by the
constant interchangeability of terminology. Water baptism should not be
added to repentant faith as necessary for salvation. If that were so, the
Apostles were guilty of serious error in omitting reference to baptism in most
passages. Nor may any other condition be added to the condition of repen-
tant faith. Those who think it too simple are ‘hung up’ on the legalistic
desire to make a material contribution to their own salvation. But as this
investigation shows, salvation is not in the least dependent upon human
performance. It is solely by the unmerited favor of God through Jesus Christ.
EXCURSUS: Word Studies of Repentance and Conversion

The issue stated. The definitions of 'repentance' and 'conversion' are most important in
understanding salvation. However, in-depth research on these terms uncovered shocking basic errors,
omissions of significant data, and misstatements of fact in two major theological dictionaries. F.
Laubach and J. Goetzmann in NIDNTT were at fault2 and J. Behm in TDNT3 contributed to the confusion,
based upon the assumption that repentance and conversion are equivalent. The result is a biased
attempt to equate them, rather than recognizing them as distinct biblical truths. Statements that they “can
be almost synonymous” and the meanings “approximate” each other are totally without linguistic basis.
Before proceeding, let us state the linguistic facts of the Hebrew and Greek word usage:
1. Shub clearly means “turn round, return (qal), bring back, restore (hiph.)"4
2. Shub is never rendered as metanoeô in either the Septuagint (LXX) or the New Testament.
3. Shub is predominantly translated as some compound of strephô in the Septuagint (the vast
majority of the 1040 occurences), and in the New Testament (4 times).5
4. Nacham clearly means, “1. be sorry, moved to pity, have compassion,. . . 2. be sorry, rue, suffer
grief, repent, ... 3. comfort oneself, be comforted..."6 It is rendered 14 times in the Septuagint as
metanoeô and never translated in the New Testament, in any way.
5. Conversely, metanoeô is never found in the NT as the translation of any Hebrew term.
6. The secular Greek usage of metanoeô is clear: "to change, one's mind, . . . to change one's
resolve or purpose, . . . to come to a different opinion, to change one's view, . . . if the change of
mind derives from recognition that the earlier view was foolish, improper or evil, . . ."7
7. Very few modern versions follow TDNT in rendering metanoeô as 'conversion' or any synonym.
Kaiser’s principle. Behm referred to the later Greek translations of the OT as manifesting
a shift of meaning, and the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, and Rabbinic literature as
well. However, the pages of data adduced are almost totally irrelevant to the issue at hand, written after
the New Testament. Walter Kaiser made a significant point in outlining the proper steps to be taken in
a word study. He suggested study of “those contexts that illustrate its usage prior to the selected text we
are exegeting. The principle here is the same as what we were advocating in our discussion of the
‘Analogy of [Antecedent] Scripture.’ What was written after the text in question is of no use or helpful
only for the sake of comparison.”8 Considering the chronic externalism of Pharisaic rabbinic thinking
which Christ exposed in no uncertain terms, it is unthinkable that He, His herald, and His Apostles would
have had an externalistic concept of repentance. It is very clear that it all must start with an internal work
of the Spirit in the heart, which only then works its way outward into the behavior. Wurthwein pointed up
the OT prophets' repeated warnings against merely going through external rituals of penitence without
a genuine repentance of heart.9 Thus it is unthinkable that Christ and His apostles should be influenced
by this rabbinic shift of meaning from the internal (repentance) to the external (conversion).
The Hebrew and LXX. Behm's support for the synonymity of repentance and conversion
depended heavily upon the close association of shub and nacham in five OT passages and later of
metanoeô and epistrephô in two NT contexts.10 The false assumption is that close association or even
coordination of terms argues for synonymity, but upon close examination no support is found. Jeremiah
4:28 is a simple coordination of the two words. God says, “I will not repent, nor will I turn back." First
the change of mind is mentioned, and then the logical outcome is a change of action. Exodus 32:12 is
the same simple coordination. Jeremiah 8:5-6: “They refuse to return (shub). . . . No man repented
(nacham) of his wickedness, saying, 'What have I done?' Everyone turned (shub) to his course,
like a horse charging into the battle.” Again proximity does not indicate synonymity, only relationship.
Jeremiah 31:18f.: “Turn me (shub), and I shall be turned, for you are Yahweh, my God. For after
I had turned away (shub), I repented (nacham).” Again proximity does not indicate synonymity, and
the most proximate use of shub does not have to do with conversion, but with turning away from God,
as the Septuagint (LXX) rightly understands it. Isaiah 46:8 does not even have nacham, but was
adduced by Behm because the LXX has both metanoeô and epistrephô, departing greatly from the
Hebrew. He was trying to show that metanoeô and epistrephô are “almost synonymous” and approxi-
mate each other. The LXX referred to turning (epistrephô) the heart as coordinate with metanoeô, which
even less proves synonymity. This is as inane as saying that apples and oranges means that apples
equals oranges, a serious elementary logical error that coordinate use of two words proves synonymity.
Theological implications. To confuse repentance as an internal matter of the heart with
conversion as an external change of lifestyle is to confuse effect with cause and to bring in serious
theological error. An internal change of mindset, heart, and attitude is necessarily prior to the outward
change of lifestyle. Indeed, Christ Himself laid great stress upon the Pharisees' propensity to external-
ism rather than a heart relationship with God. If repentance and faith are integrally connected, as implied
in Acts 20:21 and as most evangelicals recognize, then to confuse repentance and conversion is also
to confuse faith and conversion. This confusion is frequently reflected in the theologies. For instance,
Berkhof in discussing conversion identified metanoia as the most common word for conversion in the NT
and as the “most fundamental of the terms employed."11 There is a real question whether repentance
should even be discussed under the heading of conversion, as is customary in many theologies. If
repentant faith is the condition for regeneration, and conversion is the human side of regeneration, then
repentance and conversion should be given separate consideration. This is also a matter which relates
to the presuppositions of the lordship or discipleship salvation debate.
Before concluding, another clarification should be made. Repentance must be distinguished from
remorse. Although lexicographers discuss whether there is a clear distinction between metanoeô and
metamelomai, Matthew's use of metamelomai to refer to Judas in Matthew 27:3 strongly suggests that
remorse is clearly intended. Obviously Judas did not repent in any real sense.
1. BAG, Lexicon, p. 82.

2. Laubach, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, I, 353-7, Jürgen Goetzmann, I, 357-9.
3. Johannes Behm, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, IV, 975-980, 989-1008.
4. Fritz Laubach in NIDNTT (GR: Zondervan, 1975), I, 354-357.
5. Georg Bertram in TDNT, VII, 716.
6. William Gesenius, trans. & ed., Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The New Hebrew and
English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1979), p. 636.
7. Behm in TDNT, IV, 975-80.
8. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology (GR: Baker, 1981), p. 145.
9. E. Würthwein, TDNT, IV, 980-989.
10. Behm, IV, 989-90, 999-1006.
11. L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (GR: Eerdmans, 1953), p. 480.
I know not how the Spirit moves
8
Convincing men of sin,
Revealing Jesus through the word,
Creating faith in Him.
But I know whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
-Daniel W. Whittle
HOW CAN THE DEAD BELIEVE?
How can Evangelicals retain a divine initiative in understanding the plan

of salvation? Since mankind is spiritually dead, an explanation is needed as
to how any spiritually dead sinner can come to faith in Christ. Calvinists go
back to Augustine’s doctrine of irresistible grace, involving the new birth
preceding faith. Arminians, on the other hand, have a doctrine of universal
prevenient (preceding) grace* to enable all sinners to respond to God’s
message. Mediate theology does not find either solution satisfying because
neither is inductively* derived. Christ was very clear the dead can hear and
believe the word of God and receive spiritual life: “Very truly, I tell you, a time is
coming and now has come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and
those who hear will live” (John 5:25). As to how this happens, the answer is in
the explicit teaching of Christ in the upper room, just before the cross and
preparatory to the Pentecost event. This is a neglected key to the problem.
A neglected key
It is tragic that a vital key to the resolution of this issue has been over-
looked, even though clearly taught in the Upper Room Discourse (Jn. 16:7-
11) and exemplified at Pentecost and afterward. The only theologians who
have given serious attention to the truth of the convicting work of the Spirit
are Lewis S. Chafer and J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. No one else have given more
than passing notice to this truth. In 1948, Chafer wrote, “Within the whole divine
enterprise of winning the lost, there is no factor more vital than the work of the Holy Spirit in
which He convinces or reproves the cosmos world respecting sin, righteousness, and
judgment.”1 In 1962, Buswell wrote: “The doctrine of conviction as a work of the Holy
Spirit prior to either regeneration or faith, it seems to me, solves this problem . . . ”2
The issue is how any spiritually dead sinner can hear the gospel, be-
lieve, and be saved. Starting from their concept of total inability, hyper-
Calvinists to solve this problem have reversed the biblical order and put the
new birth before faith (cf. Ch. 19). On the other hand, Arminians seem to
put too much emphasis upon human factors (cf. Ch. 18). An inductive study
111
of the convicting work of the Spirit will lead to a mediate solution and is a
vital key to resolving the controversy between Calvinists and Arminians.
Calvinists put a great stress upon objective truth: the objective decrees
of God in eternity and objective realities in redemption history. But they
struggle in the subjective realm. That is, how can one be included among
the elect, and how can one know if one is among the elect? What can
unregenerate people do while waiting for God’s irresistible grace to strike?
Some hyper-Calvinists have made lists of things sinners can do to prepare
themselves for God’s irresistible grace in the event that they may happen to
be among the elect (preparationism*). This is a bad solution to their unsolv-
able problem. It was the Anabaptists,* Moravians and pietistic* Lutherans
who began to try to balance off the strong objective slant with a more
personal, experiential, and subjective approach. Arminians and moderate
Calvinists have sought to balance the objective and subjective dimensions
of salvation. Pietistic* subjectivism is an important dimension of main-
stream evangelicalism. The restoration of the doctrine of the conviction of
the Spirit provides a necessary balance and is a key to this whole issue.
In proposing the importance of the Spirit’s convicting work, a vital
unrecognized distinction must be made. This is the distinction between the
means by which people come to saving faith in Christ, which is a process
with significant human involvement, and on the other hand, the new birth
itself, which is one-hundred per cent the Holy Spirit’s work accomplished
instantaneously without any human participation. Thus, there is a process
by which the Spirit works mediately through human instrumentality to bring
the sinner under conviction leading to faith, which then triggers the Spirit’s
work of regeneration. This is a simple, but overlooked distinction.
The Determining Scriptures

The context and meaning of John 16:7-11
But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away,
the Helper [Paraklçtos] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He
when He comes, will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment;
concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness,
because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment,
because the ruler of this world has been judged.
The watchword, “Context is king!” is totally appropriate here. One of
the main themes of the Upper Room Discourse (John 14 to 16) is the proph-
ecy by our Lord of the coming of the Holy Spirit which was to be fulfilled
about fifty days forward on the day of Pentecost. Not only did Christ state
this explicitly, but He affirmed it in many different ways:
And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may be
with you forever, that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,
because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides
with you, and will be in you (John 14:16-17).
Chapter 8 HOW CAN THE DEAD BELIEVE? 113
Then, He identified a specific day in which the Spirit would be given to
indwell (14:20), which is obviously Pentecost. In subsequent chapters, He
kept weaving this idea into the rest of the discourse. In 14:26 and again in
15:26, He spoke of the Father sending the Spirit and also about the Spirit
coming from the Father, a word used again in 16:7, 8, & 13. In 15:26, He also
spoke of the Spirit proceeding from the Father in the present tense, a refer-
ence which has occasioned the controversial and dubious notion of the
eternal procession of the Spirit (Roman Catholic & Eastern Orthodox views).
However, in the context, a futuristic use of the present tense is more likely,
thus reinforcing the other statements. In 16:7, He reiterated the verb ‘send.'
Thus, ‘give' is used once, ‘send' three times, ‘come' four times, and ‘proceed'
once. It is clear that Christ is predicting Pentecost as an advent of the Holy
Spirit equally as earth-shaking as His own at Bethlehem. Frank Bottome
was not off target in penning the hymn, “The Comforter Has Come.”
Of course, we all believe in the omnipresence of the Holy Spirit and
might wonder how Christ could predict the coming of an omnipresent
Person. Although the Son of God Himself shares the omnipresence of the
Trinity, He had an advent through incarnation. Therefore, Charles Ryrie's
clarification that the Holy Spirit came to reside in the newborn church is very
cogent.3 In any case, it is clear from the context that the Holy Spirit was to
begin His special ministry of conviction on the day of Pentecost. Thus, it is
astonishing that few, if any, writers have made the connection between the
convicting work of the Spirit and the events recorded in Acts 2. First, the
meaning of the key words must be carefully examined.
The meaning of elegchein (to convict, convince). In the writings of Greek
philosophers, elegchein and its cognates are mostly used in the intellectual
realm of the controverting of propositions. Epictetus used it in an ethical
sense of the cure of souls. In the Septuagint, it translates Hebrew words
meaning, 'to rebuke,' 'to shame,' 'to punish,' 'condemn,' 'convict,' 'to test,'
and 'to examine.' Buchsel concluded that: “. . . it denotes the disciplining and
educating of man by God as a result of His judicial activity. This embraces all aspects of
education from the conviction of the sinner to chastisement and punishment, from the
instruction of the righteous by severe tests to his direction by teaching and admonition.” It is
used seventeen times in the New Testament and means “to show someone his
sin and to summon him to repentance.” The means used to bring this about are:
the prophets, conscience, divine self-revelation, divine instruction, and the
Law. Elegchos has the sense of 'proof,' 'convincing,' 'refutation,' 'investiga-
tion,' and 'account.' The abstract noun elegsis means 'persuasion,' 'refuta-
tion.'4 The BAG lexicon listed four meanings: “1. bring to light, expose, set forth. .
. . 2. convict or convince someone of someth., point someth. out to someone. . . . 3. reprove,
correct. . . . 4. heightened, punish, discipline. . . .”5 (Current dictionaries indicate that
the older usage of ‘convict’ has been mainly replaced by ‘convince.’)
Most of the New Testament usages have to do with confronting and
reproving moral error, whether in unbelievers (Lk. 3:19) or believers (most).
Paul used it twice to encourage Titus to refute and correct the doctrinal
errors of Christians (Tit. 1:9, 13). Only in 1 Corinthians 14:24 is it used in the
sense of John 16 to refer to convicting or convincing an unbeliever to repent
and believe the gospel. Jude used it of the return of Christ in final judgment
upon the godless (Jude 15). The abstract noun elegchos is used in Hebrews
11:1 of faith as a conviction of the unseen, that is, in a subjective sense.
The meaning of kosmos (world). John's usage of kosmos, which is so replete
at about a hundred times, must be determinative as to the Lord's meaning
here. Abbott-Smith listed four connected usages:
1. order . . . 2. ornament, adornment . . . 3. Later, the world or universe, as an ordered
system . . . 4. In late writers only, the world, i.e. the earth;... hence by meton[onomy], (a) of
the human inhabitants of the world . . . (b) of worldly affairs or possessions . . . ; (c) in ethical
sense, of the ungodly, the world as apart from God and thus evil in its tendency. . . .6
John overwhelmingly used it in the fourth sense, especially 4.(c). This is not
controversial, and thus in the exegesis of the passage the focus must be on
the Holy Spirit's ministry to the unregenerate people of this evil world-system
who need salvation. This is made even more striking by Christ's reference
to Satan as the “ruler of this world” in John 12:31, and again even more
significantly here (Jn. 16:11, full quote on p. 112).
The meaning of paraklçtos (entreater, exhorter, encourager). Translators have
struggled to come up with the right word to render this multifaceted term.
Paraklçtos is used by John alone, four times here of the Lord’s description of
Himself and the coming Holy Spirit (as well as in 1 John 2:2). To get the
meaning of this word, it is important to connect it with its verb, parakalein,
which many scholars have failed to do. The BAG lexicon mentioned how
the active idea of the verb became more prominent in the meaning of the
noun, thus “equating paraklçtos with parakalein.” “The Gk. interpreters of
John’s gosp(el) understood it in the active sense=parakalôn or paraklçtôr . . .”7
Abbott-Smith listed as prominent meanings of the verb, ‘beseech,’ ‘entreat,’
‘admonish,’ ‘exhort,’ ‘encourage,’ and for the abstract noun, paraklçsis,
‘appeal,’ ‘entreaty,’ ‘exhortation,’ ‘encouragement.’ These connotations
greatly open up the meaning of paraklçtos in John 14-16, since they directly
connect with the ministries of Christ and the Holy Spirit.A
The development of Christ's thought

Christ, the first Parakltos. When Christ promised the coming of the
Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, one of His significant ministries would be
the convicting, convincing, exposing, and reproving of mankind. The verb is
a simple future which would imply that this ministry of the Spirit had not yet
A. The problem is the rare extra-canonical usage as ‘advocate’ or ‘counsel’ does not connect with the
verb parakalein and the noun paraklçsis. TDNT erroneously separates discussion with separate
articles by different scholars (Behm, v: 801; Schmitz, v: 773-6, 793-7). Since the Luther and KJV
rendering of “comforter” is the least common usage of the verb, it is the least helpful translation. Many
translations use “counselor,” “helper,” or “advocate,” which miss the main point in this discourse.
begun, and thus Pentecost was to be its beginning. Indeed, there is no
reference to any such activity of the Spirit in the Old Testament or Gospel
accounts. Christ Himself was the first Parakletos, who, while He was in the
world, sought to bring people under the conviction of sin, righteousness, and
judgment by His entreaty and exhortation.
The Lord implied that He is the first Paraklçtos in referring to the Holy
Spirit as “another.” Clearly, Christ’s ministry was full of urgent entreaty,
admonishing, exhorting, and encouraging of unbelievers and disciples. He
also is represented as the believers’ advocate before the Father (Rom. 8:34;
Heb. 7:25; Mt. 10:32; 1 Jn. 2:2). Similarly, the Holy Spirit’s ministries include
urgent entreaty, admonishing, exhorting, and encouraging, especially in
John 16:8-11. But the meaning ‘advocate’ just doesn’t fit in this context.
There are many examples. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ used the
Mosaic Law to bring Pharisaic Jews under the conviction of their sin and
recognition of their need of His righteousness. His sinless character and
supernatural works brought conviction to the Apostles, such as in Luke 5:8,
when Peter saw the miraculous draft of fish. His interview with the self-
righteous rich young ruler shows His use of the Law to bring conviction (Mt.
19:16-26). He sought to show him that he did not love his neighbor as
himself which made him a sinner. Now, as Christ was to depart, and His
personal ministry of conviction must necessarily end, He promised the Holy
Spirit as another Paraklçtos. The Spirit would begin to take the responsibility
for this important ministry and would not be limited to a human body.
Christ's clarification. The Lord Jesus gave a clarification of the three-
fold convicting ministry of the Spirit. Although His explanation in John 16:8-
11 is not transparent, by drawing upon the broader context the meaning is
clarified. In 16:9, He explained that the conviction of sin especially relates to
the world's unbelief in Him: “. . . concerning sin, because they do not believe in
Me.” John earlier referred to mankind's sin as the key issue with which Christ
had to deal (John 1:5, 29) and the main obstacle for people to come to
Christ (1:5, 10-11, 3:19-21). More specifically, He focused upon the one sin
which is the central issue in order to be saved—rejection of the Messiah
Himself (3:18, 36). This highlights the uniqueness of unbelief as the only
unforgivable sin. People need to be convinced that they are sinners but
especially of the seriousness of unbelief in Christ.
John used the symbolism of the spiritual blindness of mankind repeat-
edly in his Gospel. Christ is the light come into the world, and men were so
spiritually blind that God had to send John the Baptizer to point people to
the light (1:6-9).B Paul confirmed the spiritual blindness of the unregenerate
as not being only a natural problem of man's sin but also a satanic blindness
as well (2 Cor. 4:3-4): “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are
B. It should be noted John 1:9 does not make the enlightenment of Christ's advent universal, as held by
the Quakers, but rather general. Few translators have recognized that panta anthropon can easily be ren-
dered "all mankind," that is, Christ's enlightenment reaches out to all mankind, not just Jews.
perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbeliev-
ing, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God.” Chafer made this connection with spiritual blindness.8
Since mankind is spiritually dead, a significant issue arises. The hyper-
Calvinistic scenario is that since man is spiritually dead and unable to
believe, therefore, people must be born again in order to believe. They have
got it backward since Christ said in reference to the new birth: “Very truly I tell
you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son
of God and those who hear will live” (Jn. 5:25, TNIV). He did not say that the
regenerate shall hear, but that the dead shall hear and come to life spiri-
tually. The convicting work of the Spirit is a key as to how this can happen.
The second focus of conviction is in verse 10, “. . . and concerning righ-
teousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me.” While He was
in the world, Christ brought conviction of righteousness, since He was the
perfect example of absolute righteousness. Just the presence of His sinless
person brought conviction about the source of true righteousness; He was
full of grace and truth. He went back to the Father by way of the cross and
resurrection, thus, providing the basis for sinners to be declared righteous.
Based upon Christ’s going to the Father in this way, Paul could expound the
doctrine of justification, the theme of which is the righteousness of God, or
more exactly, a righteousness from God. Therefore, Christ is the ultimate
source of righteousness for unrighteous mankind (Rom. 10:4). This is the
heart of the gospel about which the Spirit came to convince mankind.
The third focus of conviction is in verse 11, “. . . and concerning judgment,
because the ruler of this world has been judged." Again, the connection is not
transparent. This is a reference to Satan's judgment in the cross, and con-
nects with John 12:31-32: “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this
world shall be cast out, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to
Myself.” Satan's doom was sealed in the cross, even though he is now a
usurper at large, prowling about like a roaring lion (1 Pet. 5:8). Most relevant
to the lost people of this world-system is the fact that their doom has also
been sealed because they have not been liberated from Satan's power by
faith in Christ. The Lord Jesus made this logical connection of the judgment
of Satan through the cross and His drawing all mankind to Himself in faith.
The convicting work of the Spirit is the means by which He is drawing all
mankind to Himself. Satan’s power was broken in the cross, as Paul later
affirmed in Colossians 2:15: “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He
made public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” Satan's
condemnation and expulsion from God’s presence in heaven makes it
imperative that those who are under his sway claim the Messiah's finished
work to experience redemption-liberation. Since the Spirit’s ministry focuses
on these three area, our witness for Christ must be brought into harmony
with the Spirit's strategy in pointing people to Christ.
Its Historical Actualization

The Day of Pentecost
With the context in mind of the Upper Room Discourse and His promise
to send the Spirit, it is now obvious that the fulfillment of that promise in the
events on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) must be examined. Indeed, the Lord
Himself confirmed this fulfillment a week before Pentecost (Acts 1:4-5, 8):
Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but
to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from
Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now.’ . . . but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses . . .’
As the historical record is examined, Acts 2:37 stands out. As Peter was
finishing his sermon by boldly proclaiming the risen Messiah and charging
Israel with His death, Luke recorded: “Now when they heard this, they were pierc-
ed to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brethren, what shall we
do?'” Thousands of Jews, evidently under the conviction of the Spirit, al-
though not yet saved, were asking how they could be saved. The verb
katanussein used here occurs only once and means, “1. to strike or prick violently.
2. to stun. 3. of strong emotion, pass., to be smitten: tçn kardian, Ac 237.”9
The answer came immediately: “And Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let
each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins,
and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit'” (Acts 2:38). They needed to
repent as a condition of receiving the Holy Spirit. Thus, at this point they
were the recipients of the Spirit's convicting ministry but not yet of His
regenerating work. Conviction precedes repentance, which precedes the gift
of the Spirit's indwelling and new birth. The Spirit used the supernatural gift
of languages and Peter's sermon as the human means of bringing them
under conviction. Conviction is a mediate or indirect ministry of the Spirit
thorough human means, as contrasted with the work of regeneration, which
is direct and immediate by the Holy Spirit.
Luke did not record whether the three thousand who were saved were
the only ones who had come under conviction. Presumably, others came
under conviction but did not repent at that time. Perhaps many of them
were among the thousands who were saved subsequently. Perhaps many
never came to repentance and faith. Luke does not say.
Other examples
Positive examples. There are other incidents in Acts which connect
with this. Some are explicit statements of a positive response to the Spirit's
working. Moreover, every time people are being saved, it implies the Spirit’s
convicting work is involved, whether Luke was explicit or not. In connection
with the healing of the lame man outside the temple gate, the Apostles’
witness caused thousands more to believe (Acts 3:11–4:4). Luke consis-
tently connected the disciples being Spirit-filled with their boldness and the
resulting fruitfulness of their witness (4:8, 31, 33; 5:32; 6:10; 7:55; 9:17; 11:24;
13:9, 52; etc.). In Samaria, Philip saw crowds come to Christ (8:5-8).
Even when Saul of Tarsus was persecuting Christians, the Holy Spirit
was convicting him through the witness of Stephen and other Christians’
testimonies as he dragged them into court. The risen Lord said to him, “It is
hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:9-14). The Spirit was goading
him. Up to that point he had been resisting the conviction of the Spirit. But
after his conversion and subsequent filling with the Spirit, he immediately
proclaimed Christ boldly in Damascus (9:17-22). Peter’s ministry in Lydda,
Sharon, and Joppa got a massive response (9:35, 42), which was connected
with outstanding miraculous signs by the Holy Spirit.
Cornelius and his household were not saved people before Peter
preached to them (11:14), but the Spirit must have been working in their
lives before they heard the gospel from Peter. The outstanding follow-up of
the conversion of these first Gentiles took place in Antioch of Syria, where a
large number of Gentiles were saved through Jewish believers from Cyprus
and Cyrene, and later, through the Spirit-filled ministry of Barnabas (Acts
11:19-26). The Spirit continued working there as Paul and Barnabas were
sent out as the first cross-cultural missionaries among the Gentiles (13:1-3).
On their first stop in Cyprus, Barnabas and Paul, when summoned to
share their message, were the instruments of the Spirit in persuading the
proconsul, Sergius Paulus, of the gospel (Acts 13:6-12). After Paul's sermon
in the synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia, Luke recorded: “And as Paul and
Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken
to them the next Sabbath” (Acts 13:42). Many were under conviction and some
were being saved. Many were convicted but not yet saved. Responding to
the Jewish opposition, the Apostles announced: “It was necessary that the word
of God should be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves
unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). Many
of these convicted Gentiles rejoiced at the opportunity and believed (13:48).
This verse has been a major Calvinistic proof-text, but the translation needs
to be corrected to (cf. Ch. 26, pp. 368-71): “And as many as were setting (devot-
ing) themselves to eternal life were believing.”10
On Paul's second journey, the account of Lydia's conversion stands out:
“. . . and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul” (Acts
16:14). Although Calvinists see this as an example of irresistible grace, it can
equally be understood as a reference to the convincing, enlightening work
of the Spirit. Subsequently, the Philippian jailer also was certainly under
conviction to have cried out, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30).
He had heard the testimony of Paul and Silas in prison and being over-
whelmed by the extraordinary circumstances, recognized his own need of
eternal salvation. Paul’s response was similar to that of Peter on the day of
Pentecost, except that he used the imperative “believe” instead of “repent.”
The language Luke used to describe Paul’s witness at Thessalonica
(‘reasoned,’ ‘explaining,’ ‘giving evidence’) indicates that he sought to be the
Spirit’s instrument in persuading the Jews and devout Gentiles in the syna-
gogue, which resulted in many conversions (Acts 17:1-4). This is harmoni-
ous with the meaning of elegchein as seen above. Again at Athens and
Corinth, Luke used similar words related to convincing and persuading, i.e.,
‘reasoning,’ ‘trying to persuade’ (17:17; 18:4). Especially at Corinth, this convinc-
ing ministry of the Spirit through Paul was effective in the conversion of two
synagogue rulers, Crispus and Sosthenes, during his eighteen-month minis-
try there, as well as many other Jews and Gentiles (18:8, 17). The example
Calvin gave from 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 is also relevant: “But if all prophesy,
and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to
account by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and
worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.” Note that the unbeliever
is convicted by the instrumentality of people, not by some ‘irresistible grace.’
Negative reactions. There are also some accounts which might be
understood as negative reactions to the Spirit's conviction. After the second
arrest of the Apostles and Peter's defense, there is a negative reaction in Acts
5:33: “But when they heard this they were cut to the quick and were intending to slay
them.” After Stephen's defense and charge, a similar reaction is seen using
the same word, diapriein: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the quick, and
they began gnashing their teeth at him” (Acts 7:54). They were almost surely
under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Stephen had just accused them of
always resisting the Holy Spirit (7:51). If so, it would indicate that not all who
are convicted come to faith. Related to this is the account of governor
Felix's reaction to Paul's forthright witness in which he was under convic-
tion: “And as he was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to
come, Felix became frightened and said, 'Go away for the present, and when I find
time, I will summon you'” (Acts 24:25).
Human instrumentality. Since the cognates of elegchein have the sense
of 'proof', 'refutation', and 'persuasion', it is relevant to consider accounts
where the Holy Spirit was using the Apostles in related activity. Luke re-
corded in Acts 14:1: “And it came about that in Iconium they entered the synagogue
of the Jews together, and spoke in such a manner that a great multitude believed, both
of Jews and Greeks.” In Acts 18:28, there is a similar emphasis upon the
human instrumentality in reference to Apollos's witness: “. . . for he powerfully
refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.”
There are a number of allusions to Paul's use of reasoning and persuasion
in his evangelism, such as 18:4: “And he was reasoning in the synagogue every
Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Gentiles.” Human instrumentality
comes through very clearly in Paul's testimony about Christ's apostolic
charge to him: “. . . to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light
and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of
sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts
26:18). It is clear that the above enumerated things are the work of the Holy
Spirit, but Christ mandated Paul to do them. The issue is the Spirit's use of
human instrumentality in His ministry of conviction. Hyper-Calvinists see all
of the Spirit's ministries functioning directly and immediately, thus minimiz-
ing human instrumentality.11 Curiously, Berkhof mentioned that Lutherans
use this Acts passage in constructing an ordo salutis (plan of salvation), but
as a Calvinist, he apparently did not feel comfortable in doing so.12
The epistles. The epistles also shed some light on this ministry of the
Spirit: “And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth. For there
are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in
agreement” (1 John 5:7-8). Here the focus is on objective witnesses to the
gospel message by his reference to the water and the blood from Christ’s
side (cf. Jn. 19:34-35). Thus, the Spirit uses objective witnesses in His work
of conviction. Hebrews 10:29 also refers to those who are convicted but
never really come to repentance and faith, counterfeit believers: “How much
severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son
of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was
sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” Since these had never been
regenerated, apparently they were convicted by the Spirit and in failing to
believe had insulted the Holy Spirit by rejecting so much light (cf. Ch. 15, pp.
211-2). Jude 15 also speaks of Christ in His second coming convicting the
ungodly, but it will be too late for repentance then.
The Extent of Conviction

One question that has been minimally discussed is the extent of the
Spirit's ministry of conviction. Is it universal, is it general, or is it limited only
to the elect? The answers to this question from Chafer and Buswell are
puzzlingly inconsistent. Chafer, as a moderate Calvinist,* held that it is
limited to the elect only.13 Since he had always stressed the world-system of
the unregenerate as hostile to God and taught general redemption, this is
inconsistent; his Calvinistic leanings bleed through. On the other hand,
Buswell, as a five-point Calvinist, proposed a universal ministry of
conviction14 arriving at this through misunderstanding of John 1:9 and belief
that the witness of nature is part of the witness used by the Spirit in convic-
tion. His conclusion, however, is more consistent with Arminian theology.
Much more satisfying, in the light of the biblical examples of conviction
noted above, is the view of John Walvoord: “The fact is that the Spirit of God brings
conviction and understanding to many who never believe, who turn from the gospel even after
the way of salvation is made plain to them.”15 This is in harmony with the mediate
nature of many of God's workings in relation to world evangelization.
Calvin’s view supports this: “Under the term world are, I think, included not only those
who would be truly converted to Christ, but hypocrites and reprobates.” 16
The Nature of Conviction

One outstanding question then, is whether conviction is objective or
subjective, external or internal. From the evidence given above, conviction
seems to work both internally through believers and externally though
objective evidence. The emphasis of the secular and Septuagintal usage of
elegchein was objective. Since the Holy Spirit came to indwell the Church, it
follows that He works through the members of Christ's body as they pro-
claim the word of God. This is the clear pattern of the book of Acts. In any
case, He uses human instrumentality to bring about conviction.
Pre-Pentecost Conversion
Although the convicting work of the Spirit resolves the question as to
how spiritually dead sinners can come to faith today, it leaves unanswered
the issue of conversion before Pentecost. Christ was very explicit that
conviction by a special work of the Spirit would begin at Pentecost and is
clearly operative throughout the church age. But what about before Pente-
cost and the advent of the Spirit to form the Church? Since Christ Himself
was the first Paraklçtos, He must have brought conviction by His own words
since many were converted under His ministry. Before that we find that
John’s disciples must have been truly born again by the Spirit and apparently
were convicted by his confrontational proclamation. This must have been
the case over the ages before Christ as well. God’s word is living and active
like a two-edged sword and can penetrate the human heart by itself (Heb.
4:12). This is how Abel was saved, and Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David.
Perhaps theologians have made conversion too exotic a thing because
of the overhang of Calvinistic notions of irresistible grace by regeneration.
People are simply commanded to repent and believe and are converted
when they do so! We don’t really have to search for a more metaphysical or
mysterious explanation. Would it not be strange if God has given humanity
free will to sin and rebel, but not give free will to repent and believe His
word? This would be very strange of God to do! Christ explained to
Nicodemus (before Pentecost) that the new birth itself is totally supernatural
and exotic. But the process by which people come to faith is not so exotic!
Apparently the work of conviction was an enhancement given to the church
for a more effective impact of the gospel after the day of Pentecost. But as
seen in earlier chapters, a balanced view of depravity did not preclude
sinners in the Old Testament from exercising repentant faith on their own.
This may sound shocking to Calvinists, but it is what the inductive biblical
data leads to.
Conclusions
In making a distinction between the means the Holy Spirit uses in
bringing spiritually dead sinners to saving faith and the direct work of the
Spirit in the new birth, a key emerges as to how the spiritually dead can
believe prior to regeneration. The Spirit's conviction of sinners through the
human instrumentality of the ministry of the word of God best explains all
the Scriptural data. Since we are to be the instruments the Holy Spirit uses
to bring conviction, we must follow the apostolic example by focusing on
the three areas which Christ emphasized: sin, righteousness, and judgment.
Limiting conviction to the elect moves the focus back to a deterministic
view of God's decrees, and universalizing it to all men at all times does not
do justice to Christ's use of the future tense and the rest of the evidence.
Calvin’s reference to it does not fit into the system of hyper-Calvinism,
especially their doctrine of irresistible grace.
1. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948), VI, p. 88.
2. Buswell, Systematic Theology, II, p. 163.
3. Since Dr. Ryrie made this point in class, there is undoubtedly documentation somewhere in his many books.
4. Friedrich Buchsel in Gerhard Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, II, pp. 473-476.
5. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, pp. 248-9.
6. G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1937), p. 255.
7. Arndt and Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon, pp. 623-4.
8. Chafer, VI, p. 90.
9. Abbott-Smith, p. 237.
10. Henry Alford, The Greek Testament, II, 153-154.
11. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, II, p. 663.
12. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 416.
13. Chafer, VI, p. 94.
14. Buswell, II, p. 160.
15. John F. Walvoord, The Holy Spirit, p. 111; also Ryrie, Basic Theology, pp. 324-5.
16. John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, p. 138; see also Institutes., 3.24.8.
Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righ-
9
teousness by which through grace and sheer mercy
God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt my-
self to be reborn and to have gone through open doors
into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new
meaning, and whereas before the justice of God had
filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly
sweet in greater love.
-Martin Luther
HOW CAN SALVATION

BE INSTANTANEOUS?
One would think for evangelical Christians justification by faith alone

would be a ‘slam dunk,’ universally accepted. Recent events, such as the
Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) and the document signed in
Augsburg on Reformation Day, 1999, between Lutherans and Catholics,
required this chapter. But then there are many other compromises of this
truth, which make it clear that the gospel is not just under eclipse but also
under siege. According to surveys of George Barna, James Hunter, and
others, 77% of Evangelicals say that mankind is basically good by nature and
87% say that in salvation God helps those who help themselves.1
This is not unimportant or marginal truth. Paul saw the compromises
of this truth by the legalists in the Galatian churches as a major threat to the
gospel of Christ. He accused them of deserting Christ for another gospel and
twice repeated the warning that anyone who preaches a contrary gospel is
accursed (Gal.1:6-9). He made very clear that law-works neither justify us
before God nor mature us in the Christian life. He feared that he had la-
bored over the Galatians in vain because of their legalistic reversion to mere
observances (4:9-11). He told the legalists that they had cut themselves off
from Christ and had moved outside of the pale of His grace (5:4).
As Paul later wrote his theological expansion of this to the church in
Rome, he emphasized that the righteousness which comes from God in the
gospel is available to sinful man only “by faith from first to last” (1:16-17 NIV).
He went on to expound that glorious truth of justification by faith alone,
which was the watchword of the Reformation.
The Reformers’ concerns. Martin Luther said that justification by faith
alone is the “article upon which the church stands or falls.”2 It was the material
principle of the Reformation because it was the essential difference be-
123
tween the Romanist concept of salvation and the great biblical doctrine.
Luther found the legalisms into which the Galatians had fallen closely akin
to the legalisms of the Roman Catholic church (Gal. 2:15-21).
Although it was the grossness of the sale of indulgences which triggered
Luther’s ninety-five theses against Romanist errors, the heart of his concern
was the denial of justification by faith alone. Not only did Roman Catholics
have an erroneous definition of justification as ‘to make righteous,’ and a
serious confusion of justification and sanctification, but the whole Roman
system itself was a denial of the faith-alone principle of Galatians and
Romans. Their understanding of the sacraments as the means by which
merit is distributed to the faithful from the Church’s treasury of merit was
totally opposed to the biblical doctrine.
The Reformers saw justification by grace through faith as the essence
of the gospel. ‘Evangelical’ comes from euangelion, the Greek for gospel.
Since the modernist-fundamentalist controversy (early 20th cent.), this word
is used to describe those who hold to the authority of Scripture since the
essence of the gospel is dependent upon the trustworthiness of the Bible.
Frequently the word Evangelical is used merely as a synonym for Protestant,
but it is clear that most Protestants no longer hold to the authority of Scrip-
ture or the essence of the gospel–justification by grace through faith alone.
The Reformers saw Romanism as an eclipse of the true gospel. R. C.
Sproul explained, “An eclipse of the sun does not destroy the sun. An eclipse obscures
the light of the sun. It brings darkness where there was light. The Reformation sought to
remove the eclipse so that the light of the gospel could once again shine in its full brilliance,
being perceived with clarity.”3 Since the Reformation, a number of other move-
ments have also eclipsed the gospel: dead orthodoxy’s minimizing the
personal dimension, modernism’s* outright denial, neo-orthodoxy’s*
philosophical word-juggling, postmodernism’s* relativism, and the cults’ use
of proof-texting* and extrabiblical authorities. Even within evangelicalism
there are a number of theological movements which compromise the purity
of justification by grace through faith alone.
Justification defined
First, the heart of Paul’s statement in Romans must be set out:
“. . . being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ
Jesus” (Rom. 3:24); “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the
works of the Law” (Rom. 3:28); “But to the one who does not work, but believes in
Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness” (4:5); “But the
free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the
many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one
Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many” (5:15); “For the wages of sin is death, but the
free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23).
A major problem in the dialog between Catholics and Evangelicals over
the centuries has been the definition of terms. In the ECT dialogue, this was
obviously a major sticking point. Chuck Colson admitted to R. C. Sproul in
Chapter 9 HOW CAN SALVATION BE INSTANTANEOUS? 125
a private conversation that the two sides do not always agree on the mean-
ing of statements in the ECT document.4 So it is imperative to focus upon
the definition of terms used in the discussion.
The truth of justification has been obscured by the continued use of
Latin-origin words in theological discussion, going back to the dominant use
of the erroneous Latin Vulgate* for over a millennium by both Catholics and
Protestants. Luther struggled with the righteousness of God as an attribute
of God since it seemed to mock him in his great sense of sinfulness. But
when through his study of Romans he grasped for the first time that God
makes righteousness available to the sinner by justification, he was born
again and began to love God.
Since the Greek word which Paul used (dikaiazein) means “to declare
righteous,” it would have been clearer if the translators had simply translated
it this way.A But translators and theologians have stuck to the more obscure
and ambiguous word, ‘to justify.’ The Greek word clearly has a forensic,
legal connotation and was in the language of the courts. Paul presented the
truth of God’s declaration of the sinner as righteous in His sight based on
faith alone, without works of any kind. Following Paul’s teaching, the
Reformers stressed that it was an alien righteousness, that is, alien to the
sinner before conversion. Romanism stubbornly clung to the error of a prior,
infused righteousness, that is, that God declares the righteous to be righ-
teous.5 They objected to the ‘legal fiction’ of the evangelical doctrine. But
Evangelicals have understood justification as an early step in the process of
transforming a godless sinner into a saint; the last phase of this process
being our transformation by the resurrection at Christ’s return.
Thus, although God’s plan of salvation has many aspects, which include
regeneration, conversion, sanctification, and ultimately glorification, God’s
declaration of repentant sinners to be righteous is distinct from, and not to
be confused with, these other aspects. It is important throughout Romans
to grasp the force of Paul’s phrase, “the righteousness of God.”
Not only the meaning of the Greek but the whole flow of Paul’s thought
in Romans makes this truth abundantly clear. The Catholic Douay version
translated dikaiosunç as the “justice of God,” thus obscuring the truth. The
KJV and subsequent translations corrected it as, “the righteousness of God.”
But it was for the NIV to properly render the phrase, “a righteousness from
God” (Rom. 1:17; 3:21-22).B The correctness of this translation is confirmed
by Paul’s whole explanation in Romans 4, that justification involves God
counting sinners like Abraham and David to be righteous by faith. Paul built
upon Genesis 15:6: “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as
A. Abbott-Smith, Manual Lexicon, p. 116: “cl. to deem right, to do one justice; . . . in NT, as LXX (1) to
show to be righteous, (2) to declare, pronounce righteous.”; The BAG Lexicon, p. 196: “2. To justify,
vindicate, treat as just; . . . 3a. Be acquitted, be pronounced and treated as righteous.”
B. If Paul had used the genitive case, it could be an attribute of God. However, the same Greek form is
also used for the ablative case, which would be “a righteousness from God” (NIV). Thus he was not
speaking about God’s attribute but rather a righteousness which God makes available to men.
righteousness” (quoted in Rom. 4:3) and upon Psalm 32:1-2: “Blessed is the
man whose sin the Lord will not take into account” (Rom. 4:8).
This truth of imputation becomes even clearer when seen in the light of
the appropriate synonyms, as ‘reckon, count, account, or charge.’ Paul
referred to a two-fold imputation: of the believer’s sin to Christ the sin-
bearer, and of Christ’s righteousness to believing sinners (Rom. 4:1-8; Col.
2:13-14). Thus, not only are all believers’ sins charged to Christ’s account
when He bore them on the cross, but also His righteousness is accounted to
believers to give perfect standing with God. The whole argument of Romans
is based upon this truth. A study of the development of Paul’s thought
shows that this is exactly the main theme: a righteousness of which man-
kind is totally devoid (Rom. 1:18–3:23), a righteousness which God reckons
to sinners by faith (3:24–5:21), a righteousness which God works in the life
of the believer through the Holy Spirit (6:1–8:39), a righteousness which
Israel missed and which is available to all humanity by faith (9:1–11:36), a
righteousness which is worked out in human relationships (12:1–15:13), and
a righteousness which is to be made known to the nations (15:14–16:27).
Based on faith alone

From Paul’s explanation of the justification of Abraham and David, it is
obvious that they were not consistently righteous in their conduct. For that
matter, neither were most of the other Old Testament saints like Lot,
Solomon, Jehoshaphat, or Manasseh. Even New Testament saints, such as
Peter and the Corinthian Christians, manifested considerable inconsisten-
cies which would destroy salvation if it were not based upon faith alone.
During the Reformation, Roman Catholics objected that the Apostle
Paul did not use the word ‘alone’ in his discussion of justification. This is
technically true, but when we see the flow of his thought, it is obvious that
his meaning is ‘by faith alone,’ since he contrasted faith with law-works,
with circumcision, and with works of righteousness in general. Surveying
Paul’s other letters reveals the same clarity: Galatians 2:16; 3:2-14; Ephesians
2:8-10; Titus 3:5, etc. Paul arrived at that clarity, humanly speaking, through
his conversion out of Pharisaic legalism as the Holy Spirit revealed the
gospel message in its stark relief, as described in Galatians 1:11-24
Not uniquely Paul’s doctrine. Some have claimed that Paul put his
own spin on the gospel, standing in contradiction to the message of the Lord
Jesus and the other Apostles, especially James. However, in the Gospels,
the strong emphasis upon repentance and faith started right with John the
Baptizer (Mt. 3:2) and was constantly reiterated by the Lord Jesus Himself
(Mt. 4:17; 8:10, 13; 9:12-13, 22; 11:28-30; 18:3; 19:25-26; 20:28; 21:31-32; Mk.
1:15; 6:12; Lk. 5:20, 31-32; 13:3; 23:42-43; 24:45-49). The Lord Jesus did not
choose to spell out the doctrine of justification by faith since during His
ministry the key issue was Himself and Israel’s relationship to Him. Many
years after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, the Apostle John wrote his
Gospel to focus on the necessity of believing on or receiving Him. The verb
‘to believe’ is found 96 times in this Gospel with much teaching about the
nature of that faith. In addition, all four Gospels record the Lord’s consistent
opposition to Judaism’s traditionalism, externalism, and legalism, the basis
upon which Paul built his theology. The survey of the apostolic preaching,
(kçrugma) in Acts also confirms that Paul’s doctrine was in total harmony
with this (Acts 2:28; 3:16; 5:31; 10:43; 11:17-18; 13:38-9; 15:11; 16:31; 17:11-12,
30; 20:21; 22:16; 24:24; & 26:18-20; cf. Ch. 7 & 18).
Harmony with the Apostle James. The major problem in the minds
of many is James’ teaching: “You see that a man is justified by works, and not by
faith alone” (Jas. 2:24). Clarification is needed. It is clear that James did not
write to contradict Paul since James wrote before Paul. On the other hand,
it is highly unlikely that Paul was writing to contradict James since Paul
wrote much about the importance of good works in the life of the believer
(cf. Titus). Paul was not an antinomian in denying absolutes of morality
since he wrote about being under “the law of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:21).
The first clarification comes from the proper translation of ‘to justify’ as
‘to declare righteous.’ The difference between Paul and James is clarified
when the subject of this verb is considered. In Paul’s writings it is God who
declares the sinner righteous by faith alone. James, however, is concerned
about how other people view a professing believer, and the necessity of
showing faith to others so that they will declare the believer righteous: “But
someone may well say, ‘You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without
the works, and I will show you my faith by my works’” (Jas. 2:18). In that case,
other people are the subject of the verb ‘to declare righteous.’
A second consideration is the differing usage of the verb ‘to believe’ by
Paul and James. Paul is obviously referring to genuine faith or trust in Christ,
whereas James may be using it in the sense of a mere profession of faith, as
seen in James 2:19: “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also
believe, and shudder.” Here believing means intellectual assent to the truth,
rather than trust in Christ as Savior. Other examples of such usage are: John
2:23-25; 6:64-66; 8:32 and Acts 8:13, 18-24. However, some have pointed out
that even if James referred to true faith, he could be referring to ongoing
faith in the Christian life since the rest of the letter is addressed to believers.
Thirdly, recognize the differing definitions of ‘works,’ as both use the
same word but with different terms in mind. By works Paul speaks of law-
works or works by which people are trying to earn merit before God. James,
on the other hand, means the fruit of true faith in the life of the believer.
Believers are justified in the sight of men by leading consistent lives.
Both Paul and James used Abraham as an example to make differing
points. Paul referred to Genesis 15:6, near the beginning of Abram’s life of
faith, even before his name was changed. James referred to the triumphant
pinnacle of his life of faith about forty years later when he offered up Isaac
on Mount Moriah. It is significant that almost half of the human race today
believes that he offered up his son there (even though Muslims believe it
was Ishmael). Thus, Abram was declared righteous by God based on his
faith alone, as attested by Genesis 15, but he was declared righteous by
people based upon the fruit of his faith in the offering up of his son.
Thus, Luther was wrong in trying to resolve the apparent contradiction
by denigrating James’ epistle in order to maintain the purity of Pauline
doctrine. Indeed, Luther was so overwhelmed with the rediscovery of the
marvelous truth of justification by faith alone that he reacted too far in the
opposite direction by making the dichotomy between faith and works too
sharp. Perhaps his failure to include repentance with faith helps explain the
weakness of the Reformation, as will be noted in Chapter 27.
The harmony of grace and faith

Paul made a special point of the perfect harmony of the principle of
grace with a faith-alone salvation: “For this reason it is by faith, that it might be in
accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants,
not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of us all . . . (Rom. 4:16). This is especially important because
of many misconceptions about the meaning of ‘grace.’ It is clear from Paul’s
usage that he means ‘the unmerited favor of God’ because of the way he set
faith and works in contradistinction. He sets faith in opposition to law-works
(Rom. 3:19-31; 4:13-15), to confidence in circumcision (4:9-12), and ulti-
mately to any works of righteousness (Rom. 4:1-8; Eph. 2:8-9; Tit. 3:5).
The human race is so bent on self-salvation that even religions which
parrot the word grace don’t have a clue to its real meaning. Roman Catho-
lics abundantly use the word grace but seem clueless to its biblical meaning.
They endlessly quote the erroneous translation, “Hail, Mary, full of grace,”
and then go about trying to establish their own righteousness by their own
works, including devotions to Mary, which is pagan.
This was true of the Pharisees* in Christ’s day as well (Rom. 9:30-32).
The crowd of works-oriented Jews who had followed Christ across the lake
of Galilee asked, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” His
answer was incisive: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has
sent” (John 6:28-29). Some have thought He was saying that faith is a work.
Nothing could be farther from the truth! Rather, He sought to wean them
away from their works-obsessed mindset. Christ set faith totally opposite to
works in order to maintain the grace principle of salvation (Rom. 4:16).
The gracious nature of salvation

The Lord Jesus and His Apostles had to constantly struggle with the
legalistic mind-set of the Jewish nation from which they had come. The
issue came into special focus as the gospel went out into the Gentile world.
Hebrew Christians struggled with the idea that these pagans could be
directly saved through repentant faith without first becoming Jewish through
circumcision and obedience to the Mosaic Law (Acts 15:5). At the confer-
ence of the Apostles with the elders of the Jerusalem Church on this issue,
Peter defended the gracious nature of salvation (Acts 15:8-11):
And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as
He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their
hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the
neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to
bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the
same way as they also are.
Unfortunately the decision of the Council did not satisfy those false teachers
because they followed Paul’s itinerary and promoted legalism in the church-
es of Galatia and Corinth. On his third missionary tour in western Asia Minor,
Paul heard of the Galatian situationC and wrote his fiery epistle to those
churches to alert them to the serious problem of undermining the gracious
nature of salvation: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called
you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; . . . But even if we, or an angel from
heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he
is to be accursed!” (Gal. 1:6, 8). After reminding them of the outcome of the
Council (2:1-10), Paul quoted his words of correction of Peter’s inconsistent
behavior when some of the legalists came down to Antioch:
We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless
knowing that a man is not justified [declared righteous] by the works of the Law but
through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may
be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of
the Law no flesh will be justified. . . . I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteous-
ness comes by the Law, then Christ died needlessly (Gal. 2:16, 21).
Peter needed to be reminded that even Jewish Christians are saved by grace
through faith alone, in the same way Gentiles are saved. Although the
specific issue there was circumcision and the works of the Mosaic Law, any
additional requirement which people add to simple repentant faith is a
serious lapse into legalism, whether it be baptism (which corresponds to
circumcision) or any other human performance. Paul summarized his point
so aptly in Galatians 3:22: “But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so
that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”
Some months later in Corinth, Paul had more leisure to pen his more
reasoned theological explanation of the issue in his epistle to the church in
Rome, which he hoped to visit. Fifteen centuries later, these two letters
became the key to the Reformation. In his later epistles Paul continued to
emphasize the gracious nature of salvation. After reminding the Ephesian
Christians of their previous depravity, he contrasted a grace-through-faith
salvation with human works in 2:4-10, and clarified the trusteeship of the
newly revealed message of God’s gracious salvation given to him (Eph. 3:1-
7). He even reminds his missionary protégés of this crucial aspect of the
message (Titus 3:4-7; 2 Tim. 1:9). Peter and the other Apostles also wrote in
harmony with this, although they did not emphasize it the way Paul did.
C. Lightfoot gave a number of convincing arguments for a late date for Galatians (although he was wrong
about the north Galatian theory), but the most convincing one is the impossible chronology for an early
date before the Jerusalem Council. R. H. Lightfoot, Galatians (1865), pp. 36-56.
Instantaneous new birth by faith
Simultaneous with justification, or being put into right standing with
God, is the work of the Holy Spirit in giving new birth to the sinner dead in
sin. Both are contingent upon the sinner looking in faith to Christ for salva-
tion. Since the Reformation, evangelical Christians have professed to believe
in faith as a condition of justification. However, hyper-Calvinists do not
believe that faith is a condition for the new birth. Rather, they reverse the
order to say that since those dead in sin cannot exercise faith, God must first
give them new birth so that they may be able to believe. The inductive
Scriptural data is very clear that they have it backwards. See Chapter 19.
The term ‘born again’ is used so loosely today that we must be careful
to define it biblically. There are half a dozen Greek words for it in the New
Testament. The most common is gennaein, a word for either begetting or
being born, which is used only by John (Jn. 1:13; 3:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; 1 Jn. 2:29;
3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18). In His dialog with Nicodemus, the Lord Jesus twice used
the word anothen with it, which has the idea of being born “from the top
down,” meaning “all over again.” Three times He spoke to Nicodemus
about being “born of the Spirit.” In his first epistle, John consistently referred
to “being born of God.” Peter twice used the same word with the prefix ana
(‘again’) in 1 Peter 1:3 & 23, where the new birth is seen as effected by the
word of God. James used a narrower term (1:18) which refers to the suc-
cessful delivery of the baby at the end of pregnancy.6 In Titus 3:5, Paul used
a compound noun, palingenesia, which is usually translated as regeneration.
In 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15, he spoke of a new creation, and in
Ephesians 2:10 used the verb ‘to create.’ In that context he also used a
compound verb, “to make alive with” (Eph. 2:5). Thus we might define the
new birth as God imparting new divine life by the Holy Spirit through the
word of God to spiritually dead sinners (Eph. 2:1-5).
By the analogy with human birth, it seems clear that it is not a process,
but an event at a point in time. Although human birth is not quite instanta-
neous, spiritual new birth must be so understood.D Although the new birth
itself is not expressly stated to be conditioned on faith, the eternal life which
is its result is consistently said to be by faith (cf. Ch. 19).
Justification and sanctification

A most significant issue over the centuries has been the relationship of
justification and sanctification. This was an issue between the Catholic
Church and the Reformers, between the Reformers and other Protestants,
between Evangelicals with differing views of salvation truth, and even among
Calvinists. Again, fuzziness of definition contributes significantly to the
confusion. Therefore, the focus should be on definitions and relationships.
Definitions. Since justification is a declaration by God that the believing
D. Augustine passed down to Luther the error that justification and the new birth are a process, causing
much confusion. Cf. David Anderson, “Regeneration: A Crux Interpretum.” JOGTS, 13:25.
sinner is counted righteous in His sight, it must be once-for-all, not a continu-
ing process (Rom. 4:5). Justification is distinct from, but simultaneous with
the new birth since both are conditioned upon faith. Believers are justified
and born again by faith. Both are instantaneous and initial.
Sanctification, however, is used in two tenses in the New Testament. It
is used in the past tense of positional sanctification and in the present tense
of our progressive growth in holiness. The translation into English is some-
what confusing, although not at all controversial. Both the Hebrew and
Greek words have to do with being ‘separated from, set apart unto some-
thing’, and in that sense becoming holy or sanctified. Holy is the Anglo-
Saxon word; sanctified is Latin-derived.
Believers are called “saints” sixty-one times in the New Testament,
reflecting the truth that at the point of initial faith, they were positionally set
apart for God. This term was used irrespective of the degree of holiness
attained in their lifestyle. Paul said that the Corinthian believers “had been
sanctified” (1 Cor. 6:11), even though some of them were “yet carnal” (3:3),
and there were serious moral problems in the church there.
On the other hand, believers are continually exhorted to progress in the
ongoing process of experiential sanctification. Paul’s exhortation used the
word holiness: “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves
from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor.
7:1). Many other terms and images communicate the same idea throughout
Scripture. Positional sanctification is clearly distinguished from this. These
contrasts are appropriate: position versus condition; standing versus state.
Relationships. Thus while positional sanctification, like regeneration,
is simultaneous with, yet distinct from, justification, progressive sanctification
must be kept far more distinct in our thinking. The new birth and positional
sanctification begin the lifelong process of progressive sanctification.
Although it is called ‘progressive,’ it is not always continuously up hill in the
lives of all believers. Indeed, we all stumble and fall from time to time. But
God’s goal is that believers should be continuously separated from the world,
the flesh, and Satan’s forces, and set apart for the things of God.
The question that has troubled Christians over the ages is, does lack of
progressive sanctification in the life of a believer in any way condition or
cancel one’s justification? Since justification is a declaration by God, the
answer must be a resounding, NO! Lack of holiness in the life of a professing
believer may raise serious questions in the minds of other Christians, but ulti-
mately only God has the final answer as to the status of the individual. A
fruitless believer may be challenged and questioned, but no one has the
authority to write them off and condemn them, as many tend to do.
Many would object to the above by quoting the words of the Lord Jesus,
“You will know them by their fruits” (Mt. 7:16). Here, as always, it is imperative
to check the context. In the whole context He is warning about false proph-
ets who come “in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Mt. 7:15).
These can be and must be discerned by their fruits, but there is not a verse
of Scripture which states or implies that anyone can know for sure about a
professing Christian who does not show the kind of fruit which should be
manifested. Peter used a whole chapter of his second epistle to instruct the
churches how to deal with false teachers. But there is neither example nor
exhortation to write off fruitless or problem believers.
Fruitless believers may be disciplined and/or excommunicated for
some more serious sins (Mt. 18:15-18), but they must not be assumed to be
unbelievers. God disciplined Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5), and the Corin-
thian Church was to excommunicate an unrepentant immoral man (1 Cor.
5), but it must not be assumed, as many do, that they were not true believ-
ers. On the other hand, Peter discerned from the words of Simon, the
baptized magician, that he was not a real believer (Acts 8:20-23). When
some of the Galatians denied justification by faith alone, Paul began to have
doubts about their salvation and challenged them (Gal. 4:9-11). But any doc-
trinal view which backloads justification by faith alone with a legalistic
standard of progressive sanctification must be avoided. Does not God know
ahead the outcome of each individual’s life? He could not possibly justify a
sinner and then later change His mind based upon lack of sanctification.
It is true that the New Testament does challenge us with tests of eternal
life (as in 1 John), by which we can examine our own lives to see those
lifestyle problems which seriously raise questions about our salvation. But
we should also be concerned about the way that legalistic Christians write
off problem believers, and the way that some fall back into an extreme
introspection which seriously undermines their own assurance.7
Repentance, faith, and conversion

There has been long-standing confusion about the relationship and
definitions of repentance, faith, and conversion. Perhaps it started with the
Roman Catholic mistranslation in the Douay Version of repentance (metanoia)
as ‘penance,’ which implies some works on the part of man. Although this
was corrected by Martin Luther, in the Protestant versions, and even in the
contemporary Catholic versions, there are still a number of serious miscon-
ceptions about these key words and their relationships.
Repentance and conversion. The most persistent error arises from the
confusion of repentance and conversion since they are frequently linked to-
gether in Scripture. Although repentant faith is the necessary condition for
conversion, it should be recognized that conversion goes far beyond initial
repentance and faith. Simply put, repentance is a change of mind or attitude,
whereas conversion is a change of direction in lifestyle. Before a person can
change the direction of life, there must first be a change of mind or attitude.
The danger of confusing the two is that conversion does not always, or
even usually, occur overnight. It frequently involves a process: first of coming
to repentant faith and then after being born again, the lifestyle begins to turn
around through progressive sanctification . In some cases it is sudden and
radical, but in others it is slow and gradual. For example, the latter was the
case with Abraham, Jacob, and many other saints in both testaments. The
linguistic data does not at all support any equivalency between repentance
and conversion. However, there is considerable confusion in the lexicons,
theological dictionaries, and theologies (cf. Ch. 7, pp. 109-110).
Contributing to the confusion is the assumption on the part of many that
since these two terms are frequently coordinated by connecting them with
a conjunction, they must be synonymous, such as, “repent and return.”
Many examples can be given in both testaments. However, just because two
terms are so associated does not imply that they are synonyms. This is as
illogical as saying that apples and oranges means that apples equals oranges.
Indeed, there is a logical progression of thought from repentance (a change
of mind or attitude) forward to conversion (a turning around of the lifestyle).
It is worth noting that many of the scholars who are guilty of this false
assumption are part of a more legalistic, sacramental wing of Christendom.
No, the Lord Jesus spoke out bluntly in rebuking the Pharisees against any
such confusion of internal change of heart with mere external change.
There is much confusion on this important distinction. Some define
repentance as “a turning from all sin.” This is totally without linguistic
foundation in the usage in Greek literature. If this definition were correct,
then no one will get to heaven because no one has turned from all sin. Even
conversion cannot be so defined without serious implications.
Repentance and remorse. Another area of confusion is failure to
distinguish repentance from remorse. The first term is the correct rendering
of metanoia; the second comes from the usage of metamelomai. The distinction
can be best illustrated by contrasting Peter and Judas. After Peter denied the
Lord, he repented and was restored into fellowship with Him. After Judas’
betrayal did not work out the way he intended (He apparently hoped that the
Lord would slip through the hands of His arresters, as He had many times
before), he went out, returned the money (Mt. 27:3), and committed suicide.
This was remorse! Paul made the distinction clear in 2 Corinthians 7:10: “. .
. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without
regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” Although
the usage of metamelomai is not always consistent, Thayer said that metanoia/
metanoein is the “fuller and nobler term.”8
The compromises of faith alone
The Roman Catholic compromise. The Catholic compromise of
biblical doctrine in the Council of Trent (1547-8) hardened their opposition
to the Protestants by hurling curses at those who affirmed the Reformation
view. Rome has never retracted those anathemas. Ironically, Evangelicals
and Catholics Together* did not make any reference to the teaching of
justification by faith alone, either in the points agreed upon or in the points of
disagreement for further study. Thus they swept it under the rug! It is clear
that the sacramental system of salvation totally contradicts a by-grace-
through-faith-alone salvation. No matter what word games such signatories
play, Rome would have to scrap its whole merit system to be consistent with
a gracious conception of salvation. This involves the notion of a treasury of
merit which Christ bestowed on the Catholic Church to distribute to its
people in a piecemeal fashion by means of the five relevant sacraments and
the other merit-earning devotions advocated by the Church. Sproul rightly
said that the contradiction is foundational and systemic.9 It implies that the
sacrifice of Christ was not sufficient for salvation, but that we must add to it.
Making the situation even worse since Vatican Council II (1962-65),
many Catholics do not hold to traditional Catholicism any more. A major
liberal element in the Roman church holds to the evolutionary philosophy of
Father Tielhard de Chardin. They retain Catholic symbolism, but the teach-
ing is radically liberal and therefore rejects the evangelical gospel.
The Arminian compromise. Arminius may not have compromised the
grace principle, but Arminianism by denying eternal security compromises
salvation by-grace-through-faith-alone. In their view, believers’ future sal-
vation is contingent upon their own perseverance in faith and good works.
The Puritan back-loading of the gospel. Recent studies reveal a
strong tendency among Puritans* and hyper-Calvinists to back-load experi-
ential sanctification into the salvation message. Michael Eaton observed a
strong pattern of introspection and legalism among them, which unsettles
the believer’s assurance of final salvation. Given the Calvinist doctrine of
unconditional election, the burning question continues on through life, “How
do I know whether I am among the elect, or not?” This causes them to look
inward to their sanctification rather than Christward. Indeed, many great
Puritan preachers went to their deathbed unsure of their elect status.10
This has been perpetuated to the present as manifest in the confusion
of salvation and discipleship in the writings of Reformed Baptists and others
of reformed tradition. The “lordship salvation” teaching of John MacArthur
also fails to distinguish salvation from discipleship.11 In this sense it also
back-loads the gospel with the works of sanctification (Cf. Ch. 10).
The sacramental compromise. Hundreds of millions of Protestants
hold to a sacramental concept of salvation which compromises the purity of
gracious salvation. It starts with baptismal regeneration (cf. Ch. 11) and a
sacramental concept of the Lord’s supper adds to this, that is, the notion that
in some magical way grace is communicated to the participant through the
elements. This comes from the later church fathers, was perpetuated by the
Roman Catholic Church, carried over into Protestantism, and is found
especially among Lutherans, Anglicans (Episcopalians), and others.
The liberal denial. Since the end of the nineteenth century there has
been a modernistic takeover of the major denominations in the western
world. Kenneth Kantzer once stated that in 1890, all of the Protestant
theological seminaries in the USA were evangelical except Harvard. By 1920,
they had all become liberal, some more and some less. The control of these
denominations fell into the hands of the liberals. (More recently the South-
ern Baptists alone have succeeded in reversing that trend by the Evangelicals
regaining control of most of their institutions.)
The point is that liberalism, which denies the inspiration of Scripture,
almost inevitably also denies the gospel of Christ. In the early twentieth
century the “social gospel” replaced the salvation message in those
denominations. Since then various forms of neo-orthodoxy,* modernism,*
and now post-modernism* have been in vogue in those denominations, all
of which tend to undermine the gracious nature of salvation.
The charismatic de-emphasis. There is also a great danger in the
charismatic movement (and to some extent in Pentecostalism as well) in
shifting the emphasis away from the Reformation doctrine of justification by
faith alone and the finished work of Christ, to the present subjective experi-
ence of the believer. Charismatic experiences become the focus, not the
cross of Christ and the Pauline theology of the cross.
Conclusions
From all of this, it is plain that the gospel of Christ is under siege in this
present day. The human tendency to want to earn salvation has seriously
compromised the gospel even among professing evangelical believers.
1. As quoted by R. C. Sproul, Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification, p. 12.

2. Martin Luther, as quoted by R. C. Sproul, Faith Alone, p. 18.
3. Sproul, p. 19.
4. Ibid, p. 37.
5. Alister E. McGrath, Institia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, I:31.
6. Abbott-Smith, pp. 51-2.
7. Michael Eaton, No Condemnation: A New Theology of Assurance, pp. 23-25.
8. Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p, 405.
9. Sproul, p. 68.
10. Michael Eaton, No Condemnation: A New Theology of Assurance, p. 4.
11. John F. MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus.
Absolutely free! Yes, it is absolutely free.
10
God’s grace has made salvation
Absolutely free!
Tell again the story
Of His wondrous love to me,
How God has made His great salvation,
Absolutely free.
-Author Unknown
ARE WE SAVED BY DISCIPLESHIP?
Over sixty years ago, as a new Christian I struggled with the passages in
the Gospels which recorded the Lord Jesus’ most rigorous teaching about
discipleship (Mt. 10:32-39; Mt. 16:13-28=Mk. 8:31-37=Lk. 9:22-25; Lk. 14:25-
35). I knew for sure that we are saved by grace through faith alone, based
upon wonderful Pauline passages, such as Ephesians 2:8-9. But reading
Christ’s demands for discipleship, there seemed to be a serious tension,
indeed, apparent contradiction. I struggled with this until the distinction
between salvation and discipleship was clarified. This resolved the prob-
lem, and over the years this distinction proved to be not only helpful, but
essential and foundational to the whole doctrine of salvation. Failure to
understand this may be a root of the modernists’ claim that Paul’s gospel is
different from Christ’s. Of more immediate concern, however, is the abso-
lute confusion caused among Evangelicals, whether Calvinistic or Arminian,
who don’t recognize this simple distinction.
In short, Christ seemed to be saying that it would cost us something to
become saved, while Paul made clear that it is by His unmerited favor
through faith alone. If the Lord were speaking about salvation, then we
could identify a number of essential conditions for becoming saved: take up
one’s cross and follow Him to martyrdom, self-denial, severance from one’s
family, counting a significant cost and paying this price, giving all our posses-
sions to the poor, and following Christ wholeheartedly. Indeed, this is the
way that many evangelical Christians understand Christ’s words. If this is
correct, extremely few people will be saved! Probably very few readers will
make it. There are legions who have sacrificed significantly, who by this
standard will not make it either. Obviously, something doesn’t compute!
It is amazing how writers at opposite ends of the spectrum ignore this
fundamental distinction. Arminian Robert Shank’s premise of his argument
against eternal security is that in these passages Christ was telling us how to
136
Chapter 10 ARE WE SAVED BY DISCIPLESHIP? 137
1
be saved. At the opposite end are neo-Puritans,* such as Walter Chantry
and Harold Camping. Camping wrote, “A true saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
involves the act of self denial.”2 Chantry, in decrying the easy-believism and
“cheap grace” of contemporary evangelical doctrine and evangelism, stated,
“It is an essential demand of the gospel that he [the rich young ruler] forsake his wealth.” He
continued, “we have to sell all in obedience to Christ.”3 John MacArthur’s view has
been termed “lordship salvation,” but because he based his understanding
upon a denial of the distinction between salvation and discipleship, ‘disciple-
ship salvation’ is a better description.4 He stated, “. . . no distinction has done so
much to undermine the authority of Jesus’ message.”5 On the other hand, Charles
Ryrie stated, “No distinction is more vital to theology, more basic to a correct understanding
of the New Testament, or more relevant to every believer’s life and witness.”6 How do
these teachings of the Lord Jesus relate to that of the Apostles?
Christ’s Discipleship Teachings

Before turning to the three key discipleship teaching passages, attention
must first be paid to the meaning of the word ‘disciple’ (mathçtçs), the most
common New Testament description of a Christian: “learner, pupil, disciple. 1.
gener. Pupil, apprentice (in contrast to the teacher).”7 We become disciples through
coming to Him in repentant faith (John 6:35) and begin to learn of Him. This
is the symbolism of that great gospel invitation: “Come to Me, all who are weary
and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke
is easy and my load is light” (Mt 11:28-30). In the culture of that day, the
disciple sat at the feet of the teacher (rabbi) to learn from his instruction and
also to live with Him and learn from his lifestyle. To ‘take up a yoke of
discipleship’ was an expression reflecting this culture. It is not simplistic to
suggest that Christ’s first command is to come to Him; only then is it possible
to follow Him (Mt. 16:24). We are not saved by walking on the narrow road.
In the Sermon on the Mount He commanded people to “enter by the narrow
gate” (Mt. 7:13), which is, of course, Himself (Jn. 10:9), in order to get onto
the narrow road. It is only a legalistic mindset which ignores these simple
distinctions to the eclipsing of the simple gospel message.
Later in the Bread of Life discourse, Christ used the symbolism of eating
and drinking to picture coming to Him and believing on Him: “I am the bread
of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never
thirst” (Jn. 6:35). In short, coming to Him in faith makes us His disciples. In
His discipleship teachings, to avoid confusion it is imperative to examine the
contexts sequentially, considering the dynamics of His ministry.
Sending out twelve ambassadors

The first passage chronologically is found in Matthew 10:32-39, in con-
nection with sending the Twelve to the towns of Israel at the end of the
second full year of His ministry. (Mark and Luke record the sending but do
not include the discourse.)A After the immediate brief instructions for the
venture at hand, He launched into an extended discourse about the perse-
cution His ambassadors will experience up to the end of the age (Mt. 10:16-
37). He spoke about their being delivered up to courts, being scourged,
brought before rulers, family members betraying them, being hated for His
sake, not fearing those who kill the body in persecution, and loving Him
more than family. Against this background He charged in Matthew 10:37-9:
He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who
loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does
not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found
his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.
Then He spoke about reward for those who serve in His name (10:40-42).
Note that He said nothing about being saved or becoming His disciple
here. Rather, He spoke about being worthy of Him (37, 38). It would have
been inordinate for Him to charge His twelve Apostles with the need for
salvation at this point since most of them had been His disciples for over two
years (cf. John 1), and had been commissioned from among a much larger
band of disciples to be His Apostles. In giving them a charge to go out to the
people of Israel to confront them with the message of repentance (Mk.
6:12), He warned them of the severe persecution that would attend their
representing Him as His Apostles (sent ones). After charging them regarding
cross-bearing, He alluded to the rewards for their worthy service (Mt. 10:40-
42). Thus to read into His words a message of salvation would be to ignore
what He actually said and the context in which He said it.
The context rather indicates that He was telling His born-again Apostles
(except for Judas) that to be worthy of Him as they represent Him (10:40),
they will have to face persecution, even death. The key phrase is: “he who
has lost his life for My sake.” They must give their lives over to the Lord, and
that is the only way they will really find a true purpose in life and thus really
“find” it (Gk: ‘gain for oneself’). The word translated ‘life’ is psuchç, which is
never used of the eternal life (zoç) received in salvation. The Apostles
already had eternal life; now they needed to find the abundant, meaningful
life in the center of God’s will (Jn. 10:10). The exhortation is for true disci-
ples to follow Christ in persecution in order to be worthy of Him.
Facing His passion

A year later shortly before the cross, the Lord took His Apostles north to
Caesarea Philippi at the headwaters of the eastern branch of the Jordan.
There He elicited Peter’s famous confession of His deity and announced a
new direction for the remaining weeks of His ministry —Jerusalem and the
cross (Mt. 16:13-28=Mk. 8:31-37=Lk. 9:22-25). This was the occasion for the
A. The discipline of diachronic Biblical Theology teaches us that we must understand God’s revelation
in its historical context by taking into full account the progressive, sequential nature of His revelation.
Systematic theology does not usually pay adequate attention to this important principle.
first of a dozen prophecies of His impending passion made at the end of His
ministry. This was also the first intimation to His Apostles about the church,
which He was now planning to build based upon that predicted passion.
After Peter’s misguided attempt to dissuade Him, the Lord summoned a
crowd of other disciples (Mk. 8:34) and gave the second of His discipleship
discourses in words similar to the first occasion (Mt. 16:24-27, ESV):
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the
whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his
life? For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of his
Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
From the previous discourse, the Apostles should have understood that
now that the divine Messiah is committed to going up to Jerusalem to die,
their lives would be at risk, and at the least they would suffer the persecution
which would undoubtedly follow. In light of this, He emphasized self-denial
and a willingness to take up a cross to follow Him to death.
Thus, even though there was a crowd of other disciples present, there is
no more basis for assuming He was giving salvation truth here than in the
previous context. That these disciples had followed Him way up to Caesa-
rea Philippi in Gentile territory would indicate that they were strongly
motivated disciples who also needed to hear this discipleship challenge.
Those in the crowd who had less sincere, perhaps political, motivations
needed to be alerted to the fact that a cross, not a throne, was in the offing.
So any assumption that the presence of the crowd implies that the Lord
must be speaking about salvation is misguided. There is no invitation here
to come to Him, but rather an exhortation to follow after Him to possible
death in Jerusalem. This simple distinction is not simplistic.
Luke included one word which makes a salvation interpretation absurd:
“‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily,
and follow Me’” (Lk. 9:23). It is the little word “daily” which totally destroys
legalistic interpretations. We must take up our cross daily. If salvation were
the subject, we would have to get saved daily, and salvation then would be
the piecemeal dispensing of merit based on works, as Catholicism advo-
cates. The epistle to the Hebrews obliterated this possibility by emphasizing
that Jesus Christ died once for all, that we might be saved once for all (Heb.
7:25-27; 9:12, 24-26; 10:10-14). The interpretation of this passage hinges
upon this one word ‘daily,’ which must on no account be overlooked.B
The rest of the passage (Mt. 16:25-27), as in the previous context, has
also been widely misunderstood as referring to eternal salvation. As in
Matthew 10:30, the word psuchç should be consistently translated here as
‘life.’ The verb, ‘to save,’ (sôdzein) is used in secular Greek of salvation “from
B. However, note that MacArthur makes only passing reference to Luke 9:23 in his Gospel According
to Jesus (p. 202) and does not recognize the significance of this very important word.
peril, injury, or suffering.”8 The relevance to the immediate context is seen
as Christ warned His disciples of the cost of following Him to His passion in
Jerusalem. He was really warning them that if they try to save their lives
from peril, injury, or suffering, they would in reality be wasting their lives,
which would count for little in the light of eternity. Then He reinforced this
in the next clause: “. . . but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it”(Mt. 16:25
ESV). From the world’s point of view they would lose their lives, but in
reality they will find life’s true significance. In verse 26, He reinforced this
one step farther, by emphasizing the absolute profitlessness of gaining even
the whole world (of money, fame, and power) and forfeiting one’s own life.
Such a life is a total waste in God’s sight. The issue here relates to salvaging
our lives for Christ’s sake. If we believers try to save our lives for ourselves
by clinging to them and using them for our own agenda, they will be lost or
wasted as far as Christ is concerned. On the other hand, if we lose our life
in the sense of giving it up to Christ, only then will we really salvage it.
As in Matthew 10, the Lord concluded by promising to reward faithful
service when He returns (16:27-28) and to judge the believer’s works (cf. 1
Cor. 3:10-15; 2 Cor. 5:9-11). The issue is not salvation but true discipleship.
Mark and Luke use almost identical words in their accounts, and the slight
differences are of minimal significance (except for the word ‘daily’).
In Perea shortly before His passion

Luke alone recorded this third significant discipleship discourse given to
a great crowd of His followers in Perea across the Jordan in the last stage of
His final trip up to Jerusalem to be crucified (Luke 14:25-35). It is fair to
assume that a significant part of the crowd following along with Him had
come to believe in His messiahship. In a few weeks many of them would be
welcoming Him to Jerusalem with shouts of Hosanna. Their presence does
not imply that He is explaining the way of salvation to them at this point.
Only one verse here closely parallels the other discipleship passages:
“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Lk.
14:27). Verse 26 is similar to Matthew 10:37, but is put more bluntly, using
hyperbole: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and
wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my
disciple.” Comparing this with the Matthew 10 statement helps understand
the hyperbole of His language. Reference to the cost of discipleship being
likened to counting the cost of building a tower or of winning a battle is a
new emphasis. Again, as in Matthew 10 and 16, He was talking about being
a worthy disciple in the face of persecution, a disciple in the fullest sense of
the word. He was also warning uncommitted followers that they need to
anticipate persecution and a high cost of discipleship and to settle the issue
beforehand. He might have intended to sort out the true from the false, but
this is quite different from setting out a cost as a precondition for salvation.
If He had been speaking about how to become saved, His rigorous
demands would be absolutely out of the question for any spiritually dead
person to fulfill. In demanding that an inquirer count a cost, He would have
been totally contradicting any offer of salvation as a free gift. The two are
totally incompatible. To cap it off, the Lord required that His disciples give
up all their own possessions (Lk. 14:33). If this is a precondition for salva-
tion, there would be extremely few Christians in the world, and it is transpar-
ent that it would cost us financially and materially to be saved. In that case
salvation could hardly be a gift of His unmerited favor (Rom. 6:23), could it?
Christ’s Salvation Witness

Now that we have distinguished salvation from discipleship in our Lord’s
most explicit teachings to His disciples, let us see how this understanding is
confirmed in the way he dealt with individuals. Did He use discipleship
language in dealing with unregenerate inquirers or not?
The progressive discipleship of His first disciples. John told the
story of the Messiah recruiting His first four disciples from among the disci-
ples of John the Baptizer (Jn. 1:35-51): Andrew, Simon Peter, James and
John. They promptly switched their allegiance to Christ and became His
disciples. Since they had been John’s disciples, it is clear that they had
already repented and been baptized–thus regenerate Israelites. The same
would be true of Philip and Nathaniel. Clearly the Lord attested the regener-
ate state of Nathaniel, as his own declaration of Jesus’ deity and messiah-
ship confirms. His message to them is to follow Him as disciples (1:43).
Apparently they were joined subsequently by a larger number of believing
disciples, who followed the Lord on a more casual, intermittent basis.
It was months later that Christ recruited four fishermen, as full-time
disciples, causing them to leave their family fishing business to fish for
people (Mt. 4:18-22; Mk. 1:16-20; Lk. 5:1-11). This was the second stage in
their progressive commitment to His person and program. Over a year later
He commissioned the twelve out of many disciples to be His Apostles (Mt.
10:1-15; Mk. 6:7-11; Lk. 9:1-5), as the third stage. They made a progressively
deeper commitment to him after their conversion. Please note that all of the
above discipleship teaching (Mt. 10 & 16; Lk. 9 & 14) came long after this.
Nicodemus, the distinguished teacher of Israel. Nicodemus had not
yet made any significant commitment to Christ, although he sincerely
acknowledged the Lord’s teaching ministry as from God. So Christ immedi-
ately exposed his ignorance as the distinguished teacher of Israel, who had
no clue as to the Old Testament teaching of the necessity of a new birth
(Ezek. 36:25-27). God had spoken about cleansing Israel from their sin with
clean water and putting His Spirit within them to enable them to do His will.
MacArthur rightly said that the Savior’s demand for a new birth was “shock-
ing to Nicodemus (John 3:9). Don’t miss that point or minimize Jesus’
challenge to this man. Our Lord’s strategy in witnessing was to go for the
throat, and He established His direct, confrontational approach in this first
encounter.”9 The legalism of Pharisaic rabbinic teaching had blinded
Nicodemus to the heart of God’s previous revelation.C
After pointing Nicodemus to Himself (Jn. 3:10-13), the Lord used the
symbolism of the brass snake which Moses erected in the wilderness as a
picture of His coming crucifixion. It was also a reminder of the rebellious sin
of Israel and God’s judgment which occasioned that incident. Even though
the word ‘repentance’ is not used here, it would take a vast change of mind
or attitude for Nicodemus to take this look of faith at the Messiah. Appar-
ently he did not do so at this point in time, but three years later when he saw
the Lord Jesus being lifted up in crucifixion, he summoned up the courage
to commit himself by helping to embalm the Lord’s body (Jn. 19:39). He
must have remembered the Lord’s words of John 3:14.
MacArthur, however, distorted the implications of this account by
focusing upon the ‘does not obey’ in the NAS translation of John 3:36: “Real
faith results in obedience.” There is a serious issue of the translation of apeithein
here and elsewhere. Although in secular Greek it normally means “to disobey,
be disobedient,” most modern translators follow the BAG lexicon: “. . . but the
one who refuses to believe in the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God
remains on him” (Jn. 3:18, HCSB). To read obedience into this word is an
unjustified legalistic spin.D How much obedience must result from genuine
faith? How immediately must that obedience begin? This is back-loading
obedience into the definition of faith!
An immoral Samaritan woman (John 4). There is nothing supportive
of discipleship salvation in the Lord’s witness to the Samaritan woman.
However, MacArthur suggested that His invitation to her to drink of the living
water conveys commitment as well as appropriation. By quoting Matthew
20:22 (“Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”) and John 18:11
(“The cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?”) he seems to have
made a point. However, in moving beyond commitment to obedience, he
has gone beyond the data by pushing a dubious translation of apeithein, as
just discussed.10 Commitment and obedience are two different things!
A turncoat tax-collector. A major issue related to discipleship salvation
in the account of Matthew’s conversion is the issue of a new convert’s sense
of sinfulness (Mt. 9:9-13; Mk. 2:13-17; Lk. 5:27-32). MacArthur correctly
emphasized the importance of an inquirer having a sense of sin in coming
C. Although there are many interpretations of the water of 3:5, it is simplest and best to understand it as
a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and it can be translated, “water, even the Spirit.” This is confirmed by the
same symbolism in Jn. 4:14 and 7:37-39. It certainly does not refer to baptism, which only symbolizes
Spirit baptism and cleansing from sin (cf. Ch. 12).
D. So KJV, NKJV, NIV, TNIV. “. . . since, in the view of the early Christians, the supreme disobedience
was a refusal to believe their gospel, [apeithein] may be restricted in some passages to the meaning.
disbelieve, be an unbeliever. This sense, though greatly disputed (it is not found outside our lit.), seems
most probable in Jn. 3:36; Ac14:2; 19:9; Ro 15:31, and only slightly less prob. in Ro 2:8; 1 Pt 2:8; 3:1,
perhaps also vs. 20; 4:17; 1 Mg. 8:2.” (BAG, p. 82). Since the positive verb peithein has the meaning,
“convince, persuade, etc.” (BAG, pp. 644-5), and since John sets the negative apeithein in opposition to
pisteuein, it seems clear that “disbelieve” is John’s meaning.
to Christ. Matthew as a tax-collector was indeed a despicable sinner in the
eyes of the Jews and in the eyes of God. After Matthew left his tax office to
follow the Lord and invited other notorious sinners to meet the Lord Jesus
at a banquet, the Lord responded to the Pharisaic criticism with the most
significant statement: “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repen-
tance” (Lk. 9:32). The self-righteous Pharisees did not recognize their sin;
Matthew certainly had. The question arises as to how immediate and deep
must that sense of sin be for a person to be genuinely saved? We must not
extrapolate Matthew’s story as a notorious sinner to be a paradigm for all
conversions, especially of children raised in Christian homes. But MacArthur
did so: “It is impossible to suggest that a person can encounter the holy God of Scripture
and be saved without also coming to grips with the heinousness of his own sin and conse-
quently longing to turn from it.”11 He gave examples of Peter, Paul, Job, and Isaiah
coming to a deep sense of their own sinfulness (Lk.5:8; 1 Tim. 1:15; Job 42:6;
Isa. 6:5). The major problem with this is that none of these examples give
the heart condition of these men at the point of their conversion; indeed, for
some it was years after God’s first dealings with them.
Furthermore we don’t know the actual point of Matthew’s conversion.
When Christ walked by his tax-office and called him in two words to “Follow
Me,” this was not their first contact. Surely Matthew had been in the crowd
hearing our Lord’s teaching at least once and probably many times before.
He was presumably converted on one of those occasions, since he couldn’t
follow Christ until he had first come to Him for salvation (Mt. 11:28). So this
account says nothing about Matthew’s sense of sinfulness at the point of his
conversion. This usually grows as we grow in the Lord, and growing Chris-
tians ought to have a strong sense of repugnance for sin in their lives.
A self-righteous synagogue ruler. Not long after the discipleship
discourse of Luke 14, a works-oriented rich, young synagogue ruler came to
Christ with a revealing question: “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may
obtain eternal life?” (Mt. 19:16-26=Mk. 10:17-27=Lk. 18:18-27). This passage
has also been misused by those who put a legalistic spin on salvation since
they have missed the main point of the story. Christ was seeking to wean
him step by step away from this mindset. First, He pointed him to the
Mosaic Law, which Paul later explained was to bring people under the guilt
of sin (Rom. 3:19-20; 1 Tim. 1:8-11). This was Christ’s motivation also, but
the man supposed that keeping part of the Law was adequate, since he
asked, “Which ones?” Christ pointed him to the Leviticus 17:18 summary of
the second tablet of the Law: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt.
19:19). This was to get him to see, as a rich man, that he did not love his
neighbor as himself. In his self-righteousness, however, he responded,
“Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up; what am I still lacking?” (Mk.
10:20; Mt. 19:20). In order to bring this young man into an awareness of his
own sinfulness, the Lord instructed him to sell his possessions, give to the
poor, and come and follow Him. This was the ultimate test of whether he
had kept the intent of the Law. Believing his riches proved his rightness with
God, he apparently didn’t get the point since he went away sorrowful. The
Lord was trying to get him to see that he didn’t love his neighbor as himself
and therefore that he hadn’t really kept the Law and was a sinner.
This is confirmed by the following dialogue with His disciples. After
pointing out the obstacle riches present to people in getting saved (as Paul
confirmed in 1 Cor. 1:26-28), Christ used hyperbole to emphasize His point:
“. . . it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to
enter the kingdom of God” (Mt. 19:24). Legions of legalistic commentators
have tried to make a camel’s passage through the eye of a needle humanly
possible by supposing that this refers to some postern gate a camel could
negotiate. This is not only without a scintilla of evidence but also totally at
odds with the point Christ made in the next interchange. The disciples
understood the impossibility of the hyperbole by crying out in astonishment,
“Then who can be saved?” His answer is clear: “With men this is impossible, but
with God all things are possible.” When will legalists learn that, humanly
speaking, salvation is an impossibility? Salvation must be a work of God’s
unmerited favor otherwise no one would be saved. But since the contem-
porary Jewish view was that riches are a sign of God’s favor, Christ’s point
astonished the disciples: riches predispose people away from the gospel.
Please note that many human factors predispose people against the
gospel (e.g. materialism, Islam, evolutionary humanism). This hardly fits
with unconditional election. Note also the observation, “And looking at him,
Jesus felt a love for him, . . .” (Mk. 10:21). Does God love the ‘non-elect’? We
don’t know whether this man ever came to faith in the Messiah.
In reference to the cost of salvation, it should be obvious to all Evangeli-
cals that the only cost is that which Christ paid, as Peter expressed so
clearly, “. . . knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or
gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious
blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18-19).
So we must not take our Lord’s words to this self-righteous religious
ruler as a basis for saying that an inquirer has to sell his property and give to
the poor in order to be saved. Chantry built most of his case for discipleship
salvation upon his misunderstanding of this passage. He himself probably
didn’t forsake his wealth in order to be saved. When he said that we “have
to sell all in obedience to Christ,” presumably he did not mean this to be taken
literally, but he did not clarify it.
MacArthur, although much of his discussion about this ruler is helpful,
also missed this key point. After wrongly connecting this with the disciple-
ship teaching of Luke 14:33, he stated: “Our Lord gave this young man a test. He
had to choose between his possessions and Jesus Christ. He failed the test. No matter what
he believed, since he was unwilling to forsake all, he could not be a disciple of Christ.
Salvation is for those who are willing to forsake everything.”12 If this dialogue is to be
understood as a paradigm for salvation of all, then this is the only place in
Scripture that an unbeliever was challenged with this option. Did MacArthur
forsake everything at the time of his conversion? Does he lay this demand
upon all the inquirers he seeks to lead to Christ? Let’s be real. If salvation is
a matter of passing or failing such a test, the gospel is not a gospel of grace
as MacArthur claims to proclaim. In that case, it would be a legalistic
corruption of the gospel. The subsequent clarification by Christ to His
Apostles of His intent (Mt. 19:23-26) is significantly not expounded by MacAr-
thur except in passing in his next chapter. As noted above, Christ made
clear that if salvation depends upon man, it is an absolute impossibility; it is
possible only with God.E
Zaccheus, the crooked tax-collector. The account of the conversion
of Zaccheus is quite terse and concluded with one main point as the Lord
stated: “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Lk.
19:1-10). As with Matthew, we don’t know how much prior teaching of the
Lord he had heard or what He told him in his house about being saved. We
can only reconstruct a hint of the extortionate methods of his practices from
his admission of fraud and his ready willingness to give half (not all) of his
goods to the poor. We do well to understand this, as most do, as the fruit of
his conversion, certainly not the condition, as MacArthur recognized.13 Thus
this example proves very little for or against ‘discipleship salvation.’
Two significant parables.
Two parables of the kingdom Christ gave are relevant to this:
The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man
found and hid; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has, and buys
that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine
pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he
had, and bought it (Mt. 13:44-46).
Parables are the most difficult part of Christ’s teaching to interpret, especially
when there is no introductory explanation. We must interpret parables in
the light of Christ’s clear teaching elsewhere. Far too many interpreters take
it that the sinner is represented by the man who sells all to buy either the
treasure or the pearl. However, who has sold all that he had to buy some-
thing of great value? The answer is obvious that Christ sold all that He had
to redeem us from sin. The basic word for redemption is the word ‘to buy.’
Christ purchased us with His own blood. What could be clearer? Can we
purchase salvation? Absolutely not! We are bankrupt; we don’t have
anything to sell by which we might purchase it, even if it were for sale. It is
God’s gift of free grace (Rom. 3:24; 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9). How then can all these
interpreters say that we have to sell all in order to be saved? This shows the
depth to which a legalistic concept of salvation has spread among Protes-
tants since the Reformation. One might wonder about the identity of the
treasure and the pearl. Though not central to my point, Israel is portrayed as
God’s treasure (Ex. 19:5), and the church can be seen as the pearl of great
value.
E. I should make clear that I have a high regard for John MacArthur. Most of his preaching and
apologetics are excellent. As with many Calvinists, there is serious internal contradiction in his views.
The Issues of Discipleship Salvation
Salvation and rewards. The distinction between salvation and rewards
was made by C. I. Scofield and emphasized by dispensationalists.* On the
other hand, there is a strong reticence on the part of some from the Re-
formed* tradition to acknowledge this distinction. For example, Camping
said that any acknowledgment of God’s rewarding of the faithful service of
believers would undermine the gracious character of salvation. There is no
logical contradiction between the two, and there is so much Scripture to
support both truths. Part of the problem for Camping may be his failure to
distinguish between the judgment seat of Christ and the great white throne
judgment of the lost (Rev. 20:15), which is a consequence of his amillennial-
ism.*14 A clear passage here is 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, which pictures Chris-
tians building the church upon the rock Christ Jesus. Paul was very explicit
that if our work for Christ survives the fire of the day of Christ, we shall
receive a reward. On the other hand, concerning the one whose work is
burned up as being wood, hay, or stubble, “he himself shall be saved, yet so as
through fire”(1 Cor. 3:15). Clearly the judgment seat (bçma) of Christ is an
examination of a believer’s works; this could hardly be a description of the
issue of salvation by grace through faith alone.
Carnal Christians and fruitless believers. It is useless to try to deny
that carnal Christians existed in the Corinthian church or for that matter
today, as some neo-Puritans* have done. Paul was very explicit in contrast-
ing spiritual Christians from two other varieties:
And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of
the flesh, as to babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for
you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for
you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you
not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? (1 Cor. 3:1-3).
Some fleshly believers (sarkinos) were identified as babes in Christ, new
Christians who have not yet grown (1 Cor. 3:1). But he directly confronted
others as being more acutely fleshly (sarkikos) in behaving as the unregener-
ate in regard to party politics in the church (3:2-4). This is not to say that
they were totally given over to a pagan lifestyle. However, later when Paul
addressed the problem of the incestuous man in the church, the discipline
he counseled was so “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1
Cor. 5:5). Even though Paul had some very positive things to say about the
Corinthian Church (1:4-9), there were many other evidences of carnality
among them. Although many would like to legislate carnal Christians out of
existence by insisting that such people are not really Christians, this is a
legalistic solution to the problem. One form of legalism is in legislating the
ideal among God’s people. This is an erroneous solution!
What was this discipline of the incestuous professing believer “to deliver
such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, . . .” (1 Cor. 5:5)? Of the two
major interpretations, the most viable is that the church should excommuni-
cate him if unrepentant and pray for his premature physical death. This is
confirmed by the parallel situation of those abusing the Lord’s table: “For this
reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30); this
he described as a disciplinary judgment on those believers, so they “may not
be condemned along with the world” (11:32).
We also have the striking example made of Ananias and Sapphira, who
although they were willing to make a substantial gift to the church, lied
about it (Acts 5:1-11). There is absolutely no basis for questioning the reality
of their salvation. John confirmed this principle in 1 John 5:16-17 in speaking
about a sin of a brother unto death. Although Arminians have the ‘luxury’ of
saying this is the loss of salvation, more Calvinistically minded interpreters
need to see it as premature physical death. This was also a danger for some
Hebrew Christians addressed in Hebrews 6:1-9 (cf. Ch. 15).
Whenever the issue of the fruitless Christian comes up, a protest is
misquoted from Matthew 7:16, “You will know them by their fruits.” Apparently
the protestors never bother to look at the context, which is about the false
prophets, the ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing, whom we can identify by
their fruits. But it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between a carnal
Christian and a counterfeit believer. Even the Apostle Paul was not always
sure as to who was which. But we can see the evil fruit of that liberal
preacher who denies the salvation message or that legalistic priest who is
distributing piecemeal salvation by human merit.
Two other relevant Scripture passages discussed elsewhere should be
studied. Some believers described in Hebrews 6:4-8 were bearing “thorns
and thistles” (cf. Ch. 15). Also in Christ’s parable of the four soils, the third-
soil type people were believers who “brought no fruit to maturity” (Lk. 8:14).
This is not to condone the lifestyle of believers described in these passages.
Each of us individually will have to give an account at the judgment seat of
Christ. There are also temporal consequences for our sins and failure to do
the full will of God. But the Scriptures are very realistic in portraying life as
it is, not as we might idealize it.
. Conclusions
As the three major discipleship teachings of Christ have been examined
in chronological sequence and context, it becomes clear that He was not
declaring the way of salvation but was putting demands of discipleship upon
those who had already been converted. The words ‘worthy’ in Matthew
10:37-8 and ‘daily’ in Luke 9:23 are crucial. Upon examining Christ’s salva-
tion witness to a number of unbelieving individuals, there is no evidence that
He laid discipleship teaching upon them. The so-called ‘lordship salvation’
issue would be better recognized as a ‘discipleship salvation’ issue. At
bottom, the distinction between salvation and discipleship is clear and
important in avoiding legalism, even if the legalism be promoted under the
name of ‘grace.’
THREE MAJOR DISCIPLESHIP DISCOURSES

Matthew 10:37-42 Mt. 16:24-27=Lk. 9:23-7 Luke 14:26-33
Who? 12 Apostles Who? Serious disciples Who? A majority disciples
To be a worthy disciple:
Love Christ more than family ‘Hate’ (love less) family
Hate ones own life
Take up cross to follow Christ Take up cross daily to follow Take up cross to follow Christ
Christ
Lose life for Christ’s sake Lose life for Christ’s sake
What good to gain whole world
and lose ones life? Count the cost of discipleship
Rewards (not salvation) for
obedience Christ will reward each person Give up everything we have
1. Robert Shank, Life in the Son, p. 18.

2. Harold Camping, in Family Radio News.
3. Walter Chantry, Today’s Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic?, p. 47.
4. Charles Ryrie refers to it as “so-called lordship/discipleship/mastery salvation.” in So Great Salvation, p. 29.
5. John F. MacArthur, Jr., The Gospel According to Jesus, p. 30
6. Charles C. Ryrie in the foreword to Zane C. Hodges, The Hungry Inherit, p. 7.
7. Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon, p. 486.
8. Abbott-Smith, Lexicon, p. 436.
9. MacArthur, pp. 37-47, esp. 39; his treatment here is quite helpful.
10. Ibid., pp. 46-47; 52-53.
11. Ibid., p. 60.
12. MacArthur, p. 78.
13. Ibid., p. 95.
14. Although Harold Camping is not a trained theologian, as a most vocal spokesman for his extreme form of
Reformed theology, it is appropriate to reference him. Since such statements are repeatedly aired on Family Radio,
it is extraneous to try to document an exact quotation.
Is it Thy will that I should be
11
Buried, in symbol, Lord, with Thee;
Owning Thee by this solemn sign,
Telling the world that I am Thine?
Gladly I yield obedience now;
In all things to Thy will, I’d bow;
I’ll follow where my Savior led,
And humbly in His footsteps tread.
This emblematic, watery grave
Shows forth His love -Who came to save;
And as I enter it, I see
The price my Savior paid for me.
- Anon.
IS BAPTISM ESSENTIAL FOR SALVATION?
One of the earliest errors to enter the church was to make the ordi-
nances into sacraments. Water baptism and the Lord's Supper began to be
viewed as efficacious in the early centuries and were subsequently crystal-
lized in the developing Catholic Church as its doctrine of baptismal regener-
ation and the mass. In some almost magical way, when people are bap-
tized, they think the process of regeneration begins. One question which
naturally arose from this was how to deal with post-baptismal sin. The root
of the problem was thinking that baptism was an essential condition for
salvation which in effect made it a substitute for faith. The Roman Church
today is the major advocate of baptismal regeneration. On the popular level,
the average priest affirms that Catholic baptism assures ultimate salvation.
The Reformers did not make a total break with a sacramental view of
the ordinances. Luther continued to hold to Christ's mystical presence in the
elements of the Lord's supper and saw some efficacy in infant baptism.
Thus, Lutherans and Reformed over the centuries have come to believe in
christening as having some effect upon the infant, whether in regeneration
or in inclusion in the covenant. Anglicans* (Episcopalian in the USA) hold
differing degrees of efficacy in the sacraments, depending upon which
branch is considered (Anglo-Catholic,* Liberal,* or Evangelical). In Amer-
ica, the Restoration or Stone-Campbell Movement (Churches of Christ/Chris-
tian Churches) complicated the scene. Additional millions moved toward
thinking baptism as effecting forgiveness of sins. Some are very aggressive
in convincing people that they must be baptized by them for the forgiveness
of sins. What is the biblical data in answer to this most important question?
The arguments for baptismal regeneration usually derive from the
149
Gospel accounts of John's baptism being a “baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins,” from Christ's words to Nicodemus in John 3, from the
Mark 16:16 wording of the Great Commission, from Peter's Pentecost
sermon (Acts 2:38), from Ananias' words to Paul in Acts 22:16, and Paul's
doctrinal statement in Titus 3:5. These are the ‘proof-texts,’ but there are
also certain presuppositions held by baptismal regenerationists which need
to be examined. Another significant factor is inaccurate translation of
several passages in the King James Version since the translators were all
Anglicans and mostly held to baptismal regeneration. This obscures the
meaning of these passages and subsequent translators have not given a
more precise rendering to clear up the problem.1 The issue is not whether
baptism is commanded of believers, but whether it is a necessary condition
for becoming a genuine Christian. What is the inductive evidence?
The Inductive Biblical Development

The Old Testament background
The antecedent of the Lord's supper was the Passover remembrance
of Israel's exodus. This is clear since it was at a Passover celebration that
Christ modified and simplified the Passover seder (order) and commanded
Christians to remember His death by its observance. When Jews observed
the Passover, there is no indication that they viewed it as efficacious or other
than a simple memorial of a mighty intervention of God. Indeed, Moses ex-
plained that the meaning of Passover was “in order that you may remember all
the days of your life the day when you came out of the land of Egypt” (Deut. 16:3).
In a similar way, circumcision was the antecedent of baptism. It was
initiatory into the people of God, whether for a Jewish male or a Gentile
convert. Moses also explained its symbolism to a new generation of Jews
about to enter the promised land, “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise
your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your
heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live” (Deut. 30:6). He exhorted
them,“Circumcise then your heart, and stiffen your neck no more” (Deut. 10:16).
Israel was not to trust in externa1 circumcision but in a work of the Spirit in
the sinful human heart. Seeing the New Testament linkage of circumcision
and baptism, it is not surprising to find that there are frequent warnings
about trusting in physical circumcision and outward religious observances
(Matt. 5:8; 6:1; 23:27; Acts 15:1-29; Gal. 5:2-3; 6:12-15; Rom. 2:25-29; 4:9-16;
Col. 2:11-13). Paul’s connection of circumcision and baptism is of a “circum-
cision wrought without hands,” by the Spirit of God in the human heart (Col.
2:11-12). The baptism he referred to must also be a spiritual baptism (1 Cor.
12:13). This is crucial background for understanding water baptism.
The Gospel accounts

The ministry of John the Baptizer. John was called the Baptizer
because he initiated the ritual of water baptism. Proselyte baptism prac-
ticed by Jews was not really baptism at all, but a self-immersion. John was
Chapter 11 IS BAPTISM ESSENTIAL FOR SALVATION? 151
the first person who immersed another person, and thus, he was called the
Baptizer, that is “the one doing the immersing.”
As John came announcing the coming of the Messiah-King and His
impending kingdom, he emphasized the absolute necessity for Israel to
repent or be judged (Matt. 3:2). When many hypocritical Pharisees and
Sadducees came to make a show by being baptized, he warned them
sternly that unless their repentance was genuine from the heart, they would
be cut off from the kingdom (Mt. 3:5-10). To reinforce this he stressed that
the coming Messiah would not just perform external water baptism but an
efficacious baptism of the Spirit and of fire (Mt. 3:11-12). One could put on
an outward show of repentance in water baptism but can not get away with
externalism when the Messiah comes. Unfortunately, many have misinter-
preted John's words in verse 11 to imply the opposite by ignoring the con-
text, “As for me, I baptize you with water for (eis) repentance.” Understood in its
context there is no way that John could be implying that baptism causes
repentance. The Greek preposition eis could imply this when taken alone,
but grammarians have recognized that in this context eis can mean ‘because
of' as in a number of other contexts, such as Matthew 12:41.2 Thus, John
said, “I baptize you with water because of (your) repentance.”
Similarly in Mark's Gospel: “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness
preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mk. 1:4). Luke also
uses the same phrase in 3:3 to describe John’s ministry: “baptisma metanoias eis
aphesin hamartion.” The question is whether the forgiveness is conditional
upon the baptism or the repentance? Baptismal regenerationists assume
erroneously that it is conditioned upon baptism as well as repentance. What
is the relation between baptisma and metanoias, since metanoias is in the geni-
tive/ablative case? It could be a genitive of reference, which would be
translated, “a baptism with reference to repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” It
could also be an ablative of source, which is defined as a noun that “owes its
existence in some way to that which is denoted in the ablative.”3 Thus, it would be a
“baptism derived from repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” In neither alterna-
tive does it imply that forgiveness is contingent upon baptism. Therefore, it
is the repentance which brings forgiveness of sins, and this accords with
John's warning to hypocrites (Mt. 3:7-10).
Note John's own stated purpose: “but in order that He might be manifested
to Israel, I came baptizing in water” (Jn. 1:31). He had the privilege of baptizing
the Messiah Himself. It should be clear that Christ was not baptized for
forgiveness since He needed none. He was baptized to identify with the
repentant remnant of Israel. It was to be an external witness of His messiah-
ship as God had told him, “‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and
remaining upon Him, this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.' And I have seen,
and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (Jn. 1:33-34). This identifica-
tion with the godly remnant of Israel is further confirmed by the secondary,
metaphorical meaning of the word baptizein, that is, “to be overwhelmed by
something, to be identified with someone.” This is clear from Christ's own usage in
Mark 10:38f, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the
baptism with which I am baptized?” referring to His death. Paul spoke of Israel's
identification with Moses as they escaped from Egypt (1 Cor. 10:2). Christ's
own baptism was an identification, not efficacious. Likewise, our baptism
is an identification with Christ, not an efficacious ritual (1 Cor. 12:13, etc.).
The ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. After John was imprisoned,
Christ began His public ministry by preaching, “The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk. 1:15). In our
survey in Chapter 7, this same message was found in the accounts of Christ's
preaching with no reference to baptism at all. Repentance and faith (trust)
are emphasized repeatedly, but there is total silence about baptism in His
preaching. Indeed, the only hint that Christ practiced baptism at all are three
references in John 3:22,26; and 4:1-2. In fact the word pisteuein (to believe,
trust) is used 96 times in John's Gospel without ever being linked to baptism.
There are numerous incidents where the Lord declared an individual's
sins forgiven before there was any possibility of baptism. In the story of the
paralytic who was let down through the roof, Mark said that Jesus, seeing
their faith, said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk. 2:1-12).
Clearly, his sins were forgiven apart from baptism. In the account of the
woman with the flow of blood: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in
peace, and be healed of your affliction” (Mk. 5:34). Shortly thereafter, He told the
synagogue official, “Do not be afraid any longer, only believe” (5:36). When He
commissioned the Apostles and sent them out to the lost sheep of Israel,
Mark stated, “And they went out and preached that men should repent” (Mk. 6:12).
No Gospel writer mentions baptism at this important point in Christ's instruc-
tions to the Apostles. The last case is the thief on the cross. The Lord took
the genuine expression of repentant faith on his part as an adequate condi-
tion for promising him, “Today you shall be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:42-3).
Christ's words to Nicodemus. In Christ's interview with Nicodemus,
the interpretive possibilities of His imperative to be “born of water and the
Spirit” (Jn. 3:5) must be examined carefully. Many hastily assume a refer-
ence to water baptism and do not seriously consider other interpretations
which are more supportive from the context and the analogy of other
Scripture. There are three other commonly-held views.
Some good interpreters hold that ‘water' is a reference to natural birth
and ‘Spirit' to the contrasting new birth of the Holy Spirit. This view builds
upon natural birth as a watery birth in the bursting of the amniotic sac. This
finds strong support from the immediate context. Nicodemus' reaction to
Christ's first statement about being born again (3:3) showed the limitation of
his thinking to mere physical birth (3:4). Thus, to correct his thinking the
Lord said in effect, “you must not only be born naturally, but you must also
be born of the Holy Spirit.” This is further reinforced by Christ's clarification
in verse 6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit.” This is an obvious contrast of physical birth with spiritual birth. This
interpretation must surely be given serious consideration.
Two other interpretations see the word 'water' as symbolic. One builds
upon the other references to the Holy Spirit's use of the word of God to
produce regeneration, such as James 1:18 and 1 Peter 1:23-4. Ephesians
5:26 speaks of Christ cleansing the church by “the water of the word.” The
weakness of this view is that it has to go far afield to find support.
A more cogent interpretation sees ‘water’ as a symbol representing the
Holy Spirit, and the reference to ‘Spirit’ as clarifying the meaning of the
symbol. The kai (and) is better translated ‘even’ and is explanatory. This
view receives strong support from the broader context of the fourth Gospel
since the Lord used water as a symbol of the Spirit in his witness to the
Samaritan woman (Jn. 4:10-14), and again at the feast of Booths when He
gave that most dramatic invitation, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and
drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall
flow rivers of living water.'” John clearly said that Christ spoke of the Spirit
(7:37-39). Another grammatical indication supportive of this view is that
neither 'water' nor 'spirit' in the Greek have an article. This indicates that
these are not two distinct entities. As Charles Hodge emphasized over a
century ago: “the sign and the thing signified are often united, often interchanged, the one
being used for the other.” He based this statement upon the strong Old Testa-
ment symbolic usage of water. For example, Isaiah 12:3: “Therefore you will
joyously draw water from the springs of salvation.” (cf. Isa. 35:6; 44:3; 55:1; Ezek.
36:25; Jer. 2:18; Zech. 14:8.)4 It would be absurd to read baptism into all of
these passages. The Lord Jesus, speaking to a very knowledgeable teacher
of the Old Testament, built upon a familiar symbol in explaining salvation.
Mark 16:16. Mark's form of the Great Commission read superficially
might seem to indicate that baptism is a necessary condition: “He who has
believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be
condemned” (Mk. 16:16). The key is to avoid reading into the statement what
Christ did not say– that those who are not baptized will be condemned. This
is a common failure of interpretive logic by ignoring an axiomatic rule found
in all the basic textbooks that the converse of a statement is not necessarily
true. The only way it can be proved whether the converse of a true state-
ment is true or false is from other data. In this case, data from other Scrip-
ture indicates that the converse is false—that those who are not baptized are
not necessarily condemned. Note also that some other interpreters do not
see this as a reference to water baptism at all but to Spirit baptism. Thus,
the Lord did not make baptism an essential condition of salvation.
The book of Acts

Peter's Pentecost sermon. The invitation which Peter gave at the end
of his Pentecost sermon is very significant. Thousands of Jews were under
the conviction of the Spirit because of his preaching of the word of God
(Acts 2:37). Peter’s command was twofold: “Repent, and let each of you be
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). What is the relationship between
repentance and baptism? Are forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit contin-
gent upon repentance alone or upon baptism as well? The careless render-
ing of the KJV is partially corrected by the NAS quoted above showing a
break in thought between the two imperatives. Repent (metanoesate) is a
second person plural active imperative and could be paraphrased, “All of you
must imperatively repent!” Baptistheto (“let each of you be baptized”) is a third
person singular passive imperative radically different in thrust. The shift from
second to third person, from plural to singular, and from active voice to
passive is extremely significant. The third person singular imperative is a
much weaker cohortative form, as the NAS has rendered it.5 Because of that
break in the grammar, the phrase about baptism should really be viewed as
parenthetical: “Let each of you who repents be baptized.” Note also that the
promise of forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit are both in the plural, so
they connect with repentance not baptism. Thus, the force of Peter's words
is: “All of you (pl.) must imperatively repent (and let each one [s.] be baptized) for the
forgiveness of your (pl.) sins, and you (pl.) will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Three thousand converts were baptized that day, but it is clear from the
grammar and context that they were not saved through that baptism.
The ministry of Peter and others. The subsequent pattern of gospel
preaching in Acts is further confirmation of the above. In Peter's second
sermon, faith, repentance, and conversion are stressed with no mention of
baptism (Acts 3:16, 19). In the second confrontation with the Sanhedrin,
Peter emphasized repentance and forgiveness without mentioning baptism
(5:31). When Philip preached to the Samaritans, he baptized those who
believed, but they did not receive the Holy Spirit until Peter and John came
down from Jerusalem days later, when Peter used the keys to officially open
the door of faith to Samaritans. Even though this was an anomaly explained
by the dispensational* transition involved, it clearly shows that baptism was
not efficacious, even when true faith was present (8:12-17). The conversion
of Cornelius and his household became a clear paradigm of salvation truth
for Gentiles (10:43-48). Peter's sermon concluded, “that through His name
everyone who believes receives forgiveness of sins” (10:43). Immediately, before
being baptized, they received the Spirit. Indeed, Peter took the manifest
reception of the Spirit as proof that although Gentiles they were fit candi-
dates for baptism. When in defending his actions before the Jerusalem
Church, he made that same point in quoting the words of Christ from Acts
1:5, which contrasts water baptism with Spirit baptism (11:15-17). Further,
in describing the founding of the Antioch Church, Luke said that those who
believed turned to the Lord but he does not mention baptism at all (11:21).
Paul's ministry. In the synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia, Paul and
Barnabas spoke of forgiveness through faith with no mention of baptism
(Acts 13:38-39). When Luke described the subsequent response, he men-
tioned believing connected to eternal life, without reference to baptism
(13:48). Thus, Paul really did tell the Philippian jailer the whole truth when
he said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved and your household”
(16:31). They did get baptized in obedience to Christ's command, but Paul
very significantly left baptism out of the gospel message. In subsequent
narratives, Luke referred several times to converts believing, without refer-
ence to baptism (17:12, 34; 19:18). Most significant is Paul's charge to the
Ephesian elders, where he describes his preaching as “repentance toward God
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ” (20:21) with no mention of baptism.
The account of Paul's meeting a dozen disciples of John the Baptizer in
Ephesus is very significant (19:1-7). He specifically asked them whether they
had received the Spirit. Their answer was negative. Why did Paul re-baptize
them? Clearly, John's baptism was not Christian baptism of the New Testa-
ment church, founded on the day of Pentecost. John was the end of the
previous dispensation or age (Mt. 11:11). So Paul needed to re-baptize these
Jewish Old Testament believers from the previous dispensation to incorpo-
rate them into the New Testament body of Christ. An anomaly was caused
by the absence of those men from Judea at the Pentecost event. But if
baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, then Paul erred greatly. If John's
baptism were efficacious, Paul had no need to re-baptize them again.
Some might say that John's baptism was ineffective and had to be
repeated, but the inconsistency of this becomes clear in that they claim
Mark 1:4 as a proof-text for baptism being for forgiveness of sins. They can
not have it both ways; either John's baptism was efficacious or it was not.
Those disciples were genuine in their repentant faith as seen in their imme-
diate reception of the Spirit at the laying on of hands.
Because of mistranslation of Ananias' words to the newly converted
Paul, his testimony before the Sanhedrin is misunderstood: “‘And now why do
you delay? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name’”
(Acts 22:16). Many wrongly think Saul was yet unsaved and needed to wash
away his sin by baptism. If this were true, it would be a serious contradic-
tion with the rest of the New Testament. It is clear that Saul was already
converted on the Damascus road three days earlier. His first response to
Christ shows that he was instantaneously born again: “‘What shall I do, Lord?’"
(22:10). He called Jesus his Lord and submitted to His instruction! How-
ever, Ananias was right to be suspicious of this chief persecutor of the
church and assumed that he was yet unconverted. The participial phrase at
the end of his sentence has been badly mistranslated by most translations.
Apolousai tas hamartias sou epikalesamenos to onoma autou (“wash away your sins,
calling on His name”). This is a dangling participle, which is poor English,
but good Greek. The force of these adverbial participial phrases is clear in
the grammars. This is an instrumental participle indicating “the means by which
the action of the main verb is accomplished.”6 Therefore, to make good English out
of it, it should be properly translated: “Wash away your sins by calling on His
name.” The addition of the one little word ‘by’ corrects the abominably poor
grammar of the English and fairly represents the force of the Greek. This is
in perfect accord with the truth of Joel 2:32 quoted by Paul in Romans 10:12-
14, “‘Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.’” It is clear that sins
are washed away by calling on His name, not by getting baptized!
Lastly, note Paul's summary of his commission as he recounts it to
Herod Agrippa, “… to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light
and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of
sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith that is in Me”
(Acts 26:18). Again, the significant omission of baptism is seen in this
summary of salvation. Likewise, in Paul's statement, “. . . that they should
repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance” (26:20).
The New Testament epistles

Non-Pauline epistles. Both James and Peter gave definitive state-
ments about the place of the word of God in bringing about the new birth.
“In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might
be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures” (Jas. 1:18). “For you have been
born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is through the living
and abiding word of God” (1 Pet. 1:23). Neither mentioned baptism. Peter's
reference to baptism in 1 Peter 3:20-21 requires closer examination: “And
corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh,
but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
. . .” Here the Greek word antitupon is very significant. Transliterated, it is
'antitype'. Thus, Peter is clearly stating that he is speaking figuratively. The
flood of Noah was a type; baptism is the antitype. Then Peter, having stated
this, realized that his readers might interpret it crassly. So he broke his line
of thought to explain that he is not speaking of water baptism cleansing the
body, but of the work of God upon the conscience. Crass interpretation fails
to recognize figurative language where it is so obvious.
Pauline epistles. Paul supplied theological clarification in his letters.
He reflected on his early ministry in Corinth: “I thank God that I baptized none of
you except Crispus and Gaius, that no man should say you were baptized in my name.
Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanus; beyond that, I do not know
whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the
gospel, . . .” (1 Cor. 1:14-17a). It is extremely hard to see how Paul could
write these words if he really believed that people are born again through
baptism or that baptism was an essential condition of being saved. If so,
Paul would certainly have made it a point to keep a list of those he had
baptized. Now just a few years later, he can not even remember whom he
had baptized. How could he thank God for so few he had baptized? How
could he set baptism and preaching the gospel in such strong contrast if
baptism is really an essential part of the gospel of salvation?
Later in this epistle, in discussing the nature of the Church as the body
of Christ, Paul explained how we become members of His body. “For by one
Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or
free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). This is the clearest
doctrinal statement about Spirit baptism which Christ had promised to first
take place on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:4-5) and which Peter explained
as having taken place “at the beginning” of the church (Acts 11:15-16). This is
clearly a work of the Spirit, not the ordinance of water baptism! Charles
Ryrie has suggested that just as Spirit baptism puts us into the universal
Church, the body of Christ, just so water baptism puts us into the local
church. Water baptism is the outward sign of the inward work of the Spirit.
Paul's letter to the Galatians is extremely relevant to the issue. Legalists
had sneaked into the Galatian churches to try to counteract Paul's gospel of
grace (2:4-5). They insisted that circumcision and obedience to the Mosaic
Law were necessary for both salvation and Christian morality. After refuting
their viewpoint conclusively in the first four chapters, Paul warned about the
spiritual danger of those who trust in external rituals: “Behold I, Paul, say to you
that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again
to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole
Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law;
you have fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:2-4). It is not that circumcision in itself was
wrong, for Paul had gotten Timothy circumcised so that he might join them
in witness to the Jews (Acts 16:3). Trusting in the external ritual of circumci-
sion is spiritually dangerous. In a very real way trusting in baptism for
salvation is the very same sort of externalistic legalism that Paul so clearly
warned about. Trusting in an efficacious ritual of baptism for salvation puts
one in the very same spiritual danger that Paul warned about. This is to
sever one’s self from Christ, rather than trusting in a personal relationship
with Him. As Paul concluded his letter, “For neither is circumcision anything, nor
uncircumcision, but a new creation” (6:15). Substitute the word ‘baptism’ for
‘circumcision’ in this verse and the main point is still valid.
Then Paul wrote the more reasoned theological statement in Romans
where he made exactly the same point: “But he is a Jew who is one inwardly;
and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, and his
praise is not from men, but from God” (Rom. 2:29). In defending justification by
faith alone, Paul made a major point that circumcision is just a sign and seal
of faith, not in the least efficacious (4:9-16). His argument was based upon
the fact that Abraham was a believer for many years before he was circum-
cised. His conclusion established an essential principle, “For this reason it is
by faith, that it might be in accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be
certain to all the descendants” (4:16). Likewise, Paul is describing the spiritual
realities of Spirit baptism in Romans 6:1-10, which is not primarily about the
ordinance of water baptism, which symbolizes these realities.
The connection between circumcision and baptism is clear in Paul's
words to the Colossians: “And in Him you were also circumcised with a circumci-
sion made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision
of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up
with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Col.
2:11-12). Since this circumcision was wrought “without hands,” it is clear that
the baptism referred to is Spirit baptism of the heart, not ritual water bap-
tism. Only this could be efficacious. So water baptism is the New Testament
counterpart of circumcision for Israel.
Finally, note Paul's words to Titus: “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds
which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of
regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly
through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Tit. 3:5-6). Based upon our previous study, it
is unthinkable that Paul was referring to baptism here. The grammatical
connection between ‘washing’ and ‘regeneration’ is most likely a genitive of
apposition, indicating that the washing is the internal washing of regenera-
tion by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, “renewing by the Holy Spirit” must be explana-
tory. Otherwise it is redundant.7 One is biblically naive to think that baptism
is an efficacious washing or more than a symbolic act.
The Doctrinal Crystallization

The conclusions drawn from the inductive study must be summarized:
Repentant faith is the only condition of salvation. Over 150 times in
the New Testament, repentant faith is stipulated as the only condition of
salvation.8 If baptism were an essential condition, it is clear that it should
have been emphasized in these 150 contexts. Otherwise God is guilty of
misleading communication on this central issue.
A few controverted passages have been mistranslated. It was seen
how some passages were mistranslated because of theological bias of the
King James translators, such as Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3, Acts 2:38
and 22:16. A serious logical fallacy was noted in reading efficacious baptism
into Mark 16:16. There are a number of promising interpretative possibilities
in Christ's words to Nicodemus in John 3:5 which are much more cogent
than the assumption that 'water' is a reference to baptism. That same
assumption that Paul is referring to baptism in Titus 3:5 is totally unwar-
ranted. Thus, there is total consistency in Scripture on this point.
Many got salvation without baptism. A number of examples in the
ministry of Christ and the Apostles were noted where an individual was
unquestionably saved without any possibility of baptism. In some cases they
were baptized subsequently.
Some baptized individuals did not receive the Spirit. Two cases
were observed where individuals who had repented/believed did not
receive the Holy Spirit until subsequently. These are serious anomalies for
baptismal regenerationists and are best understood as being part of the
dispensational* transition from Israel to the New Testament church.
The new birth is a work of the Spirit through the word. A number of
definitive statements about the new birth were examined: John 3:3-18;
James 1:18; and 1 Peter 1:23. All refer to the word of God and the Holy Spirit
as the active agents. None mention water baptism. Salvation is frequently
referred to in both testaments as a washing, but this washing is never
accomplished by baptism (Jn. 13:1-20). Further study showed Ananias’ use
of this symbolism (Acts 22:16); Peter's vision of the unclean food speaking of
Gentile salvation as a cleansing (10:15; 11:9); Paul’s references to Christians
as having been washed (1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 5:26; Tit. 3:5); John’s speaking of
forgiveness as a cleansing (1 Jn. 1:7,9); and martyrs described as having
“washed their robes and made them white” (Rev. 7:14) as always accomplished
by the Spirit through the word without any reference to baptism.
Water baptism is contrasted with Spirit-baptism. Both John and
Christ set water baptism in bold contrast with Spirit-baptism as to efficacy.
Paul gave the doctrinal explanation of Spirit-baptism in many contexts often
erroneously assumed to be reference to water baptism. In both 1 Corinthi-
ans 12:13 and Colossians 2:11-13, Paul makes it clear that he is speaking of
Spirit-baptism, not water baptism. The other passages (Rom. 6:3-4) must be
interpreted in the light of these clear doctrinal statements. Spirit-baptism is
efficacious for salvation; water baptism is not.
Paul minimized the cruciality of baptism. Paul's thanksgiving to God
that he baptized so few in Corinth, his lack of memory of whom he baptized,
and his statement of his commission to evangelize—all are incomprehensi-
ble if baptism is in some way effective in accomplishing salvation, or even a
part of it (1 Cor 1:14-17). Baptism must be seen as a command to believers,
not a means to become believers.
Requiring baptism for salvation is equal to legalism of Judaizers.
The Pharisees were legalists because they believed that salvation is contin-
gent upon ritual circumcision and law keeping. The Judaizers whose teach-
ing fomented the Jerusalem Council insisted that circumcision was essential
for salvation (Acts 15:1). The Council concluded that these people “unsettled
the souls” of believers (Acts 15:24). In a similar way, the legalism of requiring
the external rite of baptism as a condition for salvation unsettles the souls of
Christians today. In so doing, they radically change the whole nature of the
Christian message. They also make it dependent upon ritualism and law-
works. Today's legalists draw from the New Testament command to be
baptized, but by giving it undue importance in salvation, they have re-
established the same principle as the Judaizers. Only now it is a different
rite. This makes salvation no longer of grace (unmerited favor), and puts
them in the same camp as the Galatian legalizers, who Paul said were
bewitching the people (Gal. 3:1). Paul called it a slavery and expressed
concern for the salvation of those so deceived (Gal. 4:9-11, 5:1-4).
1. See my paper, Is the KJV the Basis for a Translational Rut? on my website: www.mediatetheology.org.
2. F. Blass and E. DeBrunner, Greek Grammar, trans. Robert W. Funk, p. 112; A. T. Robertson and W. Hersey
Davis, A New Short Grammar of the Greek Testament, p. 256.
3. H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament , p. 76; also p. 82.
4. Charles Hodge, Systematic TheoIogy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), III. p. 593.
5. William D. Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament (NY: Macmillan, 1952), p. 86.
6. Dana and Mantey, p.228.
7. Hodge, III, pp. 595-9.
8. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948), III, p. 376.
Behind the shameful apathy and lethargy of
12
the church, that allows one thousand millions
of human beings to go to their graves in igno-
rance of the Gospel, there lies a practical
doubt, if not denial, of their lost condition.
-A. T. Pierson (1886)
IS CHRIST THE ONLY WAY OF SALVATION?
The central issue in the biblical basis and motivation for Christian
missions is the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the gospel given His Apostles
to proclaim throughout the world. If Christ is not uniquely the Savior of the
world, then there is little point to Christian missions! If other religions have
a true knowledge of God and salvation, then why bother to send missionar-
ies to them? If salvation is found apart from the sacrificial death of Christ,
then missions is a tragic mistake—indeed, Christ's death itself was a horrific
mistake! So the essential basis of global missions is the uniqueness of
Christ, His gospel, and the lostness of the unevangelized.
With massive immigration of majority-world peoples, western culture
is becoming increasingly pluralistic. We must defer to the sensibilities, not
only of Roman Catholics, Jews, atheists, and agnostics, but now Muslims,
Hindus, etc. “In a pluralistic world it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the
uniqueness of the Christian faith.” Herbert Kane highlighted the problem:
When we move into the non-Christian world, where the missionary has to operate, we find
that the exclusive claims of Christianity are vigorously challenged by the non-Christian
religions now undergoing an unprecedented resurgence. It is safe to say that the most
offensive aspect of twentieth-century Christianity is its exclusiveness. Such a claim does
not make sense to the Hindu, the Buddhist, or the Confucianist.1
Not only outside the church, but even among evangelical Christians there is
a serious erosion of biblical teaching in this regard. Surveys indicate that a
shockingly large percentage of Christians do not believe that Christ is the
only way of salvation and that the unevangelized are lost and will go to hell.
A survey of Christian collegians attending the Urbana '67 missionary confer-
ence indicated that less than forty percent, mostly from secular colleges,
believed that the unevangelized are lost. Although in Christian colleges the
picture was much better, there is still cause for concern. Richard Bailey's
160
Chapter 12 IS CHRIST THE ONLY WAY OF SALVATION? 161
1971 study showed that twenty-seven percent of students in Christian liberal

arts colleges and nine percent in Bible colleges did not believe that the
heathen are lost.2 Our own surveys of freshman Bible college students
confirm that the situation in our postmodern* culture has not improved in
the intervening years but has undoubtedly gotten worse.
How can Christians hold such views? Actually the problem has a long
history. Origen, an early Alexandrian church father, advocated universal-
ism,* which is the view that all men will ultimately return to God and be
‘saved.’ His view did not gain popularity since it was so obviously contrary
to the Bible. Although the authority of the Bible was not seriously ques-
tioned then, in the last few centuries, with the widespread attacks upon the
Bible, universalism has revived, and there are many advocates in the old-line
liberal denominations. Even among those claiming a more orthodox
theology, such as Karl Barth (father of neo-orthodoxy*), there has been a
revival of universalism, which Robertson McQuilkin called the “New Univer-
salism.” It also is not based upon full acceptance of the authority of the
Bible, as might be expected.
But even among those who more consistently acknowledge the
authority of Scripture, there are those who, while admitting that not all will
be saved, hold that the sincere seeker after truth who has not heard the
gospel will not be condemned by God. McQuilkin called this the “Wider
Hope Theory.” Even more recently some have adopted a variant of this, the
“New Wider Hope Theory,” which states that:“Those who live by the light they have will
be saved on the merits of Christ's death. We recognize that this is a more conservative version of the
New Universalism. It doesn't say that all will be saved on the merits of Christ, but that some may be
saved on the merits of Christ through general revelation, apart from the special revelation of Scripture.”3
A number of supposedly evangelical scholars have expressed such
sentiments but without any substantial defense of their viewpoint. It is fuzzy
thinking arising from an emotional reaction rather than biblical fact. Clark
Pinnock and John Sanders have written and spoken in support of this view,
calling it “inclusivism.”*4 It is very harmful in distorting Scripture and seri-
ously undermining the missions program of the church. Indeed, over a
century ago a missions-minded pastor put it well: “Behind the shameful apathy
and lethargy of the church, that allows one thousand millions of human beings to go to their
graves in ignorance of the Gospel, there lies a practical doubt, if not denial, of their lost
condition.”5 Since then the number of unevangelized people has escalated to
over three billion, but the root cause of the church's apathy has not changed.
So it is imperative that the uniqueness of the Christian faith, the lostness of
non-Christian peoples, and the inclusivistic denials be carefully examined.
The Uniqueness of Christ and His Gospel

When the Bible's statements are compared with other ‘sacred books,’
we find that Christ's claims are unique. His person and work are also unique
in backing up His unparalleled claims. The salvation He procured has no
equal in the religions of the world—nothing even comes close!
The unique claims of Christ and His Apostles

The Lord Jesus claimed to be a unique person. He claimed to have
come from eternal existence with God the Father in heaven and having
equality with God accepted worship as God. He used titles of Himself
appropriate only for deity and claimed to have the attributes, offices, and
prerogatives of deity. The Apostles also referred to Him in the same unique
ways. John used the title translated as the “only begotten Son of God.” The
Greek word here is monogençs which means “‘in a class by himself,' 'the only
one of his kind,' or 'unique.'”6 The NIV translated it as “His one and only Son.”
In addition, Christ claimed to be the only Savior. His most direct
statement is John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth and the life;
no one comes to the Father, but through Me.'” Peter confirmed this in speaking
to the Jewish leaders, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other
name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved”
(Acts 4:12). Paul added his testimony: “For there is one God, and one mediator
also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5). If people can be
saved apart from Christ, then Christ and the Apostles made false claims.7
Sometimes we overlook the obvious astounding fact that no founder of
any world religion ever even made claims that compare with Christ’s.
Thomas Schultz's statement stands out boldly: “Not one recognized religious leader,
not Moses, Paul, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, etc., have [sic] ever claimed to be God; that is, with
the exception of Jesus Christ. Christ is the only religious leader who has ever claimed to be deity and
the only individual ever who has convinced a great portion of the world that He is God.”8 Although
this is mind-boggling, it could have been made even stronger. Some
founders of world religions didn't even have much to say about God at all.
Gautama the Buddha, Confucius, and Lao Tse were essentially agnostics in
that they did not claim to know God or concern themselves with Him. Some
religions, like Hinduism and Shinto, do not have any identifiable founders.
The two who came closest to a biblical concept of God were Zoroaster
(Zarathustra) and Muhammad. Although Zoroaster may have gotten some
truth correctly passed down from Noah's day, his teachings were not written
down until after Christ and were undoubtedly influenced by the Christian
view. In any case, his Parsee religion is dying today with few followers.9 It
is a well known fact that Muhammad borrowed heavily from Jews and
Christians and modified the concept of God considerably. No founder of a
world religion claimed sinlessness, deity, or the ability to save mankind.
Even if any had, none of them would have been able to make their claims
stick! Only Jesus Christ’s claims are substantiated by His person and work.
His life supports His claims.

A survey of world religions reveals that there is no parallel to Christ.
There are over a hundred detailed prophecies of His first coming fulfilled in
His ministry.10 Even though Isaac and John were miraculously born of aged
parents to prepare Israel's mind for the virgin birth, Christ was the only one
in human history born of a virgin. He alone lived a sinless life and revealed
a loving, personal and holy Father-God with whom He had fellowship

eternally. He confirmed His claims to deity by unique miracles of love and
compassion. He alone made prophecies which are continuing to be ful-
filled, including a dozen about His own death and resurrection. He alone
died as a sinless sacrifice for sin, sealed by His bodily resurrection. This was
not just a restoration of physical life, but His post-resurrection appearances
in a glorified body made it unique. He alone ascended into heaven bodily
with the promise to return in the same way to establish His rule upon the
earth. Not one of these things can be said for Zoroaster, Gautama the
Buddha, Lao Tse, Confucius, Guru Nanak, or Muhammad.
His unique salvation

The uniqueness of the fall. Just as unique as the unparalleled person
of Christ is His plan of salvation. Study of other religions uncovers nothing
like it in any of its features. Indeed, none have any plan of salvation at all
from sin and the fall since none, including Judaism and Islam, have any
concept of man as fallen in sin. All religions view mankind as essentially
good and not needing salvation from sin. Hinduism's moksha (realization) is
about release from the cycle of life, while Buddha's nirvana (oblivion) is about
release from the sufferings of life. Zoroastrians and Muslims do believe in
paradise after death attained by human merit, not by the work of God.
The uniqueness of grace. A key difference between the evangelical
gospel and all other religions is salvation by grace. All others are based upon
human merit, not the grace of God. Grace means 'unmerited favor.' We
cannot earn it! Only biblical Christianity teaches that God reaches down to
save sinful man. All other religions see man struggling upward to God (if
one even exists). The Sikhs of India use the word for grace (parshad), but
they, like adherents of other religions, are striving to please God by their own
works. Even the cultic corruptions of Christianity err in this essential point,
whether Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, or other cults. Catholics also
overwork the word ‘grace’ but deny salvation by grace alone by trying to
merit God's grace by baptism, confirmation, confession, attendance at mass,
good works, and last rites. But salvation is not by human merit: “For by grace
you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not
as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
Forgiveness and assurance. All systems of meritorious religion
undermine two important things: the forgiveness of sin and assurance of
eternal life. No one can know for sure about salvation as long as it is based
upon human merit. Various religions are all alike in striving to merit God's
favor. For example, a tradition of Islam states that when Muhammad was
dying, his daughter Fatimah asked him to pray for her salvation. His reply
was, "Daughter, my prayer will do you no good! Only your own works will save you!"
Muslims deny the cross of Christ and His sacrifice as a basis for forgiveness.
This is typical of all other religions. Erich Sauer has well summarized the
confused diversity of man's religions:

Heathenism as a whole rests not only on error and deceit, but at the same time also on a
spiritistic foundation. . . Through all this the heathen, under demon influence, became the
“creator of his gods.” . . .
The Grecian says : Man, know thyself.
The Roman says : Man, rule thyself.
The Chinese says : Man, improve thyself.
The Buddhist says : Man, annihilate thyself.
The Brahman says : Man, merge thyself in the universal sum of all.
The Moslem says : Man, submit thyself.
But Christ says : “Without Me ye can do nothing,”
and in HIM
the Christian says : “I can do all things through Christ Who makes me mighty”.
“In his religion the heathen expresses his godlessness. Religion is the sin, namely, the sin
against the first command, the replacing of God by the gods;” “the most powerful expression of
the opposition of man against God and contradiction within himself.”11
An historical salvation. Christian salvation is also without equal in

being based upon real, historical events that God did among men. Most
oriental religions are filled with myths and legends about their many man-
like gods. Shinto has its creation-myth; Hinduism its legends about Krishna
and many other deities. We’re not sure whether Lao Tse (reputed founder
of Taoism) even existed or when Zoroaster, the founder of the Parsi religion,
lived. Confucius said almost nothing about God! But Christianity is an
historical faith, based upon what God did in human history in the incarna-
tion, ministry, and passion of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit through
the church. The authors of the Bible frequently tied their narratives in with
secular history and archaeology confirms the essential historicity of many
biblical events. Islam makes the strongest claims among other religions but
it doesn't matter much since Muhammad neither claimed to be God or
Savior since he didn't work any miracles or rise from the dead. Even more
astonishing is that Muslims believe that Muhammad is buried in a tomb in
Medina, whereas they believe that the 'prophet Jesus' is in heaven. Paradox-
ical, isn't it?
Are the Unevangelized Really Lost?

Previous generations referred to the unevangelized as the ‘heathen,’ but
the term, 'heathen' must be defined first: “an unconverted member of a people that
does not acknowledge the God of the Bible; a pagan.”12 Actually this could be broad-
ened to include any unchurched person since there are pagans everywhere.
What do we mean by 'lost'?

People are lost in many senses—geographically, intellectually, emotion-
ally, etc. What really counts is God’s definition of 'lost.' Christ said that the
purpose of His coming was “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Lk. 19:10).
The biblical picture (cf. Ch. 3) is that man is lost in reference to God. In
Adam's fall all mankind became separated from God. Not only did Adam
and Eve die spiritually when they sinned (Gen. 2:17) but caused the whole
human race to be born spiritually dead and under God's wrath, without hope
and without God and alienated from His life (Eph. 2:1-3, 12; 4:18).
Eternally lost. Mankind is not only lost in that he is now without God,
but apart from Christ's salvation that separation becomes eternal death
(Rom. 3:23; 6:23). Christ had much to say about eternal punishment.
Herbert Kane summarized it well:
The Bible clearly teaches that there are two destinies open to man. One involves everlasting
happiness in the presence of God and the holy angels (Lk 15:10; Rev 22:3-5; 1 Thess 4:17),
the other involves everlasting misery in the company of the devil and his angels (Mt 25:41).
The New Testament speaks of two gates—one strait and the other wide; two ways—one broad
and the other narrow; two destinies—one life and the other destruction (Mt 7:13-14). In the day
of judgment the sheep will be separated from the goats (Mt 25:31-46), and the wheat from the
tares (Mt 13:36-43), the good from the evil (Jn 5:29). And in the resurrection there will be a
separation between the just and the unjust (Acts 24:15)13
Universal spiritual and physical death. The Bible is clear about the
universality of man's lost condition—none are exempt. Paul wrote that
God's law shuts every person's mouth, that all the world is guilty before God,
and that “death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 3:19-20; 5:12).
People are not becoming lost—they are already lost! “Whoever believes in Him
is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because
he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son” (John 3:18, NIV). This
is true both of those who reject the gospel and those who have never heard
it. Unless people are saved through Christ, they will stay lost for eternity.
All mankind's need of salvation

Christ made it abundantly clear that all men, Jews and Gentiles, need to
be saved. In commenting on those who had tragically died, He said, “Unless
you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Lk. 13:5). He even told a very religious
Jewish leader, Nicodemus, that he needed to be born again to enter the
kingdom of God (Jn. 3:5). Since this was true of Nicodemus, it is certainly
true of pagans. Acts records the conversion of the first Gentiles, the Roman
centurion Cornelius and his household (Acts 10:1–11:18). Even though he
had already given up his Roman idolatry and prayed to the God of Israel, the
angel told Cornelius that when Peter came, he would speak words by which
they would be saved (11:14). Even though this devout heathen's prayer was
answered, he was not yet saved until he heard the message of salvation.
The inclusivists* would have us believe that Cornelius was a “pagan saint,”
already saved through general revelation. They ignore Cornelius' contact
with the word of God through Judaism and the angel's explicit statement.
On his second missionary journey, Paul had opportunity to preach to
some very civilized and intellectual Greek philosophers in Athens. Universal-
ists* rationalize that Greek philosophy was as good a preparation for the
gospel as the Old Testament, and inclusivists claim that the Greeks had the
truth of God through the writers to which Paul alluded. However, Paul told
them bluntly, “God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent,
because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through
a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from
the dead” (Acts 17:30-31). Later, he explained this repentance in a limited
Christian context when he described his ministry as “solemnly testifying to both
Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts
20:21). He did not mean repentance within the context of any pagan
religion, but only as it is linked with faith in Christ.
What about those who have never heard?

We have shown the clarity of Bible revelation about the universal and
eternal nature of man's lostness apart from Christ because this is what
universalists and inclusivists deny. They have to contradict the Bible to hold
to salvation outside of faith in Christ. Indeed, most do not hold to the
authority of Scripture, which is clear that all people are under condemnation
until saved by faith in Christ. However, many raise the question, “What
about those who have never heard the gospel of Christ or had opportunity to
believe and be saved? Is it really fair of God to condemn them to hell?”
They have a revelation from God. It is not as if the heathen did not
have any knowledge of God. Paul explained the revelation that all people
have in nature and the human conscience, referred to as 'general revelation.'
In Romans 1:18-25, he traced the reason for God's wrath falling upon the
heathen being that they were not always heathen. Like all of us, they
descended from Adam and Noah, who knew God, but suppressed the truth
in unrighteousness (1:18), didn't honor Him as God or thank Him, and in
pride of their own wisdom indulged in foolish speculations (1:21-22).
Generation after generation, they got farther away from the true knowledge
of God and ultimately fell into idolatry and immorality (1:23-25). Indeed,
some pagan tribes have a tradition about once knowing God and His book
but having lost it.14
Paul emphasized that all humanity has been given another revelation
when he wrote: “Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for
God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attrib-
utes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood
through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:19-20).
There are a number of impressive arguments philosophers have used over
the millenniums for the existence of God. The cosmological argument
reasons from the fact that this universe clearly had a beginning and therefore
a Creator. The teleological argument reasons from design and order in
creation to show that there must have been a 'Designer God'. God's hand in
creation is obvious! The more we learn about nature through modern
science, the more we see design and order, but we don't need modern
science to see this. David saw it three millenniums ago: “The heavens are
telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day
to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. . . . Their line has
gone out through all the earth, and their utterance to the end of the world” (Ps.
19:1-4). The heathen “are without excuse,” Paul concluded, because they
repress the truth about the true God and don't worship Him.
Another kind of revelation is the human conscience—the law of God
written on human hearts. Paul argued that people do not have to possess
the written law of God to come under condemnation:
For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law; and all who
have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; . . . For when Gentiles who do not
have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law
to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their
conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending
them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men
through Christ Jesus (Rom. 2:12-16).
Although the human conscience is a weak testimony to God and His Law,
nevertheless mankind is responsible for its light. By it all people are con-
demned as sinners since no one lives up even to his own conscience.
Although general revelation in nature and human conscience is adequate to
condemn men, there is no hint in the Bible that it is adequate for salvation.
It tells man nothing about God's plan of salvation. It is the responsibility of
believers to tell them. Inclusivists claim that general revelation is adequate
for salvation without any explicit Scriptural proof of this notion.
God's holiness and judgment. Those who rationalize away God's
judgment on the heathen usually appeal to God's love: “Could a God of love
condemn the unevangelized?” They forget God's holiness and wrath. God
proved His love in giving His unique Son (Rom. 5:8), but the Bible has much
to say about God's judgment upon sinners, indeed, Christ Himself gave the
fullest revelation. Remember it is not based upon relative merit—as in the
Muslim's concept of God's scales. One sin is enough to condemn us.
Nobody can be righteous enough to escape condemnation (cf. Hab. 1:13).
Inclusivists totally ignore the mass of Scripture which emphasize God's
judgments, such as the Noahic deluge which destroyed the whole human
race, the judgment upon the idolatrous worship at the tower of Babel, the
ten judgmental plagues upon the idolatrous worship of Egypt, the order to
exterminate the idolatrous and immoral Canaanites, and the many prophe-
cies of God's coming judgments upon the pagan nations surrounding Israel.
However, it should also be pointed out that there are degrees of judg-
ment in hell. The moral heathen will not be judged as severely as those who
sin against greater light (Matt. 11:20-24). The parallel truth is that for believ-
ers there are degrees of reward (over and above salvation) for faithfulness.
God is fair and just!
Reductio ad absurdum. One useful way to examine the logic of a
proposition is reductio ad absurdum, reducing it to the absurd. If one starts
with the premise that only those who consciously reject the gospel will go to
hell, see the absurd conclusion. If that were true (and it isn't), then mission-
aries would be bringing condemnation to most heathen who have not heard
before their arrival. The majority of the unevangelized who hear do not
believe and get saved. If that majority were not lost before missionaries
came, then they would have brought condemnation to more people than
salvation. As missionaries when we witnessed to Muslims, very few ac-
cepted Christ. Thus, we would have brought condemnation to most to
whom we witnessed. How absurd the whole missionary enterprise then
becomes! Indeed, if many unevangelized were really seeking for the truth
(as some maintain), why don't missionaries experience them believing upon
the first hearing of the gospel. The fact is that most unevangelized have to
hear multiple times before they believe. This shows the effect of sin and
depravity. Paul spelled it out quite clearly, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is
veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the
minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of
Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:3-4).
This brings another dimension of the problem—Satanic and demonic
involvement. Not only are man's religions a hindrance to knowing God,
religion is something Satan uses to keep men from really knowing God.
Paul expanded on this: “But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they
sacrifice to demons, and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20). Even apostate forms of
Christianity are the Devil's tool to keep men from the true knowledge of God.
In the Sermon on the Mount Christ put it bluntly (Matt. 7:15, 21-23):
Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are
ravenous wolves. . . . Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom
of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me
on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out
demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?" And then I will declare unto them,
“I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
Objections answered
Isn't sincerity enough? Granted there are many sincere followers of
other religions, and from the human point of view it might seem that God
would honor that sincerity. But the Bible gives no hint that God is at all
impressed with sincerity in other religions. Our God is a God of truth. Other
religions do not lead to the One God—they are all false. Both Cain and Abel
may have been sincere in their worship, but God rejected Cain's offering
because it wasn't made according to truth. Cornelius, the Centurion, was
sincere, but he wasn't saved before Peter shared the gospel.
The medical and engineering world provide helpful illustrations. A
patient may be given the wrong medicine very sincerely but die neverthe-
less. This is very personal because my brother died of polio because of the
wrong advice of a doctor. Engineers who build bridges which collapse in
the wind or flood were probably sincere. But people who die in such
tragedies get no solace from their sincerity. If sincerity isn't enough in
medicine or engineering, what indications are there that it is enough in the
far more important sphere of man's eternal destiny?

Is it really fair of God to condemn those who've never heard? Our
problem so often is that we look at things from man's point of view and fail
to see God's perspective—and that's the only one that counts! Remember
that God could justly condemn all men. We are all by nature children of
wrath (Eph. 2:1-3). It is only by God's grace that any of us are saved. With
our limited perspective we may criticize the justice of the omniscient God,
but our criticism arises from ignorance. On what basis is man judged? The
word of God is very clear: “Now we know that God's judgment against those who
do such things is based on truth” (Rom. 2:2, NIV). When God's judgment came
upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham's words of intercession for Lot
expressed the truth: “Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly?” (Gen. 18:25).
Doesn't God apply the merits of Christ's death to pious heathen
apart from hearing and believing the gospel? Inclusivists have suggested
the possibility that the heathen might be considered like Old Testament
saints, who were saved apart hearing the gospel. Note that Old Testament
saints did believe the promises of the revelation God had given them con-
cerning the coming Messiah. Thus, this parallel breaks down since the
heathen do not have such a special revelation and it would contradict direct
statements in the Bible. Some have misunderstood Paul's statement in
Romans 3:25: “. . . because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins
previously committed.” However, it is clear that he was talking about sins of
Old Testament saints forgiven in anticipation of the cross (cf. Heb. 9:15).
There are many specific statements in Scripture which exclude those
who don't personally believe in Christ, such as John 3:5,16-18, etc. Christ
was even more explicit in John 8:24 when He said, “. . . for unless you believe
that I am He, you shall die in your sins.” Paul also left no room for doubt in
referring to the second coming of Christ: “. . . dealing out retribution to those who
do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2
Thess. 1:8). This is not an easy doctrine; indeed, it is difficult! But we must
never allow our feelings to dictate what we determine to be truth. Simply
believe what God has said and act upon it!
A Critique of Contemporary Inclusivism

In the last few decades, inclusivists, such as Lesslie Newbiggin, Clark
Pinnock, and John Sanders, while claiming to be Evangelicals, have become
vocal about their denial of the lostness of the unevangelized. Some who
have not examined their lack of evangelical credentials have followed them.
My own research discovered, for example, that Newbiggin, while called an
ecumenical Evangelical,* was neither evangelical nor a friend of Evangeli-
calism. A number of evangelical writers have given a more thorough
refutation of inclusivism than is possible here.A 15

It has been clear for a score of years that Pinnock has moved away from
inerrancy of Scripture, and Ramesh Richard showed his view of Christ’s
deity to be very defective.16 Despite Pinnock’s claim to have a high view of
Christ, he said that His uniqueness and finality belong to Jesus only deriva-
tively and also rejected an incarnational Christology as the norm.17 Thus, the
foundation for his soteriology is exceedingly weak, even heretical.
Richard shows how one of the axioms of Pinnock's inclusivism is his
optimistic view of the universal love of God based upon global covenants,
like that with Noah, the so-called “pagan saints” outside of Israel before
Christ, and God's continuing dialog with the nations. His second “particular-
ity” axiom is that salvation is only through the cross but that explicit faith in
Jesus Christ is not a necessary condition of salvation. Indeed, salvation is
not to be so narrowly defined as merely individual, spiritual salvation from
hell, but is to be understood more holistically and corporately. Sanders
spoke about the “faith principle” in the unevangelized world, which does not
necessarily require explicit faith in Christ. He saw this exemplified in pre-
messianic believers, like Enoch, Noah, Job, Melchizedek, and ultimately
Cornelius, among others. He believes that these “pagan saints” had faith in
the general revelation found in nature, not explicit faith in Christ. This would
undercut any motivation for missions. However, Sanders suggested that the
restrictive view is not the only motive for missions, and that there are other
legs upon which the table can stand: the great commission and the needs of
those who have only “implicit faith” (not explicit) and therefore haven't
experienced the fullness of salvation we can share with them. The Bible,
however, knows nothing of such halfway Christians, who just need to be
brought to a higher level of salvation. If the unevangelized are not already
lost, biblical motivation for missions evaporates.
A critique. Many key issues have already been addressed here. Inclusiv-
ists' weak view of Scripture allows them to be very selective in the passages
they treat. Their overly optimistic spin on the universal love of God signifi-
cantly omits the very obvious judgments of God. They also fail to take into
account the substantial special revelation given to the so-called “pagan
saints” of earlier dispensations and the passing down of the knowledge of
the true God to the descendants of Noah, such as Job and Melchizedek.
They were not dependent upon natural revelation alone. Their faith was in
the true God, Yahweh, and in the messianic expectation of salvation yet to
be provided. Granted they did not have a clear understanding of the person
and work of the Messiah, as predicted and promised. Indeed, the prophets
A. In 1980 my "An Evaluative Review of The Open Secret by Lesslie Newbiggin" (1978) showed his non-
evangelical view of inspiration, Christology (many Christologies in the NT), and his almost universalist
soteriology. He took offense at the idea that we can have assurance of ultimate salvation and carried his
concept of "surprise" in the teachings of Christ to the possibility that God is working through atheists,
humanists, and Marxists and they will be "surprised" to be included, while those who presume to think
they are included will be surprised to find themselves excluded (pp. 196-8).
themselves searched to understand this salvation (1 Pet. 1:10-11). However,

Charles Ryrie suggested that the content of faith required for salvation
necessarily grew with each successive revelation and dispensation. The
New Testament clearly testifies that in this present age faith has to be put in
Christ explicitly. Sanders objected: “A single statement by our Lord Jesus could have
settled the controversy before it began.”18 He did so in the best known verse in the
Bible, John 3:16 and in a legion of other passages which stipulate that saving
trust has to be “in Him” (His one and only Son). They cannot separate the
objective, historical reality of the person and work of Christ from the subjec-
tive appropriation of that salvation by repentant faith in this divine Messiah.
To do so is to violate the whole tenor of the New Testament proclamation.
The inclusivists deal with generalities. What about specifics? What
about sincere religious Muslims,* undoubtedly millions out of the one billion
nominal Muslims in the world today? Muslims believe that to call the 'pro-
phet Jesus' God incarnate is the greatest of all sins, a blasphemy. Therefore,
the doctrine of the Tri-Unity of God is also blasphemous. They believe that
the 'prophet Jesus' was not crucified, and that to see His sacrifice as the
basis for forgiveness of sin is heresy. Now what kind of “implicit faith” can
a sincere Muslim have which might save him?
Or consider sincere Hindus, who worship 33 million idolatrous gods and
as pantheists deny the personality of God. They worship cobras, monkeys,
rats, elephants, and especially cows. Remember what God did in judgment
upon the religion of Egypt, where it was frogs, ibises, crocodiles, cats, and
bulls which were worshiped, which worship was judged in the ten plagues.
Or consider the hundreds of millions of Buddhists. At the end of the Con-
gress of World Religions, which convened in Chicago in 1993, as they drew
up a joint ethical statement, they had to leave out the word 'God' lest they
offend the Buddhists,* who do not believe in a personal God. Just who are
these “pagan saints” of the inclusivists?
In conclusion, inclusivists have failed to be honest with the biblical text,
mostly because they do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.* God has
spoken clearly and distinctly in His word on this issue, and we must just
have honest hearts to believe what He says (Lk. 8:15).
Note: Adapted from What in the World Is God Doing? The Essentials of Global Missions, 6th ed. 2011.
1. J. Herbert Kane, Understanding Christian Missions, p. 105.

2. Richard Bailey, "Missions--Christian Collegians' Concepts," Eastern Challenge, 7 (July 1971), p. 3; MARC,
Christian Collegians and Foreign Missions (1968).
3. J. Robertson McQuilkin, "The Narrow Way," in Perspectives, p. 128.
4. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (1992);
"Toward an Evangelical Theology of Religions," JETS, 33 (1990):359-368; John Sanders, No Other Name: An
Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (1992); Sanders, ed., What About Those Who Have Never
Heard? Three Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized (1995).
5. A. T. Pierson, Evangelize to a Finish, p. 12. Cf. also The Crisis of Missions, p. 291.
6. James Oliver Buswell, Jr., A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, 2 vols. (1962), 1:111.
7. For a good summary of these claims see Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology, revised by
Vernon D. Doerksen (1979), pp. 92-96.
8. Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (1972), p. 92, citing Thomas Schultz, "The Doctrine of the
Person of Christ with an Emphasis upon the Hypostatic Union" (Dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary,
1962), p. 209.
9. John B. Noss, Man's Religions, 4th ed. (1969), p. 344. Paul C. Haagen on Zoroastrianism in Howard F. Vos,
Religions in a Changing World, pp. 207-12, naively shows parallels between Christ and Zoroaster, without
clarification, apparently unaware that Zoroaster had a human father and that the Zend Avesta was not written
down until centuries after Christ, thus allowing Zoroastrians to invent such comparisons.
10. McDowell, Evidence, pp. 147-84.
11. Erich Sauer, The Dawn of World Redemption, trans. by G. H. Lang (1951), p. 85 (quotations from unattributed
German sources).
12. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 5th ed., s.v. "heathen."
13. Kane, Understanding, p. 130
14. Don Richardson, Eternity in their Hearts (1981), pp. 28-120.
15. Ramesh P. Richard, The Population of Heaven (1994); Millard J. Erickson, How Shall They Be Saved? The
Destiny of Those Who Do Not Hear of Jesus (1996); Ronald H. Nash, "Restrictivism," in John Sanders, ed.,
op. cit. (1995); also, Ajith Fernando, Crucial Questions about Hell (1991); Larry Dixon, The Other Side of the
Good News: Confronting the Contemporary Challenges to Jesus' Teaching on Hell (1992); William V. Crockett
and James G. Sigountos, eds., Through No Fault of Their Own? The Fate of Those Who Have Never Heard
(1991); Edward Rommen and Harold Netland, eds., Christianity and the Religions: A Biblical Theology of
World Religions (1995).
16. Richard, pp. 47-55.
17. Pinnock, Wideness, p. 53-62.
18. John Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (1992), p. 19.
PART THREE
ETERNAL
SALVATION
ASSURED
INTRODUCTION TO PART III
AN OVERVIEW OF ARMINIANISM
A major source of insecurity among Christians is denial of the doctrine
of eternal security by those of Arminian inclination. On the popular level,
this is the major dividing line between Calvinists and Arminians. Although
raised and very active in an Arminian church, I didn’t understand the gospel
through my church. My buddy and I studied the issue of eternal security
using Strong’s concordance to check every relevant verse and word mean-
ing and soon came to believe that eternal security is biblical. This has been
the foundation of my assurance of salvation for over sixty years.
Amazingly, one Arminian theology book, not only does not discuss
eternal security, but also denies the existence of a mediate theology. This
may seem logical to the writer, but it violates “the law of the excluded
middle” in logic. He must be assuming only Calvinists believe in eternal
security and since denial is so automatic for Arminians, it is not worthy of
discussion, despite the fact that Arminius never denied it. However, eternal
security is foundational to the mediate theology set out in this book, which
affirms some things Calvinists hold while rejecting Calvinism as a system. It
also affirms some truths Arminians hold while rejecting Arminianism as a
system. It best harmonizes God’s sovereignty and human free will.
First, assurance will be dealt with, a problem for both hyper-Calvinists
and Arminians. Four chapters deal with the biblical basis for eternal secu-
rity, the primary Arminian issue. Both the positive biblical basis for security
is surveyed and the many warnings clarified. This edition has a new chap-
ter on extreme outgrowths springing from the root errors of Arminianism.
Many other issues relevant to Arminianism have already been dis-
cussed in previous sections of this book. A proper definition of God’s
sovereignty, discussed in Chapter 2, is more harmonious with Arminianism,
as is the basis of human free will in Chapter 3. Substitution in the cross,
denied by some Arminians, is discussed in Chapter 5, as well as the distinc-
tion between the objective and subjective dimensions of Greek words for
the cross, harmonious with moderate Calvinism and Arminianism. In
Chapter 7, repentant faith unmixed with human performance as the one
condition for salvation was surveyed since both Arminians and hyper-
Calvinists require works for ultimate salvation. The convicting ministry of
the Holy Spirit through the witness of God’s word in Chapter 8 is an alterna-
tive to the prevenient grace* of Arminianism and the irresistible grace of
Calvinism. Although justification by faith alone was the basis of the Refor-
mation, it needed clarification for the Reformed in reference to the place of
repentance, and for some Calvinists and Arminians in reference to
backloading human performance after conversion into ultimate salvation,
as discussed in Chapters 9 and 10.
174
The Prefect threatened Justin with flogging and
13
execution, and jeeringly asked him if he thought
he would go to heaven. Justin replied, “I don’t
think so, I know and am fully persuaded of it.”
- Justin Martyr (AD 100-165)
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine,
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
-Fanny J. Crosby
CAN WE REALLY HAVE

FULL ASSURANCE?
Over the centuries Christians have struggled with the issue of assurance
of salvation. Despite the widespread proclamation of the gospel and Bible
teaching today, many true Christians still struggle with this extremely impor-
tant issue. Those in the Arminian tradition say that we can be sure of our
present salvation, but we cannot be sure of ultimate salvation. Hyper-
Calvinists say that we cannot be sure we are among the elect, but the elect
can never lose their salvation. Most would agree with Michael Eaton: “I find
neither doctrine very encouraging. In fact, both seem rather terrifying. ”1
Evangelical Christianity is unique in affirming the assurance of ultimate
salvation is possible here in this world. Muslims believe the only way to be
sure of paradise is to become a martyr for Islam. Many medieval Christians
also thought that martyrdom was the only sure way to salvation. Catholics
believe that even the Pope himself cannot be sure! Is there a middle way
which gives evangelical Christians a firm and genuine assurance of ultimate
salvation based upon biblical truth? There are millions of Christians who
can give a resounding “YES” to this question. However, both hyper-Calvin-
ism and Arminianism tend to undermine assurance.
Since the time in 1949, when I put my name in the promise of the Lord
Jesus in John 5:24, I have had that assurance. Christ promised eternal life to
those who have heard and believed His word that they shall not come into
condemnation but have already passed out of death into life. Millions before
me just took Him at His word and personalized His wonderful promise.
Many respond that this is a naive and superficial understanding, and there
175
176 ETERNAL SALVATION ASSURED
are other complicating factors which make such an assurance dubious or

even impossible. Let us sort out these issues.
Do all real Christians have assurance?

The question really should be, should all real Christians have assur-
ance? Many genuine Christians do not have perfect or even substantial
assurance. A fly in the ointment has been misinterpretation of Hebrews 11:1
to imply that saving faith is equal to assurance: “Now faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This would seem to teach
that saving faith is equivalent to assurance, wouldn’t it? Just a minute! A
basic rule of interpretation is to see every verse in its context. What is the
context of this whole eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the great faith chapter?
Is it saving faith or ongoing faith in the life of the believer? Very clearly, the
writer describes the ongoing faith of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah,
and their descendants, especially focusing on Moses. These are the heroes
of faith held up as examples to Hebrew Christians of victorious faith, but this
does not speak of the way of salvation.
We must not rule out the possibility, even the probability of true Chris-
tians not having assurance of ultimate salvation. We must not write off
those who lack assurance but rather instruct, encourage, and exhort them
to claim it. An intriguing biblical example of a believer who lacked assur-
ance would be John the Baptizer in prison. He sent his disciples with the
question: “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” (Mt. 11:1-
14). Since Christ was not inaugurating His kingdom as John had announced,
now even he is questioning His identity, whom he had proclaimed so boldly.
Despite John’s temporary lack of faith, the Lord commended him: “there has
not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist” (Mt. 11:11).
Certainly assurance is a major goal of all the Apostles’ writings. John
was very explicit as to his purpose: “These things have I written to you who
believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life”
(1 Jn. 5:13). Some may quibble as to whether eternal life includes an
assurance of ultimate salvation or not (the subject of the next four chap-
ters), but as to the present assurance there can be no doubt. Simon Peter’s
exhortation is also very clear: “Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to
make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and
you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ” (2 Pet. 1:10-11, NIV). That he was speaking about the subjective
realization of assurance is clear from the preceding exhortation to manifest
Christian virtues in our lives. Since the gracious nature of salvation is clear
elsewhere, this could not be about how to get salvation.
Much full assurance. A unique Greek word used in Paul’s epistles and
Hebrews confirms the above, plçrophoria, which means “full assurance, confi-
dence.”2 Unfortunately, the full force of this word is lost in many translations.
Paul used it in 1 Thessalonians 1:5 to describe the way he brought the gospel
to them: “for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in
Chapter 13 CAN WE REALLY HAVE FULL ASSURANCE? 177
the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved
to be among you for your sake.” Although this is an intensified compound
word, Paul added the adjective “much” (pollç) to further intensify it, “much
full assurance.”
He also prayed that the Colossians might attain “. . . to all the wealth that
comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in the true knowledge of
God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, . . .” (Col. 2:2). This parallels Hebrews:
“And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full
assurance of hope until the end,” and the exhortation: “let us draw near with a
sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 6:11; 10:22). Since this
was the Apostles’ purpose for their disciples, there must be a reasonable
expectation of its realization in life. Such assurance does not come automat-
ically upon exercising saving faith. Words like ‘eagerness,’ ‘diligence,’ and
‘attain,’ put responsibility upon the believer. Although we are saved by grace
through faith alone, assurance of that salvation clearly involves continued
human participation. What are the hindrances and basis for this assurance?
What misunderstandings hinder assurance?

Subjective introspection. There are many obstacles to assurance.
Instead of focusing on the promises of the word of God, many have looked
within themselves for some feelings or experience as a basis of assurance.
A relevant saying is attributed to Martin Luther: “Feelings come and feelings go,
and feelings are deceiving. My trust is in the word of God; naught else is worth believing.”
Evangelicalism is distinguished by seeking to balance the objective truths of
the historic Christian faith with the subjective experience of salvation in the
life of the believer. Essential to that balance is starting with the objective
realities of the person and saving work of Christ. We must not start with
subjective experience either for salvation itself or for its assurance.
To start with our subjective personal experience is to put the cart
before the horse. Andrew Fuller was raised in hyper-Calvinism in
eighteenth-century England (cf. pp. 411-12). As a teenager he struggled to
come into assurance because he was looking within himself for some
warrant that God would accept him. At the age of sixteen, he cast himself
upon Christ and became an outstanding pastor, missions proponent, and
theologian. Later he wrote, “I now found rest for my troubled soul; and I reckon that I
should have found it sooner, if I had not entertained the notion of my having no warrant to
come to Christ without some previous qualification.”3
Passive waiting. Related to this is the idea that the sinner cannot take
any initiative in salvation and must wait passively for God to give salvation
like a lightning bolt. Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), one of the key evangelists
of the First Great Awakening* in America, struggled with this problem.
Although almost everyone in town was anxious concerning eternity, some
came into assurance rather quickly, but others found it ten times more
difficult, going through soul agony for extended periods of time. Edwards
struggled to balance the implications of his Calvinism, which said that there
was nothing they could do but “lie at God’s feet and wait His time,” against the
need to actively help them to come to faith. But his direct knowledge of
biblical truth told him that he must guide them with steps they could take to
prepare themselves for the gift of salvation, which was called ‘preparation-
ism.’*4 A century later, D. L. Moody personally struggled with a similar
problem. He thought that God gives salvation arbitrarily like a lightning bolt,
but then his Sunday School teacher showed him Romans 10:17: “So faith
comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ.” He turned to the Bible,
faith developed, and he got assurance of his salvation.
Knowing the time. Others are confused about knowing when they
were saved. They think that one has to know exactly when one was born
again in order to know that one has really been saved. Although spiritual
rebirth must be an event in time and space, there is no Scripture indicating
that one must know the exact time and place of being born again. Indeed,
the parallel with physical birth shows that just as a child doesn’t remember
the time and place of its own birth, just so a Christian may not be aware of
the exact circumstances of one’s own new birth. The important thing for a
child is to know that one is alive now, so also the important thing for a child
of God is to know that one is alive spiritually now. Just because some
Christians can identify the exact moment when they trusted Christ and were
saved, does not mean that all genuine Christians must have the same
awareness. I know I was saved in the summer of 1949 and knew that I had
been a lost sinner before then. However, I cannot be sure exactly when it
happened. Some genuine Christians have even less understanding of a time
and place. On surveying my Bible college classes about how many knew
the time and place of their new birth, usually only about half knew. It is a
serious error to write off such Christians as not really being saved. It is a
legalism to add additional stipulations for salvation to what has been explic-
itly revealed in the word of God.
What is the basis of assurance?

Assurance is not some vague and mystical thing reserved for only some
elite Christians. It is the clear will of God for all true Christians. Since the
basis for this full assurance is clearly spelled out in God’s word, no one need
guess or keep wondering about it. Just checking out and understanding
what the Bible says is a sure path to a full assurance of faith. There are a
number of clear factors which enter into attaining biblical assurance.
The person of Christ. Clearly, the objective facts of the deity and
saving work of Christ are the essential foundations of assurance. From our
survey of the Gospels, the identity of Christ as God incarnate is vital. It is
impossible to have full assurance if one is not clear on the full deity of Christ.
Christ was not just a good teacher, prophet, miracle worker, or whatever; He
was God come to dwell in human flesh (Jn. 1:14-18). After D. James Ken-
nedy gave a great message at Ocean Grove, NJ on the uniqueness of Christ,

a lady said to him, “I have been a faithful Congregationalist for over fifty
years and have never heard what you preached today.” He asked, “What
did I preach?” She responded, “That Jesus is God incarnate.” He counseled
both husband and wife and led them to faith in Christ. This was the central
issue that Christ clarified to His own nation and is the main issue professing
Christians need to face today. The person whom we have received by faith
and relate to today is God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The work of Christ. Coupled with the unique person of Christ is the
foundation of His unique work of salvation in His sacrificial death and
resurrection. There can be no assurance apart from this! His finished work
on Calvary must be the object of our faith. Unless we understand the basis
of forgiveness and justification, we will continue to struggle with the guilt of
our sin. The more we understand of the ransom-redemption and the
propitiation provided on the cross, the more we can be assured that “Jesus
paid it all.” These are the objective historical facts upon which our assur-
ance is based. When He cried out, “It is finished,” we understand that God
had done everything necessary for the full salvation of the repentant sinner.
It is also important to understand the subjective, internal dimensions of
salvation. When we understand that justification means that God charges
our sins to Christ since He bore them on the cross and now declares us
perfectly righteous in His sight by charging Christ’s righteousness to us– only
then can we experience release from the guilt of our sin. This is the
redemption-liberation aspect of salvation and the full reconciliation with
God which was seen in Chapter 5.
The word of God. These wonderful truths just surveyed are widely
available. How do we access them and make them our own? Most people
in the world are totally ignorant of these realities. We enter into these
salvation realities through trusting in the salvation promises in the word of
God. Lack of assurance is frequently caused by a fuzzy perception of these
promises, which are the necessary channels to access Christ’s saving reality.
The internet is a good illustration. There is a wealth of information and
help available to the whole human race on the internet. However, most are
not getting the benefit of it for a number of reasons. First, one must have a
computer or similar device. Secondly, one must have software in the
computer which connects with the internet. The message of the Bible is
God’s appointed means to access His salvation, just as a computer and its
software is the appointed way to access the internet. Yet many who have a
computer and software don’t get much help from the internet because of
ignorance of how to use it. They may have learned how to access a few
websites and get a little help, but they are very insecure and lost as far as the
rest of it is concerned. Just so, many Christians who understand enough of
God’s message of salvation to be saved, don’t have assurance because of
ignorance of most of what the Bible teaches. The more one understands,
believes, and obeys the word of God, the more likely one will have good
assurance of salvation.
Personal trust. Hundreds of millions of people have Bibles and over
two billion are professing Christians, but only a small percentage have
assurance of salvation. What is missing? The clear answer is a personal
trust in the finished work of Christ. The gospel must be personally appropri-
ated by each individual. It is not enough to intellectually assent to the truths
of the historic Christian faith.
It is most important to understand the two dimensions of the Christian
faith. The first are the objective, historical facts of God’s plan of salvation—
universal sin and depravity, the virgin birth, the deity, sacrificial death, and
bodily resurrection of Christ. But these objective, historical realities do not
automatically save anyone, as important as they are. This is because there
is also a subjective, internal, and personal dimension to the Christian faith as
well. It takes place right now in our individual lives and requires a human
response to the gospel message—the repentance and faith emphasized in
Chapter 7. Billions fail to grasp these two dimensions of the gospel of Christ.
It is essential to put these two elements together— the promises of the
word of God and our personal trust in Christ and His saving work. If we
don’t take God at His word and claim His promises, we are making God out
to be a liar. The author of Hebrews showed that this was the nation Israel’s
problem: “For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but
the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those
who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest . . .” (Heb. 4:2-3a). One of the
clearest such salvation promises in Romans 10:8b-10 also emphasizes that
trust in Christ is a matter of the heart:
. . . the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your
mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from
the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting
in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
The witness of the Spirit. Although repentant faith is the responsibility
of mankind to exercise, immediately upon man’s believing, the Holy Spirit
begins a whole new series of ministries in the life of the new believer.
Before people comes to faith, the Holy Spirit had been actively convicting
them of sin, righteousness, and judgment, according to His promise in John
16:8-11. Now the Spirit begins to work in lives in other significant ways. Not
only are believers born again but are also indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Rom.
8:9-11), baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13), sealed by
the Spirit until the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30), and the Spirit witnesses to
new believers that they are saved: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery
leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we
cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children
of God, . . .” (Rom. 8:15-16). Here is the divine confirmation of the reality of
faith and salvation. The Spirit begins to give assurance that sins have been
forgiven and one is now a child of God. That assurance may develop
immediately or gradually, dependent upon the life situation of the individual.
Some, such as Saul of Tarsus, grasp the implications of salvation immedi-
ately and come into full assurance very quickly (Acts 9:19-22). Others strug-
gle to grasp important aspects of salvation truth, and thus their assurance
may be weak at first. We must be careful not to put everybody in a mold
and insist that everyone’s experience of salvation must fit the same pattern.
The witness of the life. Our salvation does not depend in the least
upon human performance. It is totally by the unmerited favor of Christ that
we are saved. However, our assurance of salvation is heavily conditioned
upon human factors. After Peter spoke of God’s wonderful provision for a
life of godliness (2 Pet. 1:2-4) and exhorted applying all diligence in showing
godly qualities in our lives (1:5-9), he went on to speak about assurance:
“Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and
choosing you; for as long as you practice these thing, you will never stumble; . . .” (2
Pet. 1:10). Although human performance does not contribute one iota to our
salvation, Peter was very explicit that our subjective assurance of that calling
to salvation is very dependent upon diligence in growing in the Christian life
and developing Christian character. Besetting sins and backsliding in the
Christian life can be very destructive to the certainty and assurance that God
wants us to have. This is a main point of John’s first epistle, which has as its
goal that “you may know that you have eternal life” (1 Jn. 5:13). Along the way to
that goal, John emphasized many aspects of the Christian life and character
which contribute to or else undermine our certainty.
Life factors which undermine assurance
There are two aspects of the problem of assurance. Some Christians
may just question the reality of their own salvation, even though they may
have no doubts about the truth of the Christian faith. Others, however, may
have more deep-seated doubts about the very veracity of the faith itself.
Sin and backsliding. Sin and backsliding in the Christian life can
seriously undermine assurance of salvation. Actually it should be obvious
for any Christian to realize how sin undermines assurance. However, some
new Christians might have thought that getting saved would liberate them
from all sin in their lives, not realizing that while we are saved from the
penalty of sin, the old sin nature within us remains. Unfortunately, within the
Arminian tradition the holiness movement has developed which teaches
that total experiential sanctification is possible here on earth. This would
mean that it is possible for a Christian to live a sinless life. However, John
writing to those saved individuals who believe in the Son of God (1 Jn. 5:13)
said, “If we [believers] say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the
truth is not in us. . . . If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His
word is not in us” (1 Jn. 1:8, 10). John used strong language to warn of the
seriousness of this error, for if we deny the problem, we are far from the
biblical solution. Therefore, it is common for Christians who struggle with
sin, especially serious sins, to wonder if they were really born again. They
may even think that they need to get saved all over again, since they think
that maybe it didn’t take the first time. This was the problem of the Chris-
tians alluded to in Hebrews 6:4-7, discussed in detail in Chapter 15.
Sometimes Christians who fall into sin stop attending church services
and seriously backslide. In such a condition it is no wonder that they lose
their assurance of salvation. They need to claim the promise of God, which
is sandwiched between the two verses above: “If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteous-
ness” (1 Jn. 1:9). This is not a salvation verse for unbelievers, but a way of
restoration for the sinning and backslidden Christian.
Life’s calamities and discouragements. Remember the doubts John
experienced in prison when things did not turn out the way he expected.
Many Christians today often stumble over negative circumstances in their
lives. They may have had unrealistic expectations as to what the Christian
life entails. Perhaps they were influenced by the “prosperity gospel” to think
that every Christian has the right to prosper financially, and when they
struggle, they question the reality of the gospel. Others think every Christian
has the right to be healed. When they or some loved one falls into chronic
illness or even dies, their assurance is undermined.
Many blame God when calamities come. If God is sovereign, He is to
blame! But Christians are not exempted from life’s calamities which go
back to the sin of our first parents and the consequent judgment of God
upon a good creation. God then judged the earth a second time through the
worldwide deluge because of the universal violence, vendettas, and murder
permeating the whole human race (Gen. 6). Worldwide weather as we
know it is a consequence of that flood (Gen. 2:5-6; 8:22), and many natural
calamities today, such as tornadoes and tsunamis spring from that. Larry
Osborne suggested that all these calamities are “the backwash of Adam’s sin!”5
We must also remember that Satan usurped the rule of the earth from
Adam in the Garden and now is the “prince of this world,” “the God of this world,”
and the “prince of the power of the air.” He has a host of evil angels helping him
keep most of the human race under his control. So we should not be
astonished that calamities come in a Christian’s life.
Doubts about the authority of Scripture and/or the deity of Christ.
Since our salvation promises are in the Bible, the word of God, Satan has
made the inspiration of the Bible a major target for his attacks. While he
sometimes uses atheists and agnostics to attack the veracity of Scripture, he
frequently uses religious people, as in Christ’s day. Not only do attacks
come from Muslims, Hindus, and other religionists, but also from professing
Christians. Christ warned about the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” who would
seek to undermine the faith of God’s people (Mt. 7:15).
Frequently, religion professors attack the Bible and the Christian faith.
Before 1890, all protestant theological seminaries in America, except Har-
vard, held evangelical views. Due to the impact of destructive higher

criticism of the Bible and Darwinian evolution, virtually all protestant semi-
naries became liberal or modernistic* by 1920.6 The control of the old-line
denominations was taken over by liberals with few exceptions. Today if you
take a religion course in a university or oldline denominational seminary,
you will hear denial of the authority of the Bible on every hand. This is also
true in many Roman Catholic institutions.
In addition, many evangelical scholars have begun to compromise their
evangelical faith with these liberal denials. Years ago I audited classes for a
few days in my own denominational seminary. In the first class the profes-
sor denied that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and gave out the liberal de-
structive higher critical view as truth. A number of Arminian denominations
do not have any doctrinal statement on the inspiration of Scripture so
professors can teach any form of unbelief. But even many denominations
and educational institutions which have a clear statement on the inerrancy
of the Bible are tolerating compromise by their leaders and teachers.A
In an exit interview with a departing professor in my own college, he
expressed surprise when I said that I had 100% certainty of the deity of
Christ. When I asked him what percentage he could affirm, he replied, “Oh,
about sixty percent.” This explained student reports that his teaching raised
too many questions which he did not answer. The faith and assurance of
students can be seriously undermined by this. Over the sixty years that I
have been studying the Bible, my conviction has continually grown that the
Bible is absolutely true and clear on the full deity of Jesus Christ.
These days such attacks are not limited to the educational sphere. The
media are constantly bombarding people with such denials. A few years
ago the “Jesus Seminar” of liberal scholars in Chicago concluded that very
little of the Gospel records record authentic information about the Lord
Jesus. This was not only widely reported in the media, but unbelieving
scholars of this type are constantly being used as resource people in the
documentaries aired on television. Rarely do they honestly interview
evangelical scholars who believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
All of this weakens the confidence of Christians in Christ’s deity and
saving work. Some denial comes from direct unbelief about what the Bible
says and some from ignorance of the Bible’s own claims for its inerrancy or
of Christ’s own claims about His deity.7 Sometimes scholars get so im-
mersed in the writings of other scholars that they don’t spend time studying
the Bible itself.B The result is that they have doubts about the full deity of
Jesus Christ, which in turn undermines confidence that He really is able to
A. The widespread nature of this problem became clear when the Evangelical Theological Society
membership voted in 2003 not to expel two members whose writings have consistently denied the
inerrancy of Scripture. It seems that the mindset of tolerance so prevalent in our culture has greatly
influenced the thinking of many evangelical scholars. See Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible.
B. I once heard a sermon by an Old Testament professor of a Reformed seminary, in which he twice
stated he rarely reads the New Testament. There was no explanation of salvation in his message!
provide the full salvation which He promises.

The most concerted attack on the deity of Christ comes from Muslims,
who believe that it is blasphemous to call any man God. This is the major
obstacle for Muslims to become Christians. As a missionary to Muslims in
the metro New York area, Dick Bailey was counseling a Muslim background
believer (MBB) who had been struggling with issues of assurance and
victory over sin for years. When Dick asked him, “Is it possible that you still
have a problem with the deity of Christ?” he responded, “Yes, that’s it! I still
struggle with this issue.” This was the root of his problem! There are other
doctrinal errors which also undermine assurance of ultimate salvation.
Doctrinal errors wich undermine assurance

The unforgivable sin. In serving as a Bible answerman on Christian
radio, one of the most frequently asked questions was, “What is the unfor-
givable sin?” Many were confused and feared that they had committed it!
However, there is absolutely no need for anybody today to worry about “the
unforgivable sin.” As usual, it is so important to see the context in which
Christ uttered these words (Mt. 12:24-32). Some of the Pharisees had
accused Him of casting out demons by Satan’s power, when actually it was
by the power of the Holy Spirit. After showing them the absurdity of this
accusation, He said, “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be
forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever
speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks
against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to
come” (Mt. 12:31-32). His words have come true in that over the ages many
who have blasphemed His name have later been saved, such as Saul of
Tarsus. But since the Holy Spirit is the person of the Triune God who applies
salvation to the human heart, those whose hearts were so callous and
closed to the Spirit’s working could not be saved. This was an outrageous,
wholehearted hostility toward God since they saw the incomparable divine
Son of God heal the sick, exorcize demons, and even raise the dead. Since
no one today has literally seen Christ do such things, probably no one today
can commit this sin. In any case, a person who is concerned about such a
possibility certainly does not have such a callous heart and should no longer
fret about this. We should focus instead on our Lord’s positive statement,
“any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people.”
Ignorance of the gracious nature of salvation. Most people would
like to contribute to their own salvation, even if only a little. Evangelical
Christianity is totally unique in affirming that salvation is totally by the
unmerited favor of God and not dependant in the least upon human perfor-
mance. Every other major religion insists that salvation is achieved by the
works of mankind. Islam is the most hard-core in this regard. It is salvation
by human merit. The most important word in Hindu philosophy, familiar by
now to many westerners, is karma. It comes from the Sanskrit verb “to do,”
in short it means “works.” Hindus try to achieve moksha (liberation) by the
mental and physical discipline of yoga and by following cultural and reli-
gious customs. The same is true of all the other world religions.
Most of the two billion professing Christians are trying to be saved by
human works. Catholicism had deteriorated so badly in the medieval period
that the Reformers’ emphasis upon salvation by grace through faith alone
was totally rejected by the Roman hierarchy in the Council of Trent (1547-8).
Although some Catholics today for the first time are reading the Bible and
coming to a more evangelical view of salvation, their accumulated dogmatic
system is hostile to salvation by God’s unmerited favor. The five sacraments
all Catholics must fulfill for salvation constitute a system which is at core
dependent upon human performance and merit. Although many priests
water this down in the way they communicate to people, as if salvation is
only through christening, the other four general sacraments are commonly
understood to be essential to ultimate salvation. Since it is never quite clear
which sins are mortal and which are venial, and how faithfully one must go
to mass, the Catholic is always uncertain about salvation. Even the Pope
cannot be sure. There is no real assurance for the Catholic!
Neither can liberal Protestants have any assurance since they too are in
a works salvation. The social gospel of the last century did not even affirm
eternal salvation; it was only concerned with human society here and now.
Neo-orthodoxy* talked about an existential encounter with Christ, but it was
not clear about who He was, or just what that encounter involved. Now
post-modernism* denies that there are any absolutes of truth or morality, so
there cannot be any absolute truth about salvation either.
Even among Evangelicals, hyper-Calvinists have real problems knowing
for sure whether they are among the elect. If God’s election is based upon
some secret counsel known only to Him, then how can we know for sure?
The answer is complex and a major portion of the rest of this book will be
devoted to answering them. Uncertainty of Christians about their elect
status arises from the doctrine of absolute predestination. Careful examina-
tion of all the passages relating to election and predestination will show that
they are conditioned upon God’s foreknowledge of who will come to
repentant faith. Actually the biblical material is quite simple, but over the
centuries theologians have brought in philosophic considerations which
have muddied the waters. There is also much confusion about the transla-
tion of key words and the interpretation of key passages, all of which must
be seen in their contexts. We should not allow human philosophy to color
our understanding of Scripture or scholarly rationalizations to undermine the
simple promises of the Bible.
On the other hand, Arminians can be sure about the present but not
about future salvation. In their view, some sin or failure of faith could send
them to hell. This also seems like a complex issue and some chapters will
focus upon clarifying them (cf. Chapters 14-17). It mostly arises from failure
to understand who are being addressed in certain warnings in the Bible and
exactly what the nature of those warnings really are. There has been a
tendency to be satisfied with a superficial read of what these and other

passages actually say, without careful study of the context, the exact words
used, and the grammar and syntax of the passages. But one does not have
to be a Greek scholar to resolve these problems. Over the centuries, misin-
terpretation of the warning of Hebrews 6 has been a major hangup for many.
On the telephone call-in program, this was the number one question which
was asked, month after month (cf. Ch. 15).
Why have so many struggled with assurance?

It was shocking to read Archibald Alexander’s case studies of conver-
sion experiences from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as
collected by this early Princeton theologian. It is so distressing to read page
after page of people’s struggles to come into the assurance of eternal life,
with so little clear biblical guidance given them. It reminded me of the long
struggle John Wesley, although an Anglican priest, had to come to salvation
and its assurance.C Alexander’s anecdotes are probably from among his
own Reformed tradition. From his narratives it seems that most Christians
had little clue as to how to lead a distressed soul into the assurance of
salvation. If many of the Reformed preachers of the day had as little assur-
ance as evangelist Asahel Nettleton, it is no wonder that lay people were in
confusion. On his deathbed he said, “The most that I have ventured to say concern-
ing myself is, that I think it possible I may get to heaven.”8 In discussing this book with
a pastor (of Calvinistic convictions), we wondered together whether it was
D. L. Moody (1837-1899)9 here in America and C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) in
Great Britain who set evangelicalism on a better course in the last half of the
nineteenth century. Since that conversation, my research has indicated that
Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) in Great Britain and the New Divinity preachers
of the Second Great Awakening* in America had earlier laid the foundation
for Spurgeon and Moody (Chaps. 27-28).
Alexander’s anecdotes from the early nineteenth century are no better.
There seemed to be such ignorance of the simple gospel message and such
a prevalence of legalism in both the Calvinistic and Arminian camps that
many people struggled for years to come into full assurance of salvation.
Alexander gave a general impression: “It is a lamentable fact that in this land of
churches and of Bibles there are many who know little more of the doctrines of Christianity
than the pagans themselves.”10 It is probable that George Whitefield, the
Wesleys, Andrew Fuller, the New Divinity preachers, Moody, and Spurgeon
may really be key figures in moving Protestants back to a more simple
gospel presentation more conducive to assurance.
Conclusions
Assurance of salvation is foundational to a stable and victorious Chris-
C. Wesley was heavily into asceticism, mysticism, legalism,* & Platonic philosophy in the many years
of his struggle. See Robert G. Tuttle, Jr., John Wesley: His Life and Theology, pp. 143-155.
tian life. How can we live in victory and blessing if we are not really sure
whether we have been saved or not, or if we are not sure whether God will
ultimately send us to hell? It is absolutely imperative that every professing
Christian settle these issues related to assurance so as to come into “much full
assurance” (1 Thess. 1:5), “the full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22), “the full assurance
of understanding” (Col. 2:2), and “the full assurance of hope” (Heb. 6:11).
1. Michael Eaton, No Condemnation: A New Theology of Assurance, p. 4.

2. G. Abbott-Smith, Manual Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, p. 365.
3. Andrew Gunton Fuller, The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller, 2 vols. (Boston, 1833), I, 20.
4. Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience, p. 28.
5. Larry Osborne, Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2010), p. 94.
6. Kenneth Kantzer, Staley Lecture at Northeastern Bible College, Essex Fells, NJ, 1970s.
7. See Robert L. Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics: The New Versus the Old.
8. Eaton, No Condemnation, p. 3.
9. “No man has ever done more for the Christian cause in his generation. He had recruited for Christ many
who were leaders in the next.” (J. C. Pollock in Woodbridge, ed. Great Leaders of the Church).
10. Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), Thoughts on Religious Experience, pp. 67-71, 28.
. . . I never taught that a true believer can, either
14
totally or finally fall away from the faith, and perish;
yet I will not conceal, that there are those 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 ap-
prove themselves on all points to my understanding.
- James Arminius
. . . unless one understands and accepts the doctrine

of eternal security, one can not accept without a
great deal of reservation the doctrines of the grace
of God. The whole body of grace truth loses very
much of its meaning to those who reject the doc-
trine of eternal security. -J. F. Strombeck
WHY THE STRUGGLE WITH

ETERNAL SECURITY?
As a new believer in an Arminian church, the first doctrinal issue I faced

was the security of the believer. I came to Christ through my childhood
buddy, Herb Hage. Together we began to look up every passage relevant to
the issue and check key word usage in a concordance. We were also
greatly helped by John F. Strombeck’s fine book Shall Never Perish.1 Within
some months we both became convinced that salvation is eternal, not
probationary. Over sixty years of study has confirmed that conclusion.
Although James Arminius never denied eternal security, his Remon-
strant followers and Wesleyans did. Thus it is commonly thought that the
dividing line between Calvinism and Arminianism is eternal security and on
this popular level this is true. Unconditional election is the other major
dividing issue, but the two are not necessarily connected. For both issues
it is clear that we must go “beyond Arminianism and Calvinism” to get the
whole truth since there is a tendency in both camps to intrude human
performance into the ultimate salvation of the believer. It is ironic that
Arminians are joined by hyper-Calvinists in rejecting ‘eternal security.’ As a
result, it is not surprising that there is a lot of confusion of definition and
interpretation of relevant Scripture.
This chapter focuses on an accurate definition, significance, implica-
tions, and a summary of the positive biblical evidence. Subsequent chapters
require an investigation of problem passages, especially Hebrews 6, since so
many struggle with it, including Arminius, Arminians, and Calvinists as well.
188
Chapter 14 WHY THE STRUGGLE WITH ETERNAL SECURITY? 189
Clarification of the Doctrine

Since there is so much confusion as to what eternal security means, it
is imperative to define it clearly: Whoever once truly trusts Christ’s finished
sacrifice and resurrection for eternal life and is born again can never be lost,
no matter what work (or lack of work) may accompany that faith.2
First, it is clear that the truth of eternal security is not identical to the
traditional Calvinistic doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. The preser-
vation of the saints better describes it because the emphasis is upon the
work of God not upon the works of man. This is not just a semantic differ-
ence but a significant conceptual difference as well. Many hyper-Calvinistic
writers recognize this and reject the term eternal security and the phrase,
“once saved, always saved.” The nub of the difference is that they generally
put the responsibility upon the saints to persevere, while a biblical concept
of eternal security puts the responsibility upon God to preserve the saved.
Thus, in the final analysis, the hyper-Calvinistic view is that the good works
of the saints are necessary to ultimate salvation. Laurence Vance wrote: “But
by confounding God’s preservation of the believer with the believer’s perseverance in the
faith, Calvinists have contradicted their entire system of theology.”3 John Murray repre-
sented this view: “But let us appreciate the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints and
recognize that we may entertain the faith of our security in Christ only as we persevere in faith
and holiness to the end.”4 Arthur Pink was even more explicit: “Those who persevere
not in faith and holiness, love and obedience, will assuredly perish.”5 Although Calvinists
admit that true believers can fall temporarily, most hold that a true believer
will come back to Christ before death. However, Charles Hodge, a
nineteenth-century hyper-Calvinistic theologian commented on Paul’s words
in 1 Corinthians 9:27 “. . . this devoted apostle considered himself as engaged in a
lifestruggle of his salvation.”6 This is astonishing!
Calvin’s doctrine of temporary faith is also an enigma, inconsistent with
his other doctrines. He spoke of a “false work of grace,” and in like manner,
R.C. Sproul said, “we may think that we have faith when in fact we have no faith.” Over
the centuries, Calvinists have consistently believed that those who do not
persevere in a godly lifestyle until the end of life were never really saved in
the first place. How could Charles Hodge even entertain the idea that Paul
had to struggle to keep himself saved and might not have succeeded? He
could hardly say that Paul was not saved in the first place, could he?
Most serious is the common Calvinistic notion that one cannot know
whether one is among the elect or not. This affected much of Puritan
thinking and is still rife among the Reformed.* Asahel Nettleton, a nine-
teenth-century Calvinistic evangelist, represents the problem: “The most that
I have ventured to say respecting myself is, that I think it possible I may get to heaven.”7
Michael Eaton described from personal experience another serious conse-
quence of this kind of theology: “. . . an ossified legalism, a crippling introspection, and
a harshness of spirit that seemed nothing like the Jesus of the Bible.”8
Eaton chronicled the seriousness of the problem and showed how
critical a matter it has been for what he called “developed Calvinism,” as
well as for Arminianism. Speaking as a long-term high-Calvinist pastor, he

stated: “Is it not a fact of history that the Calvinist has tended to have less assurance of
salvation than the Arminian? The Arminian is at least sure of his present salvation. As a
result of the high Calvinist doctrine the Calvinist often doubts his present salvation and thus
has a less contented frame of mind than his evangelical Arminian friend.”9
Parallels between Arminianism and hyper-Calvinism

Hyper-Calvinism seems to be very similar to the Arminian view of
insecurity. Robert Shank, a representative Arminian, wrote: “There is no saving
faith apart from obedience. . . . There is no valid assurance of election and final salvation for
any man, apart from deliberate perseverance in faith.”10 Eaton has demonstrated the
irony of the weak assurance of “developed Calvinists” and Arminians alike.
He compared Nettleton with John Fletcher, a friend of John Wesley, and
shows that neither had any assurance of ultimate salvation:
These great men exemplify a theological problem that has troubled evangelical churches
and preachers since the 17th century, if not before. On the one hand, Nettleton’s doubts
relate to the genuineness of salvation. On the other hand, Fletcher said no Christian could
be absolutely sure about the permanence of their salvation. Nettleton’s teaching has been
popularly summarized in the phrase ‘Once saved, always saved’ - but he was not quite
sure that he was even once saved! John Fletcher taught ‘Once saved, maybe lost’! I find
neither doctrine very encouraging. In fact, both seem rather terrifying.11
The point is, that as long as human performance intrudes into the issue of
ultimate salvation, there can be no “full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22) or full
assurance of any kind; it matters not whether one be a hyper-Calvinist or an
Arminian. Both in effect make human performance until the end of life an
essential condition of ultimate salvation. The premise of Shank’s defense of
conditional security is that Christ’s major discipleship passages (Mt. 10 & 16;
Lk. 9 & 14) are salvation truth.12 About the time I read Shank, I also inter-
acted with hyper-Calvinist John MacArthur’s “lordship salvation” view in
which he does the same thing. Both are tragically wrong (cf. Ch. 10)!
There is another striking parallel between hyper-Calvinists and Armin-
ians. Both assume that there is no such thing as fruitless or carnal believers.
Arminians say that any Christian who is fruitless or carnal has lost his salva-
tion; hyper-Calvinists say that such a person was never really saved in the
first place. But Scripture is explicit in describing carnal, fruitless believers (1
Cor. 3:1-3, 15; 5:1-13; 11:17-34; Mt. 13:22; Heb. 6:7-8; 2 Pet. 2:7).
The parallels go even farther. Both make fear of ultimate perdition a
major motivation for moral behavior. Arminians say that we all must fear
falling into sin because sin causes a Christian to lose salvation. Hyper-
Calvinists say that a sinful lifestyle is proof that a professing Christian is not
among the elect, and the only proof of election is perseverance in holiness
until the end. Fear of condemnation is the motivation for holiness here also.
Charles Stanley aptly commented, “Fear and love do not mingle well. One will always
dilute the other. Furthermore, fear spills over into worry. Let’s be realistic for a moment. If
my salvation is not a settled issue, how can I be anxious for nothing (see Phil. 4:6)?”13 It is
true that fear of loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ is a biblical
motivation for godliness (2 Cor. 5:10ff), but not fear of condemnation.
Another parallel is that both viewpoints are fuzzy about distinguishing
salvation and rewards. Christ and the Apostles clearly taught that there are
rewards in the kingdom for godly living, which are over and above simply
being saved. Many hyper-Calvinists and Arminians deny this. Words like
rewards and crowns are sprinkled throughout the New Testament and need
to be given adequate consideration.14
Understanding Arminian thinking

I have never really been an Arminian, since after my conversion I
quickly distanced myself from conditional security. However, Charles
Stanley was a convinced (and probably convincing) Arminian for a decade,
until, as a seminary student, he restudied the issue from scratch. He attrib-
utes his shift of viewpoint to two factors:
First, I was guilty of ignoring the context of many verses I quoted to defend my view. As I
began digging deeper into the events and discussions surrounding these passages, they
took on a different meaning. Second, I discovered through my study that the concept of
salvation through faith alone cannot be reconciled with the belief that one can forfeit his or
her salvation. If I must do or not do something to keep from losing my salvation, salvation
would be by faith and works.
Early on I learned the truth of Stanley’s appraisal. My Arminian pastor asked
me to lead the mid-week Bible study and prayer meeting in his absence. As
a 20-year-old college student, I naively selected eternal security as my
subject. I began by asking the group of two dozen believers, “When you get
to heaven, on what basis will you be able to say that you got there?” Every-
one responded in a similar vein, that it will be by faith in Christ plus faithful-
ness and obedience to Him. There were different ways of expressing it, but
not one said it was by faith in Christ alone! This was a vivid lesson.
Stanley described how when he first began to grasp security, it was as
if a light came on and he was freed from prison. He had the awesome
thought, “I had been eternally secure since the day as a twelve-year-old when I prayed,
asking Jesus to save me.” As a result he began to experience the true meaning
of unconditional love, and words like ‘grace,’ ‘peace,’ and ‘joy’ took on new
meaning in his experience. There was a new intimacy with Christ as he felt
secure in love and acceptance and release from the bondage of guilt and
fear that had dominated him for a decade (Jn. 8:32).
He explained the two Arminian scenarios as to how a Christian can lose
salvation. Some say it is only through apostasy, quoting Heb. 6:4-6, the
parable of the four soils, and “falling from grace” (Gal. 5:4). Others focus on
the illogic of a holy God allowing sinful behavior in a Christian’s life with
impunity. The latter say, “God is merciful, but not a fool!” “It would be unfair for God to
give equal salvation to faithless and faithful Christians alike.” “ Eternal security is just a license
to sin.” “There must be a point of no return in the life of the sinful Christian.”15
R. T. Kendall, a fervent Arminian, thought eternal security was a devilish
doctrine. However, one day driving from his student pastorate to his Armi-
nian college, the Holy Spirit gave him a strong conviction that he was
eternally saved. This opened up the Bible to see that actually all truly born-
again believers are eternally secure, not just himself! It is ironic that all true
believers are eternally secure, whether or not they believe it.16
Earl Radmacher was also taught in his youth that eternal security was
a doctrine of the devil. What so confused him was the conflicting counsel
as to how to get saved: “hang onto God,” “let go and let God,” “pray
through,” or “surrender to God.” After he was saved at age fourteen, be-
cause he was untaught in the truths of the grace of God, he was on a spiri-
tual roller coaster until he came to the truth of eternal security.17
Let it be absolutely clear that we are not advocating the eternal security
of all professing Christians, no matter how orthodox or evangelical they
might seem to be. The Bible is clear that there are counterfeit Christians
who make a false, superficial profession of faith in Christ but have never
been genuinely born again. It is also clear that there are backslidden, carnal
Christians, whose lifestyle is not glorifying to God. They will lose rewards at
the judgment seat of Christ, but they themselves will be saved “so as by fire”
(1 Cor. 3:15). Sometimes it is hard to distinguish the counterfeits from the
backslidden. But the Lord knows their hearts and He is the ultimate judge.
Thus, it is a challenge to develop a position on security which maintains
the truth of justification by repentant faith alone without lapsing into the
legalistic addition of works found both in Arminianism and hyper-Calvinism.
Approaching it inductively from a mediate position avoids the confusion.
The Positive Biblical Basis

I have believed in eternal security for over sixty years for one simple
reason: God says it in His word. Since learning Greek and Hebrew, I have
learned why our early concordance study might have been inadequate.
However, continued research and interaction with other Christians have
only confirmed those conclusions. Also, I did not come to believe in eternal
security because of Calvinism. I did not learn about Calvinism for over two
years. Nor did my abandoning Calvinism later in any way affect my convic-
tion of the truth of eternal security. These are separate issues!
Since the positive biblical evidence for eternal security is so over-
whelming, why don’t those who struggle with security seek more assidu-
ously to resolve the tension with controverted passages? The next few
chapters address this. First, the positive biblical rationale for security must
be fixed in mind, which is so unambiguous that none need struggle. Louis
Sperry Chafer suggested a simple outline for discussion. There are substan-
tial and extensive Scriptures which relate security to each of the members
of the Trinity. Here is only a brief overview of a few passages.18
The Father’s Preservation of His Choice People

The age-spanning purpose of God
Denying the Calvinistic view of predestination in no way weakens the
force of Paul’s chain of logic in Romans 8:28-30. Paul started with a wonder-
ful promise to believers, which many Christians have found a great encour-
agement in times of contrary circumstances: “And in everything, as we know, he
co-operates for good with those who love God and are called according to his purpose”
(Rom. 8:28, NEB).A If a true believer could lose salvation and go to hell, this
promise is meaningless! Paul did not set up loving God as a condition, but
rather a description of those who are called by God to salvation. Then he
gave the reason that verse 28 is true, all better rendered by the NEB:
For God knew his own before ever they were, and also ordained that they
should be shaped to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the eldest
among a large family of brothers; and it is these, so fore-ordained, whom he
has also called. And those whom he called he has justified, and to those
whom he justified he has also given his splendour (Rom. 8:29-30, NEB).
There is an unbreakable chain of five links in this promise. It starts with
God’s foreknowledge and finishes with glorification. If anyone should
become lost along the way, Paul’s logic and the faithfulness of God to His
promises are destroyed. ‘Calling’ is that work by which a sinner comes to
faith in Christ by responding to the universal invitation of the gospel. Those
who are called are those who love God, in other words, true Christians. Paul
was very explicit that God has pre-appointed them to be conformed to the
likeness of His Son, and not only declares them to be righteous in His sight,
but has already counted them to be glorified (aorist,* not future tense).
Then in Romans 8:31-35, Paul raised seven unanswerable questions.
His mind is boggled by God’s overwhelming grace in that God is now for us;
He will freely give us all things with Christ; no one can lay any charge against
God’s choice ones since He Himself declared us righteous; Christ now
intercedes for us; and no one or thing can separate us from His love. One
hundred percent of those whom God foreknew, He will glorify by conform-
ing them to Christ’s image. This is outrageously true, whether or not those
who want to intrude human performance into the sequence can believe it.
Those who hold to conditional security must assume an implicit condition
here of continued human performance, which would stand in total contra-
diction to the gracious nature of salvation expressed in Romans 4:16: “For
this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the
promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the
Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”
A. Since the verb sunergein is usually used of two parties working together, the British NEB gives a more
accurate rendering and in recognizing the dative case brings out our participation in the resulting good.
Cf. Timothy J. Geddert, Double Take: New Meanings in Old Stories (Kindred, 2007), pp. 173-178.
God’s unbounded love provides a much-more salvation.

In Romans 5:5-10 the Apostle Paul amplified the statement of Christ in
John 3:16 regarding the greatness of God’s saving love:
. . . the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy
Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time
Christ died for the ungodly. . . . But God demonstrates His own love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then,
having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of
God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God
through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall
be saved by His life (Rom. 5:5-10).
Paul’s Spirit-inspired logic here is inexorable. If God could love us and
reconcile us to Himself when we were hostile to Him, now that He has
already accomplished this, is it not even more sure that He will complete
this work of salvation? Paul turned the tables on human logic by saying that
our future salvation is even more sure than our present salvation. Is it not
easier for God to complete the saving of saints than it was to save us from
His wrath in the first place when we were hostile sinners? The answer is a
resounding ‘yes’ because of the saving life of Christ–His present intercession
for us at the Father’s right hand, which he referred to again in 8:34 and is
confirmed in Hebrews 7:25 and in 1 John 2:2.
If this were not enough, Paul listed every entity in the universe which
might be able to separate us from the love of God and affirmed that none of
them can do so (Rom. 8:38-39). This certainly includes Satan, demons, the
world, and our own sin. This is how Paul can affirm that “in all things God
works for the good” of His saints. Thus, there is a synergism between the
Father and the Son since Christ’s intercessory work guarantees our security.
God’s infinite power to keep us saved

Christ mentioned another synergism of the members of the Trinity in
His promise in John 10:27-29: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they
follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will
snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all;
and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” As a new Christian, I
was astonished by an Arminian writer inserting conditional ‘ifs’ into this
unconditioned promise: “If My sheep hear my voice,” and “If they follow Me.” Christ
made six parallel statements about His sheep, and to insert a condition in
two of them to suit one’s theology is to violate the word of God. This is a
simple case of tampering with Scripture. Once we become His sheep
through the new birth, these six things are characteristic of His sheep. The
promise He made to His sheep is a promise of absolute protection.
Some Arminians rationalize that we can wriggle out of His hand and
lose salvation, but the burden of proof is upon them to show that this is
possible. All sheep tend to stray. The Lord chose this symbolism intention-
ally to communicate that He will even keep sheep who are prone to wan-
der. He reinforced this by stating that His omnipotent Father will protect His
sheep. Not only do all the other positive promises contradict the possibility
of wriggling out of His hand, but the warnings Arminians fear are not warn-
ings of hell to His sheep. His real sheep never need to fear going to hell.
Writing to those who have been born again, Peter reaffirmed this truth he
had heard from the lips of the Lord: “. . . to obtain an inheritance which is
imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are
protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the
last time” (1 Pet. 1:4-5). Peter understood Christ’s promise in absolute terms.
Although Paul never heard Christ’s words directly, he claimed the truth
for himself: “. . . for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able
to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (2 Tim. 1:12). He believed
this, not just for himself, but for all who respond to God’s call, based upon
Abraham’s conviction of God’s omnipotence, “being fully assured that what God
had promised, He was able also to perform” (Rom. 4:21). Christ’s brother had the
same conviction: “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make
you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, . . .” (Jude 24).
The Son’s Preservation of His Sheep

His great and precious promises
His promises in the bread of life discourse (Jn. 6:35-40) are even clearer:
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who come to me will not hunger, and
he who believes in Me will never thirst. . . . All that the Father gives Me will come to
Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. . . . This is the will of
Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on
the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and
believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
If one who came to Christ and trusted on Him could ever again spiritually
hunger and thirst in hell, then He misled us! To avoid any ambiguity, not
only did He assert that a new believer will not be rejected upon coming to
Him, but He will not reject such at any future time. This understanding of
6:37 is supported by the assurance of future protection and resurrection in
6:39-40. How could Christ have made it any more explicit? Thus, the
promise of John 10:27-29 must likewise be understood in absolute terms.
His intercessory prayers

Believers in security emphasize the impossibility that the Father should
not respond to the prayers of the Son since He was sinless and in total
harmony with the Father’s will. His prayer for Peter (Lk. 22:32) was effica-
cious. His high-priestly prayer in the upper room must be efficacious as
well: “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I
come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given
Me, that they may be one even as We are” (Jn. 17:11). This prayer was not just for
the Eleven but for all subsequent believers: “I do not ask on behalf of these
alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word” (17:20). The loss of
one sheep would imply that Christ’s prayer went unanswered. Unthinkable!
This is even more unbelievable because of Hebrews 7:25, Romans 5:10; 8:34
(already discussed), and 1 John 2:1-2: “And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate
(Intercessor) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propit-
iation for our sins.” Propitiation means a total satisfaction of the Father’s
offended holiness by the cross of Christ. This is the basis of His high-priestly
ministry for His children at the Father’s right hand. For the child of God, the
sin issue was totally settled on the cross when He cried, “It is finished.”
His completed propitiation, redemption, and reconciliation

Paul clearly showed how the justification of the ungodly is based upon
the propitiation of Christ’s shed blood in Romans 3:24-25. One phase of His
redemptive work, better called ransom-redemption, like propitiation, was
the objective basis for forgiveness for any who claims it by faith. He paid the
ransom price for the sins of all mankind. However, other Greek words for
redemption focus on the liberation of the captive, both the present posses-
sion and the future liberation of the body: “In Him we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace”
(Eph. 1:7). We now have redemption as a present possession but await the
final liberation of our bodies. Since the Lord Jesus fully paid for all our sins,
if any Christian should go to hell, God would be getting double payment for
our sins, first from Christ, and then from that condemned Christian. But our
just God would never do such a thing! Paul tied the completion of redemp-
tion in with the sealing work of the Spirit (Eph. 4:30).
The Spirit’s Preservation of His Saints

The sealing and earnest of the Spirit
Paul’s connection of the certainty of the future redemption of the body
with the sealing and earnest of the Spirit provides a transition into all the
relevant ministries of the Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14): “In Him, you also, after listening
to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation–having also believed, you were
sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheri-
tance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His
glory.” In his earlier reference to the sealing and earnest (pledge) Paul made
a connection with the anointing of the Spirit: “Now He who establishes us with
you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our
hearts as a pledge (earnest)” (2 Cor. 1:21-22). There is a common misconcep-
tion that God specially anoints a few for ministry. But Paul made it clear that
all believers have been anointed, since all have been set aside for ministry,
which John confirmed in 1 John 2:20, 27. The Graeco-Roman cultural
concept of the sealing of a purchase until the day of redemption and of the
giving of earnest money as a down payment until making full payment on
that day is most vital. The Holy Spirit Himself is God’s seal and earnest
pledge that the transaction of salvation which He began at our conversion
will be consummated on that day. God’s integrity as an ‘honest dealer’ is at

stake. With apology to native Americans, we could say that God is not an
‘Indian giver.’B This is reinforced in Ephesians 1:13-14 and is the basis of
Paul’s later exhortation: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were
sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).
Irreversibly born again by the Spirit

Christ’s words to Nicodemus about the new birth in John 3:1-15 and
John’s reference to it in his prologue (Jn. 1:12-13) must be the starting point:
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God,
even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of
the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Clearly, we become children in the
family of God by the new birth. The new birth is a supernatural and irrevers-
ible work of the Spirit, not just a reformation or turning over a new leaf. Not
only did Peter understand that God “has caused us to be born again to a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3), but also
“you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is,
through the living and enduring word of God” (2:23). Paul’s unique use of the
word regeneration (palingenesia) in Titus 3:5 is reminiscent of Christ’s use of
it in Matthew 19:28 to refer to that end time transformation of all of creation.
Both are certainly irreversible transformations.
Neither before my conversion or after did I hear the new birth preached
in my Arminian church. It seems that my pastor’s concept of salvation was
more a work of man, and thus was reversible. When Jimmy Carter was
elected President and said that he was a born-again Christian, the media
people, who had never heard of it, went scrambling to get a definition from
supposed authorities, such as a liberal Baptist seminary professor. His
definition was very fuzzy and man-centered. However, the biblical portrayal
of the new birth as the impartation of divine life by the Spirit into spiritually
dead sinners, thus constituting them as a new creations in Christ (2 Cor.
5:17), implies the irreversibility of this as a work of God, not of man.
Permanently indwelt by the Spirit

One of the major subjects of the Upper Room Discourse is the promise
of the giving, sending, and coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost
and its implications. Although the Lord had alluded to the opportunity to
pray for the Holy Spirit in Luke 11:13, there is no indication that any of the
Apostles did so. In the light of their failure to do so, His words in John 14:16-
17 are more meaningful: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper,
that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He
abides with you and will be in you.” A study of the Hebrew text of the Old
B. This expression, common among children in my childhood, arose when one child gives something
to another, and then changes his mind and takes it back. Perhaps the colonists saw native Americans
as fickle since they did not have the same concept of property rights in their culture.
Testament reveals an absence of the preposition ‘in’ in reference to the Holy

Spirit and believers. Thus David could pray, “Do not cast me away from Your
presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). Christ’s clear
implication was that the Holy Spirit abode with pre-Pentecost saints, not in
them. David was not afraid of losing his salvation, but rather of losing the
presence of God in the person of the Spirit with him. Accordingly he prayed:
“Restore to me the joy of Your salvation” (Ps. 51:12a). But now in this new
dispensation of the Spirit, the Lord promised His Apostles that “in that day”
the Spirit “will be in you” (Jn. 14:17-20). Ryrie’s explanation is most satisfying
that on the day of Pentecost the omnipresent Holy Spirit came to dwell in
the Church, both individually and corporately.19 He was not only to regener-
ate believers as He had done previously but also to indwell them perma-
nently: “. . . that He may be with you forever.”
In this discourse the Lord continued to emphasize the new order which
would be inaugurated in the age of the Holy Spirit: “But the Helper, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to
your remembrance all that I said to you” (Jn. 14:26; also see 15:26; 16:7-8, 13a).
It is mind-boggling how some theologians with their commitment to a
theological system can deny that the Spirit came at Pentecost to inaugurate
several new ministries and also deny the essential differences between His
ministries before Pentecost and after. Paul later affirmed this new reality of
the indwelling Spirit as essential to being a Christian: “Or do you not know that
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and
that you are not your own?” (1 Cor. 6:19-20); “But if anyone does not have the Spirit
of Christ, he does not belong to Him” (Rom. 8:9). He thus assured the Roman
Christians that “. . . He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to
your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11b). The
present permanently indwelling Spirit is the guarantee of our final salvation.
Immersed in/ identified with Christ’s body by the Spirit

Since baptizein refers to immersion and identification, the usual translit-
eration as ‘to baptize’ (and ‘baptism’) has obscured the original meaning
rather than helped it. Just before His ascension, the Lord promised that the
disciples would “be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts
1:5). Anyone can see this also is a reference to the Pentecost event about a
week later recorded in the next chapter. Although the word baptisma is not
used in Acts 2 in reference to the Spirit (only water), Peter so understood it
when he gave testimony about the first Gentile conversions: “And as I began
to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning. And
I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but
you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 11:15-16).
Thus, Paul’s doctrinal clarification is most important: “For by one Spirit we
were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and
we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). Since the context is about
the church as the body of Christ, Paul had no hesitation in affirming that
even carnal Corinthians had been immersed into the Church, the body of
Christ by this ministry of the Spirit. It is that ministry which constitutes the
Church. By his use of the word ‘all’ Paul made it clear that even carnal
believers were still indwelt by the Holy Spirit and part of the body of Christ.
Thus, there is not one warning of the loss of the Spirit in the New Testament
after Pentecost. Rather Paul’s exhortations to Christians are positively to
“keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16, NIV); “ever be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18,
Williams); “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19); and “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit
of God” (Eph. 4:30). These should be the concern of genuine Christians today,
not the fear of losing the Holy Spirit and eternal life with Him.
Conclusions
Eternal security is properly defined as God’s work of preservation of
true Christians, totally by God’s unmerited favor, apart from any human
performance. Both Arminians and hyper-Calvinists reject this truth. This
denial undermines the gracious nature of salvation as a gift of God received
by faith alone. There are major and extensive lines of biblical teaching upon
which eternal security is inductively based. The Scriptures which seem to
pose problems for security will be examined in the next chapters.
1. John F. Strombeck, Shall Never Perish (Moline, IL: Strombeck Agency, 1936). Excellent books have been written
by Charles Stanley, R. T. Kendall, Robert Gromacki, Joseph Dillow, Harry Ironside, and others.
2. R. T. Kendall, Once Saved, Always Saved, p. 19. Kendall’s definition was helpful in formulating mine.
3. Vance has documented Mathison, Gerstner, Pink, Rose, Hoekema, and Talbot and Crampton as hyper-Calvinists
who object to these terms, p. 562; quotation, p. 566; cf. Kendall, pp. 19-21.
4. Murray, Redemption, p.155.
5. Pink, Eternal Security, p. 28.
6. Charles Hodge, Commentary on First Corinthians, p. 169.
7. B. Tyler and A. A. Bennett, The Life and Labours of Asahel Nettleton (Banner of Truth, repr. 1975), p. 30, quoted
by Michael Eaton, No Condemnation: A New Theology of Assurance, p. 3.
8. Eaton, No Condemnation, p. 6.
9. Ibid, p. 20.
10. Robert L. Shank, Life in the Son (Springfield, MO: Westcott, 1960), 2nd ed., p. 219, 293.
11. Eaton, pp. 3-4, 9.
12. Shank, p. 18.
13. Charles Stanley, Eternal Security: Can You Be Sure? pp. 9-11.
14. Joe L. Wall, Going for the Gold: Reward and Loss at the Judgment of Believers (Chicago: Moody, 1991).
15. Stanley, pp. 4-5, 16-22.
16. Kendall, pp. 15-16.
17. Earl D. Radmacher, Salvation (Nashville: Word, 2000), pp. 188-9.
18. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, III, 267-370.
19. Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology, pp. 362-5; There are other more explicit passages I cannot locate at present.
More secure is no one ever
15
Than the loved ones of the Savior -
Not yon star on high abiding
Nor the bird in homenest hiding.
God His own doth tend and nourish,
In His holy courts they flourish;
For His love and deep compassion
Comforts them in tribulation.
Neither life nor death can ever
From the Lord His children sever,
Rest secure with this Defender -
At His will all foes surrender.
- Lina Sandell Berg, composite trans.
IS THE BIBLE AMBIGUOUS

ABOUT ETERNAL SECURITY?
In a seminary chapel years ago, Wally Howard, a youth evangelist,

suggested that eternal security was a paradoxical truth, that although the
Bible’s promises of eternal security are clear, the warnings and our experi-
ences of true Christians losing their salvation must be held in tension. Some
hyper-Calvinists and Arminians would agree. However, this is most defi-
nitely an unnecessary concession to contradiction in the biblical text since
both sides of the tension cannot possibly be true. Either God’s promises of
security are true and all true Christians are eternally secure, or else all of the
promises have some unstated conditions implied, as Arminians believe. If
the inerrancy and integrity of Scripture are true, there cannot be any real
contradiction. Those who hold to such serious paradoxical tension cannot
explain how this is logically possible.A
Those passages which are perceived by many as ‘problem passages’
will be shown to be in total harmony with the promises of security, if each
controverted passage is approached inductively in its own integrity and
context, and faulty presuppositions are expunged. Two foundational para-
bles are first examined showing that Christ distinguished more kinds of
human response to his word than many acknowledge. The book of He-
brews will be taken as a paradigm of how best to deal with these passages.
Many are examples, exhortations, and warnings to true believers relating to
A. A prominent Arminian stated in an ETS meeting it is a shame more Arminians cannot join the ETS
because they can’t sign the inerrancy statement. Later I suggested to him that the reason is found in
the apparent contradiction between the promises of security and the warnings of loss of salvation.
200
Chapter 15 IS THE BIBLE AMBIGUOUS ABOUT ETERNAL SECURITY? 201
consequences in the Christian life, both temporally and for rewards at the
judgment seat of Christ. Other passages relate to superficial professors of
faith, counterfeit Christians, or in a most acute form, those who apostatize
into rank denial and corruption of the faith. A few passages are best under-
stood as relating to corporate Israel or the Church. Finally, some in the
Olivet Discourse are in the context of the unique future Great Tribulation.
Two Foundational Parables

Parables are notoriously difficult to interpret. Many Christians suppose
that Christ used parables uniformly throughout His ministry to simplify and
clarify the truth. Upon hearing His first use of parables late in His ministry
(Mt. 13; Mk. 4; Lk. 8), the Apostles questioned why He was beginning to use
parables (Mt. 13:10). He answered that parables are given to hide the truth
from those who were rejecting His person and message: “. . .‘To you it has
been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not
been granted. . . . Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do
not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand’” (Mt. 13:11, 13).
Through cavalier use of parables many Christians have jumped to erroneous
conclusions about the truth which the Lord was communicating.
The parable of the sower and the four soils. This parable is founda-
tional, both because it occurs in all three Synoptic Gospels, and because
Christ gave its interpretation. The first soil of those who do not respond at all
to the gospel raises a question and is problematic for Calvinists. If we
become believers through irresistible grace, how can Satan’s agents hinder
this? “The evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart” (Mt.
13:19). Arminians presume the second soil refers to believers who lose their
salvation. This is a possible but not necessary interpretation. See His
explanation: “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man
who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in
himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the
word, immediately he falls away” (Mt. 13:20-21). Note that the word of God has
not taken root in this person’s heart. There is a thin layer of soil on a flat
rock base, keeping any root from developing (“no root” 13:6). It is a pre-
sumption that this describes a truly saved individual. These are counterfeits!
On the other hand, the third type of soil is misunderstood by many
Calvinists: “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man
who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke
the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mt. 13:22); “. . . bring no fruit to maturity” (Lk.
8:14). In this case the plant did grow up and survive (“. . . and the thorns grew
up with it, and choked it out” (Lk. 8:7). There may have even been some
stunted fruit, which would be useless since it did not mature. For example,
a corn stalk may grow a few feet and produce an ear of corn with no edible
kernels. Few interpreters have considered the option that this represents
the fruitless Christian. Otherwise, if both refer to counterfeits, there would
be little difference between soils number two and three. In that case, Christ
would have been illustrating only three kinds of soil in the parable, not four
as He presented it. He intended us to distinguish four types of responses,
not three. Many glibly quote Matthew 7:20, “by their fruits you will know them,”
failing to recognize that in that context the Lord was speaking about false
prophets, not about ordinary believers. Yes, there are many true Christians
who are leading fruitless lives, whether it fits our theology or not.
The fourth category clearly represents the fruitful Christian: “And the seed
in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good
heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance” (Lk. 8:15). Those who
believe that the only saved people in this parable are those in the fourth
category have a serious theological dilemma. If that were true, Christ would
seem to be ascribing their salvation to having “an honest and good heart.” This
would be a problem for the doctrine of total depravity. However, if the Lord
is describing the difference between two different categories of believers
due to the difference in their mindset and heart attitude, there would be no
contradiction to the doctrine of depravity before conversion. The Lord is
explaining why some believers “bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold,” while
other equally saved people “bring no fruit to maturity.” Interpreters who deny
the existence of fruitless Christians are not dealing fairly with all Scripture
testimony. Paul called them carnal (1 Cor. 3:3), and Christ identified them
clearly in the second foundational parable below.
The parable of faithful and faithless trustees. Those who object to
distinguishing two categories of believers in the previous parable must
consider a neglected parable in Luke 12:41-48, coming after the Lord’s
parable of teaching readiness for His return:
Peter said, “Lord, are You addressing this parable to us, or to everyone else as well?”
And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master
will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time?
Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to
you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that slave says in his
heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both
men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; the master of that slave will
come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and
will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. And that slave
who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will
receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of
a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will
be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.
Notice Peter’s great question. We must clearly identify the kinds of people
to whom the Lord is referring. There are four in this parable also. Here
fruitful believers come first (12:42-44) and counterfeits second (“assign him
a place with the unbelievers” 12:45-6). Thirdly, a disobedient believer is de-
scribed, who will suffer loss at the judgment seat of Christ (12:47; cf. 1 Cor.
3:15), and the fourth is a carelessly ignorant believer, whose loss will not be
as great (Lk. 12:48). It is essential to sound interpretation that we accurately

identify the answer to Peter’s question and thus carefully distinguish counter-
feits from these three categories of believers. This is what we must also do
in examining the other controverted passages.
The Real Thrust of Hebrews

The most problematic passages are found in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Careful inductive study of these warnings becomes a paradigm or model of
how to approach the others. Certainly a major obstacle to belief in eternal
security is the apparent force of the five warnings in the book of Hebrews
(2:1-4; 3:12--4:13; 6:1-9; 10:26-39; 12:25-29). Arminians assume that they are
all addressed to born-again Christians and warn of their ultimate eternal
lostness. On the other hand, Calvinists tend to see all five as addressed to
counterfeit Christians. These assumptions need to be examined most
carefully in the various contexts. This can not be resolved as long as it is
assumed that they were all addressed to the same kind of people.
Diverse spiritual needs. It is essential to see the author as addressing
at least three different kinds of people in those Hebrew Christian congrega-
tions, the same kinds attending church today–inquirers who have not yet
professed faith, false professing Christians, and genuinely born-again Chris-
tians with a serious spiritual problem. Each possibility must be considered
in each context. These warnings must not be forced into the same mold
based upon our presuppositions. That is a lapse into deductive methodol-
ogy based on theology, rather than giving priority to an inductive approach.*
In this connection, observe the author's use of the term “people of God.”
Just as Old Testament Israel was the “people of God” without every individ-
ual being a true believer, just so the author referred to the “people of God”
in a general professing sense. There is nothing in the address of the letter
which states it was written to churches. It is a message “to Hebrews” pure
and simple, whatever their spiritual state. When he referred to them as
“brethren” or “we,” it is not implied that they are necessarily true believers
(cf. Rom. 9:3). His main burden is that every individual in the Hebrew
Christian community, whether an interested inquirer, a counterfeit Christian,
or a genuine believer, come into a mature Christian life with assured faith.
Some of those Jews had not personally claimed this full forgiveness and
assurance of faith: inquirers were in danger of drifting away from the mes-
sage (2:1-4), and counterfeit believers with an evil heart of unbelief were in
danger of apostasy by reverting back to Judaism (3:6–4:12; 10:26-31), thus
refusing this final message of God from heaven (12:14-29). Some true
believers were spiritually immature because of a poor grasp on these central
truths of the New Testament message of grace (5:11–6:2). Indeed, a few
were so confused by the overhang of Judaism’s multiple sacrifices that they
thought that whenever they fell into sin, they needed to get saved all over
again. By so doing, they were making a shambles of the Christian life and
were not only fruitless but in danger of premature physical death as the most
extreme form of spiritual discipline (6:3-8). Thus the writer’s many exhorta-
tions and warnings are targeted to individuals with diverse spiritual needs
and problems, just as we find in any congregation today.
A superior priesthood. The author emphasized the finally revealed
reality (1:1-2) that the divine High Priest of the New Testament (covenant)
offered Himself once-for-all on the cross to provide a once-for-all salvation
for those who trust Him. To this end he demonstrated that because Christ
is fully God and fully man (Chs. 1 & 2), He is perfectly qualified for a high
priestly ministry far superior to the Aaronic priesthood of the obsolete
Mosaic covenant (4:14–5:10; 7:1--8:13), which could not perfectly and finally
deal with sin and its guilt (9:1–10:18).
The emphasis on certainty and assurance. Far from undermining the
eternal security of the true believer, this epistle is freighted with many words,
expressions, and concepts which affirm this truth in no uncertain terms, as
well as to encourage all to personally enter into its full reality. The great
irony of the misinterpretations of Hebrews is that this book has more words
like confidence/boldness (parresian 4t), assurance (plerophoria 2t, hupostaseos
4t), confirmation (bebaios 8t), access (3t), promises (epangelia 17t), hope (6t),
than any other Bible book. The author not only spoke of Christ’s eternal
redemption (9:12), eternal salvation (5:9), eternal inheritance (9:15), but
furthermore that He saves us forever (7:25), and that we are perfected for all
time (10:14). In sum, Christ was sacrificed once-for-all that we might be
saved once-for-all (7:25-27; 9:12, 25-6; 10:10-14).
He not only wanted all to enter into full assurance of hope (6:11) and
faith (10:22), but spoke much of the true believer having confidence (3:6;
4:16;10:19, 35), boldness, and perfect access into the very throne of God
through a new and living way (7:19; 10:19-22). He spoke of God’s promises
being confirmed by an oath (6:16), a New Testament contract sealed by
Christ’s blood (9:15-22), providing salvation rest (4:1-11), a strong encour-
agement (6:18), a hope which is the anchor of the soul because of the
unchangeableness of His purpose (6:19), the guarantee of a superior cove-
nant (7:22), and the faithfulness of God to His promises (6:13-17). He
capped it off by saying that faith is the assurance of things hoped for (11:1).
The believer can live in the reality of a totally cleansed conscience (9:14;
10:22) and a firm hope (3:6; 6:11, 18, 19; 7:19; 10:23).
The first exhortation/warning (Heb. 2:1-3)

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so
that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels
proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just
penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
205
Upon examining the first warning (2:1-3), there is no hint that those
addressed have even made a profession of faith. They have heard the
message (2:1) and were in danger of neglecting and drifting away from it.
Inquirers frequently get interested and then drift away. This warning re-
minded them that this message is the word of the living God (1:1f), spoken
by the divine Messiah (Hebrews 1 is proof of His deity), and confirmed by
miracles. Thus there is no escape for inquirers who neglect the message.
This exhortation is relevant to counterfeit Christians as well.
The second exhortation/warning (Heb. 3:12–4:13)
Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving
heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after
day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened
by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we
hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end (3:12-14).
Note the force of the whole context of this warning since it is quite
different. In 3:1-6, we have a comparison between Moses' house (the nation
of Israel) and Christ's house (the professing church). In 3:7-11, the author
quoted extensively from Psalm 95, which dealt with the problem of unregen-
erate Israelites in the wilderness, who“did not know My ways” (3:10). Against
this background he warned, “that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbeliev-
ing heart that falls away from the living God” (3:12). Note that he nowhere
implied that they had faith now and might lose it. He was concerned about
those who now have evil, unbelieving hearts. Although he called them
“brethren” since they were professing believers, just as with the Hebrews of
1500 years earlier, this did not guarantee that they were true believers. In
3:14, we see a conditional statement describing true believers set in contrast
to the preceding: “For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the
beginning of our assurance firm until the end, . . .”
In 4:1-2, he was concerned lest having the promises of salvation, any of
them should come short in the sense that the word of God “was not united by
faith in those who heard.” Then positively he affirmed, “For we who have believed
do enter that [salvation] rest” (Heb. 4:3). Then he spoke about the Sabbath rest
available for the “people of God” (4:9-10), and that those who rest from their
self-effort do enter this salvation rest.B Just as Paul warned about the
Pharisees who were trying to establish their own righteousness by their
works in Romans 9:30--10:4, just so, the author of Hebrews makes a similar
point. Note that he used an aorist tense* in 4:3 to refer to their believing,
which normally would be point or non-durative action in past time, as
contrasted with the continuous action of the present tense. It is those who
B. Although many interpreters understand “rest” to be a reference to a higher level of victorious Christian
living, there are many reasons to understand it to be the rest of salvation. The context is all salvation-
oriented. The passage itself contains much salvation language but no clear reference to victorious living.
The writer feared that many Hebrews will fail to enter that salvation-rest.
have already come to true faith who do enter salvation rest. So the exhorta-
tion is for those who have not yet really exercised saving faith to do so and
enter in: “Let us labor therefore to enter into that [salvation] rest, lest any man fall
after the same example of unbelief (apeitheias)” (Heb. 4:11, KJV). Thus, careful
examination of the passage in its context makes it clear that it is a warning
to counterfeit Christians to make sure of the genuineness of their faith.
The third exhortation/warning (Heb. 5:11–6:9)

The context of the third warning is different yet from the previous two
and extremely significant, so the reader must turn to this passage. The
section from 5:11–6:2 is an exhortation to genuine Christians who are
spiritually immature to go beyond elementary gospel teaching and “press on
to maturity” (6:1). Although they had been Christians for some time, they
were still babes in Christ and needed to grow to maturity (5:11-14). How-
ever, there was a hindrance to their spiritual growth seen in the negative
qualifier of 6:2, the danger of trying to relay the foundation: “. . . not laying
again a foundation . . .” A key interpretive element is to decide the identity of
this foundation which some were trying to relay. Many interpreters have
identified it as Judaism. However, when we examine the six characteristics
of the foundation, it becomes clear that the foundation is salvation. Their
problem was that they were not making progress in the Christian life be-
cause they were trying to lay salvation's foundation all over again (which is
impossible). One cannot successfully build the superstructure if one is
absorbed in relaying the foundation. Christians who think they need to get
saved over and over again will not make progress in growth.
The foundation (Heb. 6:1-2). Observe carefully the six-fold description
of the foundation: 1) “Repentance from dead works”: Note that it does not say
that the foundation is dead works, but rather repentance from dead works.
This means that when they heard the gospel they repented from the dead
works of the apostate and obsolete Jewish religion and trusted Christ.C 2)
“Faith toward God”: Before their conversion to Christ, most of the Hebrew
Christians did not have genuine faith in the true God. It was only through
Christ that they came to know and trust in the true God. Throughout Israel's
history it is clear that a majority of Jews did not have saving faith. When
Christ came, Israel was at a spiritual low point of demonism and unbelief.
Peter confirmed this in writing to Hebrew Christians: “who through Him [Christ]
are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory, so that your
faith and hope are in God” (1 Pet. 1:21). It was through faith in Christ that they
first became believers in God. 3) “of instruction about baptisms”: The word
baptism is in the plural since there are two baptisms in the New Testament,
Spirit-baptism and water. Both relate to salvation truth. Spirit-baptism is
coincident with salvation (1 Cor. 12:13), and water baptism is to follow
C. Not that the Old Testament was a religion of dead works, but that the Judaism of the first century had
become an apostate, externalistic, and legalistic religion of the traditions of men (Mt. 15 & 23).
promptly as a public witness of salvation. 4) “laying on of hands”: To the Jews

the laying on of hands meant identification with the sacrifice upon which
they laid their hands. In the early church new converts had hands laid upon
them to show identification with the church (Acts 8:12-17; 9:17; 19:1-7, as in
identification with the first missionaries, 13:1-3). This aspect of the founda-
tion was also salvation-related. 5) “the resurrection of the dead:” This is also
foundational to Christians but not to Jews. The Sadducees rejected resur-
rection outright (Acts 23:8), and other Jews did not accept the most impor-
tant resurrection—that of Jesus Christ. Although resurrection is seen in the
Old Testament, it was not a significant part of the Judaism of apostolic
times, nor of today. 6) “eternal judgment”: Although eternal judgment is also
seen in the Old Testament, Jews then, like Jews today, focus on this present
life, not on judgment and eternal life.1 Obviously eternal judgment relates to
salvation truth. Thus the foundation is salvation in Christ, not Judaism. True
believers must build their lives upon that foundation.
Some not permitted to go on to maturity (Heb. 6:3-5). The author
then made the devastating statement: “And this we shall do if God permits”
(6:3). He implied that God does not permit some to go on to maturity (if
they keep trying to relay salvation's foundation). Then he switched from the
first person ‘we’ to the third person ‘they.’ Clearly, this is a smaller category
of people with a serious problem. There are a number of cases where God
did not allow believers to go on to maturity: Ananias and Sapphira are a
dramatic example (Acts 5:1-11). There are other examples of believers who
were dying prematurely because of serious sin (1 Cor. 11:28-34; 5:1-8; Rom.
8:13, Gk.), and John wrote about “a sin unto death” (1 Jn. 5:15-17). It must not
be assumed that he was referring to eternal death. This analogy of Scripture
indicates premature physical death as the issue.
Were these people really believers? Although Calvinists tend to see
them as counterfeit Christians, one commentator has said that, if the author
had wanted to describe genuine believers, he could hardly have found a
clearer way to do it (Heb. 6:4-5). They have “once for all been enlightened”
(6:4). This is the same word (photizein) used in 2 Cor. 4:3-6 to describe the
enlightenment of the gospel as it breaks through the Satanic blindness of the
perishing: God “is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” See also Eph. 1:18; 5:8-11.
Then they are said to “have tasted of the heavenly gift” and “have tasted the
good word of God and the powers of the age to come.” The force of the Greek
word 'taste' (geuomai) is crucial here, much stronger than in English. It
frequently means ‘to eat' or metaphorically ‘to experience.’ This becomes
clear by comparing its closest usage in 2:9: “. . . Jesus, because of the suffering
of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste
(geuomai) death for everyone.” Christ actually experienced death to the full,
and He himself actually used this verb four times of tasting death. He didn't
merely sample its flavor, as the English word might imply. A millennium
earlier David wrote, “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8), and Peter
also used it in this sense (1 Pet. 2:3). Thus these people had really experi-
enced the heavenly gift, the good word of God, and the powers of the
coming age. They were also said to “have been made partakers (metochoi) of the
Holy Spirit.” Although some try to weaken the force of this word, usage will
not allow that. It is used five times in Hebrews, three of which (beside 6:4)
are used in a vital and deep sense. Go back to 3:14: “For we have become
partakers (metochoi) of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until
the end.” This clearly referred to true believers; so also 6:4 must be. They
were really saved! Robert Stein put it well: “With regard to Hebrews 6:4-6 it is clear
that any one of the six characteristics found in these verses can be interpreted as referring to
someone who is not a true Christian, but when all six are grouped together, such an interpre-
tation becomes much more difficult, if not impossible.”2 But what happened to these
genuine Christians to justify the strong language of 6:6?
Fallen by the wayside (Heb. 6:6). What is meant by “fallen away” in the
English translations? (6:6). There is no ‘if’ in the Greek since parapesontas is
a participle, as were the preceding verbs. Discerning the meaning of the
word parapiptein is made more difficult because it does not occur anywhere
else in the New Testament. It is a compound of the preposition para (‘be-
side’) and the common verb piptein (‘to fall’). Williams translated it, “fallen by
the wayside” with the footnote, “Picture of runners falling beside the race track.”3 Hal
Harless has done an exhaustive study of its usage in the classical, Koine, and
Septuagintal Greek and shown that it never means “to fall away” nor refers
to apostasy, thus confirming the Williams’ rendering. Another way to get at
its meaning is by looking at the noun derived from this verb. Paraptoma
occurs a score of times in the New Testament and means, “Ethically, a misdeed,
trespass (LXX)”4 Thus it is the picture of a Christian falling into a trespass.
There is no hint of falling away from salvation in the meaning of this word.5
Indeed, this picture and the rest of the sentence clarify the whole mean-
ing of the passage. Upon falling into sin, these Christians thought they had
to go back to the starting line of the race and get saved all over again. When
runners in a race stumble and fall by the wayside, they would never think of
going back to the starting line but just get back on the track and keep
running. Donald Barnhouse used to say that when you stumble in the
Christian life, the place to get back on the track is by dealing with the sin that
got you off the track, alluding to 1 John 1:9. These Hebrew Christians had
never heard of 1 John 1:9, mainly because it hadn’t yet been written. So the
author warned them that “it is impossible to renew them [all over] again to [the
first, salvation (6:1)] repentance, since [by so doing] they again crucify to themselves
the Son of God and put Him to open shame” (Heb. 6:6). By trying to get saved all
over again, they were in effect recrucifying Christ. Note the emphasis upon
repetition here as contrasted with the once-for-all (hapax) death of Christ:
“not laying again (palin) a foundation” (6:1); “renew them again unto repentance,
crucifying again” (palin anakainizein eis metanoian anastaurountas, 6:6).
Why would a Christian want to get saved repeatedly? These Hebrew
Christians came out of a background in which every time they sinned they
had to bring a new sacrifice. From childhood the principle of multiple
sacrifices had been etched on their minds. Now as Christians they didn't
understand that Christ died once-for-all that we might be saved once-for-all.
Since this is the major theme of the next four chapters, it is imperative to
examine the following passages: 7:25-27; 9:11-12; 9:24-28; 10:1-4; 10:10-14:
Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him,
since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting for us to have
such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted
above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up
sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He
did once for all when He offered up Himself. . . . But when Christ appeared as a high
priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through
the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place
once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. . . . By this will we have been
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every
priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which
can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat
down at the right hand of God, . . . For by one offering He has perfected for all time
those who are sanctified.
What could be clearer than Jesus Christ died once for all that we might
be saved once for all? This was the glorious truth which those Jewish
believers had not really grasped, failure of which was the cause of their lack
of spiritual growth. They thought that we must be born again, and again,
and again. But the new birth is a once-for-all work of the Holy Spirit of God.
Actually, the main point that the writer affirmed here is that it is impossi-
ble to get saved all over again. The inconsistency of the Arminian interpreta-
tion has been pointed out by many Calvinistic interpreters. That is, if this is
speaking about losing salvation, then Arminians ought never to invite people
to be re-saved. Thus this would become a message of absolute despair.
Indeed, I have counseled those who thought that they had lost it for good
and were hopeless. However, when a Christian sins, we are to claim 1 John
1:9 and have our fellowship with God restored.
The illustration (Heb. 6:7-8). Some object that the illustration of the
field does not fit the above interpretation. However, upon closer examina-
tion it is most appropriate and harmonious. The ground which yields thorns
and thistles is said to be “worthless”, “rejected”, “disapproved”, “disquali-
fied,” depending upon which translation is read. The Greek word adokimos
is the negative of dokimos and five other related words, all of which have to
do with trial, test, proving, for which the result is approval. Thus dokimç is
used in this sense in Rom. 5:4; 2 Cor. 2:9; 13:3; Phil. 2:22. Dokimos is used in
the sense of ‘tested’, ‘accepted’, ‘approved’, in Rom. 14:18; 16:10; 1 Cor.
11:19; 2 Cor. 10:18; 13:7; 2 Tim. 2:15; and Jas. 1:12. Thus the essential idea
of the negative is disapproval, not rejection– a vast difference.
This also applies to 1 Corinthians 9:27, where Paul was concerned lest
through lack of discipline he should become “disapproved” after having
preached to others. Certainly the KJV is wrong in translating “castaway,”
and the NIV is better: “disqualified.” The issue is not salvation, but approval
at the judgment seat of Christ, when service for Christ will be judged.
The references to “cursed” and “burned” raise a problem. There is a
vast difference between actually being cursed and “close to being cursed.”
One can be close to being killed in an accident and yet be 100 percent alive.
Paul used the same symbolism when he wrote that the works of those who
build with wood, hay, or straw will be burned up at the day of Christ. “If any
man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as
through fire” (1 Cor. 3:11-15). M. R. DeHaan rightly understood Hebrews 6 as
the sin unto death, that is, premature physical death.
The reassurance (Heb. 6:9). How do the author's words of reassurance
to the majority of the Hebrew Christians relate to the preceding? He was
convinced of better things about most of them, and that they manifest the
appropriate accompaniments of salvation, even though he is giving such a
strong warning to a minority. He went on in subsequent verses to describe
those accompaniments (6:10ff.). However, those who have been living a
roller-coaster Christian life by trying to get saved repeatedly will inevitably
not manifest the “things that accompany salvation.” Realistically, not all genuine
Christians manifest the appropriate fruit, the accompaniments.
Thus, it is a fair conclusion that this warning is to truly born-again
Hebrew Christians who, because of their upbringing in a religion of multiple
sacrifices for sins, thought that whenever they fell into sin they had to get
saved all over again. Although there are no Hebrew Christians in exactly the
same circumstance today, there are many professing Christians who fall into
the same erroneous way of thinking. Roman Catholics and Arminians do
not know that Jesus Christ died once for all that we might be saved once for
all. Sometimes children do not understand that we only need to accept
Christ once. Some Christians with besetting sins keep post-dating their time
of conversion to put their last fall into sin before their conversion (in their
own thinking). Thus, in effect, they are trying to get saved over and over
again. This is not some theory. It is sad to report that a close colleague, who
suddenly died young had a serious deceit problem in his life. Upon further
investigation it became clear that his story fit the pattern described above.
But Christ died once for all that we might be saved once for all!6
The fourth exhortation/warning (Heb. 10:26-39)
This passage is similar to the second warning. Here the author is
concerned about those who have forsaken meeting with other Christians,
because they might be counterfeit Christians. As in Chapter 3, he used “we”
to refer to all professing Hebrew Christians and was concerned lest they
return to Judaism with its colorful pageantry and resume offering up animal
sacrifices for sin. Thus he warned that if they turn away from the sacrifice of
Christ, “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin” (Heb. 10:26). In the plan of
God the sacrifice of Christ has replaced the whole Mosaic system.
Much is made by Arminians of the use of epignosis (knowledge), as if the
prepositional prefix requires the meaning ‘full knowledge.’ However, usage
rather than etymology is much more significant in determining meaning, and
the usage does not bear this out. It is used 20 times in the New Testament
and sometimes does mean ‘full knowledge’, but a number of times it is
equivalent to gnosis (Rom. 1:28; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Tim 2:25; 3:7; 2 Pet. 2:20 - the
last passage is exactly parallel). The BAG lexicon listed “knowledge, recog-
nition” as the meaning. The verb epiginoskein from which this noun is derived
is important. While the BAG lexicon listed many instances in which “1. with
the preposition making its influence felt--a. know exactly, completely, through and through”
they also list, “2. with no emphasis on the prep., essentially = ginoskein. . . a. know. . . b.
learn, find out. . . c. notice, perceive, learn of. . . d. understand, know. . . e. learn to know.”7
Thus these professing Christians could well have had a merely intellectual
knowledge of the gospel without being genuinely born again.
The use of the word ‘sanctified’ in 10:29 seems to contradict this.
However, remember that the root meaning of the word hagiazein is (and of
the Hebrew qodesh): ‘to set apart.’ Inanimate objects were ‘set apart’ for
God's use. Clearly Paul used the word of the unbelieving spouse and
children of a mixed marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:15. Professing Christians
were ‘set apart’ at their baptism, whether they were genuinely saved or not.
The expression “His people” (Heb. 10:30) is puzzling until it is realized
that the writer, in paralleling Israel and the church and quoting from the Old
Testament passages about Israel, was referring to God's professing people
corporately, without specifying whether they had genuine faith or not. Most
actually were not true believers. Thus he could speak in most severe
language of the fate of those of “His people,” who come under the judgment
of God: “a certain terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will
consume the adversaries” (10:27); “vengeance” (10:30); “it is a terrifying thing to
fall into the hands of the living God” (10:31). These people were clearly going to
Hell. Also, the language of 10:29 is much too severe to be describing a
backslidden Christian: “trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as
unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the
Spirit of grace.” Thus the evidence is all consistent that the writer has counter-
feit Christians in mind in this passage.
The fifth exhortation/warning (Heb. 12:25-29)
In this passage the address shifts back to that of the first warning,
inquirers into the faith. There is nothing in the context which implies that
the addressees had even made a profession of faith. And the language of
the warning is reminiscent of the first one. The danger was of refusing Him
who is speaking from heaven and turning away from Him. Of course, it is
equally relevant to counterfeit Christians within the church. Thus there is
nothing in the last warning which in any way conditions the eternal security
of the truly born-again believer in Jesus Christ.
Conclusions
Thus, there are at least three different spiritual conditions represented in
these passages; conditions which are common in churches today. Of the
five warnings only the third (5:11--6:9) is referring to truly born-again Chris-
tians, and it in no way compromises their eternal security in Christ. Indeed,
the book of Hebrews was intended to give assurance to true believers, while
unsettling counterfeit Christians and complacent inquirers. The principle of
distinguishing different categories of people is vitally important in biblical
interpretation, especially of parables. This gives us the key for distinguishing
other examples, exhortations, and warnings addressed to true believers
related to blessings and rewards, from those addressed to counterfeits and
apostates.* Not only does the letter to the Hebrews provide a paradigm for
approaching other biblical material, but it is loaded with positive language
to encourage the true believer to enjoy full assurance based on the finished
work of Christ alone. Nothing in these passages undermines the eternal
security of the truly born-again believer. Other problems and issues of
security will be examined in the next chapter by distinguishing exhortations
and warnings to true believers from those to counterfeits and apostates.
1. Jakob Jocz, "Judaism," in Howard F. Vos, Religions in A Changing World (Chicago: Moody, 1959), p. 53.
2. Stein, Ibid, p. 353.
3. Charles B. Williams, The New Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1958), p. 489.
4. G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1937), 3rd Ed., p. 342.
5. Hal Harless, “PARAPIPTO in Hebrews 6," pp. 6-15, (a paper given at the ETS annual meeting in San Antonio,
Nov. 2004). Harless found over 200 usages in the classical Greek, 8 in the Septuagint O.T. translation, and 57 in
the Koine Greek. The word clearly does not mean ‘to apostatize’ but rather ‘to fall into sin, to fall by the wayside.’
6. The view expounded above is a minority interpretation, to which I was first introduced by a seminary classmate,
Phillip R. Williams, who pointed out to me his observations in the Greek text. Apparently this was the view of John
(Jack) Mitchell, the founder of Multnomah College of Bible, as perceived from the class notes of his lectures at Dallas
Seminary. Over the years I have developed this approach more rigorously. Of previous commentators I could only
find one who hints in this direction, M. R. DeHaan, who in his commentary referred to the sin unto death. More
recently Walter A. Henrichsen, After the Sacrifice (Zondervan, 1979), pp. 76-81, took a similar position to mine.
7. BAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament pp. 290-1.
First, I was guilty of ignoring the context of many
16
verses I quoted to defend my view. As I began dig-
ging deeper into the events and discussion sur-
rounding these passages, they took on a different
meaning. Second, I discovered through my study
that the concept of salvation through faith alone
cannot be reconciled with the belief that one can
forfeit his or her salvation. If I must do or not do
something to keep from losing my salvation, salva-
tion would be by faith and works.
- Charles Stanley
CAN SECURITY PROBLEMS BE RESOLVED?
Since September 11, 2001, homeland security has become a major

issue around the world. Far more important is the issue of eternal security
for Christians. Previous chapters focused on the importance of discerning
the identity of addressees of a particular passage, whether inquirer, genuine
believer, or a counterfeit believer. Now it is important to press this distinc-
tion of passages addressed to true believers from passages of exhortation
and warning to counterfeits and apostates.
Issues Relating to True Believers

Besides Hebrews 6, there are many other exhortations and warnings to
true believers unrelated to any notion of loss of salvation. There are other
examples of true believers who had a serious problem or concern. Peter’s
denial of His Lord, John the Baptizer’s doubt and disillusionment in prison,
and Paul’s concern in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 have already been discussed.
John Mark and Demas were both drop-out missionaries (Acts 13:13; 2
Tim. 4:10), but there is no basis for assuming that they lost their salvation
because of missionary failure. Indeed, the Holy Spirit afterward used John
Mark to be the author of the second Gospel. He was a ‘kosher Jerusalem
boy’ who found the idolatrous pagan culture of Perga too much for him and
became the first missionary to experience culture shock! Although Demas
backslid badly, there is no hint that he lost his salvation because of it. Today
as well, in many different ways the world presses into the lives of far too
many true Christians.
The sin unto death

Early in the history of the church, Luke gave us a striking account of
214
Chapter 16 CAN SECURITY PROBLEMS BE RESOLVED? 215
extreme divine discipline, the story of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11).
It is gratuitous to assume that they were believers who lost their salvation,
just because they were struck dead physically. There was evidence of
dedication to Christ in giving part of their estate to the church. But Peter
confronted them for lying to the Holy Spirit. There is an Old Testament
precedent in the death of Uzzah, who reached out his hand to steady the Ark
of the Covenant and was struck dead (2 Sam. 6:6-8). It is just as presumptu-
ous to assume that Uzzah lost his salvation. Neither the chronicler nor Luke
provided an explanation, so we must turn to the epistles.
A parallel is seen in Paul’s exhortation in extreme language to the
Corinth church to excommunicate an immoral man: “I have decided to deliver
such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in
the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). The most straightforward understand-
ing is that ‘flesh’ refers to his body and thus, as with Ananias and Sapphira,
to premature physical death. The only significant alternate interpretation is
to take the ‘flesh’ as his sin nature. This hardly makes sense since it is
difficult to grasp how Satan could help a Christian deal with his sin nature.
Paul probably intended more than excommunication from the church by the
use of such strong language, but he did not question the genuineness of the
man’s ultimate salvation. Later, it seems that the man had repented, and
Paul encouraged the church to restore and forgive him (2 Cor. 2:5-11).
Those who deny the existence of carnal Christians, not only ignore 1 Corin-
thians 3:1-3, but also 5:5 and 11:27ff.
Paul was also concerned about some who were desecrating the
observance of the Lord’s table, when he wrote (1 Cor. 11:29-32):
For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does
not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and
sick, and a number sleep. . . . But when we are judged, we are disciplined
by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
It is clear that sleep is a euphemism for physical death, and that Paul is not
concerned about their ultimate salvation since he is quite explicit. Both of
these passages help us to understand the Ananias and Sapphira account.
Paul made an enigmatic statement in his letter to the Romans: “So then,
brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if
you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting
to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:12-13). Arminians conclude
that carnal Christians, who are living according to the flesh, will lose their
salvation.1 However, there is a serious translational issue here. Most transla-
tions do not take into account the word mellein in 8:13,A for which the BAG
lexicon lists a primary meaning when used with a present infinitive as: “be
about to, be on the point of.”2 Rotherham translated it, “ye are about to die;”
A. It puzzles me as to why the major translations virtually ignore the word, although it is granted that
mellein is frequently used as a periphrasis* for the future tense of the verb. Why not render it according
to its first listed usage since it avoids both serious interpretive and theological problems?
Moffatt, “you are on the road to death;” Weymouth, “If you so live you are on your
way to death;” F. F. Bruce, “you are bound to die;” Knox, “you are marked out for
death.” These renderings are closer to the mark. Here also Paul was refer-
ring to premature physical death as God’s extreme discipline of some carnal
Christians. They were in imminent danger of physical death.
The Apostle John gave us the last clarification:
If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he
should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not
lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he
should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does
not lead to death (1 Jn. 5:16-17, NIV).
The main issue is whether the death is physical or spiritual. Arminians opt
for spiritual and eternal death but then have the problem of finding a scrip-
tural stipulation as to which are venial and which are mortal sins. There is
no such biblical legislation. On the other hand, the clear pattern seen in
Corinth confirms our interpretation. John also is concerned about prema-
ture physical death. To this we must also add the force of Hebrews 6:7-8.
None of this conditions the eternal security of true believers.
The vine and the branches

The fruit-bearing vine. The Lord’s extended metaphor of the fruit-
bearing branches of the vine in John 15:1-16 needs careful examination in
this light. Verses 2 and 6 are taken by Arminians to show loss of salvation by
Christians, represented as branches in Christ, the true vine: “Every branch in
Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes
it so that it may bear more fruit” (15:2). Two pressing questions here are: What
does the Lord mean by “every branch in Me” and “He takes away”? Joseph
Dillow has an excellent discussion of “in Me” in which he suggested that, in
Christ’s usage in the Gospel of John, it refers to a close personal relationship:
A review of the sixteen usages in John seems to suggest, that when He used this phrase,
the Lord referred to a life of fellowship, a unity of purpose rather than organic connection.
It should be noted that this is somewhat different from Paul’s usage. While Paul did use
the phrase ‘in Christ’ in this way, he often used it in a forensic (legal) sense referring to our
position in Christ or to our organic membership in His body (e.g., 1 Cor. 12:13). John never
does this.3
He then showed how this is especially clear in John 10:38; 14:20, 30; 16:33;
and 17:21-23. Thus when the Lord spoke about abiding (remaining) in Him
(15:4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), he meant that believers must remain in fellowship with
Him in order to bear fruit (15:2, 4, 5, 8, 16). Backslidden Christians, who are
out of fellowship with Him, cannot bear fruit. Salvation (or loss of it) is not
the issue here! On the other hand, just remaining in union with Christ
positionally does not guarantee fruitfulness either. In the parable of the
sower there are genuine Christians who don’t bear fruit to maturity. Also in
Hebrews 6, the ultimate issue was the fruitfulness of true believers (6:7-8).
Restorative husbandry. This understanding of the passage is con-
firmed by a closer examination of the verb airein used in the clause, “He takes
away.” Although ‘take away’ is a possible rendering since it is listed third in
our two best lexicons, both Abbott-Smith and the BAG lexicon list the first
meaning as, “lift up, take up, pick up”; “to raise, take up, lift or draw up.”4 In
grapevine husbandry it is a regular practice to lift up a marginal branch or a
fallen vine off the ground with meticulous care to allow it to heal. Dillow
references R. K. Harrison’s and his own experience in Austria about this.
Harrison further showed that airein has this meaning in 10 out of 24 usages in
the Gospel of John.5 Translators should give this first consideration, and thus
the NIV rendering “cuts off” is clearly unjustified. Does it not make sense
that first the Lord should speak of His restorative dealings with His branches
before mentioning His more stringent dealings? This leaves the Arminian
interpretation on shaky ground.
Stringent husbandry. Arminians then hasten to verse 6: “If anyone does
not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and
cast them into the fire and they are burned.” If this passage relates to remaining
(abiding) in fellowship with Christ, then the symbolism should be under-
stood in that light since this is an extended metaphor. Chafer suggested that
this is a case of extreme divine discipline of a backslidden believer. It is not
God who throws the branches into the fire, but men.6 This passage parallels
Hebrews 6:8 and 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.
Jim Bakker of the infamous PTL is a graphic example. When the
scandal erupted, many assumed that Jim was a counterfeit Christian. But
upon reading his book, I Was Wrong, my opinion changed. In prison as he
re-examined the tragic events, he realized that his life and ministry had been
all wrong. The world trashed his life and testimony big-time. He was cast
out as a branch and thrown into the fire of severe chastisement. Presum-
ably his theology was Arminian, but there was no mention of loss of salva-
tion, even though he lost everything else.7 An illustration proves nothing but
does help us to understand the severity of Christ’s language.
Exhortations and warnings to true Christians

Discipleship exhortations. In Chapter 10, it was seen that the Lord’s
three main discipleship exhortation contexts are not related to the salvation
issue, but rather to worthy discipleship (Mt. 10:34-39; 16:24-28=Lk. 9:22-27;
Lk. 14:25ff). Both Arminians and extreme Calvinists have failed to observe
the contexts and the word ‘daily’ in Luke 9:23 and have assumed that we
must deny self and take up our cross in order to be saved: “If anyone wishes
to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”
We cannot be saved daily! Worse yet, it would end up being a human-
performance salvation, in contradiction to a by-grace-alone salvation.
The unforgiving slave. The parable of the unforgiving slave, which the
Lord told in response to Peter’s question about how many times to forgive
one’s brother, poses some difficulty of interpretation (Mt. 18:21-35). Since
Christ spoke about the lord of the slave handing him “over to the torturers until
he should repay all that was owed him,” many think that it speaks about believers
losing salvation and going to hell. However, care must be taken with
parables not to make too literal a transfer of detail to real life. Just as in the
parable of Luke 12, where the lashes are probably represent pain, so in this
parable the reference to the torturers probably speaks of pain in the life of
the unforgiving Christian. Unforgiving Christians really torture themselves
emotionally and spiritually and will face anguish at the judgment seat of
Christ. Salvation is not the issue here.
Insuring election. Peter’s exhortation is the solution to the assurance
problems of both Calvinists and Arminians. It resolves hyper- Calvinists’ lack
of assurance that they are among the elect and the Arminian notion that
human performance can affect our ultimate salvation (2 Pet. 1:10-11):
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His
calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will
never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Peter’s first concern is that every believer enter into assured certainty about
ultimate salvation. Then there are two consequences of diligence in gaining
an assured Christian life: we shall never stumble in our walk, and our
entrance into the kingdom will be abundant. His reference to ‘stumbling’ is
not a reference to losing salvation, but to those falls and stumbles common
to all Christians. He is not referring to mere entrance into the kingdom,
which is by God’s grace, but to abundant entrance, as we are rewarded for
faithfulness at the judgment seat of Christ.
Arminian Guy Duty understood Peter to be speaking about the objective
fact of election being conditioned on our diligence in the ways described.
He hadn’t considered the probability that Peter is alluding to the subjective
experiential assurance so foundational to a stable Christian life.8 However,
this is the option which fits the context and the rest of biblical truth. On the
other hand, hyper-Calvinists need to recognize that Peter’s exhortation
implies that Christians can and must do what they can to gain full assurance
of present salvation. There is absolutely no need for them to live in uncer-
tainty as to whether or not they are among the ‘elect’. There are many in
Calvinistic churches today who do not believe it is possible to know whether
one is among the elect or not.9
Working out salvation. It should be unnecessary to discuss Paul’s
exhortation in Philippians 2:12-13, but some Arminians get hung up on it:
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my pres-
ence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with
fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to
work for His good pleasure.
Obviously Paul was not exhorting them to work for their salvation. They
were already saved, and Paul had great confidence in the Christians at
Philippi, for there was neither heresy nor immorality among them, and his
whole epistle is exceedingly positive. He is addressing “my beloved” who
have always obeyed. The reference to “fear and trembling” is not a reference
to hell, but to our life and service being examined at the judgment seat of
Christ. Notice how Paul connected the reverential fear of the Lord with that
judgment seat in 2 Corinthians 5:10-11. God was at work in the lives of those
Philippian believers, so there was no question about their ultimate salvation.
The overcomers. Christ’s letters to the seven churches of Asia in
Revelation 2 and 3 are not so straightforward to interpret. Lehman Strauss
argued that all true believers are the ‘overcomers’ whom the Lord is ad-
dressing.10 Joseph Dillow identifies the overcomers as faithful Christians
who will be especially rewarded in the kingdom. Arminians take it that
these are true Christians who persevere to the end, the rest losing
salvation.11 Calvinists tend to see them as the true Christians who persevere
to the end, the rest being counterfeits.12 We must not argue from a theologi-
cal position, but seek to examine these letters in their own integrity and
context. Since this is such a broad issue, let us simply focus on the ‘problem
verses’ in this passage, noting carefully that individuals in the churches with
different spiritual conditions are addressed.
Warnings to Asia’s churches. In the letter to the church in Ephesus
the Lord threatened to remove their lampstand unless they repent (Rev. 2:5).
This must be understood corporately of the church, not a threat to individu-
als. In the Smyrna letter the Lord Jesus promises “a crown of life” to those
who remain faithful under persecution (2:10). The distinction between
salvation and rewards is very important, and the various crowns promised
to the faithful are an important part of these promises. In the letter to the
Pergamum Church, Christ’s promise to judge the Nicolaitans within the
church does not relate to eternal security (2:14-16). Whatever the exact
nature of the Nicolaitan heresy, such apostates were never true Christians.
But the Lord had a charge against the corporate church.
The warnings to the corrupt Thyatira Church are quite severe, espe-
cially to the Jezebel figure and her children. The Old Testament antecedent
of Jezebel does not indicate a true believer (2:20-23). In the Sardis Church,
there were some who had not soiled their garments and are promised
reward, “for they are worthy” (Rev. 3:4). This seems to be distinct from the
promise to all believing overcomers. Special comment is necessary regard-
ing the promise “I will not erase his name from the book of life” (3:5). It is a basic
law of logic, often violated by interpreters, that the converse of a true
statement may or may not be true (not necessarily true or false, thus unde-
termined). Christ affirmed that he will not erase their names, with no
implication that he does or does not erase any other names. Any such
implication is to insert an idea into Christ’s words which He did not say.
Believers in the faithful Philadelphia Church are exhorted not to lose
their crown, which is a reward with no reference to loss of salvation (3:11).
Lastly, to the true believers in the apostate Laodicea Church, the risen Lord
speaks of church discipline and rewards (3:19-21). A warning comes to the
church corporately that since it nauseates Him, Christ will spit this church
out of His mouth (3:16), with no reference to individual true believers.
Issues Relating to Apostates

and Counterfeits
Examples of counterfeits*
While examining the question of whether a true Christian can lose
salvation, it is now essential to factor in the issue of counterfeits in the
church. Counterfeits can then become apostates to the faith. We are not
talking about the eternal security of mere professing Christians. Judas
Iscariot is the classic example of an extremely plausible counterfeit believer.
None of the Apostles suspected Judas as a counterfeit even after Christ’s
overt identification of him by giving him the choice morsel of food (Jn. 13:23-
30). The Lord knew all along that he was a counterfeit—not that he was a
true believer who lost his salvation (Jn. 6:64-71; 12:4; 13:2).
Judas was one of a number of counterfeit disciples to whom Christ
alluded: “‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the
beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him”
(6:64) and then immediately referred to them in saying, “For this reason I have
said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has granted him from the Father”
(6:65). Judas and those professing disciples had been bathed in the greatest
light of God’s truth that any humans had ever experienced and yet were
rejecting Christ. He knew that their hearts were so callous that even His
personal ministry could not penetrate. This verse says nothing about Calvin-
istic notions of general inability of ‘non-elect’ people to come to Christ.
Another less clear example is Simon the sorcerer (Acts 8:9-24). Al-
though Luke says he believed and was baptized, in a number of other
contexts pisteuein (to believe) is used of something less than saving faith (Jn.
2:23-24; 8:31). Apparently Simon had not really repented of his sorcery and
magic and wanted to use the Holy Spirit for his own ends, perhaps suppos-
ing that the Holy Spirit was an impersonal force. Peter discerned him to be
an unregenerate person, for he said,
‘May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the
gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your
heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours,
and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be
forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the
bondage of iniquity’ (Acts 8:20-23).
Peter understood Simon would perish for he had no part in the work of the
Spirit, and that forgiveness was improbable. If he had only stumbled, Peter
could not have said any of this. Even worse was his response to Peter’s
exhortation to repent by asking Peter to pray for him. This sounds pious, but
he himself needed to pray a prayer of repentance, which he apparently did
not do. This is another paradigm of a counterfeit believer.B
A prominent example is Chuck Templeton, an early associate and
friend of Billy Graham. In 1949, Templeton began to share his intellectual
doubts about the truth of the Bible with Graham, causing him to go through
a spiritual crisis. They moved in opposite directions, Graham to full commit-
ment to the Bible as the word of God, and then to his worldwide evangelistic
ministry, while Templeton moved into skepticism, claiming that Graham had
committed intellectual suicide. In that timeframe I heard Templeton preach
on Absalom, a very eloquent and dramatic sermon. I don’t remember any
gospel in it or even what the main point was. Lee Strobel interviewed him
in connection with his book, Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the
Christian Faith.13 Reading the account of his ‘conversion’ and having heard
just one sermon, I have no difficulty taking him to have been a counterfeit,
who later became an apostate. John was clear in his analysis of anti-Chris-
tian apostates: “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had
been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be
shown that they all are not of us” (1 Jn. 2:19).
Exhortations and warnings to counterfeits* and apostates*

We have already examined the warnings of Hebrews, four of which are
addressed to inquirers into the faith and/or counterfeit, superficial professors
of faith. Because those Jews were addressed as ‘brethren’ and the ‘people
of God,’ does not imply individual, personal faith any more than it did for
national Israel before Pentecost. A number of other exhortations and warn-
ings addressed to counterfeits must be examined.
Corinthian immorality. One of Paul’s strongest warnings came
because of immorality in the church of Corinth: “Or do you not know that the
unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” (1 Cor. 6:9). After a list of the
grossest sinners, he reaffirmed that such shall not inherit the kingdom and
reminded Christians that some were such before they came into right
standing with God (1 Cor. 6:9-11). So although he was warning true Chris-
tians who have fallen into serious sins characteristic of the old life, now that
they are believers they must flee immorality. This warning is a double-edged
sword. For true believers compromising with immorality, it was a wake-up
call, but for counterfeits it is a direct warning that if their lives are character-
ized by such, they cannot expect to inherit the kingdom. Distinguishing
backslidden believers from counterfeits is not easy. God knows; individuals
themselves may or may not know, so Paul covered both possibilities.
B. Since the Holy Spirit is a person, He can use us, but it is unthinkable that we can use Him. This is
the error of many today who abuse the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Corinthian syncretism. Several times in his epistles, Paul expressed
doubts about the genuineness of some of the people in churches he had
founded. Hearing some Corinthian Christians were influenced by Greek
philosophy to question the bodily resurrection, he wrote: “Now I make known
to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which
also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached
to you, unless you believed in vain” (1 Cor. 15:1-2). By the use of the conditional
‘if, Paul is entertaining some doubt about the genuineness of the salvation of
some, because he saw the bodily resurrection of Christ as an essential part
of the gospel, as expounded in the rest of the chapter and later in Romans
10:9: “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart
that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Guy Duty argued that all conditional statements in Scripture show that
salvation is conditional until consummated in glory.14 We agree that the
initial reception of salvation is conditioned on repentant faith, but disagree
in that it is no longer conditional in the ongoing Christian life. The new birth,
the sealing and earnest of the Spirit, and God’s keeping power have put the
believer in a radically different position from the inquirer or counterfeit.
Thus Paul was not expressing doubt that some of the true Corinthian Chris-
tians would persevere, but whether some of them were genuine. This is
presumably the same concern he expressed later in 2 Corinthians 13:5: “Test
yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize
this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?”
He was concerned about their present state, not some future contingency.
Galatian legalism. Paul also expressed a concern for the some of the
Galatian Christians who had reverted back to “the weak and worthless elemental
things” of legalism: “I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain”
(Gal. 4:11). One favorite Arminian proof-text has clearly been pulled out of
context when we see the same concern in 5:4: “You have been severed from
Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.” Here
he addressed hard-core legalists who were not just trying to be sanctified by
legalism, but justified as well. By putting themselves outside of the pale of
God’s saving grace, any connection they might have thought they had with
Christ was nullified. Turning the tables at this point, those who deny eternal
security are intruding human performance into salvation and are in danger
of being described in Paul’s terminology as “fallen from grace.” Paul was not
talking about those whose faith was wavering or being overcome by sins,
but rather about legalists, and this is a subtle form of legalism. This is not to
imply, by any means, that all Arminians are fallen from grace, but we must
face up to the implications of Paul’s warning.
During a decade on a radio call-in program, we were inundated with
questions on the sabbath by sabbatarian legalists, who would even lie to the
operator to push their point of view on the air. During extended conversa-
tions with many, it became clear that a great many of them did not have a
clue about salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. They were
trusting in their sabbath-keeping and indeed were “fallen from grace.”
Colossian heresy. The Colossian Church was threatened by an
incipient Gnostic heresy and Paul hastened to include such a conditional
warning early in his epistle (Col. 1:22-23a):
. . . yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in
order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—
if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not
moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard.
Some of those in the church in Colossae were falling prey to a denial of the
incarnation, so after reminding them that the Lord had a fully human body,
which actually died to provide salvation, he warned them not to move away
from this essential salvation truth. Although he did not clarify the spiritual
status of those who were in danger of moving away from the hope of the
gospel, the most likely candidates would be the counterfeits. It is an unjusti-
fied assumption of Arminians that a true Christian could do so.
Prophetic warnings. Paul’s warning to the Ephesian elders is similar:
“I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the
flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to
draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30). Although the context does
not clarify the spiritual state of these false teachers before their apostasy, the
Lord Jesus had clarified this years earlier. After using similar language in the
Sermon on the Mount to describe the false prophets (Mt. 7:15-21), the Lord
explained: “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your
name, and in your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness’” (7:22-23). The Lord will not say, “I knew you, but you departed
from Me;” He will say, “I never knew you.” They were never true believers!
This is undoubtedly true of other apostates prophesied in 1 Timothy 4:1-3
and 2 Peter 2:1-22, where Peter’s concluding words are confirmatory: “It has
happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘a dog returns to its own vomit,’ and,
‘A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire’” (2:22). Peter does not say
that sheep can regress into becoming dogs or pigs.
In writing this section, I am struck with the fact that all these passages
focus upon professing Christians who depart into heresy and denial of the
gospel. None speak about true Christians losing salvation because they lost
their faith or were overwhelmed with sins. There are no such passages to
which Arminians can point! Yet these are the usual Arminian scenarios as
to how true Christians can supposedly lose their salvation.
James questions the faith of some. The reconciliation of James 2:14-
26 with justification by faith alone has already been discussed (pp. 127-128).
James was mainly concerned with believers showing their faith to the world.
In so doing, James raised a question about the reality of the faith of fruitless
professing believers. Although we cannot lightly dismiss the faith of the
fruitless believer, we may question its reality, as we have seen (1 Cor. 15:2,
Gal. 4:11, Col. 2:13; Acts 20:29-30; etc.). However, the context of the whole
book leads many good interpreters to understand James as speaking about
the profitlessness of the life of the fruitless Christian.
Individualizing Corporate Entities

One Arminian pitfall is individualizing passages referring to a corporate
entity, such as Israel or the Church. The parable of the demon-possessed
man (Mt. 12:43-45), like all parables, is difficult. Even if it refers to an individ-
ual, it really says nothing about eternal security since exorcizing a demon is
not necessarily to gain salvation. But the context shows that it refers to the
nation Israel. In the exile, the demon of idolatry was exorcized, only to have
Phariseeism, Sadduceeism, and other corrupt teachings come into the
nation. The use of the word genea (Mt. 12:39 & 45), when correctly trans-
lated as ‘race, stock, or nation’ makes the national analogy clear. Christ’s
contrasting of Israel with Gentiles in 12:41-42 confirms this (cf. my website).
Paul’s extended metaphor of the branches of the olive tree in Romans
11:17-24 is a similar example. If he had individuals in mind, it might be
helpful to the Arminian cause. However, Romans 9–11 is a section which
deals with the dispensational* transition in God’s dealings with the nation
Israel to His dealings with the corporate Church. Was God just in His
dealings with national Israel? Paul’s main point was that God was fair in
cutting off the natural branches from the olive tree of blessing and grafting in
the Gentiles. Similarly God can be fair in grafting the natural branches of
Israel back in again. None of this implies that individual Jewish or Gentile
Christians have been, or ever will be cut off. A remnant of Jewish believers
are being saved today! This passage has nothing to do with eternal security.
Similarly, in the letters to the seven churches of Revelation 2–3, some
expressions refer to the whole church. This is especially relevant for the
letter to Laodicea (3:14-22). The famous painting of Christ knocking at the
heart’s door notwithstanding, the word picture is of a church so apostate
that Christ is knocking at the door of the church to gain entrance and to have
fellowship with individuals in the church. Thus when He said in 3:16, “I will
spit you out of My mouth,” He was not referring to individuals but to the church
corporately. This is a church which nauseated the Lord Jesus! Christ would
never spit a true believer out of His mouth (Jn. 6:37).
Passages Pulled out of Context

The issue of dispensational* context arises mostly in the Olivet Dis-
course of Matthew 24 and 25. Christ’s prophetic discourse has a very Jewish
tone, which He connected with a unique, future great tribulation period (“the
time of Jacob’s trouble”- Jer. 30:7) before He returns to earth. This helps us
understand Matthew 24:13 and the parables of the ten virgins and the talents
as not contradicting eternal security. No matter what view of prophecy one
holds, all must recognize the importance of context here in this prophetic
sermon of the end times connected to a unique great tribulation period (Mt.
24:21) and the glorious return of Christ to earth (24:29-31). Throughout the
passage the Lord is talking about such difficult times that physical survival is
tenuous (vv. 9, 16-20, 28). Thus when He said: “But the one who endures to the
end, he will be saved” (24:13), it must be considered whether he is referring to
physical deliverance or to spiritual salvation since sozein frequently refers to
physical deliverance. In any case, this could not refer to the hundreds of
millions of Christians who have already died before the rapture, since the
‘end’ He refers to is the end of the great tribulation and His return to earth.
So if one takes Christ’s teaching at all literally (and we must), this verse says
nothing about the eternal security of Christians in past centuries. Then why
should end-time believers’ eternal security be more jeopardized than that of
believers throughout the ages just because the times will be more perilous?
Even though we ought to focus on the unique great tribulation context
of the parable of the ten virgins (25:1-13), let us just examine the parable
itself. First off, note that all were virgins, none prostitutes, or for that matter,
none even married. They all had oil. It doesn’t sound like these were
counterfeit believers or apostates, does it? The problem was that some did
not have the foresight to bring extra oil. Arminians assume that oil is a
symbol of the Holy Spirit, and that they lost the Holy Spirit and eternal life.
But these are all gratuitous assumptions. Go back to the foundational
parable of the faithful and unfaithful trustees in Luke 12, and remember that
the third and fourth type of slaves were believers who were punished for
failing to be ready for the Master’s return. Some of the virgins had the same
problem, lack of preparedness for the Lord’s return. They were excluded
from the wedding feast, but some assume that this means exclusion from
the kingdom itself. Dillow makes a major case for all true believers being in
the kingdom, but only faithful ones will receive rewards, such as symbolized
in this parable as a wedding feast. Albeit, it is highly irresponsible to deny
the security of church-age saints based on the interpretation of very difficult
parables set in a unique end-time context.
The same can be said for the parable of the talents (Mt. 25:14-30). The
main point is the rewards Christ will give to his servants. There are three
categories of servants distinguished here. The first two are rewarded for
faithfulness when the Master returns. The third was characterized as
wicked and lazy and not only did he miss out on reward, but was thrown
into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Dillow argued that the outer darkness outside of the wedding feast is not to
be assumed to be hell for unbelievers, but could be a place of temporary
anguish during the feast. Many believers will experience extreme anguish at
the judgment seat of Christ for their lazy unpreparedness for His return and
will be deprived of the rewards which are given to the faithful.15 Perhaps
the severity of Christ’s language can be taken as hyperbolic emphasis. But
even if Dillow is wrong and the third category represents counterfeits, there
is nothing in the parable which says that a true Christian loses eternal life.
Parables are indeed difficult!
Conclusions
Careful examination of the many ‘problem passages’ shows that many
are addressed to true believers and relate to the consequences of sin and
not to losing salvation, while others are addressed to counterfeits and
apostates and warn of the condemnation they are facing unless they be-
come genuine believers. In every case we must be so clear as to what the
exact spiritual condition of the individual is and precisely what the conse-
quences are spelled out to be. Failure also to distinguish individual from
corporate warnings, and failure to see each passage in its proper
dispensational context also contribute to the confusion. There are false
presuppositions which add to confusion in the minds of many.
1. Guy Duty, If Ye Continue, p. 101. Duty refers to Rom. 8:13 only in passing and does not discuss the passage.
2. Arndt and Gingrich,Lexicon, pp. 501-2.
3. Joseph C. Dillow, The Reign of the Servant Kings (Miami Springs, FL: Schoettle Pub., 1992), pp. 402-3.
4. Arndt and Gingrich, p. 23-4; Abbott-Smith,Lexicon, p. 13.
5. Dillow, p. 409; R. K. Harrison, “Vine” in NISBE, 4:986.
6. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, III:298-300; VII:4.
7. Jim Bakker, I Was Wrong (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996).
8. Duty, p. 139.
9. Years ago a reporter from the Newark Star-Ledger interviewed the leaders of a Dutch Reformed church in Bergen
County, NJ, all of whom said that they did not know whether or not they were among the ‘elect.’ Historically this has
been a major problem in the Reformed tradition. D. L. Moody found the problem to be rife in Scotland.
10. Lehman Strauss, The Book of the Revelation (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Bos., 1964), pp. 107-24.
11. Ibid, pp. 146-56.
12. Dillow, pp. 469-86.
13. Charles Templeton, Farewell to God (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1996); Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith
(GR: Zondervan, 2000), pp. 9-23.
14. Duty, If Ye Continue.
15. Dillow, pp. 389-96.
Before the throne my Surety stands --
17
My name is written on His hands.
Five bleeding wounds He bears,
Received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers,
They strongly plead for me:
The Father hears Him pray, His dear Anointed One;
He cannot turn away the presence of His Son.
... ... ... ...
No condemnation now I dread,
I am my Lord’s and He is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine.
- Charles Wesley
WHY NOT BELIEVE IN SECURITY?
One would think there must be some powerful reasons not to believe
in eternal security since a majority of Evangelicals do not believe it, and
many more have compromised this biblical truth in various ways. In Chap-
ter 14, the positive biblical evidence for security was reviewed. In Chapter
15, two key parables and the warnings of Hebrews were clarified. In Chap-
ter 16, we saw how other ‘problem passages’ have been misinterpreted by
failing to recognize the difference between warnings to true believers of
spiritual loss and warnings of condemnation to counterfeits* and apostates.*
Since Arminians give two different scenarios as to how a true Christian can
lose salvation, these must be dealt with also. There is a critical need to pull
together the key issues at stake in the denial of eternal security.
False Presuppositions of Denial

In understanding why both Arminians and hyper-Calvinists struggle to
accept the simplicity of eternal security and the related assurance of ulti-
mate salvation, there are a number of common presuppositions in their
thinking which hinder them from taking Scripture at face value.
.
All warnings imply loss of salvation It is a presumption that every
warning in Scripture is a threat of loss of salvation unless a believer toes the
line. This is not only an indefensible assumption but totally false. Yes, there
are warnings to inquirers and counterfeit believers of ultimate condemna-
tion unless they come to Christ in reality. There are also warnings to believ-
ers relating to temporal consequences and at the judgment seat of Christ for
227
spiritual failure, but not for loss of salvation.
.
All exhortations imply that failure results in loss of salvation Many
also presume that failure to respond properly to positive exhortations in
Scripture may result in loss of salvation. Exhortations are addressed to a
diversity of spiritual conditions, none of which imply that believers who fail
to respond may condition their ultimate salvation.
All conditions demand continued performance for salvation Guy .
Duty is representative of this kind of thinking as he traced all the conditional
statements from Genesis to Revelation and argued that, even after our
conversion, continuance in meeting all those conditions is necessary for
ultimate salvation. Duty is correct that salvation is conditional, but there is
just one condition at one point in time. Once we have been born again
through “repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21),
all other conditional statements relate to temporal blessing or rewards at the
judgment seat of Christ. Salvation is conditional in its initiation, but uncondi-
tional in its continuation since God has promised to preserve true believers.
Can Sin Negate Salvation?

Some people who reject eternal security feel they themselves are
secure in Christ, but they suspect that not all true Christians are. What about
the converted drug addict, the alcoholic, the homosexual, the sexually
promiscuous, etc.? They are dubious about them. It is clear that there is
more than a little self-righteousness in this line of reasoning. No, either all
true Christians are eternally secure or none are.
Others, however, turn the issue upon themselves. They will say, “My sin
is so great that I have lost my salvation.” What they have really lost is the
assurance of salvation. Let us get to the bottom of this confusion.
What about sins committed after conversion?

A root error of multitudes of Christians has been to think that salvation
only provides forgiveness for sins committed before conversion. Some of
the church fathers fell prey to this kind of erroneous thinking, and the case
of the emperor Constantine is a classic example. He postponed his baptism
until just before his death in the hopes that there would be few or no post-
baptismal sins for which he would have to personally answer. This kind of
thinking is still endemic in the Roman Catholic system. To press the issue
back one more step, we could say that it springs from the error of baptismal
regeneration—that baptism actually washes away our sins (cf. Ch. 11).
All sin forgiven. The notion that only pre-conversion sins were for-
given through the sacrifice of Christ is so clearly unbiblical that this should
be called a root error. It is the source of incredible confusion. Partial
forgiveness is totally foreign to the Bible; there is no hint of any time limita-
tions in the biblical declarations of forgiveness. King Hezekiah prayed after
Chapter 17 WHY NOT BELIEVE IN SECURITY? 229
God extended his life by fifteen years, “It is You who have kept my soul from the
pit of nothingness, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back” (Isa. 38:17).
King David did not think it presumptuous to pray,“And forgive all my sins” (Ps.
25:18). Micah had the same conviction about the nation Israel: “Yes, You will
cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:19).
Christ used such all-inclusive language, with one exception: “Truly I say
to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they
utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is
guilty of an eternal sin” (Mk. 3:28-9). The context indicates that this was a very
specific form of acute unbelief in attributing Christ’s miracles to the devil.
Even the blasphemies of Saul of Tarsus were forgiven (Act. 9:1; 1 Tim.
1:12-15). Paul’s own doctrinal statement is unambiguous: “. . . He made you
alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out
the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and
He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14). We
should also note the many references to “sin” as a totality concept, which
includes Adam’s sin imputed to us (Rom. 5:12ff), the sin nature inherent in
us (Eph. 3:1-3), as well as individual personal sins. The singular “sin” refers
to all three aspects of sin, all of which were dealt with at the cross.
When Christ paid for our sins, all our sins were yet future. When Christ
died for the sins of Old Testament saints, all of their sins were past and only
temporarily covered until He could provide the redemption price. This is the
point of Paul’s statement in Romans 3:24-25:
. . . being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is
in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood
through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the
forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.
Some have erroneously thought this was a reference to sins committed
before conversion, but this is not the case. As discussed in Chapter 5 (and
confirmed in Hebrews), the Levitical sacrifices and sprinkling of blood on
the mercy seat only provided a temporary covering for the sins of pre-cross
saints. Nothing in the context of Romans 3, or the rest of the New Testament
would support this misinterpretation.
It should be emphasized that eternal life is not a lifetime of probation,
as some cultists teach. When God says “eternal life” He means eternal life,
not probationary life. The book of Hebrews speaks about “eternal salvation”
(5:9), “eternal redemption” (9:12), and an “eternal inheritance” (9:15).
Three aspects of forgiveness. It is essential to recognize that there
are at least three different dimensions or aspects of forgiveness in the Bible.
Basic is the salvation-forgiveness through trust in Christ’s finished work. It is
total. The second is the fellowship-forgiveness which John referred to in 1
John 1:1-10. The issue is the believer’s fellowship with God and fellow
believers. This, he makes clear, is contingent upon our walking in the light
(1:7) and confessing our sins to the Lord (1:9). Lewis Sperry Chafer used to
use this illustration: Salvation is like a steel band connecting the believer to
Christ; fellowship with Christ is like a thin thread, broken so easily by sin, but
restored so easily by confession. The third dimension is the horizontal—our
fellowship with other believers being contingent upon keeping short ac-
counts with them (Mt. 5:23-24;18:15). Failure to distinguish these distinct
aspects has caused untold confusion.
Is full forgiveness a license to sin?

One of the major reasons people reject eternal security is they feel that
it is a license to sin. Some years ago I preached on the warning of Hebrews
6 (cf. Ch. 15) in a church where an Arminian friend was active. After the
message he said with great agitation, “Gordon, you are just preaching a
license to sin!” I responded, “Brother, I believe you are living the Christian
life for the same reason that I am—because of your gratitude for His free gift
of salvation and your love for God in response. Neither of us is living for God
because He threatens us with hell if we don’t shape up.” This ended the
discussion, as it should. Just as my Arminian friend thought grace to be a
license to sin, so also Paul’s opponents in Rome misunderstood his message
of grace: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may
increase?” (Rom. 6:1). Paul went on to show that our union with Christ
makes that unthinkable. But a similar reaction from opponents of eternal
security shows that we have got the gospel of grace straight.
Motivation. However, this raises a most important question: what is
the true motivation for living a godly life? There is not one passage in the
New Testament, rightly understood, which threatens a true believer with
hell, if he does not shape up. God doesn’t hold a club over our heads,
threatening to squash us if we don’t get in line. No, the Bible is full of many
other higher motivations for obedience. Most parents are smart enough to
use positive motivations in the lives of their children before they resort to
spanking and negative reinforcement (the board of education on the seat of
learning). However, they would never threaten to disavow their child’s
sonship, except under the most extreme conditions. I take it that God
knows far better how to motivate His own children. There are many positive
as well as negative motivations which God sets before us.
Clearly the highest motivation is gratitude for the gift of eternal life. “For
the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all
died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but
for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:14-15). Our love for
Christ in response to His love for us is the ultimate motivation for living for
Him. In the same context, Paul had just mentioned another positive rein-
forcement in the rewards of the judgment seat of Christ: “For we must all
appear at the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his
deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (5:10). This
clearly is the reward seat (bçma) described in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 and
Romans 14:1-12, not the great white throne judgment of the unsaved dead
(Rev. 20:11-15). The many crowns promised to faithful believers are clear
examples of such rewards (Jas. 1:12; 1 Thess. 2:19; 1 Pet. 5:4; 1 Cor. 9:24-27;
2 Tim. 4:6-8; Rev. 2:9). Along with this is the fear of loss of rewards which
Paul mentioned in this connection: “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we
persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest
also in your consciences” (5:11). Although phobos is frequently a strong word
for fear, the context shows it should not be rendered “terror” as in the KJV,
but rather refers to reverential fear. Paul built this teaching upon the clear
statements of the Lord Jesus (Mt. 16:27; 19:27-30).
Even more serious are warnings to believers of the temporal conse-
quences of a sinful lifestyle. There are many examples of God’s chastise-
ment in Israel’s history, such as King David’s sin and explicit New Testament
references as well (Heb. 12:3-13). Paul used very strong language about
those who destroy the church (the temple of God in 1 Cor. 3:16-17), and his
language in 1 Corinthians 5:5 & 11:27-32 is the doctrinal explanation of the
premature death of Christians like Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11),
which truth John described as the “sin unto death” (1 Jn. 5:16-17). There is no
hint in the text that they lost their salvation. There are also a number of
other incentives which God uses in our lives. Some hyper-Calvinists deny
rewards, somehow thinking that it compromises the doctrines of grace.
Unfortunately some Arminians do not seem to have been able to distinguish
salvation and rewards either. Failure to make this important distinction has
led to untold confusion in the interpretation of Scripture.
Denial of security colors our view of sin and holiness.

There is much confusion about the meaning of holiness and sanctifica-
tion, which causes both Arminians and hyper-Calvinists alike to insist that a
holy lifestyle is a condition for ultimate salvation. Passages such as Hebrews
12:14 have been grossly misunderstood: “Pursue peace with all men, and the
sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes
short of the grace of God; . . .” The misinterpretation arises because of failure
to understand that the core meaning of sanctification (hagiosmos, used only
here in Hebrews) derives from its verb “1. to dedicate, separate, set apart for God;
. . . 2. to purify, make conformable in character to such dedication: forensically, to free from
guilt.”1 There are five uses of the verb in this sense in Hebrews (2:11; 10:10,
14, 29; 13:12), which make it clear that the author was using the verb
hagiozein and the noun hagiosmos in the sense of positional sanctification, not
experiential holiness.
Paul’s usage, however, was quite different.A Although he used hagiazein
and related nouns (hagiosmos, hagiosunç, hagiotçs) in both a positional sense (1
Cor. 6:11; Eph. 5:26) and an experiential sense (2 Cor. 7:1), he usually used
the word ‘justification’ to refer to our forensic or legal position in Christ.
Since the writer of Hebrews did not use this group of words in the experien-
A. This is one of many indications that Paul is not the author of Hebrews. I have a dozen compelling
reasons why Paul could not be the author of Hebrews, but space does not allow elaboration.
tial sense, we must not import Paul’s quite different usage into Hebrews.
Evangelicals recognize the use of the word ‘saint’ (hagios) is consistently
positional all through the New Testament. Although the Catholic failure to
recognize the positional nature of the usage of ‘saints’ is the most extreme
error and is semi-Pelagian,* any other attempt to intrude human holiness
into our ultimate salvation also seriously compromises salvation by grace
alone through faith alone. The legalistic, pumped-up human holiness of
Romanism is bankrupt, witness the pedophile priest scandal, as is any other
legalistic attempt, whether in the Galatian Church or any church today.
What degree of human holiness is necessary to guarantee our ultimate
salvation? If one accepts the premise that some human holiness is neces-
sary, then the answer would have to be, “total holiness.” Unless we lapse
back into a Muslim mindset or that of street wisdom, which holds that God
weighs good deeds against bad works and judges on this basis, there is no
other answer! Does God have some sort of a sliding scale with a cut-off
point? Romanism has at least attempted to classify mortal and venial sins.
However, Catholics give fuzzy answers to which sins and how much fall into
each category. Nevertheless, James totally contradicted such thinking: “For
whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of
all” (2:10). Paul was just as clear in seeking to relieve the legalistic Galatians
of such muddled thinking: “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under
a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written
in the book of the law, to perform them’” (Gal. 3:10). Since Paul affirmed that
Christians are under the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:21), this principle would
apply to all Christians as well. Any man-made sliding scale would in reality
become a slippery slope which would dump every last one of us into the
lake of fire. None of this kind of thinking has the least biblical basis.
What degree of human sinfulness will nullify a Christian’s salvation?
Those who deny eternal security, whether from an Arminian or a hyper-
Calvinist perspective, have a poorly developed doctrine of sin. I learned this
early in my Christian life when I gave a testimony in a youth meeting at my
church, thanking God for victory over a particular sin, which I had confessed
to the Lord by claiming 1 John 1:9. Afterward my Arminian pastor got me
aside and told me that this was not a sin; it was a mistake! His theology
informed him that if it was a sin, I would have lost my salvation.
Wesley developed the doctrine of sinless perfection from his pre-
conversion background in a very legalistic, ascetic, and mystical form of
Anglicanism as well as pragmatic considerations.2 But his Arminianism has
been described as “evangelical Arminianism” in contrast to the Arminianism
of the Remonstrant followers of Arminius, over a century earlier. Most
intriguingly, one doctoral dissertation argues that Wesley was so influenced
by Calvin that his theology was as close to that of Calvin as was that of the
Puritan,* John Owen, if not closer.3 In any case, despite Wesley’s denial of
security and affirmation of sinless perfectionism, the fact that untold multi-
tudes came into assurance of salvation through him shows how many other
things he got right. Calvinists the world over are blessed by singing the great
hymns of the Wesleys. Nevertheless, sinless perfectionism and denial of
eternal security were twin errors of the Wesleyan movement which have far
reaching consequences.4
The sentiment that “real Christians don’t sin” is expressed in various
forms in both Arminian and hyper-Calvinistic circles. It shouldn’t take much
study of Scripture to see how simplistic and false this is. The biblical narra-
tive is full of believers who sinned, sometimes egregiously (e.g. Abraham,
Lot, Jacob and his sons, Saul, David, Solomon, Amaziah, Uzziah, Peter,
Ananias/Sapphira, 1 Cor. 3, 5, & 11 and many others). Even if we set aside
sins of commission for a moment and consider sins of omission, it becomes
obvious that all Christians continuously sin. The Apostle James was so
down-to-earth realistic: “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and
does not do it, to him it is sin” (3:17). Most Christians throughout the centuries
have been guilty of the sin of failing to fulfill the Great Commission at the
very least, and it should be unnecessary to enumerate the many sins of
omission of which most Christians are guilty. R. T. Kendall, as pastor of a
major London church, gave a list of sins common among Christians which
is over a page in length, and he affirmed that the list is “ridiculously long.”5
For any Christian to say that he has never committed such sins since his
conversion is absurd. Just ask his/her spouse! Even when we don’t sin
overtly, sin is frequently in the motives and thoughts of the heart, as the Lord
Jesus emphasized in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5).
Can Failure of Faith Negate Salvation?

Another major concern of Arminians is that those who stop believing in
Christ must necessarily lose their salvation. They argue that the verb ‘to
believe,’ when used in reference to salvation, is mostly used in the present
tense or in a durative or linear usage of the aorist.*6 Although it is true that
the verb is usually used in the present tense, there are a many usages in the
aorist* and perfect tenses which relate to salvation. Although John used the
present tense of pisteuein about three-quarters of the time, and Luke about
half the time in Acts, Paul used the present sparingly in his epistles. Most
strikingly, when Paul told the Philippian jailor how to be saved, he used the
aorist* imperative (Acts 16:31), which is usually action at a point in time. So
the whole foundation of this argument is false. Furthermore, there are two
diverse uses of the present tense, the present habitual and the present
continuous. The use of the present does not always imply continuous
action.B Indeed, we find that there are clear biblical examples of true
believers who did not continuously believe and confess Christ. We should
hardly have to mention Peter’s name to bring recall of his triple denial of
Christ. Did he lose his salvation at that point? The burden of proof is on
Arminians to show that he did. No, when the Lord restored him to fellow-
B. In the Sanskrit-derived sister languages to Greek of North India (such as Hindi), there actually are
different forms for the present habitual and present continuous tenses.
ship (Jn. 21:15-17), Peter’s salvation was not an issue. Indeed, the Lord had
assured Peter: “But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when
once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Lk. 22:32).
On the other hand, readers should examine the account of John in
prison (Mt. 11:1-15): “Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of
Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, ‘Are You the Expected One, or
shall we look for someone else?” Zane Hodges made a significant point here:
It is hard to believe one’s eyes when this passage is first encountered. Here is the great
prophet and forerunner of God’s Christ calling into question the very person to whom he
had once given bold testimony. . . . Clearly then, this great servant of God is asking a
question he presumably had settled decisively long ago. His inquiry is manifestly an
expression of doubt about the very truth by which men and women are saved.7
There is no question that John was a believer, for the angel told his father
that he would be “filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb” (Lk. 1:15). Yet
now he was having second thoughts about who Jesus is; his faith seems
very weak, virtually extinguished.C However, rather than rebuking his lack
of faith, the Lord commended him in the strongest terms imaginable: “Truly
I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than
John the Baptist!” Certainly his salvation was not in jeopardy. From these two
examples it becomes crystal clear that continuous faith is not a condition of
ultimate salvation. What if Peter or John had died in that state of denial or
unbelief? Would they have gone to hell? Unthinkable!
The Lord’s promise to pray that Peter’s faith would not fail raises a
significant point. Can a true believer’s faith fail in the ultimate sense of
apostasy* from the faith? Was Peter unique in this regard? Later he testified
that the believers to whom he wrote were kept (protected) by the power of
God (1 Pet. 1:5). Did not the Lord Jesus pray the same prayer in the upper
room for the rest of the Eleven and also for those who should believe
through their word (Jn. 17:11-12, 20-21)? Is He right now not at the Father’s
right hand interceding for all believers, by which “He is able also to save forever
those who draw near to God through Him” (Heb. 7:25)?
Peter himself provided the key as to how God sustains the faith of true
believers: “for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imper-
ishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Pet. 1:23). With
the Samaritan woman Christ used the symbolism of drinking to communi-
cate the act of believing: “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall
never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water
springing up to eternal life” (Jn. 4:14). First, the verb ‘drinks’ is an aorist*
subjunctive, not a present tense. Second, the promise is that those who
drink will never thirst again, which is a very explicit promise of eternal
security, reinforced in the bread of life discourse (Jn. 6:35). Third, the “well of
water” is an obvious reference to the Holy Spirit, which is confirmed by His
C. John’s disillusionment is easily explainable in terms of his Spirit-given expectation of the Messiah’s
coming in judgment to deliver and reign over Israel (Mt. 3:1-12). We now know what John did not know,
that this had to come after Christ’s passion and death.
further reference at the feast of Tabernacles, when He cried out,
If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as
the Scripture said, ‘from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’
But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed [aorist tense] in
Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was
not yet glorified (Jn. 7:37-9).
This is the foundation of His promise of the permanent indwelling of the
Spirit to all believers: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that
He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, . . . but you know Him because
He abides with you and will be in you” (Jn. 14:16-17). The Lord’s express affirma-
tion of the permanence of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling is reinforced by Paul’s
three references to the earnest and sealing of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 1:21-22;
5:5; Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30; 1 Jn. 2:20, 27; 4:13). The Holy Spirit is an ever-flowing
well springing up to eternal life, who keeps true believers in faith. The
irreversible nature of the new birth also needs to be emphasized in this
connection. True believers may be extremely weak in their faith at some
point in the Christian life without jeopardizing their ultimate salvation.
Even John Calvin, through misunderstanding Hebrews 6:4-6 (cf. Ch. 15),
taught a doctrine of temporary faith:
Experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes affected in a way so similar
to the elect, that even in their own judgment there is no difference between them.
Hence it is not strange, that by the Apostle a taste of heavenly gifts, and by Christ
Himself a temporary faith, is ascribed to them.
He also spoke of an “ineffectual calling” and an “inferior operation of the Spirit,”8
which are definitely unbiblical notions!
Many might so misunderstand a number of references to believers who
stop believing as a cessation of genuine saving faith. In the parable of the
four soils the Lord Jesus explained the second category:
The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who
hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root
in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises
because of the word, immediately he falls away (Mt. 13:20-21).
Note well that the word of God did not have a firm root in the person him-
self. It did not involve the whole personality: intellect, emotions, and will.
There are examples in John 6:64-66; 8:31; Acts 8:13ff; and James 2:19 of
those whose faith was not genuine. Perhaps it did not meet the criterion
which Paul stipulated in Romans 10:9, to “believe in your heart that God raised
Him from the dead.” A great tract entitled, “Missing Heaven by 18 Inches,” was
relevant to me because all through my teen years people thought I was a
Christian, but there was no personal heart trust in Christ’s finished work.
Since it has already been shown that it is people who have to do the trusting,
we need not blame counterfeit faith* on an “inferior work of the Spirit,” as
Calvin did. The Spirit neither strikes people with genuine or inferior faith.
Is security based upon the Calvinistic notion of election?
For those of us who repudiate the Calvinistic notion of unconditional,
individual election, is the case for eternal security thereby undermined? Not
at all! Most Calvinists depend heavily upon their doctrine of election as a
basis for “perseverance of the saints.” But since this argument is totally
deductive, there is a far stronger inductive basis for eternal security in the
direct statements of Scripture. Thus, our confidence in eternal security is not
weakened one iota by a strong rejection of unconditional election.
What Is at Stake? Why Believe It?

Many renowned scholars, both Calvinistic and Arminian, have con-
fessed to a very real tension between the positive promises of the Bible and
the exhortations, warnings, and problem passages. Howard Marshall, an
outstanding Arminian scholar, has confessed that the tension has to be left
unresolved.9 Robert Stein, as one who holds to eternal security, confessed
that he had no satisfying interpretation of Hebrews 6. However, the tension
is certainly resolvable. Indeed, for believers in the inerrancy of Scripture, it
must be resolvable. Moderate Calvinistic and mediate writers have made
substantial progress in resolving this tension.
An essential reason for believing in eternal security is its integral con-
nection with the great Pauline doctrine of justification by grace through faith
alone, so important to the Reformation. This was a significant factor in
Charles Stanley’s “conversion.” Years earlier J. F. Strombeck wrote, “The
whole body of grace truth loses very much of its meaning to those who reject
the doctrine of eternal security” (italics his).10 In one of his excellent books,
Strombeck used the illustration of the way color printed on one side of a
fabric “bleeds through” to the other side. In a similar way, denial of security
bleeds through all the other teachings of the those who deny it, whether
Arminian or hyper-Calvinist. The full forgiveness of sin through the cross and
the unconditional love of God for His children are compromised with human
performance by denial of security.
R. T. Kendall pointed out another issue at stake in the denial of eternal
security. He suggested that many Arminians are really hedging their bets.
“Their view is that, even if the doctrine of once saved, always saved is true, they
still prefer to play it safe and live the Christian life as though this doctrine might
not be true. After all, if it is true, they will be saved anyway—if it is not true, they
hope to be sure they have enough good works to cushion their security.”
It is like people who lift their feet as the jetplane takes off to help it along,
rather than fully trusting the plane. It is like the man who got baptized
thirteen times, by every conceivable mode, just to cover all the bases.
Kendall urges such people to “go for broke”—stake your whole case on the
finished work of Christ alone.11
Furthermore, I can confirm Kendall’s experience that coming to believe
in security opened up the Scriptures in a new way for me. Although, unlike
Kendall, I did not have the erroneous theological baggage to clear out of my
thinking, I did begin to sense a wonderful harmony of Scripture, both as I
first wrestled with the issue and in my studies over these years. Indeed, the
unresolved tension perceived by many honest interpreters like Marshall
would be a great obstacle to belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. Perhaps
this explains why many evangelical Arminian denominations do not have
any traditional belief in the inerrancy of Scripture.12 Appreciation for the
wonderful doctrinal harmony of the Bible is a great reinforcement of faith in
the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture.*
The last reason for believing in eternal security relates to the quality of
our fellowship with the Lord and the motivations for godly Christian living.
Shortly after coming to the understanding of security, I was greatly blessed
by Strombeck’s second book, Disciplined by Grace. There I learned for the
first time the implications of Paul’s words to Titus: “For the grace of God has
appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldy
desire and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, . . .” (2:11-12).
How thrilling it was to see, as Strombeck worked through Paul’s epistles,
how all of his appeals for godly living were based, not on the Mosaic Law,
but upon the gracious salvation God has freely given us (Rom. 12:1-2; Eph.
4:1-3; Col. 3:1-4, etc.).
Both Kendall and Stanley have described the frustrating legalism they
experienced among those who deny security, and Michael Eaton has
described the legalism he experienced in “developed” hyper-Calvinism and
found in the writings of the Puritans.* The above three writers from opposite
backgrounds agree that intruding human performance into the issue of our
ultimate salvation, not only compromises the clear biblical teaching of
salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, but it compro-
mises the biblical basis for a godly Christian life under the gracious hand of
a loving God.
We who are parents understand the importance of showing uncondi-
tional love to our children as a basis for a healthy, positive relationship. “If
abandoning the faith or falling into sin short-circuits salvation, I have the ability to demonstrate
unconditional love to a greater extent than God.”13 How can we trust a heavenly
Father whose love for us is conditioned upon our performance until the last
breath of life? How can we experience true fellowship with such a God?
How can we have peace in our Christian life if there is always uncertainty
about where we really stand with Him? How can we live a stable Christian
life if we constantly fear that God will ultimately disown us? Kendall goes so
far as to say that legalistic morality is not true biblical godliness. When we
understand Christ’s constant exposure of the legalism of the Pharisees’
morality, we would have to agree with Kendall.
Conclusions
The bottom line of God’s plan of salvation is the confident assurance
that we will get to glory and can live a fruitful life here in this sinful world
with that confidence. How tragic that so many of both Calvinists and
Arminians do not experience this joy and peace in believing! It is to be
hoped that the preceding chapters will contribute to many such Christians
entering into this full assurance which God has purposed for us.
This is not only vital for every believer’s own personal life, but also for
our witness and service for Him. If the gospel we communicate and the
lifestyle we model are legalistic,* the impact of our life and witness will be
far short of what God expects from us. God saved us to bear abiding fruit.
2. Robert G. Tuttle, Jr., John Wesley: His Life and Theology (GR: Zondervan, 1978), pp. 143-55, 257, 276.
3. S. Lewis Johnson, Jr. made this statement in tapes on “Particular Redemption” made at Believer’s Chapel in
Dallas, TX, for which I do not have present access or information. Alan C. Clifford published his dissertation as
Atonement and Justification (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990).
4. Harry Ironside dealt very effectively with this error from Scripture and his early years in the Salvation Army:
Holiness: the False and the True (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Bros).
5. R. T. Kendall, Once Saved, Always Saved (Moody, 1985), pp. 149-50.
6. Robert Shank, Life in the Son, 2nd ed. (Springfield, MO: Westcott, 1960), pp. 75-82. Stanley, in referencing
Shank’s argument, oversimplifies it, p. 73. Shank, however, limits his discussion to a few contexts in John.
7. Zane Hodges, Absolutely Free, p. 105.
8. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.2.11-12; Commentary, Lk. 17:13.
9. I. Howard Marshall, Kept by the Power of God, 3rd ed. (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1995), p. 278; Robert H. Stein,
Difficult Passages in the New Testament (GR: Baker, 1990), p. 353.
10. Strombeck, p. 7.
11. Kendall, p. 61-2.
12. This is true of the Evangelical Mission Covenant Church, in which I was raised. Indeed, this has been a
significant issue at North Park Theological Seminary over the years. A former colleague of mine, who graduated from
a Nazarene seminary, informed me that the Church of the Nazarene does not have any tradition or affirmation of
inerrancy. More recently I visited the campus of a college of the Church of God (Anderson, IN), and found no such
commitment to inerrancy by their faculty.
13. Stanley, p. 11.
I noticed that the perennial problem of backsliding,
18
even among the bands, had again returned. . . . My
only solution was the introduction of a doctrine of
perfection which implicitly required a doctrine of
perseverance. . . . It arose out of a practical need.
- John Wesley
WHAT OTHER ERRORS HAS

ARMINIANISM SPAWNED?
It is ironic that Jacob Arminius never became an ‘Arminian.’ Although

he had doubts about eternal security, he never denied this truth. It was his
associates and followers, the Remonstrants,* who moved Arminianism into
a more extreme position on many issues, such as denial of eternal security
and substitution in the death of Christ. Although over a century later John
Wesley brought Arminianism back to a more evangelical position, closer to
Calvinism, he innovated a holiness doctrine which has had a tremendous
impact on modern Evangelicalism. Not only have a number of ‘holiness’
denominations focused upon this teaching, but a major segment of the
Pentecostal movement has expanded it along with successive waves of
Charismatics. Even more damaging has been ‘prosperity gospel’ teachings,
which have lost the true gospel. To add to the confusion, in the end of the
twentieth century a new error of Open Theism developed.
We have already alluded to the denial of inerrancy of Scripture among
many Arminians.1 Connected with this there is a greater susceptibility of
Arminians to move toward neo-orthodoxy or outright liberalism. Thus there
are many outgrowths or extrapolations of Arminianism which are clearly
unscriptural and must be investigated. We have already focused on the
serious nature of the denial of eternal security.2 Now we must examine
these erroneous outgrowths of Arminianism.
Denial of Substitution in the Cross

The associates and Remonstrant followers of Jacob Arminius faced a
logical problem. They, like Arminius, believed that Christ died for all man-
kind, in opposition to Beza’s innovation of limited atonement. If Christ died
for all humanity, why is it that all people are not saved? This has been a
major argument of hyper-Calvinists against Arminians, moderate Calvinists,
and those of us in the middle. We have already shown that the solution is
239
not in logic, but in exegesis of Scripture, in study of the many Greek words
used for the cross (Ch. 5). Some words focus upon Christ’s death objec-
tively for all people, and some focus upon only believers subjectively enter-
ing into the benefits of His death. Since the inductive scriptural evidence for
general redemption is so clear, many Arminians and even moderate Calvin-
ists have sought to avoid the logical problem by suggesting that Christ’s
death was not a one-for-one substitution for sinners. The inductive data
does not support their denial in the least. The substitutionary nature of
Christ’s death can be proved from Isaiah 53 alone, as expanded in the New
Testament (cf. Ch. 5).
After Remonstrant* extreme Arminianism, other denials of substitution
have surfaced in various circles. The Pietistic movement of Lutheranism
spread to Scandinavia. A key founder of the Missionsförsamling movement
was P. P. Waldenström, a Lutheran pastor, who began to question the
teaching that Christ’s death saves us from God’s wrath in a forensic sense,
with the watchword, “Where is it written?” This led to the reductionist error
of a single significance for the cross; the blood of Christ cleanses us from sin.
Thus, he denied substitution in the cross.3 Out of this came the Evangelical
Mission Covenant denomination and an Arminian strand of the Evangelical
Free Church. Many other similar pietistic strands could be traced, along with
others in the Moravian, anabaptist,* and Mennonite* traditions. Commensu-
rately, Arminianism has always put greater emphasis upon the love of God
over against the holiness and wrath of God, but we must balance both by
holding to general redemption and substitution in the cross.
Perhaps the most striking example of a wrong solution to the problem
is seen among the neo-Edwardsian New Divinity theologians. They called
themselves “consistent Calvinists,” but they were neither consistent nor true
Calvinists. They held to unconditional election and irresistible grace like
their mentor Jonathan Edwards. But unlike him they all taught general
redemption4 and apparently most solved the logical problem by denying
substitution in the cross. Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Jr. went a step farther away
from the Calvinism of his father by denying total inability, as did grandson,
Dr. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale. They ended up with a curious hybrid
of Calvinism and Arminianism. However, despite their misguided attempt
to bridge the Calvinism/ Arminianism tension, God blessed this movement
with the Second Great Awakening and the consequent American foreign
missions movement (cf. Ch. 28). Far better to have a wrong middle ground
than none at all! At least they all agreed on general redemption and man-
kind’s responsibility to repent and believe on Christ.
Wesleyan Entire Sanctification

In eighteenth-century Great Britain, John Wesley, a great evangelist,
was the principal instrument in the Wesleyan revivals, which probably saved
the country from total degeneration. Multitudes were saved and simple
gospel preaching was restored through the Wesleyan revivals. Some of the
Chapter 18 WHAT OTHER ERRORS HAS ARMINIANISM SPAWNED? 241
earliest foreign missions came from the Moravians, who greatly influenced
him, and from his associate Thomas Coke (cf. Ch. 28). His theology moved
away from the errors of the Remonstrants of the previous century to a
position much closer to Calvinism. So much so, that one scholar saw
Wesley as closer to Calvin on the left than was hyper-Calvinist, John Owen,
on the right.5 Therefore Wesley’s Arminianism has been called ‘Evangelical
Arminianism.’6 Unfortunately modern evangelicalism has gotten some
serious theological baggage from Wesley in addition to his denial of eternal
security. Before his conversion in 1738, as an Anglican priest, he was heavily
into mysticism, asceticism, and other legalistic modes of thought.7 Some of
this carried over into his doctrine of holiness and entire sanctification. This
has generated a number of ‘holiness denominations.’ He admitted that his
denial of eternal security was based on his experience of seeing converts
apostatize,8 but apparently not upon direct biblical study. He saw a four-fold
basis of authority for Wesleyans: Scripture, reason, tradition, and experi-
ence.9 Unfortunately, he did not always give Scripture its proper priority.
Although Charles G. Finney was a great American 19th century evange-
list who made a significant contribution to modern evangelicalism in em-
phasizing instant salvation, he moved from being nominally a Presbyterian
to later in his ministry promoting an extreme form of Wesley’s holiness error
at Oberlin College. Actually he was disillusioned with Calvinism even before
his conversion since his legal studies had convinced him of the importance
of human free will as a basis of legal justice. However, his lack of theologi-
cal study moved him into a semi-Pelagian* way of thinking.
H. A. Ironside’s testimony. The testimonies of Charles Stanley, Earl
Radmacher,10 and R. T. Kendall have been referenced regarding the roller-
coaster lives they lived in the holiness/pentecostal movement before they
came to believe in eternal security. But Harry Ironside had an even more
devastating story during his early years in the Salvation Army, when it was
more a holiness denomination than it is today. Growing up and then serving
as an officer (Lt. & Capt.) in it for five years brought him to disillusionment
and defeat in a rest home for officers since he never experienced the
eradication of the sin nature the “second blessing” was supposed to bring.
He had observed a score of spiritual derelicts this sinless perfection teaching
was causing and pride and hypocrisy among those who professed the most
holiness. Some claimed not to have sinned for decades, but their lives did
not show it! He testified, “Very few of our ‘converts’ stood. ‘Backsliders’ often outnum-
bered by far our ‘soldiers.’ The ex-Salvation Army was many times larger than the original
organization. . . . I saw that it was the same with all the holiness denominations.”
It was a little booklet his mother sent him which God used to deliver
him from this unbiblical teaching.11
Redemption in Christ through His death was explained. Then there was much as
to the believer’s two natures and his eternal security, which to me seemed both
ridiculous and absurd. . . . Little by little, the light began to dawn. We saw that we
had been looking within for holiness, instead of without. We realized that the
same grace that had saved us at first alone could carry us on.
Ironside turned his back on the holiness movement and went on to become
a great Bible teacher and pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago.
Biblical clarification. A key proof-text of the holiness movements is
Hebrews 12:14: “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no
one will see the Lord.” It has been assumed in this interpretation that the
writer of Hebrews was using the word ‘sanctification’ in the sense of experi-
ential sanctification. However, he consistently used it for positional sanctifi-
cation, which becomes ours at conversion. They fail to recognize that both
the Hebrew and Greek words for ‘holiness’ and its synonym ‘sanctification’
have a primary meaning of ‘separation’ ‘set apart,’ and that there is much
about absolute, positional sanctification at the point of salvation. Since this
was relevant to Jews from their Scriptures, the writer to Hebrews made it
clear that the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ set us apart to God once for all:
“By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all. . . . For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are
sanctified” (Heb. 10:10, 14). Peter also wrote of that salvation sanctification:
“who have been chosen (choice) according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
through the sanctifying work of the Spirit . . .(1 Pet. 1:1-2).” Paul also confirmed
this: “. . . because God chose you (the Thessalonian Church) as firstfruits to be saved
through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth” (2 Thess.
2:13, TNIV).
It must also be recognized that there are many clear exhortations for
progressive, experiential sanctification in the ongoing Christian life: “For this
is the will of God, your sanctification, that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
that each of you know how to possess his own vessel [body] in sanctification and
honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thess. 4:3)
and “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for
honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work” (2 Tim. 2:19-
22). This is a different truth, although the same words are used. In posi-
tional sanctification it is God who sets us apart for Himself instantaneously,
but in experiential sanctification we must cleanse ourselves by the ongoing
power of the indwelling Spirit. The contrast is between our exalted stand-
ing as “saints” in Christ and our state in this sinful world, where we are not
always so saintly. Both truths are exceedingly important but must be kept
distinct.
Backloading sanctification. It is dangerous to backload experiential
sanctification into salvation truth, as Wesley clearly did. But not only Armin-
ians but also hyper-Calvinists do it.A Discipleship-salvation teaching clearly
does so, and other hyper-Calvinists fail to make the distinction between
justification by repentant faith alone and progressive sanctification. Our
A. At a recent Southeastern ETS regional (Mar. 2012), I heard a plenary speaker say that he resists
every effort to build a wall between justification and sanctification. Of course, we must not totally
separate salvation from godly living, but we must clearly distinguish the two.
having been declared righteous by God and having been set apart to him
(positional sanctification) are absolute irreversible truths which must be
distinguished from our experience of developing holiness in the Christian
life. The first is the basis of the second but must never be confused with it.
The Pentecostal/Charismatic Movements

When Harry Ironside struggled in the 1890s to get a “second blessing”
which would bring him perfect sanctification, the Pentecostal* movement
had not yet begun (ca. 1900). It was clearly an outgrowth of the holiness
movement based upon the idea of a ‘second blessing’ of the “baptism of the
Holy Spirit.” Ironside explained, “When asked for scripture as to the term ‘the second
blessing,’ the perfectionist will generally refer you to 2 Cor. 1:15.”12 Of course, Paul was
referring to a second benefit they would get from a second visit and this is
totally irrelevant to the issue! All through the 19th century there was confu-
sion among Evangelicals about Spirit baptism, but Paul was clear that all
believers (even some carnal Corinthians) had already been baptized by the
Holy Spirit at conversion when they were positionally sanctified: “Such (gross
sinners) were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you
were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1
Cor. 6:11). “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or
Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor.
12:13). There are many other doctrinal aberrations seen in these move-
ments. It is beyond the scope of this book to deal with this whole move-
ment, but this is its root error! The rest grow out of it.
The Prosperity Gospel Heresy

It seems that most of the prosperity gospel preachers so common on
television have been an outgrowth of the pentecostal/charismatic move-
ments. Perhaps the logical connection is that if the Christian has the right to
be healed of all diseases, then we also have the right to be ‘delivered’ from
other human limitations, such as poverty. If perfect health is our right in the
gospel, then why not perfect prosperity?
The premise of this view is based on Old Testament promises to Israel
of national prosperity conditioned on their obedience to God. One searches
the New Testament in vain for such promises to the church or to Christians
individually. Thus it becomes a dispensational issue in that God’s rule of life
for Israel and individual Jews was significantly different than that for the
church and individual Christians.B It is always questionable to take promises
made to national Israel and appropriate them for individual New Testament
Christians. The Jewish leaders of Christ’s day assumed that if you were
prosperous, this was proof of your being a good Jew. However, Christ had
more to say about the danger of materialism than virtually any other subject.
B. I made this point in a paper on the book of Ruth I submitted to a well known non-dispensational Old
Testament scholar. He said the idea was new to him and very intriguing.
Americans take financial prosperity as a given in life, but Christians in the
majority world may be among the most poor and oppressed for many
reasons. Certainly this was my experience during seven years in Pakistan,
where some of the most godly Christians were to be found among the poor.
Open Theism
Open theism is a relatively new perspective on the character of God
which has only been touted in the last quarter of the twentieth century,
although there were some antecedents, such as the view of the late Gordon
C. Olson (obviously not myself). It has also been called the new theism and
extreme Arminianism. Its major proponents are Clark Pinnock, Richard
Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, David Basinger, and Greg Boyd. It was
deemed significant enough that at least ten sessions of the Evangelical
Theological Society annual meeting in Nashville in November, 2000, were
devoted to the issue, mostly in refutation.
Advocates of open theism have some valid concerns with the ‘classic
concept of God’ as held by the church fathers and the Reformers. However,
it is clear that in resolving those concerns they have gone off the deep end
and have seriously departed from an orthodox, biblical view of God. How-
ever, their concerns do represent a valid critique of the deterministic view of
God held by Calvinists. Therefore, it is most helpful to examine their views
in contrast with Calvinistic determinism. Although they may not be totally
unified in their views, there are a number of significant aspects of their
position that are important to examine.
What is Open Theism?

The most significant departure from classic theism is their concept of
a limited foreknowledge of God. They claim that God can only foreknow
that which He determines. Since God has not determined everything, He
could not have a complete knowledge of the future, since it is unknowable.
Some aspects of the future were determined by God, but most of the future
is open. They say that they do not deny foreknowledge, but only redefine it,
since God knows everything that can be known about the future. They
claim to be clarifying the nature of future events, but actually hold to limited
omniscience, which is an oxymoron. The classic concept of God holds that
He is infinite in all His attributes and, thus, must be infinite in His knowledge
of future events, especially since we understand that God is eternal and
created time as part of the time-space universe. He is outside of time and
can not be limited by it in His knowledge. This is confirmed by the use of
the time-space word aiôn in reference to the universe in passages such as
Hebrews 1:2.13
Open theists believe that as God interacts with His creatures, He
genuinely changes His mind and is not immutable in the classic sense. In a
real sense, God is temporal, and as He interacts with His creatures in time,
His knowledge changes and grows. God’s relationship with His creatures is
dynamic, not static. They emphasize that God’s changelessness relates to
His faithfulness to His word and not to a static personal changelessness.
In common with Arminians, they hold love as the primary attribute of
God and, therefore, find that the many representations of God’s emotional
involvement with His people make the classic concept of the impassibility
(not moved emotionally) of God untenable. Christ is the ultimate paradigm
of God’s character and attributes. Since His life was characterized by
service and suffering, and not in power over others, this is an important
aspect of God’s character. Like many others who reject the determinism of
Augustine,* they hold to libertarian free will, the power of contrary choice.
What are their major concerns?

The Old Testament narratives. Their major concerns arise out of a
number of Old Testament narrative texts which seem to indicate that God
actually repents or changes His mind. In harmonizing these passages with
the declarative statements that God does not repent or change His mind,
their approach is the opposite of the classic view. These narrative texts have
been understood as figures of speech, as anthropomorphisms,* that is,
representing God and His actions in human terms. We understand that this
is a kind of accommodation of God’s communication to human sequential
thought processes. Open theists, however, feel that these passages should
be taken more literally, and that the other passages which describe God’s
foreknowledge and immutability must be reinterpreted to harmonize with
a more literal reading of these texts.14
The problem with their hermeneutics (interpretive principles)* is that
what they call a more literal reading, is actually a ‘crass’ reading of the text.
If an interpreter ignores a recognizable figure of speech in a passage, this is
crass interpretation rather than literal interpretation. A classic example of
this is the Roman Catholic interpretation of Christ’s words at the Last Supper,
“This is my body.” They ignore the obvious figurative language of his
words, a metaphor, and assume that the piece of bread in His hands was
actually His physical body. This is patently absurd! It is also just as absurd
to believe that the bread consecrated by the priest mystically and magically
becomes the physical body of Jesus Christ.
Similarly, most understand that some aspects of these narrative pas-
sages are figures of speech. Abram’s intercession in Genesis 18:23-32,
Moses’ intercession in Exodus 32:12-14, and King Hezekiah’s prayer for
extended life in 2 Kings 20:1-6, etc., are not to be taken crassly, but are
anthropomorphic representations.* Although God is represented in the form
of the Angel of Yahweh eating with Abram, interacting with his intercession
for Lot, and going down to Sodom to check out its wickedness before
destroying it, this is clearly an anthropomorphic representation, since God
actually appears as a man. Otherwise, we end up questioning not just God’s
foreknowledge, but also His present knowledge and His omnipresence as
well. Wayne House suggested that if we ignore the obvious figurative and
accommodative nature of the narrative, we end up saying God did not know
how many righteous people were in Sodom until he actually went down to
Sodom to check it out. Thus, once we begin to question the infinitude of
God’s omniscience, we end up questioning the infinitude of His other
attributes as well.15 In Exodus 32, it should be observed that God was testing
Moses and did not say unconditionally that He would destroy Israel.
Open theists should have started by doing a basic word study of the
Hebrew word nacham, which is frequently translated “to repent, be sorry for.”
Richard Shultz did such and concluded that in those 34 usages of nacham in
which God is the subject, 26 are general statements in the affirmative and 8
are used with a negative to express God’s compassion in withholding
deserved judgment. Even when men are the subject of the verb (7 times),
only one involves the idea of repentance, and none involve a change of
mind based on newly acquired knowledge. He concluded that the central
idea of the word is “to relent, have compassion upon.”16 The point is that God in
His compassion frequently relents from meting out the judgment mankind
deserves. It is not that God is indecisive and actually changes His mind as
He gets more information. Such a word study done early might have
averted this whole dangerous theological movement.
Open theists make much of God’s apparent change of mind in the book
of Jonah. However, an overlooked factor in the narrative was Jonah’s failure
to announce the conditional nature of God’s impending judgment on
Ninevah. Jonah did not want them spared and, therefore, did not ‘tell it like
it is.’ He truncated the message for his own agenda (cf. Jonah 4:2).
The problem of evil. Another concern of the open theists has been
finding a better solution to the problem of evil than that forthcoming from
Calvinism’s deterministic theology. If God has determined all that comes to
pass, then God becomes the author of evil. Open theists made a start in the
right direction by affirming human libertarian freedom, but then pressed it
too far in denying the absolute foreknowledge of God. The premise of that
denial is that God cannot foreknow that which He has not determined. As
discussed in Chapter 2, it is presumptuous for anyone to say what God could
or could not know. With the open theists, we affirm that God has not
decreed all the evils which have befallen human history. But we must
separate God’s knowing from His determining. Open theists’ limitation of
God’s foreknowledge was not only unnecessary, but it ended up undermin-
ing the very character of God.
Reprobation.* Open theists, like Arminians and others, struggle with
the problem of reprobation inherent in Calvinistic theology. They rightly
deny absolute predestination to either heaven or hell. But in seeking to
defend libertarian freedom, they conclude that God cannot know the future
free decisions of mankind and therefore end up with a future which is partly
open and partly determined. In Part IV, an inductive biblical answer to both
the absurdity of reprobation and absolute predestination is given by affirm-
ing the conditional nature of ‘election.’ This should be an adequate solution
without resorting to a denial of God’s foreknowledge. The open theists’
problem is that they start with the same false premise as the Calvinists: that
God cannot know that which He has not determined. There is nothing
biblically or philosophically which requires this premise.17
Answered prayer. Another major concern, which open theists share
with many others, is how, given a deterministic concept of God, there can
be any objective reality to answered prayer. It becomes a mere subjective
exercise for Christians if God does not actually respond to the prayers of His
people. If God has made an exhaustive decree in eternity past, then either
we are not exercising any freedom in asking God, or He doesn’t really
respond to our requests in any meaningful sense. This is a concern, not just
of open theists, but of all Christians who reject Calvinistic determinism.
God’s will for our lives. Open theists also are concerned about the
concept of God’s blueprint for the Christian life which seems to be informed
by the concept of God’s eternal decree. Such a rigid idea of God’s will
should be replaced with a more open-ended one. Greg Boyd suggested that
it is very difficult to deal with a number of counseling situations based upon
such a rigid scenario and gave an extremely difficult case study to support
his point.18 However, the open theists are not the first to question the rigid
blueprint concept. Gary Friesen rejected it explicitly.19 This is a problem
only for the determinist. The rest of us are not bound to the blueprint
concept of the will of God for our individual lives. So rather than being an
argument for open theism, it is really an argument against Calvinistic deter-
minism.
The major errors of Open Theism

Limited foreknowledge. Open theists try to explain how God can have
only partial foreknowledge of the future by limiting the categories of future
events which God determines and therefore knows. Boyd listed five: His
chosen people, individuals, Christ’s ministry, the elect, and some end-time
events. Unless Scripture specifically mentions something that God fore-
knows, He cannot know it. They explain God’s orchestration of those future
events which He has determined in terms of His knowledge of the character
of the people involved and the setting up the circumstances which bring
them to the desired decision and action.20 However, they don’t consider
that He has absolute foreknowledge of the details of how He will work it out.
For instance, God knew Peter’s character perfectly, so that He could set up
the circumstances under which he would deny Christ three times in fulfill-
ment of Christ’s prophecy. One questions, however, according to their
scenario, how Christ could know that Peter would deny Him exactly three
times, not two, or four, or more, and all before the cock would crow twice.
One of the earliest and best responses to the attack on divine fore-
knowledge by open theists was that of William Lane Craig in The Only Wise
God. He also dealt with the errors of determinism in the same treatment.
He based his discussion upon an excellent survey of the biblical data for
God’s absolute omniscience of the past, present, and future in Chapter One.
This treatment confirmed what Christians, with little dissent, have held since
apostolic times and what Stephen Charnock set out so clearly in 1682 in his
classic, The Existence and Attributes of God. It is beyond the scope of this
book to summarize all of this material, but the whole thrust of thousands of
biblical prophecies is to validate God’s absolute foreknowledge. Some of
the key passages can be listed for study: Genesis 15:13-14; 40:8; Deuteron-
omy 18:22; 31:16-17; 1 Kings 13:2-3, 20-24; Psalm 139:1-6; Isaiah 41:21-24;
44:6-8; 46:9-10; Daniel 2:36-43; 7 and 11. These are just a small part of the
Old Testament prophecies, let alone the many more in the New.21
Craig responded to D. A. Carson’s attempt to show that God foreknows
everything because He determines everything. He concluded:
His foreknowledge of the future cannot be based on foreordination alone, for he
foreknows our thoughts and intentions and even our sinful acts. Since God is not
responsible for these human activities, it follows that he does not bring them
about. They are therefore truly free acts, or contingents, and God’s foreknow-
ledge of them is thus foreknowledge of future free actions. 22
Craig touted the concept of middle knowledge, that God not only knows the
whole future, but that He also knows future counterfactuals. He rightly
suggested that this is one of the more fruitful theological ideas ever con-
ceived. He showed that it has solid biblical support (cf. Ch. 29).
Carl (not John) Sanders showed how open theism’s treatment of Bible
prophecy is totally inadequate to explain its specificity of persons, places,
and events.23 Although Rice and Boyd try to deal with this, they have a
vague and generalized view of prophecy which does not at all take into
account the incredible detail of Messianic and other prophecies which have
been literally fulfilled.24 In spiritualizing and generalizing such prophecies,
they have also emasculated them of their apologetic value as well. Espe-
cially through Isaiah, God makes claims for the apologetic value of proph-
ecy. In the main, Christians have so interpreted Bible prophecy.
Carl Sanders also pointed out the importance of biblical typology in
demonstrating the absolute foreknowledge of God. It is extremely difficult,
if not impossible, to explain how God could arrange not only the types and
symbols of the Old Testament, but also the antitypical future events, if He
does not possess absolute foreknowledge. The same can be said for
examples of what is called ‘canonical interpretation.’ This means that the
sequence of the writing of Bible books is significant for interpreting them.
This would involve heavy orchestration on God’s part, impossible if He does
not know the whole future.
Openness to Liberalism
Why is Arminianism so open to the slippery slope toward liberalism?
The denial of the inerrancy of Scripture,* already chronicled, is the begin-
C
ning of that slippery slope. Once we say that there is doctrinal contradic-
tion in the Bible between the many promises of eternal security and the
warnings wrongly taken to be of loss of salvation, then there could also be
other contradictions. But if there are contradictions between the Gospel
accounts, our confidence in the truth of what Christ did and said is seriously
undermined. This is the whole foundation of the Christian faith. If the
modernistic documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch were true, then the
whole foundation of God’s creation–the sin of Adam and Eve, the flood, the
Noahic Covenant as the foundation of civil government, Babel as the origin
of man’s pagan religions, Abraham’s calling to be a blessing to all humanity
and the ancestor of the Messiah–all become questionable. If Daniel was not
the essential author of the book which bears his name, Christ was in error in
referencing him in His own prophetic discourse. If there are doctrinal
contradictions in the Bible, then what restraint might there be from charging
the Bible with scientific and historical errors.D
Shortly after my conversion, I heard Dr. Francis Rue Steele, an Assyriolo-
gist with the University of Pennsylvania, say that since he had become a
Christian, he had found whenever he came across any apparent contradic-
tions or problems with Scripture integrity, that prayer, doing one’s home-
work, and patience pay off with resolution. In my sixty-year pilgrimage since
then, I have found his words to be true. As a former engineer I cannot
tolerate unresolved problems and have diligently done my homework to
resolve Bible difficulties. In one case it took 25 years to find a solution.
While teaching the life of Christ, I found that the standard harmonies of the
last year of Christ’s ministry just don’t work! A paper by Robert Singer at an
ETS meeting gave the clues to a wonderful resolution.25 I could give many
other examples right up to the time of writing these words.
Conclusion
Although we can praise God for raising up Jacob Arminius to begin a
movement to correct Calvinistic determinism and John Wesley to restore
C. I saw this early in my days in the Evangelical Mission Covenant denomination, as leaders were
coming over from Sweden advocating ‘realism’, which was just Barthian neo-orthodoxy.* Upon
graduating from seminary in 1955, I visited classes at North Park Seminary for three days. In the first
class I entered, the professor advocated the documentary view of the Pentateuch. Some years later the
denomination objected to the total absence of evangelical faculty at North Park, so they hired a token
Evangelical. A recent graduate of Alliance Theological Seminary told me that he was taught the
documentary hypothesis as truth. I interviewed a New Testament professor at Warner Southern College,
who affirmed that they don’t have any commitment to inerrancy and claimed that contradictions between
the Gospels made inerrancy impossible. A graduate of Nazarene Theological Seminary alerted me to
their lack of any commitment to inerrancy. The Methodist Church was one of the first oldline
denominations to go radically liberal in the early 20th century.
D. In the 2003 ETS annual meeting in which Clark Pinnock’s eligibility for membership was voted on, in
the Q. & A. period, I asked him if there were any scientific or historical errors in the Bible. His rambling
5-minute response did not directly answer the question. I asked many attendees whether he had
answered me to which all said “no.” He was not honest to admit his unbelief.
simple gospel preaching, their followers reacted in many ways in moving
Evangelicalism into highly questionable forms. Arminians have been way
ahead of Calvinists in proclaiming the gospel widely in this lost world
because they believe that Christ died for all mankind and in believing in free
will see more clearly our human responsibility to witness for Christ. But
failure to affirm the eternal security of the true believer has spawned a
number of movements, which at best are dubiously scriptural, and at worst,
significantly heretical. Only inductive exegetical study of God’s word can
correct these aberrations.
1. Bill Arnold, in a panel discussion at the Southeastern ETS meeting at Columbia, SC, March 17, 2006.
2. Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 2006) makes only
one reference to eternal security in this whole book as far as I can find (p. 32), with no reference in the index.
3. Axel Andersson, trans. G. F. Hedstrand, The Christian Doctrine of the Atonement according to P. P. Waldenstrom
(Chicago: Covenant Book Concern, 1937). Cf. F. W. Grant, Dr. Waldenström and Non-Vicarious Atonement (New
York: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.).
4. Edwards A. Park, ed., The Atonement: Discourses and Treatises by . . . (Boston, 1859).
5. Alan C. Clifford, Atonement and Justification: English Evangelical Theology (1640-1790) an Evaluation (Oxford,
1990), pp. 3-16; 51-65; 95-110; 240-4. This is the general tenor of Clifford’s argument; exact quote not located.
6. S. Lewis Johnson, Jr. in a taped sermon from Believers’ Chapel, Dallas, TX, date unknown.
7. Robert G. Tuttle, Jr., John Wesley: His Life and Theology (GR: Zondervan, 1978), pp 298-300)
8. Ibid, pp 257, 276
9. This was portrayed on a well-researched film/video by Vision Video available at www.visionvideo.com.
10. Quite recently (2012) Dr. Radmacher gave me a long account on the phone of his growing up in the holiness
movement, which was most informative and helpful in understanding it.
11. Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.). See H. A. Ironside, Holiness: the False
and the True (Loizeaux Brothers, 1912).
12. H. A. Ironside, Holiness, p. 57.
13. G. Abbott-Smith, Lexicon, p. 15.
14. Greg Boyd, God of the Possible, pp. 53-87; Richard Rice, “Biblical Support for a New Perspective,” in Pinnock,
et. al., The Openness of God, pp. 22-38.
15. Wayne House, “The New Theism: An Exegetical Response to Greg Boyd.” ETS 2000
16. Richard Shultz, “A Semantic and Hermeneutical Analysis of NACHAM;” ETS 2000; Craig, The Only Wise God,
p. 46.
17. Craig, pp. 39-48.
18. Boyd, pp. 103ff.
19. Gary Friesen, Decision Making in the Will of God (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1980).
20. Ibid, pp. 35-39.
21. Craig, pp. 25-37.
22. Ibid, p. 48.
23. Carl Sanders, “Open Theism and Hermeneutics: Some Implications”; a paper at ETS, Nov. 2000.
24. Boyd, pp. 33-45; Richard Rice, “Biblical Support,” in Pinnock, et. al., pp. 50-53.
25. Robert A. Singer, “A New Harmonization of the Gospels,” Doctoral Dissertation at Western CB Seminary.
PART FOUR
CALVINISM
INDUCTIVELY
EXAMINED
INTRODUCTION TO PART IV
AN OVERVIEW OF CALVINISM
The Calvinism/Arminianism controversy is reminiscent of the War of
the Roses. In response to the Remonstrants, hyper-Calvinists responded
with five points fossilized into the TULIP acronym, later extrapolated even
more. Some facetiously mock Arminians as having daisies as their flower–
God loves me, He loves me not. Actually, hyper-Calvinists also have the
same problem of lack of assurance–am I among the elect? For four centu-
ries moderate Calvinists have been “tiptoeing through the TULIPs” in trying
unsuccessfully to redefine four points in a more moderate way. I was part
of that scene. Now some have given up the TULIP and replaced it with
ROSES. It is absurd to think that the whole counsel of God can be com-
pressed into a five-letter acronym, whether tulips, daisies, or roses! We
appeal for abandoning these simplistic attempts to summarize God’s plan
of the ages. Calvinism is like the “Emperor’s New Clothes” because in-
depth research shows virtually no tangible biblical evidence! Here are
more nuanced, cogent ways of delineating God’s whole counsel.
1. God’s delegation of parts of His sovereign authority: not omnicausal
sovereignty based upon some universal decree (or decrees)
2. God’s wise foreknown plan of the ages is not deterministic.
3. God’s single decree of the passion and resurrection of Christ- Ps. 2:7
4. Universal fall and depravity: not total inability to repent and trust
5. Continuing human free will based upon the image of God - Gen. 9:6
6. Provision of a general ransom-redemption, fully satisfying to God
7. Convicting grace of the Holy Spirit through gospel proclamation:
neither universally prevenient nor irresistible
8. Liberating redemption and reconciliation conditioned on faith
9. Justification and new birth conditioned on repentant trust in Christ
10. Appointment in Christ to life and official service for Christ - Eph. 1:4:
neither predestination nor election found in the Greek original
11. Eternal preservation and security of true saints: not perseverance
12. Discipleship imperative for all believers (study the 3 discourses)
13. Global outreach mandated for the whole church
In our inductive, exegetical investigation, in-depth word studies are
vital. Hyper-Calvinism’s major errors are addressed in Chapters 19 and 21.
Chapter 20 builds upon Chapter 3 in establishing free will to sin as well as
free will to believe. Chapter 22 shows it all starts with and is conditioned on
God’s foreknowledge, which means just that. The Greek words for so-
called election are examined in Chapter 23, and for so-called predestina-
tion in Chapter 24. The deterministic spin based upon non-existent decrees
of God is examined in the light of key Scriptures (Rom. 9) in Chapter 25. In
Chapter 26, the doctrine of calling is seen not to be irresistible.
252
But we, who have heard by the Scriptures that
19
self-determining choice and refusal have been
given by the Lord to men, rest in the infallible cri-
terion of faith, manifesting a willing Spirit, since
we have chosen life and believe God through His
voice. - Clement of Alexandria (150-215)
DOES THE NEW BIRTH

REALLY PRECEDE FAITH?
One of the most outrageous examples of theologians favoring a deduc-

tive, rationalistic approach over an inductive, exegetically based methodol-
ogy is seen in the question of whether faith is a prior condition or a conse-
quence of the new birth. Our warnings about the danger of giving deduction
priority over inductive exegesis are especially relevant to this pivotal salva-
tion issue, yet rarely discussed. My theological pilgrimage was stimulated
when a hyper-Calvinistic colleague shocked me by emphasizing putting
regeneration first as important to Calvinistic theology. It is a major premise
of hyper-Calvinism that because man is spiritually dead, he must be regener-
ated before he can repent and believe.1 The inductive data is clearly
opposite so we must examine it carefully.
Faith Prior to the New Birth

The historical background. Calvin struggled with the problem of the
order of faith and regeneration since his theology seemed contradictory to
what he saw in John 1:12-13.2 His successors have been far less aware of the
problem and tended to just refer to the “Calvinistic order” of regeneration
prior to faith, such as John Murray.3 James M. Boice was more explicit: “We
know from Paul's teaching elsewhere that justification presupposes faith (Rom. 5:1), so we can
insert faith before justification, but after regeneration.”4 R. C. Sproul also affirmed the
maxim that “Regeneration precedes faith” is “a cardinal point of Reformed theology.”5
The direct inductive data

Can the dead believe? First off, the question arises as to the seeming
impossibility of unregenerate sinners, who are spiritually dead, ever respond-
ing to the word of God in faith. The answer came early in the words of
253
254 CALVINISM INDUCTIVELY EXAMINED
Christ, “Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will
hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live” (Jn. 5:25, TNIV).
Evangelical interpreters agree that this is a reference to sinners being born
again. Note that Christ did not say that the regenerate shall hear His voice,
but that the dead shall hear his voice and come to life. They are dead when
they hear! We might question as to how those who are spiritually dead can
hear, believe, and be born again, but as to the fact, Christ's own words are
clear. In Chapter 3, it was seen that a balanced biblical understanding of
depravity and spiritual death does not contradict the exercise of repentant
faith. In Chapter 8, the convicting ministry of the Spirit was seen as helping
remove obstacles to faith.
The Gospel of John. Tracing through the New Testament reveals that
the new birth and those truths related to it are always conditioned on
repentant faith. “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he
gave the right to become the children of God—. . .” (Jn. 1:12, NIV). Notice that it is
those who receive Him (those who believe on His name) who are given the
right (exousia) to become the children of God. Faith first; then new birth. The
NIV rendering makes the sequence even clearer, since the relationship of
believing on His name to receiving Christ is obscured in the KJV and NAS,
since it is tacked onto the end of the sentence in common Greek word
order. But tois pisteuousin (those believing) is clearly an attributive participle
and in the NIV is rightly put immediately after those who received Christ, in
apposition to it.6 Thus, receiving is synonymous with believing, and both
describe the condition upon which God gives the right (exousia) to become
His children. The intervention of the word exousia before the description of
the new birth makes it impossible to reverse the order here. Thus we have:
received/believed —> given the right to become —> children of God
The word ‘received’ (elabon) is an aorist,* which is usually described as non-
durative usually in past time, and the present participle, ‘believed,’ with the
article characterizes such people as believers. Hyper-Calvinists claim that the
participle indicates the continued action of believing, but this does not
negate the validity of all the contemporary translations and is irrelevant.
Unfortunately the NIV took liberties with 1:13 in rendering oude ek
thelçmatos sarkos as “nor of human decision,” revealing a Calvinistic bias. They
call it “dynamic equivalence” but it really is a paraphrase, not translation.
Here the KJV, NAS, ESV, HCSB, etc. are more literal and leave the interpreta-
tion up to the reader, as they ought: “. . . who were born, not of blood, nor of the
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (1:13, NAS). All agree that we
cannot will ourselves to be born again; it is totally a work of the Spirit. But in
John’s sequence just noted, faith is the clear condition upon which God
gives sinners the right or authority to be born again. Here the analogy with
human procreation and birth breaks down. Sinners, created in God’s image,
can claim the right to be born into God’s family by faith! How astonishing!
Whatever spin we may try to put on this passage, faith comes first!
Chapter 19 DOES THE NEW BIRTH REALLY PRECEDE FAITH? 255
The most famous verse of the Bible is only a little less clear. In John 3:16,
it is those who believe who get eternal life, not the reverse. No one can
question the new birth is defined as the impartation of eternal, divine life to
a sinner dead in sin. The verb ‘believing’ is a substantival participle which is
“both gnomic [descriptive] and continual.”7 In any case, this does not in any way
affect John’s sequence since the verb ‘have’ (echçi) is subjunctive. The
beginning of the believing must precede the having of eternal life.
Christ told the Samaritan woman first to drink (by faith); then she would
have a well of water (the Holy Spirit) springing up to eternal life. The order
is the same: “. . . but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to
eternal life” (Jn. 4:14). Throughout this Gospel, drinking is symbolic of the
initial act of faith and drinking obviously has to precede the water springing
up in the individual to eternal life by the Spirit. There is no ambiguity in the
Greek tenses here. It is the sinner who drinks or exercises faith.
Similar symbols are used in the bread of life discourse: “Jesus said to them,
'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me
shall never thirst. . . . For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the
Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; . . . he who eats this bread shall live
forever” (Jn. 6:35, 40, 58). Although the order in 6: 35 is adequately clear, the
future tense of verses 40 and 58 shows that the believing is antecedent to the
possession of eternal life. Some contend that the order is not clear in
statements like “he who believes has eternal life” (6:47) and the possession of
eternal life precedes the believing. This is not possible in the above verses.
Note the same symbolism also in His dramatic Tabernacles feast claim:
37. Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying,
“If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38. He who believes in Me, as the
Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’” 39. But this
He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit
was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:37-39).
Christ clearly set believing as a condition of receiving the Spirit, as further

clarified by John's comment in v. 39, where the substantival participle is in
the aorist tense. Although John usually used the present participle,8 the
aorist here confirms the priority of the disciples’ faith since the indwelling
Spirit was not yet received until Pentecost (Acts 2).
Although this sampling of this Gospel should be adequate, allusion to the
key verse should cap it off nicely: “. . . but these have been written that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in
His name” (20:31). Here John clearly used an instrumental participle 'believ-
ing', which modifies the action of the main verb, 'to have' life. The instru-
mental force of the participle could be better translated, “and that by believing
you may have life.” First faith, then life!
The book of Acts. It is to be expected that the apostolic preaching
(kçrugma) of the early church as recorded in Acts would give us crystal clear
data on this sequence. Such is the case. At Pentecost, the fulfillment of
Christ's prediction about the Spirit's convicting work (Jn. 16:8-11) is seen:
“Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the
rest of the apostles, 'Brethren, what shall we do?' And Peter said to them, ‘Repent, . .
. for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’” (Acts
2:37-38). First they were convicted (“pierced to the heart”) and said, “What shall
we do?” Peter told them to repent, apparently on the presupposition that the
conviction of the Spirit enabled them to do so. Only then would they receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit—what could be clearer? Subsequently, in replying
to the Jewish leaders, Peter said that God gives the Holy Spirit “to those who
obey Him (peitharcheo=‘to obey authority,’ ‘to be persuaded’)” (5:32). A positive
response must precede the new birth.
In Philip’s ministry in Samaria the sequence is undeniable:
But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the
name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.... they sent them
Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.
For He had not yet fallen upon any of them (Acts 8:12, 14b-16a).
The Samaritans believed and were baptized but did not receive the Spirit
until later. Although the delay is exceptional, the sequence is normative.
In Peter’s defense to the Jerusalem Church about the conversion of
Cornelius, we note: “if God gave them the same gift [the Spirit] as He gave us, who
believed in the Lord Jesus Christ . . .” (11:17). Note that pisteusasin is an aorist*
participle with instrumental or temporal usage, most probably expressing the
means by which the Apostles and the Gentiles received the gift of the Spirit:
“by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Likewise, in the Jerusalem Council, he
used the same sequence: “cleansing their hearts by faith” (15:9), and Paul
conditioned another ministry of the Holy Spirit upon faith in 26:18: “sanctified
by faith.” Thus every relevant context indicates the same sequence: first faith,
then regeneration or a related ministry of the Spirit (Acts 10:43; 13:39).
The epistle to the Romans. Although the Apostle Paul makes little
reference to the new birth in this great theological treatise, there has been
little dispute among Evangelicals since Luther's time, that faith is the condi-
tion for justification. The centrality of faith in salvation is seen in the key
verse: “For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith;
as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith'” (1:17). The NIV renders
ek pisteôs eis pistin even more forcefully: “For in the gospel a righteousness from
God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.” Faith cannot be
made an appendage to our theological system; it is at the core. It is ironic
that faith is not even mentioned in the five points of hyper-Calvinism espe-
cially since justification by faith had become the governing principle of the
Protestant Reformation. There should be no need to show the consistent
order in Romans of justification by faith, but simply list the many references:
3:22, 25, 26, 28, 30; 4:3, 5, 9, 16, 24; & 5:1, 2 (18 in total).
The significance of Romans 4:16 must be reinforced: “For this reason it is
by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be
guaranteed to all the descendants.” Faith is not in any way meritorious or to be
thought of as a work. That faith should be understood as a condition of
salvation in no way undermines the gracious nature of salvation.
Another passage also requires special comment: “. . . through whom also
we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand” (Rom.
5:1-2). If the new birth precedes faith, how can Paul say that faith was the
means of our introduction into God's grace? The hyper-Calvinists say that
regeneration introduces us into God's grace.
Later, in discussing the circumstances of Israel's being set aside dispen-
sationally, Paul came back to his theme in Romans 9:30-32: “What shall we say
then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even
the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not
arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were
by works.” Then he amplified the instrumentality of faith: “. . . righteousness
based on faith. . ." (10:6); “. . . believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,
you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness. . .”
(10:9,10); “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (10:17).
If regeneration precedes faith, we have the incongruent sequence of:
regeneration—> faith —> justification and salvation. This would
certainly imply that logically it is possible to be born again without justifica-
tion. Note here that it is man who does the believing in his heart. God does
not believe for us, nor does he even say that God puts the faith in our hearts.
Let it be emphasized that calling (the circumstances by which we come to
faith) is mediate through the word of God, but that regeneration itself is
immediately and directly one hundred percent the work of the Spirit. This
crucial distinction has been lost in much of the discussion.
The epistles to the Galatians and Ephesians. In Galatians 3, Paul was
explicit about the relationship of faith to the receiving of the Spirit: “. . . did you
receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?” (Gal. 3:2); “Does He
then, who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the
works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?” (3:5); “. . . so that we might receive the
promise of the Spirit through faith” (3:14); “For you are all sons of God through faith in
Christ Jesus” (3:26). There are no subtleties of interpretation needed since the
sequence is self-explanatory. In understanding how this sequence is possi-
ble, it is important to distinguish the conviction of the Spirit preceding faith
from the indwelling/regenerating works of the Spirit, which are subsequent
to faith (cf. Ch. 8). The sequence in Paul's thought is consistent throughout.
Later Paul had not changed his mind: “In Him, you also, after listening to the
message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed
in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, . . .” (Eph. 1:13). Here an aorist* participle,
pisteusantes, (‘having believed’) modifies the main verb esphragisthçte, (‘you
were sealed’). It could be either a temporal or an instrumental participle.
Both options establish the point that faith precedes and is instrumental in the
sealing ministry of the Spirit. Is it possible to say that regeneration precedes
the faith and sealing? This is highly improbable– virtually impossible.
Passages on the relationship of faith and the word of God. The Lord
Jesus, in His parable of the four soils, established the priority of the word of
God in the process of people coming to faith and salvation. The Lord
attributed the differing responses to His word to differences in the soil, not to
any sovereign work of irresistible grace. The devil also gets into the picture:
“When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, the evil one
comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart”(Mt. 13:19). Luke
added: “. . . so that they might not believe and be saved” (Lk. 8:12). The sequence
here is clear: hearing the word of God —> believing —> being saved. It is
hard to imagine how it might be possible for the new birth to precede “being
saved.” Christ does not even intimate that the differentiating factor between
the soils is God's elective choice. There is an intrinsic difference between the
soils themselves. The second category of soil is explained thus: “. . . yet he
has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, . . .” (Mt. 13:21). There is a
difference in the soil. The last category is described: “And the seed in the good
soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold
it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance” (Lk. 8:15). There is apparently a differ-
ence in the soil here also. The Lord Jesus attributed the difference to a
mindset of the heart. Many people have their hearts closed to the gospel by
their personal, religious, or cultural background. The hearts of most Muslims
have been poisoned against the gospel by the brainwashing of Islamic
teaching. In Western society there are increasingly more people brain-
washed with relativistic and evolutionary dogmas which close their minds to
the gospel. The universal spiritual blindness of the whole human race is
overcome by the convicting work of the Spirit as diverse antecedent factors
in the individual's life come into play. Here the pattern set by our Lord is that
faith in the word of God comes prior to being saved.
Calvinists’ reaction to the above is: “Doesn’t this attribute salvation to
human merit?” However, a mindset is not something meritorious. Since the
Lord Jesus taught it, theology must adjust to His teaching.
Peter understood Christ in this way: “. . . obtaining as the outcome of your
faith the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet. 1:9). In the same context he linked faith
in God’s word in the same order: “. . . for you have been born again not of seed
which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of
God” (1:23). As people believe the word of God, they are born again. God’s
word does not become operative by itself. The issue is faith in the word of
God. The hyper-Calvinistic scenario separates faith from the word of God
thus: the word of God proclaimed —> regeneration —> faith. But faith must
be in the word of God before regeneration can possibly take place.
The writer of Hebrews made a direct link between the word of God and
faith: “For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the
word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who
heard. For we who have believed enter that [salvation] rest, . . .” (Heb. 4:2-3a). We
must not insert regeneration in between the word of God and faith.
Hyper-Calvinistic proof-texts
Hyper-Calvinists use proof-texts, as James White did in his debate with
Dave Hunt: “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, . . .” (1 Jn.
5:1a). White claimed that since the verb gennaein is in the perfect tense, the
birth must have preceded the believing. However, he misunderstands the
perfect tense. Dan Wallace explained: “The force of the perfect tense is simply that
it describes an event, that completed in the past, has results existing in the present time.”9
Thus the perfect tense says nothing about whether or not the action pre-
cedes or follows the believing and none of the translations imply such.
What Is the Source of Faith?

Is faith the gift of God?
Part of the hyper-Calvinistic reversal of faith and the new birth is their
supposition that repentance and faith are the direct gift of God, an immedi-
ate or direct work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. This is another
unexamined presupposition of all Calvinistic theology.
Roy Aldrich, in a germinal article, objected to the Calvinistic reversal, not
only because of its lack of Scriptural support, but also because although it
intends to maintain the purity of grace it actually undermines it. Since a
sinner cannot believe until he becomes the object of irresistible grace, W. G.
T. Shedd, for example, instructed sinners to 1) read and hear the divine
Word; 2) give serious application of the mind to the truth; and 3) pray for the
gift of the Holy Spirit for conviction and regeneration.10 Jonathan Edwards
actually listed thirteen steps of preparation! Aldrich continued: “A doctrine of
total depravity that excluded the possibility of faith must also exclude the possibilities of
"hearing the word," "giving serious application to divine truth," and "praying for the Holy Spirit
for conviction and regeneration." The extreme Calvinist deals with a rather lively spiritual
corpse after all.”11 Calvinists have made preparationism* a problem for them-
selves. Another key issue is the source of faith. Is faith directly the gift of
God or does it develop in the sinner’s heart indirectly (mediately)?
Misused proof-texts
Ephesians 2:8-9. Calvinists have a ready arsenal of proof-texts for the
idea that faith is the direct, immediate gift of God. By far the most frequently
used is Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may
boast.” What is the gift of God, faith or salvation? In the original Greek it is
clear that it cannot be faith since the relative pronoun touto (this) is neuter
and pistis (faith) is feminine and cannot serve as its antecedent.12 Many
church fathers, Calvin, and a host of the greatest scholars reject this misinter-
pretation, and although Calvin didn’t explain the grammar, he was very
explicit about this error: “And here we must advert [refute] to a very common error in the
interpretation of this passage. Many persons restrict the word gift to faith alone. But Paul is
only repeating in other words the former sentiment. His meaning is, not that faith is the gift of
God, but that salvation is given to us by God, or, that we obtain it by the gift of God (emphasis
mine).”13 So it is clear that the demonstrative touto refers to the whole concept
of salvation by grace. Gregory Sapaugh reinforced this by noting that: “This
position is further supported by the parallelism between ouk hymon (‘and this not of your-
selves’) in 2:8 and ouk ex ergon (‘not of works’) in 2:9. The latter phrase would not be
meaningful if it referred to pisteos (‘faith’). Instead, it clearly means salvation is ‘not of
works.’”14 This is exactly what Paul affirmed in Romans 6:23: “. . . but the free
gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Vance made a most important
point here: “But by its very nature a gift has to be received or rejected. There is no such
thing as an irresistible gift.”15 Is there any question that all those who continue to
ignore the unambiguous grammar and scholarly opinion of even Calvin
himself are rightly called hyper-Calvinists? R. C. Sproul was entrenched in his
deductive dogmatism when he said: “This passage should seal the matter forever.
The faith by which we are saved is a gift of God.”16
The book of Acts. In a number of cases, such as Acts 5:31 (“. . . to grant
repentance to Israel,. . .”) and in 11:18, (“. . . Well then, God has granted to the
Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”) the context shows that God is
giving the opportunity for repentant faith to a class of people, not that God is
giving faith directly on an individual basis. Acts 5:31 obviously cannot be an
irresistible gift of repentance to individuals since the nation Israel did not
repent. Acts 11:18, seen in its context, clearly is a reference to the dispensa-
tional* opportunity now being offered to the Gentiles based upon the conver-
sion of Cornelius and his household, not to God giving repentance to individ-
uals directly. The other Apostles and the Judean churches had not yet
understood that Gentiles could be saved directly, so this response to Peter’s
defense of his actions obviously is a reference to the opportunity to repent.
Calvinists claim three other proof-texts. Acts 13:48 and 16:14 say nothing
directly about repentant faith being the gift of God. Starting with Calvinistic
presuppositions, these verses might seem to support their case, but see the
full discussion in Chapter 26. However, Acts 18:27 requires comment here:
“. . . he [Apollos] greatly helped those who had believed through grace.” Calvinists
read into this, “believed through irresistible grace.” Of course, non-Calvinists
believe that it is through God’s grace that we have opportunity to believe in
Christ. When we exercise repentant faith, we are affirming the gracious
nature of salvation; the harmony of which Paul emphasized in Romans 4:16:
“For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, . . .”
Other proof-texts in Paul’s epistles. Although the language of 2
Timothy 2:25 (“. . . with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps
God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, . . .”) does not
so obviously exclude repentance as the immediate gift of God, it is clear
from the context that God uses His servants to correct those in opposition,
specifically Timothy's gentle and patient correction. Note also that the
context refers to heretical teachers (2:17-18, 23), not to ordinary unsaved
people. Timothy is to be kind in teaching them the truth, in the hope that
they will repent of their error and cease being the devil’s tool in disrupting
the churches.
Calvinists also misuse Philippians 1:29 to make their claim: “For to you it
has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His
sake, . . .” However, it is clear that we are given faith only in the same sense
in which we are given suffering, that is, mediately through circumstances.
No one would argue that suffering is an immediate and irresistible work of
grace. As in the two Acts passages above, Paul referred to the privilege and
opportunity given to the Philippian Christians to believe, while alerting them
to the fact that suffering for Christ comes with that privilege.
Calvinists blatantly pull some proof-texts out of context: “. . . as God has
allotted to each a measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3); “For to one is given the word of
wisdom through the Spirit, . . . to another faith by the same Spirit, . . .”(1 Cor. 12:8-9);
“What do you have that you did not receive?”( 1 Cor. 4:7); and “. . . for it is God who
is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). These
passages have to do with the spiritual gift of 'faith' or the ongoing work of the
Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, rather than saving faith for the sinner!
Two other Pauline passages seem relevant only to those who read the
KJV alone: Galatians 2:20 and Philippians 3:9 have the “faith of Christ,” which
some Calvinists assume is a reference to faith which Christ gives. However,
these are obviously objective genitives and should be translated “faith in
Christ,” as rendered by most of the modern translations, supported by most
commentaries. Christ is to be the object of our faith.
Calvinists misuse a number of passages which apart from their presup-
positions seem totally irrelevant to the issue: 1 Thessalonians 1:4-6; 1 Corin-
thians 2:4-5; 7:25 (adduced by Augustine); 2 Corinthians 4:6; Romans 10:17
(affirms the opposite); and Ephesians 1:17-18. The connection of these to
faith as a gift from God is so obscure that one can’t imagine how to try to
respond. This is the worst form of proof-texting.
Proof-texts from Peter’s epistles. Calvinists misuse 1 Peter 1:21: “. . .
who through Him [Christ] are believers in God, . . .” It is a axiomatic that it is
through Christ that we became believers in the true God in a real sense.
Even most religious Jews did not really know God until they trusted in Christ.
In 2 Peter 1:1, the believers addressed are said to have obtained a like
precious faith: “To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours, . . .”
(RSV). Since the verb (lachousin) is an aorist active participle, it should be
translated as in the KJV, RSV, ESV, HCSB, and Williams, ‘obtained’ rather
than ‘received,’ which would be passive.17 The point is that faith must be
actively exercised by people, not passively received as a gift. Thus, careful
examination of the grammar has turned a proof text against that view.
Additionally, use of the adjective isotimon (‘of the same kind’) militates for an
objective connotation of ‘the faith’ (pistis), that is, the body of truths which we
believe, rather than our individual faith. If this is true, this passage is irrele-
vant to the issue. Peter does not explain how they obtained that faith, which
is the point under discussion, except that he used the active voice.
Proof-texts from John’s writings. Three references in the bread of life

discourse (John 6:37, 44-45, 65) are also misused in this connection and say
nothing directly about faith as a gift of God. Calvinists read into them the
idea of irresistible grace. However, in 6:37, Christ is not saying that all the
elect shall infallibly come to Christ, but the context indicates that He is rather
speaking about the remnant of regenerate Israelites who had belonged to
the Father. Now the Son has come, and that remnant is being turned over to
Him by the Father and will certainly come to Him. But most in that multitude
were not a part of that remnant. (For full discussion see p. 367.)
Careful consideration of these proof-texts in their contexts shows that
there is no basis for seeing faith as a direct gift from God. It is salvation
which is the gift of God, and faith is the means by which we receive it.
Faith develops mediately in human hearts.

Since God is never represented in Scripture as striking people with faith
as a direct gift, where then does faith come from?
Faith comes mediately through the word of God. The word of God is
clearly a means of producing faith in the heart according to Romans 10:17:
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” D. L. Moody
wrote, “I used to think that faith would strike me like a lightning bolt, but then somebody
showed me Romans 10:17. I turned to the word of God, and faith came and has been growing
ever since.”18
The conviction of the Spirit prepares the heart for faith. The solution
to the conundrum faced by hyper-Calvinists is found in the convicting or
convincing ministry of the Spirit (Jn. 16:8-11). Clearly Acts 2:37ff was the first
fulfillment and a graphic case study among the many examples in Acts. The
Spirit works through human instrumentality to convict sinners of the sin of
unbelief, man’s total lack of righteousness, and God’s sure judgment upon
sin. Conviction is neither universal nor limited to the ‘elect’ (cf. Ch. 8).
Faith is always ascribed to man, not God. Christ frequently com-
mented on the faith of individuals in such a way to make clear that faith is a
human activity. The faith of nine individuals, as recorded in fourteen Gospel
passages, is highlighted. Christ responded to the faith of the palsied man
and his bearers (Mt. 9:2; Mk. 2:5; Lk. 5:20) by healing him. He told many like
the immoral woman, “Your faith has saved you” (Lk. 7:50). The woman with
the flow of blood was told, “Your faith has made you well” (Mt. 9:22; Mk. 5:29,34;
Lk. 8:48). Two blind men who received their sight were told, “It shall be done
to you according to your faith” (Mt. 9:28-29). A synagogue ruler whose daughter
was raised from the dead was told, “Only believe, and she will be made well” (Lk.
8:50). The cleansed leper who returned to thank the Lord was told, “Your
faith has made you well” (Lk. 17:19). Bartimaeus and his companion were told,
“Receive your sight; your faith has made you well” (Mk. 10:52; Lk. 18:42).
Paul said that the faith of the ungodly is reckoned as righteousness
(Rom. 4:5). This is out of sequence if man has no participation in faith! The
noun pistis (‘faith’ ‘trust’) and the verb pisteuein (‘to trust’) occur sixty times in
Romans, the theme of which is a righteousness by faith “from first to last”
(1:17, NIV). Calvin was not reticent about calling faith a human means:
The next question is, in what way do men receive that salvation which is offered to them by the
hand of God? The answer is, by faith; and hence he concludes that nothing connected with
it is our own. If on the part of God, it is by grace alone, and if we bring nothing but faith, which
strips us of all commendation, it follows that salvation does not come from us. . . . When, on
the part of man, the act of receiving salvation is made to consist in faith alone, all other means,
on which men are accustomed to rely, are discarded. Faith, then, brings a man empty to God,
that he may be filled with the blessings of Christ (underline mine).19
Christ commended those who had great faith. If faith is immediately
the gift of God, it would not have been consistent or appropriate for Christ to
commend the Centurion and the Syrophoenician woman for the greatness
of their faith (Mt. 8:10, 13; Lk. 7:9; Mt. 15:28).
Conversions are attributed to antecedent conditions. The parable of
the soils indicates antecedent differences in peoples’ hearts accounting for
their coming to faith (Lk. 8:11-15). Cornelius' prayer and alms were men-
tioned by the angel in referring to the opportunity given him to hear the
message of faith (Acts 10:4). Lest anyone say that he was already regener-
ate, note the angel's words to Cornelius that “he [Peter] shall speak words to you
by which you will be saved” (Acts 11:14). Luke recorded that the noble-minded
Bereans examined the Scriptures daily and that “many of them therefore believ-
ed,” (Acts 17:12). Luke's “therefore” does not fit Calvinistic theology. Paul
stated that although he was the chief of sinners, he was shown mercy
because he acted ignorantly in unbelief (1 Tim. 1:13-16). Calvinistic theology
says that the basis of God’s saving mercy is an unrevealed mystery.
God uses people to bring unbelievers to faith. Christ commanded His
disciples to become “fishers of men” and contrasted the great harvest field
with the lack of laborers to reap a harvest (Lk. 10:2; Mt. 9:37-8; Jn. 4:35). In
the Great Commission, He commanded them to “make disciples.” In commis-
sioning Paul, He sent him to the Gentiles “to open their eyes so that they may turn
from darkness unto light and from the dominion of Satan to God,” (Acts 26:17-18).
Observe the heavy human involvement in all of these passages. The Spirit
normally works mediately through His servants. This is axiomatic!
Commands to repent/believe imply response is possible. In Chapter
7, multiplied commands to repent and believe were surveyed, which cannot
be ignored! A real response from all must be possible (Acts. 17:30-31).
Why are people commanded to seek God? Was Isaiah also ignorant
of the Calvinistic doctrine that men are spiritual corpses and cannot seek
God in any way (Isa. 55:6)? See a full discussion, Ch. 20, p. 278-9.
God gives people opportunity to believe in answer to our prayer and
witness. In 1 Timothy 2:1-6, Paul linked our prayers for “all men” (v. 1) with
the desire of God that “all men” might be saved (v. 4), and the fact that Christ
“gave Himself as a ransom for all” (v. 6). Frequently God uses the witness of
other Christians unknown to us in answer to our prayers. As an example,
students at our college especially prayed one night for the salvation of a
student's brother on the west coast. He was saved the next day through
other Christians witnessing to him. God uses human instruments in answer-
ing our prayers.
Problems with a direct gift of faith

Why did Christ bother to witness and persuade the non-elect? He
would certainly know that they were non-elect and would not come to faith.
This is clearest in His dealings with individuals like the rich young ruler.
Why should Paul bother to use persuasion at all? Luke frequently
emphasized that Paul used a confrontational and persuasive approach (Acts
17:3-4,17; 18:4; 19:8-9). One would think that the ‘elect’ would believe upon
hearing the gospel merely stated. Indeed, why should the elect not believe
the first time that they hear the gospel? Buswell cited Calvinistic missionar-
ies who would preach only once in each village under that supposition.20
The human element of persistence and persuasion are important factors in
people coming to faith. To press this one step further, one could raise the
question about the validity of any sort of human methodology at all in
preaching the gospel, if indeed faith is the immediate gift of God. Some
hyper-Calvinists pursue this to its conclusion and deny any use of means.
But most acknowledge the validity of some means and resort to paradox or
antinomy* to explain this inconsistency. Some object to more direct use of
means, such as a public invitation. However, on the day of Pentecost, the
Apostles must have had some means to separate out the inquirers so that
they could baptize them and incorporate them into the new-born church
(Acts 2).
Why did Christ marvel at unbelief? If faith is the immediate gift of God,
Christ should not have been astonished at the unbelief of the people of
Nazareth (Mk. 6:6). Didn't Christ know what every Calvinist knows—that
they were spiritually dead and could do nothing other than disbelieve?
How can unbelief be judged? Donald Barnhouse once raised the
question if faith is the gift of God, how could God judge unbelief as sin? If it
is God who has withheld the gift of faith, unbelief cannot be called a sin.
How can we explain degrees of unbelief being judged more sorely?
If it is God who chooses to give the gift of faith only to the ‘elect,’ how can He
justly judge some more severely than others? (cf. Mt. 11:20ff.)
How can demonic activity hinder a direct work of the Spirit? In the
parable of the soils, Christ made it clear that Satan intervenes in the process
of sinners coming to faith: “And those beside the road are those who have heard;
then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they may not
believe and be saved” (Lk. 8:12; 2 Cor. 4:4). If Satan has the power to intervene
in the direct work of the Spirit, then he would be more powerful than God!
Why are some classes of people harder to win than others? Paul
identified the Cretans as a problem people (Titus 1:12-13), and we could
identify Muslims and upper-caste Hindus today as such. Natural factors and
the extent of Satan's activity must be taken into account. If the Spirit immedi-
ately produces faith in the heart of the ‘elect,’ cannot the Spirit break through
a Muslim's heart with equal ease as with an American nominal Christian?
Beginning in the 50s, Donald A. McGavran initiated the church growth
movement, and missiologists have been engaged in very fruitful study of the
human factors (religious, sociological, anthropological, etc.) which contrib-
ute to people coming to faith in significant numbers. At first Calvinists
reacted negatively, but most have ignored the theological problems to agree
with the validity of these insights since it is so obvious to missionaries.
Why does God give the gift of faith to so many Americans and to so
few Libyans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Afghans, Tunisians, Turks, etc.? If
one starts with Calvinistic premises, God is clearly partial and loves Ameri-
cans more than others!
Coming to faith is a process.

While the new birth itself is an instantaneous work of the Holy Spirit in
which man has no participation, the process by which humans come to faith
may take years and involve spiritual struggles. Christ asked Saul of Tarsus
why he was kicking against the sharp ox-goad of conviction. Indeed, Satan’s
agents try their hardest to sidetrack inquirers to keep them from coming to
faith. Ignorance of the real nature of the gospel is a major hindrance, as are
all the smokescreens the godless world-system raises. And certainly the
sinful nature and depravity of the inquirer is a major obstacle. The Spirit
keeps on using Christian witness to break down these obstacles until the
person comes to genuine repentant faith. But the process must be clearly
distinguished from the new birth itself, otherwise confusion results. This
simple distinction does not fit in with Calvinistic doctrine at all.
Faith is not meritorious.

Nothing stated under these headings is profound; these points should be
obvious to all. Yet they directly contradict the deterministic theology which
sees the Holy Spirit as immediately and irresistibly 'zapping' the so-called
elect with faith and leaving the ‘non-elect’ in reprobation. They may plead
paradox, but the conflict and contradiction goes far beyond antinomy.*
Calvinists accuse other Christians of synergism,* but that term is pejora-
tive and begs the question. Its derivation from ergein implies that works are
involved (man working with God). However, faith is not a work! Christ told
a works-oriented multitude to believe in the Son: “This is the work of God, that
you believe in Him whom He has sent” (Jn. 6:29). His words could be para-
phrased, “If you works-oriented legalists want to do something to be saved,

just simply believe in Him whom He has sent.” Evangelicals must agree that
Christ is not calling faith a meritorious work. It is simply responding to God's
gift. Otherwise Christ would contradict Paul's argument in Romans 4:16 “that
it is by faith that it might be by grace.”
Conclusions
This study leads to the following conclusions: 1) Contemporary hyper-
Calvinists have gone far beyond Calvin and show a serious lapse into scho-
lastic deduction rather than giving preference to direct Scriptural inductive
study which is overwhelmingly consistent in showing that faith precedes and
is the condition for the new birth. 2) Repentant faith is not the immediate,
direct gift of God, but comes mediately through the proclamation of the word
of God and human instrumentality. 3) We must distinguish the means of
coming to faith, which is a mediate process, from regeneration itself, which
is a direct, immediate, and instantaneous work of God.
1. Samuel Fisk, Calvinistic Paths Retraced; Norman Geisler, Chosen But Free, appendices 5 and 10.
2. John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, trans. Wm. Pringle, p. 44.
3. John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (GR: Eerdmans, 1955), pp. 98, 103.
4. James Montgomery Boice, Awakening to God, p. 53.
5. R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God, p. 72.
6. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics (GR: Zondervan, 1996), pp. 617-9.
7. Ibid., p. 620.
8. Ibid., p. 621, footnote.
9. Ibid., p. 573 (omitting parenthetical amplifications for brevity.)
10. W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1980), II, p. 472ff.
11. Roy L. Aldrich, “The Gift of God,” Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 122: p. 248.
12. Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1958), III, p. 94.
13. John Calvin, Commentaries, trans. Pringle, vol. XXI, pp. 228-9.
14. Gregory Sapaugh, “Is Faith a Gift? A study of Ephesians 2:8, “ Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society 7, no.
12 (Spring 1994), pp. 39-40.
15. Laurence M. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism, pp. 516-7.
17. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures, VI, p. 147; Cleon L. Rogers, Jr., and Cleon L. Rogers, III, Linguistic and
Exegetical Key to the New Testament (Zondervan, 1998), p. 581.
18. D. L. Moody, paraphrased since exact reference unavailable.
19. Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, trans. Wm. Pringle (GR: Baker, 1979 reprint), XXI:227 (see also footnote by
Bloomfield, pp. 227-8).
20. James Oliver Buswell, Jr., A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, II, p. 132ff.
Know also that thou has a soul self-governed, the noblest
20
work of God, made after the image of its Creator, immor-
tal because of God that gives it immortality, a living being
rational, imperishable, because of Him that bestowed
these gifts: having free power to do what it willeth.
- Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 312-386)
‘Total depravity’ does not mean the absolute loss of every

vestige of good, but that evil has affected every part of
the nature and that nothing has remained untouched. . . .
Free will means the freedom of the soul in choosing, en-
abling it to determine conscious action. . . . In this sense
our freedom is real and the fall has not affected it.
-W. H. Griffith Thomas
(A founder of Dallas Seminary, slated
to be the first theology professor)
DOES DEPRAVITY REALLY

IMPLY TOTAL INABILITY?
The Fall and Human Depravity

Augustine’s doctrine of original sin
There are many aspects of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin which
can and must be affirmed, although the term ‘original sin’ may not be the
best way of describing it. Chafer rightly distinguished between personal sin,
transmitted sin, and imputed sin.1 The transmission of the sin nature to the
whole race hardly needs defense, since it is axiomatic (Eph. 2:1-3). The
natural headship of Adam is the best basis for the development of the
doctrine of imputed sin. This is not a matter of a supposed covenant, since
there is no covenant language to be seen in Genesis 2. The view of a
seminal headship is convincing.2 The context of Roman 5:12ff focuses on
the idea of the imputation of sin to all mankind, confirming this view.
Human depravity not in dispute

Many Calvinists assume they alone hold a biblical view of depravity.
They insist on ‘total depravity,’ perhaps unaware that the Latin depravare is an
intensive compound word already signifying “totally corrupt” or “completely
crooked.”3 Thus, adding the word ‘total’ indicates a doubly intensified con-
cept of depravity. But knowledgeable Calvinists recognize that Arminius and
Wesley had a fully biblical view of depravity, even though the Remonstrants*
and many Arminians have a weakened, shallow understanding.4
Norman Geisler argued that extreme Calvinism has an ‘intensive’ view
267
of depravity, in contrast with a biblical, ‘extensive’ understanding. The

intensive view, in effect, holds that the image of God and the human will are
essentially destroyed.5 The extensive view holds that Adam’s whole person
was corrupted by sin, but that the image of God and the human will have
not been destroyed but rather corrupted. This is essentially the semi-Augus-
tinian* view of the Synod of Orange (AD 529),* not the semi-Pelagianism* of
the later Roman church. A balanced view of depravity advocated here is
neither Arminian nor semi-Pelagian. It is not honest for scholars, such as R.
C. Sproul and J. I. Packer, to accuse other Evangelicals of being ‘semi-Pela-
gian’ when they are aware that there is a distinct semi-Augustinian view.
Does depravity mean total inability?

Human depravity in a real sense is affirmed by most evangelical theolo-
gians, even though there is significant semi-Pelagianism* at the popular
fringe. On the other hand, there has been a subtle semantic shift or extrapo-
lation in Calvinistic circles from depravity to total inability. However, deprav-
ity does not necessarily imply inability. The biblical testimony is clear that
humanity is totally unable to save itself. The new birth is totally a work of
the Spirit of God, as John 1:12-13 makes clear. Man cannot contribute one
iota to his regeneration. But since repentant faith is the required condition
of regeneration (cf. Ch. 19), then the whole question of whether fallen
human beings can exercise repentance and faith must be examined.
One would never get the notion from the Old Testament narrative that
mankind is totally unable to respond to God. It gives a consistent picture of
God confronting fallen man and expecting a positive response. He is
portrayed as taking the initiative from the very beginning in confronting lost
mankind by confronting Adam and Eve in the garden. His provision of shed-
blood garments to cover their nakedness implies they responded positively.
Their expulsion from the garden, while denying access to the tree of life, had
the positive impact of impressing their descendants with their alienation and
spiritual need. Abel responded in faith and obedience, but Cain did not.
One wonders why God would confront persistent rejecters like Cain, if the
missing element was a repentant faith which God Himself gives only to
some ‘elect’ group? Enosh, the son of Seth, marked the beginning of men
calling upon the name of the LORD (4:26). God then confronted mankind
through prophets, such as Enoch and Noah (Jude 14; 2 Pet. 2:5). In the latter
case none responded. The main point is that God was not operating on the
premise that man is totally unable to respond to His confrontation. The
history of Israel makes it abundantly clear that God continued to confront
the nation in many different ways, especially through the prophets, as to
their need to seek Him, to repent, and to return to Him (Isa. 55:6).
The New Testament record is similar. John and Christ were very
confrontational in their ministries. The Apostles, likewise, adopted a very
confrontational style, designed to bring about repentant faith in their hearers,
indeed, demanding repentant faith from their hearers. All this assumes the
Chapter 20 DOES DEPRAVITY REALLY IMPLY TOTAL INABILITY? 269
possibility of a positive response from their hearers, even though most did
not respond positively. Following the apostolic example, we must adopt a
graciously confrontational approach to unbelievers based upon the premise
that they can respond positively. Indeed, Paul especially used an apologetic
method which appealed to his hearers’ whole personality: intellect, emo-
tions, and will (Acts 17:2-4,17; 18:4; 19:8-9; 26:28). So although it is clear that
sinners cannot please God by their moral behavior, they are able to respond
to the gospel of Christ. Man is responsible to exercise repentant faith; it is
not a direct gift of God (cf. Ch. 19). Thus, those people who argue that apart
from irresistible grace, evangelism is like preaching to corpses in a funeral
parlor, have exaggerated the impact of the fall. Based upon a biblically
accurate definition of spiritual death and the remnant image of God, such
analogies are totally inappropriate. In any case, analogies prove nothing!
Does mankind retain any autonomy?

Some object to the use of the term ‘free will’ as used by church fathers
for centuries before Augustine. Since humanity has become enslaved to sin,
Satan, and the world-system, a term related to freedom might be ques-
tioned. Luther rightly spoke about the “bondage of the will.” A more
appropriate term might be autonomy, but a limited autonomy since man is
bound by sin, but real nevertheless. Sproul objected to the use of the term:
“If God is sovereign, then man cannot be autonomous. Conversely if man is autonomous,
then God cannot be sovereign. The two are mutually exclusive concepts.”6 However, this
depends upon the definitions of these terms. If sovereignty means universal
causality, then Sproul is right. But in Chapter 2, ommicausality* was shown
to be without any scriptural warrant. The usage of the term ‘autonomous’ in
secular life rarely implies total autonomy, nor is total autonomy claimed for
man. (In geopolitics, an ‘autonomous region’ in a sovereign country usually
has a limited autonomy.) So there is no real conflict between a biblical view
of divine sovereignty and of human autonomy.
Thus, after the fall, man retained some God-given autonomy, though
limited by sin. Indeed, in his sin mankind increasingly continued to abuse
that autonomy. Certainly God had not programmed man to play out the
violence, about which Moses stated, “The LORD was sorry that He had made man
on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” (Gen. 6:6). The history of God’s
choice people Israel is hardly more encouraging. Man was ‘doing his own
thing.’ This is not only clear throughout the biblical narrative but stands out
in boldface. It would be depressing to read of humanity’s descent into
progressive rebellion if we believed that God had programmed this in
eternity and if we did not believe that He was working behind the scenes to
accomplish His purpose in preparing His plan of salvation for lost mankind.
In the Gospels, the rapidity with which Israel began to oppose and plot
the demise of their Messiah is proof that mankind grossly abuses its auton-
omy. Two mistranslated and misinterpreted passages in the Gospels
highlight this: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven
has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it” (Mt. 11:12,
TNIV).A John was to suffer the violence of being beheaded, short of what
the Messiah Himself was soon to suffer in His crucifixion. Thus, the two
principal representatives of the kingdom suffered the ultimate violence.
The Lord repeatedly warned His Apostles of the opposition they would
suffer (Mt. 10:16-42), which began shortly after Pentecost. Acts is a chronicle
of ongoing persecution. Not just in history but also in apostolic prophecy
there is testimony to its unmitigated continuance until Christ returns (Mt. 24-
25; 1 Tim. 4:1ff; 2 Tim. 3:1ff; 2 Thess. 2:1-12; 2 Pet. 3:1-9). The church
suffered severe persecution under the Romans for three centuries, and since
then persecution of true Christians around the world is escalating. Certainly
this is not a record of man acting out some imagined eternal decree; it is
man abusing the autonomy God gave him at creation by becoming Satan’s
instruments of hostility to God and His Church.
Does fallen man retain free will?

The first denial of free will. Free will is a ‘dirty word’ among some
Christians. However, early church fathers not only coined the term but
defended it against the determinism of Neo-Platonism,* Gnosticism,* and
Manicheanism.* It is especially significant how many of them connected the
image of God with free will. For example, hear Methodius (c. 260-311): “Now
those who decide that man is not possessed of free will, and affirm that he is governed by the
unavoidable necessities of fate . . . are guilty of impiety toward God Himself, making Him out
to be the cause and author of human evils” (The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, xvi). Hear
Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395): “Being the image and the likeness of . . . the Power
which rules all thing, man kept also in the matter of a free will this likeness to Him whose will
is over all” (On Virginity, 368, chap. X11). Hear John Chrysostom (347-407): “All is in
God’s power, but so that our free will is not lost . . . it depends therefore on us and on Him.
We must first choose the good, and then He adds what belongs to Him. . . . It is ours to
choose beforehand and to will, but God’s to perfect and bring to the end” (On Hebrews
Homily, 12). Geisler summarized: “Not a single church figure in the first 300 years
rejected it [free-will] and most of them stated it in works still extant.”7 He then compared
Augustine’s earlier writings to his later ones to show that by AD 417 his view
had radically hardened to a denial of free will. Since the change came in his
debate with Pelagius and while trying to coerce the Donatists back into the
Roman church, his agenda may have been more pragmatic than doctrinal.8
Luther and Calvin, in countering the semi-Pelagianism* of Roman Catholi-
cism, pushed Augustine’s denial of the freedom of the will even further.9
A. When compared with a similar statement in Lk.16:16, a mistranslation is clear: “The Law and the
Prophets were proclaimed until John; since then the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached,
and everyone is forcing his way into it.” All translators have missed the force of pas eis autçn
biadzetai. The eis should be rendered ‘against’ not ‘into’ (Dana & Mantey, p. 103). Thus: “all kinds of
men are perpetrating violence against it” makes better sense in the light of Mt.11:12, where biastai
harpadzousin autçn should be rendered, “violent men usurp it.” Cf. my website.
The root of human sin. Comedian Flip Wilson became famous for
saying, “The Devil made me do it.” Some theologians, in trying to explain
how Adam with a good nature could perform an evil act, have pushed the
problem back to Satan. But since it is clear biblically that God did not create
any sinful beings, this only pushes the problem back one step. Martin
Luther, having been an Augustinian* monk, pushed the problem back one
more step to God and His decrees by including Satan’s sin in God’s decrees.
Hyper-Calvinist R. C. Sproul is not willing to go that far, but admitted that it is
an “excruciating problem.”10 R. C. Sproul, Jr. has indeed gone that far.
Geisler argued quite effectively, both rationally and biblically, that self-
caused actions are the best explanation for the origin of evil. God’s creation
of His creatures with free choice best explains the possibility of evil. God
created Lucifer as a holy cherub, but unrighteousness was found in him and
he became Satan. How did this happen? It is clear that Satan originated sin
and rebellion against God (Isa. 14:12-15; Ezek. 28:12-17). Geisler suggested
that there are only three options: “My actions are (1) uncaused; (2) caused by
someone (or something) else; or (3) caused by my Self. There are many reasons to support
the last view.” He showed that extreme Calvinists make a fundamental error
in failing to distinguish between self-caused being, which is impossible apart
from God, and self-caused action, which is the only way to explain Lucifer’s
sin.11 Clearly, Lucifer’s unrighteous pride was self-caused.
God’s judgment of the sin of Lucifer (Ezek. 28:16-19; 1 Tim. 3:6; Rev.
20:10), of fallen angels (Jude 6-7; 2 Pet. 2:4; Rev. 12:4, 9), and of Adam and
Eve (Gen. 3:1-19) makes it clear that God holds free creatures morally
responsible for their free choices. Fallen people must have adequate
freedom of the will to make moral choices; otherwise, He could not justly
judge them for their deeds (Rev. 20:12). One of the most dominant ideas of
Scripture, from Genesis to the Revelation, is that God judges the sins of
individuals, families, and nations, and that He is just in His judgments.
Direct Scripture evidence. There is direct evidence that fallen man
continues to exercise his uncoerced will, not only in the ordinary decisions
of life, but also in moral decisions relating to God. Moses challenged Israel:
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life
and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you
and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by
holding fast to Him;” (Deut. 30:19-20a). Later, Joshua made the same chal-
lenge: “And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for your-
selves today whom you will serve: . . .” (Josh. 24:15). Isaiah similarly exhorted
Israel: “Come now, and let us reason together, . . . if you consent and obey, . . . but if
you refuse and rebel, . . .” (Isa. 1:18-19; cf. 1 Kings 18:21 & Isa. 45:22). Didn’t
Moses, Joshua, and the prophets understand the doctrine of total inability
and know that man cannot ‘choose life’? Some people think that expecting
people to choose robs God of His glory and sovereignty. Not in the least!
Consider how John, Christ, and His Apostles demanded repentance
and faith from their hearers. Christ identified the problem of the Jewish
leaders: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal
life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to me so that you
may have life” (Jn. 5:39-40). At the Feast, He explained the contingent factor
in our coming to the truth: “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the
teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from myself” (Jn. 7:17). This was
capped off with His final lament over Jerusalem: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who
kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather
your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you
were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate” (Mt. 23:37-8).
Many other direct invitations should be considered (Mt. 11:28; 22:3; Jn. 7:37-
3). Judgment came upon the unwilling. It is the will of man, not the will of
God which is the problem. So both for those who positively respond and
those who reject, Christ made it clear that the issue is the human will.
Note Peter’s warning about the end-time mockers: “But they deliberately
forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out
of water and with water” (2 Pet. 3:5, NIV). Creation and the flood are two key
issues that modern man does not want to accept because then he would
have to respond to God’s claims.
Some may ask, why quote these familiar verses? Sometimes we miss
the obvious force of the familiar. Norman Douty’s comment is pointed:
Moreover, in the Apostolic preaching of the Gospel, sinners were spoken to as if expected
to act then and there— without any suggestion that, after all they were under some
insuperable necessity of doing nothing. It is simply a matter of record that the primitive
preachers did not tell their hearers that they had absolutely no ability to do anything in
response to God’s call, invitation, command and threat.12
Prooftexts for Total Inability

Calvinists base total inability upon a number of Scripture passages.
John 6:37, 44, 65
Calvinists see in Christ's statement that, “All that the Father gives Me shall
come to Me” a reference to the ‘elect,’ who will irresistibly be drawn to Christ.
They hold that this is confirmed by the converse in v. 44, “No one can come to
Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” They do not consider any alter-
nate interpretation suggested by the context. Rather than assuming He was
referring to the elect, it must be examined in its historical context.
Context. In the Bread of Life Discourse Christ was having an animated
dialogue with a skeptical inquiring crowd (vv. 24ff). He had just stated that
although they had seen Him, they still have not believed (6:36). Then in
contrast, he referred to the truly believing disciples in the crowd as “all that
the Father gives Me,” who are inevitably coming to Him. The key issue all the
way through the dialogue is faith or its lack (6:29, 35, 40, 47, 64), and he
symbolized faith as eating and drinking Him (6:35, 51, 53-58). Later He
emphasized the human response factor: “If anyone is willing to do His will, he
will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself” (7:17).
Identification. The key to the correct interpretation of this passage is in
identifying those whom Christ described as, “all that the Father gives Me.”
Since He used this phrase at least four other times, those contexts must also
be examined. “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me
I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day” (6:39). “. . . that the Son may glorify You,
even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He
may give eternal life” (17:1-2). “I manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me
out of the world. They were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your
word” (17:6). “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those
whom You hast given Me; for they are Yours” (17:9). From the context of His high
priestly prayer, it becomes clear that He is referring to the living disciples,
whom the Father had given Him, especially the Apostles.
This could not be a reference to that abstract concept of the elect of all
ages for a number of reasons. In 17:6, the Lord Jesus had shown the Father
to them personally. This could not be true of the elect of past ages, and the
past tense He used (aorist) would not likely include the ‘elect’ of future ages.
The clause, “they have kept Your word” also eliminates future generations since
it is obvious that this could not be said about them. Additionally, He later
clarified that those who in turn believe through their word are distinct from
those whom the Father had already given him: “I do not ask on behalf of these
alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word . . .” (17:20). So the
idea is clear in both contexts that the Father was turning the godly Jewish
remnant over to the Son during His earthly ministry. These are the already
believing ones who inevitably come to Him since they were already regener-
ate. Thus, this passage has nothing to do with irresistible grace upon unbe-
lievers since these were already sincere believers. This is confirmed by the
Lord’s earlier statement upon the return of the seventy ambassadors, when
He praised the Father for revealing His mysteries to these little children: “All
things have been handed over to me by my Father, . . .” (Lk. 10:22a, ESV). This is
a clear reference to the living people who have been handed over to Him by
the Father, not some abstract concept of ‘the elect.’
The believing remnant. In previous ages, Old Testament saints had
put their trust in the Father. Now that the Son has begun His ministry, that
believing remnant is being given to the Son by the Father. This included
many converts of John the Baptizer, as the Apostle John had described in
John 1, including himself, James, Peter, Andrew, Nathaniel, and others.
Previously they had “heard and learned from the Father” (John 6:45). Now they
are transferring their faith to the Son, that is, they are coming to Him.
Christ’s quotation from Isaiah 54:13 in John 6:45 is strong confirmation of
this: “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of GOD.’ Everyone who
has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me” (6:45). It becomes clear that
those contemporary disciples, who were under His ministry and were open
to the Father’s teaching from the Old Testament, were the ones who came
to Him in faith. A clear example is His comment at Caesarea Philippi after

Peter’s confession of His deity: “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh
and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 16:17).
Drawing. The ‘drawing’ of John 6:44 requires further examination: “No
one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up
on the last day.” Calvinists see this as an irresistible drawing. This is possible,
but certainly not necessary, since the BAGD lexicon lists a second meaning
for helkuein, “to draw a pers[on] in the direction of values for inner life, draw, attract, an
extended fig. use of mng.” Then a dozen references from the secular Greek and
the Septuagint are given in support of this. None indicate any supposed
irresistibility: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you
with lovingkindness” (Jer. 31.3). “Therefore the maidens love you. Draw me after you
and let us run together” (Songs 1:3-4).13 Also the LSJ lexicon lists among many
meanings: “8. Draw to oneself, attract. . .” with six additional references in
support. Note that the primary literal meaning of the verb ‘to draw, to drag’
has reference to physical objects, whereas the figurative usage in reference
to the inner life of a person is appropriately not coercive. Christ used the
same word, helkuein, again in John 12:32: “‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men to Myself’.” In the context, especially of 12:20, it is clear that
He referred to Gentiles as well as Jews when He spoke of ‘all men’, which
can be translated as ‘all kinds of men.’ Although this passage is not claimed
as proof of general redemption, neither can it be used for irresistible grace!
Secondary meaning. It is clear that the primary meaning, ‘pull, drag,
draw,’ in reference to physical objects is inappropriate here. It certainly
does not fit these two contexts: “No one can come to Me unless the Father
who sent Me drags him” and “I . . . will drag all men to Myself.” It is astonish-
ing that Boettner even highlights that meaning in his discussion.14 Sproul
prefers ‘compel,’ for which he claims that TDNT “defines it to mean to compel by
irresistible superiority. Linguistically and lexicographically, the word means ‘to compel.’”15
Sproul badly misused this TDNT articleB (cf. endnote16). Do we really want
to believe that God drags us kicking and screaming to salvation? Is our God
really a coercive God? Presumably most Calvinists would not agree with
Boettner and Sproul in this use of the primary, non-figurative connotation.17
Thus, it is clear that the secondary, figurative meaning is absolutely required.
B. Oepke in TDNT gives no such definition, and by his misuse Sproul shows that he does not understand
the difference between a theological dictionary and a lexicon. Oepke’s article on helkuein lists many
secular and biblical usages from which Sproul lifts the meaning “compel” in two papyri in reference to
some sort of physical compulsion. But Oepke went on to say: “More comparable with the Johannine
usage is that of Porphyr. Marc., 16. . . Cf. Also Corp. Herm., X, 6.” Both references support the second
meaning given in BAGD above, that is, a figurative meaning having to do with the inner life. Then in the
more definitive large print paragraph, Oepke concluded: “The word is used of mother love in 4 Macc.
14:13; 15:11. We find a beneficent ‘drawing’ of God in Jer. 38:3 [31:3]: . . . The original refers more to
patience. The LXX is thinking, not so much of drawing out in deliverance . . . but of drawing to oneself
in love. This usage is distinctively developed by Jn, . . .”
So how are people drawn to Christ? The context of John 6:44 makes
clear they were drawn by the testimony of Abraham, Moses, and the proph-
ets, as Jews checked out the supernatural credentials of Jesus of Nazareth
and concluded with Nathaniel, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King
of Israel” (Jn. 1:49). Now since Pentecost, God has used the apostolic
message and ministry, working mediately through Christian witnesses. It is
as simple as that! Dean Henry Alford, that master exegete, confirmed this:
That this ‘drawing’ is not irresistible grace, is confessed even by Augustine himself, the
great upholder of the doctrines of grace. “If a man . . . come unwillingly, he does not
believe; if he does not believe, he does not come. For we do not run to Christ on our feet,
but by faith; not with the movement of the body, but with the free will of the heart.” . . . The
Greek expositors take the view which I have adopted above. . . . This drawing now is being
exerted on all the world—in accordance with the Lord’s prophecy (12:32) and His com-
mand (Matthew 28:19-20).18
Transition. Vance made another significant observation, in John 6:44,
it is the Father who has been drawing people to Christ, since the Father has
been putting the believing remnant of Jews into the charge of the Son (“all
who the Father gives Me”). However, in 12:32, the Lord Jesus stated that after
the cross, He Himself would draw all kinds of people to Himself.19 This
obvious contrast with 6:44 confirms the issue is the believing Jewish rem-
nant in contrast to a diversity of Gentiles, neither of which says anything
about irresistible grace. Calvinists totally ignore the context!.
John 6:65. Although 6:65 is part of the same general context of the
contrast of believers with unbelievers, there are some additional consider-
ations here: “And He was saying, ‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can
come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father’.” Apart from the
context this might seem to imply that apart from irresistible grace, the ‘non-
elect’ are hopelessly reprobated to Hell. Here also the context is exceedingly
important. Many of his professing disciples had just been grumbling at His
words (6:61), and then the immediately preceding verse is crucial, “…‘But
there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who
they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him” (6:64). “As a
result of this many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore”
(6:66). “‘Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?’” (6:70).
Obviously this choice was to apostleship, not to salvation!
Rejecting great light. Thus Christ made this statement in reference to
professed disciples, especially to Judas Iscariot, who walked with Him for
years, were under His teaching, and had seen His miracles. They rejected
the greatest light that anybody could ever reject. They had professed to
believe but were counterfeits! These are the ones God was not allowing to
come to Him. What is the principle here? Is it the hidden counsel of God to
which Calvinists flee, or is it God’s judgment upon rejection of great light?
The answer was given by a converted Pharisee years later who had severely
persecuted the Church. He held the garments of those who stoned Stephen.
He had resisted the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, kicking against the
oxgoads (Acts 26:14). Yet God saved him! He explained the reason in 1
Timothy 1:12-13. “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because
He considered me faithful, putting me into service; even though I was formerly a
blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. And yet I was shown mercy,
because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.” He had not closed his heart against great
light. But Judas and other counterfeit disciples sinned against the greatest
light possible, and thus came under the judgmental blindness so frequently
mentioned in Scripture (Rom. 1:18-25; 2 Thess. 2:8-12).
Judgment. Later in a discussion with some Pharisees, the Lord said,
“‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see; and that
those who see may become blind.' Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard
these things and said to Him, 'We are not blind too, are we?' Jesus said to them, 'If you
were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains’”
(John 9:39-41). So John 6:65 must be understood in a judgmental sense and
not as having anything to do with reprobation in eternity past.
This same principle is operative in John 12:37-48, pulled out of its
context to show that the ‘non-elect’ cannot believe. This also speaks of
judgmental blindness on those who closed their hearts to such great light:
“But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing
in Him; . . . He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges
him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day” (Jn. 12:37, 48).
John 8:43-44. Another similar statement comes in this context: “Why
do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You
are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father” (8:43-44a).
This cannot be generalized to all unregenerate people, since it is clear that
Christ was addressing some hard-core unbelievers who were planning to
have Him killed. They were the ones who could not hear His word.
John 12:39-40. This same principle is seen again in John 12:39-40: “For
this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, ‘He has blinded their eyes and
He hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with
their heart, and be converted and I heal them.’” The context is in passion week,
when the hostility of the rulers was reaching a peak and a hostile crowd had
challenged Him (12:34) and was ignoring His miraculous works (12:37). He
had spoken of impending judgment (12:31). The Isaiah quotation speaks of
judgmental blindness upon those who closed their hearts to great light, now
being fulfilled especially in Israel’s rejection of their Messiah. It has nothing
to do with any supposed inability of all mankind to respond to the gospel.
Pauline passages. Although Romans 8:7-8 is quoted to support
inability, it affirms the inability of unregenerate man to fulfill the law or
please God morally, but it says nothing about mankind’s ability or inability
to believe the gospel. Romans 9:15-16 is a favorite proof-text of Calvinists
taken up in Chapter 25. The antecedent of ‘it’ in v. 16 is God’s sovereign
purpose to choose Jacob over Esau as the progenitor of the nation Israel, as
mentioned in v. 11. Thus this passage also has nothing to do with human
inability to believe God’s message. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 has
nothing to do with this: “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they
are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all thing, yet he himself is
appraised by no one.” Here Paul is speaking about the whole process of
revelation and inspiration by which the Holy Spirit communicated even the
“deep things of God” through the Apostles, which were ultimately written
down in Scripture. It is in contrast to the “spiritual man” who appraises these
deep truths. Thus he wasn’t speaking of inability of all the unregenerate to
understand and believe the simple gospel message. We were all ‘natural’
men once, but we did come to understand the simple demands of the
gospel. Other chapters explain how this happens.
Other Problems with Inability

Can mankind respond to general revelation?
God holds human beings responsible, not only for His special self-
revelation in His word, but also for the revelation of Himself to all mankind
in nature and conscience. Speaking of hard-core unbelievers, Paul wrote:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that
which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been
made, so that they are without excuse (Rom. 1:18-20).
Then in Romans 2:14-16, Paul explained the part that the human con-
science, as the law of God written on the heart, has to play in helping people
to respond to that revelation of God in nature. Today the revelation of God
in His creation is even clearer to us with our increased scientific knowledge.
Whether in the macrocosm of astronomy or the microcosm of atomic
physics, God’s intelligent design is so manifest that many non-Christians are
admitting that there must be an Intelligent Designer.
God has used this general revelation to prepare the minds of untold
numbers of non-Christians for the gospel. For example, missionary surgeon
Dr. Viggo Olsen and his wife were converted while he was an intern. As
agnostics, they first struggled with the question of the existence of a Creator
God. Through apologetic literature they got a positive answer and then went
on to the question of which book is a true revelation of that God. While
struggling with this apologetic sequence, they both were saved.20
This all seems like an exercise in futility if mankind is totally unable to
respond to God’s message. Why should God reveal Himself thus to all
mankind and hold them accountable for it if indeed He has already deter-
mined that only certain elect people can ever respond, believe, and be
saved? Why should He write His law on human hearts if people are totally
unable to respond? It seems absurd!
Can mankind seek God?

The only time a hyper-Calvinistic colleague ever admitted to any prob-
lem with Calvinism was when he said that Isaiah 55:6 troubled him. How-
ever, if he had checked it out, he would have found fifty other passages
contradictory to inability simply by opening his concordance to ‘seek.’
Many base inability on the English of Romans 3:10-11: “There is none
righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for
God.” In Paul’s paraphrase of the Septuagint of Psalm 14, he was careful to
use the intensified verb ekzçtein, rather than the simple zçtein. From its usage
in Acts 15:17; Heb. 11:6; 12:17; and 1 Pet. 1:10, it is clear that he was not
referring to an indifferent seeking, but a ‘diligent seeking’ for God. So Paul
didn’t say that no one ever seeks God at all, but rather that no one diligently
seeks God. It is also significant that this is a present participle, which likely
has a customary force. This refers to a regularly recurring action,21 and thus,
could be rendered, “no one customarily and diligently seeks God.” Otherwise,
if neither of the above were true, Scripture would be in contradiction with
itself since there are about fifty verses in which people are commanded to
seek God! Why ignore the fifty (see below) and focus on one? William A.
Butler, that ‘brilliant and profound thinker,’ got it right: “We hold a few texts so
near the eyes that they hide the rest of the Bible.”22 In this case, it is just one text!
The context of Psalm 14 which Paul quoted is also very important.
David said the atheistic fool who says in his heart there is no God does not
diligently seek God. Although Paul expanded the application of David’s
words somewhat, he was giving a generalized statement about the human
race as a whole, extending to both Jews and Gentiles, but not intended to be
all-inclusive. This becomes clear from the fifty other references to ‘seek.’
Here are just a few of them.
Consider God’s predictive warning of exile to disobedient Israel: “But
from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for
Him with all your heart and all your soul” (Deut. 4:29); David’s command to
Israel’s leaders: “Now set your heart and your soul to seek the LORD your God;” (1
Chr. 22:19a); God’s rebuke to apostate Israel: “I will go away and return to My
place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will
earnestly seek Me” (Hos. 5:15); Amos’s double exhortation: “Seek Me that you
may live” (Amos 5:4, 6); and “Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth” (Zeph.
2:3). (cf. 1 Chr. 28:9b; 2 Chr. 15:2b; Ps. 105:3b-4; Isa. 55:6-7; Jer. 29:12-13).
If someone naively says these are all part of the old dispensation, hear
Paul, the Apostle of grace speaking to Gentiles, “that they would seek God, if
perhaps they might grope for Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts
17:27), and “. . . to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and
honor and immortality, eternal life” (Rom. 2:7). Check a concordance for the
rest.
The prodigal son. The parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32
gives further evidence against inability. Some are unclear as to whether it is
about the restoration of a backslider or the salvation of a sinner. Christ’s
language is clear: “. . . for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he
was lost and has been found” (15:24). The father repeats the same language to
the older brother in v. 32. He was spiritually dead and lost. Yet the Lord
made the point that “he came to his senses” in the far country and repented of
his sin and his unworthiness (15:17-19) and took the initiative to go to the
father (15:20). This is in total harmony with the other passages listed above
and very hard to reconcile with total inability. What is more, He empha-
sized, in all three parables of lost things, the great joy in heaven when a
sinner repents (15:7, 10, 25, 32)—there is even music and celebration! If
sinners are saved by irresistible grace according to unconditional election by
God in eternity past, what would be the point of rejoicing in heaven? The
salvation of the ‘elect’ would be so cut and dried, there could be no surprise
and rejoicing at what was a foregone conclusion. Do you see why teaching
the Gospels causes me to get disillusioned with Calvinistic determinism?*
Case studies. The New Testament supplies many case studies.
Consider Andrew and John, who sought the Lord after hearing the Baptizer’s
witness. Nathaniel was dubious about Philip’s witness but took the trouble
to check out the Lord Jesus(Jn. 1:35-51). Nicodemus sought Him out, albeit
by night, and ultimately came to faith (Jn. 3:1-21; 19:39-40). The Ethiopian
eunuch, though an excluded Gentile, had traveled to Jerusalem to worship
and found Christ through the other Philip on the Gaza road (Acts 8:26-38).
The Roman centurion, Cornelius, though yet unsaved (Acts 11:14), prayed
and worshiped the God of Israel who honored his prayers and alms with the
privilege of becoming the first Gentile convert in the church (Acts 10:1–
11:17). Consider the noble-minded Berean Jews who examined the Scrip-
tures daily to verify Paul’s message and “therefore” believed (Acts 17:10-12).
In the early 60s, a young Maulvi (Mullah) of a mosque in a village in
central Pakistan, where there were no Christians, became disillusioned with
Islam. Ismail came to the Lahore railway station to inquire about Christian-
ity or Hinduism by crossing over to India. Providentially, he was directed to
a born-again Christian, who took him to the leaders of Bethany Assembly.
They took him in and diligently explained salvation to him. He attended
worship until one day it was my turn to preach. The message from 1 Corin-
thians 13 was on love (something Muslims hear little about). Totally oblivi-
ous to this Muslim in the congregation, I didn’t even give a gospel appeal, as
I now habitually do. After half an hour of open prayer time, as the bread was
being distributed during the Lord’s supper, Ismail said out loud, “Give me
some!” When one of the stunned elders gave a nod of approval, he was
included. He shaved off his beard after the service, was baptized in the
canal the next day, and changed his name to Timotheus. He began immedi-
ately to join us in witness for Christ. Other examples could be given.
Conclusions
Calvinists wrongly extrapolate the biblical teaching on depravity into
their doctrine of total inability, implying that people cannot respond to the
gospel apart from the irresistible grace of the new birth. Their intensive view
of depravity is not supported by inductive evidence. It is clear that mankind
retains significant autonomy. God’s dealings with people in the biblical
narrative clearly indicates He does not see them as unable to respond to His
exhortations, appeals, and to the gospel itself. The early church fathers
believed God’s image in fallen man implies free will with abundant evidence
to support their conclusion. Not only can people respond to God’s special
revelation, but He also expects them to respond to general revelation.
Indeed, people are commanded fifty times to seek God, despite the inade-
quate translation of Romans 3:11, upon which Calvinists put so much
weight. Lastly, we have shown that Calvinistic interpretations of John 6 and
other passages assume too much and are not at all context sensitive.
EXCURSUS: R. C. Sproul’s, Willing to Believe

R.C. Sproul’s 1997 book, Willing to Believe: The Controversy over Free Will must be responded
to since he is a leading spokesman for Calvinistic theology. He surveyed nine historical viewpoints on
the issue. However, there is a strong bias which comes through in the introductory chapter and in the
selection of viewpoints. He polarized the viewpoints rather than clarifying the issues.
In the introductory chapter, he inveighed against semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism in pejorative
terms. Indeed, he quoted Packer and Johnston approvingly that the present-day evangelical Christian
has semi-Pelagianism in his blood (p. 22). He also stated that Arminians (and the rest of us) are barely
Christians because putting faith before regeneration is “fundamentally un-Christian.” This is highly
insulting to hundreds of millions of evangelical Christians! How can Sproul deal with the historical
material in a balanced and unbiased way with such a narrow attitude of heart? We would hardly call him
barely Christian and his views as fundamentally un-Christian, even though seriously wrong!
Throughout his book Sproul polarized the discussion by recognizing essentially only three views:
the Augustinian, semi-Pelagian, and Pelagian. This skewed the discussion considerably since there are
clearly at least four and probably many more distinct positions which can be identified, as can be seen
from the historical investigation in Chapter 27. There we see that both Schaff and Neve clearly identified
a semi-Augustinian position as distinct from the semi-Pelagian. Sproul is aware of the semi-Augustinian
position since he alluded to it in passing on page 76, but he chose to ignore it throughout the book. This
also prejudices the case especially if the semi-Augustinian position ends up being the biblical one. It
needs to be directly addressed, not ignored, especially since it has strong historical antecedents.
His selection of representatives similarly biased the discussion, since no mediate theologian is
discussed. Why no chapter on semi-Augustinians or on Phillip Melanchthon, who modified Luther’s
Augustinianism substantially, and out of whose teachings a whole school of Lutheranism developed?
Why no mention of Moyse Amyraut and the whole general-redemption movement in the seventeenth-
century Huguenot churches in France, or of such as Richard Baxter, who took a middle position?
The closest he came is in his treatment of Lewis Sperry Chafer, who was Amyraldian.* He rightly
showed some of the inconsistencies of Chafer’s attempt to hold a moderate Calvinism. His treatment of
Chafer is almost wholly derived from John Gerstner’s highly pejorative treatment of Dispensationalism,*
in which Gerstner is not directly addressing Chafer’s soteriology. Nevertheless, Gerstner raised the old
chestnut that dispensationalists teach two ways of salvation, when in fact dispensationalists have
repeatedly denied that charge for scores of years. In fact, dispensationalists teach different rules of life
for believers in different ages, as Chafer made very clear. How could Sproul and Gerstner fairly deal
with a theology which they have not honestly sought to understand?

Most significant is Sproul’s failure to really get into biblical or systematic theology, per se. There
is no biblical exegesis of the determinative Scriptures. Although Augustine’s anthropology is satisfying
to Sproul, would he agree with his soteriology of salvation through the church and its sacraments. He
probably felt that Calvin’s writings represent him fairly, but in fact Calvin held to general redemption, as
proved by Kendall, Armstrong, and Geisler. (See the quotations of Calvin in the next chapter.) The
methodology of pitting polarized views against each other without doing any biblical exegesis is a flawed
and unprofitable approach to arriving at theological truth.
1. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, III.

2. Henry C. Thiessen, Systematic Theology, pp. 264-66; cf. J. O. Buswell, Jr., Systematic Theology, I, 304.
3. Vance, Calvinism (2nd ed.), p. 185; D. A. Kidd, Collins Gem Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Harper-Collins).
4. Sproul, Willing to Believe, p. 126; Cunningham, Theology, II:389; Jewett, Election and Predestination, p. 17.
5. Geisler, Chosen But Free, p. 116; Hoitenga, John Calvin and the Will, p. 69-70, 73. See note #11 below.
6. Sproul, pp. 20-26, quote on p. 27.
7. Forster and Marston, God’s Strategy, pp. 244ff; Geisler, pp. 145-154.
8. Geisler, pp. 150-1; 161-72.
9. Hoitenga, Calvin and the Will, p. 19: “Augustine, while clearly teaching the bondage of the will and the sovereignty
of grace, took great care to preserve man’s free will. Calvin was much more polemical in his assertion of human
impotence and was reluctant to talk of free will.” (A. S. N. Lane, “Did Calvin Believe in Free Will?”) On pp. 69ff he
argued his view involved “nearly the complete destruction” of the natural and supernatural components of the will.
10. Sproul, Chosen by God, p. 31.
11. Geisler, p. 25, full discussion pp. 19-37.
12. Norman F. Douty, The Death of Christ, p.66.
13. Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p.318.
14. L. Boettner, Reformed Faith, p. 11.
15. Sproul, Chosen by God, p. 69.
16. Albrecht Oepke in TDNT, II:503. What Sproul has done here is to pick out of many diverse usages the one
obscure usage which suits his theology, ignoring all the rest, both of Oepke’s explicit opinion in reference to the
Johannine usage, and the three definitions given by BAGD and the many definitions given in LSJ. The phrase Sproul
used, “to compel by irresistible superiority” is not found in TDNT or in any of the lexicons. The only time the word
‘irresistible’ is used in the Oepke article is in reference to a Hebrew word, which may not have anything to do with
helkuein. Either Sproul is naive of the proper use of a theological dictionary or has not been honest in its use.
17. Sproul, pp. 122-3; Although Sproul repudiated the idea of God dragging us kicking and screaming, his use of
the word ‘compel’ certainly communicates that meaning.
18. Henry Alford, The New Testament for English Readers: John, p. 521. The Augustine quotation was probably
from his early writings.
19. Vance, p. 511.
20. Viggo B. Olsen, Daktar: Diplomat in Baqngladesh (Chicago: Moody Press, 1973), pp. 29-57.
21. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, pp. 521-3.
22. Douty, p. 66, quoting the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia and a secondary source. His point is well taken.
It is incontestable that Christ came for the expi-
21
ation of the sins of the whole world. But the solu-
tion lies close at hand, that whosoever believes in
Him should not perish but should have eternal life
(John 3:15). . . . For although there is nothing in the
world deserving of God’s favour, He nevertheless
shows He is favourable to the whole world when
He calls all without exception to the faith of
Christ, which is indeed an entry into life. . . . for
God commends to us the salvation of all men with-
out exception, even as Christ suffered for the
sins of the whole world. -John Calvin
DID CHRIST REALLY DIE

FOR EVERY SINNER?
What about Limited Atonement?

This chapter on ‘general redemption’1 should not be necessary, since
examination of the Greek words for Christ’s passion and salvation in Chapter
5, clearly showed the basis for believing that Christ died for each and every
sinner. However, since the error of ‘limited atonement’ has dogged the
church for four centuries, it must be responded to in more detail.
A uniquely held doctrine. Hyper-Calvinism alone holds to a ‘limited
atonement’ in that Christ died only for the ‘elect’ and not in any real sense
for all mankind. It derives from their premise of unconditional election, and
the issue would never have arisen apart from that doctrine. Limited atone-
ment is their peculiar view and is rejected by all other Christians.
A new doctrine. This doctrine is also relatively recent, not held until
Theodor Beza (1519-1605), and does not appear in any creed until the
Canons of Dort (1618-9).* Neither Augustine nor any first generation Re-
former held it.2 There has been a strong reaction against it from a majority
ever since it was first touted. Even Jonathan Edwards’ successors, the New
Divinity theologians, all affirmed general redemption. Since it is clear that
Calvin himself did not hold to it, in all honesty, we cannot refer to those who
hold it as Calvinists (cf. App. E in 1st ed.). Many terms have been used: ultra-
Calvinists, hyper-Calvinists, developed, scholastic, or extreme Calvinists. For
historical accuracy, however, they should be designated as ‘Beza-ites.’
Two dimensions of salvation truth. Inductive study of the various
Greek words referring to Christ’s saving work revealed ‘atonement’ is not
282
Chapter 21 DID CHRIST REALLY DIE FOR EVERY SINNER? 283
even a New Testament word and does not bring out the two major dimen-
sions: on the one hand, an objective, historical, universal aspect, and on the
other, a subjective, individual, and limited aspect (cf. Ch. 5). The truth is
two-sided and must be grasped with both hands. Taking one side and
forcing all other Scripture to fit with that is a reductionist error. It is not that
there is any contradiction, paradox, or antinomy* in these two aspects of His
work on the cross. Both are perfectly in harmony. Christ frequently set forth
two-sided truths (cf. His explanation about Elijah in Mt. 17). It is mainly
Westerners, with our Greek-derived way of thinking (cognitive process*),
who so easily fall into this reductionist error.
Definition and terminology. The best term for the view defended here
is ‘general redemption,’* since ‘universal redemption’ might imply universal-
ism, that is, that all will be saved. Many hyper-Calvinists prefer other termi-
nology than ‘limited atonement,’ such as “definite atonement,” “particular
redemption,” or “effective redemption.” The terminology does not change
the issue, so limited atonement will be retained. Since this doctrine first
surfaced in the Synod of Dort (1618-9),* note their definition:
For this was the sovereign counsel, and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father,
that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of his Son should extend
to all the elect, for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring
them infallibly to salvation: that is, it was the will of God, that Christ by the blood of the cross,
whereby he confirmed the new covenant, should effectually redeem out of every people,
tribe, nation, and language, all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen to
salvation, and given to him by the Father; that he should confer upon them faith, which
together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, he purchased them by his death;3
Attempted clarifications. Over the centuries the catch phrase “suffi-

cient for all, but efficient only for the elect” has been used, but it resolves
nothing since all can accept it. Calvin attributed it to medieval scholastics*
and saw it as unhelpful.4 If Christ’s death is sufficient for all but has no
applicability to all, then its sufficiency for all is meaningless.
Another catch phrase hyper-Calvinists have used is, “Christ died for all
without distinction, but not for all without exception.” This does express
their view, but does not do justice to all Scripture, which teaches that Christ
died for all without exception, as well as for all without distinction–the
‘general redemption’ view affirmed in this book.
Key Scriptures Exegeted

Restrictive passages
Those who hold to general redemption do not deny that Scripture
frequently focuses the extent of the death of Christ upon believers. In
acknowledging this common ground, it should be noted that even some of
the passages usually adduced in favor of a limitation have some ambiguity.
A number of the passages claimed by hyper-Calvinists do not specifically
mention the death of Christ and being irrelevant will not be discussed here:
Matthew 1:21, John 1:9; 5:21. Note that nowhere does the Bible explicitly say
that Christ died for the ‘elect,’ per se. Expressions such as ‘sheep,’ ‘the
church,’ etc. are used in these passages, but without any restrictive language
which would in any way contradict the other more general passages.
Lightner aptly pointed out, “All men, including the elect, are lost until such time as they
individually and personally exercise faith in Christ as their own Savior. There simply is no
distinction in the Bible between elect and nonelect sinners in their unregenerate state.”5
Matthew 20:28; 26:28; Mark 10:45. “. . . just as the Son of Man did not come
to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Hyper-Calvinists
assume that the many for whom Christ paid the ransom price are the elect.
They read into Christ’s words a limiting concept of election. Calvin himself
did not so interpret it: “‘Many’ is used, not for a definite number, but for a large number,
in that He sets Himself over against all others. And this is its meaning also in Rom. 5:15,
where Paul is not talking of a part of mankind but of the whole human race.” 6
John 10:11, 15. “. . . and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Edwin Palmer is
typical in adding the word ‘alone’ to Christ’s statement. “He lays down His life for
His sheep, and His sheep alone.”7 He assumed that sheep is equivalent to ‘elect,’
but that equivalency is indefensible. The definition of sheep is clarified by
Christ’s statement in 10:26, “But you do not believe, because you are not of my
sheep.” Christ did not exclude the possibility that any of the unbelieving Jews
He was speaking to would subsequently believe and become His sheep. As
a matter of fact, John described in 10:40-42, how many of them followed Him
down to Perea and believed on Him there. At the time the Lord made the
above statement, they were not His sheep, and yet subsequently, became
such, and thus are also among the so-called elect of God. Therefore, at a
given point in time those who are His sheep are not all of the ‘elect.’ These
two terms, sheep and ‘elect,’ are not equivalent. So if Christ died for His
sheep alone, then He did not die for all the ‘elect.’ See the logical tangles
one gets into in this kind of rationalization. The Bible never deals with a
concept of non-elect, but Calvinists do so constantly.
John 17:9. “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you
have given me, for they are yours” (NIV). Hyper-Calvinists affirm that there is a
parallel between Christ’s refusal to pray for the world and their teaching that
Christ did not die for the whole world. However, first it must be asked why
Christ did not pray for the world. Was it because He did not want the world
to be saved and knew, as the sinless Son, that the Father would have to
answer His prayer? No, for He wept for unbelieving Israel (Mt. 23:37). Was
it because as a matter of principle He did not pray for unbelievers? No, on
the cross He prayed for those who were crucifying Him (Lk. 23:34), that the
Father would refrain from immediate judgment upon them.
First, it should be noted that He did not say, “I pray not for the non-elect.”
In the world (kosmos) of unregenerate sinners for whom He did not pray at
this time, was a host of people who subsequently believed and evidently
were among the ‘elect,’ and for whom He did pray in v. 20: “I do not ask on
behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they
may all be one; . . .” Note also this prayer was not a prayer for the salvation of
the disciples—they had already been saved. He was praying for the Father
to keep them, protect them from Satan, sanctify them, unify them, and glorify
them. This would not have been an appropriate prayer for those who did not
believe in Him. So when the nature of our Lord’s motivation and prayer is
understood, it is clear that it is not at all relevant to this issue.
Acts 20:28. “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the
Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He pur-
chased with His own blood.” Paul’s words to the Ephesian elders appropriately
focus the efficacy of Christ’s blood in acquiring (peripoiein) His church. Since
this verb has a broader connotation, it apparently does not speak only of His
death, but it has both the objective and subjective aspects of the salvation of
the corporate church in view. Thus, it in no way compromises the truth of
general redemption.
Romans 5:15, 19. “For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much
more did the grace of God and the gift by grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound
to the many. . . . For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made
sinners, even through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
Hyper-Calvinists typically take the word ‘many’ to refer to the elect and not
to all mankind, contrary to Calvin’s view quoted above (cf. Mt. 20:28).
Galatians 3:13. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become
a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is every one who hangs on a tree’” Paul
focused upon believers here, and the context clearly limits his meaning to
believers, since the unregenerate are never said to have been released from
the Mosaic Law, as believers have been (Rom. 7:6; 2 Cor 3:6-11). Having
noted this contextual limitation, it should also be noted that Paul did not use
agoradzein, as he did in passages with a more general reference, but he used
exagoradzein, which focuses on the redemption-release aspect of the cross.
This is not contradictory to, but rather harmonious with, general ransom-
redemption* taught in other passages. Lightner is helpful here: “If references
such as this, in which the writer includes himself in the death of Christ, may be used to prove
limited atonement, then when writers of Scripture use similar phraseology in speaking of man’s
sin, it could be said that they teach limited depravity or sin.”8 Then he referenced
Isaiah 53:6 and 64:6. Where is their consistency?
Ephesians 5:25-6. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the
church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by
the washing of water with the word, . . .” Hyper-Calvinists assume that the focus
of Christ’s love upon the church excludes all other humans. In the context
it was appropriate in discussing marriage for Paul to focus on that special
love of Christ for His church. Norman Geisler put it well: “There are good reasons
why the fact that Christ loves the church does not mean He did not love the world as well. For
one thing, the fact that I love my wife does not logically mean that I lack love for other persons.
It simply puts special focus on my love for someone who is special in my life.” 9
1 Peter 3:18. “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust,
in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made
alive in the spirit.” Significantly, we observe that Peter described Christ’s
substitution being for the “unjust.” This hardly is a synonym for the ‘elect.’ It
describes the whole human race. The goal of that substitution, Peter said, is
to “bring us to God.” So actually this passage gives both the objective aspect
(substitution for the unjust) and the subjective aspect (bringing believers to
God) together in one statement, as does 1 Timothy 4:10. Although quoted as
a proof-text, this passage actually affirms both aspects: the first part is
general; the second, limited. No contradiction here!
Unlimited passages
Christ died for the ‘whole world.’ There are many passages which
extend the intent of Christ’s death and salvation to the whole world. In
John’s many references he followed Christ’s consistent usage of the word
kosmos in the negative sense of the unregenerate, hostile satanic world-
system of sinners. The BAG lexicon was explicit: “the world, and everything that
belongs to it, appears as that which is at enmity w. God, i.e. lost in sin, wholly at odds w.
anything divine, ruined and depraved” (supporting refs.: Jn. 8:23;12:25, 31; 13:1;
14:30; 16:11; 18:23; 1 Jn. 4:17; 5:19; 1 Cor. 3:19; 5:10).10 In the following
references also, according to John’s consistent usage, it must have a similar
meaning, certainly not ‘elect.’ Norman Douty’s extensive survey of lexicons,
Bible encyclopedias, and dictionaries showed that none support the convo-
luted meanings read into this word by hyper-Calvinists.11
John 1:29. The words of John the Baptizer: “Behold, the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world!” Hyper-Calvinists implausibly try to divert the
issue by stating that kosmos has a geographic sense in other contexts, and
thus refers to the elect in all the world. The rule for determining word
meaning is always to see how the same author uses the word first before
going elsewhere. They violate this important word-study principle.
John 3:16-19. “‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not
send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands
condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only
Son’”(NIV). Note Puritan John Owen’s outrageous rewording of it: “God so
loved the elect throughout the world, that he gave his Son with this intention, that by him
believers might be saved.”12 Not only does this passage speak of Christ’s death
for the whole unregenerate world of mankind, but it also stipulates its
meaning by the clarifying phrase “whoever believes,” which Owen unconscio-
nably omits. How clear that faith, not election, is the condition of salvation.
John 4:42; 1 John 4:14. “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.’” Although these are the words of the Samari-
tans, a second reference shows that John quoted it approvingly: “And we have
seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world” (NIV).
In what clearer way could he state general redemption?
John 12:46-47. “I have come as a light into the world, that everyone who
believes in Me may not remain in darkness. And if any one hears My sayings, and does
not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the
world.” The meaning of ‘world’ in verse 47 is the same as in verse 46. There
the picture is of a world of unregenerate humans in spiritual darkness upon
which the light of Christ has begun to shine. This is the same world which
He came to save. To put a spin on it and make it ‘the world of the elect’ as
they do is an unconscionable distortion.
1 John 2:2. “. . . and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours
only, but also for those of the whole world.” R. C. Sproul found great difficulty in
explaining this verse: “On the surface this text seems to demolish limited atonement.” 13
Pink gave the usual extreme explanation, (as did Harold Camping on Family
Radio): “When John says, ‘He is the propitiation for our sins’ he can only mean for the sins of Jewish
believers. . . . When John added, ‘And not for ours only, but also for the whole world he signified that
Christ was the propitiation for the sins of Gentile believers too, for as previously shown, ‘the world’ is a
term contrasted from Israel.” He outrageously stated: “to insist that ‘the whole world’ in 1
John 2:2 signifies the entire human race is to undermine the very foundation of our faith. ”14
There is not a shred of evidence that John wrote his epistles to Jewish
Christians. A consensus of scholars identify the recipients as both Jewish
and Gentile believers. As a matter of fact, John is quite explicit in 5:13: “These
things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that
you may know that you have eternal life.” Why do Hyper-Calvinists try to limit
John’s clear declaration to just Jewish believers? Only their doctrinal bias
forces them to such a distortion. A few verses farther John gave an unambig-
uous picture of the meaning of ‘world’ (kosmos): “We know that we are of God,
and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one”(5:19). Certainly John is not
saying that only the Gentile world is in Satan’s grip, nor the world outside of
Asia Minor. It is the world of unregenerate mankind.
2 Corinthians 5:19. “. . . namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the
word of reconciliation.” Reconciliation is a subjective, experiential dimension
of Christ’s death based upon 5:18. In order to relate these two verses, it is
essential to note the differing tenses of the two participles. In verse 18, it is
an aorist participle,* thus indicating a completed action—God reconciled us
to Himself. But in verse 19, it is a present participle, thus indicating an
ongoing action—God was in Christ in the process of reconciling the world to
Himself. The world has not been reconciled to God, but His sacrifice was the
beginning of the process of reconciling a world of sinners to Himself.
Christ died for all, the lost, the ungodly, for sin.
There are a host of references to Christ’s death for all mankind or every
man. This is confirmed by the additional connection of His death for the
ungodly and for the lost, with no contextual basis for limiting any of these
expressions to the ‘elect’ in any of these passages. It is freely granted there
are some contexts in Greek usage where the word ‘all’ does not mean all
without exception. For instance, in 1 Timothy 6:10, the NAS translation
reads: “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.” It is obvious that not all
evils spring out of the love of money. Additionally, in John 12:32, there is a
contextual basis in 12:20 for understanding the Lord’s reference to all kinds
of men being drawn to Christ, that is, Gentiles as well as Jews
Having noted this, it must be insisted that in at least some of the follow-
ing references the allusion to ‘all’ must be a reference to all mankind without
exception. Those who deny that ‘all’ ever means this interpret the ‘all’ in
Ephesians 1:11 as having an all-inclusive meaning: “who works all things after
the counsel of His will.” As shown in Chapter 2, this all-inclusive interpretation
is the sole proof text for their view of divine omnicausality.* They must insist
upon it there, at the very least, even if it were a totally unique usage. But it is
not a unique usage. ‘All’ must be all-inclusive at least occasionally, if words
are to have any meaning. This reminds us of Bill Clinton answering eva-
sively, “that it all depends upon what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” Hyper-Calvinists
are guilty of the same sort of inconsistency and obfuscation.
Isaiah 53:4-12. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to
his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him”(53:6).
Although the prophet spoke continually in the first person in vv.4-6, which
hyper-Calvinists might take to refer to the elect, the context indicates he was
referring to the nation Israel as a whole, not just the elect of Israel. Not only
did he refer to those who “have gone astray” and “turned to his own way”, but
also in v. 8, to “my people to whom the stroke was due.” However, in vv. 11-12,
there is a shift to third person, “He will bear their iniquities . . . He Himself bore the
sin of many.” This shift may be an early indication of the two-sidedness of
Messiah’s passion. Calvin, however, commented that ‘many’ is equivalent to
‘all,’ contrary to their interpretation.15
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15. “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded
this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they who live
should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their
behalf.” Paul’s point here is straightforward in his use of ‘all’ three times in
the universal sense of ‘all mankind,’ set in contrast with “they who live,” the
limited group of born-again ones. Nothing in the context or the syntax of the
Greek raises any question about the obvious prima facie interpretation.16
Romans 5:18. “So then as through one transgression there resulted condem-
nation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification
of life to all men.” Charles Hodge claimed the parallelism of the imputation of
Adam’s sin to the whole race in bringing condemnation and the imputation
of Christ’s righteousness to the elect: “The sin of Adam did not make the condemna-
tion of all men merely possible; it was the ground of their actual condemnation. So the
righteousness of Christ did not make the salvation of men merely possible; it secured the
actual salvation of those for whom He wrought.”17 What Hodge overlooked is that
justification did not take place at the cross objectively, but takes place when
we believe. According to Genesis 15:6, Abraham’s justification took place
two millenniums before the cross: “Abraham believed God and it was counted to
him for righteousness.”
Paul closely paralleled Adam’s one transgression with its universal
consequences and the one sacrifice of Christ with its universal intent. He did
not say that all men were justified, but that Christ’s sacrifice had this as a
potential goal. This is implied in the use of the preposition eis (unto). One
usage of eis makes it even clearer: “For the purpose of . . .”18 Thus, we could
rightly translate by slightly improving on the NIV: “even so the purpose of one act
of righteousness was justification that brings life for all mankind.” The purpose for
which Christ died was to make justification available to all mankind. Al-
though the Greek construction is difficult, Paul’s intent is clear–a provision
for all mankind. Hyper-Calvinists overlook Paul’s logic, just as Adam’s
integral connection with the whole human race condemned all mankind,
just so Christ’s identification with all mankind as the Son of Man had as its
goal bringing justification of life to all mankind.
1 Timothy 2:1-6. “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions
and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority,
so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good
and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to
come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator also
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all . .
.” Paul’s use of ‘all’ three times in this context gives a solid base for taking all
three in their normative sense of ‘all without exception.’ His exhortation to
pray for “all men” (huper pantôn anthropôn) could not be limited to all without
distinction but must also imply all without exception. No restriction to the
‘elect’ is possible here since Calvinists admit we do not know who the ‘elect’
are. Although Paul desired we especially pray for those in authority, it is
clear he was concerned about the salvation of all mankind as well (2:4), all
without exception. Paul used the same Greek expression in the plural in
both verses. There is no way to restrict our prayer focus to only the ‘elect’
who are still unregenerate. So the reference to Christ’s “ransom for all” (2:6)
must also be taken in a universal sense. As shown in Chapter 5, lutron is used
of the objective ransom price and not of the subjective application to the
individual, so the same is true of antilutron as well.
1 Timothy 4:10. “For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed
our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.”
Apart from the last phrase, Paul’s statement might seem to promote univer-
salism, which would be a problem for all Evangelicals. Take note that
anthrôpos is sometimes used generically, that is, “all mankind.”19 This might be
adequate, but Paul significantly added the last phrase “especially of believers”
so there might be no misunderstanding. Was this a mental lapse on Paul’s
part, which he patched up with the last phrase? No, he could have gotten his
scribe to redo the sentence. There must be intrinsic truth in the first part of
the sentence, that God is the Savior of all mankind in some real sense, that
is, in the objective, potential sense. All can agree that Paul’s clarifying phrase
narrows the truth down to the ultimate reality—that only believers will be
saved. Here, as frequently is the case, the truth is two-sided.
Titus 2:11. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
. . .” Although the syntax of the sentence is difficult, modern translations
have followed a host of scholars in correcting the KJV by connecting “salva-
tion” with “to all men.”20 Since this Pauline concept is seen in the above pas-
sages, his reference here can also be understood generically, salvation’s
availability to all mankind. Lightner identified the key issue: “The question is, “Is
it scripturally and logically sound always to restrict every usage of the words ‘all,’ ‘whosoever’ and ‘world’
when they occur in a salvation context?” This is precisely what the limited redemptionist always does
and must do. There may not be a single exception if the limited viewpoint is to stand.”21
Hebrews 2:9. “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the
angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor,
so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” The context stress-
es the identification of the Lord Jesus with the whole human race in His
incarnation (2:6-8, 14-18), so it is appropriate that His death also should be
for all mankind. It is noteworthy that the author used the singular here, and
Alford commented: “If it be asked, why pantos (each) rather than pantôn (all), we may
safely say that the singular brings out, far more strongly than the plural would, the applicability
of Christ’s death to each individual man.” 22
Luke 19:10. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was
lost.” There is no better term than ‘lost’ to describe all mankind without
exception, which certainly cannot be narrowed to the elect only. This clear
statement of Christ as to the intent of His coming should end all discussion.
Romans 5:6. “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for
the ungodly.” Paul was in good company with Christ for clarity in affirming His
death for the ungodly, whom he characterized in 5:10 as “enemies of God.”
Did Christ die for just the ungodly ‘elect,’ whoever they may be? The integrity
of language and the word of God is at stake. If Paul did not mean to say that
Christ came to save all the lost, why didn’t he plainly say so?
1 Corinthians 15:3. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also
received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, . . .” The question
is, for whose sins did Christ die? The context of 15:1-2 settles it. The gospel
which Paul preached was to all his Corinthian hearers, not just those who
responded at any time. This is the way he had preached it on Mars Hill: “all
men everywhere” (Acts 17:30-1).

Salvation is offered to “whomever”. There are the 110 references to
the gospel being offered to “whomever” without restriction. The apostolic
preaching is the best effort of the Apostles to announce it unambiguously.
Hear Peter: “And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be
saved” (Acts 2:21); “Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name
everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins” (Acts 10:43). Hear Paul:
“. . . and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you
could not be freed through the Law of Moses” (Acts 13:39); “. . . for ‘Whoever will call
on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). Hear John: “And let the one
who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost” (Rev.
22:17b). If Christ did not die for all human beings, and if the majority of
human beings can never ever respond to these invitations, then such invita-
tions are absolute mockery!
Serious Implications of a Limited View

Limiting God’s love. It is significant that Calvinists tend to emphasize
the holiness of God as His foremost attribute, while Arminians emphasize His
love. On what basis is such a judgment made? Is not God infinite in all His
attributes? Why pick one attribute above another? Are they not all in perfect
harmony with one another? Was not Christ, the God-man, the most perfectly
balanced and integrated man who has ever walked this planet?
Any attempt to limit the love of God is a gross distortion of His infinite
character. Limited atonement does just that in denying God’s love for the
‘non-elect’ since it was by His choice that they are non-elect. They have
been excluded from the pale of God’s love since Christ did not die for them.
Jerom Zanchius, one of the early advocates of limited atonement, in survey-
ing God’s attributes made no mention of the love of God.23 Sproul defended
the limitation of God’s love only to the elect: “Is there any reason that a righteous
God ought to be loving toward a creature who hates him and rebels constantly against his
divine authority and holiness?”24 Would no hyper-Calvinists before their conver-
sion have fitted this description? We all were once God’s enemies! Is there
self-righteousness here? Christ’s words are an adequate answer, “But I say to
you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt. 5:44). Does God
ask us to do something He Himself is unwilling to do? D. A. Carson wrote a
book on The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God.25 It is difficult only to
Calvinists! Some distribute tracts with titles such as, “Does God Love You?”
or “God May Not Love You!” However, if we communicate to sinners a
picture of a less than gracious and loving God, we not only present a carica-
ture, but also an additional obstacle to their repentance and faith.
Love is the very essence of God (1 John 4:16), and God’s character
cannot change (Heb. 1:11-12; Jas. 1:17). Scripture is clear that God loves
sinners but hates their sin, and his wrath is on the unrepentant. But God’s
love through the cross extends potentially to all mankind. God loved Israel
(Deut. 7:7), even though not all were among the elect, and Christ loved the
rich young synagogue ruler although he turned away from Him (Mk. 10:21).
The universal offer of the gospel. The universal offer of the gospel is
freely admitted by most Calvinists and is biblically clear (Acts 17:30; Mt.
28:18-20). Robert Lightner stated the problem: “Why does God invite all men if
Christ did not provide for all?” James Richards answered: “To us, no maxim appears
more certain than that a salvation offered implies a salvation provided; for God will not
tantalize his creature by tendering them with that which is not in his hand to bestow.”26
Leading advocates of limited redemption admit a “great difficulty” and
plead paradox. Moreover, all who believe in unconditional election do have
the problem, but the general redemptionists* have it to a lesser degree. If
hyper-Calvinists were totally honest with inquirers, they would have to say,
“Unless you are one of the elect, Christ did not die for you, and indeed you
cannot exercise saving faith to be saved.” If moderate Calvinists were totally
honest, they would have to admit, “My friend, Christ died for you, but unless
you are one of the elect, you cannot exercise saving faith to be saved.”
Those holding a mediate view can honestly say, “My friend, Christ died for
you, and no matter who you are, if you repent and believe you will definitely
be saved.” Lindsay Alexander put it so aptly: “On this supposition [of limited
atonement], the general invitations and promises of the Gospel are without an adequate basis,
and seems like a mere mockery; an offer, in short, of what has not been provided.” 27
The personalization of the gospel. Lightner noted the tendency of
limited redemptionists to advocate presentation of the gospel only in general
terms. However, he focused on three essentials that must be included: “(1)
something about personal sin; (2) the substitutionary death of Christ for the sinner; and (3)
faith or trust in Christ’s finished work.” In emphasizing that the gospel must be
personalized, he made it clear that the limited redemptionist cannot person-
alize #2 without misleading a non-elect sinner.28 Those who hold uncondi-
tional election cannot really personalize #3 since it would be misleading to
tell a non-elect sinner that if one will only trust Christ s/he will be surely
saved, assuming that the “non-elect” cannot trust Christ.
Lightner showed how J. I. Packer made a deliberate switch from the
personalization of the sinner’s sin (#1) to an explicit denial of the personal-
ization of His substitutionary death (#2): “. . . the New Testament never calls on any man
to repent on the ground that Christ died specifically and particularly for him. The basis on which the New
Testament invites sinners to put faith in Christ is simply that they need Him, and that He offers Himself
to them, and that those who receive Him are promised all the benefits that His death secured for His
people.”29 Lightner questioned what Packer’s biblical basis is for such a
pronounced shift. Why must one be personalized, when the other may not?
I personally am very sensitive to this since all through my teen years I
believed that Christ died for the sins of the world, but I did not know that He
died for my sin. No doubt I was spiritually dead in that condition. Over sixty
years ago I put my name into John 5:24 and personalized it. As missionaries
to Pakistan, we found untold thousands in the Christian community who
believed that Christ died for sin but had no personal relationship with Christ.
Many were orthodox in their Anglican or Presbyterian doctrine, but unregen-
erate and desperately needing to personalize the gospel. Hundred of mil-
lions of professing Christians worldwide are lost because they have never
personalized the gospel in their own life. This is not a marginal issue!
Years ago, Rona, a Jewish co-worker of my daughter came for a Bible
study. Joyce had been witnessing to her about the deity of Christ. When no
one else showed up for the study, we began to go through Isaiah 53, showing
her that “all we like sheep have gone astray” and that “the Lord has laid on Him the
iniquity of us all.” I will never forget the look on her face when she exclaimed,
“Now I see it, Jesus is my sin-bearer.” She went on in her walk with the Lord
and has won her husband to Christ. She personalized the gospel.
Other Evangelicals are absolutely right to insist that there must be a
personalization of the whole gospel. Hyper-Calvinists must prove from
Scripture that the death of Christ may not be so personalized, and explain
why we can not sincerely assure any and every sinner that if one will trust
Christ, salvation will surely result. The lack of assurance among so many
Calvinists is a result of their lack of personalization of the death of Christ.
The requirement of faith obviated. Hyper-Calvinism, in effect, denies
that faith is the required condition for salvation. If “Christ purchased faith for
the elect,” then faith cannot be a required condition for salvation. Indeed,
they hold that faith is a consequence of regeneration, not a condition. Thus,
there would be no point in telling the unregenerate to believe, since they
cannot do so. Since by irresistible grace God regenerates the elect, faith
becomes an afterthought, a mere extraneous appendage. This is confirmed
by the omission of any mention of faith in the five points of Calvinistic
theology, the TULIP. This was not accidental or inconsequential. Lightner
saw this as a most serious problem with the limited view and asked: “If the
cross applies its own benefits and is God’s only saving instrumentality, what place does faith
have? When are man’s sins forgiven—at the cross, thus before multitudes of men are ever
born, or when man believes and thus appropriates what Christ has done?”30 Hundreds of
references can be given to support the latter, that faith is the condition of
justification, regeneration, eternal life, etc.
John Owen complicated the issue by arguing that since unbelief is a sin
for which Christ died, then unbelief is no more hindrance than other sins in
partaking of the fruit of his death.31 Not only does this eliminate the need to
actively exercise faith but is directly contradictory to all appeals for faith in
Scripture. Owen’s premise is clearly wrong; unbelief is a unique sin, one
which, if persisted in, will lead to condemnation (Jn. 3:18). When Christ
accused the Pharisees of “unforgivable sin,” the context indicates that He
was referring to hard-hearted unbelief. Unbelief must be distinguished from
other sins, lest the necessity of faith be totally obviated.
Christ’s ministry to the ‘non-elect’. If Christ only died for the elect,
what was the point in Christ bothering to deal personally with ‘non-elect,’
whoever they might be. Calvinists say that since we do not know who the
elect are, we must deal with all men. But Christ was not so limited. He did
not get the rich young ruler to see his sinfulness. He went away sorrowful,
and there is no hint that he ever came to faith in Christ. Didn’t Christ know
that he was non-elect, or to put it more bluntly, “reprobate”? Why did He
patiently deal with him step by step?
The issues involved

A logical problem. The problem hyper-Calvinists struggle with is a
logical one. If Christ died as a substitute for the world, then why are not all
saved? R. C. Sproul stated it briefly, “It seems to follow from the idea of unlimited
atonement that salvation is universal.”32 If Christ paid the price for the sins of the
‘non-elect’, then isn’t God demanding a double price for their sin by sending
them to hell? Boettner wrote: “For God to have laid the sins of all men on Christ would
mean that as regards the lost He would be punishing their sins twice, once in Christ, and then
again in them. Certainly that would be unjust. If Christ paid their debt, they are free, and the
Holy Spirit would invariably bring them to faith and repentance.”33 Thus, the intent of
Christ’s death was only for the ‘elect’, and His death not only makes their
salvation possible but also makes their salvation certain.
They are heavily dependent upon deductive logic for their position since
scriptural support is so weak. This is clear in Gordon H. Clark’s words: “All the
doctrines of Scripture are logically interdependent. Since the most pertinent doctrines have
already been discussed, any further appeal to Scriptural passages is anticlimactic and
unnecessary”.34 He went on to give a perfunctory discussion of only seven
passages, mostly irrelevant. Was he ignorant of the dozens of other passages
which support general redemption, or was his mind-set was so totally
deductive that scripture data was unimportant to him?
Note John Owen’s conundrum: “God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ
underwent the pains of hell for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins of some men, or
some sins of all men. . . . If the first, why, then, are not all freed from the punishment of all their
sins? You will say, ‘Because of their unbelief; they will not believe.’ But this unbelief, it is a
sin, or not? If not, why should they be punished for it?”35 By this logic he tried to force
the second option since the third is obviously erroneous, and he felt he had
also eliminated the first. What he failed to take into account is the unique
character of the sin of unbelief. God certainly has the right to make this the
only sin if persisted in which could not possibly be under the blood of Christ.
That is just what the Bible explicitly stated in John 3:18: “He who believes in Him
is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Unbelief is a unique sin!
Hyper-Calvinists confuse the objective provision of the basis of salvation
with its subjective application to individual sinners by repentant faith. Hear
John Murray: “What does redemption mean? It does not mean redeemability, that we are
placed in a redeemable position. It means that Christ purchased and procured redemption.”36
The inductive biblical evidence for the universal dimension of Christ’s
death is so overwhelming that the supposed logical problem is of no con-
cern. Indeed, a discriminating inductive study of the distinct Greek terms for
the cross as expounded in Chapter 5 highlighted the two-fold nature of this
truth and resolves any logical difficulties.
A mediate response. Laurence Vance gave a good summary of argu-
ments against general redemption and responded simply to all by focusing
on the false premise of all their arguments: “This false premise is making the
Atonement and its application the same thing; that is, confounding the provision of a Savior
with the applying of salvation.” Vance’s response is here augmented:37
1. The inductive data is overwhelming for seeing, on the one hand,
propitiation and ransom-redemption as objectively wrought for all mankind,
and, on the other, reconciliation, redemption-release, and regeneration as
subjectively applied individually to only those who have repentant faith.
2. Pre-cross believers could not have been saved in any real sense if
their salvation had to wait until Christ actually died. It is clear that they were
fully justified (Gen. 15:6), forgiven (Ps. 32, 51), redeemed-liberated from sin,
reconciled to God, and regenerated. They were saved on the credit plan,
contingent upon the historical event of the cross, but nevertheless genuinely
saved (Rom. 3:25-26; Heb. 9:15).
3. For those elect who were born after the cross, how could Christ’s
sacrifice actually save them if they did not yet exist when Christ died?
4. How could saved, redeemed, reconciled, justified, and regenerated
post-cross ‘elect’ be born into the world dead in sin, if there is no distinct
application phase and the cross in and of itself actually saved them?
5. The Passover and its clearly distinct application is an analogy to the
cross of Christ with its distinct application phase. The blood of the slain lamb
had no efficacy unless and until it was applied to the doorposts of the Jewish
dwelling. Paul confirmed the connection in 1 Corinthians 5:7.
The duality of the objective/subjective aspects of salvation is seen in 1
Tim. 4:10: “. . . the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.”
The basis of condemnation has been changed by the cross. It is not now
primarily the sins of man, but more significantly the one sin of unresponsive-
ness to the gospel. In a sense there is one sin for which Christ did not die,
the sin of unbelief (Jn. 3:18).
Moderate Calvinistic responses. A. H. Strong, a moderate Calvinist,
explained how Christ can in some sense be the Savior of all mankind:
That the atonement of Christ has made objective provision for the salvation of all, by
removing from the divine mind every obstacle to the pardon and restoration of sinners, except
their wilful opposition to God and refusal to turn to him. . . . [It] has procured for all men the
powerful incentives to repentance presented in the Cross, and the combined agency of the
Christian church and of the Holy Spirit, . . .38
The key word in Strong’s statement is ‘provision.’ Christ provided a propitia-
tion for all mankind (1 Jn. 2:2). He paid the ransom price for the sins of all
humanity including unregenerate false teachers (Mt. 20:28; 2 Pet.2 :1). His
death is provisional, potential, and conditional in its application. In and of
itself it saves no one apart from the subjective application of redemption-

liberation and reconciliation conditioned upon repentant faith. Christ’s death
fully satisfied (propitiated) the offended holiness of God so that God can be
declared as propitious. The only obstacle now remaining is man’s unrespon-
siveness to God. (Note that Strong’s statement that the cross “removed from the
divine mind” every obstacle to the pardon and restoration of sinners is contra-
dictory to his belief in unconditional election, which certainly is an obstacle
in God’s mind to the salvation of the major portion of mankind. Herein is the
inconsistency of four-point Calvinism.)
Conclusion
This is a long chapter, only because the evidence against ‘limited atone-
ment’ is so massive. Since the inductive biblical basis for general redemp-
tion is overwhelming and supported by testimony from history, it is clear that
the only support for limited atonement comes from scholastic, deductive,
and faulty logic.
Excursus: Calvin on General Redemption 39

“. . . it was acceptable to God, who will have all men to be saved. By this he assuredly means
nothing more than that the way of salvation was not shut against any order of men; that, on the contrary
he had manifested his mercy in such a way, that he would have none debarred from it.”
Institutes, 3.24.16
“We hold, therefore, that God does not will the death of the sinner inasmuch as He calls all men
indifferently to repentance and promises that He is prepared to receive them, on condition that they
earnestly repent.” Calvini Opera, 40:445-6, Brian Armstrong translation, Ibid, p. 189.
“And when he says the sin of the world he extends this kindness indiscriminately to the whole
human race, that the Jews might not think the Redeemer has been sent to them alone. From this we infer
that the whole world is bound in the same condemnation; and that since all men without exception are
guilty of unrighteousness before God, they have need of reconciliation. John, therefore, by speaking of
the sin of the world in general, wanted to make us feel our own misery and exhort us to seek the remedy.
Now it is for us to embrace the blessing offered to all, that each may make up his mind that there is
nothing to hinder him from finding reconciliation in Christ if only, led by faith, he comes to Him.”
Commentary on John 1:29
“Christ's proper work was to appease the wrath of God by atoning for the sins of the world, to
redeem men from death and to procure righteousness and life. That of the Spirit is to make us partakers
not only of Christ Himself, but of all His blessings.” Commentary on John 14:16
“For in the word world is here embraced the whole human race. And there is but one Saviour who
rescues and saves us from this dreadful slavery. . . . For it was God who appointed His Son to be the
Reconciler and determined that the sins of the world should be expiated by His death.”
Commentary on John 14:30
1. The expression ‘universal redemption,’ used in the past, is misleading in possibly implying universalism.
2. See Appendix E in the 1st edition of this book for 30 Calvin quotations on general redemption .
3. Canons of Dort, II, 8.
4. John Calvin, Commentaries, 1 John 2:2 , en loc.
5. Robert P. Lightner, The Death Christ Died: A Case for Unlimited Atonement, p. 48.
6. Calvin, Commentary on John, en loc.
7. Edwin H. Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism, p. 43.
8. Lightner, pp. 60-61.
9. Norman Geisler, Chosen, but Free, p. 76.
10. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon, p. 447.
11. Norman F. Douty, The Death of Christ, pp. 41-45.
12. John Owen, The Death of Christ, p. 214.
13. R. C.Sproul, Grace Unknown, p. 176.
14. Arthur Pink, Sovereignty, p. 259-260.
15. Calvin, Sermons on Isaiah, en loc.
16. Douty, pp. 94-106; Lightner, pp. 64-6; Leon Morris, The Cross in the New Testament, p.220.
17. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol 2, pp. 551-2.
18. Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 104.
20. John Peter Lange, Titus, p. 16; Arndt and Gingrich, p. 809; F. F. Bruce, The Letters of Paul, p. 293.
21. Lightner, p. 69.
22. Alford, Greek Testament, p. 1459.
23. Zanchius, pp. 44-76. It should be noted that in the next section (Chapter I) he does discuss the love of God, not
as an essential attribute of God, but only in reference to the elect.
25. D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000).
26. James Richards, Lectures on Mental Philosophy and Theology (1846), p. 322, cited by Lightner, pp. 114-5.
27. W. Lindsay Alexander, A System of Biblical Theology (1888), II, p. 111.
28. Lightner, 2nd ed., pp. 149-53; Some of this material is only in the 2nd edition in an appendix.
29. J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, p. 68.
30. Lightner, pp. 124-30. .
31. John Owen, The Works of John Owen, X, p. 174.
32. R. C. Sproul, Grace Unknown, p. 65.
33. Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Faith, p. 14.
34. Gordon H. Clark, The Atonement, 2nd ed., p. 138.
35. Owen, The Death of Christ, pp. 173-4.
36. John Murray, Redemption, p. 63.
37. Laurence M. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism, rev. ed. (Pensacola: Vance Publ., 1999), pp. 422-432..
38. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology, 2nd ed., pp. 772-3.
39. See Appendix E in my 1st edition for dozens of other quotations from John Calvin.
So what we say about future events being fore-
22
told, we do not say it as though they came about
by fatal necessity; but God foreknowing all that
shall be done by all men, . . . He foretells by the
Spirit of prophecy that He will bestow meet re-
wards . . . God, wishing men and angels to follow
His will, resolved to create them free to do righ-
teousness. But if the word of God foretells that
some angels and men shall certainly be punished,
it did so because it foreknew that they would be
unchangeably (wicked), but not because God cre-
ated them so. So if they repent, all who wish for
it can obtain mercy from God.
- Justin Martyr (100-165)
IS FOREKNOWLEDGE
REALLY SELECTIVE?
Peter was an uneducated fisherman who admitted he struggled to

understand some of the difficult teachings in Paul’s letters (2 Pet. 3:15-16).
Apparently so-called ‘election’ and foreknowledge were not among those
“hard to understand” teachings since Peter himself referred to election
[choice] four times (1 Pet. 1:1-2; 2:6, 9; 2 Pet. 1:10) in his epistles, and
foreknowledge three times (1 Pet. 1:2, 20; 2 Pet. 3:17), and is quoted three
times in Acts (2:23, 4:28; 15:8). That the choice of Hebrew Christians in the
diaspora was “according to the foreknowledge of God” did not seem hidden or
hard to understand for Peter. He addressed them as: “Elect [choice] according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto
obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:” (1 Pet. 1:2, KJV).
Later, Paul confirmed Peter’s understanding of the relationship of
foreknowledge to the related truth of foreordination: “Because those whom He
knew beforehand He appointed beforehand to share the likeness of his Son, so that He
might be the First-born among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29, MLB). Note that in
both passages foreknowledge comes first! Four centuries later, Augustine
was the one who made it hard to understand and accept by denying that
‘election’ and foreordination are conditioned on God’s foreknowledge,
contrary to the only two passages which relate these ideas (1 Pet. 1:1-2;
Rom. 8:29). The western church struggled with his view of unconditional
election for a century until the Synod of Orange* set it aside in AD 529. A
millennium later the Reformers revived this doctrine, but even Calvin called
298
Chapter 22 IS FOREKNOWLEDGE REALLY SELECTIVE? 299
it “a horrible decree.” The problem was of Augustine’s own making but not
a problem for Peter or Paul.
Someone may say, “Didn’t Peter use a reverse order in the Pentecost
sermon when he said, “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and
foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him
to death” (Acts 2:23)? Please note, however, that Peter was not speaking
about our individual ‘election,’ but about God’s plan for the crucifixion of the
Messiah. There is a massive difference between the two! Additionally, the
syntax of this sentence will be carefully investigated to see here also a
dependence on foreknowledge. It should not be necessary to emphasize
how crucial the issue of conditional or unconditional election is to the whole
theology of salvation. Note that we refer to ‘so-called election’ since in the
next chapter it will be seen that this is a transliteration from the Greek
through the Latin, not an actual translation. This group of words arose out
of Greek democracy and ‘elections’ and so by semantic change came to
mean ‘to appoint to an office, to commission,’ and rarely, ‘to choose.’
Outstanding qestions
Since Augustine, sixteen centuries of theological controversy over
‘election’ have left many problems to be resolved and questions answered.
Since definition of terms is crucial, word studies of the Greek terms for
foreknowledge, foreordination, and election will be done. How does fore-
knowledge differ from election? Does it have a pregnant meaning? Is elec-
tion conditional or unconditional; individual or corporate? Is God’s fore-
knowledge contingent upon His will? Can a future event be certain in the
mind of God without Him having determined it beforehand? How do the
context and the grammar of key passages, such as Ephesians 1 and Romans
8–11, impact our understanding? Nothing can be assumed.
Two crucial passages for our study of ‘predestination’ and ‘election’ are
found in the heart of Paul’s letter to the Romans: 8:28-30 and 9:1-29 (cf. Ch.
25). In order to unpack the truth of 8:28-30, two very important Greek words
must be studied in the context of the whole flow of Paul’s thinking in this
epistle: proginoskein (‘to foreknow’) and proorizein (‘to foreordain’ or ‘to pre-
appoint’). A word study of the first will indicate that it has its normal primary
meaning ‘to foreknow’ in this and all other contexts. On the other hand, the
second, which is a very rare word, has been grossly misunderstood and
mistranslated and has nothing to do with ‘predestination.’
The Meaning of Foreknowledge

Calvinistic claims. A major premise of Calvinistic theology is that the
Greek verb ‘to foreknow’ (proginoskein) and the noun ‘foreknowledge, pre-
science’ (prognosis) have a pregnant meaning of “making one the object of loving
care or elective love.”1 This is based upon their assertion that the Hebrew word
‘to know’ (yada’) also has this pregnant connotation in a few contexts and
the simple Greek word ‘to know’ (ginoskein) has this connotation in three
contexts. Thus when they come to the seven usages of proginoskein and
prognosis in the New Testament, they claim that a pregnant meaning is to be
understood there as well, although many admit that it has no such connota-
tion in the secular or Septuagintal Greek. However, there is no linguistic
basis for this notion of a pregnant meaning, and these words must be taken
in their normative sense, ‘to foreknow’ and ‘foreknowledge.’
Conditionality. If these words are understood in their normal mean-
ings, two key passages clearly confirm the conditionality of God’s foreordina-
tion and choice: 1 Peter 1:1-2 and Romans 8:28-30. If there were a pregnant
meaning, then it would weaken the case for ‘election’ being conditioned
upon the foreknowledge of God, since foreknowledge and election would
become essentially synonymous.A This undermines the prima facie (on the
face of it) reading of these passages, which make both ‘election’ or
foreordination contingent upon God’s foreknowledge. It raises the question
how Peter could write of being “elect according to the foreknowledge of God”
and how Paul could write, “whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be
conformed to the image of His Son” if indeed these terms are virtually synony-
mous and thus redundant. Calvinistic theologians cannot answer this.
Methodology. Thomas Edgar objected to the procedure of building the
meaning of proginoskein upon the meaning of a Hebrew word or even upon a
supposed meaning for ginoskein. Even though there is considerable detail in
the Excursus to show that there is no such pregnant meaning in either yada’
or ginoskein, Edgar’s point is well taken. Thus these less relevant details are
found on p. 311ff. He is absolutely right that this is a highly questionable
methodology. Even if yada’ did have such a pregnant meaning (and it does
not), it says nothing about the meaning of the Greek words.2 This is con-
firmed by Carson’s reference to a word-study error: “14. Problems related to the
Semitic background of the New Testament.” While recognizing the Septuagint’s
influence on the meaning of Greek words to some extent, he warned: “But
it is to say that it is methodologically irresponsible to read the meaning of a Hebrew word into
its Greek equivalent without further ado. The case must be argued.”3 The touted
pregnant meaning of ginoskein depends upon the spin on yada’.4
Yada’. Calvinists claim this pregnant meaning in only five out of 944
times yada’ is used in the Old Testament, where overwhelmingly it has a
meaning directly related to ‘to know.’ It is used of a personal relationship
over 90 times, and this is how it is actually used in the five touted references
when examined in their contexts (Gen. 18:19; Ex. 33:12; Amos 3:2; Hos. 13:5;
A. A Scotch reader of the first edition just reported to me that in the Q. & A. session of a Calvinistic
conference he attended in CA, “the panel was asked if there was any difference between what God
foreordains and foreknows. In my ignorance I thought ‘what a stupid question’. When the panel to a man
declared that there was no difference, I felt something was far wrong. I whispered to my colleague that
I believed that God foreknew my sin but I couldn’t believe that he foreordained it.”
Jer. 1:5). The standard Hebrew lexicons, the Septuagint Greek translation,
the KJV, and a contemporary Hebrew wordbook do not hint of this pregnant
meaning.5 This notion is a concoction of Calvinistic theologians.B
Those making this claim must demonstrate that this pregnant meaning
is an absolute exegetical necessity to make sense of these five passages, not
just a mere possibility or feasibility, as Edgar pointed out. This they cannot
do! Preference must always be given to the primary meaning of a word
unless the context demands a secondary or tertiary meaning established in
other contexts as well. Another problem is that since these are only five out
of 944 usages, it falls under the stricture of another exegetical fallacy Carson
termed: “4. Appeal to unknown or unlikely meanings.”6
Ginoskein. In determining the meaning of ginoskein (‘to know, per-
ceive’), it is important to remember an important principle of word study
that usage, not etymology, is determinative. Note Carson’s number one: “the
root fallacy.”7 Even if ginoskein had such a meaning in a few contexts (which it
does not), this proves nothing about the meaning of proginoskein. These are
two different words! Chamberlain’s point is very important, that every letter
added to a Greek root changes the meaning, sometimes very significantly.8
Ginoskein is used 223 times in the New Testament and in the KJV is
always translated by some word related to knowing, never with a selective
connotation.9 There is no hint of an elective connotation in secular Greek
either or in Thayer’s or Abbott-Smith’s lexicons. While Bertram in TDNT
mentioned an elective connotation in the Septuagint, the seven references
he gave do not support his contention in the least. The BAG lexicon gave
two Septuagint references in support, but ginoskein does not even occur in
Hos. 12:1, and the context of Amos 3:2 is totally unsupportive.10
In all three of the touted New Testament contexts (1 Cor. 8:3; Gal. 4:9;
and 2 Tim. 2:19) the idea of knowledge as a personal relationship fully
explains the meaning. This connotation of ‘knowing’ meaning a personal
relationship is indeed found in the Hebrew, the Greek, and in the English.
When we ask people, “Do you know Christ as your personal Savior?” we are
talking about a relationship. This fully satisfies the Biblical usage as well,
without reading ‘choice’ into it. Here also Carson’s stricture #4 about
unknown or unlikely meanings is relevant since they claim only three out of
223 usages. See the Excursus for a full discussion of yada’ and ginoskein.
Proginoskein, prognosis
Outside the New Testament
How are the verb proginoskein and the noun prognosis used outside of the
New Testament? There is no pregnant connotation of elective choice hinted
at in the Septuagint, classical Greek, the Koine, Philo, Josephus, nor the
B. The way in which the KJV translators rendered a word before 1611 gives a good idea how a word was
understood by the scholars of the day, before the Calvinist-Arminian controversy erupted in the Synod
of Dort (1618-19) and the Westminister Assembly. Cf. Young’s Concordance, App. 52-3.
church fathers before Augustine.11 The verb simply means “to know before-
hand, foreknow” and the noun, “foreknowledge”12 or ‘prescience.’ Although
sometimes New Testament writers use words in a unique sense, the burden
of proof is upon those who claim this elective force for proginoskein.
The lexicons. Thus the Calvinists’ only argument comes from reading
this supposed pregnant meaning into the some of the New Testament
usages. Thayer’s lexicon does not give any such meaning but does refer to
Meyer, Philippi and Van Hengel as opposing it. Neither Liddell-Scott-Jones
nor Abbott-Smith’s lexicons hint at any such meaning. The BAG lexicon
does list a secondary meaning, “choose beforehand” but gives no linguistic
support. They only refer to two Romans usages (8:29 &11:2) and four
German theological articles for support.13 However, theology must be built
upon linguistic and exegetical data, not the reverse. Support is totally lacking
in the New Testament usage. Lexicographers are fallible and have their
biases, so we must check out their work at every stage (See data errors in TDNT
in word studies of repentance and conversion in the Excursus in Ch. 7.).
The church fathers. It is also significant as to how the early church
fathers understood the word. Clement of Rome used it of God’s foreknow-
ledge of all things (2 Clement 9:9). At least three of the early fathers, Justin
Martyr (Apol 1, xliv, xlv & xxviii; Dial cxli), Origen (Ag Celsus Bk. 2, ch. 20),
and Jerome (Ag Pelagius Bk. 3), argue that God’s foreknowledge must not
be understood as involving fatal necessity or compulsion by God, but that
the events foreknown by God are done by men of their own free choice.14
Complete New Testament usage
Some writers only examine the usages where God is the subject.
Thomas Edgar objected to this defective methodology, which implies that a
verb changes its meaning dependent upon who the subject is. Other verbs
do not change meaning when God is the subject. If this principle is allowed,
how can we know when meanings are the same or when they are different?
It all becomes subjective. Since God uses human language to reveal Him-
self, if word meanings change when used of God, all objective communica-
tion is lost. Since there are other Greek words which God could have used
to communicate that supposed pregnant meaning more explicitly, why
would He have chosen to obscure the communication process?15
All the usages of the verb and noun must be examined, and in Acts 26:5
and 2 Peter 3:17, the verb is used with exactly the same meaning as in the
rest of Greek literature. In his testimony before Agrippa referring to the
Jews, Paul said: “So then, all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which
from the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem; since they have
known about me for a long time previously, if they are willing to testify, that I lived as
a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion” (Acts 26:5). Here the
meaning is simply to know something about a person beforehand. Some
might respond that in Romans 11:2 Paul did not say that God foreknew
something about Israel, but that He foreknew Israel. However, in connec-

tion with Romans 8:29, Edgar pointed us to the parallel syntax of Acts 26:5:
Thus, to foreknow a person means to know something about that person beforehand. The
personal object implies no so-called personal intimate ramifications. . . .This is common to
Greek verbs, although it may be confusing for beginning Greek students. Often, Greek verbs
take an object where some prepositional idea such as, “about, or something about,” seems
to be “built into” the Greek term but must be supplied in English. (further cf. footnote C).16
He gave Hebrews 6:9 and Matthew 12:33 as other examples of this syntacti-
cal usage. Thus in Romans 11:2, the Greek idiom signifies that God knew
something about Israel beforehand. It was not some unforeseen event that
disrupted God’s plan! In 2 Peter 3:17, Peter used it to refer to his readers’
prior knowledge of the distortions of Scripture by unprincipled men. It is not
possible nor claimed that the word means anything other than its primary,
well-established meaning in either of these passages.C
The key question on use of these words in Acts 2:23, 1 Peter 1:1-2, 20,
and in Romans 8:29-30; 11:2 is: does this well established primary meaning
makes sense in these contexts also? We must not switch to some supposed
pregnant secondary meaning for theological reasons. For a score of years,
I had bought into this theological spin, but upon re-examining the evidence,
realized that the mind is a slippery thing and most of us can easily believe
something which has little or no basis in fact. Edgar pointed out that none
of the commentators on Romans who claimed a pregnant meaning give
even one example of such usage to support their claim.17 Let us consider the
five contexts where this word refers to God as the subject.
God’s foreknown plan for the cross. At Pentecost, Peter announced
that the Messiah’s death and resurrection were according to God’s fore-
known plan as prophesied by David: “. . . this Man, delivered up by the predeter-
mined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless
men and put Him to death. And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony
of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:23-4). The
Greek reads: “Touton tç hôrismenç boulç kai prognosei tou theou ekdoton, . . .” We
must come to Luke’s use of the noun prognosis here with a straightforward
procedure in mind, that if the primary meaning fits, we must look for no
other. Peter’s meaning is transparent: that our omniscient God worked out
His eternally fixed plan for the cross by means of His absolute foreknow-
ledge of all the human factors–the motivations and situations of Judas, the
Jewish leaders, Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Roman soldiers, and the mob.
Calvinists, such as S. M. Baugh, subvert the simplicity of Peter’s state-
ment by claiming that God’s “appointed purpose” and His “foreknowledge” are
C. “The most significant thing is the syntax. The object of the verb proginosko, “foreknow,” is the
personal pronoun, ‘me,’ me. Paul says, ‘they knew me before from the beginning.’ The passage is clear.
The Apostle Paul says very specifically, proginoskontes me . . . hoti kata . . . ezesa Pharisaios,
‘foreknowing me . . . that I lived according to the strictest sect of our religion, a Pharisee’” (Edgar).
essentially synonymous. He did this by identifying the syntactical construc-

tion here as ‘hendiadys.’* Baugh did not quote any grammar or lexicon to
support his interpretation: “By using one article for the two nouns purpose and
foreknowledge, Peter is expressing a close interconnection between the two.”D In his
footnote, in trying to refute Godet’s classic exegesis, he claimed: “In point of
fact the two nouns are expressly united.”18
Three authorities explain ‘hendiadys.’ The Blass-Debrunner-Funk gram-
mar has: “The co-ordination of two ideas, one of which is dependent upon the other
(hendiadys), serves in the NT to avoid a series of dependent genitives:” Nigel Turner
supported this, and the BAGD lexicon gave examples but no clarification.
Although Daniel Wallace did not use the term, his extended discussion of
about 50 impersonal constructions having one article, a noun, kai, and a 2nd
noun (TSKS), as in Acts 2:23, shows no pattern of identity at all.19
‘Hendiadys’ is such a vague construction with so many variants that it is
difficult to make dogmatic generalizations about its significance. Perhaps
this is why most other grammarians chose not to discuss this figure of
speech. This leaves no clear example of identity, whether with no article,
one article or two articles. So the use of the article says nothing about the
relationship of the two nouns; only the context can do that.
Overall, there are three times as many examples of the first noun being
dependent upon or modifying the second than the reverse. If this pattern
carries over into Acts 2:23 (many from Peter and Luke), the outworking of
God’s appointed purpose depends upon His foreknowledge. And unless we
believe that God coerced Judas, the Jewish leaders, Pilate, and the other
participants to do what they did, the straightforward way for God to work out
His appointed purpose was by His foreknowledge. The translation could be
D. Baugh, however tried to make us believe that this idiom makes foreknowledge in Acts 2:23 “expressly
united” or close to identical with God’s determinate counsel because of the use of one article to govern
both nouns (similar to the Granville Sharp rule). Wallace made it very clear, however, that the Granville
Sharp rule only applies “to personal, singular, non-proper nouns.” Indeed, Baugh’s spin on hendiadys
directly contradicts both the description in the BDF grammar and the force of the 29 similar examples
examined. Thus to say that the “determinate counsel” and the “foreknowledge of God” are
synonymous or “united” is as wrong as saying that apples and oranges means that apples equals
oranges. This is inane! Thus Baugh seriously misunderstood the syntax of this idiom. Wallace listed
several possibilities for the usage of kai (and), including the ascensive, the contrastive, and the
explanatory functions. Dana and Mantey listed three, including the adversative. Baugh was also
mistaken in thinking that the use of a single article is definitive here. Wallace showed that this TSKS
construction of two substantives with one article joined by ‘and’ (kai) can either be distinct, identical, or
overlap semantically (Wallace, Grammar, pp. 735, cf. 286-90). Although he gave Acts 1:25 as the only
example of identical meanings of both nouns, even that one is questionable, since Judas’s ministry was
dependent upon his apostleship. Edgar examined 17 examples of hendiadys given as examples in
Robertson, BDF, Turner, and Beekman and Callow. He listed: Jas. 4:2; 5:10; Mt. 4:16; Mk. 6:26=Mt.
14:9; Lk. 2:47; 21:15; Acts 1:25; 14:17; 23:6; Rom. 1:5; Col. 1:28; Tit. 2:13; 2 Tim. 1:10; 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:14;
2 Pet. 1:16. We examined and add Josephus, Antiquities, 12, 98; Polyb.(do); Mt. 24:36; Lk. 21:12; Acts
14:17 (do); 20:21; Jas. 4:2; 2 Cor. 12:21; Eph. 3:12, 18; Col. 2:22; 2 Th. 2:1; Rev. 1:9; 9:15.
fine tuned accordingly: “This man was handed over to you by God’s appointed
purpose through His foreknowledge.” So the syntax not only leads us to reaffirm
the primary meaning of ‘foreknowledge’ but also supports the point that
God’s foreknowledge cannot be contingent upon His will.E The reverse
must be true, lest we end up making God’s omniscience a contingent attri-
bute, which is unthinkable (cf. Ch. 2, pp. 35-36).
Elect according to foreknowledge. In 1 Peter 1:1-2, we find the noun
prognosis used in its primary sense, with absolutely no contextual reason to
shift to a disputed secondary meaning, except for a theological bias: “Peter,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, in sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied” (ASV). Although the phrase,
“according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” is separated in the Greek
(best seen in the ASV) from the word ‘elect’ by the geographical locations of
the dispersed Christians, most commentators take them as connected. It is
highly unlikely, as Edgar pointed out, that the prepositional phrase would
qualify both the nominative of the writer and the dative of the addressees.
The meaning is straightforward that Peter was writing to “the elect according
to the foreknowledge of God.”
One wonders how the meaning could be other than this simple state-
ment, for certainly God’s foreknowledge must be the basis for everything He
does. God the Father does not turn off His omniscience. We have yet to
investigate the contextual meaning of ‘elect’ and ‘election’, but whatever
they mean, it makes perfect sense that it is according to His foreknowledge.
If we may put it bluntly, God does not close His eyes and throw darts.
There is one philosophical objection to Peter’s simple statement. Many,
both of Calvinists and open theists,* hold that God cannot know that which
He has not decreed. Not only does this notion contradict Peter’s simple
statement, but it also makes God’s omniscience a contingent attribute,
subject to the activity of His decretive will. This is highly objectionable in
that it denies the infiniteness of one of God’s essential and necessary
attributes. God’s actions always flow from His attributes, never the reverse.
There is another attempt by some interpreters to undermine the simplic-
ity of Peter’s statement. Some would claim that the Greek preposition kata
(‘according to’) with the accusative case can be watered down to mean “in
E. Following Tom Edgar’s cue, I have located 29 related expressions: 12 without any article, 12 with one
article, and 5 with two articles. Of the 29 other uses of similar constructions checked, 8 are from Luke’s
writings (Lk. 2:47; 21:12, 15; Acts 1:25; 14:17 do; 20:21; 23:6) and two from Peter’s (1 Pet. 4:14; 2 Pet.
1:16), none of which are unambiguously equivalent, manifesting a great diversity of relationships. It
should be obvious that Luke’s and Peter’s usage is most significant. My tabulation showed that 13 out
of 29 are distinct but hard to classify as to which is dependent upon or modifies which. In only 4
examples is the second noun dependent upon or modifies the first. However, in 12 examples the first
noun seems to be dependent upon the second.
agreement with.”20 But the uses of kata with the accusative are well understood
and explained in the lexicons and grammars. The one category which best
fits the context is listed in the BAG lexicon: “5. of the norm . . . according to, in
accordance with, in conformity with, corresponding to. a. to introduce the norm which governs
somethingS.”21 Thus we must understand God’s foreknowledge as the norm
or standard22 which governs His elective work. So the prepositional phrase,
“according to the foreknowledge of God,” clearly governs the verbal noun
eklektois. This is simple, straightforward, and clear, that is, as long as we
don’t come to this verse with a philosophical or theological agenda.
Those who give proginoskein a pregnant, elective force have another
serious problem. If ‘election’ and ‘foreknowledge’ both have an elective
idea, then Peter is guilty of redundance, that we are elect according to the
elective choice of God. This oxymoron insults Peter and the Holy Spirit!
God’s foreknown plan for His Messiah. Peter’s third reference to
foreknowledge is in the same context as the previous. He echoed the
language of Acts 2:23-4 in speaking first of the sacrifice of Christ and then of
the resurrection, according to God’s foreknown plan:
. . . knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold
from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as
of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown
before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake
of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave
Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God (1 Pet. 1:18-21).
Since this passage is just a few verses away from the preceding use of
the word, it is fair to say that Peter used the verb here with the same primary
connotation it has consistently had in all Greek usage hitherto. Only if the
context should demand another pregnant meaning may we stray from this.
As we focus on the context we see again that the primary meaning of ‘fore-
knowledge’ or ‘prescience’ makes perfect sense.
Again, context is so important. The persecuted Christians to whom
Peter was writing needed to know that the salvation-hope of which they had
become partakers is rooted in the plan of God foreknown from before
creation. Therefore, it will surely be consummated “at the revelation of Jesus
Christ” (vv. 7, 13), it is a “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (v. 5), and
the prophets not only predicted the sufferings of Christ, but also “the glories
to follow” (v. 11). In other words, our omniscient God, who knows the end
from the beginning, had a foreknown plan for His Messiah, which He was
working out in the cross (vv. 11, 18-19) and resurrection (vv. 3, 21) and will
keep believers by His power (vv. 4-5) until Messiah’s return. Although they
are suffering, their hope for the future is not in vain. Since the context is
focusing upon the death and resurrection of Christ, it is unlikely that Peter is
referring to any ‘elective choice’ of Christ.
Additionally, those who would like to see some elective choice here in
Peter’s usage, need to face a serious Christological problem their spin raises.
By trying to see some ‘forechoice’ in this verse (as the NIV erroneously
rendered it), a conflict arises with our concept of who Jesus Christ actually
is. He was not one first-century Jew chosen by God from among many to be
the Messiah. Indeed, as James Daane pointed out, like Isaac of old, the Lord
Jesus was supernaturally brought into being to be the Choicest One of God.
Isaac, the ancestor of God’s first choice people, was supernaturally prepared
by a miraculous birth (Isa. 43:1, 6, 7, 20, 21). There was no pre-existing
nation of Israel which God then chose from among other nations.F
In a parallel way there was no extant man named Jesus of Nazareth
whom God chose to be His elect Messiah. Through the virgin birth He was
supernaturally prepared to be His Choicest One. In the next chapter, the
implications of calling the Lord Jesus the Elect One (Lk. 9:35) will be dis-
cussed. But it cannot mean that He was one extant individual chosen from
among many to be the Messiah, which notion was the basis of more than
one ancient heresy. Therefore, to read some elective choice into 1 Peter 1:20
is to lead to Christological heresy! Far better to simply take the word in its
primary meaning. That the Lord Jesus is elsewhere referred to as the
Father’s Choicest (bâchar) Servant (Is. 42:1) is not at issue; the question is
whether this is what Peter was referring to here. There is another
Christological problem raised by a determinative spin on foreknowledge
here. If Christ was predestined to go to the cross, He had no free will and
His prayer in Gethsemane was a farce. He was foreknown, not predestined!
Let us now turn to the Apostle Paul’s usage.
Israel’s failure anticipated. In understanding Paul’s use of proginoskein in
Romans 11:1-3, it is imperative to consider the immediate context:
I ask then, Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself,
a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his
people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the
passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: ‘Lord, they
have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left,
and they are trying to kill me’?
This is a major usage for Calvinists to see a pregnant meaning in proginoskein
but few modern translations have translated it that way (not NIV or NAS).
Although it is true God chose [appointed] Israel, the question is: Is this is the
point Paul was making here? The context shows that it is not!
The broader context of Paul’s argument of Romans 9–11 is that although
God sovereignly appointed the nation Israel, He acted justly and righteously
in setting them aside temporarily because of unbelief (9:6-29). They missed
F. “On the basis of the Old Testament narrative concerning Abraham and the birth of his son, and Paul’s
New Testament interpretation of this Old Testament narrative, it must be said that the nation of Israel is
not viewed as one extant nation among many, which is then selectively chosen by God as his elect
people. Rather, Israel as the object of God’s election not only does not exist but even has no possibility
of existence apart from God’s elective and creative action.” (Daane, Freedom, p. 101.)
the way of faith, and now God was turning to the Gentiles as well with a
universal message (9:30–10:15). In Romans 10:16-21, Paul made the point
forcefully that both Moses and the prophets predicted that Israel had God’s
word, rejected it, and would be set aside in favor of another people. First,
he quoted Isaiah (Isa. 53:1) that Israel would not believe the Messiah. Then,
he quoted Moses’ prediction that God would make Israel “jealous by that
which is not a nation” (Deut. 32:21). Finally in 10:21, he quoted Isaiah’s
prediction: “‘I was found by those who sought me not, I became manifest to those
who did not ask for me,’ but as for Israel he says, ‘All the day long I have stretched out
my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people’” (Isa. 65:1-2).
So not only did God foreknow that Israel would fail and be supplanted
by other people in His plan, but He had Moses (the Law) and Isaiah (the
Prophets) explicitly predict this. So crossing that artificial divider into
Romans 11, and finding Paul stating that God foreknew Israel, we must not
depart from the primary meaning without doing violence to this previous
context. Most commentaries and theologians have ignored this context.
Then Paul raised the question as to the permanence and totality of that
setting aside and argued that it is neither total (Rom. 11:4-10) nor final
(11:11-32). If we take proginoskein in its primary sense, Paul’s argument
makes perfect sense in the following context also. God knew ahead of time
and predicted that Israel would fail to fulfill His purpose for them and would
indeed reject their Messiah and be replaced by another people. But this has
not upset His plan and purpose in the least or nullified the word of God (9:6)
since He foreknew all along all what would transpire. He foreknew that
after the rejection of Christ there would be a remnant of true Jewish believ-
ers (Rom. 11:4-10) and that Gentile wild branches would be grafted into the
root of Abraham (11:11-24). He foreknew and had His prophets predict an
end-time restoration of Israel (11:23-32). In the meanwhile, God’s main
thrust is to save Gentiles through the church and the ministry of apostolic
missionaries like Paul’s team (11:11-24). So we see that the primary mean-
ing makes perfect sense in the context. This is not to deny that God ap-
pointed Israel, but this is not the point in 11:2.
Therefore when we come back to the two theologically sensitive
passages, we must in no way try to explain away the obvious conditionality
of both passages. Romans 8:28-30 will be carefully examined later and 1
Peter 1:1-2 again in the next chapter.
Peter’s confirming testimony. In Acts 15:7-9, there is a most significant
overlooked statement made in the Jerusalem council:
. . . Peter stood up and said to them, ‘Brethren, you know that in the early
days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should
hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore
witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He
made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.’
Since God knew the hearts of Cornelius and his household, He saved them,
not because they were ’elect.’ But that is the subject of the next chapters.
Conclusions
It has been shown there is absolutely no linguistic basis for seeing an
elective connotation in God’s foreknowledge, or in the Hebrew or Greek
words for knowing, even if it were legitimate to try to base it upon them.
The secular usage, the Septuagint, and the early church fathers contain no
hint of this imagined pregnant meaning. The seven New Testament usages,
examined carefully in their contexts, cannot be forced into supporting it
either. The claims all come from theologians, but not one unambiguous,
incontestable linguistic example can be given for an elective connotation.
Therefore, there is absolutely no basis for denying the clearly conditional
force of both 1 Peter 1:1-2 and Romans 8:28-30, conditioned on what God
foreknew about His saints, especially their faith.
EXCURSUS: A WORD STUDY OF FOREKNOWLEDGE
Calvinistic claims
L. Berkhof is typical of the Calvinistic attempt to make foreknowledge have a pregnant meaning:
The word yada' may simply mean "to know" or "to take cognizance" of someone or some-
thing, but may also be used in the more pregnant sense of "taking knowledge of one with
loving care," or "making one the object of loving care or elective love." In this sense it serves
the idea of election, Gen. 18:19; Amos 3:2; Hos. 13:5. The meaning of the words
proginoskein and prognosis in the NT is not determined by the usage in the classics, but by
the special meaning of yada'. They do not denote simple intellectual foresight or prescience,
the mere taking knowledge of something beforehand, but rather a selective knowledge
which approaches the idea of foreordination, Acts 2:23 (comp. 4:28); Rom. 8:29; 11:2; I
Peter 1:2. These passages simply lose their meaning, if the words be taken in the sense of
simply taking knowledge of one in advance, for God foreknows all men in that sense. . .
.This includes the absolute certainty of that future state, and for that very reason comes very
close to the idea of predestination. And not only these words, but even the simple ginoskein
has such a specific meaning in some cases, I Cor. 8:3; Gal. 4:9; II Tim. 2:19.23
His agenda was to establish the doctrine of unconditional vis-á-vis conditional election. Does
proginoskein have a selective implication? Study of usage is of highest importance, and the usage of
yada, ginoskein, and proginoskein uncovers not the slightest scintilla of hard evidence that there is
such a selective connotation! Let us not just consult the lexicons, but as the dictionary defines it: "1.
of the words of a language as distinguished from its grammatical structure."24 This involves a careful
study of the usage of these words. We do not claim that the lexicons uniformly support our conclu-
sions, but a thorough theologian must not always depend upon the judgment of the lexicographers
since they are sometimes guilty of egregious errors. They rarely discuss each context in detail and
defend their conclusions. Remember, that the meaning of the Hebrew yada’ does not automatically
carry over to the Greek, and ginoskein and proginoskein are two different words with distinct meanings.
A word study of yada’

The lexicons. The primary meaning of the Hebrew word yada’ is ‘to know to perceive, to
consider’ and is so translated overwhelmingly in most of the 944 times it occurs in the OT. It is used of
knowledge as a personal relationship in upward of 100 of these usages. The KJV never rendered yada'
as ‘to choose', nor does the BDB Gesenius lexicon list ‘to choose’ as a possible meaning.25 The
Septuagint does not translate it as 'to choose' in any of the passages which Berkhof cited (Gen. 18:19;
Amos 3:2; Hos. 13:5). Nevertheless, Bultmann in TDNT, as a parting shot said: “Finally, the element of
will in yada' emerges with particular emphasis when it is used of God, whose knowing establishes the
significance of what is known. In this connection yada' can mean 'to elect', i.e., to make an object of
concern and acknowledgment.” Without any other proof, he listed five contexts in a footnote, “Gn.
18:19; Ex. 33:12; Am. 3:2; Hos. 13:5; Jer. 1:5.” Remember Bultmann’s radical liberalism.26 Careful
examination of these passages shows that none of them require the rendering 'to elect, to choose', nor
does the LXX render yada' as anything other than 'to know' (oida, epistamai, ginosko) except in Hos.
13:5 where poimaino is used. One would think that if yada' had a hint of such an idea, the LXX trans-
lators would have picked it up just once. Presumably they knew Hebrew better than Bultmann. Paul
Gilchrist (Covenant College) in TWOT did not refer to any selective factor in the meaning of yada'.27
The usage. In examining the above contexts, it is clear that God's intimate knowledge and
care for individuals or the nation adequately satisfies the context. 'Choice' is not at all in view, even
though remotely possible in some contexts. In Gen. 18:19, it was God's ongoing relationship with
Abraham which gave promise of his commanding his children to keep the way of the Lord. Here the
KJV rendered the overwhelmingly primary meaning of yada' and is preferred over the Calvinistically
influenced NAS and NIV assumption of a remote secondary connotation: "For I know him, that he will
command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to
do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of
him." God's choice of Abraham would not assure this result since Jacob was similarly chosen and
failed to effectively so command his children. God knew Abraham's heart, that he would instruct Isaac.
Obviously, Calvinists would not want to say that God chose him because He knew how Abraham would
behave, and unless they grant this,'choice' seems an extremely remote possibility. Translators (and
theologians) should always choose the primary meaning unless a secondary meaning makes better
sense in the context, but it is highly doubtful that there even is a secondary meaning of the word.
Bertram stated that here “the LXX has the thought of omniscience instead of that of election."28
In Ex. 33:12, when God said to Moses, “I have known you by name, and you have also found
favor in My sight,” it is doubtful that the meaning is that God had chosen him by name. Whatever
would that mean? It is far more likely that God's ongoing relationship with Moses, since He had
commissioned him years before, was the basis of the favor He continued to show him despite the sin of
Israel. 33:11 specifically mentioned that face-to-face relationship: “Thus the LORD used to speak to
Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend."
Hosea 13:5 is the least likely context in which to find the meaning of 'choice', since it was in the
wilderness that God cared for Israel (as the LXX renders it). “Yet I have been the LORD your God
since the land of Egypt; and you were not to know any god except Me, for there is no savior
besides Me. I cared (LXX poimaino) for you in the wilderness, in the land of drought” (Hos. 13:4-
5, NAS). God did not choose Israel in the wilderness by any stretch of the imagination, so neither the
LXX translators nor the context supports such a meaning here.
Amos 3:2 presents problems also for this unproven pregnant meaning. “Hear this word that the
LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought
up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: there-
fore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together except they be agreed?”
(Amos 3:1-3 KJV). Is the reason that God will punish Israel for their iniquities because He chose them
or because he had an ongoing relationship with them? In both the preceding and following verses He
referred to that relationship. Which is a more reasonable basis for God's judgment upon Israel--His
relationship with them or His choice of them? God's ongoing relationship with Israel over the centuries
intervening on their behalf time and again brought awesome responsibility as a basis of judgment. But
the fact of their appointment by God is a less compelling basis of judgment. Amos 3:7 also raises a
problem for Calvinists. If 'choice' is in view and election is based upon some secret counsel of God,
then why does He state, “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel
to His servants the prophets”?
Lastly, Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were
born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations” (NAS). The sentence
consists of two coordinate clauses, the first with the verb yada' and the second with the verb qadash.
Calvinists assume that since the verbs are in a parallelism, they are roughly synonymous, but that is
gratuitous. A sequence of thought is more probable here. God was assuring Jeremiah that He knew
him before he was even formed in the womb and that He also set him apart for prophethood before
birth. Since Jeremiah, like Moses, questioned his own ability to be God's prophet (1:6-7), the fact that
God thoroughly knew him was important for him to understand. God fully knew his limitations and
despite this consecrated him to the awesome responsibility of being a prophet to the nations.
Thus, in none of these contexts is there a sound contextual basis for reading the idea of 'choice'
into yada'. One would think that if it were true, there would be one clear, indisputable context out of the
944 usages of the root which would require 'to choose'. It should also be noted that if the authors had
wanted to communicate the idea of 'choose,' there is a most suitable word, bachar, which is regularly
used of the divine choice of Abraham, Israel, and many individuals. In addition, none of the cognate
languages, such as Assyrian, Aramaic, Syriac, Ethiopic, or Phoenician, evidence any such conno-
tation.29 Indeed, Calvinists make this subtle shift from “taking knowledge of one with loving care” to
“making one the subject of loving care or elective love.”30 C. W. Hodge in ISBE showed that there is a
philosophical and theological basis for such oft-repeated statements but gave no linguistic evidence for
it. Indeed Hodge, like Berkhof, made foreknowledge equivalent to foreordination.31 There is no purely
linguistic support for Berkhof's hypothesized meanings of yada’. (Only 5 out of 944 OT usages!)
A word study of ginoskein

The lexicons. Moving to the Greek, we find that Bertram claimed an elective connotation for
ginoskein in the Septuagint, referring to Num. 16:5; Ps. 1:6; 36:18; Hos. 5:3; 11:12; Amos 3:2; and
Nah. 1:7.32 Upon closer examination, however, in most of these contexts the LXX differs significantly
from the Hebrew, and in none of them does the LXX context even remotely suggest 'choice'.
The Septuagint text of Num. 16:5 reads: “Epeskeptai kai egno ho theos tous ontos autou kai tous
hagious.” Behind egno in the Greek is yada' in the Hebrew in the sense of ‘show' and in no way
supports Bertram's claim. The idea of choice is found later in the verse but is not a rendering of either
yada' or ginoskein. The Septuagint text of Hos. 11:12 reads: “Nun egno autous ho theos." Again the
Greek shows little resemblance to the Hebrew text, so the only question is what connotation was in the
mind of the translators. The temporal "now" makes it clear that choice is not in view here. The two
references in the Psalms, Hosea 5:3, Amos 3:2, and Nahum 1:7 present a similar picture. The knowl-
edge of relationship fully satisfies the context without resort to any such elective meaning.
In New Testament usage, we find that neither Thayer nor Abbott-Smith gave ‘to choose’ as a
meaning for ginoskein. The three contexts usually cited as requiring some elective connotation are 1
Cor. 8:3, Gal. 4:9, and 2 Tim 2:19. However, in 1 Cor. 8:3, Paul was contrasting the proud knowledge
of the Corinthian pseudo-philosophers with the infinitely more important truth that God knows the true
believer: “If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to
know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him” (1 Cor. 8:2-3). The conditional 'if' clause
speaks of our love for God, so the fact that we are known by Him could hardly be referring to some
unconditionally elective choice. Rather, it probably speaks of His loving care for His own.
The context of Gal. 4:9 is also easily understood without reading 'choice' into it. “However at that
time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But
now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn
back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all
over again?” (Gal. 4:8-9 NAS). For those legalistic Galatians who might be supposing that they had
come to know God by their own works and initiative, Paul makes it clear that the plan of salvation rests
upon God's knowledge of us and our relationship with Him. He took the initiative in sending His Son
(4:4) and His Spirit (4:6). But this is not equivalent to an implication of choice.
The third context is 2 Tim. 2:19: “Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this
seal, 'The Lord knows those who are His,' and, 'Let everyone who names the name of the Lord
abstain from wickedness” (NAS). Again the primary meaning of the word makes perfect sense here,
and there is no contextual basis for resorting to a supposed secondary sense. It speaks of that special
relationship between God and the believer as the firm basis for departing from wickedness. We have
seen this consistent connection right from Genesis 18:19. Those who would see a supposed pregnant
meaning here might point out that the aorist tense is used. The NAS translators render it as a present,
probably seeing it as a gnomic aorist, which is defined as, “A generally accepted fact or truth may be
regarded as so fixed in its certainty or axiomatic in its character, it is described by the aorist, just as
though it were an actual occurrence.”33 (Note: This is only 3 out of 223 usages in the NT!)
A word study of proginoskein

Usage. In examining the usage of proginoskein itself, we find that nowhere in the classical, the
Koine, or the Septuagint does it mean 'to choose beforehand'. It uniformly means 'to know beforehand'
referring to prescience.34 There is only the one touted usage in the Apocrypha:
O God, my God, hear me also, a widow. It is you who were the author of those events
[judgments upon Israel] and of what preceded and followed them. The present, also, and
the future you have planned. Whatever you devise comes into being; the things you decide
on come forward and say, 'Here we are!' All your ways are in readiness, and your judgment
is made with foreknowledge (Judith 9:5-6, New American Bible).
Although it is clear that Judith was speaking of God's programming of events, that in no way justifies
reading a determinative force into her use of proginoskein. Indeed she had her own plan to assassinate
Holofernes by guile and charm. There is nothing in the context which at all requires a sense other than
mere prescience. Although it is a possible connotation, if this were the case it would be the only such
usage in the whole LXX, or indeed in any of the other Hellenistic Jewish literature. The Jewish writer
Philo (De Somniis I:2) used it in terms of knowing beforehand through dreams. Twice in Wisdom in the
Septuagint (6:13 & 8:8) it was used of prescience. Josephus used it of knowing something earlier than
the time of speaking (Bellum Judaicum 6,8; Antiq. Jud. II, V:36).35
The classical usage is uniform. Hippocrates, Euripides, Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon, Demos-
thenes, and Aristotle, all use it in the sense of knowing beforehand. Jacobs and Krienke wrote:
The composite proginosko formed from the prefix, pro-, before, and the vb. ginosko, per-
ceive, be acquainted with, understand, know, is attested from Euripides onwards and means
to know or perceive in advance, to see the future. . . The corresponding noun prognosis
(attested as a medical technical term since Hippocrates) denotes the foreknowledge which
makes it possible to predict the future.36
Subsequent to the New Testament, the church fathers until the time of Augustine also consistently
use proginoskein in the sense of prescience. Justin Martyr, Hermas, 2 Clement, Ambrose, Origen, and
Jerome could be cited.37 Augustine in his earlier days understood it the same way, but later, based
upon a misinterpretation of John 15:16, he began to give it a more determinative sense. Go back to the
detailed study of the usage in the seven New Testament passages discussed above in this chapter
proper to get the complete picture. This Excursus is only supplementary.
1. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 111-2.

2. Thomas Edgar, “The Meaning of PROORIZO,” a paper given at the ETS, March 30, 2001 at Langhorne, PA.
3. D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, pp. 62-64.

4. See Bertram and Bultmann in Kittel, TDNT, I, p. 700, text and footnotes.
5. BDB version of Gesenius; Harris, Archer, & Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook, I, p. 366-7. The identity of the
author of this article is not clear, but it is probably Paul Gilchrist of Covenant College, a Calvinist.
6. Carson, pp. 36-40.
7. Ibid, p. 26; also Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, p. 363.
8. William Douglas Chamberlain, Exegetical Grammar, p. 11.
9. Robert Young, Analytical Concordance to the Bible, Appendix, p. 72.
10. John Henry Thayer, Lexicon, p. 117-8; G. Abbott-Smith, Lexicon, p. 92; Bertram, in TDNT, I, p. 700; Arndt and
Gingrich, Lexicon, pp. 159-161. Bertram does not discuss the 7 usages in their contexts.
11. Bultmann in TDNT, I, pp. 715-6; also Liddell, Scott, and Jones, Lexicon, 9th ed., p. 1473; Moulton and Milligan,
Vocabulary, p. 538; and G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961), p. 1141. I have personally
checked the LXX and Josephus usages.
12. G. Abbott-Smith, Lexicon, p. 379.
13. Thayer, p. 538; Abbott-Smith, p. 379; Arndt and Gingrich, p. 710.
14. Cited in Forster and Marston, God’s Strategy in Human History, pp. 191-2.
15. Edgar C. James, “Foreknowledge and Foreordination,” in Bibliotheca Sacra (July 1965), p. 217; S. M. Baugh,
“The Meaning of Foreknowledge,” in Still Sovereign, eds. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce Ware, pp. 183-200;
Douglas Moo, Romans, p. 522. Refutation in Thomas R. Edgar, “The Meaning of PROORIZO,” a paper given at ETS
Eastern Regional, March 30, 2001 at PBU, p. 2.
16. Thomas R. Edgar, p. 3.
17. Ibid., p. 1. He refers to commentaries by Dunn, Fitzmeyer, Moo, Morris, Murray, and Schreiner.
18. S. M. Baugh, “The Meaning of Foreknowledge,” in Schreiner & Ware, Grace of God, Bondage, I, p. 190.
19. Blass, Debrunner, Funk, Greek Grammar, p. 228; Nigel Turner, Syntax in James Hope Moulton, III, pp. 335-56.
There is no reference to hendiadys in Dana & Mantey, Chamberlain, Wallace, or A. T. Robertson’s short grammar
but was alluded to in passing in his fuller work without discussion. The supplement gave one example.
20. Buswell, II, p. 140.
21. BAG, Lexicon, p. 408.
22. Wallace, p. 377; Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 123.
23. Berkhof, p. 111-2.
24. Eugene Erlich, et al, Oxford American Dictionary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 381.
25. Brown, Driver, and Briggs, p. 394.
26. R. Bultmann in TDNT, I, p. 698.
27. Paul Gilchrist in Harris, Archer, and Waltke, eds. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, I, pp. 366-8.
28. Bertram in TDNT, I, p. 700, footnote.
29. Outstanding Hebrew professor Melvin R. Dahl in a telephone conversation, Nov. 15, 1992.
30. Berkhof, p. 480.
31. Caspar Wistar Hodge in James Orr, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, II, pp. 1128-31.
32. Bertram in TDNT, I, p. 700.
33. H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 197.
34. Bultmann in TDNT, I, p. 715.
35. Ibid, I: 715-6.
36. Jacobs and Krienke, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, I, 692.
37. Bultmann in TDNT, I: 715-6.
The election of God will be a fatal labyrinth for
23
anyone who does not follow the clear road of
faith. Thus, so that we may be confident of re-
mission of sins, so that our consciences may
rest in full confidence of eternal life, so that we
may boldly call God our Father, under no circum-
stances must we begin by asking what God de-
creed concerning us before the world began.
- John Calvin
ARE WE CHOSEN TO SALVATION

OR APPOINTED TO SERVICE?
Having examined the meaning of foreknowledge, the doctrine of so-

called election must now be investigated. What do the Greek words for
‘election’ and ‘predestination’ really mean? In what sense were Israel, the
Lord Jesus, and the church ‘elect’? Are ‘election’ and foreordination syn-
onyms and how do they relate? Who are the ‘elect’ and how did they
become such? How does the biblical view of corporate solidarity affect the
issue? How much emphasis does the Bible put upon ‘election,’ after all?
To get an accurate picture, it is essential to do an in-depth study of these
three Greek words. Significantly, ‘to elect,’ ‘elect,’ and ‘election’ are trans-
literations,* not actual translations, allowing people to put whatever mean-
ing they desire into them. The classical, Septugintal, Hellenistic Jewish, and
common Greek usage must be examined since in theological dictionaries,
lexicons, and translations, study of New Testament usage has not been
based upon prior usage. We must see whether the prior usage was carried
over into the New Testament, as should be expected. Such word studies are
tedious but absolutely necessary. Only then can we hope to understand the
key passages which explain this truth doctrinally (Lk. 9:35; Mt. 22:14; 1 Pet.
1:1-2; 2 Pet. 1:10-11, and Eph. 1:3-14), and the results are astounding!
The Commissioning of the Patriarchs

The biblical concept of ‘election’ began with the calling of Abram, the
progenitor of God’s ancient choice people into the promised land. We don’t
know the details of his conversion from idolatry in Ur of the Chaldees to faith
in the true God. God called him to Canaan to begin a separated nation
dedicated to the service of the true God. As Abram matured in faith, God
made wonderful promises to him along with a commission to be a blessing
314
Chapter 23 CHOSEN TO SALVATION OR APPOINTED TO SERVICE? 315
to all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1-3) and sealed them with a covenant
of blessing (Gen. 15). This covenant was reiterated and expanded to
include the promise of his ultimate descendant, the Messiah (Gen. 22:16-18).
Abram was not the only believer of his time, but rather was commis-
sioned from among others to begin a whole new program of God. His
nephew Lot was a believer as was Melchizedek, who is described as being
greater than Abram (Heb. 7). Job was a believer about the same time. So
there is nothing in Scripture which even implies that God’s choice of Abram
and his descendants was unto his salvation, but rather a commissioning to
service.1 Although Isaac was the heir and bearer of the promise, there is no
hint that Isaac was chosen to salvation and Ishmael reprobated* to Hell.
Rather, God twice promised Hagar that Ishmael would be blessed (Gen.
16:10-12; 21:17-20) and said of Abram that He knew that he would com-
mand his children and his household to keep the way of the LORD (Gen.
18:19). Whatever this means, if Ishmael was reprobated, then God lied!
When God told Rebekah there were two nations in her womb, and the
Edomites would serve the Israelites, this prophecy was fulfilled by Jacob’s
deceit (Gen. 25:23). Although Esau is later described as a profane man, this
was not by God’s choice, even though Calvinists so misinterpret Romans
9:10-13. God’s choice had to do with the nations coming from Rebekah’s
womb and did not determine their salvation. Indeed, it is transparent that
physical descent from Jacob did not guarantee salvation for anyone. This is
not only clear in the narrative but also in Paul’s later explanations in Romans
2 and 9-11. Later, in Chapter 25, a careful examination of Romans 9-11 is
made, examining the Old Testament texts which Paul quoted there. From
this it becomes clear that Paul was not at all referring to an unconditional
election of individuals to salvation, but of a commission given to a nation.
The point is that Israel was commissioned to be a witness for the one
true God in an idolatrous world. Even if they failed, they were to be a
“crucible nation” (Deut. 4:20).2 Blessings for obedience and judgments for
disobedience were both to be a testimony to God’s truth. Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob’s witness was relatively feeble, but Joseph’s was outstanding.
When God brought Israel out of Egypt under Moses, that witness was
exceedingly powerful, as attested by many Psalms which refer to it. We
should also mention David, Solomon, Jonah, Daniel, the prophets, and many
others who continued that witness in diverse circumstances. Now the
words related to so-called election will be more precisely defined.
A Word Study of Eklegomai, Eklektos, Eklogç

It is surprising that the connotations of the adjective, ‘choice,’ the noun,
‘the choice of the excellent,’ and of the verb, ‘to appoint, to commission’
found in the Hebrew and pre-New Testament Greek, are not carried over
into our New Testament translations. Although these words are of great
theological significance, our lexigraphic tools have failed to bring out their
precise meaning. An effective word study must build its analysis of New
Testament usage upon the classical, Septuagintal, and secular Greek and
Jewish usage, and the cognates should be studied simultaneously. Although
Lothar Coenen in NIDNTT had done a fine job showing prior usage, he
utterly failed to use that base in his approach to the New Testament data.A
Pre-New Testament usage. Coenen’s main contribution was in noting
that the secular Greek usage of the verb had to do with electing or appoint-
ing people to an office or responsibility with an accompanying obligation to
fulfill it responsibly. This is most important since democratic elections began
in Greece and the word originated in that connection.
Although these words originate in military vocabulary, by the time of Plato eklegomai and
eklektos are already in use in a political sense (referring to elections). In every case it is a
matter of electing people to perform a certain task, or administer a certain office (elders,
archontoi, or other officials and people with public responsibilities). . . and the selection of
individuals from the whole army for a particularly difficult or glorious mission. . . . But it is the
election itself which makes it possible for him to take up his function and which at the same
time lays an obligation upon him. . . . It is always, however, accompanied by some kind of
obligation or task concerned with the well-being of all the other members of the community
. . .” (emphasis mine).3
According to G. Shrenk in TDNT, the verb eklegomai in the secular Greek
predominantly evidences a meaning of the selection of the best or choice,
such as “the most beautiful of what is to be praised” (Xenophon) or “something good
from literary treasures” (Herodotus). He confirmed Coenen’s insight by the use
of two most important words from the classical usage of the noun, ‘appoint-
ment’ and ‘commissioning’: “appointment for special tasks . . . The emphasis is always
on commissioning for service.” The predominant meaning of the adjective eklektos
is ‘choice’ or ‘selected.’ It is used of things of best quality: “choice judges”
(Plato), “selected, lightly armed troops” (Thucidides).4 The meaning of the noun
eklogç is predominantly ‘selection,’ also having a qualitative meaning. It is
used of officials, rulers, elders, and a commission of experts. It involves a
“careful sifting on the basis of aptness and serviceability for a specific end.” 5
Septuagintal usage. Coenen also showed how the Old Testament
usage in the Septuagint confirms this insight of commissioning for service:
The mid. eklegomai nearly always renders forms of the Heb. vb. bâhar, choose, select, prefer
. . .bâhar, however, has in fact roughly the same range of meanings as the Gk. vb. . . . the
A. Geoffrey Bromiley, the translator and editor of Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
gave an extremely important warning: “When this is understood (its place between a lexicon and
commentaries), Kittel is safeguarded against the indiscriminate enthusiasm which would make it a sole
and absolute authority in lexical and exegetical matters.” . . . It “contains articles of unequal value and
varying outlook. Indeed, there are internal disagreements as regards basic presuppositions, historical
assumptions and specific interpretations.” (vi). Bromiley should have given another more important
warning. Most of the authors did not hold an evangelical view of Scripture since they held the critical
documentary hypothesis, which biased their methodology and conclusions.
participial forms bâhûr and bâhîr (again like the Gk.) can be used to describe specially
chosen elite troops . . . .Besides bâhar, eklegomai is also used to translate the rare vb. bârar,
set apart, select, purge. . . eklektos, also appears a number of times for Heb. roots connoting
loveliness, preciousness, or excellent condition. Here the adj. does not express the fact of
being chosen, but in a wider sense factors already present which make choice likely. . . .
bâhîr (cf. 2 Sam. 21:6; Ps. 105:43; Isa. 42:1; 65:22) indicates that the purpose of the choice
is some commission or service and can only meaningfully retain its validity in its fulfilment .6
The key idea here of both the Hebrew terms and the Septuagint is in God
selecting or setting apart qualified people to fulfil some commission or
office. They are used when Moses appointed judges for Israel, the appoint-
ment of the Levitical priesthood, when Joshua commissioned capable
warriors, the appointment of Saul, David, and Solomon as kings over Israel,
the commissioning of Israel as God’s unique people, and the appointment of
the Messiah as a light to the nations (Isa. 42:1). However, since there was
no democracy in Israel, the idea of a political election is totally absent. Horst
Seebass in TWOT confirmed this usage of bâchar: “The horizon of the election
[commissioning] of the people of Israel is the peoples of the world, in relationship to which as
a whole the ‘individual’ Israel was chosen. bchr as a technical term for the election [?] of the
people of Israel stands under the symbol of universalism.”7 He quoted Th. C. Vriezen
in support: “In the OT choice is always the action of God, of his grace, and always contains a
mission for man; and only out of the mission can man comprehend the choice of God.’ . . . In any case,
in the OT bchr is used not to describe that which constitutes the basic relationship between God and his
people, but to denote that which results from this basic relationship.8
The servanthood of Israel came into focus in the latter part of Isaiah’s
prophecy (Isa. 41:8-9), where God reaffirmed the commission of Israel as
His special servant, a major Old Testament theme. Isaiah also saw the
ultimate fulfillment in the Messiah, Yahweh’s Servant (Isa. 42:1-7): “Behold,
My Servant, whom I uphold; my chosen [choice] one in whom My soul delights. I have
put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. . . . and I will appoint
you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, . . .”
(42:1, 6b-7a). The derivative used here is bâchir. The verb (164 times) and its
derivatives are common occurring 198 times, of which 108 are rendered by
eklegomai in the Septuagint; so the Hebrew and the Greek agree. John Oswalt
explained in TWOT: “It is important to note, however, that it always involves a careful,
well thought-out choice. . . . In all of these cases serviceability rather than simple arbitrariness
is at the heart of the choosing.” The derived participle bâchûr refers to young men,
“in that the picked or chosen men in a military context are usually the young men.” The
derivative mibchâr means ‘chosen,’ or ‘choice’: “As such it is often translated as a
superlative (Cf. Gen. 23:6, ‘In the choicest of our sepulchures’).”9
Confirmation in TDNT. G. Quell confirmed that the adjective connotes
choosing “that which is choice or excellent,” “what is desired, or costly,” “what is costly in
the concept of the pure,” “also emphasizes the choice or excellent element. . . .” Schrenk
also confirmed a similar usage: “choice, select, costly, sterling, purified, profitable, best
of its kind, of top quality.”10 The translators should have referred to Christ as the
“choicest One” in harmony with its usage in Hebrew. Indeed, Jesus of
Nazareth was never one chosen from among many to be the Messiah. This
is the key to understanding ‘election’ in the New Testament.
Koin usage. The usage in the Greek papyri confirms this. A usage of
the verb in AD ii can well be translated: “A choir of slaves and freedmen was
appointed.” To be effective a choir is not chosen willy nilly. The adjective in
another AD ii papyrus speaks of “. . . the select of the judges in Rome.” Another
contemporary epitaph says, “I made this city the choice of cities.”11 Thus ‘chosen’
is too general a rendering since these words usually relate to a specific kind
of choosing. The ones appointed are those with some qualifications for that
office or responsibility. Thus, a more precise rendering of the verb would be
‘to appoint’ or ‘to commission’ in most cases rather than just ‘to choose.’
This is especially significant in reference to Isaiah 42:1, where the Messiah is
God’s appointed one, commissioned for a unique ministry. (Note neither
Coenen, Quell, or Schrenk acknowledged Isa. 42:1 as messianic because of
their liberal* views.) Since the classical Greek usage for a political election
does not carry over into the Septuagint or New Testament either, a serious
question is raised whether the words ‘elect’ and ‘election’ should have ever
been used in our translations. Neither Testament contains a concept of
individual ‘election’ other than appointment to an office, based on prior
qualifications, not arbitrary selection. Therefore, the transliteration ‘election’
should never be used, but rather its actual meaning as seen in the usage.
Thus our understanding of New Testament usage must be based upon this
predominant usage in secular and Septuagintal Greek.
Inter-testamental development. Coenen and Schrenk have fascinating
treatments of the Jewish concept of election in the inter-testamental period.
Coenen traced the rabbinic pride of “status and privilege” to Pharisaic exclusive-
ness, and “inevitably this brought the concept of individual election further to the fore (cf.
1QH9:29f.). This is esp. apparent in the Qumran texts (1 Q4:22; 8:1-15) in which conscious-
ness of being chosen leads not only to a feeling of superiority over other nations, and over the
ungodly in their own. . . but also to a direct hatred for those who have been rejected (1 QS
1:4).”12 Schrenk confirmed Jewish exclusivity and sense of superiority
developed in the inter-testamental period and referenced the Damascus
document in which election and reprobation became strongly individual. “In
particular eklegomai is not adapted to serve as a basis of a dogma of election and reproba-
tion. It is unfortunate that the concept of election has been linked with the predestination
controversy.” He then quoted 4 Esdras 2:17, “Thou savest whom thou wilt, and
destroyest whom thou wilt.”13 Christ refuted these Pharisaic errors.
New Testament Usage

In the New Testament, the verb eklegomai is used 22 times, the adjective
eklektos, 22 times, and the abstract noun eklogç 7 times. In examining these
contexts, it would be expected to find the same usage as before, that is, the
appointment/commissioning of qualified people to a responsibility with an
obligation to fulfill it well. Those appointed are usually the ‘choice’ people.
But the lexicons, theological dictionaries, and translations all miss it!
Christ, the Choicest One. It should be expected that the references to
Christ as the elect or ‘choicest’ servant of God, as seen previously in Isaiah
42:1-4, would be so rendered in our translations. Unfortunately only the NAS
and a few others so translate it and then only in 1 Peter 2:4 & 6. But starting
with the Father’s words on the Mount of Transfiguration as reported by Luke,
“This is my Son, My Chosen One (ho eklelegmenos); listen to Him!” (Lk. 9:35), this
language identifies Him with God’s choicest Servant in Isaiah 42:1-7. How-
ever, the other two Gospel parallels use agapçtos “beloved Son” (Mt. 17:5=Mk.
9:7). As usually translated the Gospels are in contradiction since ‘beloved’
is not equivalent to ‘chosen,’ but rather ‘choicest’ comes far closer in
meaning. Thus, to harmonize the Synoptic writers’ representation of the
Father’s words from heaven, ‘choicest’ resolves the problem simply, espe-
cially since this was the major connotation in prior Greek literature.
Luke also showed how His being the choice Messiah was the heart of
the issue with the Jewish rulers, reaching its acme as they mocked Him as
He hung on the cross: “And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, ‘He saved
other; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One [His Choice
One]” (Lk. 23:35). ‘Choice’ makes much better sense here also since there
is no evidence that the Jews thought of the Messiah as ‘chosen.’
Peter explicitly confirmed this in his usage in 1 Peter 2:4, 6: “And coming
to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of
God. . . . ‘Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone.’” The NAS is
one of the few translations which saw the pre-New Testament usage as
imperative in this context (also Moffatt, NEB, & TCNT). Clearly, the connota-
tion of ‘choice’ or ‘select,’ seen in the secular and Septuagint usage, is
absolutely demanded in this context, as confirmed by the close connection
with ‘precious.’ Christ was in no way chosen by God; He is the ‘Choice One.’
As noted in the discussion of foreknowledge in1 Peter 1:20 (cf. Ch. 22),
there is no way in either passage that Jesus of Nazareth is to be considered
as chosen by God from among other Jews to be the Messiah. This notion is
the heart of two ancient heresies, Cerinthian Gnosticism and the Ebionite
heresy. Nor was He ever chosen as one out of many in any other sense. As
Reformed homiletician and editor, James Daane pointed out, like the nation
Israel, He was born miraculously: “God’s election must produce what it elects. And it does.
Isaac is a son of miracle. . . . the nation of Israel is not viewed as one extant nation among many, which
is then selectively chosen by God as his elect people. Rather, Israel as the object of God’s election not
only does not exist but even has no possibility of existence apart from God’s elective and creative
action.”14 Similarly, through the virgin birth, the Lord Jesus was uniquely born
to be the ‘choice One’ of God. He was appointed by the Father. Thus the pre-
New Testament usage of these three words is not only helpful, but manda-
tory in understanding the real meaning in these contexts.
Christ’s decisive parable and aphorism. The parable of the king’s
wedding feast in Matthew 22:1-14 is important. Because of its length, the
reader must open the Bible here. Note in 22:3, those who were invited to the
wedding feast “were unwilling to come.” They even mistreated and killed the
messenger slaves (22:6). The king emphasized that those invited “were not
worthy” (22:8) and sent judgment upon them. Then he had his slaves invite
people from the highways indiscriminately, “both evil and good” (22:9-10).
Even though wedding garments were surely provided for the guests, when
one was found without it, he was ejected (22:11-13). At that point Christ
gave this famous and enigmatic aphorism: “For many are called, but few chosen
[eklektoi]” (22:14). As translated, there is a serious disconnect in that the
aphorism has nothing to do with the parable in which no one was chosen.
Rather only those who responded to the king’s summons got in. It is un-
thinkable that Christ had a lapse of thought here! The translations are at
fault! As in prior usage it means ‘choice’: “Many are summoned; but few are
choice.” The prior usage and usage in Luke 9:35, 1 Peter 2:4, 6, and Romans
16:13 give an easy solution to an extremely serious interpretive problem.
This now makes sense, since those who did not respond to Christ’s
invitation are described as “unwilling to come” and “not worthy.” This was not
attributed to God’s choice. On the other hand, those who ended up in the
feast were not chosen either; they had merely responded to the open
invitation or summons of the king. This is Christ’s clear teaching as to how
people come to be included in salvation. Some think this seems to make
salvation a matter of human merit. The answer is in God’s making the
believer ‘choice’ by His grace. This is the point of the provision of wedding
garments for the guests, who would have had no opportunity to get them on
their own. Justification by faith involves God’s provision of the wedding
garments, as anticipated in Isaiah 61:10: “I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, my
soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has
wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a
garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” Believers are elsewhere
called “saints,” without undermining the gracious character of salvation,
since this is positional truth. Being ‘choice’ is also positional truth.
The broader context of this parable and its aphorism confirms the
appropriateness of this translation. It is one of a group of three parables the
Lord Jesus gave after His triumphal entry at the beginning of passion week,
and in all three He declared His rejection by His own ‘choice people.’ In
accusing Israel of being unwilling to accept His invitation extended to them
for three years, He made it clear the invitation is going out to all whom the
king will then qualify to be His select guests, although their previous condi-
tion was both “evil and good.” Thus, in effect He set in contrast God’s ancient
choice nation and the new “choice people” to whom the kingdom of God
would be given, an idea explicitly declared in the previous context: “There-
fore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a
nation producing the fruit of it” (Mt. 21:43). There is a strong irony in Christ’s
aphorism: the choice nation is being set aside and indiscriminate invitees
(“evil and good”) become choice by God’s gracious plan.
The appointed Apostles. Here is the heart of the issue. The major
overlooked usage of eklegomai (11 out of 22 usages) is the appointment of
Apostles, deacons, or special envoys. The appointment of His twelve
Apostles was more than simple choice since it involved a unique office and
obligation (Lk. 6:13; Jn. 6:70; 13:18; 15:16, 19; Acts 1:2). Think of the privilege
and responsibility of these appointed to be Apostles of God incarnate! This
has nothing to do with a dogma of election to salvation, since the Eleven
were already saved before He appointed them as Apostles, except that
Judas was clearly a counterfeit. Christ even referred to this in John 6:70. It
is outrageous, therefore, that some Calvinists misuse John 15:16 as a proof-
text for the notion of unconditional election to salvation: “You did not choose
Me, but I chose [appointed] you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit
should remain, . . .” To extrapolate this verse to all believers in a doctrinal way
is seriously misguided and irresponsible, even though by application we can
affirm that all believers have been appointed to bear abiding fruit.
The verb was also used for the appointment of a replacement for Judas
(Acts 1:24), the appointment of the first deacons (6:5), and the appointment
of two envoys to go to Antioch with the decision of the Jerusalem Council
(15:22, 25). Peter had stated in the Council that God had appointed him to
bring the message to the Gentiles (15:7), which was a unique commission.
Paul spoke of God appointing the Patriarchs, which, as noted, was really a
commission (13:17). Similarly, the noun is used of the Lord’s word to
Ananias in reference to Paul’s commission to the Gentiles (9:15). Thus, it is
indisputable that the major use of these words in the New Testament is in
total harmony with the prior usage, that is, appointment or commission.
Only Jost Eckert in EDNT perceived some of this more precise meaning:
2. Eklegomai occurs with the general meaning choose (something) only in Luke 10:42
and 14:7; elsewhere it denotes the election [appointment] by God of the fathers (Acts 13:17),
of Jesus as Son of God (Luke 9:35), and of those who believe (1 Cor 1:27 and often) and the
election [appointment] of the disciples [apostles] by Jesus (John 6:70, etc.) and appointment
to ministries and offices by the church (Acts 6:5; 15:22, 25) (Square brackets mine).15
This confirms the analysis of the usage data laid out above, and since Eckert
is right, then most of our translations are in the horrendous rut of rendering
eklegomai as ‘to choose’ in most places, missing the more precise connota-
tion. Even EDNT stuck with the transliteration ‘election,’ and used the actual
connotation ‘appointment’ only once in his article.B
It is significant that the adjective is used six times in the Olivet Discourse
B. It is amazing that none of the lexicons or theological dictionaries have noted this as a major use of
the verb, neither BAG, TDNT, or NIDNTT. Only EDNT dimly perceives it. This is why I have not
significantly referenced these works for the NT analysis and have developed my own NT word study.
I have found eight major defects in Coenen’s NT analysis, such as totally overlooking 1 Peter 1:1-2.
Eckert’s more recent (1978) brief statement substantially advances the research. The reader will notice
that it is very helpful to examine all the cognates simultaneously rather than separately as the lexicons
and theological dictionaries have done. This helps in better seeing the connections.
of end-time tribulation saints coupled once with the verb in Mark 13:20: “But
for the sake of the elect, whom He chose [appointed], He shortened the days.” As
translated it is redundant. If we build upon the earlier usage, it should be:
“But for the sake of the choice ones, whom He commissioned. . . .” Such believers
facing martyrdom are especially ‘choice’ in God’s sight. It is also significant
that Paul’s four uses of the noun are also connected with God’s dealings
with Israel (Rom. 9:11; 11:5, 7, 28). Is there a connection between these
usages? The end-time choice ones are probably the 144,000 Jewish evange-
lists of Revelation 7:4-9, who were surely sealed to win the great multitude
of Gentiles. Revelation 17:14 uses eklektos for these 144,000 Jewish believers
who stand faithful with the Lamb in the tribulation, supporting this connec-
tion. This will be a wonderful fulfillment of God’s original commission to the
Patriarchs although the connection is difficult to prove. If correct, this
confirms the more precise rendering ‘choice.’ Thus, all through the Gospels,
eklegomai has nothing to do with being chosen to salvation.
Peter’s simple explanation. Now the simple statement of Peter, a
philosophically naive fisherman, must be examined again: that believers are
“elect (eklektoi = choice ones) according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by
the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled
with His blood:” (1 Pet. 1:1-2). From the predominant prior usage of eklektoi, it
is clear that Peter addressed Christians as ‘choice ones,’ just as Paul called us
‘saints.’ Peter’s explanation that this was accomplished by the “sanctifying
work of the Spirit” confirms this happens when we are saved, not in past
eternity. What God foreknew in eternity is now fulfilled by the Spirit accord-
ing to God’s foreknowledge, not by some imagined elective purpose.
Thus, by reading a pregnant determinative meaning into prognosis,
Calvinists contradict Peter’s simple explanation that our becoming God’s
choice ones is by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. Peter was naive of the
complex doctrine of unconditional election in eternity past and felt that the
truth he was setting forth was not “hard to understand.” It is implemented by
the preaching of the gospel and the “sanctifying work of the Spirit.” This is
clarified by the root idea of sanctify as ‘to separate, to set apart.’
It is significant that in the same context after Peter referred to Christ as
the “choice stone” (2:4, 6), he went on to refer to the Church as “a chosen
[choice] race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that
you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light.” (2:9 HCSB). Peter borrowed language used of the nation
Israel to refer to the Church, thus indicating that the Church’s election, like
Israel’s, was corporate and had an obligation attached. Peter indicated in
Chapter 1 that ‘election’ is conditional and in Chapter 2 that it is corporate.
Peter’s only use of the noun supports this understanding: “Therefore, my
brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election [choice].
For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome
into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:10-11, TNIV).
The issue is simple: if individual election is unconditional, how can anything

which those professing believers do change that eternal reality? Uncondi-
tional election means there is no condition anybody can meet in order to
become elect or remain elect. But clearly Peter affirms that they must be
“diligent” (NAS) to make it sure. He was thinking of believers whose assur-
ance was shaky and of nominal Christians who were careless about their
spiritual state. This exhortation contradicts the notion of unconditional
election, but does not negate the eternal security of true believers.
Paul’s usage
His early usage. Paul’s use of the noun eklogç is more complex: “. . .
knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice [appointment] of you; for our gospel did
not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full
conviction;” (1 Thess. 1:4). The point is simple: if this is a reference to individ-
ual election, how could Paul know this of every individual in the Thessalonian
church? He spoke of the manifest work of God in their corporate conversion
(Acts 17:11-10) some Jews and many Gentiles were converted in just a few
weeks before his untimely departure, but also the radical change in their
lifestyle (1:3, 6-10). Since the Bible consistently warns of counterfeit believers
in every church, Paul could not have known this about every individual in the
church there. But Paul was convinced that there was a choice company of
believers in Thessalonica. There is no basis for going beyond this since
nothing in the context requires individual election here. He saw that they had
met the condition of repentant faith and had come into “much full assurance”
(plçrophoria pollç) by the powerful working of the Spirit in conviction, regenera-
tion, and sanctification, but not by an arbitrary eternal decree.
In reference to the Greeks’ search for wisdom in philosophy and the
revelation of God’s wisdom in the gospel of Christ, Paul spoke about God’s
appointed plan which goes contrary to the things people value:
For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen [appointed] the foolish
things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen [appointed] the weak things
of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and
the despised, God has chosen [appointed], the things that are not, that He might nullify
the things that are, that no man should boast before God (1 Cor. 1:26-29).
Paul’s use of the verb here of God’s choice of the marginalized in society
rather than the elite, makes better sense as an appointed plan rather than a
decree for individual salvation, as does the parallel in James 2:5. It is absurd
to visualize God picking out the non-elite in a supposed unconditional
election of individuals. It is more likely that human factors, such as the pride
of the elite factors in. Schrenk commented that this passage implies “a radical
break with selfish concerns about election.”16 This is a plan which reverses the natural
human way of doing things and gives greater glory to God!
This context is in perfect harmony with the general principles operative
in the way people respond to God’s calling through the gospel. Christ had
explained this principle after dealing with the rich young ruler: “Truly I say to
you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 19:23; cf. Mt. 5:3-
5). It is not the world’s intellectuals, power brokers, millionaires, and ‘beauti-
ful people’ who are responding in significant numbers to the gospel. This is
fully explainable in terms of human nature and is hardly based upon some
mysterious individual election. Indeed, Paul went on to tell how the open
secret of God’s wisdom has now been revealed through the Apostles (1 Cor.
2:6-7). Thus it is astonishing that J. I. Packer stated that this passage is one of
the five major passages upon which the Calvinistic doctrine of election is
based,17 a clear case of reading one’s theology into a passage.
Romans. There are five uses in Romans: “He who did not spare His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Who will bring a charge against God’s elect [choice ones]? God is the one who
justifies; who is the one who condemns?” (Rom. 8:32-34). The wonderful conse-
quence of the five-linked chain of vv. 28-31 is now that we have been fore-
known, foreordained to be conformed to the image of Christ, called, justified,
and glorified, there can be no condemnation (8:1). Certainly justification and
glorification put in a past tense are positional truth. Since we are also posi-
tionally God’s eklektoi (choice ones), the idea of God allowing a condemnatory
charge against us is unthinkable. Which possible rendering, ‘chosen’ or
‘choice,’ makes better sense in the flow of Paul’s logic? He had identified us
as “those who love God” in 8:28. Then he began the sequence with foreknow-
ledge in 8:29. Either is possible in this context, but ‘choice’ is to be preferred:
“Who will bring a charge against God’s choice ones?” It is not because He has
chosen us, but because He has positionally made us His choice ones based
upon foreknowledge, that no charge can be entertained in His courts.
Paul used eklogç four times in defending God’s righteousness in His
dealings with Israel (Chs. 9-11). In Romans 9:11, Jacob was appointed over
Esau to be the progenitor of His choice nation. Salvation is not an issue here,
nor are Jacob and Esau in view as individuals. This is clear from the whole of
Genesis 25:23, where God informed Rebekah: “Two nations are in your womb;
and two peoples will be separated from your body; and one people shall be stronger
than the other; and the older shall serve the younger.” The context of Romans 9–11
is God’s fairness in setting the nation Israel aside dispensationally* and
turning to the Gentiles. Israel’s commission as God’s choice people for two
millennia did not automatically save any Jew, nor rule out salvation for
Gentiles but gave awesome privileges and responsibilities to Israel (9:1-6).
The other usage in Romans 11 all relate to the same issue. “In the same
way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s
gracious choice [appointed plan]” (11:5). In the preceding verses, Paul had
referred to God’s reserving a remnant of 7000 in the days of Elijah and made
a comparison with the remnant of Jewish believers in his day according to
the principle of His gracious appointed plan. This involved a judicial* harden-
ing of unbelieving Israel, as part of that transition from Israel to the Church:
“What then? That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but the election
[appointed people] obtained it, and the rest were hardened” (11:7 NAS, margin).
From the strong corporate context of this passage, it is obvious he is not -
speaking of the selection of individual Jews to be that remnant but rather His
dealing with the Jewish people corporately. In the preceding section he had
made it abundantly clear that faith is the principle upon which that remnant
came into being (9:30–33; 10:2-4, 8-17).
The fourth use is even more obviously corporate: “From the standpoint of
the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice
[appointed plan] they are beloved for the sake of the fathers;” (11:28). The anteced-
ent of ‘they’ are Jews who are enemies of the gospel and yet corporately are
still a part of God’s appointed nation, which will ultimately be converted in
the end time at His return (Rom. 11:11-27). Most transparently here, eklogç
could not refer to individual unconditional election to salvation. Thus there
is a consistent corporate usage of this term as ‘choice’ or appointed people or
plan in these four usages related to the nation Israel.
In this case, Paul’s usage of the adjective in Romans 16:13 must be the
same as previously, since at least three major translations have recognized
that ‘choice’ makes better sense: “Greet Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, . . .”
Presumably, Rufus was not the only believer in Paul’s list who was ‘elect,’ as
most translations render it. Otherwise, what could chosen in the Lord mean?
Later Pauline references. The context of the use of the adjective in
Colossians 3:12 is helpful: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly
loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and pa-
tience” (NIV). With prior usage in mind, we must retranslate accordingly:
“God’s choice people.” In many of Paul’s letters he described the believer’s
exalted position in Christ and then immediately based his exhortations for
godly living upon that position (Rom. 12:1-2; Eph. 4:1; Col. 3:1-3). Since we
have been exalted to be God’s choice people, holy and dearly loved, how
appropriate that these qualities should be seen in us. On the other hand,
being chosen by God with no revealed conditions would not be a solid basis
for moral appeal. Some who see themselves as ‘the elect of God’ are arro-
gant, self-righteous, and proud. Certainly by Christ’s day Israel, so conscious
of being the chosen people, had become similarly proud. In this light, a
strong case can be made for “choice ones.” This parallels the equivalency in
Luke 9:35 where “choice Son” was equivalent to “beloved Son” in the other
Gospels. God’s choice people are also “holy and dearly loved.”
Now we must consider the most significant use of the verb theologically–
Ephesians 1:4ff. Based upon prior usage it would be appropriate to translate:
“Just as He appointed us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would be
holy and blameless before Him in love.” He didn’t merely choose us; He ap-
pointed us with the obligation and goal that we would be holy and blameless
in love. Now we learn that every believer has been appointed to an office
with responsibilities attached. This more precise translation undermines the

dogma that God has chosen only ‘the elect’ to salvation. Ephesians is the
unique epistle about the church consisting of those who are “in Him” by
simple faith in Christ. This phrase, or similar ones (in the Beloved One), is
used twenty times in the first two chapters. Again we see ‘appointment’ as a
more specific idea than merely choosing. The remaining two uses of the verb
are the only contexts where the common rendering of the verb ‘to choose’ is
clearly adequate (Lk. 10:42 &14:7), which is only two out of twenty-two, as
already affirmed by Jost Eckert in EDNT. (Cf. a full discussion in Ch. 24)
The standard translation of reference to eklektoi angels raises significant
questions (1 Tim. 5:21). Where else in the Bible is there any concept that the
division between holy and rebellious angels was by God’s election? It was
Satan’s rebellion which led a host of angels astray, not any election by God.
Thus, here too the probability is great that they are really ‘choice’ angels.
Consider also the context of Titus 1:1: “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle
of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect [choice ones] and the knowledge of the truth
that leads to godliness—a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which
God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time” (NIV). He wrote to
Titus, his missionary colleague, for the benefit of God’s eklektoi, to strengthen
their faith and enhance their godliness. This is his epistle of good works. As
in Colossians 3:12, the appeal to godliness is more harmonious with Paul’s
usual appeal based upon our exalted position in Christ as God’s ‘choice
ones.’ In other epistles, he more frequently addressed the recipients as
‘saints’ (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:2), but here
those to whom Titus was ministering are called ‘choice ones.’ It is notable
how he links their being ‘choice’ to their faith, which cannot be separated.
Paul’s reference to eklektoi in 2 Timothy 2:10 brings out an aspect reflected
in other contexts. “. . . for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like
a criminal. But God’s word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake
of the elect [choice ones], that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus,
with eternal glory” (NIV). Again, we must decide whether the traditional
rendering ‘elect’ fits the context, or whether to go back to the predominant
prior usage of ‘choice.’ If God’s people have been unconditionally elected to
salvation, how can Paul say that his suffering in the Mamertine prison in
Rome could contribute in any way to their ultimate salvation? On the other
hand, Paul’s testimony and propagation of the word of God even from prison
could have a big impact upon the lives of the churches, especially professing
believers who need to be diligent to enter salvation (Heb. 4:11), only if they
are understood to be God’s choice people, not just some privileged class of
‘elect.’ There is also an overtone of suffering in Christ’s frequent reference to
the eklektoi in the great tribulation in His prophetic discourse (Mt. 24:22, 24, 31;
Mk. 13:20, 22, 27; & possibly Lk. 18:7). Suffering saints are more appropriately
described as the ‘choice ones,’ rather than some ‘elected ones.’
John’s usage. The elder Apostle John’s use of the adjective twice in 2
John to refer to a church as the “elect [choice] lady” and to his own church as
the “elect [choice] sister” (vv. 1, 13) is a euphemism in a time of growing per-
secution, to obscure his meaning to hostile eyes. The church is composed of
God’s choice people. Mission agencies working today in restricted countries
have developed a similar code to communicate with their “workers.” The
corporate implications of his usage are quite transparent.
Other Considerations
Relationship to legein. There is another connection arising from the
study of this group of words. They are derived from the common verb legein,
which has over a dozen meanings. Some of these meanings are significant
in understanding the meanings of the derivatives. While being careful to
avoid the “root fallacy” that Carson warned about, nevertheless, some of
these meanings may be worth taking into account. For legein the BAG lexicon
listed as II, 1, c, “order, command, direct, enjoin,” and for II, 3, “call, name.”18 Since
God’s choice Servant of Isaiah 42, His Apostles, and Christians were called to
service, and Paul’s emphasis is upon being called to a lifestyle commensu-
rate with His service, this linguistic connection to these meanings of legein has
significance. In many of these passages a major thrust is that we are being
called and named as His servants, and such a call is really an order, com-
mand, or summons to a commission. Unfortunately, most of humanity has
not responded to that call or command.
Slight doctrinal emphasis. Is it not amazing that out of 51 usages of this
group of words in the New Testament, only ten could possibly refer to a
doctrine of ‘election’ of individuals to salvation by any stretch of the imagina-
tion, whether conditional or unconditional? Three are in Peter, six in Paul,
and the one enigmatic aphorism of Christ. It is also striking that beyond this
there is no other theological reference in the four Gospels, Acts, James,
Hebrews, Jude or the Johannine writings. Nor are there any possible refer-
ences in the whole Septuagint Old Testament. Considering the centrality of
unconditional election in Calvinism and the theological controversies engen-
dered, one must question its adequacy as a major basis for a whole theologi-
cal system. Yet Calvinists seem to see “election” everywhere they look!C
Considering the clear connotation of the “appointment of the choice”
noted in prior usage and in the New Testament, one wonders how the word
‘elect’ and ‘election’ even came into the picture. The Greek word eklektos is
related to the Latin “electus, past part. of eligere to elect, fr. e out + legere to choose.”19
The Latin legere would be connected with the Greek legein ‘to call.’ In
essence, the English ‘elect’ is one stage removed from being a direct translit-
eration of the Greek, not a translation. The danger of transliterating Greek
words into our Bible is that any meaning one pleases can thus be imposed
C. I remember a student attending a hyper-Calvinistic church, in a course in Pauline epistles inserted

the word ‘elect’ into every answer in an exam on epistles which had no mention of ‘election.’
upon that transliterated and really coined English word. Other examples of
this problem are musterion, which does not mean ‘mystery;’ baptisma, which is
more specific than the coined word ‘baptism,’ and apostasia, which does not
necessarily mean ‘apostasy.’ The point is that the word ‘elect’ has a connota-
tion in the mind of Calvinists which is not in the Greek words.
Passages not using eklegomai. A favorite proof-text of Calvinists is 2
Thessalonians 2:13-14: “because God has chosen you from the beginning for
salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He
called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This verse uses hairein, which means, ‘to take, or to choose.’20 It presents
significant difficulty for translation since there is a textual problem. The UBS
text has the preferred reading as aparchçn, which means ‘firstfruits.’ Although
the majority of manuscripts read ap’ archçs, which means ‘from the beginning,’
the UBS textual committee had good reasons for their decision to prefer the
other reading.D Since in the secular Greek the verb is used in the sense of
‘picking fruit,” Knox rendered it: “God has picked you out as the firstfruits in the
harvest of salvation.” The TNIV and the New Century Version also opt for
“firstfruits.” This makes much better sense in the context since it was accom-
plished by “the sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth.” This is not some
pre-temporal election by God, but a historical event recorded in Acts 17.
God’s picking them as firstfruits alludes to the Thessalonian church being one
of the earliest churches planted by Paul and the recipient of his earliest
epistles. Unfortunately this is another example of the majority of translators
continuing on in the rut of past misjudgments. Now we have better tools.
Conclusions
Our understanding of biblical so-called election must be founded upon
the appointment of Israel and of Christ. In neither case was there an uncon-
ditional election to salvation. This is the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the
Calvinist’s room. Was Israel unconditionally elected to salvation? Was Christ
unconditionally elected to salvation? Obviously not! The Church succeeded
Israel as the choice people of God in this age of grace and only exists be-
cause of its connection by faith with its Head, Jesus Christ, the Choice One of
the Father. The predominant meaning of ‘choice’ and ‘appointing or com-
missioning of the choice’ in secular Greek and the Septuagint carries over
into the New Testament in a major way, and significantly opens up the
meaning of key passages, such as Luke 9:35, Matthew 22:14, 1 Peter 1:1-2,
and 1 Peter 2:4, 6. Since the traditional translation of the verb (‘to choose’) is
required in only two other passages, it is clear that the translators have not
given adequate consideration to the predominant prior usage.
D. The marginal reading expression occurs nowhere else in Paul’s writings, whereas aparchç occurs six
other places in Paul. When Paul uses archç it has a meaning that doesn’t fit here at all. Bruce M.
Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek NT, 3rd ed., pp. 636-7.
In considering all the theologically relevant passages, it is clear that there

is no basis for a doctrine of individual unconditional election. The corporate
nature of ‘election’ is so clear in enough contexts to lead to the probability
that all should be taken corporately. Moreover, this word study raises the
question whether there really is any biblical doctrine of ‘election’ at all. The
only kind of election in the classical Greek was political. It is probable that
the only valid use of the English word election is in the political realm and the
essentially transliterated term in the English New Testament has nothing to
do with God choosing anybody to salvation. Even if our mindset is in such a
rut that we cannot abandon this idea, there are significant number of con-
texts in which conditional ‘choice’ is clear. Conversely there is no clear,
unambiguous evidence of unconditional election in any of the contexts.
Therefore, we must not read unconditional election into those contexts
which could be taken either way. The presumption in those cases is in favor
of a consistent picture of so-called election being conditioned upon the sin-
ner’s response to the gospel message in repentant faith.
Is ‘election’ corporate or is it conditional? It is probably both, and in any
case, unconditional individual election is a serious error. At the very least, we
have raised enough doubts about Augustine’s novel doctrine to cause Calvin-
ists to stop building their whole theology of salvation upon it.
1. Erich Sauer, The Dawn of World Redemption:, pp. 89-90.

2. Ibid, pp. 108-120.
3. Lothar Coenen in Colin Brown, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, I, 536.
4. G. Schrenk in Gerhard Kittel, ed. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, IV, 144-5, 176, 181.
5. Schrenk , ibid., IV, 176-182; Arndt and Gingrich (BAG), pp. 241-242.
6. Coenen, ibid, I, 537-8.
7. Horst Seebass in G. J. Botterweck & Helmer Ringgren, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, II, 83.
8. Ibid, II, 87, quoting Vriezen’s 1953 German article in AThANT.
9. John N. Oswalt in Harris, Archer, Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, I, 100-101.
10. G. Quell, in Kittel, IV, 144; Schrenk, ibid., IV, 182.
11. J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, p. 195; This is my rendering of the
supplied Gk. text from POxy II, Ogis, and the Avircius epitaph. Unfortunately the Gk. quotations are very brief.
12. Coenen, ibid., I, 539.
13. Schrenk, ibid., IV, 171, 175.
14. James Daane, The Freedom of God, p. 101.
15. Jost Eckert in Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, eds., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, I, 416.
16. Schrenk, ibid., IV, 174.
17. From the debate between Clark Pinnock and J. I. Packer on Calvinism and Arminianism, tape in my possession.
18. BAG, Lexicon, p. 470-1.
19. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 5th ed., p. 320.
20. BAG, Lexicon, p. 23. They reference an ancient source, “if you pick fruit.”
To him [Paul], preappointment [proorismos] is
24
not the beginning of calling and justification. If this
were the beginning of the order, and since those
who subtly introduce persuasive arguments use
absurd reasoning concerning salvation’s origin, in-
deed, foreknowledge comes before preappointment
[proorismos].
There are, indeed, innumerable passages in the
Scriptures which establish with exceeding clear-
ness the existence of freedom of will.
- Origen of Alexandria (185-254)
Defender of the faith and commentator
IS PREDESTINATION
REALLY IN THE BIBLE?
Introduction
In investigating the issues relating to conditional versus unconditional
‘election,’ we have seen that the Greek word for foreknowledge means just
that and must not be spun to become virtually synonymous with fore-
ordination. It was already noted that the adjective ‘elect’ is really a transliter-
ated word in English and has to do with ‘choice’ people and the verb ‘to
appoint to an office,’ emphasizing the exalted position of believers in Christ.
Now a study of words for foreordain/ ‘predestine’ is in order. Since proorizein
is such a rare word, a valid word study must scour all possible usage and
finds that the usual translations have loaded heavy theological baggage into
the word based upon Jerome’s mistranslation “to predestinate.” Then the
two most significant passages theologically will be examined.
A Word Study of Proorizein and Cognates

No predestination in the Bible. Through the influence of Jerome’s
Latin Vulgate translation, proorizein has been translated mainly as “to predesti-
nate.” However, this is a very rare word, and there is a serious question as
to how it should actually be translated. It never occurred in the Septuagint
Old Testament and is found only once in classical Greek literature before the
New Testament (Demosthenes) and a few times in secular Greek from the
3rd to 5th centuries AD. It occurs six times in four contexts in the New Testa-
ment, its cognates horizein eight times, and aphorizein nine times. However,
there are over thirty references to the verb and derived nouns and adjectives
in the church fathers. In examining all these usages, the meaning ‘to preap-
330
Chapter 24 IS PREDESTINATION REALLY IN THE BIBLE? 331
point’ emerges. Since the idea of destiny is not at all present in this group of
words, the translation ‘to predestinate’ is totally erroneous. It is very signifi-
cant that for four centuries before Augustine, the Greek-speaking church
fathers knew nothing of ‘predestination’ or ‘election’ since the Greek words
do not have these meanings. Perhaps Jerome was influenced by Augus-
tine’s theology in his Vulgate translation. Albeit, we must break from a
clearly erroneous translational tradition since the reformist Catholic scholar,
Erasmus said “the Vulgate swarmed with errors.”1
Procedure. We face a serious methodological problem in determining
the meaning of this word because of its rarity. Although we must be careful
to avoid the “root fallacy” that Carson has warned about, he pointed out that
in the case of rare words, we really have no other alternative but to check
out the root and other related words, as mentioned above.2 It is astonishing
there is so very little serious investigation of proorizein in the literature.
Amazingly, K. L. Schmidt in TDNT does not even give the secular Greek
references, but simply refers to “this comparatively late and rare word.”3 We must
examine these references, which he has unconscionably failed to do.
Secular usage. Examining the one prior classical usage in Demosthen-
es (IV BC; 31, 4) begins this study. This is found in a court case in which
Demosthenes was trying to recover an inherited house from Onetor, who
had defrauded him. In court he stated: “To prove that these statements of mine are
true, that he [Onetor] even now declares that the land is mortgaged for a talent, but that he
laid claim to two thousand drachmae more on the house, . . .” The word translated “laid
claim” is prosôrisatô.4 My reaction was: “What in the world has this got to do
with predestination?” It is wonderful to know God has laid claim to us, but
this hardly relates to predestination. Classical scholar Arthur Way took note
of Demosthenes’ usage in his paraphrase of Romans 8:29: “Long ere this He
knew our hearts, long ere this He claimed us (as a man claims property by setting his
landmarks thereon) as those whom He should mould into the very likeness of His own
Son, . . .”5 The noun proorismos was used by Hippocrates of the early determi-
nation of a disease (Hp praec. 3), which he did not predestine. In a romance
novel of Egypt by Heliodorus in the 3rd century AD, there is a reference to
appointing (not predestining) the day of a wedding beforehand (7, 24, 4).
Cognates. The root word horizein “means ‘to limit,’ ‘to set the limit,’ and then fig.
‘to fix,’ ‘to appoint’” in the secular and the Septuagint, as well as the eight New
Testament occurrences, according to TDNT. Five are Christological: Luke
22:22; Acts 2:23; 10:42; 17:31; and Romans 1:4. In each of Luke’s usages,
Christ was appointed by the Father to a ministry, either to the cross or as
judge. In Romans 1:4, Christ was “designated the son of God with power by the
resurrection.” The other three usages have to do with determining times and
boundaries (Acts 11:29; 17:26 & Heb. 4:7). The compound aphorizein, used 10
times in the New Testament, means ‘to separate,’ and is frequently used of
God separating, marking off, or appointing someone for His service (Rom.
1:1; Gal. 1:15; Acts 13:2). Schmidt confirmed: “In connection with what was said
about horizô, it seems that at the heart of the NT we find the principle of God separating, i.e.,
marking off for His service.”6 This is significant to the meaning of proorizein.
New Testament usage. The possible impact of these meanings upon
the New Testament usage of proorizein must be examined. In Acts 4:28 (NIV):
“Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with Gentiles and the people of Israel
in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did
what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen,” the main point
is God’s power and counsel had previously appointed the crucifixion to
happen. In 1 Corinthians 2:7 (NKJV): “. . . but we speak the wisdom of God in a
mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which
none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory,” Paul referred to the wisdom of God in the cross, which was
previously appointed for the Church’s glory– nothing about predestination!
Ephesians 1:5 (NLT): “His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into
his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.” God’s fixed or
ordained plan was to bring those “in Christ” into His family, the Church.
Ephesians 1:11 (MLB): “In Him we too were made His heritage, as foreordained
according to His purpose, who works out everything in agreement with the design of
His own will, . . .” Here also Paul referred to God’s foreordained plan to make
believers His own heritage. Thus in all four contexts the connotation harmo-
nious with the root meaning “previously appointed” makes perfect sense.
This also fits with the extrabiblical usage. But the idea of destiny is not found
in horizein, aphorizein, or in the limited secular use of proorizein and therefore
should not be imposed upon New Testament usage. Various translations
are quoted above because most are still in the rut of “to predestinate.”
Patristic usage. Normally usage by church fathers should not be
depended upon since a shift in meaning is possible. However, since this is
such a rare word, it must be assumed the Greek fathers knew Greek better
than modern scholars who perpetuate Jerome’s gross error. G. W. H.
Lampe gave over thirty references to proorizein, proorisis, proorismenos, proorismos,
prooristikos from the fathers. Clement (I-II AD) referred to “the love of God, which
He has preappointed before the foundation of the world,” and also wrote of how “[God]
of Himself distributed benefit to Greeks and barbarians and to those preappointed from
among them, having been called according to the qualified brotherhood.” Ignatius (I-II
AD) addressed his Ephesian epistle “to the ancient church which Almighty God had
preappointed.” Irenaeus (II AD) wrote that “when the number is fulfilled which He has
preappointed with him, all will be raised [from the dead].” Paul of Samosata (III AD)
wrote of God foreordaining the incarnation through the virgin.
There is an extremely relevant use of the noun proorismos in Origen’s (III
AD) comment on Rom. 8:29-30: “To him [Paul] preappointment is not the beginning
of calling and justification, for if this were the beginning of the order, and since those who
subtly introduce persuasive arguments use absurd reasoning concerning salvation’s origin,
indeed, foreknowledge comes before preappointment.” It is very important to note
that Origen clearly affirmed that foreknowledge necessarily precedes

preappointment and is the beginning of the plan of salvation, while warning
against the pagan determinism of those trying to reverse the order.
Marcellus’s (IV AD) comment on wisdom in Prov. 8:23 is that the dispensa-
tions were preappointed. Nilus of Sinai’s (V AD) comment on Matthew 25:34
is that their struggles were preappointed. John of Damascus (VIII AD) clearly
distinguished proorizein from proginoskein. Foreordaining a church, a number,
dispensation, or struggles is hardly predestination. In none of these refer-
ences does the meaning “predestinate” emerge. In all of them‘to preap-
point’ makes perfect sense.7
Lexicons. Examine the secondary sources: John Parkhurst’s 16th cen-
tury lexicon did not list ‘predestinate’ among the meanings: “II. To decree or
ordain before-hand, to fore-ordain, fore-appoint.”8 Thayer’s lexicon has, “to predeter-
mine, decide beforehand, Vulg. [exc. in Acts] praedestino, . . . to foreordain, appoint before-
hand, Ro. viii. 29 sq.; tina eis ti, one to obtain a thing. Eph. I.5 . . .” Note that a century
ago, Thayer, although noting the Vulgate rendering, did not list ‘predestinate’
among the meanings in English. Similarly, Abbott-Smith did not include
‘predestinate’ among the meanings.9 Also, the BDAG lexicon, after referenc-
ing the limited secular usage, gave “decide upon beforehand” with the biblical
references and limited patristic usage.10 Schmidt’s totally inadequate article
in TDNT is not worth noting. Lastly, it should be noted that Lampe did not
give ‘predestinate’ as a meaning which he found in the church fathers, but
rather “predetermine.” The references given above suggest that even this word
may be too strong, and that “preappoint” would be more appropriate.
Modern translations. Jerome’s Vulgate mistranslation of proorizein as
praedistino or predestinate has seriously skewed the picture because of its
domination of the Latin-focused scholarly world right through the early
English translations, especially the KJV. I have argued that the KJV was the
basis for a translational rut in which our major versions have been stuck
since 1611, possibly because of a deterministic bias of the promoters (NIV,
NAS, ESV, etc.).11 In analyzing the renderings of 36 translations of proorizein in
all six contexts, it is clear that a significant majority are not deterministic (i.e.,
predestine, predetermine, chosen, decreed). Wycliffe (1382) had “before-
ordain.” The English Revised Version (1886) and the ASV (1901) consistently
used “foreordain.” The New Century Version (decided, planned), Today’s
English Version (already set apart or decided), and God’s Word Version
(appointed, decided) were significant non-deterministic committee efforts.
Most significant are consistent rendering by outstanding Greek scholars: A.
T. Robertson (foreordain, appoint, decide, define), Arthur Way (claimed,
designed), J. B. Rotherham (marked out, foreappointed), B. Wilson (marked
out), W. Beck (appointed, planned), and F. F. Bruce (foreordained). Less
consistently leaning against determinism are C. B. Williams, the NEB,
Amplified, A. Marshall, the NLB, and the MLB. Ordained has to do with
God’s order and appointment to service as does the use of horizein in refer-
ence to Christ’s ministry, where appointment is a more appropriate render-

ing. Generations of translators should have recognized the extreme theolog-
ical significance of this word and researched back to its primary usage.
Apparently only the above translators really did so.
Implications. Some might feel too fine a point is being made of this.
Does it matter whether the Bible speaks of being ‘predestined to salvation or
condemnation’ or whether it speaks of being ‘preappointed to the image of
Christ and His service?’ The difference has vast theological and personal
significance. The word ‘predestination’ carries with it strong overtones of
Augustine’s notion of unconditional election. However, Calvinists and
Arminians alike can agree that God has preappointed believers to be con-
formed to the image of His Son and to His service.
Romans 8:28-30 - Appointed to be Like Christ
. . . and in everything, as we know, he co-operates for good with those who love
God and are called according to His purpose. For God knew his own before ever they
were, and also ordained that they should be shaped in the likeness of His Son, that he
might be the eldest among a large family of brothers; and it is these, so fore-ordained,
whom he has also called. And those whom he called he has justified, and to those
whom he justified he has also given his splendour. (Rom. 8:28-29, NEV)
This is a key context in which the meanings of both proginoskein and proorizein
have vast implications for our theology of salvation. The above quoted
translation fairly represents the original of both words.
The broader context of Romans. The key verse of Romans is widely
recognized to be 1:17: “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a
righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will
live by faith’” (NIV). Paul then showed how God makes that righteousness
available to all people who totally lack righteousness (1:18–3:20) through
justification by faith alone (3:21–5:21) and sanctification by faith (6:1–8:39).
That it is all “by faith from first to last” is attested by the fact that the words
‘faith’ and ‘to believe’ occur a total of sixty times and ‘disbelieve’ nine times
in this book, punctuating his major arguments.
Since Luther recovered the truth of the fourth link in Paul’s sequence,
justification by faith, Evangelicals have emphasized the cruciality of faith in
God’s whole plan of salvation.A This is seen in the rest of his sequence in
8:30 (ASV): “. . . and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called,
them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Certainly the
calling to salvation is by faith. The final glorification also must be by faith. Is
it possible that we can leave faith out of the foreknowledge which is the
‘first’ of the process? In His foreordination (better, ‘preappointment’) does
God turn off His omniscient foreknowledge? This is unthinkable!
In order to get the full flow of Paul’s thinking here, go back ten verses:
A. It significant that the five points of Calvinism do not even refer to as central a factor as faith! Since
they believe God gives the faith, it becomes so automatic that it is extraneous to their system.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). In the rest of this chapter,
Paul focused on the certainty of the future glory of God’s children, first
mentioned in 8:17-18. In Romans 9–11, he even raised the question of the
future of Israel, even though for a while Israel has failed and been set aside.
It is with this future focus in mind Paul spoke of the goal of our glorification
in 8:30 and the four stages which precede it. Keep this in mind in focusing
on this sequence of five steps in God’s plan of salvation.
This sequence is so striking that theologians have developed an ordo
salutis (plan of salvation) from these verses.12 It all starts with God’s
foreknowing His people identified as those who love God. Next in the
sequence is foreordination or preappointment (proorizein), then calling, then
justification, and lastly, glorification. There is some discussion as to whether
the sequence is logical or chronological, or both. Probably it is both. In any
case, it must start with foreknowledge before and distinct from proorizein, just
as proorizein must precede and be distinct from ‘calling’, and calling distinct
from justification, and justification distinct from glorification, which logically
and chronologically comes last. Thus any definition of proginoskein which
would make it in any way synonymous with proorizein would absolutely
destroy the logic of Paul’s (and the Spirit’s) sequence. This would reduce it
to mere redundancy and totally undo the symmetry of the development.
This is the final refutation of any pregnant connotation for proginoskein.
Additionally, we should note that there is nothing in the context which
would say anything about any unconditional decrees in eternity past as to
who will be saved and who will be consigned to hell. Paul started with
God’s foreknowledge of us and stated that God has preappointed us to be
conformed to the image of His Son, which is glorification. God works in all
these things for good together with us so that our future is certain and
glorious. God is for us, and nothing can separate us from His love in Christ
(8:38-39). The focus is not on any presumed past ‘predestination,’ but on the
certainty of a glorious future. So Calvinists are half right on this one– right
about eternal security, but wrong on unconditional election.
Calvinistic response. One way Calvinistic writers have dealt with this
contradiction to their system is seen in John Murray, who very subtly omitted
any reference to foreknowledge in his discussion of Romans 8:28-30:
It is not by any means likely that Paul in Rom 8:28-30, in setting forth the outlines of the order
followed in the application of redemption, would begin that enumeration with an act of God
which is other than the first in order. In other words, it is altogether likely that he would begin
with the first, just as he ends with the last. This argument is strengthened by the consider-
ation that he traces salvation to its ultimate source in the election of God. Surely he traces
the application of redemption to its beginning when he says, “whom he did predestinate them
he also called.”13
It is presumed that this very serious omission of the actual first term (fore-
knowledge) was not intentional dishonesty on Murray’s part, but it resulted
from his assumption that the two terms are synonymous. However, in giving
him the benefit of the doubt, it should be pointed out that this is nevertheless
a very serious mishandling of God’s word, whether intentional or not!
Another response to conditional election heard from Calvinists is that
Paul says, “whom He foreknew” not ‘what He foreknew about them.’ Their
point is that if Paul had wanted to allude to God’s foreknowledge of the faith
of the saved, he would not have used a personal object (ous) to the verb.
However, Tom Edgar’s previously quoted (pp. 302-3) observation on the
syntax of personal objects with this verb indicates that this idiom means that
something is known about the object.
Thus, in Romans 8:29, we must seriously consider the probability that
God’s foreknowledge of something about “those who love God” is “built into”
the Greek although not obvious in English. But it is the context, not just in
these verses, but the context of the whole book, which strongly suggests that
faith is that which God foreknows about His people. Since the subject of
Romans is “a righteousness that is by faith from first to last” and since ‘faith’ and
‘believing’ occur sixty times in Romans, it becomes clear that it is repentant
faith which God foresees as the basis of the pre-appointment of His saints.
He foreknows our faith, pre-appoints those who believe, calls us by faith,
justifies us by faith, and glorifies us by faith. It is a faith process “from first to
last.” Our omniscient God does not close His eyes and throw darts.
Ephesians 1:3-14: Appointed Only in Christ

Having researched proorizein and eklegomai separately, the only passage
which connects them and is also doctrinally significant will be examined.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: even as he chose us in him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before
him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto
himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his
grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved: (Eph. 1:3-6, ASV).
The question is whether the major meaning, ‘appointing the choice’ is
carried over into this context, as well. Because of Paul’s focus in this whole
epistle upon the corporate universal church, the new humanity, the body of
Christ, composed of both Jews and Gentiles, we might consider the force of
the root verb, legein ‘to gather.’ God is gathering the body of Christ in Him,
not just picking out individuals, as Calvinists understand it.
But more likely the pre-New Testament usage ‘appointing the choice
ones’ gives the force of Paul’s statement. It is not just Apostles who are
appointed to an office, but all believers now are appointed to an office in the
body of Christ with the obligation to be “holy and blameless before Him.” This
sheds a whole new light upon this glorious truth. The church is not just
some clique of the ‘elect’ who can glory in that but is the corporate body of
Christ commissioned to live for and serve Him. A key question must be
raised as to whether Paul is speaking about individual selection or God’s

choice of the corporate church. Even if this were a reference to individual
‘election’, is it conditional or unconditional? Nothing can be assumed!
We are appointed in Christ. Another factor for consideration is the
truth of the Lord Jesus as the Choice One. Israel was God’s choice servant,
and Isaiah paralleled the Messiah as God’s ultimate elect or choice servant.
This then became the issue between Christ and the rulers of Israel. Now
that He has risen and ascended on high, the corporate church is God’s
choice servant, appointed from the foundation of the world. It is not inci-
dental that Paul wrote that we are appointed “in Him.” This idea is strongly
reinforced by the twenty times in the first two chapters of Ephesians that
Paul used such expressions, “in Him,” “in Christ,” “in Christ Jesus,” “in the Beloved
One” (1:1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 (do), 12, 13 (do), 15, 20; 2:6, 7, 10, 13, 15, 21, 22;
Paul’s total usage=160 x). Since He is the ‘choice One,’ it follows that the
only possible choice is “in Him,” and that there is no choiceness apart from
Him. He did not write that we are appointed to be in Him, but that we are
“appointed in Him.” Our appointment or being made choice is in Christ. Thus
it is only those individuals who are connected to Him by faith who are the
appointed or choice ones. He is the corporate head of the Church and only
those who have a relationship with Him by faith can in any sense be called
His choice people. Thus there can be no direct or individual choice apart
from union with Him. This should be almost axiomatic.
We must interpret Ephesians 1:4-5 in the light of related Scripture. The
only two passages which relate so-called election or its related truth of pre-
appointment, with God’s foreknowledge both put foreknowledge first in
order (Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet 1:1-2). In Christ’s parable of the four soils, the
response depends upon the condition of the soil, and in the wedding feast
parable God foreknew who would respond to the open invitation given on
the highways of life. The conditionality of it, based upon our relationship to
the choice One by faith, becomes paramount. In a real sense God’s appoint-
ment is both corporate and individual. The foundational truth is the corpo-
rate ‘election’ of the Church “in Christ.” Individual ‘election’, if spoken about
at all, is secondary and ancillary; it comes only through a faith-connection
with the Head. Therefore, it is conditional, as both Peter and Paul have
affirmed so simply and clearly. The only basis for not accepting this truth is
a prior theological commitment.
Relationship to foreordination/preappointment. Ephesians 1 is the
only passage in which election is directly connected with foreordination or
‘preappointment’. The verb eklegomai is in the aorist tense indicative and the
verb proorizein is an aorist participle. Wallace pointed out in this case the
action of the participle is probably simultaneous to the action of the main
verb and its adverbial function is possibly that of means, manner, or result.14
Thus foreordination or preappointment is clearly distinct from ‘election,’ but
closely related. The exact relationship is hard to define. Of the three options
Wallace gave for this syntactical relationship, means seems the most likely
since it is a preappointment or designation to adoption as sons. Paul’s
references to adoption are threefold: in Galatians 4:5-7, he used this cultural
illustration of our present liberated sonship; in Romans 8:14-15, he referred
to the Spirit of adoption we have received; while in Romans 8:23, he spoke
about the future liberation of our bodies from the curse as the final stage of
that adoption to sonship. Paul’s use of huiothesia as the Roman appointment
of a child as the son and heir fits in well with the rendering of proorizein as
‘preappointment’ and confirms this meaning. Thus we must nuance the
translation of Ephesians 1:3-6 as follows:
Praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, who through Him has
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, just as before the
foundation of the world He appointed us through our union with Him to be holy and
blameless in His sight in love, by designating (laying claim to) us to become His own
adopted sons through Jesus the Messiah according to His pleasure and plan, result-
ing in praise for His glorious unmerited favor, from which He freely favored us in the
beloved One (Olson translation).
Appointment to a future inheritance revealed. Since proorizein is used
again in 1:11, we must examine that context also:
. . . making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which
he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all
[these] things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth: in
whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the
purpose of him who works all [these] things after the counsel of his will: (1:9-11, ASV).
Now the adverbial participle of proorizein modifies the aorist of klçroein, a verb
which occurs only here in the New Testament. Although the two verbs are
in the passive, we have the same syntactical relationship as above. Foerster
in TDNT said its meaning in the secular Greek and the church fathers is ‘to
appoint’ or ‘to apportion.’ He stated:
Klçroô does not denote a pre-temporal act. It is an ‘appointment’ or ‘determination’ which
affects men in their being. It is also the goal which is assigned to them in their calling.
Materially, then, it is related to eklçthçmen [‘we were called’], but with the nuance, implicit in
klçros [‘a lot’], that the call imparts something to the called, namely, a life’s goal.”15
This meaning is totally supportive of the understanding of proorizein advo-
cated here from its total usage, ‘to preappoint.’ Although the exact meaning
of klçroein is difficult to verify since it is so rare, Paul’s reference twice in the
passage (1:14, 18) to our inheritance (klçronomia) and to our adoption as sons
(1:5) confirms the idea of our being appointed to an inheritance. So the
participle of proorizein probably explains that this was done by appointing or
designating us according to His purpose or plan.
As noted in discussion in Chapter 2 of Ephesians 1:11, God is the One
who works all these things (His salvation plan) according to the counsel of
His will. It is not a statement of God’s direct wall-to-wall involvement in
every event which transpires in the whole universe. Rightly understood, this
in no way supports interpreting verse 4 as a reference to individual, uncondi-

tional election. Paul’s statement that God is working out His salvation plan
according to His eternal purpose says nothing about how specifically He
may or may not have predestined individuals.B
Indeed, Paul was here focusing upon God’s intentions and purposes
(1:9) for His ‘choice ones’ in the consummation (1:10) to preappoint them
to a guaranteed inheritance (1:11), the seal and pledge of which is the
promised Holy Spirit (1:13-14). Notice how this focus on the future continues
on in 1:18, in 1:21, and in 2:7, where he refers to God’s grace to His saints in
the coming ages. In discussing Romans 8:28-30 in the last chapter, that
same futuristic perspective in Paul’s use of proorizein was noted there as well.
The focus is not upon eternity past, but upon the glorious future for those
who are now “in Christ.” The same futuristic perspective in 1 Peter 1 was
observed in connection with eklektois. All three of these definitive Scripture
passages are in harmony in focusing on the future glory of God’s choice
church, with only the passing allusion to its beginning before creation. Thus
we should nuance the translation of Ephesians 1:7-12 as follows:
It is through the Messiah that we have liberation-redemption by means of His shed
blood, giving forgiveness for our trespasses in harmony with the wealth of His
unmerited favor, which He lavished on us in all wisdom and understanding. God did
this as it pleased Him for His own purposes by revealing to us the open secret of His
plan, resulting in the trusteeship of the completeness of the times, when all those
people in the Messiah will be gathered together under His headship, whether those
already in heaven or those now on earth. Also, it was in the Messiah that we were
made His inheritance by His designating (laying claim to) us according to His purpose
who works all these things in harmony with the counsel of His will, so that we who
have already put our confident hope in Him might be to the praise of His glory (OLS).
The open secret of election

A key theme of Paul’s theology, referred to in Ephesians 1:9 and initiated
by Christ in Matthew 13, is the truth of the “mysteries of the kingdom of God.”
It is important to understand that mustçrion should never have been merely
transliterated as “mystery.” From Paul’s consistent usage in passages such
as Romans 16:25-6; Ephesians 3:4-5; and Colossians 1:26-7, it clearly has the
connotation of “open secret,” as Williams rendered it.16 The mustçrion was
hidden from past ages, but now has been revealed. This open secret is a
complex of truths related to the Church: the union of Jew and Gentile in the
Church (Eph. 3:4-5), the organic body nature of the Church itself (Col. 1:24-
26); the indwelling Christ as the riches of the open secret (Col. 1:27); and the
transformation of our bodies at the rapture of the Church (1 Cor. 15:50-54).
This is relevant to our discussion of the nature of so-called election in
two regards. First, it is clear that the basis of God’s appointment is not a
B. The demonstrative use of the article in ta panta has been overlooked in most translations and refers
back to God’s plan of salvation, not all things which transpire in the universe, as commonly
misunderstood by Calvinists. See the discussion in Chapter 2, pp. 32-34.
mystery today, but has been revealed. Second, since Paul kept connecting
these open secrets relating to the church with God’s choice of His people
through the gospel, there is substantiation that Paul had in mind a corporate
appointment in Ephesians 1:4. Both of these ideas will now be examined.
The criteria of God’s appointment

Since God has revealed the open secret of the basis upon which people
can be saved, we should not have to search very far into the New Testament
to find out the criteria which contribute to people coming to repentant faith
in Christ. Indeed, the Lord Jesus had a lot to say about these criteria.
God’s secret will?. The basis of God’s foreordination is held by Calvin-
ists to be His secret counsel, frequently quoting Deuteronomy 29:29: “The
secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to
our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of the law.” However, God has
revealed the basis of His foreordination and calling to salvation. Since Christ
explained its basis on a number of occasions, this is not still a mystery.
Christ the revealer. In the Sermon on the Mount He made it clear that
it is not the arrogant and self-righteous, but “the poor in spirit” who would
be blessed to possess the kingdom of God (Mt. 5:3), that is, those who
recognize their spiritual poverty and need. After reproaching the towns of
Israel which had sinned against such great light in rejecting Him (Mt. 11:20-
24), He said, “I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide
these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes. Yes, Father
for thus it was well-pleasing in Thy sight” (11:25-26). The next verse (11:27) is a
favorite proof-text of those who believe in a hidden, arbitrary sovereign
election. However, from the context we see that the “babes” are the
opposite of those who are “wise and intelligent” in their own sight and can be
identified as “anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” He followed this up
immediately with His universal invitation: “Come to Me, all who are weary and
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (11:28). The connection of the “poor in
spirit” to the “babes” is straightforward.
The cruciality of the parable of the four soils is seen not only in its
repetition in all three Synoptic Gospels but also in the interpretation supplied
by Christ Himself. A main point in Luke’s record: “And the seed in the good soil,
these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it
fast, and bear fruit with perseverance” (8:15). Apparently a person who has a
heart which is honestly open to the truth is the one who responds to the
gospel message. No mystery here! There are many occasions on which the
Lord commended those who had faith and rebuked those who had closed
their hearts in unbelief. See Chapter 19 for many more examples.
The apostolic revelation. In 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, in expanding on the
teaching of Christ, Paul reminded the arrogant Corinthians, proud of their
sophisticated philosophical knowledge and liberated lifestyle, of the broad
principles governing the process by which people come to faith in Christ.

Many other clear human factors were identified in Chapter 22. One factor
which Paul identified as operative in his own conversion was ignorance: “I
thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me
faithful, putting me into service; even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a
persecutor and a violent aggressor. And yet I was shown mercy, because I acted
ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim. 1:12-13). Paul took us into the supposedly
secret counsels of God to identify the factor of ignorance as a basis upon
which God showed him mercy.
Paul also contrasted this with the basis upon which God will close the
door of salvation in the end time in a judgmental delusion:
. . . that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power
and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who
perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for
this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe
what is false, . . . (2 Thessalonians 2:9-11).
His reference to “those who did not receive the love of the truth” is the converse
of the good soil of Christ’s parable and the language of Paul’s colleague,
Luke in Acts 17:11-12, in reference to the Berean Jews: “Now these were more
nobleminded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great
eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so. Many
of them therefore believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men.”
Note the extreme significance of Luke’s “therefore” in verse 12. The Bereans
were those who had “honest hearts” (Lk. 8:15) to verify Paul’s message in the
Scriptures. So there really is some revealed basis for God’s ‘election’ and
calling. It is not mysterious and unconditional, certainly not arbitrary!
Corporate Solidarity
The concept of corporate solidarity is not an abstract idea in Middle and
Far Eastern cultures. During World War II thousands of Japanese pilots
became Kamikaze (divine wind) by crashing their bomb-laden planes onto
the decks of American aircraft carriers. Even today the Japanese are famous
for their loyalty, not only to their extended families, but even to the business
corporations to which they devote their lives. More recently, hundreds of
thousands of Iranian young men went into battle against Iraq, with the full
expectation that they would become martyrs. Some of this may be explain-
able in terms of Islamic theology, but since they were fighting other Muslims,
much of it has to relate to ideas of national corporate solidarity. And today,
Palestinian suicide bombers in the Intefadeh in Israel are doing so under
some concept of corporate solidarity. In seven years in Pakistan, I saw the
importance of corporate solidarity to their culture.
But this is not just a cultural notion. It is a biblical concept rooted in the
third chapter of Genesis and in New Testament theology based upon the fall.
Certainly the Pauline doctrine of the imputation and transmission of Adam’s
sin to the whole race (Rom. 5:12ff) establishes the principle of corporate
solidarity from the very beginning of the human race. William Klein summa-
rizes R. P. Shedd’s Old Testament data for corporate or ethnic solidarity:
(1) The personality of the group transcended time and space so a family could be identified
with its ancestor (Ge 13:15-17; Isa 41:8; Hos 11:1; Mal 1:3-4). (2) Punishment and blessing
extended beyond the specific individual responsible. As for punishment see the account of
Achan’s sin (Jos 7) or Korah’s rebellion (Nu 16), as well as the statements in Ex 20:5-6. As
for blessing note Ge 12:3 and Ex 32:13. (3) Regarding the covenant Shedd states, “All the
members of a covenantal community are subordinate to the whole. To sever oneself from the
group is to be cut off from the covenant and thereby from the covenant-making God.” (4) The
high priests, on the Day of Atonement, sacrificed for the sins of the people (Lev 16:15, 19,
21). The sins of the community, seen as a unity, could be transferred to the scapegoat. (5)
Certain prayers expressed the intercessor’s sense of corporate guilt (Ne 9:33; Da 9:5-19). .
. . In parallel to Shedd’s points, any reader notices that the writers of the Old Testament
commonly treat the entire people of Israel as a unit (Isa 5:1-7; Jer 12:10).17
Klein cited H. Wheeler Robinson as a strong advocate of the idea of “corpo-

rate personality” in the Old Testament, and after alluding to his discussion of
2 Samuel 21:1-14 regarding King Saul’s sin of the slaughter of the Gibeonites
and David’s judgment upon his family as a consequence, quoted Robinson:
Corporate personality means for us the treatment of the family, the clan, or the nation, as the
unit in place of the individual. It does not mean that no individual life is recognized, but simply
that in a number of realms in which we have come to think individualistically, and to treat the
single man as the unit, e.g., for punishment or reward, ancient thought envisaged the whole
group of which he was part.18
A number of other biblical scholars have developed the idea of corporate
personality. More recently missiologists have also seen the extreme impor-
tance of our understanding of the diverse cognitive processes* in Asian and
African peoples, much of which is characterized by corporate solidarity.
The new choice people of God. Ephesians is pre-eminently Paul’s
epistle of the church, the body of Christ. Other than reference to Tychicus,
the bearer of the letter, there are no personal references in the letter.
Because the phrase “in Ephesus” is not found in the oldest manuscripts, it is
taken by many scholars that this was a circular letter for the churches of the
province of Asia, and went first to Ephesus, the founding church. The key
issue of the oneness of both Jew and Gentile in the one body is a major
theme. A number of cogent arguments can be given:
1. Israel’s commissioning by God was clearly corporate and did not guaran-
tee salvation to anybody; it was for service.
2. The concept of corporate solidarity is part of the cultures into which the
Old Testament came and an essential component of Scripture itself.
Corporate solidarity is still today integral to Asian and African cultures.
With our strong emphasis upon individualism, this has been lost in our
western cultures. It is not surprising that the notion of individual election
to salvation arose in the western, Latin church and is totally absent from
eastern Christianity. The Greek churches, understanding Greek better,

have no concept of individual election.
3. Peter unequivocally confirmed the corporate nature of election in 1
Peter 2:9. Paul’s heavy corporate-solidarity emphasis in Romans 5 and
9–11, strongly colors the rest of his epistles. The idea of Adam, as corpo-
rate head of the human race, affecting the whole race by one sin (Rom.
5:12ff.), both transmitted and imputed, is hard for westerners to grasp.
We more easily accept that Christ was our representative head, suffering
for our sins. That Israel should corporately be set aside and cut off from
the root of Abraham is a major issue in Romans. The references to chur-
ches in 2 John is further confirmation.
4. There are many New Testament symbols of the church which have
strong corporate overtones: the vine, the body, the temple of God, the
flock, the bride, and the people (nation) of God.
5. Church ordinances are corporate in nature. The Lord’s table is more
obvious, but when we relate water baptism to spirit-baptism putting us
into the corporate church, this dimension is also clear (1 Cor. 12:13).
6. Commissioning is functional. Israel was appointed to be God’s servant
nation. The twelve Apostles were appointed to be messengers to Israel,
and this did not guarantee their salvation (i.e. Judas).
7. The use of the adjective ‘choice’ is always in the plural, except in Rom.
16:13 and 2 John, where it could not refer to some ‘elect’ individuals.
When we take these considerations into account, we can see how Paul
could well be referring to the corporate church as that which God appointed
in eternity past to become His choice people.19
Conclusions
The results of these three major word studies and the exegesis of
Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 must be pulled together. In Chapter 22, abso-
lutely no linguistic basis was found for seeing an elective connotation in
God’s foreknowledge, as claimed only by theologians. Not one unambigu-
ous linguistic example can be given for an elective connotation. In Chapter
23, it was found that the adjective eklektoi should not be merely transliterated
as ‘elect’ but translated by its normal meaning ‘choice.’ The verb is used of
appointment to an office or responsibility and indicates God appoints out of
the world those who are connected to Christ by faith to be His choice
Church, which Peter called “a choice race” (1 Pet. 2:9).
Very few translators and linguists, and virtually no theologians, have
bothered to dig deeply into the meaning of proorizein. The rare usage raises
overwhelming doubt about the traditional rendering ‘to predestinate.’ From
its rare usage, a good case can be made for rendering it as ‘to preappoint’ or
‘to foreordain.’ This meaning makes better sense in the four New Testament
contexts in which it is used and is confirmed by the early church fathers’

usage of the word. Although the older lexicons do not even mention ‘to
predestinate’ as a meaning, some of the more recent lexicons and theologi-
cal works, having been influenced by deductive theological considerations,
do list that meaning. Although a majority of the translations have blindly
followed the Vulgate rendering, a dozen translations and Greek commenta-
tors have been identified who have broken away from this translational rut.
Thus the word ‘predestinate’ should have never gotten into any Bible transla-
tion. The consequence of this is clear since the word ‘predestination’ itself
carries strong overtones of unconditional election.
Therefore, there is absolutely no basis for denying the clearly conditional
force of both 1 Peter 1:1-2 and Romans 8:28-30, conditioned on what God
foreknew about His saints, especially their faith. It is irresponsible to build
the doctrine of absolute predestination upon a dubious pregnant meaning of
foreknowledge, the rare meaning ‘chosen’ for eklektoi, ‘to choose’ for the
verb, and the impossible rendering of the rare proorizein as ‘predestinate’!
1. Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, cited by Hunt, p. 171.

2. Carson, pp. 31-32.
3. K. L. Schmidt in Kittel, TDNT, V, pp. 452-56.
4. Demosthenes, 31,4, Against Onetor.
5. Arthur Way, The Letters of St. Paul (London: Macmillan, 1926), p. 129
6. Schmidt, p. 452-5.
7. G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, p. 1161. I have sought to translate or summarize the brief
untranslated Greek citations which Lampe gave, difficult because of their brevity and lack of context and my limited
expertise. I challenge any competent Greek scholar questioning my conclusions to give better renderings.
8. John Parkhurst, A Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament, new edition by Hugh James Rose (London:
many publishers, 1829), pp. 727-28. Bishop Parkhurst was a refugee in Zurich during the time of the persecution
by Queen Mary, and met Zwingli’s successor, Bullinger, there.
9. George Abbott-Smith, Manual Greek Lexicon, 3rd ed.(Edinburgh, 1937). My Greek professor, S. Lewis Johnson,
Jr., said this lexicon was worth its weight in gold. Johnson was or became a five-point hyper-Calvinist.
10. Thayer, p. 541; Abbott-Smith, p. 382; BDAG, p. 716.
11. C. G. Olson, “Is the KJV the Basis of A Translational Rut?” a paper given at the KJV 400th Conference at Liberty
University, October 1, 2011. Cf. my website. Most recent committees have been heavily loaded with Calvinists.
12. L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pp. 415-17.
13. John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (GR: Eerdmans, 1955), p. 94.
14. Wallace, Grammar, pp. 624-6. Note chart #82 on p. 626.
15. Werner Foerster in TDNT, III, pp. 764-5. Foerster’s reference to ‘being called’ seems to be a textual variant.
16. Charles B. Williams, The New Testament, p. 445. Curiously Williams has only used this rendering in Colossians
and not in the parallel passages in Ephesians. He should have been consistent.
17. William W. Klein, The New Chosen People, p. 37, referencing R. P. Shedd, Man in Community, pp. 3-41.
18. H. Wheeler Robinson, as cited by Klein, p. 39.
19. Klein; Chosen People; Daane, Freedom of God; Forster and Marston, God’s Strategy.
There are only two kinds of people in the end:
25
those who say to God “Thy will be done,” and those
to whom God says in the end, “Thy will be done.”
All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-
choice there could be no Hell. - C. S. Lewis
What predestination means, in its most elementary

form, is that our final destination, heaven or hell, is
decided by God, not only before we get there, but
before we are even born. - R. C. Sproul
HAS GOD REALLY DETERMINED

EACH PERSON’S DESTINY?
The most pressing question is whether God has determined each

individual’s destiny before creation. In Chapter 2, we found no evidence for
any universal divine decrees or wall-to-wall exercise of God’s sovereignty.
This leaves the question of divine determination in individual salvation.
Since the previous chapters showed no basis for predestination or uncondi-
tional election, the investigation must be narrowed to other claims for seeing
God’s sovereignty in individual salvation. Romans 9 will be carefully exam-
ined as a major basis for the notion of unconditional election.
God’s Sovereignty in Salvation

Calvinists should not have to prove universal divine causation to estab-
lish predestination; only that God’s decrees in reference to salvation are all-
inclusive. Instead of focusing on the more limited proposition relating to
salvation, most claim God’s decrees as all-inclusive of all events in the
universe. Why do they do this? This is a type of a fortiori argument, that is,
if a broader concept of God’s decrees is true, then the narrower concept of
salvation automatically follows; it does not need to be specifically argued.
Since there is an incredible lack of evidence for universal causation, sover-
eignty in relation to salvation must now be specifically investigated.
James Daane has shown how this developed historically:
The inclusion of election and reprobation as mere instances of a cosmic, wall-to-wall
doctrine of predestination, eased the transfer of election and reprobation back into the first
locus of systematic theology, in which the doctrine of God is discussed. Calvin had rescued
election and reprobation from there, where scholastic orthodoxy had treated it, and had
transferred it to the locus of soteriology, where election and reprobation are discussed in the
context of man’s sin and God’s grace. . . . But Calvin’s advance beyond medieval scholasti-
345
cism was soon squandered. His valuable biblical perspective was negated when Beza his
successor, falling back into medieval scholasticism, . . . assigned predestination to the locus
of the doctrine of God, and proceeded to develop a decretal theology . . . 1
Now the focus must be on the doctrine of salvation to see whether there
is any basis there either. Arguments for determinism in salvation-truth are
based upon faulty word-studies of the relevant terms and skewed discussion
of passages such as Romans 9:6-29 and Ephesians 1:4-13. “Sovereign grace”
has become a catch phrase in Calvinistic circles.
Romans chapters 9–11

Romans 9 is the lynchpin in their case for determinism in salvation. By
examining this passage in the light of its context and the many Old Testa-
ment passages Paul quoted in their contexts, no case remains for the
unconditional election of individuals. The flow of Paul’s thought in the
broader context of Romans shows the subject here is totally other than what
Calvinists make it out to be. Careful examination of these contexts is
essential for an honest dealing with the argument of the text.2
Context. First, the context of the whole book must be considered.
There was a Jew/Gentile issue in the church in Rome which surfaces
throughout the epistle. The original core of the church consisted of Jews
and proselytes converted on the day of Pentecost, augmented by converts
from the missionary journeys who migrated to Rome. However, when
Claudius Caesar expelled the Jews from Rome (Acts 18:2), the church
became totally Gentile. When Jews drifted back into Rome under Nero,
including Priscilla and Aquila (Rom. 16:3), Hebrew Christians were no longer
running the church and probably felt marginalized and denigrated in the
transition from Israel to the body church. After all, weren’t they God’s
chosen people? And now Paul was calling himself an “Apostle to the
Gentiles,” of all things! “Paul, you’ve abandoned your own people.” What
about the promises to Israel—has God’s word been negated? Has God
abandoned Israel? So Paul addressed these issues in Romans. Study 1:2, 3,
5, 16; 2:10-11, 17, 24, 25-29; 3:1-2, 9, 19-21, 29- 31, 4:1, 6, 9, 12-17; 6:14; 7:1-25;
8:3-4; 14:1-23; 15:7-12, 16-18, 25-27, 31; 16:25-26.
The transition from Israel to the body church of both Jews and Gentiles
permeates the whole book. Most recognize the issue in these chapters (9-
11) is the vindication of God’s righteousness in setting Israel aside. First, 9:1-
29 deals with God’s justice in His sovereign dealings with Israel. In 9:30--
10:15, Paul focused upon the proclamation of righteousness by faith to all
mankind. In 10:16--11:32, Paul showed how God foreknew and used Israel’s
fall for world salvation. This Israel/church issue keeps coming up in the
whole book! In focusing upon 9:1-29, the reader must open the Bible at this
point to grasp our discussion whether Paul was discussing the unconditional
election of individuals or God’s dealings with Israel corporately.
Chapter 25 HAS GOD REALLY DETERMINED EACH PERSON’S DESTINY? 347
God’s dealings with corporate Israel: Romans 9:1-29

In defending God’s just dealings with Israel, Paul shared his burden for
the salvation of a greatly advantaged people (9:1-5). Since Jewish Christians
felt Paul had abandoned them, he used very strong language to assure them
of his great concern for the salvation of Jews. He expanded the list of their
advantages begun in 3:1-3 with another impressive list.
Then he stated the question he answered: “Has God failed to fulfill his
promise to the Jews? No, for not everyone born into a Jewish family is truly a Jew!”
(9:6, NLB). Many who could trace their lineage back to Abraham and Jacob
were not true Jews, not “children of the promise” (9:7, 8).A He showed how in
God’s separating out the nation Israel, physical descent did not guarantee
being retained in the chosen lineage. God had the sovereign right to appoint
whomever He wanted to carry on Abraham’s covenant commission.
Then he gave two examples. The covenant lineage would be through
Isaac, the miracle child. God had commissioned Abraham (Neh. 9:7, bachar)
that through him “all the families of the earth would be blessed” (Gen. 12:3),B and
now that commission passed to Isaac. Here Paul quoted Genesis 21:12,
“Through Isaac your descendants will be named.” God did not deny Ishmael’s
salvation but blessed him. The record implies that he was a believer: “God
was with the lad . . .”; “‘As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, . . .
and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac. . .’”
(Gen. 16:10-12; 17:18-23; 21:17-20). The focus is on the succession of the
covenant promise for an appointed nation to be His witness, not upon the
salvation of individuals. Did Paul wrench this verse out of its context to
prove the predestination of Isaac and the reprobation of Ishmael? Some
object that Ishmael’s descendants went into unbelief. This was not true of
all his descendants and says nothing about Ishmael’s personal salvation!
Then Paul pointed out the choice of Jacob over Esau for the promised
covenantal lineage of the nation, quoting a part of God’s word to Rebekah:
“Two nations are in your womb; and two peoples shall be separated from your body;
and one people shall be stronger than the other; and the older shall serve the younger”
(Gen. 25:23). It is obvious that Paul’s focus was not on individuals, but upon
the appointment of the nation named after Jacob as His covenant people.
Esau as an individual never served Jacob; indeed, the opposite is true when
Jacob served Esau a stew to get him to give up his birthright! Later Jacob
bowed to Esau when they met on return from Padan Aram. But the subjuga-
tion of Edom to Israel began under David, was complete under Solomon,
and continued until the Babylonian captivity. This was a national issue!
A. Amillennial readers need to be reminded that Paul said absolutely nothing here about Gentiles
becoming part of “spiritual Israel,” since that would be a converse of his statement. The rules of logic say
that the truth or fallacy of a converse of a statement is indeterminate. This is confirmed by careful
exegesis of Galatians 6:16, which clearly distinguishes Gentile believers from the Israel of God.
B. In Chapter 23, pp. 316f the full word study was given showing that bachar usually goes beyond mere
choice to an appointment or commission to a particular office or service, as does the Greek eklegomai.
Paul then confirmed this by quoting from Malachi 1:2-4, which was
written about fifteen centuries later, about God’s judgment upon the Edom-
ites and His continuing love for Israel as a nation: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I
hated, and I have made his mountains a desolation . . . Though Edom says, . . .” It
is obvious that Jacob and Esau are euphemisms for the nations here.
Malachi personalized the nations by using the names of their progenitors
and said nothing about their individual predestination. Certainly Paul did not
wrench these sentences out of their prophetic contexts to make them teach
predestination! Unfortunately, in 9:12-13, their close juxtaposition has
allowed biased interpreters to read this doctrine into them unjustifiably. But
this is isogesis, not careful contextual exegesis! Isaiah had highlighted the
central theme of Israel’s being God’s appointed servant, even in exile, “But
you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen (bachar=appointed), descendant of
Abraham My friend, you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from
its remotest parts and said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen (bachar) you and
not rejected you’” (Isa. 41:8-9). Yes, God’s appointment of Jacob was not
based on works (9:11), though Esau did depart from God in unbelief. But
the continuance of the covenant through Jacob was implemented by God’s
revelation to him at Bethel (Gen. 28:10-22) and the reaffirmation of His
purpose to bless all the families of the earth through him (28:14). But God’s
appointment of Jacob over Esau was not about their eternal destiny!
Four examples. In 9:14-29, Paul gave four examples of God’s favor in
His dealings with the nation Israel, explicitly answering the charges of God’s
injustice in v. 14. The first is Moses’ struggle with Israel when they wor-
shiped a golden calf. When God said He would destroy Israel and make a
new nation from Moses, he interceded for Israel, and God heard him (Ex.
32:10-14). Then again he pled for God to forgive Israel, suggesting God blot
out his own name from His book in favor of Israel (Ex. 32:32). Again, when
God expressed a reluctance to continue His presence in the midst of Israel,
Moses interceded a third time and pled for God to show him His ways (33:1-
16). God then favored Moses to see His presence in a special way, and the
passage which Paul quoted in part connects with this: “I myself will make all My
goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I
will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will
show compassion” (Ex. 33:19). The issue here is the continuance of God’s
gracious and compassionate favor upon the nation Israel in specially
favoring their leader, Moses. Paul argued in this regard: “God’s purpose . . . it
does not depend on the man who wills and the man who runs, but on God who has
mercy” (Rom. 9:11, 16). The antecedent of ‘it’ in v. 16 must be God’s purpose
for the choice of the nation Israel in v. 11. Since Paul did not quote the
whole passage, Calvinists have pulled it out of its Exodus context and made
it teach predestination. The passage in Exodus has nothing to do with this!
If that were the point which Paul made, it would be a serious abuse of
the Exodus narrative. Was Paul’s motive in quoting only part of Genesis
25:23, Malachi 1:2-4, and Exodus 33:19 because he had a hidden agenda to
teach predestination from this?C Outrageous thought! There is nothing in
the Romans passage to support such an inference. Dave Hunt said Calvinis-
tic treatments of this passages put a negative spin on them in emphasizing
reprobation.3 Note that neither in the Exodus passage, or in Paul’s use of it,
is there anything about reprobation–it is all about mercy and compassion
upon Moses and Israel as a nation. Certainly Moses’ salvation is not at issue
since he was already a believer and the recipient of a unique blessing!
Paul’s second example was God’s dealings with Pharaoh, the god-king
of a grossly idolatrous nation, in hardening him for judgment (9:17-18). The
ten judgments upon the idolatrous religion of Egypt was a total affront to
God’s character as later revealed in the first two commandments. God judg-
ed the gods of Egypt and their human regent, who was himself worshiped as
god. Paul had stated this principle in Romans 1:24, 26, 28, that God judg-
mentally gave the most hardened heathen over to a depraved mind. First of
all, God stated His sovereign intention to Moses: “But I will harden Pharaoh’s
heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt” (Ex. 7:3).
Then we see seven clear references to Pharaoh’s heart being characteristi-
cally hard (Ex. 7:13-14, 22; 8:19; 9:7) and even to Pharaoh hardening his own
heart (8:15, 32),D all before God then hardened his heart even further in
judgment (Ex. 9:12; 10:1, 20; 11:10; 14:8). Seeing the proper sequence of
these distinct words is extremely important.
God’s words to Pharaoh were spoken in this connection (Ex. 9:16) as
quoted by Paul: “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in
you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth” (Rom.
9:17). See the rest of His words to Pharaoh: “Still you exalt yourself against my
people by not letting them go” (Ex. 9:17). The issue was God’s sovereign
purpose to bring Israel out of Egypt and to demonstrate judgment upon
corrupt idolatrous religion in the process. Pharaoh and his nation were ripe
for judgment (Gen. 15:13-16). God made an example of him, his false
prophets, and priests, as forerunners of subsequent false prophets singled
out for denunciation by Christ (Mt. 7:15-23), by Paul (Rom. 1:18-32; 2 Tim.
3:1-9, named Jannes and Jambres), by Peter (2 Pet. 2), and by Jude (4-19).
This has absolutely nothing to do with God’s sovereignty in uncondi-
tional election of anybody to salvation or reprobation. When Paul wrote “He
hardens whom He desires” (9:18b), he was not referring to an arbitrary reproba-
tion of people yet unborn, but of judgmentally giving Satan’s key representa-
tives over to a depraved mind (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28; 2:5).
C. It should be noted that Ex. 33:12, 17 is one of the five passages in which Calvinists claim that yada’
has an elective pregnant force. However, God is simply expressing His close personal relationship with
Moses which has been greatly strengthened by Moses’ intercession for Israel.
D. Five times the Qal perfect is used which would be a “characteristic perfect,” describing the
characteristic state of Pharaoh’s heart (J. Wash Watts, Hebrew Syntax, p. 24), and twice it is a Hiphil
perfect, (causative active) clearly indicating Pharaoh caused his own heart to be hard (8:15 & 32).
Paul drew a third example from Jeremiah’s observing a potter’s wheel

(Jer. 18:1-11) although he did not quote him directly (Rom. 9:19-24). He
responded to a fatalistic person who objected: “You will say to me then, ‘Why
does He still find fault? For who resists His will (boulçma)?’” (9:19). These are not
Paul’s words but those of an objector! In essence the objector argues, “If
God has already decided to set Israel aside, how can Israel be blamed, and
how can Jews resist the will of a sovereign God in this regard?” Here instead
of boulç, we find boulçma, the result ending ma indicating a more crystallized
plan or counsel.4 It comes closest to the idea of a ‘decree,’ which is the way
it is used in First Clement (esp. 33:3). The only use of boulçma in the New
Testament is from the lips of a fatalistic objector, not as an expression of
God’s truth. The New Testament says nothing about God’s decrees, except
to quote Psalm 2:7 about the resurrection of Christ (Acts 13:33).
Paul’s answer to this fatalistic objector comes from the potter’s wheel.
Jeremiah saw a vessel being formed on the wheel being marred but then
remade by the potter since the clay was still soft and not yet fixed by firing in
a kiln. The point made to Jeremiah was that the nation Israel was clay in His
hands and their future was contingent upon their response to His word:
. . . if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent
concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it . . . So now then, speak to
the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus
says the LORD, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising
a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform
your ways and your deeds”’ (Jer. 18:8, 11).
Calvinists ignore that the issues Paul was dealing with and the message of
God through Jeremiah both relate to the nation Israel corporately. Indeed,
the conditional nature of God’s dealings with Israel are explicit in Jeremiah.
Paul later addressed the cause of Israel’s being set aside as their unbelief
(Rom. 9:30-33; 10:16-21). Here he spoke of God’s patience with Israel for the
years of His entreaty to them through Christ and His Apostles (9:22). The key
word here is katçrtismena (“prepare, make, create”). The question is whether this
is middle or passive? The BAG lexicon suggested it may be a middle voice:
“having prepared themselves for destruction” (Rom. 9:22).”5 This harmonizes
with Jeremiah’s context by putting the responsibility upon Israel.
Paul’s point is God’s sovereign right as a potter to use Israel for two
millennia and then set them aside in favor of the Church. In Romans 11, he
showed the justice of this in the remnant of Jews still being saved (11:1-10)
and His ultimate restoration of Israel to the place of blessing corporately
(11:11-32). Romans 9:23-24 is a transition into how the Church became
vessels of mercy by a plan prepared beforehand (proetoimazein) for glory. God
was patient with Israel’s unbelief that He might reveal the glorious riches of
the cross to and through the Church. The context gives no basis for individu-
alizing this statement and says nothing about individual election.
The fourth proof of God’s sovereign justice in His dealings with national
Israel is seen in four prophetic passages quoted in Romans 9:25-29 (Hosea

2:23; 1:10; Isa. 10:23; 1:9). Although Hosea spoke about the end-time
restoration of the nation (3:4-5), Paul drew out the principle that those who
were not God’s people will become His people, as support for 9:23-24. The
Isaiah quotations refer to the preservation of a remnant of believing Jews, as
Paul reinforced in 11:1-10. Nothing here is said about individual election.
The bottom line is that if Paul had a hidden agenda in quoting these
passages to demonstrate predestination by wrenching them out of their
contexts, the integrity of God’s word is undermined! No, Paul’s single
agenda is that which he stated at the beginning, that God is totally fair in
setting the nation Israel aside in favor of the body church.
A universal gospel: Romans 9:30–10:15

The chapter divisions here and between 10 and 11 are poorly placed,
since Paul had moved into new subjects before them. He was vindicating
the righteousness of God by discussing the proclamation of God’s righteous-
ness by faith to all mankind (9:30–10:15) and coming back to Israel’s unbe-
lief and failure (10:16–11:32).E His emphasis upon the universality of the
gospel message in the first section totally contradicts any notion of individ-
ual, unconditional election being found in Romans 9:
‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’ For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all
who call upon Him; for ‘Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved’
How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall
they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a
preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? (Rom. 10:11-15a).
How much more clearly could Paul say that the salvation of the lost is
contingent upon human instrumentality? His very simple principle must be
foundational to our theology of salvation: “So faith comes from hearing, and
hearing by the word of Christ” (10:17). Human instrumentality is paramount in
preparing the lost for faith, but the new birth itself is totally a work of the
Holy Spirit contingent upon human faith (Jn. 1:12-13).F
Thus this whole section has been grossly misunderstood by western,
individualistic Christians, who do not think corporately. Paul’s first readers
understood his references to God’s corporate dealings with Israel because
of their cultural way of thinking and because Paul’s discussion of Jew/Gen-
tile issues directly answered their concerns. Any notion of individual predes-
tination was farthest from their concerns or Paul’s mind.
E. Paul actually comes back to Israel’s unbelief and failure in 10:16-21; this is the important context for
his reference to God’s foreknowledge of Israel’s failure in 11:2. This confirms that proginoskein has its
normative meaning of foreknowledge, as discussed in chapter 22.
F. In my years as a missionary in Pakistan, I never met a Muslim who was converted by irresistible grace
apart from human instrumentality. If it is by irresistible grace, why does it take months or years of patient
communication of the word of Christ before most Muslims are saved?
Do we not believe in the sovereignty of God? Absolutely, but not in the

sense in which Calvinists believe it. Reformed editor James Daane has well
addressed the problem of the single decree in decretal theology*:
That is why Reformed theology has traditionally been unable to relate biblical history and
theology. That is why Reformed theology has always been weak in biblical theology, in sharp
contrast to its genius for systematic theology. . . . That is why Reformed theology fails to take
seriously the historical aspects of Paul’s theology of Jew and Gentile in Romans 9-11. That
is why Reformed theology has never as much as attempted to develop an historical doctrine
of election, but has remained content with a purely ahistorical doctrine of individual election.
Finally, that is why the mystery Paul sees in the election of the Gentiles, of Christ, and of the
church is almost totally absent in Reformed thought (emphasis mine).6
Problems with All-inclusive Decree(s) of God

There are many extremely serious problems raised by such a coercive
concept of sovereignty, which must be faced by Calvinists.
Such decrees are an extreme extrapolation of biblical data.

Extrapolation is a word used by scientists and engineers when they
make graphs of data. They attempt to draw smooth curves to connect the
dots on graphs. The guesswork in constructing the line between the points
is interpolation. Points on that interpolated line may or may not be an
accurate estimate. An extrapolation, on the other hand, goes beyond the
data, off the edges of the graph. This is extremely risky! In going beyond the
data, one has no idea which way the data might lead the curve. Extrapola-
tion of stock performance in finance is very risky since the market can turn
on a dime. Theological extrapolation is riskier yet!
Calvinistic theology is an extreme extrapolation of the biblical data; it is
not only risky but dangerous. Since the Old Testament says so little about
God’s decrees and the New even less (zero), the decrees of Calvinistic
theology are pure speculation. All discussion about the logical or chronologi-
cal order of God’s decrees in eternity past is absolute nonsense. It is worse
than the medieval theologians’ discussions about the number of angels who
can dance on the head of a pin. The study of other related terms, such as
king, kingdom, counsel, and will, yielded no basis for defining God’s sover-
eignty in such a way (Ch. 2). Ephesians 1:11 has been grossly pulled out of
its context and extrapolated to make it a reference to an all-inclusive de-
cree(s), when the subject at hand is God’s gracious plan of salvation,
planned by the Father and implemented by the Son of God.
Such decrees make God the author of sin.

The most serious problem of an all-encompassing decree is that it must
include all sin, including Satan’s original rebellion against God, the fall of
Adam and Eve in the garden, and ultimately, all the rest of the sin of man-
kind throughout the ages. More extreme writers, such as Gordon Clark,
Herman Hoeksema, Cornelius Van Til, and B. B. Warfield, are at least
consistent in owning up to this incredible admission.7 Most Calvinists would

not go this far and thus are seriously inconsistent. Either the decree is all-
encompassing or it is not! Note the curious historical anomaly that Ameri-
can Calvinists changed the wording of the Westminster Confession from
singular “decree” to “decrees,” undoubtedly to resolve this problem.8 This
was so that they could speak about a decree to permit sin, in contrast with
one absolute decree. A single overarching decree does not allow this.
However, this still does not resolve the problem of their interpretation of
Ephesians 1:11. If it is all-inclusive, then all sin must be included. If it is not
all-inclusive, then it cannot be used of a partially exhaustive concept of
sovereignty (excluding sin) and must be explained in its context as was
done in Chapter 2. Moderate Calvinists cannot exclude sin from its scope
and yet have it include everything else. There must be an exegetical basis
for excluding sin, lest they are drawn in with extreme writers in making God
the author of sin. A mediate view does not face this conundrum.
Calvinists must not just deal with sin as an abstract concept but espe-
cially the worst outbreaks of human sin and depravity as well, such as the
wicked violence of the pre-deluge society. It is inconceivable that God
decreed such a sordid history of human depravity. Moses told us that “the
LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart”
(Gen. 6:6). Although this may be an anthropomorphism,* there must still be
core truth in this statement irreconcilable with their concept of God and His
supposed decrees. We also traced Israel’s sinful history. A definition of
sovereignty must take this historical record fully into account.
To say that God had exhaustively decreed the rebellion of mankind is
solely based upon a philosophic concept of God. Can you imagine the
Council of the Trinity in eternity past saying, “Let Us decree the slaughter of
20 million in World War I and 45 million in World War II, making sure Hitler
gets six million Jews in the holocaust (along with Christians and Poles), Mao
his 20 million, and Stalin his 12 million white Russians? Let Us decree that
the Sudanese Muslims slaughter and enslave thousands of south Sudanese
Christians. And while the Muslims are at it we should have them rampage,
rape, burn, slaughter, and terrorize Christians in Nigeria, Pakistan, and
Indonesia.G Don’t leave out the World Trade Center! And while We are at
it before We create the human race let Us decree to consign the vast major-
ity of them to Hell without any possibility of them believing.” Calvin admitted
the problem of the “horrible decree,” but it is a problem of their own mak-
G. Four days after I arrived back in Pakistan in 1997, 30 thousand Muslims rampaged through the
Christian village of Shanti Nagar (“place of peace”), raping the girls, torching houses, a hospital,
dispensaries, schools, and farm equipment. This was the worst anti-Christian incident in Pakistan’s 50-
year history leaving a terrible psychological scar on all Pakistani Christians. I saw the scene eleven days
later and talked with the traumatized people. The economic impact has also been devastating. That was
only the beginning, as seen in more recent events. Did God really do this? This is the reality of life in
this sin-cursed world and bears little relationship to deductive theology.
ing! (Horibilis can be translated ‘astonishing,’ but the usual rendering ‘horrible’ is not
inappropriate!) In this book their scenario has no basis inductively and is purely
deductive and rationalistic. Norman Geisler has well personalized the issue:
A well-known conference speaker was explaining how he was unable to come to grips with
the tragic death of his son. Leaning on his strong Calvinistic background, he gradually came
to the conclusion: God killed my son!” He triumphantly informed us that “then, and only then,
did I get peace about the matter.” A sovereign God killed his son, and therein he found
ground for a great spiritual victory, he assured us. I thought to myself, “I wonder what he
would say if his daughter had been raped?” Would he not be able to come to grips with the
matter until he concluded victoriously that “God raped my daughter!” God forbid! Some
views do not need to be refuted; they simply need to be stated.9
Such decrees obscure God’s dealings in history.

Daane pointed out how such decree(s) in past eternity obscure the
outworking of God’s program in human history. He showed that the Bible
focuses upon the ‘election’ of the nation Israel, the ‘election’ of the Lord
Jesus as Messiah, and the ‘election’ of the church. “When predestination is
defined as God’s eternal determination of ‘whatsoever comes to pass,’ the dimension of the
historical, which is of the very fabric of Christianity, is lost.” He suggested that it even
ends up with the “deification of the decree.”10 In addition, the historical, biblical
covenants are obscured. Instead of focusing upon the Noahic, Abrahamic,
Mosaic, Davidic, and New Covenants explicitly revealed in Scripture, decre-
tal theology* focuses upon theological covenants which do not have any
explicit biblical support. They speak of a Covenant of Grace as an all-
encompassing covenant of God with mankind but cannot agree as to who
the parties are! But beyond this crucial deficiency, there is the problem of
obscuring the historical nature of God’s plan of redemption. The biblical
narrative chronicles the whole progressive outworking and revelation of
God’s eternal plan. It started in Eden, was radically affected by the deluge,
progressed with Abraham and the vicissitudes of Israel’s history, centered in
the historical birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ, and was
propagated through world evangelism beginning at Pentecost. But this
progressive historical development of God’s plan is seriously obscured by
decretal theology’s a-historical theological covenants.
Daane was also very concerned about the flattening out of the biblical
timeline by relegating all to an eternal decree. No reality in time can affect
the immutable and impassible God of the eternal decree. The Covenant of
Redemption in eternity past moved God’s workings out of time. Daane
echoed some of Buswell’s concerns about a scholastic concept of God’s
timelessness and immutability common in decretal theology.
Such decrees require paradox to explain free will.

For four centuries the church fathers never questioned man’s free will.
They coined the term in response to the fatalism of Greek philosophy and
religion, such as Manicheanism.11 Free will wasn’t questioned until Augus-
tine, relapsing back to his Manichean* and neo-Platonist* past, developed

a deterministic view of God. Free will is a ‘dirty word’ for many Calvinists.
But the problem of determinism and free moral agency remains very
serious for all Calvinists. Some see God as the novelist, writing the whole
script and humans as mere players in the drama. God is a puppet master
and we are puppets. Some recognize we have free moral agency and try to
harmonize it with sovereignty by using paradox, antinomy,* or mystery.
Deuteronomy 29:29 does not really resolve a very real contradiction. Calvin-
ists speak philosophically of “compatibilism or soft determinism,” whatever
that means. They extrapolate a few anecdotal examples (such as the
crucifixion) into universal compatibilism. Geisler rightly refers to resorting to
such abstruse terminology as “word magic.”
Certainly the biblical narrative portrayed Adam and Eve as free moral
agents, whom God held accountable for their actions. Even though in the
fall man became a slave of sin, the continuing narrative portrays all mankind
as acting freely and still totally responsible for their actions since God
pronounced judgment upon disobedience to His commands and will.
Resorting to secondary causes, such as environment and heredity, is inade-
quate since mankind, created in God’s image, distinct from the animals, is
uniquely responsible to God. It is striking how many of the church fathers
refer to the image of God in man in connection with free will, namely,
Tertullian, Novatian, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Gregory of Nyssa.12
Geisler pointed out that logically there are only three possible views:
“self-determinism (self-caused actions), determinism (acts caused by another), and
indeterminism (acts with no cause whatsoever).” He showed that biblically and
logically the only defensible view is self-determinism.13
Such a God could never respond to mankind conditionally.

Biblically, it is clear God responds to people conditionally, as in the
conditional statements of His laws, will, judgments, salvation, and the
Christian life. Does God actually respond to our responce to His conditional
statements? Does He really answer prayer? Are some blessings conditioned
upon obedience? Does He really spare people from judgment when they
repent? Is salvation really conditioned on faith? Calvinists see all of this as
predetermined and not an actual response to human contingency. How
could we ever have a relationship with a God who never responds to us in
any real sense? If spouses in marriage do not interact with each other in any
real way, no real marriage is possible. A columnist reported a couple who
never had any serious conversation and never went out for dinner or the like
over twelve years of marriage. It is not surprising that the marriage ended up
in divorce since it was not a personal relationship with interaction. In what
sense can we call God a personal God if He does not really interact with us?
He is the god of Aristotle!
Such decrees must include reprobation.

Daane suggested that the problem faced in the preaching of traditional
Reformed theology is that “reprobation is always there.”14 Even though the Synod
of Dort tried heroically to separate election and reprobation by denying that
they operate “in the same manner,” later scholastic Reformed* theology
gave them equal footing. “God was increasingly seen as determining alike the destiny
of an amoral sparrow, the unbelief of the reprobate, and the faith of the elect.” This led to
the single decree of the Westminster Confession.15 But decretal theology*
with its wall-to-wall decree cannot avoid making election and reprobation
co-ordinate, thus making it unpreachable, unscriptural, and irrational.
Such decrees parallel the gross errors of Islam.

It is not surprising that opponents of decretal theology see a parallel with
the fatalism of Islam, but it is amazing that even some advocates have made
this connection. Having lived in a Muslim country for seven years and having
continued involvement with Muslims, this tangency is of great concern. The
answer to why Muslim extremists do the things they do is their defective
view of the character of Allah. Indeed, foundational to all ethics is the
concept of the character of God. How could the inquisitors in Spain torture
people in the name of Christ? Augustine’s coercive God justified his perse-
cution of the Donatists, which became a basis for the inquisition (cf. Ch. 27).
In a parallel way, Allah of the Muslims is a coercive god and a Muslim
convert to Christ is to be starved and beaten to return to Islam, and failing
that, should be murdered by his closest relatives. Loraine Boettner may
have been relatively unfamiliar with Islam when he wrote his defense of
hyper-Calvinism in 1952, but his words are nevertheless astonishing:
Then, too, when we stop to consider that among non-Christian religions Mohammedanism
[sic. Islam] has so many millions who believe in some kind of Predestination, that the doctrine
of Fatalism has been held in some form or other in several heathen countries, and that the
mechanistic and deterministic philosophies have exerted such great influences in England,
Germany, and America, we see that this doctrine is at least worthy of careful study.16
How disturbing that Boettner did not see fatalistic determinism* as negative,
but most Calvinists seek unsuccessfully to distance themselves from it.17
Brother Andrew, the Bible smuggler, overheard two Christian women
discussing a hostage situation, lamenting they themselves could do nothing
about this situation. He thought to suggest they become Muslims since their
thinking was more conducive to Islamic theology where fatalism reigns,
whereas his point was for a Christian prayer can and does make a vast
difference! He told how in 1983, Open Doors ministry issued a call to pray
for the Soviet Union and the demise of the Iron Curtain. Alex Leonovich told
how millions of Soviet Christians were also praying.18 Within a year,
Gorbachev emerged, and within six, the Berlin wall came tumbling down.19
The fatalism of Islam is illustrated in the film, Lawrence of Arabia. While
Lawrence and the army of Sheikh Ali were crossing the desert to capture the
Turk garrison at Aqaba, Ghasim fell off his camel unnoticed and was left
behind in the worst part of the desert. When Lawrence proposed going
back to rescue him, Sheik Ali said, “Ghasim’s time has come, it is written.”
When Lawrence said, “Nothing is written!” Sheikh Ali reacted angrily,
“Aqaba, what of Aqaba? You will not be at Aqaba, English! Go back,
blasphemer, but you will not be at Aqaba!” Lawrence replied, “I shall be at
Aqaba! It is written (pointing to his head) in here,” and then turned back
alone to rescued Ghasim. After the rescue, Sheikh Ali said, “Truly for some
men nothing is written unless they write it.” Later, in investing Lawrence
with the robes of a Sharif, someone said, “People for whom nothing is
written may write themselves a plan.” They conquered the Turks at Aqaba
and changed the course of the Middle East. This is a fascinating vignette into
Lawrence’s struggle with the pervasive fatalism of his Muslim colleagues.
Geisler showed this aspect of Islamic thinking from the Qur’an itself: “If
We [Allah] had so willed, We could certainly have brought every soul its true guidance; But the
Word from Me will come true. ‘I will fill Hell with jinn and men all together’” (Surah 32:13).
The Persian Muslim poet, Omar Khayyam reinforced this:
Tis all a chequer-board of night and days
Where destiny with men for pieces plays;
Hither and thither moves and mates and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays.20
This same fatalism about evangelism and world missions has been an
albatross on the back of Christ’s church since the Reformation (cf. Ch. 28).
Jordanian theologian, Imad Shahadeh made another parallel between
Calvinistic and Islamic theology: “There is no grace in the Qur’an. Actually the
concept of God in the Qur’an is that he is so free, so powerful, all the other attributes really
stem from his will, rather than from his nature. He is so powerful that he is not even bound to
a promise.”21 Calvinists believe that God cannot know that which He has not
decreed, in other words, an attribute of God stems from His will, rather than
the reverse. But His will must flow from His attributes! Richard Bailey said
that according to Islamic theology Allah has no emotions, he is impassible:
“. . . Islam’s concept that God is so much greater than us and so different than us that He can
have no such emotions. For a Muslim to believe that God is like us in any way is idolatrous
blasphemy.”22 He pointed to the centuries of Muslim theologians wrestling
with the relationship of Aristotle and Neo-Platonism to Islamic theology, with
the Muslims reintroducing Aristotle back into medieval Europe in time for
Aquinas and others to incorporate this philosophy into Christian theology.
Medieval theologians get the absurd notion of the impassibility of God from
Aristotle through the Muslims.23 Samuel M. Zwemer, the great Reformed
pioneer missionary to Muslims, bluntly made the comparison:
. . . what might be called ultra-Calvinism has carried the day. The terminology of their
teaching is Calvinistic, but its practical effect is pure fatalism. Most Moslem sects ‘deny all
free-agency in man and say that man is necessarily constrained by the force of God’s eternal
and immutable decree to act as he does.’ God wills both good and evil; there is no escaping
from the caprice of His decree. Religion is Islam, i.e., resignation. Fatalism has paralyzed
progress; hope perishes under the weight of this iron bondage.24
Such decrees unduly limit God’s love.

D. A. Carson tried to resolve The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, a
problem of Calvinism’s own making. He suggested five ways in which God’s
love is spoken of in the Bible, the fourth of which is: “God’s particular, effective,
selecting love toward his elect.” In discussing the third, “God’s salvific stance toward his
fallen world”, he admitted that “God’s love for the world cannot be collapsed into his love
for the elect.”25 Jerom Zanchi, an originator of limited atonement, in his
discussion of the attributes of God, totally left out love. Carson’s problem is
caused by his Calvinism. If God does not desire the salvation of the “non-
elect,” then it can hardly be said that He loves them (cf. Ch. 21).
Conclusions
The following propositions about sovereignty can be fully justified from
the inductive data of Scripture unmixed with a priori considerations:
1. God as Creator rules His universe in any way He sees fit consistent with
His own attributes. His delegating spheres of autonomy to His creatures
in no way limits His sovereignty: capital punishment and human govern-
ment (Gen. 9:6); to priests, judges, and kings in Israel, elders in the
church, and husbands in the family. This delegated authority intrinsi-
cally implies a limited autonomy.
2. By His omniscient foreknowledge of both eventualities and non-even-
tual possibilities, God orchestrates and arranges those events He choos-
es without coercing the wills of the moral agents involved. God’s
foreknowledge cannot be contingent upon His will.
3. Since God completed creation and rested on the seventh day, much of
His involvement is accomplished mediately, or indirectly, through His
agents and through orchestrating natural and human events.
4. Whenever it pleases Him, God intervenes in the world by supernatural
acts such as miracles, the new birth and other ministries of the Holy
Spirit. This is implemented in harmony with His eternal plan.
5. There is no biblical basis for the notion that God has exhaustively
decreed every last event which transpires in His universe.
6. By the nature of promises, covenants, and prophecies, God limits
Himself voluntarily.
7. Romans 9 says nothing about unconditional election of individuals to
salvation or reprobation of others to hell.
Excursus: John Piper’s The Justification of God

Most Calvinists feel John Piper’s The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of
Romans 9:1-23 is the capstone of their case. Piper is a brilliant scholar and major defender of Calvin-
ism. Having his doctorate from Munich, he is thoroughly conversant with the English and German
theological literature. His use of the Greek and Hebrew and extensive citation of that literature is very
impressive. However, his work is badly flawed in a number of very significant ways.
His narrow focus. He defensively refers to those who criticize his narrow focus upon only
Romans 9:1-23 as guilty of a “stereotype,” discounting it as “too limited in its scope and blinded by its
dogmatic concerns to the larger redemptive-historical issues” (p. 15). This is not a stereotype, but a
serious concern not only with redemptive-historical issues but also with careful consideration of the
context of the passage. This he seriously violates. He claims he is not losing sight of the forest while
focusing on one tree (p. 16). However, it is clear that he has totally ignored the two trees in the forest
right next to the tree upon which he is focusing (9:9-13 and 9:24–10:21). In so doing, he has cut the
tree down and dragged it out of the forest into the laboratory for dissection, but in so doing has intro-
duced various fungi from the pseudepigrapha, German scholarship, and a scholastic methodology.
Paul’s concern for Jews’ salvation. He made a good point regarding 9:1-6 of Paul’s concern
for the salvation of his individual Jewish brethren and how this informs the meaning of 9:6-23 as being
concerned about the salvation of individuals, not just the nation’s place in history. Since Paul comes
back to the issue of individual salvation in 9:24–10:21, this does not prove that 9:6-23 is focusing upon
individual election. These are distinct, yet closely related issues. Piper set up a false dichotomy and
denigrated the crucial role Israel played in salvation-history by use of the word “merely” (p. 56). The
salvation of individual Jews is vastly affected by the transition of God’s primary focus from Israel to the
Church as the bearers of the promise of salvation. He also missed the major Jew/Gentile issue
throughout Romans which is most important in understanding the issues which Paul was addressing.
Ignoring the subsequent context. He only has a few passing references to 9:24–10:21,
verified by checking his Scripture index, with no discussion at all of this important context. Since Paul’s
emphasis there is upon the cruciality of faith, an important theme of the whole book of Romans (60
references), how can he virtually ignore this section and yet claim to do justice to contextual consider-
ations? We must balance Chapter 9 with 10. The issue is more than balance; it is a crucial contextual
consideration. Although Piper has extensive discussion of Romans 11, he jumped right over 9:24–
10:21 in his long excursus on “The Theological Unity of Romans 9 and 11” (pp. 25-31).
Ignoring the foundational context. Even worse is the way he skipped over the crucial introduc-
tory context of 9:9-13 with a brief theological discussion (pp. 51-3). Since Paul was establishing the
foundation for this whole section, it is exceedingly important to exegete it in sequence. Yet Piper lost it
in the crack between pages 70 and 71. Indeed, the way that Piper jumped from one passage to
another causes the reader to lose the sequence of Paul’s argument. Most importantly, Piper quoted
Genesis 25:23 three times, but only once gave the whole verse about “two nations are in your womb”
and even then does not discuss the real implication of these words (pp. 61-2). Similarly, he obscured
Paul’s reference to Jeremiah 18, under the heading, “The traditions behind Romans 9:20, 21,” by not
only quoting two possibly relevant Isaiah passages but also extensive discussion of references from the
pseudepigrapha. He has no discussion of the national implications of Jeremiah 18:1-8, which is crucial
(pp. 194-9). Piper is more concerned with the impact of extra-biblical “traditions” than he is with God’s
word to the nation Israel through Jeremiah, in a situation parallel to Paul’s.
Mistranslating a key verse. Piper mistranslated 9:6b by moving the negative from the first
clause to the second in the sentence. This violates a fundamental law of logic and totally changes the
meaning of the sentence. His corruption: “For all the ones from Israel, these are not Israel” (pp. 58, 65,
67). The existing translations are all correct. Moving the negative ou to the second clause makes the
verse into the converse of Paul’s statement, but the converse of a statement may or may not be true.
It is not true that no Jews are the true Israelites since the early church was mostly Jewish.
A defective, deductive methodology. Piper’s whole methodology in the book is faulty and
scholastic. He started out with extensive theological discussion before really getting into the exegesis
of the text. This biases the whole exegesis and is a reversal of the proper inductive theological method-
ology. We must always start with the inductive, exegetical data before we can even begin to do
theology. Alan Clifford criticized the scholastic methodology of John Owen: “Theological arguments are
advanced and debated first (albeit with some reference to relevant texts) and the major exegetical
discussion follows” (cf. Ch. 26). This is deductive and only gives the appearance of sound exegesis.
Reading in predestination. Piper has a section entitled, “God’s means of maintaining His
purpose: predestination” (pp. 51-3), but proorizein does not occur in this whole passage (ch. 9–11) and
does not mean ‘predestination.’ Piper assumed that election and predestination are synonyms.
Ignoring the early fathers. He stated that “Schelkle has gathered relevant material from the
early church fathers. We will not rehearse that discussion here” (p. 56). The early fathers are significant
as a confirmation. Did Piper decline because the early fathers did not see predestination in Romans 9?
Since his source is German, he should have shared a summary with those who cannot access German.
1. James Daane, The Freedom of God, p. 38.

2. For additional discussion see Forster and Marston; William W. Klein, The New Chosen People; and
commentaries by Craig Blomberg and Leon Morris.
3. Dave Hunt, What Love Is This?, pp. 311-2.
4. William Douglas Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament, pp. 9-12.
5. Arndt and Gingrich, p. 419; Wallace, Grammar, p. 418 references 1 Cor. 1:10 & 2 Cor. 13:11 as examples.
6. Daane, p. 88 (emphasis mine).
7. Basil Hall, Humanists and Protestants: 1500-1900, p. 29, showed how William Perkins, an early 16th century British
Calvinist, did attribute sin to God. p. 29.
8. Daane, pp. 41-42; the original British edition of the Westminster Confession has “decree” in the singular.
9. Norman L. Geisler, Chosen But Free, p.133.
10. Daane, pp. 43, 55-56.
11. Geisler, pp. 145-154.
12. Ibid, pp. 147-149.
13. Ibid, pp. 175-180. Although I don’t agree with all of his reasoning, I think his essential arguments are sound.
14. Daane, p. 35. Daane was very concerned that election cannot be preached because it is unpreachable!
15. Ibid, pp. 38-43.
16. Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, p. 2.
17. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace, p. 231; Talbot and Crampton, p. 4; Coppes, p. 23, cited by Vance,
p. 703.
18. Patricia Souder, Alex Leonovich: A Heart for the Soul of Russia (Camp Hill, PA: Horizon Books, 1999), ch. 14.
19. Brother Andrew, And God Changed His Mind . . . Because His people dared to ask, pp. 11-25.
20. Geisler, pp. 133-34.
21. Imad Shahadeh, “Panel Discussion” at ETS 2000, Nashville, TN, November 2000.
22. Richard Bailey, “Prayer Letter #505," June 2001.
23. John L. Esposito, ed., The Oxford History of Islam, (NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), pp. 269-345.
24. Samuel M. Zwemer, Religions of Mission Fields, pp. 244-5, as quoted by Fisk, Calvinistic Paths, p. 225.
25. D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000), pp. 17-19.
Nay, my opponent says, if God is powerful, mer-
26
ciful, willing to save us, let Him change our dis-
positions, and compel us to trust in His prom-
ises. This then, is violence, not kindness nor the
bounty of the Supreme God, but a childish and
vain strife in seeking to get the mastery. For
what is so unjust as to force men who are reluc-
tant and unworthy, to reverse their inclinations;
to impress forcibly on their minds what they are
unwilling to receive and shrink from . . .
- Arnobius of Sicca (253-327)
The Irresistible and the Indisputable are two

weapons which the very nature of His [God’s]
scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override
a human will . . . would be for Him useless. He
cannot ravish. He can only woo. . . . - C. S. Lewis
IS GOD’S CALLING REALLY IRRESISTIBLE?
The Background of the Study

The biblical idea of ‘calling’ is a broad term to describe the process of
how sinners come to repentant faith in Christ. God invites, yes, summons a
lost human race to receive salvation in Christ and to appointment for His
service. All are obligated to respond to that summons, but most do not.
Why do some respond to the gospel while others do not? Augustine argued
only the elect respond because they are the only ones God draws to Himself
with irresistible grace. He was the first to tout this notion, but the Synod of
Orange (AD 529) did not accept it. Calvin revived it, and all Calvinists affirm
it as one of their five points. Calvinistic works reveal a widespread lapse into
proof-texting and absence of exegesis in their sections on irresistible grace.
An inductive study has uncovered many other explanations why some
believe and others do not, as set forth in earlier chapters. Our agenda must
start with a word study of the Greek for calling and then an examination of
all relevant Scriptures in context and of Calvinistic presuppositions.
A Word Study of Calling

In the Gospels the words for calling (kalein, klçsis, klçtos) are used fre-
quently in Christ’s three parables of an invitation to a feast (Mt. 22:1-14; Lk.
14:7-14, 15-24). Two parables are the basis for the idea of a general ‘call’ or
invitation to all mankind to salvation in the kingdom. When He capped the
361
parable of the king’s wedding feast with the aphorism, “For many are called,
but few are chosen” (Mt. 22:14), most recognize the meaning ‘invited,’ as in the
margin of the NAS and the text of the NIV. His one other statement, high-
lighted in all three Synoptics, is a reference to that general invitation: “I have
not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Lk.5:32=Mt. 9:13=Mk.
2:17). It is obvious that the invitation to all sinners precedes the repentance.
Over fifty times in the epistles, mostly of Paul, these words are used in
a more technical sense of the completed process in the life of believers by
which they came to Christ, which theologians refer to as an ‘effectual call-
ing.’ How that calling became effectual is the point of dispute between
Calvinists and others. Is it an irresistible calling, or is it described as having
been already effectuated because it is indeed a fait accompli, an accom-
plished fact? The Apostles used it in a narrower technical sense, especially
of those who have already responded to the general call and are thus
referred to by hindsight as ‘the called.’ It is as if in Christ’s parables the host
at a banquet refers to those in the banquet hall as the ‘invitees,’ even though
many others were invited but refused to come. It was an effectual calling
(invitation) since those present had responded to the invitation and are
referred to as the invited ones. Those who refused to attend, although
invited, are now irrelevant to the purpose of the invitation and thus not
designated as invitees, ‘the called.’ This is all brought out so clearly in Christ’s
parable of the king’s wedding feast in Matthew 22, (cf. Ch. 23, pp. 319-20).
This parable is totally at odds with irresistible grace. But there are many
other shades of meaning in this group of words which must be examined.
From the secular and Septuagintal usage, a prominent idea of commis-
sioning someone emerges. Coenen in DNTT pointed out: “. . . in later chapters
of Isaiah, . . . we have the profoundest use of kaleo in the sense of service and dedication,
linked with an exceptionally frequent appearance of eklegomai, choose.” In Isaiah 42:6;
43:1; 45:3,4, it is used of the calling of Israel, Cyrus, the Messiah (41:2): “calling
him in righteousness to his service.”1 There are about ten usages of kalein in Isaiah
42-55, and in every case it is the translation of the Hebrew qara’. In this
regard, the BDB Gesenius lexicon listed the fifth meaning as “summon” and
under that “e. call and commission, appoint . . . f. call and endow (with privilege)” 2
Therefore, this meaning carrying over to kalein in the New Testament is
confirmed by Paul’s usage: “called as an apostle” (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; also
Gal. 1:15). Is this an aspect of the calling of all believers, that we are ap-
pointed or commissioned to His service? Paul affirmed this in Ephesians 4:1:
“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the
calling with which you have been called . . .” From Luther onward the idea of
‘vocation’ is discussed. All believers are privileged to be appointed as God’s
servants at the point of conversion. Its usage in 1 Corinthians 7:20 supports
the use of klçsis as calling or vocation in a more secular sense: “Let each man
remain in that condition in which he was called.” Based upon parallel secular
Greek usage the BAG lexicon listed a second meaning “2. Station in life, position,
vocation”3 Thus the Christian life itself is seen as a calling or vocation.
Chapter 26 IS GOD’S CALLING REALLY IRRESISTIBLE? 363
The meaning ‘to summon’ is clear in the Gospels and Acts (Mt. 2:7; 20:8;
25:14; Lk. 19:13; Acts 4:18; 24:2). Schmidt in TDNT commented: “That God
calls with a view to man obeying finds a human par[allel] in P. Hamb., I, 29, 3 (89 A.D.) . . .
The existence of such a par[allel] in the human sphere make it clear that the God of the Bible
is a person confronting persons . . .” In Chapter 3 (pp.46-9), God’s consistent
confrontation of sin was surveyed, implying man’s ability to respond. In the
Septuagint and Gospels the verb also has the sense ‘to name,’ confirmed by
Paul (in Rom. 1:7 and 1 Cor. 1:2): “called saints,” or possibly, “named saints.”
In considerating the many aspects of this group of words, Schmidt is
surely correct in saying that “in the NT kalein is a technical term for the process of
salvation.”4 A definition emerges: Calling is God's action in bringing the sinner
to salvation, thus commissioning the believer to an exalted position with a
new name for service to God. It is used of the process and circumstances of
our coming to faith viewed from the divine side, as contrasted with conver-
sion, which is the human side as frequently used by Paul (esp. 1 Cor. 7:15,
17-24) as a response to the general invitation and thus effectual by hindsight.
Additional observations on key passages

2 Thessalonians 2:14 is an early significant usage: “And it was for this He
called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
First note that the calling was accomplished by means of the preaching of
the gospel. Thus, calling is accomplished mediately, not directly (which
might imply irresistible grace). As Paul’s thought is unpacked, note that in
the preceding verse their salvation came “through sanctification by the Spirit and
faith in the truth.” Allusion to a conditional element (faith in the truth) elimi-
nates a direct work of irresistible grace. Interpretation is strongly colored by
one’s pre-understanding of the relation of repentant faith to the new birth.
A significant observation from 1 Corinthians 1:26ff should be noted.
Paul stated that not many wise, mighty, or noble are called to salvation. Does
God sovereignly discriminate against such, or are human factors involved in
their little response to the general calling? We know pride is a major factor
hindering the intelligencia, the nobility, and the powerful from putting faith
in Christ. Although Paul’s use of these words emphasizes God’s initiative in
salvation, this conflicts with reading into the biblical concept an irresistible,
direct ‘zapping’ of sinners by the Spirit. Indeed, going back to the parable of
the king’s wedding feast, which Schmidt called the crux interpretum, those
included in the feast are those who responded to the general invitation.
Paul’s most theological reference to calling (Rom. 8:28-29, NEV):
. . . and in everything, as we know, he [God] co-operates for good with those who
love God and are called according to His purpose. For God knew his own before
ever they were, and also ordained that they should be shaped to the likeness of his
Son, so that He might be the eldest among a large family of brothers.
Note Paul’s emphasis upon believers as “those who love Him,” which comes
first in an emphatic position in the Greek sentence (as retained in the NEV).
Then in apposition to this, believers are designated as “those called according

to His purpose.” As discussed in Chapter 2, there are three usages of prothesis
in reference to God’s plan of salvation, as confirmed by the BAGD: “plan,
purpose, resolve, will, . . . design.” Paul stressed the purpose of the calling is that
we should “share the likeness of His Son.” In other passages he expanded that
purpose to include: called to freedom (Gal. 5:13), to hope (Eph. 1:18; 4:4), to
peace in one body (Col. 3:15), not to impurity but in sanctification (1 Thess.
4:7), to suffering (1 Pet. 2:21), and to be a blessing (1 Pet. 3:9). Thus God has
many purposes in commissioning us and calling us saints. The means of
implementing that plan are explained in Romans 8:29-30, as discussed in
detail on pages 298 & 334-336 in reference to foreknowledge and preappoint-
ment. That discussion also made it clear that there is no basis here for an
irresistible force in God’s calling us to salvation.
Although Paul’s use of calling in Romans 11:28-29 is not a reference to
our individual salvation, but rather to God’s ultimate plan for Israel, neverthe-
less there is an applicable principle here: “. . .for the gifts and the calling of God
are irrevocable.” There is no hint in this context that the calling of Israel, in
their ultimate restoration back to the place of blessing, is irresistible. Not
only is God’s plan for Israel irrevocable, but the true Christian’s salvation is
also irrevocable. This is the glorious truth of eternal security. Thus the
calling to salvation is irrevocable, but not irresistible!
Peter made a theologically significant statement: “Therefore, brethren, be
all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as
you practice these things, you will never stumble” (2 Pet. 1:10). Is Peter referring
to an individual’s objective calling, or our subjective perception of it? The
context from his previous use of the term ‘calling’ in 1:3 speaks of the virtues
we should diligently show in the Christian life. It is failure to focus on one’s
purification from former sins which elicited his exhortation. Thus it must be
believers’ subjective perception and remembrance of our calling about
which Peter is concerned, as a basis for a useful and fruitful Christian life
(1:8). This says nothing about the irresistibility of the calling, pro or con. Nor
does it undermine the irrevocability of the calling, as Arminians might claim.
Presuppositions of Irresistible Grace

In reviewing the major Calvinistic works, one is struck with the major
part that significant presuppositions play in their discussion. Some of these
discussions seem almost irrelevant to the subject at hand apart from these
unstated presuppositions. It is only when the non-Calvinistic reader is
reminded of these presuppositions that one can even see the relevance of
the discussion.5 This is because this notion is very deductive. In his chapter
on effective call, Sproul did not give even one Scripture reference (except the
ones in a quotation), apart from using the raising of Lazarus as an illustra-
tion.6 Their presuppositions must be examined.
Effectual calling necessarily implies irresistible grace. Most writers
rightly distinguish between the general call (or invitation) of the gospel to all
mankind and the effective calling, which relates only to the saved. However,
Calvinists assume that this implies irresistible grace. This is not at all a
necessary implication but an extrapolation of the data.
Irresistible grace presupposes unconditional election. The main
source of the first presupposition is this second one. Starting with the prem-
ise of unconditional election, the doctrine of effectual calling is automatically
converted into irresistible grace. The interrelatedness of the points of
Calvinism is emphasized by most Calvinists. Bruce Ware stated that Calvin-
ism’s irresistible understanding of effectual calling and grace “is a necessary
complement to its doctrine of unconditional election, each of which entails and is entailed by
the other, and both of which are necessary to its soteriology.”7 Palmer, in discussing
irresistible grace, gave only two direct proof-texts without any significant
discussion. Their thinking is almost completely deductive, not inductive.8
Irresistible grace presupposes an eternal decree. Since Calvinists
believe God’s sovereignty requires a decree of God by which He has deter-
mined “all that comes to pass,” His salvation must also be irresistible. Duane
Spencer pontificated, “God is not omnipotent if he can be resisted and rejected.” 9
Total inability necessitates irresistible grace. There is a strong
logical connection between the notion of man’s total inability and irresistible
grace. Non-Calvinists also believe that man is totally unable to save himself,
but reject man’s total inability to repent and believe without irresistible grace.
Regeneration is itself irresistible. This is rarely stated by Calvinists but
is axiomatic to their view and directly connects with the next assumption.
Regeneration precedes repentance and faith. Hyper-Calvinists
assume that since man is spiritually dead, he cannot believe and must be
regenerated in order to believe. They rarely discuss this assumption, which
is a clear reversal of the scriptural order. Boettner focused most of his
discussion of efficacious grace upon the monergism* of regeneration, that is,
the direct bestowal of new birth upon the elect.10 This eliminates any human
instrumentality in the process of coming to repentant faith. (Cf. Ch. 19)
Irresistible grace is effectuated by a direct gift of faith. Integral to
the notion of irresistible grace is the idea that repentance and faith are the
immediate or direct gift of God. God gives repentant faith to the elect and
withholds it from the non-elect. Storms’ statement is typical: “The Bible portrays
faith and repentance as God’s gifts to his elect.”11
Monergism requires irresistible grace. Calvinists insist that if God’s
calling is not irresistible, it would undermine monergistic grace. Those who
do not hold to irresistible grace are pejoratively called “synergists.”
Calvinist Proof-texts Examined

In examining discussion of irresistible grace by Calvinists, the lack of
serious contextual exegesis by most is a source of amazement. Many do not
even bother to quote the passages, let alone focus on the important context.
Ezekiel 37:1-14. Gordon Clark claimed the prophecy of the valley of
dry bones as proof of irresistible grace, as well as of all other points of the
TULIP. In this he departed far from literal interpretation of the passage and
ignored the Spirit-given interpretation in vv. 11-14: “Son of man, these bones are
the whole house of Israel . . . I will bring you into the land of Israel.” This comes in a
context of prophecies of the end-time restoration of Israel to the promised
land and cannot be lightly spiritualized, as amillennialists do. It is irresponsi-
ble to build one’s theology of salvation upon a spiritualized interpretation of
this passage and read into it salvation of individuals by irresistible grace.
Psalm 65:2-5. “To You all men come. Iniquities prevail against me; As for our
transgressions, You forgive them. How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring
near to You to dwell in Your courts. We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your
house, Your holy temple. . . . You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of
the farthest sea. Clark saw irresistible grace in vs. 3.12 Vance rightly faulted
him for not quoting the whole verse, omitting the purpose of the choosing
and bringing near, that is, to dwell in God’s temple in Jerusalem.13 Note the
words “to you” are not in the Hebrew. This Psalm must be understood in the
context of Israel’s worship centered in the temple. David preceded this with
very universalistic language (65:2) and followed it with even more obvious
reference to Gentiles scattered over the earth (65:5). This contradicts the
particularistic spin Clark put on half of a verse wrenched out of context. God
did make Israel His choice people privileged to worship in the temple, but
to make this a proof of irresistible grace to individual Jews is baseless. God
chose the Aaronic priests to “dwell in His courts,” and David as Israel’s king
found worship in His tabernacle a great privilege. The issue here is God’s
special favor to the nation Israel, which did not automatically save any Jew.
Clark’s technical discussion of grammar apart from context is a discredit to
his brilliance.14 His treatment of other passages is similarly cavalier.
Luke 14:15-24. What was Augustine’s basis for innovating irresistible
grace from the parable of the great dinner invitation? Since those invited
made irrational excuses, the host had his slaves not only bring in the handi-
capped, but also recruit others from the public thoroughfares. Augustine put
the strongest spin on the word anagkazein by interpreting it in the sense of
physical compulsion or coercion. In writing to Vincentius, a non-conformist
who advocated freedom of conscience: “You are of the opinion that no one should
be compelled to follow righteousness, and yet you read that the householder said to his
servants, ‘Whomever you shall find, compel them to come in.’”15 Although he misused
this in coercing people (the Donatists) into the Catholic Church, it also
connects to God’s coercion in irresistible grace. Few Calvinists dare to use
this, except Pink: “. . .the Greek anagkazô genuinely has the idea of ‘forceful’ constraint,”
for which he referenced Grundman [sic] in TDNT.16 However, Grundmann
gave a broad spectrum of meanings: “anagkazô is to cause or compel someone in all
the varying degrees from friendly pressure to forceful compulsion (on the individual meanings,
cf. the lexicons).” He listed the usage in the Septuagint and Josephus, which
indicates circumstantial “constraint.” Since his summary of the New Testa-
ment usage is so brief, he suggested checking the lexicons.17 A
John 6:44, 65. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws
him; and I will raise him up at the last day. . . . And He was saying, ‘For this reason I
have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the
Father.” Calvinists assume that apart from irresistible drawing of the ‘elect,’
only they are allowed to come to Christ. On the surface, it might seem that
they are right, but they ignore the crucial context. Christ was addressing
those who have seen Him and yet have not believed (6:36), who are set in
contrast with the believing remnant of Israelites who belonged to the Father,
but now have been committed into His hands. He referred to them in vs. 37
& 39 as “all that the Father gives Me.” He kept stressing faith as the distinguish-
ing feature of this remnant (6:35, 40, 47), taught by the Father (6:45). This is
a reference to His early disciples, who had readily responded to Him when
they met Him (cf. Jn. 1) because they had already been regenerated.
This is confirmed in His high-priestly prayer in 17:6, 9, & 24, where He
clearly identifies them as His early disciples distinct from those who were to
later come to faith through their word (17:20), thus not all the ‘elect.’ Further
confirmation comes in Luke 10:27, where He had just referred to the infants
to whom God has revealed His truth: “All things have been handed over to Me by
My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is
except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” Clearly “all things”
is a personal reference to these “infants.” Therefore, from the flow of the
context it is clear that this has nothing to do with the ‘elect,’ but rather with
the believing remnant, the genuine nucleus. (cf. Ch. 20, pp. 274-7)
John 10:16. Calvinists assume that the “other sheep, which are not of this
fold” is a reference to as yet unsaved elect who must be saved and brought
A. The BAG lexicon listed two meanings: “1. compel, force, of inner and outer compulsion.... 2. weak-
ened invite (urgently), urge (strongly)...” (p. 51). It is most significant that of the other eight usages of
this verb in the New Testament only one refers to any sort of physical force (Acts 26:11). All the rest
have to do with some personal (Mt. 14:22=Mk. 6:45), socio-religious (Gal. 2:3, 14; 6:12), or circumstan-
tial (Acts 28:19; 2 Cor. 12:11) pressure to act. So Augustine’s interpretation is extremely improbable.
This parable is the only possible context Calvinists might use, since God is never the subject of this
verb anywhere else. First, we must determine what actually happened in the parable itself—did the
slaves actually force the people to come with physical force? The host in the parable is not identified
as a king or anyone who might be able to use force. So the BAG second meaning of an urgent invita-
tion is really required. Otherwise we would have to agree with Augustine’s misuse of the parable for
human coercion to faith. Since this is obviously a violation of the analogy of faith, there can be abso-
lutely no basis for the use of this parable for irresistible grace either. It doesn’t work either way!
into Christ's flock. Palmer obscured this verse by misquoting it, substituting
the word 'flock' for ‘fold.’18 But the difference is significant, for Christ spoke
of “this fold”, which implies another fold. To what two folds was He referring?
All His disciples were Jews. The day was coming in which that great mission-
ary purpose of God would be fulfilled when He would bring Samaritans,
proselytes, and Gentiles into the one flock with one shepherd. Actually He
already had a fold of Samaritan believers, which Philip later brought into the
flock of the church. We just noted that He again raised the same
Jew/Gentile dichotomy later in 12:32. This is a much more context-sensitive
exegesis than reading a theological concept into the text, which is isogesis.*
Acts 9:1-19; 22:1-21; 26:1-20. Many Calvinists use the conversion of
Saul of Tarsus as an example of irresistible grace, as does Custance. “Did
those who tried to rationalize Election in this way not remember that Paul was coerced by the
sovereign grace of God?... Paul was turned about with violence because he ‘kicked against
the pricks’ of the goad of God’s grace (Acts 9:5, sic).”19 Custance claims Saul was
coerced to faith by Christ. However, there is nothing in the narrative or
Paul’s letters to support this idea. Certainly he went through a long spiritual
struggle from the time of witnessing the martyrdom of Stephen, exacerbated
by hearing the repeated testimonies of the Christians he persecuted (Acts
26:10-11; 1 Tim. 1:12-16 ), until the very moment that he heard the words of
the risen Lord, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Instantaneously he
realized that he had been tragically and absolutely wrong. He had thought
sincerely that he was serving the true God of Israel, when in reality he was
persecuting God’s Messiah and His true people. It is probable that as he
heard the truth from the lips of Christians, he struggled with doubts about his
own position. Certainly the Holy Spirit had been convicting him through their
words since that is the obvious meaning of the oxgoad the Lord referred to
(26:14). At that point he had a choice to deny the truth or to face the new
reality with which he was confronted. Granted the facts that he now faced
were overwhelming, still God did not force his will. We have just referenced
his own analysis in 1 Timothy 1:12-16, that he had acted “ignorantly in unbe-
lief.” We must understand him in the light of Christ’s explanation of the good
soil of the parable of the soils, who respond to the word with “an honest heart”
(Lk. 8:15). Instantaneously he faced the facts, repented and believed on
Christ. The narrative is totally comprehensible without irresistible grace.
Acts 13:48. A favorite proof-text is in Luke’s comment on the turning of
Paul and Barnabas to the Gentiles after the strong Jewish opposition at
Antioch of Pisidia: “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and
glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life
believed.” Modern translations are in agreement with the NAS quoted above
and supportive of the Calvinistic interpretation. Because of the tendency of
translators to follow a rut of tradition, this passage demands careful exegesis.
Rotherham (“as many as had become disposed for. . .”), Alexander Campbell, R.
J. Knowling in EGT, A. T. Robertson, and Alfred Marshall’s Interlinear (“having
been disposed”) are among the few to have broken out of the rut.20
Three issues. There are three issues which must be faced: the context,
the meaning of tassein, and whether this is a middle or passive verb. The
BAGD lexicon gives the primary meaning of tassein:
1. to bring about an order of things by arranging, arrange, put in place . . . b. of a pers. put
into a specific position, used with a prep. . . . tassein tina eis - assign someone to a (certain)
classification . . . [middle or] pass. belong to, be classed among those possessing - hosoi
çsan tetagmenoi eis zôçn aiônion Ac 13:48.— tassein heauton eis diakonian - devote
oneself to a service [2 secular Greek examples] 1 Cor 16:15.21
Although it has been ignored that tetagmenoi, being a perfect participle in
form, can be either middle or passive, this is of great significance in interpre-
tation. This is a periphrastic pluperfect construction, which shows action
antecedent (cause or condition) to the main verb, episteusan. The use of a
neuter plural subject with a plural verb emphasizes the individuality of each
subject.22 The middle voice, being reflexive, could be rendered, “as many as
had devoted themselves to eternal life believed” or “as many as had arranged (posi-
tioned or set) themselves toward eternal life believed.”B The first rendering is
suggested by the usage in 1 Cor. 16:15: “The household of Stephanas . . .have
devoted themselves for the ministry to the saints.” The second rendering is
suggested by the first meaning listed in BAGD and the strong military use of
the word in secular Greek according to the LSJ lexicon: “—draw up in order of
battle, form, array, marshal,. . . Med., fall in, form in order of battle . . . 2. post, station . . . III.
c. acc. rei, place in a certain order or relative position.”23 Delling in TDNT concured
with that general understanding in reference to Acts 13:48: “The idea that God’s
will to save is accomplished in Christians with their conversion is obviously not connected with
the thought of predestination (IV, 192, 1ff.), but rather with that of conferring status (–>31,
20ff.); cf. ouk axious Ac 13:46.”24 Delling here pointed to a contextual argument.
Context. First, examine the narrower context. When the Jews began
to contradict and blaspheme, the Apostles said, “It was necessary that the word
of God should be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it, and judge yourselves
unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). The
contrast Luke made between these words of the Apostles and his own
statement in 13:48 is clear. Since the Jews had put themselves in a position
hostile to eternal life, the Apostles were very explicit in using a reflexive
pronoun (‘yourselves’) to attribute the cause to their attitude. Then in ex-
plaining the opposite response of the Gentiles, Luke surely intended a
reflexive middle voice, rather than passive. Thus, he attributed the cause of
the Gentile’s faith to their attitude, which in 13:42 was evidenced in their
B. Bagster’s Analytical Greek Lexicon, p. xx, “The middle voice has only two tenses peculiar to itself,
the future and the aorist. As to the other tenses, the passive form is used to indicate reflexive action:...”
It is astonishing this important grammatical point is given so little mention in the lexicons, grammars, and
commentaries, nor was it discussed in my five years of Greek study. These tools only mention the
passive and do not alert us to the possibility of a middle voice in other tenses, such as the perfect here.
pleading with the Apostles to come back on a second Sabbath to give the
word of God. The contrast is striking.
Then examine the broader context of Luke’s statements here in Acts.
Consider a close parallel in Iconium: “. . .they entered the synagogue of the Jews
together, and spoke in such a manner that a great multitude believed, both of Jews and
of Greeks” (14:1). Here also Luke gave a human cause for many coming to
faith; he does not attribute it to irresistible grace. There is another close
parallel in Berea: “Now these were more nobleminded than those in Thessalonica,
for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see
whether these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, along with a number
of prominent Greek women and men” (17:11-12). Since Luke’s theological
perspective, derived from Paul, allowed him to attribute the faith of the
converts in two other cities to human factors, this is the most likely option in
Antioch of Pisidia as well. The semantics, grammar, and syntax as explained
above cogently lead to that conclusion. This exegesis is not new or novel,
having been proposed by Dean Henry Alford over a century and a half ago:
The Jews had judged themselves unworthy of eternal life: the Gentiles, as many as were
disposed to eternal life, believed. . . . but to find in this text pre-ordination to life asserted,
is to force both the word and the context to a meaning which they do not contain. ...
Wordsworth well observes that it would be interesting to enquire what influence such
renderings as this of praeordinati in the Vulgate version had on the minds of men like St.
Augustine and his followers in the Western Church in treating the great questions of free
will, election, reprobation, and final perseverance. . . . The tendency of the Eastern
Fathers, who read the original Greek, was, he remarks, in a different direction from that of
the Western School.25
He referenced Bengel and DeWette as supporting his view and Mede and
Schoettgen as taking the military sense alluded to above.
Acts 16:14. “A woman named Lydia, . . .a worshiper of God, was listening; and
the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” Calvinists
assume that this is proof of irresistible grace. The Holy Spirit's initiative in
opening a sinner’s heart to the gospel is not questioned, but it is by the
conviction of the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:8-11), which is neither irresistible nor
direct. Much of God's work is accomplished mediately, rather than immedi-
ately. Yes, clearly the new birth is 100% an immediate and direct work of the
Spirit, but the convicting work of the Spirit is accomplished mediately
through human means. See Chapter 8 for historical examples which come
through human instrumentality. This is also true of Lydia since Luke empha-
sized that she was listening to the things spoken by Paul. There is also an
important antecedent factor mentioned by Luke which has been over-
looked; she was already “a worshiper of God.” Whether she was Jewish, a
devout Gentile, or a proselyte, is not clear. But she had been exposed to the
Old Testament in her association with the Jewish women who gathered for
prayer on the Sabbath (16:13). To foist the notion of irresistible grace upon
this passage is theological extrapolation, not contextual exegesis.
Then in Acts 26:17-18, Paul told how God charged him to minister to the
Gentiles, “to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from
darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith
in Me.” He uses human instrumentality in bringing sinners to faith!
Romans 8:28-30. Calvinists resort to this passage most consistently to
prove irresistible grace. Because ‘calling’ is found third in a sequence
connected with foreordination, they interpret the calling irresistibly. In
Chapter 22, we saw the lack of linguistic basis for foreknowledge having a
deterministic connotation, and also that proorizein does not have anything to
do with destiny but should be translated ‘to preappoint.’ That preappoint-
ment is clearly conditioned upon God’s foreknowledge is confirmed in 1
Peter 1:1-2. Apart from this serious mistranslation, the notion of irresistible
grace would never have been connected with this passage.
We saw the importance of its broader context of the major theme of
Romans, a righteousness from God appropriated by faith. Pisteuein and pistis
occur sixty times in the epistle. “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is
revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last" (Rom. 1:17 NIV). The
whole plan of salvation is by faith from foreknowledge to preappointment to
calling to justification to glorification without any notion of irresistible grace.
Romans 9:1-29. This is a major camping ground of Calvinists, espe-
cially focusing upon 9:19-22. As discussed in great detail in Chapter 25, this
has nothing to do with the unconditional election of individuals nor with
irresistible grace. The context is totally about the choice of the nation Israel
as a channel for salvation for the whole world and God’s justice in setting
Israel aside when they rejected His Messiah. This is clear from examining
the Old Testament passages quoted by Paul in their own contexts.
Miscellaneous proof-texts. There are a number of proof-texts refer-
enced by Calvinists, usually in a list without any exegetical support. Vance
complained: “No exegesis is ever attempted, and little comment is made beside the
standard Calvinistic cliches.”26 Vance’s survey of Calvinistic works is most exten-
sive, and his observation is undoubtedly correct. Some of the passages
irrelevant to the issue if taken literally are Ps. 110:3, John 5:21, and Phil. 2:12-
13. James 1:18 is significant and already discussed .
Passages Refuting Irresistible Grace

There are a number of passages ignored by determinists which stand in
direct contradiction to the doctrine of irresistible grace.
Matthew 13:1-43=Mark 4:1-20=Luke 8:4-15. Christ's two important
parables give the answer why some people get saved and why others remain
unsaved. In the parable of the soils the Lord attributed the differing response
to factors related to the soils themselves. The first soil had been packed
down by the feet of bypassers and was not open to the seed. The second
had a rocky pan which made the soil shallow and response superficial. The
third had not been properly weeded, and although it germinated and grew,
it did not bear fruit to maturity. “But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones
who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit
with perseverance” (Lk. 8:15). Christ attributed the response to an attitude of
the heart of the individual, not to irresistible grace. This is not meritorious,
for that would contradict Paul's later teaching of grace, but rather points to a
responsive heart. Both the parables of the four soils and of the wheat and its
counterfeit tares also attribute rejection of the message to demonic influence
(Mt. 13:19, 38-39). This is seen in Satan’s use of diverse religious prejudices
(i.e. Islam, cults, anti-biblical ideologies, etc.) to hinder and confuse the
process of people coming to faith. Although Christ constantly attributed faith
or unbelief to individuals (Mt. 8:10, 9:2, 22, 29), this does not make faith
meritorious. Indeed, Paul is very explicit in making faith and merit contrary
principles (Rom. 4:16). Most significantly, he did not in any way attribute the
difference to irresistible grace. Some raise Christ's quotation of Isaiah 6:10-15
as proof, especially, “but to them it has not been granted” (Mt. 13:11). However,
we should understand all these parables as judgmental in nature, occa-
sioned in Matthew’s sequence of events by the strong rejections of the
Messiah in Matthew 12.27 This is not the outworking of a decree of reproba-
tion but rather a response to Israel's rejection of Him.
Matthew 23:37. After three years of ministering to “this nation (genea)”
of Israel and rebuking their unbelief, Christ cried out, “0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to
gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and
you were unwilling.” A good case can be made for Israel's rejection of the Mes-
siah as being part of God's eternal plan, yet Christ attributed it to Israel's
unwillingness. The cause of Israel's unbelief was not some lack of irresistible
grace, which passed them by. No, Christ attributed it to Israel's willfulness.
Luke 7:30. Christ singled out the religious leaders of Israel as those
who were resisting God's purpose: “But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected
God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.” This statement is
by itself simple and straightforward, that men can reject and thwart God’s
purpose for themselves. It is only a deterministic interpretation of ‘irresistible
grace’ which would deny this fact. The fact that people are unsaved and
going to Hell is attributed to their own self will, not to some mysterious
elective purpose of God worked out by irresistible grace.
Acts 7:51. Stephen's accusation against the Jews about to kill him is
most significant. “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears
are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” From this
statement it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Holy Spirit can be
resisted. The implication is that He had been seeking to convict them
through Stephen’s message, but they were resisting that convicting work.
This is in harmony with Christ's reference in John 16:8, that the Spirit was to
convict the world (kosmos) of unregenerate sinners. Acts 7:54 records their
negative reaction to that convicting work: “Now when they heard this, they were
cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him.” So conviction is not
limited to the elect, nor is it irresistible.
1 Corinthians 4:15 and Philemon 10. In both of these passages, Paul
spoke metaphorically of his having begotten the Corinthian Christians and
Onesimus into Christian faith. It almost sounds as if he were taking credit for
their new birth, but this could not be the case. The new birth itself is totally
the work of the Holy Spirit. Although Paul did not literally contribute to their
actual regeneration per se, he used this figurative language to emphasize the
point that he did have a lot to do with the circumstances which led them to
faith in Christ. There would have been no Corinthian church if he hadn't
obeyed the Greatest Commission.28 But in any case, Calvinists have failed to
distinguish the human element in the ministry and circumstances of bringing
people to faith, from the new birth itself, which is a distinct issue.
Calvinistic responses
Most Calvinistic writers do not see the serious problems raised to their
view by the above passages and therefore do not address them. Boettner
and Custance are ambivalent about the use of the word ‘irresistible’ since
they acknowledge that the Holy Spirit can be and is usually resisted by most
who hear the word of God.29 Essentially they hold that grace is resistible up
to the point when it is God’s will for the elect to be efficaciously regenerated;
then it becomes irresistible. Since they have no inductive biblical data to
support this scenario, we are back to a deductive argument, which is really
arguing in circles. Geisler rightly suggested that all of the above passages
teach that “God’s grace is not irresistible on those who are unwilling.” 30
Problems of Coherence
The insincerity of the general call
George Bryson described the bottom line of the message of Calvinism
very tersely and bluntly: “You will be saved or damned for all eternity because you were
saved or damned from all eternity.”31 Such a statement will make many Calvinists
angry, but it certainly represents the view of R. C. Sproul, among many
others: “What predestination means, in its most elementary form, is that our final destination,
heaven or hell, is decided by God not only before we get there, but before we are even
born.”32 Those who believe in unconditional election and irresistible grace
cannot escape the force of this characterization. This leaves the sincerity of
the general call to salvation in a totally incoherent position.
If all mankind is totally unable to respond to the general call, and only
those unconditionally elected by God will be the recipients of irresistible
grace, then there is no way that we can maintain the sincerity of that general
invitation of the gospel. What about Paul’s response to the Philippian jailor’s
question, “What must I do to be saved?” If Calvinism were true, Paul’s answer

was not sincere. To tell him the whole truth he should have said, “If you are
among the elect, you will not be able to resist the Spirit’s irresistible grace
and you will certainly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. How-
ever, if you are not among the elect, you cannot do anything to be saved and
will go to Hell. Tough luck!”
Calvinists say people can reject Christ of their own free will, but they
cannot accept Him of their own free will. John Wesley bluntly stated that the
doctrine of predestination “represents our Lord as a hypocrite, a deceiver of the people,
a man void of common sincerity, as mocking his helpless creatures by offering what he never
intends to give, by saying one thing and meaning another.”33 While this book is not
Arminian or Wesleyan, it agrees with Wesley’s coherence argument. The
Calvinistic gospel mocks the ‘non-elect’ and is not “good news.”
Is the God of the Bible coercive?

As already observed, some Calvinists are willing to use words like
‘coerce,’ ‘compel,’ or ‘constraint’ to describe what is involved in irresistible
grace. This raises the question already discussed in Chapter 2, “What kind
of a God do we have?” Is He a coercive God? There is no evidence either in
the biblical narrative or in the didactic books that God works coercively.
Indeed, the age-long problem of the silence of God is a far greater mystery,
that is, why does God seem so reticent to intervene in human affairs, espe-
cially when godless forces seem to be winning the day? Even today we
struggle with this question. Why did God not intervene in the World Trade
Center terrorism? The answer is that although God retains His ultimate
sovereign power, He has chosen not to directly use it in many cases.
Why restrict irresistible grace to the elect?

R. C. Sproul recognized the seriousness of this problem: “The nasty
problem for the Calvinist is seen in the [question]. If God can and does choose to insure the
salvation of some, why then does he not insure the salvation of all?”34 While claiming
that this is not a problem only for Calvinists, he was unaware that the Calvin-
istic presuppositions cause the problem. Since non-Calvinists do not accept
the premise that God saves by irresistible power, we do not have the prob-
lem. God has the power to save everyone, but since He hasn’t chosen to
save by irresistible power, He refrains from exercising it. Sproul thinks the
non-Calvinist is concerned about God violating man’s freedom, which may
be the tenor of some Arminian arguments. However, mediate theologians
are more impressed with the way in which from Eden onward God has
delegated responsibility to mankind, as spelled out in Chapter 2.
Preparationism
One of the strangest anomalies of Calvinism going back at least to
Jonathan Edwards is the issue of preparationism.* If people are totally
passive in regeneration, what can spiritually dead people do to prepare

themselves for God’s irresistible grace? The consistent answer would be,
nothing! But this was not a satisfying answer to the Christian conscience, so
Calvinists discussed various specific steps to prepare for regeneration,
whenever God should sovereignly choose to give it. Coherent Calvinism
cannot advocate any sort of preparationism. As Roy Aldrich put it:
A doctrine of total depravity that excluded the possibility of faith must also exclude the
possibilities of “hearing the word,” “giving serious application to divine truth,” and “praying
for the Holy Spirit for conviction and regeneration.” The extreme Calvinist deals with a
rather lively spiritual corpse after all.35
Word magic
Norman Geisler holds that Calvinists are “using word magic in an attempt to
hide the fact that they believe God forces the unwilling against their will.” Sproul objected
to the representation that they believe people come to salvation kicking and
screaming since first the desire is planted in their hearts so that they come
willingly. However, Geisler exposed the “euphemistic language” they use by
including the implied words in brackets in Sproul’s statements: “If God gives us
a[n irresistible] desire for Christ we will [irresistibly] act according to that desire.” “Once that
desire is [irresistibly] planted, those who come to Christ do not come kicking and screaming
against their wills.”36 The true intent of the Calvinistic doctrine of irresistible grace
cannot be hidden by word magic.
Conclusions
It is concluded that the doctrine of irresistible grace has been derived by
Calvinists through a deductive process from the other points of the TULIP,
rather than through careful exegetical study of all relevant Scripture. The
historical context of their favorite proof-texts needs to be given weightier
consideration, presuppositions ought to be examined thoroughly, and more
careful word study of the usage of the term 'calling’ needs to be done. This
book challenges Calvinists to do these things.
1. L. Coenen in CoIin Brown, ed. Dictionary of New Testament Theology. I. 271ff.

2. Francis Brown, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon, pp. 895-6.
4. K. L. Schmidt in Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, III, pp. 489-494.
5. For example, Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (GR: Eerdmans, 1968), II, pp. 687-714.
6. R. C. Sproul, Grace Unknown: the Heart of Reformed Theology, pp. 179-96. The kind of irresistible grace he
advocates is indeed unknown in the Scriptures, judging by the total lack of direct Scriptural evidence in his chapter.
7. Bruce A. Ware, “The Place of Effectual Calling and Grace in a Calvinistic Soteriology,” in Thomas R. Schreiner
and Bruce A. Ware, eds., The Grace of God; The Bondage of the Will, II:345.
8. Edwin H. Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism: a Study Guide, pp. 56-67. He references John 6:37, 44 and Acts
16:14, but doesn’t even quote them.
9. Duane Edward Spencer, TULIP: The Five Points of Calvinism in the Light of Scripture, p. 48.
10. Loraine Boettner, Predestination, 5th ed., pp. 162-181. Berkhof shows the close identification of effectual calling
and regeneration in 17th century Reformed theology, and although he distinguished the two made no reference to
faith in reference to regeneration; L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, rev. ed., pp. 469-476.
11. C. Samuel Storms, Chosen for Life (GR: Baker, 1987), p. 46, as quoted by Vance, p. 513.
12. Gordon H. Clark, Predestination, pp. 198-200 on Ezek. 37; also on Ps. 25, p. 174.
13. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism (rev. ed.), p. 502.
14. Clark goes into some detail in identifying the verb form as a piel, which he admits is not quite causative, but
emphatic, and then totally ignores the context, which really should be our primary consideration in exegesis.
15. Aurelius Augustine, “Letter to Vincentius,” 2, 5. Also “Vincentius,” 5 (AD 408); Corr. Don., 21, 23; “Letter to
Donatus,” 3 (AD 416), as quoted and referenced by Forster and Marston, pp. 284, 292. Augustines’s advocacy of
the use of the physical force of the Roman government to coerce the Donatists back into the Catholic Church was
the basis of the use of physical force in the inquisition and in the consistent persecution of other Christian groups by
the Roman church over the centuries. How much did it influence those Augustinians, Luther and Calvin, in their
persecution and execution of Anabaptists and Servetus is an open question. See Forster and Marston, pp. 257-95.
16. Arthur C. Custance, The Sovereignty of Grace, p. 185.
17. Walter Grundmann in TDNT, I: 344-7. He doesn’t use the adjective ‘circumstantial’ of “constraint,” but all the
references adduced in the LXX and Josephus lead to that conclusion. See Ps. 107:13 (Gk. 106:13) for an example.
18. Edwin H. Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism (GR: Guardian Press. 1972). p.62.
19. Custance, p. 66. (The best texts do not have the goad in Acts 9:5, but rather 26:14.)
20. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures, II:200; R. J. Knowling,, in Expositors’ Greek Text, II: 300, references Rendall,
Blass, Wendt, and Page, who so understands Chrysostom’s interpretation; & Alexander Campbell, Living Oracles..
21. Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker Lexicon, p. 991.
22. Wallace, Grammar Beyond Basics, pp. 649, 626 on periphrastic pluperfect; also p. 400f on neut. pl subject.
23. Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon, pp. 1759-60.
24. Gerhard Delling in TDNT, VIII, pp. 28-9.
25. Henry Alford, The Greek Testament, II, 153-4.
26. Vance, p. 503.
27. Alva J. McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom (Chicago: Moody, 1959), pp. 322-3.
28. C. Gordon Olson, “The Missiological Implications of Sotenology." a paper presented to the Evangelical
Missiological Society, Eastern Section, May 1,1992 at Phoenixville, PA; cf. chapter 28 for updated research.
29. Custance, pp. 175-6; Boettner, pp. 168, 178; Sproul, Grace Unknown, p. 189..
30. Geisler, Chosen, pp. 94-96.
31. George L. Bryson, The Five Points of Calvinism: “Weighed and Found Wanting,” p. 121. Reformed professor,
Douglas Wilson, says, “George Bryson is a very unusual non-Calvinist. He is able to describe the doctrinal position
of Calvinism without putting any extra eggs in the pudding. His descriptions are fair and accurate, and he clearly
knows his subject” (Quoted on the cover).
32. Sproul, Chosen, p. 22.
33. John Wesley, “Sermon on Free Grace” in Sermons, I: 482ff, as quoted by Philip Schaff, History, 8: 566.
34. Sproul, p. 35.
35. Roy L. Aldrich, “The Gift of God,” Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 122, p. 248.
36. Geisler, pp. 96-7. Geisler is quoting from Sproul, pp. 120-123.
PART FIVE
A MIDDLE
WAY
CONFIRMED
History, I think, is probably a bit like a pebbly
27
beach, a complicated mass, secretively three-di-
mensional. It is very hard to chart what lies up
against what, and why and how deep.
-- Richard Wentworth
Disputing Militant Theologues [Calvinist & Armi-

nian]: who have spun out the Doctrine of Chris-
tianity into many Spider Webs, and filled the
World with so many Volumes of Controversies,
as are so many engines of contention, hatred, and
division. -- Richard Baxter (1675)
WERE THERE REALLY

MIDDLE WAYS IN HISTORY?
In early historical research, a significant reaction to hyper-Calvinism was

seen in the seventeenth-century Amyraldian movement of the Reformed
churches of France. As historical study broadened, a substantial trail of
historical movements emerged, a score supportive of a “middle way.” Peter
Thuesen has well chronicled the contention predestination has generated:
“Of all traditional Christian doctrines, few, if any have caused as much controversy as this
question . . . predestination has been one of the most important but unacknowledged sources
of discord in churches across the denominational spectrum.”1
Ultimately this chapter does not determine the truth or falsity of a
mediate theology since there is only one standard of truth—the Bible as the
word of God. Christian history can only confirm and support the results of
biblical exegesis; it should not be preliminary to, or even a parallel study to
the biblical investigation. It is only as a test of theological endeavor, that is,
if there are no antecedents in the history of Christian thought, then the
biblical data must be re-examined to see where we might have gone wrong.
But far too much theological study starts with the historical, and by the
nature of the case it is far more subjective than the biblical data.
Christian historical study is limited for a number of reasons beginning
with the imperfection of the record. A significant proportion of the primary
documents have perished. Whether the destructive incursions of barbarians
or Muslims, persecution of minority Christian groups by anti-Christians or the
majority church, or just the ravages of time and bacterial action– much has
been lost, and the loss has not been impartial. Most of what is known about
Pelagius is known from his enemy, Augustine. So it is probable that the
378
Chapter 27 WERE THERE REALLY MIDDLE WAYS IN HISTORY? 379
available data was skewed from the start. There were significant perse-
cuted evangelical groups during the medieval period, but how many leaders
had opportunity to write theology, and what has survived?
Another limitation is the theological bias of the historiographer. Philip
Schaff, in his monumental history, stated “Having no sectarian ends to serve, I have
confined myself to the duty of a witness—to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth;”2 But as objective as Schaff tried to be, at times he went beyond the
duty of a historian and gave a theological refutation of the views of a histori-
cal figure. All people have biases and presuppositions, and we freely admit
that we come to this historical study with a bias. Based on biblical studies
this book has demonstrated that an intermediate theology of salvation is true
to God's word. Now turn to history to see whether others before us have
come to similar viewpoints. This research confirms substantial antecedents
for a middle way and raises serious problems for deterministic views.
Augustine, the First Predestinarian

Four silent centuries
Reformed writer Paul K. Jewett made a startling statement: “As has often
been observed, the first true predestinarian was Augustine.”3 This may not have given
pause to Jewett, but the question arises of four centuries of church history
without any predestinarian teaching, as other historians confirm. How could
this be, if it is a basic biblical doctrine? How could the disciples of the
Apostles and their succeeding disciples for almost four hundred years have
not discussed the subject? But it is a widely acknowledged fact that the
early fathers said much about free will, indeed, they coined the term.A But
they said nothing about election, predestination, or irresistible grace.
We can understand this since only Paul ever directly referred to
foreordination and Peter also to so-called election. There is no direct refer-
ence in the Gospels, John’s epistles, the Revelation, Acts, James, Jude, or
Hebrews. Apparently they also did not feel that it was that basic either. The
early Greek-speaking fathers did not see determinism in the Bible. Some
historians attribute it to the struggle against Gnosticism* and Manichean-
ism.* This might be especially true in the Greek-speaking eastern churches,
which never did get into predestination, as did the western churches. But
the answer is simple! The Greek-speaking fathers knew that proorizein does
not mean ‘to predestine’ as seen in over thirty citations of this word and its
cognates in the fathers quoted by G. W. H. Lampe in his Patristic Lexicon
A. There are extensive quotations from the fathers who held to free will before the council of Ephesus
(431): Justin Martyr (100-165), Irenaeus (130-200), Athenagorus (II), Theophilus of Antioch (II), Tatian
of Syria (late II), Bardasian of Syria (154-222), Clement of Alex. (150-215), Tertullian (155-225),
Novatian of Rome (200-258), Origen (185-254), Methodius of Olympus (260-311), Archelaus (d. 277),
Arnobius of Sicca (253-327), Cyril of Jerusalem (312-386), Gregory of Nyssa (335-395), John
Chrysostom (347-407), Jerome (347-420), Augustine in his early writings, and Cyril of Alexandria (376-
444). (Forster& Marston, Strategy, p. 243-277; Geisler, Chosen, Appendix 1)
380 A MIDDLE WAY CONFIRMED
(1961).4 The lexicons and theological dictionaries done earlier could not
utilize Lampe’s most important work, and many done later seem naive of
the radical impact upon our understanding of this very rare word. Although
eklegomai is not a rare word, the Greek-speaking fathers knew that it meant
‘to appoint, to commission’ so they knew nothing of a doctrine of ‘election.’
Pejorative pigeonholing
There is a significant problem in classifying the church fathers. The
three categories usually considered are a gross oversimplification: Pela-
gian,* Semi-Pelagian,* and Augustinian. Pelagius was probably a heretic;
both his anthropology and soteriology were seriously defective. But to
attach his name to mediating fathers is clearly to use a prejudicial term
(‘semi-Pelagian’) of those who were not heretics. Is it fair to call them semi-
heretics, just because they did not go all the way with Augustine? This along
with pejorative use of the term ‘synergist' is totally irresponsible. Many
should be more accurately designated as semi-Augustinians. Both Schaff
and J. L. Neve used that terminology and made that distinction.5
Since there was great diversity of viewpoints, diversity among semi-
Augustinians must also be distinguished. While all semi-Augustinians held
to Augustine's basic anthropology and emphasis upon grace in salvation,
they did not follow him in his view of unconditional election and irresistible
grace. Many of them emphasized God's initiative in salvation by some
reference to prevenient grace.* But others, while stressing grace, held that
man has to take a first step by responding to the message.
Semi-Pelagians, on the other hand, did not have a clear doctrine of
regeneration. We can not be sure that Pelagius (350-409) was even syner-
gistic as represented by his enemies since primary sources are minimal.
Some historians, such as Neve, Walker, Williston, and Seeberg, hold that he
had a much deeper concept of human guilt and God's grace than usually
represented. Schaff said he understood justification in the sense of 'declar-
ing righteous,' not like Augustine in the catholic sense of 'making righteous,’6
a curious reversal. Another factor which clouds any distinction is that
Augustine saw regeneration as a process, not as an instantaneous work of
God.7 Such distinctions are difficult to make before Augustine since few
fathers wrestled with these issues. Some more ascetic, legalistic fathers
may have been semi-Pelagian (anachronistically), but probably most early
fathers were semi-Augustinian.B In any case, it is clear that all believed in
general redemption and to varying degrees in ‘free will.'8
Pelagianism was rejected at the Synod of Carthage in 412 and 418, and
that rejection was confirmed at the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus
B. The Epistle to Diognetus (ca. 150), Tertullian (150-220), Hilary (300-366), and Ambrose (350-397)
emphasized the gracious nature of salvation. Irenaeus (120-202), Origen (185-254), John Chrysostom
(347-407), and Jerome (347-415) probably show more synergism, but should not be connected with
Pelagian heresy. This is probably true of many of the better eastern church fathers.
(431). Neve affirmed: “But the rejection of Pelagianism did not mean the acceptance of
everything in the Augustinian system. It was Augustine's doctrine of predestination which
gave offense, to those even who otherwise favored him in his controversy with Pelagius."9
The triumph of semi-Augustinianism

Augustine not only started a major battle with Pelagianism, which he
won, but for a century afterward a major controversy continued among
those who accepted his essential anthropology (original sin) and emphasis
upon grace in salvation. But other than his disciple, Prosper of Aquitaine,
virtually no one accepted his views on predestination and irresistible grace.10
Confirming the absolute novelty of his views, his contemporaries, such as
Jerome (347-415) and Ambrose (350-397) argued these views were abso-
lutely new and not held by any in the church before Augustine.
Augustine's determinism spawned a strong reaction from many.C
Synods at Arles (472) and Lyon (475) tried to resolve the issue which was
brought to the Synod of Orange (529), where the semi-Augustinians won the
day against Pelagianism, but with no mention of predestination or irresistible
grace. Bishop Boniface II of Rome affirmed the decision of the council
subsequently, as did Gregory the Great (d. 604). Vincent of Larins set forth
his famous criteria of catholic doctrine that only what has been “believed
always, everywhere, and by all” is orthodox. This was seen as excluding Augus-
tine's predestination as being novel and new.
While the Synod of Orange rejected semi-Pelagianism and affirmed
much of Augustine's doctrine of grace, it departed from his views in the fol-
lowing particulars, as summarized by Neve:
1. The only statement about predestination was a rejection of predestina-
tion to perdition.
2. There was no affirmation of irresistible grace.
3. God foreknows all things, good and evil, but His prescience as such is
not causative.
4. Prevenient grace is affirmed.
5. The grace of God and the merits of Christ are for all; God earnestly
desires and wills the salvation of all men (1 Tim. 2:4).
6. Through the grace of God all may, by the cooperation of God, perform
what is necessary for their soul's salvation.11
Thus Jewett was clearly wrong to claim that a “milder predestinarianism became
the official teaching of the Latin church” after the Synod.12 Schaff clarified:
C. John Cassian (d. 435), Vincent of Lerins (wrote "Commonitorium" ca. 434), Arnobius the younger
(wrote about 460), Maxentius, Gennadius of Massila (d. ca. 495), Faustus of Rhegium (d. 495),
Caesarius, Archbishop of Arles (502-542), and Avitius, Archbishop of Vienna (490-523) should all be
classed as semi-Augustinian, not semi-Pelagian. A number of anonymous works from the fifth century
are clearly semi-Augustinian: "Hypomnesticon," "Predestinatus" (460), and "De Vocatione Omnium
Gentium" (ca. 461, possibly by Bishop Leo I of Rome) (J. L. Neve, p. 150; Schaff, III, 864-7).
At the synod of Orange (Arausio) in the year 529, at which Caesarius of Arles was leader, the
Semi-Pelagian system, yet without mention of its adherents, was condemned in twenty-five
chapters or canons, and the Augustinian doctrine of sin and grace was approved, without the
doctrine of absolute or particularistic predestination. (italics his, underline mine)13
There was a major semi-Augustinian view distinct from semi-Pelagianism.
Augustine's doctrinal limitations and problems

Since Augustine was such a towering figure in the history of Christian
thought by permeating both Roman Catholic and Reformation theology, it is
important to evaluate his impact. It was a mixed bag; he did defend the
doctrine of grace in a significant way. There were also some serious nega-
tive elements in his background, linguistic and exegetical skills (his dislike
for the Greek language), his perspective, and hence in his theology, which
developed into absolute evils among both Catholics and Protestants.
His soteriology. Augustine's theology of salvation was little developed.
It certainly did not include the teaching of justification by faith, let alone the
sola fide of the Reformers. The reason was his sacramental view of salva-
tion through baptism, the eucharist, and membership in the majority,
politically approved Roman church. Beyond that there was no need for
soteriology. Indeed it was his strong emphasis upon baptism beginning a
process of regeneration and an external organizational unity of the church
allied with the state which set the pattern for the dead state-churchism of
much of European Christendom over the centuries.14 This is the major
heresy in Christendom today through which hundreds of millions are “damn-
ed through the church.” One of the most offensive views to his contempo-
raries was that unbaptized infants are damned.15
Augustine had an incredible impact upon the medieval Latin-Catholic
church, which clearly lapsed into scholasticism. Schaff stated: “He ruled the
entire theology of the middle age, and became the father of scholasticism in virtue of his
dialectic mind, and the father of mysticism in virtue of his devout heart, without being responsi-
ble for the excesses of either system." 16 This certainly raises questions.
Coercive persecution of non-conformists. In his controversy with the
Donatists, Augustine, not only put loyalty to the majority church above loyalty
to the word of God, but he actually began to advocate coercion in order to
force the Donatist ‘sectarians' back into the Roman church. He grossly
misinterpreted the parable of the great wedding feast in Luke 14:15-24, by
taking ‘compel' (anagkazein) as implying physical force and used it as a basis
for persecuting the Donatists, who were closer to the truth than he was.
Subsequently, Augustine's misinterpretation became the basis for the
infamous medieval inquisition and the Reformers' persecution of Anabap-
tists.* That centuries of persecution of true and godly believers can be
traced back to Augustine's careless exegesis is outrageous! Augustine was
not a creature of his times because leading church fathers, such as Athana-
sius, Chrysostom, Martin of Tours, Lactantius, Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose
were horrified and protested this kind of persecution. Tertullian said, “God
has not hangmen for priests. Christ teaches us to bear wrong, not to revenge it."17 Al-
though the situation was confused, considerable bloodshed resulted, the
horrendous result of Augustine's misinterpretation of one verse of Scripture.
Connected with this is his view of the organizational nature of the
universal (Catholic) church, in contrast with the biblical view of its mystical,
organic nature. He saw apostolic succession and tradition as more impor-
tant than conformity to Scripture. He admitted that the Donatists were
orthodox in doctrine, and actually they were more concerned about a pure
church than he was. Yet he persecuted them! Schaff concluded that in
Augustine “the state church found not only the first Christian leader of importance to
advocate the use of persecution against non-conformists, but they found the only Christian
theologian of significance whose theological system could justify such persecution."18 The
reference here is to the relation of irresistible grace to coercion to faith.
Manichean influence. Some of Augustine’s views can be traced back
to his nine years in Manicheanism* before his conversion, including his
ascetic view of sex and the Christian life. Manicheanism had become a
major rival force in the West as well as in the East where it originated.
Manichean dualism of body and spirit influenced not only him but other
church fathers as well. A. H. Newman stated, “Augustine . . . was for many years
connected with the Manicheans and his modes of thought were greatly affected by this expe-
rience.”19 He traced asceticism, the exaltation of virginity, viewing all sex as
sinful, pompous ceremonials in the church, sacerdotalism,* and indul-
gences as coming into the churches through the influence of Manicheanism.
There are Manichean roots to Augustine's deterministic theology as well.
Manichean pervasive influence, although resisted by other church fathers,
gained entrance into the church through Augustine. He was the Trojan
horse for Manichean determinism. Indeed, this connection was made by
Faustus after Augustine's death. In denouncing the error of predestination
he “identified the current predestinarian doctrine with pagan and Manichean fatalism." 20 A
millennium later the opponents of Flacius, a defender of the deterministic
‘Old Lutheran’ view, accused him of Manicheanism.21 The Catholic church
continued to reject determinism for eleven centuries after the Synod of
Orange, but an Augustinian monk named Luther revived it under the guise
of grace and set the Reformation on this erroneous path.
One other serious consequence of Augustine's determinism was his
denial of assurance. He taught the elect can only be known by persever-
ance to the end of life. Thus he robbed believers of a most precious salva-
tion reality, which continues to be a major problem among Christians.
The root of Roman Catholic accretions. Many of the errors of Roman
Catholicism have their roots in Augustine. Sir Robert Anderson wrote, “Nearly
all the errors prevalent in Romanism can be traced back to Augustine.” Warfield con-
ceded that Augustine was “in a true sense the founder of Roman Catholicism.”
Zanchius referred to him as one of the four legs supporting the papal chair.22
The Medieval Scene

The eastern Greek church ignored Augustine and never showed any
inclination toward absolute predestination. John of Damascus held to
absolute foreknowledge but rejected unconditional election since God
cannot foreordain sin and does not force virtue upon the reluctant will.
Origen argued for the distinction of foreknowledge from foreordination (cf.
pp. 302, 332-33). Schaff's summary of the western church is quite pointed:
The Latin church retained a traditional reverence for Augustine, as her greatest divine, but
never committed herself to his scheme of predestination. [He documents Neander and Giese-
ler.] It always found individual advocates, as Fulgentius of Ruspe, and Isidore of Seville, who
taught a two-fold predestination, one of the elect unto life eternal, and one of the reprobate
unto death eternal. Bede and Alcuin were Augustinians of a milder type. But the prevailing
sentiment cautiously steered midway between Augustinianism and Semi-Pelagianism, giving
chief weight to the preceding and enabling grace of God, yet claiming some merit for man's
consenting and co-operating will. This compromise may be called Semi-Augustinianism, as
distinct from Semi-Pelagianism. It was adopted by the Synod of Orange (Arausio) in 529.23
Gottschalk sought to revive Augustinian theology and John Scotus wrote
in 850, holding single predestination as identical with foreknowledge.24 The
national synod of France (860) ended the controversy in the medieval
period. Neither Anselm (d. 1109) or Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274?) were
determinists. It was not significantly raised again until the Reformation, but
it is clear that the Roman church drifted increasingly into semi-Pelagianism.
The Reformers and Their Successors

The German and Swiss Reformations
Undoubtedly the Protestant Reformation took place in a time of great
ferment: intellectually, religiously, politically, and theologically. People fre-
quently overreact in such times, and many examples could be cited.
Although in many areas we might criticize Luther for not going far enough,
he overreacted with determinism to the semi-Pelagianism of the Catholic
church. He never totally broke free from either his Augustinian background
or a scholastic way of thinking. His rationalizations about the faith of infants,
the ubiquity of the body of Christ, consubstantiation, etc., reflect a scholastic
mode of thinking. He was, after all, an Augustinian monk and after his
conversion found Augustine's emphasis upon grace conducive to his newly
recovered understanding of justification by faith alone, although Augustine
knew nothing of this truth. Luther considered The Bondage of the Will as
one of the major achievements of his ministry.D Additionally, he did not
totally divest himself of Augustine's view of regeneration as a process
beginning with baptism. Probably both Zwingli and Calvin were greatly influ-
D. Scholars have not been honest in referring to Erasmus’ work as a “diatribe” since the Latin means a
scholarly disputation. Actually Luther’s work is the diatribe as Dave Hunt has shown (What Love Is This?,
pp. 165-188). The truth is in the middle and both were in error.
enced by Luther's determinism. However, in succeeding centuries there

were a score of significant movements which sought to bring things back
into better balance.
The Anabaptists. Within a few years some of Luther's and Zwingli's
colleagues had second thoughts. By about 1521, Zwingli had drawn to
himself a number of gifted young intellectuals who were converted and
joined with him in the Zurich Reformation. Some, such as Conrad Grebel
and Simon Stumpf, began pressing Zwingli for a more thoroughgoing
reformation. Dr. Balthasar Hubmaier joined them in their attack against
the mass and other Catholic accretions. By 1524, a group of seven radical
reformers had broken with Zwingli over his failure to eliminate the mass,
and the next year crystallized their opposition to infant baptism by baptizing
each other. Thus began the Swiss Anabaptist movement, with many distinct
strands.25 Regarding them Newman stated:
They were almost without exception opposed to the Augustinian system of doctrine, espe-
cially in its Lutheran and Calvinistic forms, insisting upon the freedom of the will and the
necessity of good works as the fruit of faith, and regarding faith as a great transforming
process whereby we are brought not simply to participate in Christ's merits, but to enter into
the completest union with him in a life of utter self-abnegation.26
Although determinism was not the basic cause of the split with the Reform-
ers, the Anabaptist leaders, many of whom were well versed in the original
languages and church fathers, felt Scripture militated against Augustinian
determinism. Their unusually consistent Christian life and testimony could
not be impugned by Protestants and Catholics, who slaughtered them by the
thousands. As they moved on to early martyrdom they must have felt doubly
convinced that Augustine's contribution to the Reformation was totally
negative, especially his teaching of coercion to faith. Unfortunately, few
leaders survived long enough to write any theology, although many like
Hubmaier were fully competent to do so. Concerning him Estep affirmed:
His own moral and ethical sensitivity led him to champion the freedom of the will, for without
it he saw no basis for Christian responsibility. Neither the sovereignty of God nor the grace
of God nullified for Hubmaier the necessity of an uncoerced response to the gospel. It was
the Word and the Spirit that God used to bring salvation to fallen humanity.27
Hans Denck, a Bavarian Anabaptist leader, “was exceedingly trained in the

word of the Scriptures and educated in the three main languages,” and like many other
Anabaptists his views were misrepresented. His latest biographer, Jan
Kiwiet, has shown that he was not a universalist, but held that Christ's death
was sufficient for all humankind, but efficacious only to the believer.28 Other
examples come from the growing English literature on the Anabaptists.29 A
number of extreme anabaptist movements brought down severe persecu-
tion and martyrdom at the hands of both Protestants and Catholics. How-
ever, in the Netherlands the sane leadership of Menno Simons (1496-1561),
using the name “brethren,” helped to advance the movement and ultimately
gain some toleration. After his death they became known as Mennonites,
and continued persecution forced many to flee to Russia and North and
South America. Later, Thomas Helwys (1550-1616), the first English Baptist,
and John Smyth began to embrace Mennonite doctrines in Holland and with
a dozen others wrote the first Baptist confession in 1611, which denied
individual predestination. He also wrote a 24-page pamphlet in support of
Arminianism. He was first to advocate religious liberty and died after
imprisonment by King James I.
Bullinger's modification of Zwingli. Henry Bullinger (1504-1575) was
Zwingli's successor in Zurich. He did not go as far as Zwingli and Calvin on
predestination and was quoted by Davenant as holding to general redemp-
tion. Schaff said that he came closer to Calvin's view later in his ministry and
alluded to his colleague, Theodor Bibliander, as the father of biblical exe-
gesis in Switzerland and a forerunner of Arminianism.30
Philip Melanchthon's modification. Luther's chief associate, Melanch-
thon (1497-1560), began early on to moderate Luther's extreme views.
Since Luther depended upon him to draft most of the important doctrinal
standards of the Lutheran churches, these increasingly began to show
evidence of Philip's modifications. The Augsburg Confession, drawn up by
him in 1530, does not state that faith is involuntary or that prevenient grace
is necessary to faith. In 1532, he revised his earlier comments on Romans,
which had reflected Luther's views, now to state, “And it is manifest that to resist
belongs to the human will, because God is not the cause of sin." In his Loci Communes
(1535) he ascribed conversion to three causes: the Word, the Holy Spirit,
and the human will. He sought to avoid conflict with Luther in his lifetime,
but by 1550, he was accused of ‘synergism.'*31
By Luther's death in 1546, two parties in Lutheranism were emerging:
Jena was the center of the ultra-Lutherans, and Wittenberg of the Philippists.
When Philip died in 1560, a collection of his writings was published which
contrasted his views with ultra-Lutheranism. The subsequent 'Synergistic
Controversy' between Pfeffinger of Leipzig and Matthias Flacius was really
about Philip's views, even though he was apparently not personally involved.
Flacius's defense of strict Lutheran views was essentially Manichean, as his
opponents made clear. Flacius's followers went even farther in Manichean
thinking. Salinger of Rostock taught that “original sin is the very substance of the
body and soul of man,” and that Christ assumed “flesh of another species.”32 Al-
though the Formula of Concord of 1580 represented the old Lutheran doc-
trines, the divergence has continued in Lutheranism until the present.
Lutherans today tend to be more Arminian than Augustinian. Indeed, the
Missouri Synod split from other Lutherans over the issue of predestination.33
Calvin’s actual views. There is considerable controversy over Calvin’s
actual views on many issues, which is surprising in the light of the massive
amount of material in his Institutes, commentaries, and many other writings.
The reader might have noticed how much Calvin is at odds with ‘Calvinists.’
The major issue is limited atonement.E There is a growing body of doctoral
level research supporting the view that Theodor Beza and his associates
carried Calvin’s doctrines to an extreme conclusion by introducing limited
atonement. There is also evidence that Calvin softened his views in his later
commentaries, as he was immersed in expounding the Scripture itself,
rather than systematizing a theological system (cf. Ch. 21).
The spread and modification of the Reformation
Beginnings in Great Britain. Early in the British Reformation, Bishop
Hugh Latimer (c. 1485-1555), Bible translator Miles Coverdale (1488-1569),
and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury (1489-1556), can be iden-
tified as holding general redemption, as does the 1553 Articles of the Angli-
can Church. Some refer to the “free-willers” in the Anglican church at this
time while Calvinism was making increasing inroads. In the 1590s, there
was considerable controversy at Cambridge, and Peter Baro (1534-1599)
was forced out for resisting Calvinism. In 1596, Nicholas Hemingius asked,
“Do the elect believe or are the believers elect?” However, William Perkins’
Mode and Order of Predestination (1598) was hyper-Calvinism. Arminius
wrote a refutation but never published it because of Perkins’ death.34
Toward the end of the sixteenth century there was a movement in
England and Scotland to moderate the rigidity of the Calvinism coming from
Geneva. Richard Hooker (1553-1600) was described by Bishop H. C. G.
Moule as a “moderate Calvinist.” Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656)
clearly held general redemption and is quoted as telling Richard Baxter
(1615-1691) that he brought Bishop John Davenant (1572-1641) and Dr.
John Preston (1578-1628) to this view. Ussher is quoted as saying that there
must be a “middle way” in soteriology, but it was not yet clear to him. (Both
Ussher and Davenant were delegates to the Synod of Dort.) Davenant is a
major source regarding the moderate Calvinistic views of his contemporar-
ies, which included Bishop Joseph Hall (1574-1656).35 A majority of the King
James translators were Arminian since King James I favored the Arminians.
The ministry of John Cameron (1580-1625) of Glasgow is most signifi-
cant for his part in propagating a moderate form of Calvinism among the
Huguenot Reformed churches of France, which was the basis of the Amyral-
dian movement.36 His connection with the moderate Calvinism of England
is unclear, but it is probable that he had some contact with some of the
above theologians. Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity (1645)
was the stimulus for the subsequent Marrow controversy in Scotland.
Arminius and the Remonstrants. James Arminius (1560-1609) had all
the right Calvinist credentials to become the theology professor at the Re-
E. There are over sixty passages in Calvin supporting general redemption, some previous quoted. On
the other hand, there is only one passage Calvinists adduce to prove the opposite. Curt Daniel, a five-
point Calvinist, has shown in his dissertation that Calvinists have misunderstood this passage.
formed University of Leyden. He had studied for three years under Theodor
Beza in Geneva. Before becoming pastor of one of the principal Reformed
churches in Amsterdam, he had traveled in Italy and heard the lectures of
some of the great Catholic professors. Newman stated:
By this time he was recognized as among the ablest and most learned men of his time. His
expository sermons were so lucid, eloquent, and well delivered as to attract large audiences.
He was called upon from time to time to write against the opponents of Calvinism, which he
did in a moderate and satisfactory way. . . . Before this time [1602] his intimate friends had
become aware of the fact that he was no longer in full sympathy with the extreme
predestinarianism of Beza, and he had written an exposition of Romans 9 in an anti-Calvinis-
tic spirit. This, however, was not published till after his death.37
In 1603, after Arminius joined the University faculty and studiously avoided
any anti-Calvinistic utterances, his colleague Gomarus instigated the authori-
ties to require him to deliver a series of public lectures on predestination.
“He defended the doctrine in a way that would have been acceptable to moderate Calvinists;
but Gomar thought it necessary to supplement these lectures with a course of his own.” This
precipitated a hostile controversy on campus, which soon exploded into a
national debate involving the government of the Netherlands. Although the
Supreme Court declined to hear the issue, in 1609, Arminius and Gomarus
were required to engage in an extended debate on the issue. Arminius took
sick and died two months later. The following year his many followers set
forth the five points of the Remonstrance,* which were responded to by the
hyper-Calvinists in their five points (the TULIP).
This controversy precipitated the infamous Synod of Dort (1618-9),
attended by delegates from several other countries. Since Arminians were
excluded, the result was a foregone conclusion—they were excommuni-
cated. John Barneveld, a leading statesman and advocate of freedom of
conscience, was accused of treason and executed five days after the end of
the Synod. Simon Episcopius, the leader of the banished Arminians, pub-
lished extensively against the Synod and the intolerance of the government
reiterating the charge of Calvinism being “Manichean fatalism.” As a result,
toleration was granted in 1625, and an Arminian seminary in Amsterdam
established subsequently.38 In England in 1640, John Goodwin (1593-1665)
wrote a defense of general redemption.39 A century later the Wesleys
developed a more evangelical form of Arminianism.
Amyraldian Calvinism. Amyraldian theology* is traced to John Came-
ron (1580-1625), who had studied in Glasgow under Andrew Melville, the
“Scots Melanchthon.” Cameron so excelled in study of Greek, Hebrew,
history, rhetoric, and logic that upon graduation he was appointed as regent
in Greek. Logic was taught from Ramus, who espoused a more inductive
methodology, rather than Aristotle's deductive approach. By 1600, after only
one year, he migrated to France, where he taught, studied, and pastored in
many places before beginning to teach at the theological Academy at
Saumur in 1618. His teaching was so effective that in just three years his
views on general redemption were accepted with alacrity by his students

and successors on the faculty, especially Moyse Amyraut (1596-1664). The
Reformed churches of France were grateful to Cameron for “his great services
in the controversies against Arminians and Roman Catholics.”40
After studying law at Poitiers, Amyraut came to Saumur as a student
when Cameron began to teach. Shortly after being called as pastor at
Saumur in 1626, he began teaching at the theological Academy and within
a year was appointed rector. Amyraut proved to be such an effective
exponent of Cameron's theology after his untimely death that it was called
Amyraldian theology. By 1631, he and Louis Cappel began full-time responsi-
bilities, sharing ministry both at the church and Academy, Amyraut serving
as principal from 1641 until his death. Life for the Protestant Huguenots at
that time under the Edict of Nantes gave them some civil liberties. In 1631,
Amyraut won an outstanding victory in the exercise of those liberties and
was also partly responsible for attempts to improve relationships with the
Lutherans. He developed good personal relationships with Roman Catholics
while pursuing a strong apologetic for the Protestant faith.
In 1634, Amyraut started a controversy which became a central feature
of his life for many years. He published A Brief Treatise on Predestination,
which was occasioned by a dialog with a Catholic nobleman while at dinner
with the Bishop of Chartres. This nobleman was “filled with horror by the doctrine
of predestination as taught in our churches” and regarded it as “contrary to the nature of
God and His gospel to say that He created the greatest part of mankind with the express pur-
pose of damning them.”41 His treatise stirred up a “civil war” among the Re-
formed churches internationally. He responded to the opposition by pub-
lishing six sermons on the gospel, prefaced by a 75-page treatise to show
that his doctrine was really that of Calvin. The attacks from the scholastic
Calvinists resulted in charges of heresy against Amyraut and Paul Testard in
the national synod of Alençon in 1637. The charges focused on the univer-
sality and sufficiency of grace. Armstrong stated, “It is certain that Amyraut barely
escaped being deposed and having his writings condemned. In fact the opposition was so
formidable that it seems unbelievable that he was not condemned.”42 Although they
were honorably acquitted, there were a few minor stipulations.43
The decision did not end the controversy, however. Further debate was
triggered in 1641 by Amyraut's treatise on Calvin’s doctrine of decrees in re-
sponse to an anonymous English Arminian writer. In this treatise Amyraut
really set out his own position rather than that of the 'orthodox' Calvinists.
There was a continuing volley of voluminous books published by both sides
until 1649, when a Protestant prince arranged for a private meeting of the
parties and extracted a commitment to halt the polemic writings. It was not
totally effective because in 1655, two Parisian pastors wrote works in
support of the Amyraldian view. After this Amyraut did not take an active
part in the debate but focused his attention on other topics. One of those
Parisian pastors was elected moderator of the Synod of Loudun in 1659, so
the Amyraldian view was clearly growing in acceptability within France.
A score of years after Amyraut's death, the revocation of the Edict of

Nantes (1685) caused most Protestants to flee, many to the low countries
and England, some even to America. Apparently the Academy of Saumur
did not survive to perpetuate this theology, which lost its geographical base
as its adherents were scattered. Yet its impact can be traced to the present,F
even though its identity as a distinct theological school has been seriously
lost.44 In Switzerland there was a strong reaction against Amyraldian theol-
ogy, but even in Geneva men like Mussard, Morus, and Chouet were influ-
enced by Saumur. Louis Tronchin and Philippe Mestrezat ultimately came
out openly in sympathy with this theology.
Cocceius and Covenant Theology. Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669)
was not the originator of Covenant Theology but was certainly a major factor
in its early development. Newman commented:
He studied Greek with a Greek and Hebrew with a Hebrew and became easily the most
accomplished biblical scholar of his time. . . . He was pre-eminently a scriptural theologian.
. . . The dominating thought in his theology, as in his interpretation of Scripture, was the
divine covenant. This was not a wholly new thought, but he developed it with such richness
of scriptural citation, with such logical acumen, and with such an insight into historical rela-
tions, that he may properly be regarded as the father of the federal theology. His great work,
"Summary of the Doctrine Concerning the Covenant and Testament of God," was first
published in 1648 and may be regarded as the first serious attempt at the working out of a
biblical theology. . . . It is noticeable that the doctrine of predestination does not figure in this
system and the entire doctrine of divine decrees is kept in the background. The aim of
Cocceius was evidently to show that man was so endowed and conditioned that he need not
have fallen, that he was responsible for his fall, and that after the fall God placed salvation
within the reach of all by covenant and actually provided redemption in Christ for all who
would believe.45
Lyle Bierma has shown that a generation earlier Caspar Olevianus (1536-
1587) was the first to use the covenant idea as a sustained theological
leitmotif and to recognize both a unilateral (divine) and a bilateral (divine-
human) dimension to the covenant of grace.46 Charles Ryrie confirmed
Newman's opinion that it was Cocceius, having been influenced by
Melanchthon, who saw in the covenant theme a “way to blunt the sharp and highly
F. Although the Netherlands was a main source of opposition, the French refugees flooding in after 1685
brought their theology. Nicole listed Venema, van Oosterzee, and Doedes as advocates of this view
there. In Germany there already were similar views present in Bremen and in England John Davenant
(1570-1641). Richard Baxter (1615-1691), the great Puritan evangelist, openly professed a middle view
and listed a number of other men who did also. Daniel Williams (1644-1716), Edmund Calamy III (1671-
1732), Isaac Watts (1674-1748), Philip Doddridge (1702-51), John Newton (1725-1807), Edward Williams
(1750-1813), and Charles Simeon (1759-1836) can all be identified as moving toward the middle. In
Scotland James Fraser of Brea, Thomas Mair, the New Light Reformed Presbytery, James Morison and
his group, Thomas Chalmers (founder of the Free Church), and Ralph Wardlaw can be so identified. In
America Amyraldian views influenced the New Divinity (Samuel Hopkins, Edward D. Griffin, Leonard
Woods, Timothy Dwight), New School Presbyterians (J. Richards), and Baptists (E. Dodge, Alva Hovey,
Pepper, and A. H. Strong) (Nicole, pp. 192-3).
debated views on predestination current in his day.” He assessed his contribution:

Cocceius expounded the concept of two covenants: the covenants of works and of grace. In
both, he said, man had a part to play and a responsibility to meet. He made these covenants
the basis, background, and substance of all God's dealings with man for his redemption.
Thus, Cocceius's contribution was a detailing and systematizing of the idea of the covenants,
giving a more prominent part to man in contrast to the rigorous predestinarianism of his day
and making the covenant idea the governing category of all Scripture.
Ryrie suggested that Herman Witsius (1636-1708) undermined Cocceius's
intention by developing the idea of a Covenant of Redemption in eternity
past, which in effect reverted Covenant Theology back to a deterministic
mode of thought.47 Thus it seems clear that Cocceius represents another of
the early reactions against the determinism of the Reformers.
Richard Baxter (1615-91). Baxter was a Puritan in the sense that he
wanted to purify the church but was neither a Calvinist or an Arminian. His
massive Catholick Theologie (1675) was mostly an attempt to get both sides
to come to a middle position. He warned about the contention between
Calvinist and Arminian “word-warriors.” (Cf. Ch. 28, pp. 405, 406)
George Fox (1624-91) and the Quakers. Even before his spiritual
awakening at the age of 24, George Fox had become disillusioned with the
political violence and ecclesiastical hypocrisy in the war between the royalty
and the Presbyterian parliament in England, which ended with the behead-
ing of King Charles in 1645. Oliver Cromwell then became the military
dictator. Fox emphasized the spiritual illumination of the Holy Spirit who
had inspired the Scriptures to help interpret them. As he shared the need of
an inner experience of Christ in various Puritan meetings, many were
convicted and converted, until in 1652, he began preaching at fairs, market
places, in the fields, jails, courts, and through the printing press, that Christ
died for all people. By 1660, there were 50,000 followers who called them-
selves the “Society of Friends.” He urged religious liberty on Cromwell, and
although he was offered a commission in Cromwell’s army, upon refusal, he
was imprisoned for another six months. Ironically, only the “Quakers” were
deprived civil liberties under Cromwell. Fox began to organize local and
regional meeting of “Friends” to diffuse authority from himself. By his death
there were 100,000 Friends in England, Scotland, and the American colonies,
prominent among whom was William Penn, founder of Philadelphia and
Pennsylvania, to which tens of thousands of English and German dissenters
fled in the ensuing years. Fox was a pacificist, a champion of religious
liberties, and an early promoter of foreign missions. The Quakers were a
major factor in the fight for religious liberties in America and the abolition of
slavery. Unfortunately, their growth ceased when for a century or more they
dropped emphasis on preaching the gospel and focused on directly receiv-
ing the “inner light” in their meetings.48
The Pietistic movement. Philip Spener (1635-1705) and August Franke
(1663-1727) were the two key men in the beginnings of Pietism in the
Lutheran state churches of Germany and Scandinavia. Spener sought to
cultivate the spiritual life by small-group Bible study and prayer meetings
and was grieved by the arid and bitter theological disputation and low moral
state of the Lutheran state church. Franke helped found the University of
Halle in 1694, out of which came the first Protestant missionaries and the
Danish-Halle Mission in 1705. Although the pietistic movement did not stress
theology, it definitely did not hold to the determinism of Luther.
The Moravian movement. Some persecuted followers of John Hus
banded together with some Waldensians and Moravians to form the Unitas
Fratrum (United Brethren) in 1467. Badly persecuted by the Catholics, a
remnant under the leadership of Christian David (1690-1751) fled to the
estate of pietist Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) in Saxony in
1722. Out of this Christian community, a most remarkable missionary
movement developed. Between 1732 and 1760, this small movement sent
out 226 missionaries to ten foreign countries, far outstripping all other
Protestants combined. The Moravians stressed God’s love for a lost world
and resisted the determinism of the Reformers.
Thomas Boston and the Marrow men. The Marrow controversy of the
Presbyterian Church of Scotland in the 1720s, might be characterized as
conflict between the ‘legalists’ and the ‘evangelicals.’ Edward Fisher’s
earlier book published in England in 1645, The Marrow of Modern Divinity,
was a source of the view of the ‘evangelicals,’ that all men may apply to
Christ for salvation, if they will, and that “a gospel warrant existed for offering Christ
to the whole world.” Although both sides of the controversy were covenantal
Calvinists, Thomas Boston (1677-1732) and his associates rejected the
“covenant of redemption” in eternity past. A century later it led to the
general redemption view of John McLeod Campbell (b. 1800), for which he
was dismissed from ministry in 1831. He saw the Calvinism of his church as
legalistic in denying that “all sinners are summoned to come to God with assurance of
his love for them.” Contrary to his view, “he refers to the theological systems of Owen
and Edwards, in which they assert that God’s justice is his essential attribute and is universal
in its extent, while his love is arbitrary, and limited to the elect.” 49
The Wesleyan movement. The Wesleyan movement was the major
spiritual force in eighteenth-century Great Britain that saved the nation from
utter moral collapse. John (1703-91) and Charles Wesley were Anglican
priests very devoted to a legalistic and mystical approach to the faith. As
missionaries to Georgia, onboard ship and back in London, they were very
impressed with the simple faith of the Moravians with whom they came in
contact, until in 1738, John’s heart was “strangely warmed” in a Moravian
meeting they attended. When he and his friend, George Whitefield (1714-
70) began to preach forthright evangelistic sermons, pulpits in Anglican
churches began to close to them. Whitefield mentored Wesley in open-air
preaching which began to bear great fruit among the common people.
Whitefield shifted a major focus of his ministry to the American colonies and
became a major force in the first Great Awakening there.
Wesley developed a more evangelical form of Arminianism by coming
back to a more Augustinian view of depravity than the Remonstrants,* but
adding a new dimension in his view of entire sanctification in the Christian
life. Whitefield was a Calvinist, and although they remained friends, they
had a lifelong discussion about the issue. Wesleyan leader, Thomas Coke,
initiated foreign missions in 1786, and the British Baptist mission of William
Carey six years later was significantly stimulated by the Wesleyan revivals.
The New-Divinity movement. The neo-Edwardsian New-Divinity
preachers of the Second Great Awakening in New England called them-
selves “consistent Calvinists,” but they really were neither. Although holding
an extreme view of sovereignty, they not only held to general redemption
but also a governmental view of the cross more harmonious with Arminian-
ism. They were successors to Jonathan Edwards, Sr. His protégés, Samuel
Hopkins was the theologian and Joseph Bellamy, the pastoral mentor. The
junior Edwards moved even farther from his father’s Calvinism, and grand-
son Timothy Dwight and his protégé Nathaniel Taylor represented the
distinct strain of New Haven theology stressing free will, the “power to the
contrary.” The Second Great Awakening and the American foreign missions
movement came out of the New-Divinity movement. Most historians have
overlooked their unifying factor as their view of general redemption.50
The Restorationist movements. Barton W. Stone (1772-1844) and
Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) were American Presbyterian ministers who
found “that Presbyterianism was not adequate for their revivalistic experience or for their
theological views.” In 1804, in Kentucky, Stone began “to organize groups that would
answer to no name but ‘Christians’.” In a similar way in 1811, in the Ohio valley
Campbell started a movement rejecting traditional church forms and
emphasizing New Testament doctrine and polity. “In 1832 the followers of Stone
and Alexander Campbell came into a loose alliance known as the ‘Christian’ or ‘Disciples’
movement.”51 By the early 20th century they separated again and both still
emphasize water baptism as necessary for salvation and are Arminian.
Modern Mediate Theologians

Samuel Fisk has done exemplary work in amassing the quotations of
hundreds of scholars, commentators, Bible teachers, church leaders, and
theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries who have been generally support-
ive of a mediate view of salvation truth. Only those who clearly held to
eternal security and to conditional election, will be listed below.52
Baptists E. H. Johnson and Henry G. Weston’s An Outline of Systematic
Theology (1895); French commentator, Frederick L. Godet; Bishop Christo-
pher Wordsworth’s The New Testament in the Original Greek (1877); C. I.
Scofield’s original Reference Bible (1909); William Evans, the Great Doctrines
of the Bible (1912); Nathan E. Wood, professor at Andover-Newton Semi-
nary, The Person and Work of Jesus Christ (1908); W. H. Griffith-Thomas, a
founder of Dallas Seminary;53 H. A. (Harry) Ironside, a special Bible lecturer
there; G. Campbell Morgan; F. B. Meyer; Southern Baptists Edgar Y. Mullins
and Hershel H. Hobbs; W. E. Vine, William L. Pettingill, E. Schuyler English,
J. Sidlow Baxter, and Lehman Strauss. This list could be greatly expanded.
Conclusions
Many significant conclusions can be drawn from this historical study:
1. The silence of the church fathers regarding predestination and irresist-
ible grace before Augustine is understandable since they well knew that
the Greek words do not have these meanings. Determinists have a very
significant problem with this and the fathers’ emphasis on free will.
2. Augustine's determinism, as well as some of his other errors, can be
traced to his years in Manicheanism and neo-Platonism and his depend-
ence upon defective Latin translations rather than the original Greek.
3. The majority of the church fathers, both before and after Augustine, may
be thought of as semi-Augustinian, not semi-Pelagian, and the Augus-
tine/Pelagius controversy was essentially settled for a millennium by the
semi-Augustinian decision of the Synod of Orange (529).
4. Augustine's teaching and example of coercion to faith relate to irresist-
ible grace and resulted in the persecution of many true Christians. He
was also the source of many of the major errors of Roman Catholicism
and of state-church Protestantism.
5. Although the major Reformers represented a break out again of Augus-
tinian determinism, within a few years their associates and successors,
better versed in the original languages, modified their determinism.
Theodor Beza took the lead in reverting Genevan Calvinism to a more
scholastic mode, seriously innovating the doctrine of limited atonement
first crystallized in the Canons of Dort in 1619.
6. There have been a score of significant reactions to the determinism of
the Reformers, which have continued to be a major force in evangelical
Christianity. Much of the evangelism, church growth, and missions
thrust has been spawned by these movements. Also much is to be
learned from observing their reactions from an emphasis upon objective
truth to subjective experience of the truth. The Anabaptists, Mennonites,
Quakers, Pietists, Moravians, and Wesleyans reacted against the deadly
main focus upon objective truth in the mainstream Reformation.
Although Luther gave clear testimony of his conversion experience, in all
of the massive writings of Calvin there is no testimony of his conversion
to evangelical faith in Christ personally. On the other hand, the succes-

sors of these significant movements too frequently moved into extreme
experiential subjectivism and lost their evangelical foundations.
7. There have been hundreds of commentators and biblical writers in the
19th and 20th centuries who held a mediating theology of salvation.
EXCURSUS: Review of Peter J. Thuesen, Predestination:

The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine (Oxford, 2009)
Thuesen, Chair of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Perdue, stated his goal clearly and
fulfilled it admirably. “This book is about the American career of this contentious doctrine. . . . Of all
traditional Christian doctrines, few, if any, have caused as much controversy as this question of whether
a person’s fate in either heaven or hell is sealed from the beginning of time. . . . I argue in this book that
predestination has been one of the most important but unacknowledged sources of discord in churches
across the denominational spectrum.” One of his most perceptive observations is the conflict has not
only been between Calvinism and Arminianism but also between determinism and sacramentalism. His
book is about the historical career of this doctrine, especially focusing on America.
Thuesen began with an overview of the doctrine of predestination from its first conflict when
Augustine shifted to unconditional election during his controversy with Pelagius. He rightly pointed out
that the reaction from leaders such as John Cassian was not semi-Pelagian, and later was supported by
the semi-Augustinian conclusion of the Second Council of Orange (529). He surveyed the struggle of
medieval Catholics to harmonize synergistic sacramentalism and Augustine’s determinism. This
tension, also found in Luther, was a significant root of the conflict later Lutherans would manifest, and to
a lesser extent the Reformed, especially in the Anglican church. He argued that when Theodor Beza
and then, William Perkins developed the most “laboriously precise exposition” of predestination’s ordo
salutis since the Middle Ages, they left themselves open to the charge of intellectual arrogance (p. 17).
In a brief survey of Arminius’ reaction to Calvinism, he raised the logical difficulty faced as to how
foreknowledge of how each person will respond does not make foreknowledge equivalent to foreordina-
tion. He traced the pendulum swings of Calvinist and Arminian viewpoints in England with each change
of monarch or Archbishop of Canterbury. This drove zealous Puritans to the woods of America, where
the major conflicts continued. Thuesen erroneously linked Richard Baxter and Joseph Alleine with the
“Puritan casuistry” of Perkins and thus missed the great significance theologically of Baxter in holding a
middle view between Arminianism and Calvinism.
Crossing the Atlantic for the main body of the book, he gave a tour de force of New England
Puritanism, its difficulty with Enlightenment doubts, and attacks from Methodists, holiness groups, Camp-
bellite “Christians,” Adventists, Christian Scientists, and Mormons. Although his treatment of the New
Divinity theology of New England highlights its commitment to both sides of the paradox between
predestination and free will, he missed a major feature of their search for a middle ground. Edwards A.
Park’s 1859 anthology of essays by earlier New-Divinity worthies supportive of general redemption
proves they had moved away from President Edwards’ Calvinism, especially the younger Edwards and
grandson, Timothy Dwight. Their denial of substitution in the cross, was a misguided attempt to be
consistent with general redemption. This was a serious compromise with Arminianism, which bred the
distinct New Haven strain of Nathaniel Taylor’s free-will emphasis on “the power to the contrary.”
Many Evangelicals will be astonished to read the extent of the predestinarian controversy among
Lutherans and Roman Catholics. Battle lines were drawn between Thomists and Molinists, with various
reincarnations, such as Jansenism. American Catholics sought to “domesticate” the doctrine of
predestination with sacramentalism and the doctrine of purgatory, which “removed predestination’s air
of finality” (p. 143). Although the controversy within Catholicism was relatively muted since papal
authority kept it within the clergy, Catholic apologists used the irrationality of absolute predestination in
bringing about the conversion of significant Protestants, such as Augustine Hewit (1846), who argued
that double predestination denied the church’s central mediating function. The continuing erosion to
Rome raises the question as to the part absolute predestination plays in this disillusionment (right up to
Scott Hahn and Francis Beckwith). Thuesen also chronicled conflict among American Lutherans in great
detail. From Pietist Henry Muhlenberg, American-born Samuel Schmucker, Carl Walther, Schmidt, and
Loy, to Herman Preus, he surveys the “civil war” among the Lutherans, resulting in the Missouri Synod’s
isolation from other Lutherans.
His chronicle of conflict among the Presbyterians is even more detailed. The Westminster
Confession’s statement that, “Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ,” drew
especially heavy fire. The colonies’ first presbytery, founded in Philadelphia in 1706 by Francis
Makemie, sought to enforce orthodoxy, while Jonathan Dickinson, first president of Princeton, arguing
that “no creed deserved the same allegiance as the Bible itself” (p. 176), crafted a compromise, the
Adopting Act of 1729. The 1735 heresy trial of Samuel Hemphill resulted in his suspension, despite his
subscription to the Westminster Confession. Two later heresy trials, of Lyman Beecher (1835) and of
Albert Barnes (1831, 1836 appeal) “resulted in all-out war” (p. 179) between the Old School and the New
School. The slavery issue exacerbated the situation as Old-School southerners argued that subjection
of the African race was a part of God’s predestination. After the civil war, the emerging southern church
(PCUS) strengthened Westminster orthodoxy, while the northern church (PCUSA) soon experienced a
rift. New School pastor, Henry Ward Beecher, argued that the Westminster code had become a
procrustean bed, and in his heresy trial in 1874, pastor David Swing characterized it as “a religion of
despair” (p. 183). By 1889, 15 presbyteries asked the PCUSA to consider revision of the Confession
because its rigid predestinarianism was driving away thousands of people. Philip Schaff’s advocacy of
revision drew the ire of B. B. Warfield in fear that Schaff’s denial of predestination would be “fundamen-
tally heretical” (p. 186). Although the 1890s effort at revision failed, the General Assembly of 1903
adopted a Declaratory Statement which left the disputed predestinarian language unchanged, but
softened it by stressing that “the doctrine of God’s eternal decree is held in harmony with the doctrine of
his love to all mankind” and “his readiness to bestow his saving grace on all who seek it” (p. 189).
Thuesen missed the Arminian beginnings of the Baptists since Thomas Helwys and John Smyth
began to embrace Mennonite doctrines in Holland and with a dozen others wrote the first Baptist
confession in 1611, which denied individual predestination. However, “[u]nlike the Presbyterians, . . .
Baptists were divided almost from the beginning between General (or Arminian) and Particular (or
Calvinistic) factions. . . .The earliest Baptist association in America adopted the Second London
Confession [1689, Calvinistic] in Philadelphia in 1742. By the next century, however, weariness among
some Baptists with the Arminian-Calvinist struggle led one state convention to approve a middle-of-the-
road alternative, the New Hampshire Confession of 1833” (p. 193). He surveyed the especially intense
controversies in the South, among both white and black Baptists, especially the Primitive Baptist’s
dependence upon John Gill’s denial of any universal offers of grace and salvation to mankind. Thuesen
claimed that Abraham Lincoln’s upbringing in a “hard-shell” Primitive Baptist home “contributed to his
lifelong belief in fate or necessity” (p. 197). The Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit movement of Daniel Parker (d.
1844) continues to haunt Baptists up to the present. After the organization of the Southern Baptist
convention in 1845, early exponents of Westminster Calvinism were J. L. Dagg of Mercer University, J.
P. Boyce of Southern Seminary, and his successor, John Broadus.
Thuesen’s chronicle concluded with a focus on the explosion of the controversy in the end of the
last century within the SBC with the expulsion of liberal faculty members from the seminaries. “In making
the SBC safe for inerrancy, conservatives exposed seemingly irreconcilable differences within their own
ranks” on Calvinism (p. 201). W. A. Criswell, Russell Dilday, Robert Selph, Thomas Nettles, Adrian
Rogers, William Estep, Frank Page, Ernest Reisinger, R. Albert Mohler, and Paige Patterson have been
key participants in the controversy. Beeson Dean Timothy George suggested that Southern Baptists
banish the word ‘Calvinist’ from their midst since the controversy is now trickling down to the grassroots.
This reviewer fears that since Richard Baxter sought to bring about “Pacification of the Dogmatical Word-
Warriors” on the same issue in his massive Catholick Theologie (1675), there is little prospect of
George’s suggestion being heeded by any of today’s Calvinistic and Arminian “word warriors.”
In his epilogue Thuesen used Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven Life as an example of the current
tendency to pass over predestination and substitute more general terminology, such as providence. He
decried such doctrinal ambiguity in what he sees as “the Decline of Mystery,” although he does not
blame Warren for steering clear of the poisonous rhetoric of the past. In his desire to highlight conflict,
Thuesen missed the significance of movements and men who looked for a middle ground. However, his
book is a must-read for those Christian leaders who are concerned about the poisonous effects of the
polarization over this sixteen-century-old controversy. We need to heed Richard Baxter’s admonition to
word-warriors still so relevant today.
1. Peter J. Thuesen, Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine (Oxford, 2009), p. 3.
2. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 8 vols. (GR: Eerdmans, 1985 [1910]), I, viii.
3. Paul K. Jewett, Election and Predestination (GR: Eerdmans, 1985), p. 5; Boettner, p. 365.
4. G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961), p. 1161. This lexicon is expensive and very hard
to obtain, which may explain its minimal usage by Greek scholars.
5. R. C. Sproul, Willing to Believe: The Controversy over Free Will (GR: Baker Books, 1997), pp. 69-86.
6. Schaff, III, 812; cf. J. L. Neve, A History of Christian Thought. 2 vols., I, 143, where he referenced Loofs, DG,
p. 419, and W. Walker, Church History, p. 186, showing that Pelagius taught justification by faith alone.
7. David R. Anderson, “Regeneration: A Crux Interpretum” in Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society, 2000, ii.
8. Forster and Marston, pp. 243-257; Douty, pp. 136-9.
9. Neve, I, 148.
10. Douty, p. 138, extensive quotes of Prosper on general redemption.
11. Schaff, III, p. 869; Neve, I, 151.
12. Jewett, p. 7.
13. Schaff, III, 866; Neve, I, 1151. It is interesting to note that Schaff, as a Reformed writer, selects for quotation
those canons which are more deterministic in tone; Neve, as a Lutheran, selects the less deterministic
canons of the Synod. But we must note the balance the Synod sought to attain.
14. Anderson, ii.
15. Berkhof, History, p.256; Schaff, VIII:556.
16. Schaff, III, p. 1018.
17. Forster and Marston, pp. 281-7.
18. Ibid., p. 283.
19. Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of Church History, 2 vols. (Phila.: American Baptist Publ., 1899), I, 197.
20. Ibid, I, 370.
21. Ibid, II, 323.
22. Sir Robert Anderson, The Gospel and its Ministry (1978), p. 95; B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, ed.
Samuel Craig (1956), p. 313; Jerom Zanchius, The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination (1977), pp. 168-9, as
quoted by Laurence M. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism (1991), pp. 18-19.
23. Schaff, IV, 523-4.
24. Ibid, IV, 525-543.
25. William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism (1996), pp. 11-21.
26. Newman, II, 154-5.
27. Estep, p. 97.
28. Jan J. Kiwiet, "The Life of Hans Denck (ca. 1500-1527)." The Mennonite Quarterly Review 31 (Oct. 1957) 24
2, as quoted by Estep, p. 110-1. The commendatory quotation above is in the words of a contemporary,
Johannes Kessler, who misunderstood his theology.
29. See also Meic Pearse, The Great Restoration: The Religious Radicals of the 16th and 17th Centuries.
30. John Davenant, The Death of Christ, ed. Allport, II, 319, as quoted by Douty, p. 140; Schaff, VIII, 210-1, 618.
31. Newman, II, 322.
32. Ibid, II, 322-4.
33. Thuesen, Chapter 5, pp. 136-171.
34. Carl O. Bangs, Arminius ; O. T. Hargrave, “Free-willers in the English Reformation,” Church History, XXXVII
(1968), 271-280.
35. A major source of these quotations is in Douty, pp. 143-149: Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, p. 43;
Francis Goode, The Better Covenant (1848), pp. 334f.; Morris Fuller, The Life, Letters, and Writings of John
Davenant (London, 1897), p. 521; Davenant, op. cit., p. 386; Joseph Hall, Works, X, 474.
36. Armstrong, pp. 42-70.
37. Newman, II, 340.
38. Ibid, II, 339-349.
39. John Goodwin, Redemption Redeemed: A Puritan Defense of Unlimited Atonement (exp. ed., 2004).
40. Roger Nicole, "Amyraldianism" in Encyclopedia of Christianity (1964), I: 187. Most of the historical summary
in this section is derived from Nicole's article and from Armstrong, pp. 42-119. At times their appraisals differ,
but we have tried to focus on the agreed essentials regarding the background.
41. Amyraut, Preface to Six Sermons, i-ii, as quoted by Armstrong, p. 81.
42. Ibid, p. 96.
43. Roger Nicole expressed his opinion to me in a telephone conversation (December, 1981) that Amyraut held
to conditional election. This is contradicted in dissertations by Brian Armstrong and L. Proctor (Univ. of
Leeds, 1952), and in a conversation with Dr. Nicole in 2001 he agreed that they may be right. Although
Amyraut believed in unconditional election, he did not emphasize it in his system.
44. Amyraut produced 90 titles plus additional theses. Very few of his writings in Old French and Latin have
been published in English. His earliest work on apologetic and polemics was published in 1631 and in
English in London in 1660 as, A Treatise Concerning Religions . . . . He wrote on justification by faith in
1638; the merit of works in 1638; the Lord's Supper in 1640; opposing the fideism of Roman Catholics in
1641; and the intermediate state, 1646, (English, 1660). Most significant was his six-volume work on
Christian ethics totaling 4600 pages (1652-60). "It was the first major attempt within Reformed Protestantism
to produce an ethical system." We should also mention his paraphrases of Psalms and the New Testament.
45. Newman, II, 575-6.
46. Lyle D. Bierma, German Calvinism in the Confessional Age (GR, Baker Book, 1997), p. 183.
47. Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism, rev. ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1995), pp. 185-187.
48. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity pp. 818-23; Arthur O. Roberts, “George Fox and the
Quakers,” in John D. Woodbridge, ed., Great Leaders of the Christian Church, pp. 271-276; Earl E. Cairns,
Christianity Through the Centuries, pp. 381-2.
49. M. Charles Bell, Calvin and Scottish Theology, pp. 153-161, 181-192.
50. The key evidence is in Edwards A. Park, The Atonement: Discourse and Treatises by . . . (Boston, 1859). See
also Joseph A. Conforti, Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement.
51. John D. Woodbridge, Mark A. Noll, and Nathan O. Hatch, The Gospel in America (Zondervan, 1979), pp. 192-3.
52. Samuel Fisk, Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom (2002), Calvinistic Paths Retraced (1985).
53. In his commentaries Griffith Thomas clearly held to conditional election, but in his Outlines of Theology (1930);
in expounding the 39 Articles of the Anglican church, he seemed more Calvinistic.
To Sardis: “I know your deeds, that you have a name
28
that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and
strengthen the things which remain, which were about
to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in
the sight of My God.”
To Philadelphia:“I know your deeds. Behold, I have set

before you an open door which no one can shut, be-
cause you have a little power, and have kept My
word, and have not denied My name.”
-The Lord Jesus Christ to His churches
WHICH THEOLOGY REALLY

SUPPORTS GLOBAL WITNESS?
There are three significant tests of any theological system which must
be considered: historical testimony, philosophic tests, and its impact upon
global evangelism, the last of which has mostly been ignored. A theology's
harmony with evangelism and missions must be examined biblically,
historically, and contemporaneously since global evangelism is axiomatic.
Paul was both the greatest missionary and theologian of the church. All
his epistles were written in the course of missionary ministry, either to
churches planted by his missionary team or to members of his missionary
team. Most theology since the Reformation was developed without any
reference to God’s global outreach program, indeed, it has not been condu-
cive but rather hostile to it. Theology ought to be the handmaiden of mis-
sions. Although Calvinists have claimed to be at the forefront of modern
missions, their spin will be exposed by telling “the rest of the story.”
For over sixty years I have been involved in both missions and theology,
cross-pollenizing the two. Deterministic theology cannot be harmonized
with global evangelism! The great scandal of Protestantism was the “Great
Protestant Omission,” two centuries (three from England) in which Protes-
tants did nothing about world missions. We must face the theological roots
of that paralysis. The biblical axiom strongly confirms a mediate theology.
Evangelism and Missions Are Axiomatic

The priority and urgency of global evangelism in the New Testament
has been obscured by theological static. Evangelism and missions are
foundational to all sound theology, but they are not so in the minds of many
evangelical Christians, including many pastors, scholars, and theologians.
The evangelistic foundation. John was a confrontational evangelist
399
(cf. Jn. 1:19-28; Mt. 4:12; Mt. 14:1-12; Mt. 11: 1-19) just as Christ was a per-
sonal soul-winner and at times a cross-cultural missionary (Jn. 1:35-51; Mt.
4:12, 17; Jn. 21:25). After recruiting disciples, He invited them to “follow Me,
and I will make you fishers of men" (Mt. 4:19). He did not call them to be identifi-
ers of the elect! Every disciple must fish for people, bringing tremendous
opportunity and opposition (Mt. 10:16-39). Fishermen go where the fish are
and diligently use the best skills since fish don’t jump into the boat. He
reached beyond His own people to a Roman centurion (Mt. 8:5-13), Samari-
tans, and Gentile people in Decapolis, Tyre, and Sidon. He alluded to the
ultimate gospel outreach to Gentiles (Jn. 10:16; 12:20-24) before giving the
Great Commission. Thus Christ’s ministry was significantly cross-cultural.
The greatest decree of the Sovereign. He appeared to His disciples
for forty days after His resurrection and charged them in five different ways
to evangelize the world, half of all His recorded words in that period.
Although called “the Great Commission,” it is really the Greatest Decree of
the King of the Universe.A Barna’s surveys of Christians reveal gross igno-
rance of it (Mt. 28:18-20; Mk. 16:15; Lk. 24:45-49; Jn. 20:21; & Acts 1:8). His
last words must not be ignored, soft-pedaled, or rationalized. We are to go
to make disciples of “all the ethnic peoples” “in all the world" “all the days” before
He returns since He has “all authority.” The only imperative here is
mathçteusate, “you must all imperatively make disciples” (Mt. 28:18), emphasizing
human responsibility under the Spirit to accomplish world evangelization.
Cross-cultural extension. The reticence of most Christians to obey
this Commission belies deep down questions about its priority. The mission-
ary implications of the gift of Gentile languages on Pentecost is mostly
overlooked (Acts 2:4-11). The diaspora converts must have returned to their
homes in Gentile lands to plant churches there. Although the witness
focused on Jews for a decade, Pentecost anticipated the conversion of
Gentiles, the missionary ministry of Paul’s teams, and the work of global
missions until the end of the age. The giving of the Holy Spirit to the new-
born Church on that day was adequate empowerment for what seemed to
be a “mission impossible” and even today seems overwhelming to most
Christians. The Spirit-filled disciples gave bold witness to their nation,
resulting in persecution and martyrdom. After being flogged and released,
“they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been
considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. And every day, in the temple and
from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ”
(Acts 5:41-42). Peter was responsible to use the keys to open the door of
faith to Gentiles, but it took two special visions to bring it about (10:1-11:18).
The Jewish Apostles procrastinated in following up the conversion of
Cornelius so God called the outstanding Apostle to the Gentiles and formed
A. For four centuries many theologians have argued about some presumed decrees in past eternity,
when in reality the most important decree was explicitly and fully stated by the LORD of the universe
during the most dramatic and central days of human history, the forty after the resurrection.
Chapter 28 WHICH THEOLOGY REALLY SUPPORTS GLOBAL WITNESS? 401
Saul's bi-cultural, choleric personality into the premier missionary and

theologian of the apostolic church. This not only teaches that antecedent
human factors are significant in God's molding of the clay to make the vessel
He needs but also that theology and world evangelism are destined to go
together. How sad Paul’s missionary epistles were misdesignated as
“pastoral epistles” and have been distorted to contradict the missionary
burden at the core of his ministry. Romans is undoubtedly his greatest
theological treatise, and evangelism and missions pulse from beginning
(1:14-17) to end (15:18-21): “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbari-
ans, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part I am eager to preach the gospel
to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of
God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek”
(Rom. 1:14-16). All his epistles were written in the course of missionary tours
and as a prisoner in connection with that ministry. The only history of the
apostolic church came from a Gentile convert and companion. Although
Mark was at first a missionary dropout, God used him to write one of our
four Gospels, the one contextualized for the Roman mindset, and Egyptian
Christians believe he founded their church. John’s Gospel shows how years
in the Gentile world enabled John to contextualize the message for Gentiles.
It is certain that Thomas was the first missionary to south India.1 Somehow
the missionary dimension of all this faded from the mind of the Reformation
church, which claimed to be proclaiming biblical theology. But a sound
theology cannot be developed apart from this missionary foundation.
The confrontational paradigm. The dilemma faced by determinists is
the place of persuasion in witness. Many Calvinists are opposed to any use
of means in proclaiming the gospel message. Of course, that would make
preaching itself an oxymoron since preaching is a human means. They
mean any sort of appeal, invitation, or persuasion of sinners to repent and
believe the gospel somehow deprives God of the glory of their conversion.
The issue is not the use of means, but which means are biblically valid? The
answer is not in deductive theology but in examining the New Testament
model. A study in ‘elenctics’ or persuasion ought to be part of systematic
theology. The contemporary debate centers around three p’s: presence,
proclamation, or persuasion evangelism. Liberals are satisfied with mere
‘presence evangelism,’ as seen in the mission institutions of the ‘old-line’
churches. Most evangelicals affirm ‘proclamation evangelism.’ Calvinists
would be reluctant to follow the biblical model of ‘persuasion evangelism.’
The New Testament model. John and Christ provoked many confron-
tations with the people and their leaders (Jn. 5:16-47; 6:26-66; 7:14-52; 8:12-
59; 9:39-41; 10:22-42; 12:44-50; Mt. 21:12-13, 23-46; 22:1-46; 23:1-39). They
were certainly controversialists and the words ‘persuasion’ and ‘confronta-
tion’ are too weak. These chapters are filled with effective argumentation of
a very polemic and apologetic nature (Jn. 8:30; 10:42; 12:42, etc.). Nothing
less than ‘persuasion evangelism’ will do. The ministry of Peter on Pente-
cost was apologetic and confrontational. Since they separated out three
thousand for baptism, he must have given some sort of an overt ‘invitation’
though Luke didn’t tell how. Succeeding days only intensified this, provok-
ing arrest, intimidation, threats, imprisonment, etc. and resulting in incredi-
ble fruit of thousands converted (Acts 4:4). As the good news began to
reach Gentiles through the ministry of Paul and his teams, the persuasive
dimension hardly diminished. Immediately after Paul’s conversion, he
proclaimed Christ in Damascus by confounding the Jews in proving that
Jesus was the Messiah (Acts 9:20-22). Back in Jerusalem he was “speaking
out boldly in the name of the Lord” by “talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews”
(9:28-29). This was just the beginning (Acts 17:2-3; 18:4; 19:8-9).
The terms used. David Hesselgrave’s analysis of the words used
suggests many are guilty of reductionism since there are a score of words
used and few are mentioned in the literature. Not only does euangelizein
occur 54 times and euangelion 76 times, but also kçrussein (herald, proclaim)
and its nouns kçrugma and kçrux over 60 times, and marturein (bear witness)
and derivatives well over one hundred times. Additionally, sungchein (con-
found), sumbibazein (prove), diegeomai (declare), suzetein (dispute), lalein
(speak), dialegomai (reason with), peithein (persuade), nouthetein (admonish,
warn), katechein (inform, instruct), deomai, (beg, beseech), elengchein (re-
prove), epitimaein (rebuke), and parakalein (exhort, urge) are used. Superficial
treatments do not do justice to the force of apostolic ministry and lead to a
truncated theology of how sinners come to faith in Christ. J. I. Packer “does
not overlook these references, but nevertheless concludes that these various verbs having to
do with evangelism can be best summed up in the word ‘teach’.”2 Hesselgrave sug-
gested that terms like ‘dispute,’ ‘reason,’ ‘persuade,’ ‘reprove,’ ‘rebuke,’ or
‘exhort’ can hardly be included under ‘teaching.’ Packer’s Calvinistic
agenda in soft-pedaling the confrontational dimension of evangelism is
exposed. This mindset can be exemplified a thousand fold.
Obstacles to Global Evangelism

Moderate Calvinists would agree that hyper-Calvinism hinders global
evangelism. But all Calvinism tends to hinder the kind of global evangelism
surveyed above. There are historical, logical, and theological connections.
The “Great Protestant Omission”

In my missions text, the paucity of missionary effort for two centuries
(three from England) after the Reformation until the Danish-Halle mission in
1705 was surveyed. Roman Catholics were sending out Jesuit, Dominican,
Franciscan, and Augustinian missionaries all over the world, who gained
more converts than were lost to Protestantism. But Protestants were hostile
to missions, and there are less than a dozen incidents in which the issue
arose and most involved strong reactions from Protestant leaders to any
such outrageous notion. The few positive initiatives came from radical
Reformers, not from the Lutheran or Reformed core. Verceslaus Budovetz

went on his own to Istanbul in 1577, and won one Muslim in five years. In
1590, Hadrian Saravia wrote a chapter on missions, disputed by Beza, who
insisted that the Great Commission was binding only on the Apostles.
An early expedition to Brazil has falsely been touted by Calvinists as a
missionary venture of Huguenot Protestants. This is totally untrue! In the
1550s, the French government authorized a colony under Admiral Ville-
gaignon in Guanabara, Brazil, to counter Portuguese claims. The first
colonists were mostly prisoners and a few Huguenots. The second group
included four dozen Huguenot refugees with two chaplains from Calvin’s
Geneva, who had been promised freedom of religion there. The admiral’s
treacherous behavior caused most of the Protestants to return to France,
and he executed at least three as heretics. There is no hint of any intent or
activity to reach the Indians, and the colony fell to the Portuguese in 1567.3
By 1595, the Dutch Reformed sent chaplains out with the colonialists to
the East Indies and Ceylon. They translated the Bible into Malay and bap-
tized many converts, resulting in substantial Reformed churches in Indone-
sia. In 1651, Count Truchsess, a Lutheran nobleman, challenged the faculty
of Wittenberg as to why Lutherans were not sending out missionaries. Their
response echoed Beza’s notion, saying if the heathen are lost, it is their own
fault since they rejected God’s word from Noah to the Apostles, who evange-
lized the whole human race. They argued that it is the responsibility of the
government, not the church, to provide witness to the heathen. How absurd!
In 1661, George Fox, the founder of the Friends (Quakers), sent three
missionaries to China who were never heard of again. Three years later, an
Austrian Lutheran nobleman, Justinian Von Welz, began to advocate foreign
missions. When his sharp admonitions to Lutheran authorities fell on deaf
ears, he “proceeded to Holland, were he abandoned his baronial title. Following ordination
as an 'apostle to the Gentiles,' he sailed for Dutch Guiana (Surinam), where he died an early
death before he could reap a harvest."4 Johann Ursinus, a Lutheran theologian,
gave an official refutation citing the difficulty of the missionary task and
recruiting missionaries, the deep depravity of the heathen making conver-
sion next to impossible, the great need at home, and the responsibility of
Christians living in heathen lands to make the gospel known. Gustav
Warneck's comment on this viewpoint is apt: “Where there are Christians, mis-
sions are superfluous; and where there are no Christians, they are hopeless.”5
Explanations and rationalizations

How can we account for this shocking fact—this great omission? If we
understand the Reformation was not a full-fledged restoration of apostolic
Christianity but a complex movement of political, economic, social, cultural,
and spiritual factors, it becomes more comprehensible, though no less
reprehensible. It did not go far enough in recovery of God's truth, so a num-
ber of theological, circumstantial, and spiritual obstacles remained to the
restoration of God's program of worldwide evangelism.
The theology of the Reformers. The missions perspective of the

Reformers is obscure, and it is generally acknowledged that the second
generation rationalized away Christian responsibility. Some try to defend the
essential harmony of Luther and Calvin’s viewpoint with missions, but the
arguments are unconvincing. The fact remains that for three centuries
Protestant leaders did virtually nothing to advance the cause of world
evangelization. Although the rationalizations cannot be attributed directly to
Luther or Calvin, in defending them, Thomas Coates admitted:
It cannot be gainsaid, however, that Luther's expositions of great missionary passages as
Matt. 28:19-20 and Mark 16:15 are usually devoid of any missionary emphasis. Moreover,
there is a good deal of validity to the contention that Luther's concept of “mission” dealt
primarily with the correction of unchristian conditions prevailing within Christendom. . .6
The Reformers had a distorted understanding of the implications of
God's sovereignty. Luther, for example, did have a concern for Jews and
Turks: “I do hope that our Gospel, now shining forth with a light so great, will before
Judgment Day make an attack also on that abominable prophet Mohammed. May our Lord
Jesus Christ do this soon.”7 He left the responsibility with God to bring about
Muslim conversion. Later his attitude to the Jews hardened to outright
antisemitism. The same is the case with Calvin since both had a determinis-
tic theology. Harry Boer faulted all of the Reformers but Bucer in this re-
gard.8 Certainly Beza’s development of the notion of limited atonement did
not help. The responsibility to fulfill the Great Commission is ours, not God's.
The spiritual weakness of the Reformation. Although many reasons
for the Great Omission can be identified, the main reason is a spiritual one.
The Reformation did not have deep enough spiritual roots since it was not
a great revival in which millions of people were born again. Only a minority
really came to the saving knowledge of Christ and the rest were swept along
with the tide. There was much confusion about the new birth, with much
reliance placed upon 'sacraments.' Luther himself saw part of the problem:
If one considers rightly how the people now act who wish to be Protestant (by profession),
and who know how to talk much about Christ, there is nothing behind it. Thus the more
part deceive themselves. Tenfold more were they who made a beginning with us, and who
had serious pleasure in our teaching, but now not a tenth part of them remain steadfast.9
Christ's words to the Sardis church apply to this, “I know your deeds; you have
a reputation of being alive, but you are dead” (Rev. 3:1).10 Before there could be
missions, there had to be spiritual renewal, two centuries in coming.
The Theology of Key People and Movements

It is imperative to examine the movements, personalities, and theolo-
gies out of which modern missions arose. Some providential discoveries of
unknown key people are included here which have serious theological
implications since there is a clear ‘spin’ that Calvinists were at the forefront
of the modern missions movement. This is far from the truth!B

John Eliot. The significance of John Eliot’s (1604-90) ministry to the
Algonquins in Roxbury, Massachusetts has not been adequately recognized
in recent works. A century ago the Godbeys called him the “morning star of
modern missions,” but in a real sense he should be seen as the father of the
modern missionary movement.11 He did the whole thing: cross-cultural
evangelism, Bible translation, training native-American pastors, and getting
a mission agency organized. He also translated Richard Baxter’s A Call to
the Unconverted. He was the beginning of centuries of missions to native
Americans, which provided the paradigm for foreign missions a century and
a half later. Some credit should also be given to Roger Williams, who was
the first to learn the Algonquin language. In 1643, he published an Algonquin
phrase book, with observations about the Indian culture. Williams needled
the other colonists to learn the language since their charters stated that their
purpose was to evangelize the Indians, but they didn’t even know the
language. Apparently this impacted Eliot. Although Williams was a staunch
friend of the Indians, he didn’t succeed in planting churches among them.
Richard Baxter. Richard Baxter (1615-91) was virtually the first Protest-
ant missiologist and the mentor of John Eliot by extended correspondence
across the Atlantic. When Baxter was silenced by the king in 1660, he wrote
extensively about hindrances to world evangelization, focusing on kings,
Catholic prelates, Muslims, and the indifference of Christians.12 He had just
published his classic, A Call to the Unconverted, a great example of confron-
tational evangelism. In his correspondence with Eliot he argued we need
“general, unfixed ministers,” who are not pastors of churches, to do the work of
evangelism and missions. This was out-of-the-box thinking for Protestants.
However, Eliot didn’t follow his advice by resigning his church to focus on
Algonquin ministry.13 It is significant that Baxter refused to be called either
a Calvinist or an Arminian and advocated a “middle way” in the theology of
salvation. He wrote a massive theology exposing the errors of both the
Calvinist and Arminian “word-warriors.”14 Apparently Eliot agreed with him
theologically since he gave priority to the translation of Baxter’s book. Eliot
also wrote to Baxter of the spontaneity and freedom of the will seen in the
“likeness of God” in Genesis 1:26-7. The conviction of Baxter, and undoubtedly
of Eliot, that Christ died for all mankind without exception is the theological
foundation of their missionary concern and witness.
B. It started with discovery of a book of essays on general redemption by New-Divinity theologians,

especially Edward Griffin, leading to the roots of missions at Williams College in 1806. Samuel Fisk
highlighted the significance of Andrew Fuller in the British Baptist mission. Sidney Rooy’s dissertation
to support a Calvinistic spin actually backfired in that he did not understand the theology of the key
people. Other research discovered the significant role of Thomas Coke, Philip Doddridge, etc.
406
407
Indian evangelism. For the next half century, the only missionaries to
the Indians continued to be settled pastors, who did double duty. The first
ordination of three missionaries to Indian work was in 1733, by the Scottish
S.P.C.K. The ordination sermon by Joseph Sewall, pastor of Old South
Church in Boston, reflects a similar theology of salvation to that of Baxter
and Eliot. It was an exposition of Acts 26:16-19, emphasizing human respon-
sibility and obedience to God in fulfilling the Great Commission and in going
“to open their eyes.” He said, “And though the work itself is truly Divine . . . yet is our
glorious Lord pleased to put honour upon his Ministers in using them as instruments in his
Hand, in this wonderful Work.”15 A succession of missionaries to native Americans
for 150 years became the foundation for foreign missions. Cotton Mather’s
biography of Eliot was most significant, since William Carey read it, referred
to Eliot at least four times in his Enquiry and gave Eliot’s success in winning
native Americans as proof of the error that the heathen were too depraved
to be saved. The New-Divinity theology coming out of this, as developed by
Jonathan Edwards’ protégés, was conducive to foreign missions as well.
Pietists and Moravians. The initiative of Pietists and Moravians in the
restoration of missions is well known. The Danish-Halle mission of Lu-
theran Pietists in 1705 was the first significant Protestant mission and the
logical outcome of their non-deterministic theology. Bartholomew Ziegen-
balg (1682-1719) and his associates’ initiative to India was a major turning
point, but it was accomplished despite serious opposition and obstruction by
mainstream Protestants. Although the Pietists got Protestant missions
started, the Moravian movement dominated the field for the rest of the
eighteenth century. Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf (1700-60) was raised
in a warm evangelical pietism. By 1722, persecuted Christian refugees from
Moravia and central Europe began to arrive at his estate in Saxony and for
the next five years he developed and nurtured a Christian community there.
Influenced by seeing the fruit of Pietistic missions, a revival among them led
the Moravians to begin sending out their own missionaries. By 1732, they
sent out the first two to the West Indies, “and in the two decades that followed, the
Moravians sent out more missionaries than all Protestants (and Anglicans) had sent out in the
previous two centuries.” This small group of persecuted Christians sent out 226
missionaries into ten foreign countries by 1760.16
The story of Georg Schmidt’s African initiative has been buried for a
century. When Ziegenbalg and Plutschau stopped off in South Africa on
their way to India, they learned Dutch Calvinist Boers did not allow their
African slaves to be baptized. It took years for that report to reach the
Moravian center of Herrnhut, but upon hearing it Schmidt immediately set
out for South Africa. After obstructionist delays in Calvinistic Holland, he
arrived in Capetown in 1737 and was treated with contempt by the Boers.
They forced him to begin witness beyond their frontiers. When after three
years he baptized his first converts, the Boers were astonished to find them
able to read and give a good account of their faith. Nevertheless, they
expelled Schmidt, and after fifty years, when other Moravians regained
entrance, they found abiding fruit from his ministry. The ultimate conse-
quence of that unbiblical mindset was the scandalous policy of apartheid.
Jonathan Edwards. The missionary significance of Edwards (1703-58)
to both the British and American movements is only partly understood. The
publishing of Brainerd’s diary and his own missionary service among the
Mohicans are well known. Not only did Carey and Henry Martyn read the
diary, but it influenced Philip Doddridge (1702-51) in 1741, to propose to
the Congregational pastors in the English midlands the formation of a
mission agency. Sadly they were not ready to move ahead. Doddridge was
influenced by Baxter’s theology and had written The Rise and Progress of
Religion in the Soul, which God used in the conversion of George Whitefield
and William Wilberforce and in the lives of John Wesley and Edward
Griffin.17 Doddridge’s hymns are better known than his missionary initiative.
Jonathan Edwards was pastor of a Presbyterian church in New York
City briefly in 1723 and was impacted by the beginnings of the First Great
Awakening in New Jersey under the Tennants and Theodore Frelinghuysen,
who had been influenced by pietism. When Edwards became pastor of his
grandfather Stoddard’s church in Northampton in 1727, he began to preach
forthright confrontational evangelistic sermons. His series on justification by
faith prepared his congregation for the first revival, which sermons impacted
Andrew Fuller in England half a century later. A series on the “History of
Redemption” stimulated a second time of revival, which sermons were “put
in treatise form by John Erskine and first published in 1774 in Edinburgh.”18 By 1784,
Erskine republished his Call to Prayer for a Revival, which impacted the
principals of the British foreign mission movement and contributed to the
Second Awakening in New England, out of which American missions began.
Sidney Rooy’s study of Edwards’ theology and sermons showed how
his view that the heathen’s “blindness was not due to man’s lack of natural capacity or
of opportunity to know, but it is due to an evil principle that ‘hinders the exercises of his
faculties about the things of religion: exercises for which God has made him well capable, and
for which he gives him abundant opportunity’”19 This line of thinking might explain
how the junior Edwards came to modify his father’s view of depravity.
John Gerstner’s study of the manuscript sermons of Edwards is reveal-
ing. He stated: “Directions for seeking salvation are found in almost every sermon
Edwards ever preached. No theme was so much on his heart and lips as this. This was the
point of contact between sinners and the gospel, and he was constantly urging it on them.”20
Gerstner gave many clear citations to support that statement, which Rooy
backed up from published revival sermons: “In these sermons Edwards stacks
promise upon promise to those who earnestly seek God. . . . But it is the last sermon, ‘The
Excellency of Christ,’ that page after page gathers the invitations of Scripture to encourage the
broken sinner in his ‘choosing Christ’”21 Edwards saw this as “preparationism.” It does
not fit with the Calvinist doctrine of total inability, which caused Roy Aldrich
to comment that Calvinists have a very lively spiritual corpse after all.22
Rooy cited a number of writers who seriously qualify Edwards’ Calvin-
ism. “A. A. van Schleven leaves the impression that Edwards’ classification as a Calvinist is
more formal than essential.” He quoted Visser’t Hooft as believing that “Edwards’
views compromised the basic doctrine of God’s sovereignty” and through Edwards
Puritanism became Pietism. He cited H. E. Runner as judging Edwards to
have compromised Calvinism and rightly saw New England Puritanism as
different from Genevan Calvinism. “Ridderbos finds Edwards’ preaching Methodistic.”
Rooy, as a Calvinist, concluded that “Edwards held these two aspects in a healthy
Biblical tension,”23 but in reality this was an unhealthy contradiction. But it was
good that it moved New England Puritanism away from extreme Calvinism
and opened a door for aggressive evangelism and missions, which door his
successors in the “New Divinity” moved through. Joseph Conforti has shown
that the Second Great Awakening and the American foreign missions
movement both arose out of the neo-Edwardsian New-Divinity movement
and the New-Haven theology of grandson, Timothy Dwight, as well. Since
Rooy was trying to show that foreign missions arose out of Calvinism, it
seems clear that the data he provided undermines his own agenda.
One overlooked outcome of Edwards’ own missionary ministry was that
his son was only five when they came to Stockbridge and becoming fluent in
Mohican wrote a book about Indian dialects. The junior Edwards was taught
theology by his father’s two protégés, Samuel Hopkins and Joseph Bellamy,
who both had begun to teach general redemption. In 1771, Hopkins, as a
pastor in Newport, RI, proposed sending freed Negro slaves back to Africa as
missionaries. He raised money to free two members of his congregation, but
the Revolutionary War interrupted their plans. One was killed in the war, but
Hopkins doggedly recruited two more. However, he lost the support of the
Quakers by tying this in with recolonization of Negroes to Africa and never
saw his plan implemented before he died. He became the first president of
the Missionary Society of Rhode Island in 1801.24 Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Jr.
(1745-1801) in turn discipled Edward Griffin in New Haven with New-Divinity
theology and infected him with missionary insights as well. After focusing on
England, we will come back to this story in sequence.
Thomas Coke’s Wesleyan missions. The Wesleyan awakening was
an important part of the root of British missions. George Whitefield (1714-
70) had mentored John Wesley in confrontational open-air preaching. After
the American revolution Wesley sent Thomas Coke (1747-1814) to America
to ordain Francis Asbury as the first Superintendent of the beleaguered
Methodists. By 1786, Coke brought five missionaries to the West Indies; they
saw a great harvest among the Negroes, Carib Indians and whites.25 This
was six years before Carey’s own Baptist mission, but little noted because
Coke did not found a mission agency but carried on his many missionary
projects under Wesley’s personal oversight. On the first of his nineteen
Atlantic crossings he read Brainerd’s dairy. Over the years he sent forty-three
missionaries to America and the East and West Indies. Later he decided to
become a missionary himself and died leading a team of missionaries out to
Ceylon. So actually the first British initiative came from the Methodists.26
Arminian Thomas Coke was really the unheralded father of British missions.
The British Baptist initiative. The major obstacle to missionary
initiative by the British Particular Baptists was their antinomian* hyper-
Calvinism. The irony is that Christians sang, wrote, and prayed about mis-
sions, but it took several generations before an Englishman actually did any-
thing about it! It seems clear that overemphasis on God's sovereignty and
underemphasis on man's responsibility was the major factor in their inaction.
William Carey’s story confirms this. Although he started out as a Calvinist,
he struggled with the passivistic impact of determinism among the Calvinis-
tic Baptists.27 Baptist historian Underwood described the influence of rigid
predestinarian views upon the early Particular Baptists:
Such a theology had a paralysing effect upon the preacher. The notion that for multitudes
of men no salvation was either intended or provided in Christ, devitalized evangelistic
preaching and effort, depriving men of any feeling of responsibility for extending the King-
dom of God. As early as 1611 Thomas Helwys had put his finger exactly on the spot when
he wrote of Calvinism that it "makes some despair utterly as thinking there is no grace for
them and that God hath decreed their destruction. And it makes others desperately
careless, holding that if God have decreed they shall be saved then they shall be saved,
and if God have decreed they shall be damned they shall be damned." . . . But early in the
eighteenth century a change came over them. They preached according to what Ivimey
calls the "non-invitation scheme" and contented themselves with expounding doctrine. If
Christ died not for all but only for the elect, it was useless to invite all to repent and believe
in Him. . . . He [John Skepp] made no attempt to awaken the consciences of the uncon-
verted lest he should despoil God of the sole glory of their conversion.28
Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) was a friend and mentor of Carey and preached
at his ordination. He was raised in hyper-Calvinism and struggled to get
assurance of salvation under this kind of preaching, “admitting nothing spiritually
good to be the duty of the unregenerate, and nothing to be addressed to them by way of
exhortation, excepting what related to external obedience. . . . But nothing was said to them
. . . inviting them to apply to Christ for salvation. . .”29 He became disillusioned with
their antinomianism* and was moved from this by the writings of Abraham
Taylor (1755), President Edwards, and the neo-Edwardsians. He was surely
influenced by the Wesleyan revivals and the First Great Awakening. His 1784
book, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, caused a firestorm among his
Particular Baptist colleagues because he advocated confronting sinners with
the free offer of the gospel. This was probably the most important book in
the 18th century because it opened up the minds of Carey and his associates
to a theological basis for global evangelism. Carey himself had already been
influenced to abandon hyper-Calvinism by Robert Hall’s Help for Zion’s
Travelers and apparently left Calvinism behind in England since his corre-
spondence from India shows no reference to election.30
Although by 1782, the writings of Edwards and Brainerd had caused the
Baptist ministers to pray monthly for the conversion of unevangelized
heathen, most didn’t grasp that someone actually had to go as missionaries
to win them. Thus when Carey proposed our responsibility to actively
evangelize the heathen, the reaction of John Ryland, Sr. was typical: “Sit
down young man! You are a miserable enthusiast. When God chooses to
convert the heathens, He will not consult you or me.” He had not grasped
the command to pray for laborers for the harvest (Mt. 9:38), since it didn’t fit
his theology.31 In 1791, Carey published An Enquiry into the Obligation of
Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens and proposed
the formation of a mission agency to implement this. His title exposes the
bias against any use of means in evangelism. After many attempts to get the
pastors to act, in May of 1792, he preached to them, “Expect great thing from
God, attempt great thing for God.” In the business session the next morning
chaired by Fuller, it seemed no action would be taken. So Carey grabbed
Fuller’s arm and implored, “Sir, are you after all again not going to do any-
thing?” Thus in the October meeting they made the monumental decision to
form the first British mission agency. There was strenuous opposition to the
plan when presented to the more affluent London pastors’ meeing. How-
ever, this bold venture by two dozen poor midlands pastors stimulated the
formation of another dozen mission agencies within a quarter century.
Fuller was one of the founding members of the Baptist Missionary
Society and became its first home director. His extensive preaching tours all
over England, Scotland, and Ireland not only funded the mission, but put him
in touch and sometimes in the middle of the theological issues of the day,
which stimulated his prolific polemic and theological writing. This he did
while continuing in pastoral ministry. Fuller’s writings also impacted the
Second Great Awakening in New England, as evidenced by the first two
editions of his Works being published in America, followed by two British
editions. Thus it is clear he was one of the most widely read theologians on
both sides of the Atlantic in the first half of the 19th century. Timothy Dwight
had Yale College grant him an honorary doctorate after he refused a prof-
fered doctorate from the College of New Jersey (Princeton).32
Although the anti-missions bias of Particular Baptists was bad before
Fuller and Carey, the Presbyterian church of Scotland was even worse. In
1796, the General Assembly passed this motion: “To spread abroad to barbarians
and heathen natives the knowledge of the Gospel seems to be highly preposterous, in so far
as it anticipates, nay even reverses, the order of Nature.”33 We must cross the ocean
again to understand the events in the new world.
The neo-Edwardsian movement. Joseph Conforti gave substantial
documentation showing that the Second Great Awakening in New England
was spawned by the neo-Edwardsians, and the American foreign missions
movement was a direct outcome of those revivals and its root theology. By
1799, Samuel Hopkins wrote John Ryland, Jr. in England of one hundred
towns in New England and eastern New York State which were experiencing
awakening, “mostly if not wholly under preachers of [neo-] Edwardian divinity.” The result
was that most of the candidates for the ministry were New-Divinity adher-
ents, and the number of such pastors expanded rapidly: by 1792, there were
58 in Connecticut and by 1808, 170 in Massachusetts.34 When Timothy

Dwight became president of Yale in 1795, he faced widespread skepticism
in the student body influenced by French deism and confronted it head on.
The tide was turned on campus, and by 1802, “a student revival at Yale witnessed
the conversion of one-third of the student body [75 out of 225 students]. It touched off a series
of awakenings which revived eastern colleges periodically during the next fifty years.”35
Further confirmation of Conforti’s claim is seen in that he seemed unaware
of the central part played by Edward D. Griffin (1770-1837), who is significant
evangelistically, missiologically, and theologically.
Edward Griffin, missionary mentor. Early in a fruitful evangelistic
ministry in Connecticut, Griffin led Samuel Mills, Jr. to the Lord. After 1800,
he saw hundreds come to Christ in ministry in New Jersey. He gave a
missionary message, “The Kingdom of Christ”36 at the Presbyterian General
Assembly in Philadelphia in 1805. Mills, by then a student at Williams
College, came to hear him and was so affected that he distributed copies of
the sermon on campus. This is the untold background of the Haystack
Prayer Meeting of August 1806, from which the American foreign missions
initiative came. In 1808, Mills covenanted with four students to form a
missionary cell group, but kept it secret because foreign missions was
thought by Calvinists to be such an absurd notion!
Although Adoniram Judson, Jr.’s father was a New-Divinity pastor,
‘Don’ had been influenced to skepticism and deism at Boston College by a
classmate, Jacob Eames. After graduation he went out west to see the world
and one night stopped off at an inn. Listening to the groans of a man dying
in the next room, he wondered what Eames would say about death. In the
morning he was shocked to find out that the dead man was Eames! When
he came back to his father’s Plymouth parsonage in soul agony over the
conflicting claims of the Bible and skepticism, Edward Griffin was providen-
tially there with Prof. Moses Stuart of the new Andover seminary. It was
probably Griffin who gave Judson a copy of Thomas Boston’s Man’s Fourfold
State, which convinced him to go to Andover as an incidental student to
check out the claims of Christ. In three months he came to the assurance of
salvation, and by summer Griffin arrived on campus as professor of “pulpit
eloquence.” By September, someone (almost surely Griffin) gave him a
copy of Buchanan’s missionary sermon, “The Star of the East,” which started
him on his way. Later when Samuel Mills and the other Williams’ graduates
came on campus and connected with him, they reorganized the missions
cell group. By February 1810, Judson was committed to missions and
recruited others for the group. They consulted with Dr. Griffin who sug-
gested they approach the Congregational pastors association, which then
formed the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
When the first five missionaries were ordained in Salem in September 1812,
Griffin gave the invocation. Mills became a home missionary to the frontier
and connected with Griffin again in Newark, complaining about the lack of
Bibles on the frontier.37 He got Griffin to instigate the formation of the

American Bible Society (1814) and the United Missionary Society (1816). By
1821, Griffin became the President of Williams College, where he recruited
another generation of foreign missionaries until his retirement.38
The neo-Edwardsian theology. The New Divinity has been poorly
understood. They called themselves “Consistent Calvinists,” but they were
neither consistent nor really Calvinists. They all held to general redemption,
as proved by Edwards A. Park’s 1859 anthology of essays on the subject.
Park argued that there were elements in the theology of the senior Edwards
which paved the way for the New Divinity, rightly called neo-Edwardsian
theology.39 These elements were clearly manifest in Edwards’ preaching,
noted above. Many of the neo-Edwardsians were effective, confrontational
evangelistic preachers. Keith Hardman’s analysis of the great awakenings
indicates that they arose from confrontational evangelism, not the reverse.40
Unfortunately, in order to hold general redemption, a number of them
denied substitution in the cross, and many held to free will, especially seen
in the New Haven outgrowth of Timothy Dwight and Nathaniel Taylor. 41
Although most did continue to hold to unconditional election, this caused
some internal tension. Adoniram Judson’s father was a new divinity pastor.
Samuel Mills, Sr. and Ebenezer Fitch, the first President of Williams College
were also new divinity men. Thus it becomes clear that the Second Great
Awakening and the American missions movement arose out of the new
divinity movement, both at Williams College and Andover Seminary.42
Revival connections. There is a strong connection between theology,
evangelism, revival, and missions. This can be clearly seen in the Second
Great Awakening, taking place from 1785 to 1830. The revival and its atten-
dant conversions mostly happened in the churches of the new divinity
pastors, although some historians have tried to minimize the connection by
caricaturizing them as dry, heavily theological preachers. However, Bellamy
and Emmons were great preachers, who personally trained a host of the
new divinity pastors to preach in a popular, extemporaneous style. Griffin
was outstanding. As early as 1780, Chandler Robbins began to see revival at
Plymouth and nearby towns. In the mid 80s it spread to other new divinity
churches, among which Stephen West and Nathaniel Emmons especially
reported abundant conversions. Nathan Strong saw recurring revival at
Hartford from 1794 to 1815. By 1799, Samuel Hopkins wrote John Ryland, Jr.
in England of 100 towns in New England and eastern New York state which
were experiencing awakening, “mostly if not wholly under preachers of [neo-]Edward-
ean divinity.” The result was that most of the candidates for the ministry were
new divinity adherents and the number of such pastors expanded rapidly, by
1792, there were 58 in Connecticut and by 1808, 170 in Massachusetts.43
Conclusion. The lessons of history indicate that there is a sequence.
First, an evangelism-friendly theology leads to confrontational evangelism.
Note that both great awakenings started with evangelism, and out of this
came the modern missions movement. This is what Robert H. Glover called
a step-by-step spiritual lineage of “true apostolic succession of spiritual grace and
power and world-wide ministry.”44 The sequence thus would be:
Evangelism-friendly theology Y Evangelism Y Revival Y Missions
gggggggg
Determinism Inconsistent with Evangelism
Since global persuasion evangelism should be axiomatic for biblical
Christians, and some serious historical tensions with deterministic theology
have been seen, focus now on the theological and logical tensions.
Motivation for evangelism undermined. If the issue of who will be
saved and who will go to hell was settled in eternity past, then there is
nothing which any human being can do to change it, whether it be the sinner
or the Christian witness. Moderate Calvinists insist that God has decreed the
means as well as the end result, but if we fail to witness for Christ or promote
missions, it follows that this also had been decreed by God and nothing
anyone could do can change it. We can rationalize ad infinitum that God did
not decree for us to witness and accept no blame for a world going to hell.
But there are already enough rationalizations to keep most Christians from
a significant witness for Christ without another bogus one! We all face
serious natural, spiritual, and circumstantial obstacles which keep us from
witnessing. Unless we have a clear and strong motivation to overcome these
hindrances, the job will never get done. Motivation and human responsibility
are so important. The evangelistic pastor, Charles Spurgeon remarked:
But there are some people so selfish that, provided they go to heaven, it is enough they are
in the covenant. They are dear enough people of God. . . . They say it is equal whether God
ordains a man’s life or death. They would sit still to hear men damned. . . . They seem to
have no feeling for anyone but themselves. They have dried the heart out of them by some
cunning slight of hand. (He then commented about hyper-Calvinism) During the pastorate
of my venerated predecessor, Dr. Gill, this Church, instead of increasing, gradually
decreased. . . But mark this, from the day when Fuller, Carey, Sutcliffe, and others, met
together to send out missionaries to India, the sun began to dawn of a gracious revival
which is not over yet. . . The system of theology with which many identify his [Gill’s] name
has chilled many churches to their very soul, for it has led them to omit the free invitations
of the gospel, and to deny that it is the duty of sinners to believe in Jesus.45
Admittedly, Fuller and Spurgeon were inconsistent Calvinists, but both
got into major controversy with the hyper-Calvinists of their times.
Pessimism about salvation promoted. The extrapolation of human
depravity to the notion of total inability (cf. Ch. 20) spread a pall of pessi-
mism about the possibility of salvation both among the unregenerate under
Calvinistic teaching and the Christians who should be confronting them and
explaining the simple plan of salvation. This is clear from reading the
testimonies of men like Fuller and Griffin, as well as the opposition from
theologians like Beza and Ursinus. The logic of it is inexorable. If mankind
is totally unable to respond to the gospel and must wait for God’s irresistible
grace based upon an eternal decree, why bother to try to get saved or to win
a sinner to Christ? It is all set in concrete! Even worse, it is a ‘stacked deck!’
Persistence in evangelism discouraged. Few Christians were saved
the first time they heard the gospel. This is true of those from Christian
backgrounds but even more striking of those from Muslim or Hindu cultures.
In lifelong involvement with missions to Muslims and Hindus, it became
clear all must focus upon the process of conversion, that is, how people
come to faith in Christ. The new birth is instantaneous, but the soul-struggle
to come to faith may take years. Even Saul of Tarsus had a struggle before
Christ said to him, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14). His
conversion was not instantaneous, but his new birth was! The notion of
irresistible grace leaves little room for a protracted process. Thus a Calvinist
would not be inclined to see the necessity for dogged persistence in witness.
Some do exemplify this, not because of their theology but despite it.
The simple gospel message complicated. If predestination and irre-
sistible grace are true, then the simple gospel message was oversimplified
and misleading. When Christ offered the water of life to “whoever” in
speaking to the Samaritan woman, was there an unstated limitation: “If you
are among the elect?” On Pentecost, there could be no unspoken contin-
gency implied in Peter’s promise, such as, “if God has elected you.” Paul’s
word to the Philippian jailor did not have a hidden agenda. What right do
any have to read an unspoken reservation into these blanket promises of the
gospel? Repentant faith is not something mysterious, mystical, or intangible
which God arbitrarily gives to some hell-bound sinners and withholds from
others. It is the human response to God’s ultimatum of the gospel, which
men are commanded to do in simply receiving God’s Son. How many
millions of anxious sinners have been lost because nobody explained to
them how simple and available the promises of the gospel really are?
Counterproductive of church growth. Robert Sumner made an
observation which is substantiated over and over: “Many, many more souls are
being ‘elected’ into the family of God where a strong program of New Testament evangelism
is in operation than in the non-evangelistic–and sometimes even anti-evangelistic– atmo-
sphere of the ‘tulip’ churches.”46 Today Pentecostals and some other Arminian
churches are far outstripping Calvinistic churches. Pentecostals are way
ahead in the use of modern media. In Latin America they harness the power
of their ‘street seminaries.’ The listings of evangelical Bible colleges over
recent decades show disproportionate Arminian growth. They are seeing
the fruit of a more aggressive program of evangelism and missions. Does
this prove their theology right? Not necessarily, since cults have been using
biblical methods of evangelism to a great advantage. However, if determin-
ism were true, should not God be electing at least as many, if not more
people in Calvinistic churches than in Arminian? Some may say, “Gordon,
you are a pragmatist!” Not at all! But we must test our theology by its fruit!
Serious missiological problems raised. Two serious problems were
raised in Chapter 19: Why are some kind of peoples harder to reach than
others if irresistible grace is true? Is it fair of God to save more Americans
than Muslims, Hindus, or Japanese if unconditional election is true?
Conclusions
There is not just paradoxical tension between deterministic theology
and global evangelism, but a serious disconnect and contradiction, logically,
pragmatically, and historically. This does not disprove Calvinism, but it
should cause them to check their theology to see if it might be wrong.
Finally, the question must be raised as to how many millions are
eternally condemned because of the failure of Protestants to pursue global
persuasion evangelism from the Reformation until now? How many in India
from 1517 until 1705 are condemned because Protestants’ deterministic
theology restrained global persuasion evangelism; how many in Africa or in
Latin America? Indeed, how many Protestants who desired to be saved
were not because the simple offer of the gospel was not thought theologi-
cally appropriate? Some respond that this was the sovereign will and decree
of God. No, the responsibility is upon us Christians who have complicated
the message beyond belief! “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some
count slowness, but is patient toward you [Christians], not wishing for any to perish
but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
1. C. Y. Cheriyan, Orthodox Christianity in India (Kottayam, India: Academic Publishers, 2003), pp. 1-43.
2. David J. Hesselgrave, Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally (GR: Zondervan, 1978), p. 55; He references J.
I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (Chicago: IVP, 1961), pp. 48-49, 413-23, and A. Duane Litfin, “The
Perils of Persuasive Preaching, “ Christianity Today, 21 (4 Feb., 1977):484-7.
3. John Gillies, The Martyrs of Guanabara (Chicago: Moody Press, 1976). Although this is a historical novel by a
Presbyterian missionary to Brazil, it is based upon Jean Crespin’s About the Church of the Faithful in the Country
of Brazil (1564) based on notes and journals of Jean de Lery.
4. Herbert J. Kane, A Concise History of the Christian World Mission, p. 76.
5. Gustav Warneck, Outline of a History of Protestant Missions, trans. George Robson, p. 38.
6. Thomas Coates, "Were the Reformers Mission-Minded?" Concordia Theological Monthly, 40:9, 600-11;
Charles Chaney, "The Missionary Dynamic in the Theology of John Calvin," The Reformed Review, 17:64,
24-38; Samuel M. Zwemer, p. 206-16; Harry R. Boer, Pentecost and Missions (1961), p. 18.
7. Martin Luther, Sammtliche Schriften, 2d ed., ed. Joh. Georg Walch , vol. 14, p. 305.
8. Harry R. Boer, Pentecost and Missions (GR: Eerdmans, 1961), p. 18.
9. Martin Luther, cited by Johannes Warns, Baptism:, trans. G. H. Lang (Paternoster, 1957), p. 248, 252.
10. There is a striking parallel between the 7 churches and 7 major epochs of church history.
11. J. E. & A. H. Godbey, Light in Darkness: Missions and Missionary Heroes (St. Louis, Imperial, 1892), p. 24.
12. Baxter saw Muslims as the “devil’s second army,” wrote a commentary on verses of the Qur’an, and expounded
the “holy war” in which Satan uses heresies and persecution to obstruct world evangelization (Rooy, pp. 135-44).
13. Sidney H. Rooy, The Puritan Theology of Missions (Erdmans, 1962), pp. 125-137.
14. Baxter, Catholick Theologie (1675).

15. R. Pierce Beaver, Pioneers in Missions (Eerdmans, 1966), p. 49.
16. Kane, Concise History , pp. 76-79.
17. Rooy, pp. 70, 292-3.
18. Ibid, pp. 286-294; C. C. Goen, The Great Awakening, “The Works of Jonathan Edwards,” 4:155-6.
19. Ibid, p. 299; Goen, 2: 392-3.
20. John Gerstner, Steps to Salvation, p. 78, cited by Rooy, p. 303, footnote. 5 and personally verified..
21. Rooy, p. 303, footnote 6.
22. Roy L. Aldrich, “The Gift of God,“ Bibliotheca Sacra, 122:487.
23. Rooy, p. 302, 304.
24. Ibid, pp. 142-158.
25. This is alluded to by Carey in his Enquiry.
26. This is not referred to in any history of missions except Carey’s own reference in his Enquiry.
27. Walter Bruce Davis, William Carey: Father of Modern Missions (Chicago: Moody, 1963), p. 105.
28. A. C. Underwood, A History of the English Baptists, pp. 134-35, cited by Fisk, Calvinistic Paths, pp. 143-44.
29. Andrew Gunton Fuller, The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller, 2 vols. (Boston: Lincoln Edmands, 1833), I, 20ff.
30. Terry G. Carter, “The Calvinism of William Carey and its Effect on His Mission Work.” A paper presented at ETS
annual meeting at Colorado Springs, November, 2001. Carter was disappointed to find no reference to the doctrine
of election in all of Carey’s extensive correspondence.
31. Although the authenticity of this incident was challenged by Dr. John Ryland, Jr., the others present affirmed it,
and Carey mentioned it to his colleague, Marshman. S. Pierce Carey, William Carey, D.D. p. 50; Joseph Belcher,
William Carey: A Biography, p. 52.
32. Fuller, Works of Andrew Fuller, I, 42-65
33. Cited by Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, p. 1.
34. Joseph A. Conforti, Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement, pp. 177-90.
35. Woodbridge, Noll, and Hatch, The Gospel in America (Zondervan, 1979), pp. 107-8, 144.
36. I can’t prove Griffin got his missionary insights from the junior Edwards, but he is the most likely source.
37. After a brief ministry as the first pastor of the Park Street Congregational Church in Boston, where he delivered
the famous “Park Street Lectures”, he returned to ministry in Newark, probably in deference to his wife’s health. Elias
Budinot, founder of the ABS, was from one of his Newark church connections.
38. John H. Hewitt, Williams College and Foreign Missions (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1914); additional documentation
in my What in the World Is God Doing? The Essentials of Global Missions, 6th ed. ( 2011).
39. Edwards A. Park, The Atonement, Discourses and Treatises by Jonathan Edwards, Jr., et. al (Boston, 1859),
which contains a 300 pp. essay by Edward D. Griffin advocating general redemption, as do the other writers.
40. Keith J. Hardman, Seasons of Refreshing: Evangelism and Revivals in America (Baker: 1994), pp. 15-19.
41. Walter A. Elwell, ed., Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, pp. 336-7, 415-6, 483-4, 761-2, 767-8, 786, 1070.
42. Conforti, pp. 3-5, 159-93, 227-232; Park, Ibid; Woodbridge, Noll, and Hatch, The Gospel in America, pp. 30-32.
43. Conforti, pp. 175-190.
44. Robert Hall Glover, The Progress of World-Wide Missions. Rev. & enlarged by J. Herbert Kane, p. 88.
45. Charles H. Spurgeon, cited by Iain Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism:, pp. 112, 120, 127.
46. Robert L. Sumner, An Examination of TULIP (Murfreesboro, TN: Biblical Evangelism Press, 1972), p. 22.
But it is presumptuous for man to claim to
29
know what kind of things God could or could
not know. There is a mystery in knowledge
which will probably never be resolved for us.
. . . For men to declare that God could not
know a free event in the future seems to me
sheer dogmatism. -J. Oliver Buswell, Jr.
IS A MIDDLE WAY COGENT?
As an former engineer, I value simple logic but am suspicious of abstruse

philosophy and make no claim to be an expert. However, the points made
here are supported by substantial documentation from experts. Most
importantly, it should be stressed that an inductive approach to theology
must not be based on philosophy. Philosophy and logic can only provide
confirmation. Indeed, many theologians are still prey to a scholastic method,
putting philosophy first before Scripture. Albeit, a great concern should be
the impact of false philosophies upon theology and at the same time the lack
of simple logic in the mishandling of Scripture.1
Although Paul was versed in Greek thought, he saw the great danger of
philosophy corrupting the simple gospel message and traced the arrogance
of Corinthian Christians to their affectation for such (1 Cor. 1:18–2:4):
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are
being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the
wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” Where is the wise man? Where
is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For
since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God,
God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those
who believe. . . . but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,
... so that no man may boast before God. . . . For I determined to know nothing among
you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. . . my message and my preaching were
not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
Paul’s reason for writing this is in 1 Corinthians15, where it is evident that
false philosophy, probably of Socrates and Plato, had caused them to deny
the bodily resurrection which connects with the resurrection of Christ.
In dealing with similar arrogance and warning about the use of carnal
weapons in our warfare, he wrote: “We are destroying speculations and every
lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought
captive to the obedience of Christ, . . .” (2 Cor. 10:5). Later as an incipient
Gnosticism,* a syncretism of Christianity with Greek philosophy, was creep-
ing into the Colossian Church, he warned: “See to it that no one takes you captive
through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according
419
to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ” (Col. 2:8).
John’s letters evidenced Gnostic influences coming into the churches. The
Apostles’ concerns are still extremely relevant to the problems of modern
evangelicalism. Nevertheless, the point Norman Geisler has made is very
cogent, that we must know philosophy in order to refute erroneous philoso-
phies. We would all have to acknowledge our debt to Aristotle for some
basic laws of logic without accepting his whole philosophic system. The
problem is with these human philosophic systems.
The principle of non-contradiction is grossly violated by both Calvinists
and Arminians. Calvinists flee to Deuteronomy 29:29 when confronted with
essential contradictions in their system, using terms like paradox, antinomy,
soft determinism, and compatibilism as ‘word magic’ to resolve problems.
Arminians, on the other hand, might well admit that God’s promises of
eternal security are clear but that the warnings and conditional statements
of Scripture condition those promises. Buswell’s statement at the chapter
head exposed the false premise of both deterministic Calvinism in denying
free events and Open Theism in denying God’s absolute foreknowledge.
Harry Wolfson exposed the incredible syncretization by Philo of Alexan-
dria of Hebrew Scripture with Greek philosophy and mythology. There are
indications that centuries earlier the Septuagint translators had the same
mindset when they translated the Hebrew nephilim (fallen ones) in Genesis
6:4 with the Greek gigantçs (giants). This gross mistranslation is evidence of
reading the superhuman gods of Greek mythology into their translation. This
Alexandrian spiritualization of Scripture also influenced Dionysus, Clement,
and Origen. From there a spiritualized hermeneutic spread to Augustine and
medieval theology. Wolfson showed how centuries later it even infected
Muslim scholars’ interpretation of the Qur’an and came full circle back to
Judaism.2 Medieval Muslim theologians had extended discussions about the
place of Greek philosophy in Islamic theology. Apparently Christian theolo-
gians have not shown equal concern. In any case, Gnosticism continued to
be a major threat (and is today with recently discovered Gnostic ‘gospels’).
Philosophy’s Historical Hegemony

Augustine’s relapse to determinism
Before his conversion Augustine was a deterministic Manichean and
neo-Platonist. For many years after his conversion he held the free-will view
advocated by all church fathers for the first four centuries. Then about AD
417, he reverted to determinism but now under the guise of grace.3 Since he
remained a stolid churchman holding baptismal regeneration of infants,
efficacy of the sacraments, and the restriction of salvation to those in the
Catholic church, his deterministic theology was hardly gracious. Although
his understanding of election as unconditional and of grace as irresistible
makes it sound gracious, he did not hold to justification by faith alone.
William Sahakian showed the philosophical roots of his theology:
Chapter 29 IS A MIDDLE WAY COGENT? 421
The psychical and spiritual that had displaced the material and the physical in the philosophy
of Plotinus and Origen reached its full systematic development in the philosophy of Augus-
tine. . . . Despite such occasional lack of consistency between Augustine’s theology and his
philosophy, his views exerted a potent influence not only upon the course of medieval
thought, but even upon important trends in modern, including contemporary, philosophy. ...
Notwithstanding Augustine’s strong affinity for Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophy, he
severely attacked the Skeptics of the Platonic School, . . .4
Scholasticism’s debt to Greek philosophy

Medieval scholasticism was heavily dependent upon Greek philosophy
and a deductive methodology. Charles McCoy’s summary is good:
Scholasticism may be distinguished most clearly by its reliance on philosophy and its
characteristic method of deducing a system of thought from one or more fundamental
principles. These principles are derived from accepted authority and the reasoning based
thereon is buttressed by reference to additional authority.5
Brian Armstrong identified four tendencies:

(1) Primarily it will have reference to that theological approach which asserts religious truth
on the basis of deductive ratiocination from given assumptions or principles, thus producing
a logically coherent and defensible system of belief. . . . (2) The term will refer to the
employment of reason in religious matters, so that reason assumes at least equal standing
with faith in theology, thus jettisoning some of the authority of revelation. (3) It will compre-
hend the sentiment that the scriptural record contains a unified, rationally comprehensible
account and thus may be formed into a definitive statement which may be used as a
measuring stick to determine one’s orthodoxy. (4) It will comprehend a pronounced interest
in metaphysical matters, in abstract, speculative thought, particularly with reference to the
doctrine of God.6
Daane described the process by which the medieval scholastics using

translations of Aristotle and Porphyry wrestled with the question as to how:
God the great Universal related to all the particularities of our world? Later the scholastics
came into possession of the whole of Aristotle’s writing, obtaining them from the Jews of
Spain, who had obtained them from the Arabs. With the recovery of these writings scholasti-
cism–getting an assist from the neo-Platonic tradition of Augustine–burst into the theological
ferment with which many of the great names of medieval theology are associated.
God continued to be regarded in terms of rationality. For Anselm all Christian truth is
demonstrable. Aquinas did not agree, but he did contend that theology and philosophy are
not at odds. (By philosophy Aquinas of course meant Greek philosophy as refined and
corrected by Christian revelation.) Since both philosophy and theology come from God, they
cannot be in contradiction. Aquinas conceived of God as the first cause of all things and the
most real and perfect of all beings. Such considerations led him to a view of God’s provi-
dence as all-comprehensive, and to his view of double predestination. . . .
Sixteenth and seventeenth-century Protestant scholasticism, which developed the
decretal theology of the single decree, had its roots in this medieval scholasticism.7
We can confirm the soundness of Daane’s analysis that the Reformation did
not end the powerful influence of the various schools of Greek philosophy.
422 A MEDIATE THEOLOGY CONFIRMED
Sources of the ‘classic concept’ of God

Although Open Theism* as a system is unscriptural, its proponents have
done evangelical theology a service by criticizing what they call the ‘classic
concept of God.’ John Sanders traced its roots to the philosophies of Plato,
Aristotle, and the Stoics and showed how Philo was the bridge from them to
the church fathers, the medieval scholastics, and the Reformers.8 How can
Trinitarian Christians follow Greek philosophers in affirming God’s simplicity
and impassability? Even Bruce Ware has very appropriately modified the
classic view of the immutability of God.9 Half a century ago Buswell led the
way in calling for a modification and redefinition of the classic concept of
God.10 Most evangelical theologians do not even attempt to defend the
simplicity of God, they just ignore it. On the other hand Open Theists are
greatly influenced by modern process philosophy, as they readily admit.
Calvin’s dependence on philosophy,

legal thought, and Augustine
John Calvin’s education was in law and humanistic studies. Although he
was on a clerical benefice (scholarship) from the Roman Catholic church
until at least a year after his conversion (1534), he had never really studied
theology before he published the first edition of his Institutes in 1536.11 His
father had him transfer to law in 1528, which suited him since he did not find
the scholasticism of theology appealing. The expanding editions of his
Institutes were all full of multiplied quotes of Augustine, evincing a lifelong
dependence upon this father of determinism (36 quotations in the first
edition; 342 in the last). No doubt Calvin had read Luther, which probably
contributed to his conversion to Protestantism, but Luther, as a former
Augustinian monk, was also highly indebted to Augustine and his philosophy.
Luther, however, was hostile to the use of Aristotle in theology, and although
Calvin made minimal use of Aristotle compared to the medieval Scholastics,
he did make “extensive use of Aristotle and of Aristotelian distinctions.” A. E. McGrath
suggested a dependence on John Major and Oberman and concluded his
careful study of the early influences on Calvin: “In unfolding his biblical theology and
in building his institutions, Calvin used a whole range of authors from Augustine to Luther, from
d’Étaples to Budé, from Erasmus to Bullinger; and he reflected currents ranging all the way
from Platonism to late medieval Scotism.”12 His breadth of reading is commendable,
but the last two sources are a concern.
Protestant scholasticism
Like Calvin, Theodor Beza’s education was in law and humanistic
studies. He was somewhat naive of theology when he began to serve the
Genevan reformation as a negotiator. He got embroiled in several controver-
sies in negotiating with Lutherans and Zwinglians.13 He didn’t grasp the
differences between their positions on the Lord’s supper, and his blunders
ended his usefulness in seeking to bring about Protestant unity. He learned
theology the hard way. His dependence on Aristotle is evidenced by his

letter to Peter Ramus, who had applied to teach at the Academy in Geneva
but was critical of Aristotle’s philosophy. Beza said he could not hire him
and ended the letter with an astounding statement, “I am committed to
Aristotle.”14 He did not say, “I am committed to the word of God.” This
explains why Beza is the major culprit in further scholasticizing Calvin’s
theology. Although Armstrong faulted Martyr, Zanchi, de Chandieu, and
Danaeus for the regression to scholasticism, he demonstrated that Beza was
the most influential: “It was he who was responsible for the return to Aristotelian
philosophy as the basis of the Genevan curriculum in logic and moral philosophy.”15
Alan Clifford ‘s evaluation of the place of John Owen’s methodology and
theology among English evangelical successors is most intriguing.
A number of scholarly studies indicate that beside Theodore Beza, Peter Martyr
Vermigli (1500-62) and Girolamo Zanchi (1516-90) were responsible for reintroducing
scholastic patterns of thought into Reformed theology. Biblical theology thus assumed a
significantly modified character by the late sixteenth-century. It was expounded deductively
rather than inductively, and theory took precedence over the textual data, an approach totally
alien to Luther and Calvin. Through the influence of William Perkins and others, Bezan
scholasticism helped English Protestant theologians outgrow their earlier antagonism to
Aristotle. . . . [John Owen’s] Death of Death–an early work–reveals the scholastic influences
then in vogue. . . . [It] is typically scholastic in its structure. Instead of providing an exegesis
of the relevant scriptural data first, followed by various inferences and conclusions, the order
is in fact reversed. Theological arguments are advanced and debated first (albeit with some
reference to relevant texts) and the major exegetical discussion follows. There is evidence to
suggest that Owen’s arguments in the earlier parts of the treatise prejudice his biblical
exegesis in the later sections.16
Moderate Calvinistic reactions

An interesting observation of the history of Calvinism is that two attempts
to hold the line at Calvin’s view of general redemption in reaction against
Beza’s extreme view both ultimately foundered on a problem of logical
consistency. Owen had pressed Beza’s view to the extreme in exaggerating
the tension between substitution and general redemption by trying logically
to eliminate the biblical option. The Scottish Marrow Men moved to a view
of general redemption, but in struggling with logical consistency of Christ’s
death as a substitution for all mankind without going to universalism, ended
up with a denial of substitution and the ultimate unjust defrocking of John
McLeod Campbell. Campbell’s desire to maintain the truth of God’s love
seemed to contradict substitution.17 The neo-Edwardsian New-Divinity
theology of New England faced the same problem. The resolution is not
found in logic, but in exegesis of the usage of the distinct Greek words for the
cross. The recognition of the objective/ subjective dichotomy in the use of
these words is a very simple solution (cf. Ch. 5).
This solution to one logical problem does not, however, remove all the
logical inconsistencies of moderate Calvinism. Since irresistible grace and
unconditional election require regeneration to precede faith, the deductively
derived errors of the whole system become obvious. Even worse is the
contradiction between the conditional nature of salvation (upon faith alone)
and the notion of unconditional election. There is an essential clash of logic
here. Both Samuel Fisk and Laurence Vance have pointed up this logical
contradiction to which Calvinists are prone.18
Geisler tried to resolve it by suggesting election is unconditional from
God’s point of view as the giver of salvation but conditional from man’s
perspective as the recipient. This connects with his idea that foreknowledge
and predetermination are coextensive and essentially “one in God,” based
upon the simplicity of God.19 This only superficially softens the contradiction.
If God has determined to give salvation to a particular sinner without any
condition attached to the gift, and then should announce that anyone who
puts trust in His Son can receive the gift, there is a real problem of honesty
both of intent and communication. How can something be unconditional
and conditional at the same time? The major objection to moderate Calvin-
ism is exegetical and not logical, but since it is a hybrid system, its internal
contradictions are too serious. Calvin never worked out the internal contra-
dictions, and no one else can do so either. Why should we try to hang onto
Calvin? When he wrote the first edition of his Institutes in 1535, he was a
new convert of barely two years and only a year out of Romanism, with
minimal theological studies under his cap.20 He did not change his position
in succeeding editions. Why has this theological novice (at that time) been
allowed to set the agenda of Protestant theology for five centuries?
Attempts at Logical Resolution

Antinomy, paradox, and mystery in determinism
An illustrative resolution of the paradox of divine sovereignty and human
responsibility has circulated for generations. Over the outside of the gate of
salvation is written, “Whosoever will may come,” but after we enter the gate
and look back, on the inside it is written, “Chosen in Him before the founda-
tion of the world.” Of course, such an illustration does not resolve or prove
anything! Determinists frequently use words like antinomy or paradox to
deal with the apparent contradiction between individual unconditional
election with its comprehensive determinism and, on the other hand, human
responsibility. Frequently they will resort to the word ‘mystery’ in quoting
Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things
revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this
law.” MacDonald has aptly observed: “Moreover, it is a distortion of the
doctrine of election to claim that God’s will pertaining to salvation still
remains a mystery after he has ‘made known to us the mystery of his will’ (Eph.
1:9), and after ‘God has revealed it [his secret wisdom, hidden since time began] to us
by his Spirit’ (1 Cor. 2:7-10).”21 It is not only that Calvinism struggles with a
mysterious antinomy between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility
but also that the contents and basis of God’s hypothetical elective decrees
are so mysterious to the Calvinist.
All must acknowledge that there are truths in the Bible that go beyond
human comprehension, but there is a real question whether the tension
between these two lines of biblical revelation is made intractable and
incoherent by deterministic theology rather than being intrinsic in biblical
teaching. A mediate theology of salvation has not resolved all tension but
has reduced it dramatically. Certainly mediate theology has eliminated any
tension between God’s universal love and Christ’s full substitution for sinners
in the cross. Since so-called election is conditional, salvation also must be
conditional. With a proper definition of sovereignty and a recognition of
man’s free will or limited autonomy, we need not resort to antinomy or
mystery. The Spirit’s work of convicting the sinner fully explains God’s
initiative in salvation and safeguards the gracious nature of salvation.
Soft determinism or compatibilism

‘Compatibilism’*is an essential term in defending the coherence of
Calvinism. They say that God accomplishes all His workings in the world
directly and compatibilistically through human agency. God has ordained
the means as well as the end. In resolving the tension between determinism
and human freedom, John Feinberg argued for ‘soft determinism’ (whatever
that is?) or compatibilism, “for genuinely free human action is seen as compatible with
nonconstraining sufficient conditions which incline the will decisively one way or another.”22
This is based upon their misunderstanding of Ephesians 1:11. Indeed, John
Feinberg virtually built his whole case upon this one text.23
They give the inspiration of Scripture as an example of compatibilism.
There was a synergism between the Holy Spirit and the human authors,
which guaranteed inerrancy. But since compatibilism is a term used by
deterministic philosophers to soften their determinism of all events, a pro-
blem arises. Did the Spirit determine every word choice of the authors or did
He simply guard them from error? The first option implies dictation and
eliminates the human element in Scripture. More serious is the extrapolation
involved. This is clearly a special case involving godly men. Extrapolating it
to all the wicked deeds of godless humans is totally irresponsible.
The crucifixion of Christ is another example usually given since Peter
affirmed both human involvement and God’s “determinative counsel and
foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). The use of the term compatibilism tries to harmo-
nize man’s part with God’s direct causation of the crucifixion. Did God
coerce godless men to do what they did? But all Christians are compatibil-
ists in some sense. Non-determinists focus rather on Peter’s reference to
God’s foreknowledge as an adequate explanation without coercion. Going
beyond simple foreknowledge to middle knowledge helps even more to
understand how God could bring about the cross without coercion. God in
His infinite omniscience can orchestrate circumstances to bring about the
desired end without any coercion of the participants.
The question which needs to be discussed, however, is whether these
touted examples of compatibilism can be extrapolated to encompass all
activity in human history. These are obviously special cases. A medical

researcher would call this evidence merely “anecdotal.” There must be a
more comprehensive study of data, and Calvinists have not adduced any
other Scriptural proof of wall-to-wall compatibilism other than their spin on
Ephesians 1:11. This was discussed exegetically in Chapter 2.
A root error of logic and philosophy

It is vital to reinforce the warning in Chapter 2 (pp. 35-36) of a fundamen-
tal philosophic error which I was taught and accepted for many years until
Buswell’s statement exposed a root error of logic. Boettner had argued, as
did my professor, that God cannot know that which He has not already
determined. Buswell’s significant response was: “But it is presumptuous for man
to claim to know what kind of things God could or could not know. There is a mystery in
knowledge which will probably never be resolved for us. . . . For men to declare that God could
not know a free event in the future seems to me sheer dogmatism.”24 This error is
common to both hyper-Calvinism and open theism. Since God is EL OLAM,
the eternal God, He is not limited by the time dimension of the created
universe and can easily foresee the free events of the future. The problem
with the Calvinists is that they deny that there are any free events in the
future since they hold to exhaustive determinism. Even worse, the open
theists deny God’s foreknowledge of free events.
Failure to distinguish the difference between certainty of the future and
determinism of the future is a simple error of logic and language. Our eternal
God is so infinite in His attribute of omniscience that He can surely know
future free events without having first determined them. Any claim that we
can limit God’s foreknowledge in any such philosophical ways is arrogant.
Additionally, it makes an attribute of God (His omniscience) contingent upon
something He does (His will), which is a total reversal. Imad Shahadeh
identified this as an error of Islamic theology, which must be rooted out of
Christian theology. Unfortunately, even Jonathan Edwards was among many
who apparently did not see this simple distinction.25 William E. Gladstone
put it so aptly: “But, surely as vision is a thing totally separate from causation, so is
prevision: and it is a confusion of ideas to mix certainty with necessity”.26
This is illustrated by weather forecasters who are certain that a cold front
with heavy cells of thunderstorms will arrive this afternoon. How can they be
so certain? It is a massive front confronting a hot, humid mass of air, and
they can see it on the radar approaching from the west. They did not deter-
mine the weather and there is a slight possibility that they could be wrong in
this case. But our God has far better resources than radar to prognosti-
cate—His omniscience. Indeed, biblical prophecy is very explicit and 100%
accurate, both as far as free future events and also for those events which He
has determined will happen. Determinists try to make foreknowledge and
foreordination synonymous, but the linguistic error of this has been demon-
strated (cf. Chs. 22-24). So both determinists and open theists are in error.27
Arminius was moved by simple logic to see this most important point as
expressed in his disputation with Gomarus. Carl Bangs explained: “One of the
principle arguments was that the foreknowledge of God does not predetermine what is
known.”28 Middle knowledge also helps resolve the problem since it affirms
on a biblical basis that God has knowledge of counterfactuals, which He
foresees but clearly does not determine.
Help from middle knowledge

William Lane Craig has been a major modern proponent of the concept
of middle knowledge in The Only Wise God.29 Although this concept first
surfaced from the writings of a sixteenth-century Jesuit, Luis de Molina, it has
much to commend it in the Scriptures. In many discussions of Open Theism
at the ETS 2000 annual meeting, a number of presenters of diverse view-
points were positive about middle knowledge.30 Apparently Craig’s advo-
cacy is having an impact. Essentially this view holds that God has more than
simple foreknowledge, but also a knowledge of future counterfactuals. The
best evidence comes from the account in 1 Samuel 23:6-13 about David’s
flight to the walled city of Keilah. David found out Saul knew he was in
Keilah, so he inquired of the Lord whether Saul would come down and
besiege the city and whether the men of Keilah would surrender him into his
hands. God gave a positive answer to both questions so David and his 600
men fled. Therefore Saul did not come down to Keilah. Here is a clear
example of God’s foreknowledge of counterfactuals. Another passage is
Matthew 11:20-24, where the Lord Jesus stated that if the mighty miracles He
had performed in Galilee had been performed in Sodom, Tyre, and Sidon,
they would have repented long ago. This was not just an educated guess
based upon His knowledge of the probabilities, but it must be taken as
evidence that His omniscience extended to counterfactuals. The Apostle
Paul also evidenced middle knowledge by the Holy Spirit in his statement of
1 Corinthians 2:6-8 that if the rulers of this age had understood God’s previ-
ously hidden wisdom of the gospel of Christ, “they would not have crucified the
Lord of glory.” Later in the chapter (2:10-16) Paul affirmed that verbal, plenary
revelation which enabled him to speak so dogmatically about a counter-
factual. See also Jeremiah 38:17 for another example.
Kenneth Keathley, in his defense of Molinism,* dealt well with theologi-
cal fatalism, that foreknowledge entails necessity. He suggested that it
confuses necessity with certainty. “God necessarily knew what decision Simon Peter
would take. It was not necessary that Simon make a particular choice. Simon could have
denied Christ twice or four times (or not at all), but necessarily Jesus would have correctly
known Peter’s response and prophesied accordingly.” He gave many other biblical
examples of this important distinction between necessity and certainty.31
A chess game is a poor illustration of middle knowledge. A chess player
constantly tries to consider all the options his opponent has even though only
one of them will eventuate. The game is built upon prescience of
counterfactuals. A chess player with no real prescience is working with
probabilities. God, however, has real prescience of both events that eventu-
ate and counterfactuals. This helps understanding how God can manipulate
history to what extent He desires without coercion of the players involved.
By virtue of middle knowledge, God works out His plan of redemption of
humanity without being a puppeteer pulling the strings.
Since middle knowledge is true biblically, it totally destroys Open
Theism, which does not even acknowledge simple foreknowledge. But if
Calvinists continue to argue that God cannot know that which He has not
determined, then they have a serious problem with middle knowledge.
Obviously, God has not determined these counterfactuals since they will not
eventuate. By their reasoning God can not know them. Obviously He does!
Geisler’s defense of free will

Norman Geisler, as a minimal Calvinist, has done an excellent job of
defending free will logically and from the church fathers of the first four
centuries (cf. Ch. 3 & 20). Here is a summary of Geisler’s arguments:
Much, if not most, of the problem in discussing “free will” is that the term is defined
differently by various persons in the dispute. As explained in chapter 2, logically there are
only three basic views: self-determination (self-caused actions), determinism (actions caused
by another), and indeterminism (acts with no cause whatever). Indeterminism is a violation of
the law of causality that every event has a cause, and determinism is a violation of free will,
since the moral agent is not causing his own actions.
There are, of course, several varieties of self-determinism. Some contend that all moral
acts must be free only from all external influence. Others insist they must be free from both
external and internal influence, that is truly neutral. But they all have in common that,
whatever influence there may be on the will, the agent could have done otherwise. That is,
they could have chosen the opposite course of action.32
Rather than summarize his answers to objections to self-determinism fre-

quently raised, go to Appendix 4 in his book just quoted.
Geisler raised the question occasioned by that catch phrase that come-
dian, Flip Wilson, constantly used: “The Devil made me do it.” Judas might
be able to get away with that excuse, but surely that holy angel Lucifer
cannot use it and we can not blame God either for causing him to rebel and
become the Devil. Some extreme determinists, including Luther, attributed
Satan’s sin to God, but it is contradictory to think that God is causing beings
to act in opposition to Himself. An intrinsic attribute of God is His goodness
and holiness; He cannot sin, or even look with approval upon sin (Hab. 1:13).
“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be
tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone” (Jas. 1:13). Certainly God
created Adam good with free will or self-determination. But how do
determinists solve the problem of where Lucifer and Adam got the desire for
their first sin. R. C. Sproul called this an “excruciating problem,”33 but it is such
only to determinists who deny genuine free will. Geisler continued, “. . . if the
followers of Jonathan Edwards insist on clinging to their flawed view of human freedom, then
their God must take the rap for giving Lucifer and Adam the desire to sin.”34 In Chapter 28,
we saw how many of Edwards’ protégés and even his own son and grand-
son moved to a middle New-Divinity view. They were right to abandon

limited atonement but wrong to abandon substitution in the cross. They
should have scrapped their determinism.
In answering the objection that since God is the ultimate cause of all
things, nothing can be self-caused, Geisler made a very important distinction
between the impossibility of a self-caused being (except for God) and the
possibility of a self-caused action. Lucifer’s sin is proof of a self-caused
action. Sometimes such simple distinctions can be exceedingly important in
clarifying these issues. Since God created angels and humans as moral
beings with free will and responsibility for their actions, self-caused actions
must be a reality in this universe. The earliest chapters of Genesis show that
God delegated responsibility to Adam and subsequently to all mankind by
which He was limiting the exercise of His own sovereignty.
Indeed, Geisler developed the fact of responsibility and man’s ability to
respond despite the inherited sin nature. All Evangelicals agree “that God holds
free creatures morally responsible for their free choices.” He referred to Lucifer, the
other angels, Adam and Eve, and all humans since the Fall.
However, sound reason demands that there is no responsibility where there is no ability
to respond. It is not rational to hold someone responsible when they (sic.) could not have
responded. And God is not irrational. His omniscience means God is the most rational Being
in the universe. Therefore, reason also demands that all moral creatures are morally free; that
is, they have the ability to respond one way or another. . . . logic seems to insist that such
moral obligations imply that we have self-determining moral free choice. For ought implies
can. That is, what we ought to do implies that we can do it. Otherwise, we have to assume
that the Moral Lawgiver is prescribing the irrational, commanding that we do what is literally
impossible for us to do.35
We must hold to free will primarily because of the prima facie indications of
the whole biblical history of redemption buttressed by exegesis of the
doctrinal passages. Geisler’s logic is good additional corroboration.
Determinism as a Massive Extrapolation

An alert reader will note how frequently ‘extrapolation’ is used in this
book. The reason is because Calvinism is itself a massive extrapolation of
the biblical data. It is “off the chart.” In every other area of thought extrapo-
lation is exceedingly dangerous and is even more dangerous in theology.
1. It extrapolates the sparse biblical data on God’s decrees as the basis for
a whole system.
2. By ignoring God’s self-limitation of the exercise of His sovereignty, it
extrapolates the impact of His sovereignty in the world.
3. It extrapolates human depravity to total depravity and thence to total
inability to respond to God’s claims and gospel.
4. By ignoring the provisional nature of the cross, it extrapolates its efficacy
to only the elect, while restricting it from the ‘non-elect.’
5. By making God’s foreknowledge contingent upon His will, it extrapolates

the importance of God’s will above His attributes in all theology.
6. It extrapolates the biblical/linguistic data for foreknowledge to make it
essentially equivalent to predestination.
7. It extrapolates the biblical/linguistic data for preappointment/foreordina-
tion to make it predestination.
8. It extrapolates God’s effectual calling to be irresistible grace.
9. By assuming that so-called election is individual and unconditional, it
extrapolates its significance in the plan of salvation. This is all based
upon the transliteration, not the translation, of eklegomai and cognates.
10. By ignoring the place of the conviction of the Spirit in conversion, it
extrapolates the domain of the new birth to become the cause of faith.
11. It extrapolates a few examples of compatibilism to all events.
12. It extrapolates the applicability of Ephesians 1:11 to all events.
13. It extrapolates the mistranslated biblical data on so-called election/
predestination to be the central motif of its theology.
Conclusions
There is an intellectual appeal of a difficult and labyrinthian system of
theology which seems to be based upon the subtle nuancing of certain
Scriptures not obvious to the simple reader and upon abstruse philosophical
reasonings. Dave Hunt made this point repeatedly in his refutation of
Calvinism.36 This is why it has attracted some of the most brilliant minds
over the centuries and currently tends to be at the forefront of evangelical
scholarship. Many of these subtleties are not accessible to the simple reader
of Scripture, nor is their gospel the simple gospel accessible to the babes.
Those of us who don’t have that intellectual brilliance can take comfort in
the prayer of Christ: “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have
hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.
Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight” (Mt. 11:25-26). It is not
mere fideism to give priority to biblical exegesis and leave the abstruse
reasonings to the philosophers. It is being responsive to the warnings of
Christ and His Apostles.
1. In teaching college mathematics an extensive section of my text on the relationship of set theory, Venn diagrams,
and symbolic logic, has proved to be most helpful in avoiding erroneous interpretations of Bible texts.
2. Harry A. Wolfson, Philo, (Harvard, 1947) 2 vols.
3. Norman Geisler, Chosen, But Free, pp. 161-174.
4. William S. Sahakian, History of Philosophy (Barnes and Noble Books, 1968), p. 88-9 (a secular writer).
5. Charles S. McCoy, “Johannes Cocceius: Federal Theologian,” Scottish Journal of Theology, 16:365.
6. Brian G. Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, p. 32.
7. James Daane, The Freedom of God, pp. 153-4. Daane was an editor of the Reformed Journal.
8. John Sanders, “Historical Considerations,” in The Openness of God, pp. 59-100.
9. Bruce Ware, “An Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of God,” J ETS, 29:4, pp. 431-449.
10. Buswell, Systematic Theology, vol. I, pp. 46-64.
11. Robert M. Kingdon, “Theodore Beza” in McKee and Armstrong, eds., Probing the Reformed Tradition (Louisville:
John Knox, 1989), p. 239; Timothy George, The Theology of the Reformers, p. 170; Heiko A. Oberman, “Initia
Calvini,” in Neuser, Calvinus Sacrae Scripturae Professor (Eerdmans, 1994), p.119.
12. A. N. S. Lane, ed. John Calvin’s The Bondage and Liberation of the Will , pp. xxiv-xxvi; Oberman, pp. 121-2, 153.
13. Kingdon, pp 241-243.
14. Theodore Beza in a letter to Pierre (Peter) Ramus, cited by Carl Bangs, Arminius; cf. Armstrong, Amyraut, p. 38.
15. Armstrong, p. 38.
16. Alan C. Clifford, Atonement and Justification: English Evangelical Theology (1640-1790) an Evaluation (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1990) pp. 95-96. The studies he references are Armstrong, Amyraut Heresy, pp. 38ff, 127ff; A.
E. McGrath, the Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Oxford, 1987), pp. 191-6; I. McPhee, “Conserver
or transformer of Calvin’s Theology? A study in the origins and development of Theodore Beza’s thought, 1550-
1570", (Cambridge: PhD thesis, 1979) pp. 354ff.
17. John Macleod, Scottish Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1946), pp. 145-166; M. Charles Bell, Calvin
and Scottish Theology: A Doctrine of Assurance (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1985), pp. 151-203.
18. Vance, pp. 147-8; Fisk, Calvinistic Paths, pp. 49-65.
19. Geisler, pp. 67-68; 52-53.
20. John T. McNeil, The History and Character of Calvinism (NY: Oxford, 1967), pp. 107-121.
21. William G. MacDonald, “The Biblical Doctrine of Election,” in Pinnock, ed., The Grace of God, p. 225.
22. John Feinberg, “God Ordains All Things,” in Basinger and Basinger, Predestination and Free Will, pp. 24-25.
23. Feinberg, None Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001). He has fourteen references to Eph.
1:11, including some major sections, but never examined the Greek ta panta, as to its incusiveness.
24. Buswell, I:46.
25. Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin, p. 431, cited by James D. Strauss, “God’s Promise and Universal History,” in
Pinnock, ed., Grace Unlimited, pp. 246-7.
26. W. E. Gladstone, in a footnote in his edition of Butler’s Analogy, p. 131, cited by Fisk. Sovereignty, p. 83.
27. William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God: the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom
(Baker, 1987), pp. 31-34.
28. Carl Bangs, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation, p. 253. This was a disputation on July 10, 1603.
29. Craig, Wise God; and Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991).
30. Notes of various sessions show Terrence Tiessen was positive and Dave Hunt quite open to it.
31. Kenneth Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2010), pp. 31-8.
32. Norman L. Geisler, Chosen But Free, p. 175.
33. R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1986), p. 31.
34. Geisler, pp. 19ff.
35. Ibid, pp. 29-30.
36. Dave Hunt, What Love Is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God.
Christ sent His disciples into all the world, and He
30
instructed them to preach the gospel to every crea-
ture. If, then, election means that all those whom
God has arbitrarily chosen will certainly get to
Heaven, and that all those whom He has not chosen
will certainly not get there, no matter how faithfully
and frequently the gospel may be preached to them,
then why be greatly agitated about it? True, we
have the command to take the gospel into all the
world; but if only some are thus ‘elected,’ why be
greatly disturbed about it? -Henry C. Thiessen
DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
Is this book a tempest in a teapot? Many naive Christians might think so.
It has been shown that both Calvinism and Arminianism as systems are
seriously flawed, and the truth is in the middle. Each has some scriptural
features and unscriptural ones. But what difference does it make, after all?
Since doctrine (the teaching of Christ and the Apostles) is the only
foundation for a sound Christian life, it makes a vast difference in our walk
and service for God. It has a major impact upon our witness to the lost and
the discipling of believers. All Christians should have a concern for truth and
for the way Scripture is interpreted and proclaimed. If these theological
systems have deflected us from grasping and fulfilling the core of God’s plan,
this is indeed a serious problem. If believers have majored on the minor and
minored on the major, they are accountable at the judgment seat of Christ.
These days the secular media are filled with distorted images of evan-
gelical Christianity, more than ever before. Deterministic* theology has given
Christians bad press for centuries. We have a serious apologetic* problem,
whether in academia, the media, within Christendom, with Jews, Muslims,
Hindus, or cultists. Christians are viewed as gay-bashers, abortionist killers,
haters of Muslims, a threat to Jews, and the list goes on. Calvinists don’t
need to add to these that our God is an angry, arbitrary despot, who has
already destined the mass of humanity to hell quite irrespective of anything
anybody can do. The Elmer Gantry image of extreme Arminian TV evange-
lists has not helped. We must not add offense to that of the cross.
The Impact on the Christian Life

Starting where we all live, the track record of both Calvinists and
Arminians in living a balanced Christian life is not great.
432
Chapter 30 DOES IT REALLY MATTER? 433
Assurance. The assurance of salvation is most significant as a basis for

a stable Christian life. Both Arminians and hyper-Calvinists deny that any
Christian can be sure of ultimate salvation. Legions of Calvinists have
agonized until their dying day over whether or not they were among the
elect, even though they believe that the elect will surely persevere. On the
other hand, Arminians believe they can be sure of present salvation, but not
of ultimate perseverance. Both options are terrifying! This is not a defect in
God’s plan of salvation but of defective doctrine.
Prayer. The efficacy of prayer is another serious problem with which
Calvinists struggle. This is one of many areas in which the criticism of
Calvinism by Open Theism is valid. Unfortunately both are in error. God
does respond to the prayers of His people because the future is not set in
concrete by any immutable decrees of God. God does not change as to His
character, but He does change in His ways of dealing with people. The Bible
is unambiguous that God does actually respond to the prayers of His people.
Conditional love. The limitations on God’s love make a tremendous
difference in the Christian life for both Calvinists and Arminians. Conditional
security means conditional love for Arminians, and the restriction of His love
in limited atonement is just as serious a limitation. How can we have a good
relationship with a God whose love is conditional, limited, or arbitrary?
Legalism. All Christians must fight legalism, but both extreme Calvin-
ists and Arminians are prone to it. One serious form of legalism is writing off
problem Christians as counterfeits because they don’t measure up to our
legalistic standard. Calvin was a legalist,1 and hyper-Calvinism falls into
legalistic introspection very easily. Many Calvinists say if we don’t deny
ourselves and take up a cross and follow Christ, we are not Christians. How
much must we deny ourselves, how much must we mortify the old man,
how closely must we follow Christ to qualify as true Christians? This type of
back-loading of the gospel with discipleship salvation is a serious form of
legalism. It caused great soul agony for the Puritans. It is rife among Armin-
ians also. How many Arminians developed not only a lifestyle legalism but
also a legalistic understanding of the terms of salvation? The Lord Jesus
said, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” He was the enemy of phari-
saic legalism, which is not conducive to a balanced Christian life.
Self-righteous pride. Pride was the original sin of Lucifer, which made
him Satan. It was prominent in the mindset of the Pharisees. When Calvin-
ists focus upon themselves as God’s ‘elect,’ there is a serious danger of
denigrating both the ‘non-elect’ and those who do not agree with them.
Sproul’s calling those who believe in the priority of faith “barely Christian” is
outrageous! Ironically, they claim this as a view which magnifies God’s
grace, but it tends to be a source of spiritual pride instead. John R. Rice put
it bluntly: “The heresy of extreme Calvinism is particularly appealing to people. . . . to the
scholarly intellect, the self-sufficient and proud mind. So brilliant, philosophical, scholarly
preachers are apt to be misled on this matter more than the humble-hearted Bible believer.”2
On the other hand, sinless perfectionism is also a great wellspring of
pride. “I haven’t sinned in ten years!” “I have received the second blessing
and am now living on a higher plane of Christian experience.” “I have been
baptized in the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues.” All of this is very intimidat-
ing to other Christians and is far from humble.
Irresponsible, unmotivated personal lives. Norman Geisler spelled
it out: “Extreme Calvinism leads logically (if not practically) to personal irresponsibility: if our
actions are good actions, they are such only because God has programmed us to do good; if
evil, then we cannot help it because we are sinners by nature and God has not given us the
desire to do good.”3 On a practical level, I have heard scholarly Calvinists
rationalize sin as part of the will of God. Edward Bowlen put it bluntly, “To
say that one believes in man’s responsibility, but not in free-will, merely begs the question
since, obviously, there could be no responsibility if there were not first a free moral agent
whose volitional choices implied and accrued responsibility. Free-will and responsibility are
inseparable.”4 Calvinist Iain Murray wrote of British hyper-Calvinists, “Divine
sovereignty was maintained and taught, not only in exaggerated proportions, but to the
practical exclusion of moral responsibility” (italics his).5 What Murray did not grasp is
that the problem is just as acute for any Calvinists who believe in all-inclusive
decree(s) of God. Resort to antinomy or paradox does not really resolve it.
A. H. Strong stated: “Denial that the will is free has serious and pernicious consequences
in theology. On the one hand, it weakens even if it does not destroy man’s conviction with
regard to responsibility, sin, guilt and retribution.”6
On the other hand, my early Christian experience of my Arminian pastor
calling sin “a mistake” in order to maintain his perfectionist theology is a
similar rationalization. Drop the bar so low that you can jump over it! It is
difficult enough to motivate most Christians to actively seek and do the will
of God without introducing contrary notions into their minds. Even some
who are motivated have an unbiblical motivation. Arminians are often
motivated by fear of losing salvation, but then again, Calvinists are often
working hard to prove that they are among the elect. The true motivation
should be our gratitude for what He has already done for us and is ready to
do for “whosoever will” (2 Cor. 5:10). “For the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires
and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age . . .” (Titus 2:11-12).
Blaming God. Non-Christians quite regularly blame God for every
calamity coming into their lives. Of course, they are ignorant of the fact that
weather-caused calamities are a consequence of the inauguration of sea-
sonal weather patterns after the Noahic deluge (Gen. 2:5-5; 8:22), which in
turn was part of God’s judgment upon mankind for their violence. Isn’t it a
travesty then that deterministic Christians also attribute everything that
happens directly to God? Although Christians believe in God’s providence in
our lives, most of what happens in the world is a consequence of Satan and
his godless forces and a fallen human race which is a part of his evil world-
system. Did not Christ call him the “prince of this world” and Paul refer to him
as “the God of this world?” Many Calvinists rationalize this by saying that Satan
is already bound and God is sovereign. God gets enough blame from non-
Christians without misguided Calvinists joining their ranks in blaming God.
The Impact on God’s Truth

In our day of relativism most people do not believe in absolute truth.
Most Christians really don’t care much about doctrine and are very subjec-
tive in their Christian lives and faith. “Whatever turns you on,” “whatever
floats your boat,”-–these are the mottoes of the day, even among Christians.
Whatever seems to meet our material, emotional, and/or physical needs is
acceptable, even if it is absolute heresy. But truth does matter! The Lord
Jesus claimed to be absolute truth (Jn. 14:6) and He claimed that God’s
word is absolute truth (Mt. 5:18; Jn. 10:35). The Greek word for truth
(alçtheia) has as a key idea ‘reality,’ or ‘actuality.’7 Those who are prey to
doctrinal error are living in a realm of unreality, believing things which are
not actual or true! Our focus has been upon the theology of salvation, but
actually all the categories of theology are affected by polarized error. As one
might gather from Chapter 2, the biblical view of God is vastly impacted, and
from Chapter 3, our understanding of man and sin. These systems impact
our view of the Bible and the work of Christ. Thus, it bleeds through our
whole view of God, Christ, man, sin, salvation, and even of the church.
Views of God. As Dave Hunt emphasized, Calvinism misrepresents
God as a loveless God. The notion of a passionless God connects with this.
Arminianism fails to portray his justice adequately. Christian ethics teaches
that the whole of biblical ethics flows from the person and work of God.8
God’s character should be reflected in us. In Chapter 2, it was shown that
there is no biblical basis for an exaggerated concept of the sovereignty of
God, which would make Him an arbitrary despot, like Allah of the Muslims.
The notion of the impassibility of God also meets with insuperable
difficulties when philosophy is set aside and the simple Scripture text is
examined. One can hardly read ten chapters in the prophets without finding
God’s emotional involvement with His people graphically portrayed. This
cannot be explained away as anthropomorphism or even anthropopathism.
How many of the prophets spoke of God’s undying love for Israel? How
often does the New Testament speak of God’s love for the church, and even
for a lost world (hyper-Calvinists notwithstanding). Is not love an emotion?
We use the fact that the Holy Spirit is grieved by our sin (Eph. 5:30) as a proof
of His personality. It seems to me that the only ones who might be able to
argue the impassibility of God are non-Christian philosophers who have
never read the Bible. What a distorted picture! But it is out of this distorted
image of God that the notion of a God who does not love lost sinners arises,
that this God can reprobate the majority of humankind to hell without any
possibility of their being saved.
The God of Calvinism is an arbitrary, coercive God. He is a God who

impelled Augustine to persecute the Donatists to the death with the sword of
the Roman government, a God who impelled Calvin to not allow Servetus to
be beheaded but to agree to his burning at the stake; a God who impelled
Calvin to have Jacques Gruet tortured twice daily until he confessed to
insulting him, whereupon he was beheaded.9 Today we would call such a
person a “control freak,” and such an epithet seems appropriate for the God
Calvin portrayed by his theology and example. Calvin with his brilliant legal
mind was applying an exaggerated view of the Mosaic Law to the New
Testament church. If it be argued that Calvin was a creature of his times (a
poor excuse), this cannot be said for Augustine since the church fathers
before and contemporary with him objected to the coercive use of force.
This was one of the evils of Romanism against which Calvin should have
revolted in light of clear New Testament teaching. In Chapter 2, it was
demonstrated that there is absolutely no biblical basis for such a distorted
concept of the sovereignty of God or of the fancied divine decrees which
supposedly set His plan for the universe into fatalistic concrete.
On the other hand, we find that Arminians have tended to downplay the
justice of God by seeing God’s love as His primary attribute. As a conse-
quence, the forensic, legal dimension of the cross was abandoned by the
Remonstrants in favor of Grotius’ governmental theory. Far more serious is
the view of Open Theism which denies the absolute foreknowledge of God
through an attempt to redefine it in harmony with process philosophy.
Views of humanity. In Chapter 3, the extrapolation of human depravity
into total inability was shown to be without biblical warrant. This had its
devastating impact upon global missions for centuries since the ‘heathen’
were represented as so depraved that it was useless to try to evangelize
them. Even among nominal Christians, the notion of total inability was made
the basis for opposition to any confrontation of sinners with the gospel of
Christ. The general impact of all of this upon the Christian community was
a pessimism about the possibility of salvation, both on the part of the sinner
and on the part of the preacher. What a thrill it was to discover that the
myriads who were converted to Christ in the Great Awakenings in Great
Britain and New England were saved through those who preached that
Christ died for all without exception. In the second Awakening in Calvinistic
New England through New-Divinity pastors, the common people were
finding out that depravity did not mean inability to exercise repentant faith.
This extrapolation of depravity into virtual denial of the image of God dehu-
manizes man and makes him out to be less than God’s word shows him to
be. On the other hand, Arminians tend to emphasize human ability too
much, and easily lapse into semi-Pelagianism.*
Views of the Bible. Many Arminians have a problem with inerrancy* of
Scripture, probably because they find the Scripture to be self-contradictory.
When the interpretation of diverse passages on eternal security comes out
with contradictory conclusions, trust in inerrancy is undermined. Many

Arminian denominations do not even have a position on inerrancy.
On the other hand, Calvinists also have a problem they have not con-
fronted. If the outworking of God’s sovereignty and decrees is all encom-
passing, then how can it be that certain aspects of Scripture show human
involvement, that is, the imperfect preservation of the text and of transla-
tions. This is not a reference to the the original manuscripts, which are
inerrant, but to the preservation of the text, which all acknowledge is not
perfect. Believing that God works mediately in many of His works in the
world, we should have no problem with that. But if God has decreed “all that
comes to pass” why did He not perfectly preserve the text? Even worse is the
problem of translation. Why did God sovereignly allow that corrupt Vulgate
version to dominate Christendom for over a millennium? Why did God allow
the KJV with its many mistranslations to dominate the English-speaking
world for so many centuries? We who don’t buy into the all-inclusive
decree(s) of God still have questions, but these are minuscule compared to
the problems of Calvinists. But God overrules, and the Spirit uses our
translations even though less than perfect.
Views of Christ. There have been many distorted pictures of Christ in
past theology. When Catholic theology portrayed both Father and Son in a
stern and wrathful way with Mary as the loving intercessor, Lutherans sought
to correct that by portraying Christ as the loving intercessor with a God of
wrath. Both Lutheran and Calvinistic theology have tended to portray Christ
as propitiating and reconciling a wrathful God. Nineteenth-century pietists*
in Scandinavia began to question that picture with the question, “Where is it
written?” Of course, a host of passages affirm the love of God in taking the
initiative in salvation (Jn. 3:16; Rom. 5:8, etc.), but hyper-Calvinism denies
God’s love for a lost world and similarly restricts the love of Christ to the
‘elect.’ The whole Tri-unity of God is united in their love for mankind.
Views of salvation. The history of theology is full of human over-
reaction. Doctrinal error in one direction was overcompensated in the
opposite direction. Pelagius’ man-centered distortion of salvation was
countered by Augustine’s overreaction of a deterministic concept of God’s
grace. Although the synod of Orange (529)* arrived at a semi-Augustinian
resolution, the medieval Catholic church drifted increasingly to semi-
Pelagianism.* The Reformers reacted by repackaging Augustine’s determin-
ism and restoring justification by grace through faith, but they retained much
of his church-centered concept of salvation. Although Melanchthon sought
to soften Luther’s determinism, his successors over-reacted. Then, the
Reformed* movement was hijacked by Beza and associates.
A score of movements were identified which sought to correct this over-
reaction and move away from determinism. Arminius’ correction itself got
hijacked by the Remonstrants*.10 The Wesleyan movement brought theol-
ogy back to a more evangelical position, although developing other unbibli-
cal strains (cf. Ch. 18). There were continuous universalist reactions against
the narrow determinism of the Reformers and their successors. Those with
a liberalizing mindset took the biblical truth of Christ’s death for all and
universalized salvation by failing to distinguish the objective ransom from the
subjective liberation. This was a reaction to the narrowness of determinism.
Geisler rightly showed it logically lays the ground for universalism: “If God can
save anyone to whom He gives the desire to be saved, then why does He not give the desire
to all people?” (italics his). If God is a loving God, why does He not use His
irresistible grace to save all?11 Calvinists have no answer to universalism
except to deny God’s universal love. No wonder universalism has flourished
in heavily Calvinistic areas, such as New England.
Howard Hageman wrote: “Not only can such a view of predestination easily lead
to universalism, it can just as easily lead to the blurring of all moral distinctions.” Neve
pointed out that the universalist leader, Hosea Ballou, was “a determinist, for,
according to him, if the will of God to save all shall be carried out, the will of man must be
denied the power of resistance.” Nels F. S. Ferré was a universalist because of his
belief in the sovereignty of God: “A theology based on sovereign love will uncompro-
misingly stand for universal salvation. Anything less would be inconsistent with God’s love.”
Perhaps even more telling is hyper-Calvinist Arthur Custance’s leaning
toward the probability of universalism.12 We could fairly say that universal-
ism is the unpaid debt of Calvinism!
The Calvinistic gospel is not good news for all sinners. It is bad news for
most. This is just a message of resignation to the inexorable will of God. It
is not simply that Christians differ as to the content of the gospel; there is no
good news to discuss. The hyper-Calvinists with which Fuller and Spurgeon
struggled were absolutely consistent–there is no need to preach to the
unconverted. If election is unconditional, then it can neither be contingent
upon human preaching nor the response of the sinner. This is more like the
Islam I heard in my years in Pakistan. Islam is a religion of submission to the
inexorable will of the sovereign Muslim god, Allah.
On the other hand, Arminian denial of eternal security leaves us with a
temporary salvation, more akin to probation than the full acquittal of justifi-
cation by faith alone. Such an insecure view of salvation held by both
Arminians and hyper-Calvinists is not a solid base for building a stable
Christian life of assurance and blessing.
Usurping the true meaning of Scripture. The main body of this book
has been devoted to the interpretation of crucial Scripture passages, by
carefully examining the contexts, the usage of key words in the literature, the
grammar and syntax of each sentence, and the analogy of Scripture without
resort to parallelomania.* We tried to consistently use an inductive, exegeti-
cal approach and sought to alert readers concerning many ways people go
astray in interpreting the word of God. The most serious is theological
interpretation, that is, coming to Scripture with a theological position and
seeking with a deductive methodology to harmonize the given passage with
that viewpoint. That approach is totally backwards! It is imperative to start
with an inductive, exegetical approach. Unless philosophical presupposi-

tions and biases are eliminated as we handle the word of God, we are in
danger of heresy. To fail to do so is to allow a theological or philosophical
system to usurp the true meaning of God’s word. In the parable of the soils
Christ spoke about the fourth kind of people, “who have heard the word in an
honest and good heart, hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance” (Lk. 8:15). This
must be the goal of every Christian. The content of the good news is of
highest importance in producing genuine fruit for God, fruit which will persist
and survive the fires of God’s judgments. It is not only foundational to
bearing fruit for God but essential in honoring His word. We bring discredit
to God, His church, His word, and His gospel when we indulge in deductive,
theological interpretation.
The Impact on Preaching

Reformed homiletician, James Daane, wrote a significant critique of
decretal theology* because of his conviction that it is unpreachable.13
Obviously Arminians are not preaching election, but he observed that the
Reformed* are not preaching Calvinism either, because it is unpreachable!
This caused him to reexamine the biblical basis of ‘decretal theology.’ He
argued the problem of preaching decretal theology is reprobation: “Simply
stated, reprobation gets in the way of every attempt to take election seriously because in the
traditional Reformed theology reprobation is always there (italics his).” Although I have
not been a part of the Reformed tradition, I have sat under the ministry of at
least three hyper-Calvinists for an extensive period, one of whom wrote a
book on election. I cannot recall any of them ever giving any exposition of
Calvinistic doctrine from the pulpit although all three inconsistently believed
in evangelism and missions. Calvinists who believe in global evangelism are
faced with an insuperable dilemma. Preaching their Calvinism along with
the necessity of exercising repentant faith proves counterproductive. Cer-
tainly Calvinism is not the gospel, and preaching them together will not only
seem contradictory, but also will be offensive and a hindrance to unsaved
hearers. Another urgent question is whether a preacher should believe
something he cannot preach. It smacks of insincerity to have a hidden
Calvinistic agenda which cannot be preached to the unsaved. Daane’s
solution to the dilemma is to move away from philosophically-derived
decretal theology to a more biblically based doctrine, centering upon God’s
election (appointment) of the Lord Jesus as the Messiah. Indeed, this is the
goal of this whole book.
The Impact on Apologetics

Much harm has been done by the oft-quoted statement of Spurgeon that
since the Bible is like a lion, we don’t have to defend it, just let it go. We
know the word of God is like a hammer, a mirror, and a sword but no
reference to the Bible being like a lion (2 Pet. 5:8). Today, lions are an
endangered species! Spurgeon’s simile is questionable with a negative
impact since then. He was a hero of the faith in carrying Fuller’s emphasis
on confronting sinners with the gospel to the next generation. However, one
wonders if his commitment to Calvinism did not distort his perspective on
the value of apologetics since his reticence may go back to Calvin. Dave
Hunt demonstrated by extensive quotes from Calvin he had “little use for
evidence and proof.” In emphasizing the internal testimony of the Spirit, Calvin
denigrated external evidences for the inspiration of Scripture. Hunt pointed
out that Muslims, Mormons, and others give their own subjective testimonies
for the truth of their holy books since they lack any external objective sup-
port.14 Granted, in the last century many Calvinists have been at the forefront
of the use of apologetics, but it really is inconsistent with their view of man
and salvation. If man is dead in total inability, an apologetic argument is not
going to have any impact. In Chapter 28, the biblical paradigm for persua-
sion evangelism was given, of which apologetics is a vital part.A
A starting point of apologetics is the arguments for the existence of God
from creation. Starting with the premise of total inability, it is obvious that if
the gospel cannot impact the ‘non-elect,’ certainly the naturalistic arguments
would be even more useless. This is the major reason why Reformed
thinkers such as Cornelius Van Til and Karl Barth had so little use for these
arguments and why Buswell, as a very low Calvinist, held such empirical
evidences in high regard, albeit inconsistently. Determinism seems so
absurd to most non-Christians that it raises serious obstacles to their consid-
eration of the gospel. Historically knowledgeable people already have a
negative impression of Calvin and the Puritans, but when they learn about
unconditional election, the turnoff is complete. Hyper-Calvinists face the
same problem with making God the author of evil amd being the ultimate
discriminator of persons since He supposedly gives the gift of faith to so few
in many nations and to so many Americans.
Resorting to Philosophical Sophistries

There is a real concern about the harmful influence of philosophic
systems upon theology, especially in Calvinistic theology. The heavy de-
pendence upon words like antinomy, paradox, and mystery are highly
troubling. Expressions like “soft determinism” and compatibilism as expla-
nations for the contradictions of the system are a smoke-screen, not a logical
explanation. Daane charged that commitment to decretal theology* only
produces “word games.” Geisler called it “word magic.”15
We faulted the widespread failure to make a simple distinction between
A. With the devastating inroads of liberalism in their denominations, Calvinists, such as Machen,
Warfield, and Wilson, were forced to use apologetic tools to defend the faith, and Sproul, D. James
Kennedy, and others have picked up the mantle, although not really compatible with their theology.
God’s certainty of the future and determining of the whole future, as a

fundamental error of logic and language. Augustine’s bringing Manichean
fatalistic philosophy into Christian theology is a major concern. The theologi-
cal recklessness of the many extrapolations of language and thought com-
mon among Calvinists is also a major concern. These involve such persis-
tent subtle semantic shifts that calling them sophistries is totally fair. They do
not clarify God’s truth; they only confuse the issues.
Missing the Heart of God’s Great Plan

God’s great plan of the ages is the redemption and restoration of a lost
human race. The promises made to Abraham centered in the blessing to “all
the families of the earth” through Abraham, his lineage of ‘choice’ people, and
through his ‘choice’ seed, the Messiah. Now God’s great predetermined plan
is His “taking from among the Gentiles” a ‘choice’ people for His name (Acts
15:14) to be the citizens of the future kingdom.
Essential to the outworking of His plan is the delegation of God’s
authority and power to humanity to be His instruments in its implementation.
He began by creating Adam and Eve in His image and delegating dominion
to them. This progressive delegation of aspects of His sovereignty reached
its peak in the appointment of the Lord Jesus as His regent King and proof of
this by His resurrection from the dead. As the unique Son of God, He now
delegates the authority to become sons of God to those who by faith receive
Him (Jn. 1:12-13) and commissions them to be trustees (stewards) of the
good news. Since His image is being restored in this new humanity, they are
accountable moral agents in the implementation of this plan by persuasion
evangelism and global outreach. The content of the good news they bear is
of highest importance in producing genuine fruit for God, fruit which will
persist and survive the fires of God’s judgments.
The full historical record is clear that deterministic theology, rather than
helping world evangelism, has been a serious obstacle. In researching the
modern missions movement, one wonders whether there has been a cover-
up of the negative impact of determinism by biased historians. The very
least our discoveries show is that for over a century a very Calvinistic spin
has been put on this history. This is most disturbing!
To the extent our theology of salvation is harmonious with global
evangelism, to that extent it is the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27); but to
what extent it obscures or hinders that plan, to that extent it will be burned
up in the fires of God’s judgments. May every Christian be found searching
the Scriptures with an “honest and good heart” to verify, understand, believe,
obey, and proclaim accurately God’s great eternal plan for the salvation of
people of “every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Rev. 7:9).
Conclusions
Therefore, we exhort Calvinistic readers to go beyond Calvin and Beza,
back to the word of God. We implore Arminians to go beyond Arminius and
Wesley, back to the Bible. We beg Lutherans to go beyond Luther and
Melanchthon to a fresh exegesis of Scripture.
It is imperative that we all break free from the destructive and divisive
polarization of doctrine by going back to the full inspiration, sufficiency, and
priority of the Scriptures in developing theology. Let us make sure that we
have a balanced theology, not majoring in the minor or perhaps even
missing the major themes completely. Let us focus on the heart of God’s
plan of the ages—the redemption of lost humanity through the all-sufficient
blood of Christ’s cross by confronting the lost with the imperative of response
to his bona fide offer of grace by repentant faith. Let us make sure that we
are “telling it like it is,” not binding on earth what God has not bound in
heaven nor loosing on earth what God has not loosed in heaven. Only this
will give the full glory to the Living God.
1. Dave Hunt, What Love Is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God (Sisters, OR: Loyal, 2002), pp. 59-74.
2. John R. Rice, Predestined for Hell? No! (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1958), p. 6, cited by Fisk, p. 198.
3. Geisler, Chosen but Free, p. 132.
4. Edward C. Bowlen, Concise Critique of Contemporary Coercive Calvinism (Westfield, MA: Faith Bible Baptist
Church, 1976), p. 2, cited by Fisk, p. 206.
5. Iain H. Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth,
1995), p. 127.
6. A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, p. 511; among many cited by Fisk, pp. 206-10.
8. Carl F. H. Henry, Christian Personal Ethics (Eerdmans, 1957), pp. 145-71 (not just limited to these pages).
9. Schaff, VIII: p. 503.
10. Stephen M. Ashby, “A Reformed Arminian View,” in J. Matthew Pinson, ed., Four Views on Eternal Security
(Zondervan, 2002), pp. 138, 150. See also the various writings of Carl Bangs.
11. Geisler, pp. 134-5.
12. Howard G. Hageman, Predestination (Phila.: Fortress, 1963), pp. 70-71; J. L. Neve, HCT, II:282; Nels F. S.
Ferré, The Christian Understanding of God (NY: Harper, 1951), pp. 217ff., see also Arthur C. Custance, The
Sovereignty of Grace (GR: Baker, 1979) the latter part of the book, cited by Fisk, p. 218-9.
13. James Daane, The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and the Pulpit (GR: Eerdmans, 1973).
14. Hunt, pp. 394-6, cites Calvin’s Institutes, III: pp. 71-73.
15. Daane, p. 73.
Appendix A
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO
DISPENSATIONAL PREMILLENNIALISM?
This book is virtually unique in showing the errors of both Calvinism

and Arminianism. In the process of writing it, suspicion arose that mediate
theology related to dispensational premillennialism. Among the basic
truths early learned from C. I. Scofield’s booklet, Rightly Dividing the Word
of Truth, is the clear distinction between salvation and rewards and be-
tween law and grace. Dispensationalists, such as L. S. Chafer, emphasize
the Mosaic Law is not our “rule of life” because we live in the age of grace
under the Holy Spirit. The Reformers and Wesley were amillennial and
believed that the Mosaic Law is the believer’s rule of life, so both Calvinists
and Arminians easily fall into legalism. They fail to make basic
dispensational distinctions, and subsequent Covenant Theology exacer-
bated their legalism with failure to distinguish the Abrahamic and Sinaitic
Covenants. Moyse Amyraut was helped in rejecting hyper-Calvinism
through incipient dispensationalism since he clearly contrasted the Mosaic
Covenant with the Covenant of Grace.
Although there are a host of books dealing with the errors of Calvinism,
the only comparable work is Michael Eaton’s No Condemnation: A New
Theology of Assurance. Eaton was a hyper-Calvinist until he became disillu-
sioned with the legalism and extreme introspection he saw in himself and
people in that orbit. It was a study of Galatians which liberated him from
this. He also exposed the legalism he saw in the Arminian camp and the
appalling lack of assurance in both camps. However, he remains a moder-
ate Calvinist and apparently is naive of dispensational truth. He recognizes
these important distinctions, although missing keys to liberation from legal-
ism found in Romans 7:6 and 2 Corinthians 3:6-11, where Paul explicitly
refers to the Decalog. Thus, Christians are not under the Mosaic Law as a
system but under the absolutes of morality of the “law of Christ” (1 Cor.
9:21). Failure to fulfill the law of Christ does not jeopardize salvation but
does affect rewards at the judgment seat of Christ (1 Cor. 3:9-15).
Augustine’s amillennial view of the Church as the ‘kingdom now’ led
him to extrapolate God’s sovereignty in a way which ignores God’s delega-
tion of the exercise of His sovereignty. This harmonized with his view of the
union of church and state, leading to the persecution of the Donatists.
A number of suggested connections uncovered for further study are:
1. The early church fathers, before Augustine, saw distinct ages in the
443
history of salvation also defended the teaching of free will against the
determinism of Manicheanism and neo-Platonism.1
2. Augustine rejected the premillennialism of the earlier church fathers
and became the father of both amillennialism and postmillennialism
through his spiritualizing hermeneutics. This colored his view of divine
sovereignty, leading to the idea of God’s exhaustive control of all that
transpires in the universe. Therefore, since the majority Roman
Church was virtually equated with the kingdom of God, any Christians
outside the Catholic Church needed to be coerced back into it by the
government’s power. A coercive God, who saves people by irresistible
grace, would approve of the use of coercion in the church.2
3. Luther and Calvin followed Augustine’s amillennialism and state-
churchism and thus used governmental powers to impose their brand
of Christianity upon all citizens, even to the point of execution.
4. Calvin’s lack of understanding of the distinction between Israel and the
Church was the basis for his exposition of the decalogue as the rule of
the Christian life. Eaton, in his experience in Puritan Reformed prac-
tice and thinking, rightly saw this as a reversion to Galatian legalism.3
5. Perhaps there is a connection between the dichotomizing of Pierre
Ramus, which informed Amyraut’s moderate Calvinism and the signifi-
cant distinctions dispensationalists make in scriptural interpretation,
between salvation and rewards, between law and grace, between
salvation and fellowship with God, between salvation and discipleship,
and between the many dispensations, etc. Armstrong understood that
Amyraut contrasted the Mosaic Covenant with the New Covenant of
Christ’s blood, which is a foundational idea of dispensationalism.
Reformed theology tends to blur and/or deny such distinctions.4
6. Johannes Cocceius, seeking to blunt the growing determinism of the
hyper-Calvinism of his day, sought to develop a more historical con-
cept of the covenants of God. Unfortunately, the subsequent develop-
ment of an ahistorical covenant, the Covenant of Redemption in eter-
nity past, undid Cocceius’s effort and solidified the determinism of
hyper-Calvinism. See the discussion in Chapter 27.
7. Wesley’s amillennialism also contributed to strong legalistic tenden-
cies in Arminianism. This was reinforced by his mysticism, asceticism,
and legalism before his conversion.
8. Thomas Boston and the Marrow men of Scotland, in their move away
from the legalistic concept of salvation in the Church of Scotland,
distinguished the Mosaic Covenant from the Covenant of Grace.5
9. Most hyper-Calvinists hold Covenant Theology and are hostile to Dis-
pensationalism.
Appendix A RELATION TO DISPENSATIONAL PREMILLENNIALISM 445
10. Although R. C. Sproul’s Willing to Believe was intended to survey nine

different views of sin and grace, his attack on L. S. Chafer’s views
ended up being mostly an attack on his dispensationalism.
11. If amillennialists cannot make the obvious major dispensational dis-
tinction between Israel and the church, then per force, they cannot
make the subtler distinctions essential to maintain a gracious salva-
tion. Recognition that Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, was a
major transition in the ministry of the Holy Spirit is important to libera-
tion from the legalism so endemic among Arminians and hyper-Calvin-
ists, both in salvation and in the Christian life.
12. Important to distinguishing between the church and the kingdom is an
understanding of the bona fide offer of the kingdom held by most
dispenationalists. The uniqueness of this present church age of grace
is undermined by ‘kingdom now theology.’
The bona fide offer of the kingdom is the understanding that Christ
made a genuine offer to Israel of His earthly kingdom promised throughout
the Old Testament, contingent upon their repentance and acceptance of
Him as Messiah-King. Even though God foreknew they would not accept
Him and the kingdom on His righteous terms, He had to make this offer to
fulfill His integrity. John literally announced it at hand conditioned on re-
pentance, Christ emphasized the same message after John’s arrest (Mt.
4:12, 17) and sent His Apostles with the identical message to Israel’s towns
(Mt. 10:1ff).6 From the human perspective the kingdom was postponed
(Lk. 21:31), even though God’s plan was for the cross, the church age, and
the future millennial kingdom. Until the last months of His ministry He did
not mention the church (Mt. 16:18) which was implemented at Pentecost
(Acts 11:15). All references to the kingdom can be understood either as the
bona fide offer or else the future literal mediatorial reign of Christ. Believers
will inherit that kingdom as a future aspect of their salvation.
1. Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, pp. 185-7; Forster and Marston, God’s Strategy, pp. 243-257.
2. Loraine Boettner argued Augustine as the father of postmillennialism, because he saw the church of his day in
the thousand year millennial kingdom then and preparing the way for Christ’s return about AD 1000. I have Dr.
Boettner’s letter. Of course, he was also the father of amillennialism since he believed that the kingdom is now and
tended to identify the Roman state church with the kingdom of God, which Romanism has also tended to do.
3. Calvin, Institutes, I, 314-99; Michael Eaton, No Condemnation: A New Theology of Assurance, pp. 15-25, 37-161.
4. Brian Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy, pp. 142-157.
5. M. Charles Bell, Calvin and Scottish Theology, pp. 151-203.
6. Donald G. Barnhouse, His Own Received Him Not, But . . .(Revell, 1933); Alva J. McClain, The Greatness of the
Kingdom, Ch. 5
APPENDIX B
DOES THE CHARACTER OF
THEOLOGIANS MATTER?
Over the years, there has been a spin brainwashed into theologians’
thinking that ad hominum (against the person) argument in theology is
invalid. This derives from the discipline of philosophy, in which the charac-
ter of the philosopher is deemed to be irrelevant to the validity of his philo-
sophical thinking. Although abstract reasoning in philosophy may seem
totally divorced from the morality of a philosopher, his morality does bleed
through to his philosophy since ethics is a category of philosophy.
Albeit, this is an invalid transfer to the discipline of theology. Years ago
I struggled with Paul’s defense of his own character (2 Cor. 1:8-14; 2:17–3:6;
4:7-15; 5:11-13; 6:3-13; 7:2-4; 10:1–12:13). Why was Paul so defensive? We
think there is something wrong with a defensive person. Then I realized the
credibility of the gospel and Paul’s teaching was dependent on his charac-
ter. If false “super-apostles,” trying to undermine his spiritual authority,
should succeed, then the truth of God’s word would also be undermined
since he was a major channel of revelation. The credibility of Paul’s mes-
sage was greatly dependent upon his own personal, moral credibility. If
Paul were a phony, then his gospel would also be seen as phony! If he did
not exemplify the message, then the message itself would be called into
question since the message he brought had a strong ethical dimension. It
was a message of a transformed life, and if his life did not manifest that
transformation, his hearers had every right to question his message.
This probably explains why, in the last century or so, the liberals have
been so prone to attack Paul’s character and paint him as having an attack
of epilepsy on the Damascus road and as having moved far away from the
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
This is why the consistent character of pastors, evangelists, missionar-
ies, and theologians is so important. Think of the damage done to the truth
of the gospel by the sins of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. Evangelists
are characterized by the world as Elmer Gantrys. Why should theologians
and Reformers be exempt from such scrutiny? The point is the character of
the great theological figures, who have molded the theology of western
Christendom, is of tremendous importance. In this regard, this historical
research is absolutely shocking! The conduct of some of the great “wor-
thies,” such as Augustine and Calvin is indefensible. Before Paul was con-
verted, he was the principle persecutor of the church. Years after Augustine
was converted, he became the major persecutor of the vital Donatist church-
446
447
es of North Africa. Most Evangelicals can identify far more with the perse-
cuted Donatists, than with the politically approved, corrupt Roman Church,
of which Augustine was a leader. But Augustine had many other serious
problems of doctrine, practice, and ethics:
1. He was first to maintain infant baptism and to attack believer’s baptism
with the power of civil law.1
2. He taught that infants are damned without baptism.2
3. He developed the error of purgatory.3
4. He held the first resurrection is the new birth, contrary to 2 Tim. 2:17-18.4
5. He held baptismal regeneration and new birth as a process.5
6. He held to worship of Mary.6
7. He held Adam and Eve’s sin was sex; intercourse is intrinsically sinful;
procreation is the only reason for sex; and advocated asceticism.7
8. He saw the Apocrypha as Scripture.8
The major problem of Augustine was with his handling and interpreta-
tion of Scripture. This is the root of most of his other errors. He expanded
allegorical hermeneutics.9 B. F. Westcott wrote: “Augustine . . . was not endowed
with critical sagacity or historical learning. He had very little knowledge of Greek, and fully
shared the common prejudices which were entertained against a new translation of the Old
Testament from the original.”10 Milton Terry said: “Not a few of his theological argu-
ments are built upon an erroneous interpretation of the Scripture text. . . . His Evangelical
Inquiries are full of fanciful interpretation.”11 F. W. Farrar was even more blunt:
The exegesis of Augustine is marked by the most glaring defects. Almost as many speci-
mens of prolix puerility and arbitrary perversion can be adduced from his pages as from
those of his least gifted predecessors. . . . Old Testament history is throughout treated as
an allegory. Poetry and prophecy are similarly handled, till even Augustine’s contemporar-
ies were driven to complain. . . . Even the Gospels are not safe from this faithless invasion
12
of predetermined dogmatism.”
Forster and Marston have an extensive discussion of the way in which
Augustine’s faulty hermeneutic affected his theology and led to his persecution
of non-Catholic Christians.13 Dave Hunt carried this farther in tracing these
errors through the medieval period down to John Calvin. He has two devastat-
ing chapters in which he surveys Augustine’s influence upon Calvin in his
“Irresistibly Imposed Christianity.” It is shocking, and we encourage every
reader to acquire Hunt’s What Love Is This? and read the details for oneself.14
If today’s Calvinists were forced to live under the dictatorial regime of
John Calvin in Geneva, most would have second thoughts about their Cal-
vinism. Most are aware of the Servetus execution and are shocked that
Calvin preferred to have him burned at the stake, rather than beheaded.
But what would we think, as residents of Geneva, to know that Jacques
Gruet was being tortured twice daily for thirty day to get him to confess to
having put a placard on Calvin’s pulpit, which accused Calvin of hypocrisy.
After his forced confession, on July 16, 1547, he was beheaded.15

Contrast this with the character of the leaders of the movements listed
in Chapter 27, pages 387-395, who moved away from the determinism of
Augustine and the Reformers. Although emphasis has not been on their
spiritual and scholarly qualifications, as seen in our sources, their testimony
was clear. Early Anabaptists, such as Hubmaier and Denck, were outstand-
ing in their moral and scholarly credentials. Philip Melanchthon was recog-
nized as more qualified than Luther as a scholar and with impeccable char-
acter. Arminius also had outstanding qualifications and consistency of
lifestyle. Johannes Coccieus’s scholarship was unimpeachable. The spiri-
tual impact of Spener and Franke, the founders of the pietistic movement, is
incalculable. The same could be said for Christian David and Zinzendorf of
the Moravian movement. My research was much more in-depth into the
neo-Edwardsian, New Divinity movement of the Second Great Awakening
and its impact upon the genesis of American foreign missions. It is astonish-
ing to see the incredible impact of one unheralded man, Edward D. Griffin.
He and his mentors, associates, and disciples, were soul-winners, evange-
lists, and pioneer missionaries, as well as manifesting substantial scholarly
qualifications. These men practiced what they preached. The same cannot
be said for Augustine, Calvin, and Luther. We might want to ask them, “Just
what is it that you don’t understand about ‘Love your enemies?’” We must
imperatively test their theology by their character!
1. Armitage, History of Baptists, pp. 100, 217

2. Berkhof, History, p. 256; Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 8:556
3. Armitage, p. 149; Boettner, Immortality, p. 135
4. J. F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom, p. 20.
5. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 3:1020
6. Ibid, 3:1020-1
7. Forster and Marston, God’s Strategy in Human History, p. 272; Richardson and Bowden, p. 58
8. B. F. Westcott, Bible in the Church (London: Macmillan, 1864) ,p. 184-5
9. Richardson and Bowden, p. 237; Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, rev. ed., p. 44; Farrar, pp. 24, 235-8
10. Westcott, The Bible in the Church, pp. 184-5, cited by Fisk, Calvinistic Paths, p. 96.
11. Terry, Hermeneutics, rev. ed. (NY: Eaton & Mains, 1890), p. 44.
12. F. W. Farrar, The History of Interpretation (NY: Dutton, 1886), p. 235-8, cited by Fisk, Calvinistic Paths, p. 97.
13. Forster and Marston, God’s Strategy in Human History, (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1973), pp. 257-95.
14. Dave Hunt, What Love Is This? (Sisters, OR: Loyal Publishing, 2002), pp. 45-74.
15. Schaff, II, p. 502; George Park Fisher, The Reformation, p. 22, cited by Hunt, What Love Is This?, p. 65. Hunt’s
whole chapter, pp. 59-74, is relevant to the point we are making.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Amillennialism: the view that the kingdom Aristotelian philosophy: the philosophy
was inaugurated at the first coming of Christ, thus and logic of Aristotle (d. 322 BC), his approach to
denying a future literal reign of Christ on earth and deductive logic characterized by the syllogistic
equating Israel, the Church, and the kingdom method
Amyraldian: theology of French Huguenot Augustinian: the doctrine of Aurelius Au-
Calvinists holding the view of Moyse Amyraut that gustine of N. Africa (353-430) emphasizing abso-
Christ died for all lute predestination and irresistible grace, thus de-
terministic
Anabaptist: a group of radical reformation
movements which broke from the mainline Refor- Baptismal regeneration: the view that wa-
mation and insisted upon personal conversion and ter baptism is essential to salvation, especially
believers’ baptism by immersion held by Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, and
Campbellites
Analogy of Scripture: a method of inter-
preting a passage by using parallel Scripture testi- Buddhism: the religion of Gautama the Bud-
mony for clarification, also referred to as the anal- dha, found in eastern Asia in two forms, Thera-
ogy of faith vada, traditional in SE Asia and Mahayana, a
broader form in E. Asia
Anthropomorphism: a figure of speech de-
scribing God in human terms Charismatic: a movement begun in the
1960s in which some Pentecostal doctrines car-
Anglican: pertaining to the Church of Eng-
ried over into major denominations, both Protest-
land, Episcopalian in America
ant and Catholic
Anglo-Catholic: high-church Anglicans who
Church fathers: early Christian leaders and
hold Catholic views while rejecting the Pope
writers after the Apostles.
Antinomy: two truths which seem contradic-
Cognitive process: the ways of thinking of
tory but are resolvable beyond our understanding
various cultures: western culture emphasizing an
Antinomian: literally, against law; some in abstract, conceptual way; Chinese and Hebrew
emphasizing grace deny that any law is binding. described as concrete, relational; and Indian cul-
ture being more intuitive
Aorist tense: a unique Greek verb tense,
usually described as point action in past time, or Compatibilism: a philosophical explanation
as giving the broader picture of the whole action of of how a deterministic view of God’s sovereignty
the verb can be compatible with human free will
Apostasy, Apostate: those who abandon Contextualization: the process of communi-
the Christian faith by denying the essentials of the cating a message from one culture to another–
gospel of Christ understanding the Biblical message in its own cul-
tural context to communicate it in diverse cultures
A fortiori: logic, “for a still stronger reason,
Counterfeit believer: professing Christians
even more certain, all the more”
lacking a real, personal relationship with Christ,
A priori: “from cause to effect or from a gen- not truly born again
eralization to particular instances; deductively...
Crux interpretum: a crucial passage or
based on theory instead of experience or experi-
consideration in interpreting Scripture
ment”
Decretal theology: a theological system
Aramaic: a language of the middle-east, a
based on eternal decrees determining all events,
dialect spoken by Jews, the mother tongue of
especially who will ultimately be saved or lost
Christ
449
Deductive reasoning: “reasoning from a uous that most grammars do not try to define it
known principle to an unknown, from the general
to the specific, or from a premise to a logical
Hermeneutics: the science of the princi-
conclusion;” and “from the general to the particu- ples of interpretation of Scripture, involving lexi-
lar, or from the universal to the individual.” cography, grammar, syntax, and the context of
each passage
Determinism: the view that all events in the
universe have been determined in eternity by God Hinduism: the majority religion of India
arising from syncretism of the pantheistic Vedic
Dispensational: recognizing differing ages religion of the Aryan invaders and the polytheism
or dispensations in the outworking of God’s plan, of the Dravidian aborigines and stressing karma,
especially distinguishing the nation Israel, with its religious duty and works to achieve moksha
Mosaic rule of life, from the Church, with grace as
its rule of life. Inclusivism: the view that non-Christians
can be saved through the cross without explicit
Evangelicals & Catholics Today (ECT): an faith in Christ
ecumenical document drawn up at a conference of
evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders in 1994 Inductive method: “the process of rea-
to find common ground for core doctrine and moral soning from particular instances to general con-
concerns; criticized for not affirming justification by clusions.” In logic,“reasoning from particular facts
faith alone or individual cases to a general conclusion.” In
science parallel to empirical or scientific method
Etymology: understanding word meaning
by tracing a word to its root, whereas word usage Inerrancy of Scripture: the Bible claims
is the preferred way for itself (the original manuscripts) verbal, plenary
inspiration, which is confirmed by the phenomena
Exegesis: the science of drawing out of of its internal consistency.
Scripture its original meaning, emphasizing gram-
mar, syntax, word meaning, and the immediate, Isogesis: the opposite of exegesis, that is,
broader, and cultural contexts of a passage reading back into Scripture another, usually theo-
logical, traditional, spiritualized, or desired mean-
Extrapolation: going beyond the data to ing
speculative conclusions
Judicial hardening: God hardening the
General redemption: the view that Christ hearts of those who have outrageously rejected
really died for all people His word and already have a calloused heart
Gnosticism: “a system of belief combining Legalism: trying to be saved and live the
ideas derived from Greek philosophy, Oriental Christian life by obedience to the Mosaic Law or
mysticism, and ultimately, Christianity, and stress- human tradition, or in some cases trying to legis-
ing salvation through gnosis”, which began to late the ideal in Christian ethics
threaten Christianity with its spurious Gospels and
monistic view of God Lexicon: a foreign language dictionary
Great awakenings: several awakenings Liberalism/modernism: the movements

in America: the first started in the 1720s in Raritan, which attacked the authority of the Bible, starting
th
NJ, by Theodore Frelinghuysen, expanded by among oldline Protestants in the end of the 19
George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards; the century and expanding to Catholicism in the 20th
second among the New Divinity preachers of New Manicheanism: a religious philosophy
England around 1800 and spreading to the fron- combining Persian Zoroastrian, Gnostic, Chris-
tiers; t tian, and pagan elements
Hendiadys: “a figure of speech in which Mennonite: an anabaptist movement star-
two nouns joined by “and” are used instead of a ted by Menno Simons in Friesland after the Refor-
noun and a modifier,” which in Greek is so ambig- mation
451
Middle voice: describes the action of the uance of all apostolic spiritual gifts today
subject of a verb back upon itself (reflexive), dis-
Periphrastic, periphrasis: in grammar,
tinct from active and passive voice, having the
an alternate, less direct way of structuring a sen-
same form as passive in some Greek tenses
tence, usually for emphasis or to bring out an un-
Missiology: the science and study of the usual idea
global missions movement, its biblical basis, his-
Pharisees: in the time of Christ the major
tory, context, progress, and the means and strate-
sect of Jews who put the traditions of the elders of
gies of implementing the global spread of the gos-
Judaism above the word of God, thus falling into
pel
extreme legalism
Molinism: the philosophy of Jesuit Luis
Pietism: a movement in Lutheranism star-
Molina advocating middle knowledge, that God not
ted by Philip Spener about 1685 emphasizing a
only knows the whole future but also counterfac-
personal relation with Christ both for salvation and
tuals
the Christian life and having a major impact upon
Monergism: theologies that stress only Evangelicalism today
God is involved in salvation Post-Modernism: a major contemporary
Muslim: adherents of Islam, the religion worldview, denying absolutes of truth by subjectiv-
founded by Muhammad, incorporating some izing all truth perception, thus man-centered
Judeo-Christian aspects, but denying the deity Premillennialism: the view that Christ will
and crucifixion of Christ, who is seen only as a return to earth to reign and rule in righteousness
prophet for the millennial kingdom before the final consum-
Neo-Orthodoxy: a contemporary existential mation of the world
theology started principally by Karl Barth in the
Preparationism: the steps suggested by
20th cent., denying objective revelation in the Bi-
some Calvinists for sinners to prepare themselves
ble, and seeking truth in a subjective perception
while waiting for God’s sovereign gift of the new
Neoplatonism: schools of philosophy birth and of faith to these elect sinners
holding “a single source from which all forms of
Prevenient grace: universal grace ex-
existence emanate and with which the soul seeks
tended to all people preceding and preparing them
mystical union”
to receive the gospel
Neo-Puritans: contemporary hyper-Calvin-
Prosperity gospel: a contemporary off-
ists who highly revere the old Puritan writers
shoot of Pentecostalism which emphasizes the
Omnicausality: the view that God causes right of all Christians to prosper financially
all events which transpire in the universe, also
Proof-texting: a false practice of merely
called universal divine causation
listing or quoting a verse of the Bible apart from its
Open theism: a recent theology, called context and careful exegesis, especially used by
extreme Arminianism, holding God does not know cults
the whole future, only what He has determined
Providence: the biblical view that God is
Patristics: study of church fathers involved in the affairs of life and orchestrates
circumstances, good and bad, for the ultimate
Pelagian: the aleged view of the British good of believers and the temporal good of unbe-
monk Pelagius (350-409), who purportedly denied lievers
original sin and emphasized man’s ability to
please God Puritan: a term, which at first referred to
those who wanted to purify the Anglican Church,
Pentecostal: a movement spun off the ho- but later came to refer to those of a more Calvinis-
liness movement about 1900, emphasizing Spirit- tic doctrine.
baptism as a second work of grace and the contin-
Reformed: a general term, which at first man, hyper-Calvinists frequently accusing others
described a branch of the Reformation, but came of being synergists, and Melanchthon being
to be more narrowly a reference to extreme Cal- accused of synergism by extreme Lutherans
vinism
Syntax: in grammar, sentence structure;
Remonstrants: the followers of Arminius, the “arrangement of word forms to show their mu-
who after his death set out their differences from tual relations in the sentence”
extreme Calvinism in 1610, but ultimately carried
Transliteration: rendering a word in a for-
his views to an extreme form of Arminianism
eign language by a letter to letter rendering in-
Reprobate, reprobation: the opposite of stead of actual translation, thus actually coining a
elect, or election in Calvinistic doctrine, that God new word in the receptor language with any de-
has decreed unconditionally who will go to Hell sired meaning attached to it
Sacerdotalism: a religion mediated through Universal divine causality: the view of
priests and ritual, especially Romanism & Ortho- the Westminister Confession holding that every-
doxy thing which happens in the universe was decreed
by God in eternity past, also called omnicausality
Scholasticism: a rationalistic philosophi-
cal approach to theology, developed by mediaeval Universalism: the view that all people will
scholars, grounded on the deductive methodology ultimately be saved
of Aristotle, which puts reason above Scripture by
giving priority to deductive theological discussion
Vulgate: the Latin translation done by
before any attempt to exegete Scripture Jerome about AD 400 which dominated the theo-
logical world, both Catholic and Protestant, includ-
Semi-Augustinian: those church fathers ing the King James translation
who accepted Augustine’s emphasis on original
sin and grace in salvation, while rejecting absolute
Westminister Confession: the confes-
predestination and irresistible grace sion of faith resulting from the Westminister As-
sembly (1648-9), which was convened by the Brit-
Semi-Pelagian: the view that man is only ish parliament to be a standard of faith for the An-
partially depraved and therefore able to contribute glican Church, representing Presbyterian hyper-
to his soul’s salvation by human performance Calvinism
Septuagint (LXX): the ancient Greek trans-
lation of the Old Testament probably done by Jew-
ish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt about 250 BC
Synod of Dort: a goverment mandated
synod of Calvinists in the Netherlands Reformed
Church which expelled the Arminians (1609) and
wrote a hyper-Calvinistic statement of doctrine
Synod of Orange: a church synod which
met in AD 529 in Aurasio to resolve the conflict
between the Augustinians and the Pelagians, con-
cluding with a semi-Augustinian position, rejecting
predestination and irresistible grace, but affirming
grace in salvation
Sufficiency of Scripture: the view that
with the help of the Holy Spirit, Christians can ac-
curately perceive salvation truth without recourse
to traditions and rationalistic philosophies of men
Synergism: salvation by God working with
SUBJECT INDEX
A Beza, Theodor– 15, 239, 282, 387-388, 394-5, 403,
Abraham, Abrahamic Covenant-- 12, 57-8 416, 422-423, 442
Adokimos-- 210-11 Bibliander, Theodor– 23, 386
Adoption– 338 Biblical Theology– xii, 6-7
All, Christ’s death for– 77-81, 282-297; 404-14 Binding and loosing– 93-94
American Baptist Mission-- 407, 413-14 Blaming God– 27, 434-5
American Board of Comm. for Foreign Miss.-- 413 Bona fide kingdom offer-- 445
Amillennialism– 443-5, 449 Boston, Thomas– 23, 392, 413
Amyraldian Calvinism--15, 378, 388-90, 398, 449 Boule, boulema-- 30-32, 34
Amyraut, Moyse– 15, 280, 389–90, 398, 406, 444 Buddhists, Buddhism-- 171
Anabaptists– 2, 112, 240, 282, 385-6, 394, 449 Buswell, J. O., Jr.– 35-6, 111, 120, 264, 419, 426, 440
Andover Seminary missionaries– 407, 413-4
Angels-- 41,245 C
Anglican-- 449 Caanan, curse on- 56-60
Anglo-Catholic-- 449 Cainite civilization-- 55-56
Antecedents of mediate theology– 14-17, 23, 385-394 Calamities-- 182
Antinomian-- 127 Calling, general-- 373
Antinomy-- 264 -of the patriarchs-- 56-7
Anthropomorphism– 245, 449 -not irresistible– 22, 361-376
Apologetics, impact on– 439-440 Calvin, John– 6, 12, 19, 120, 232,,253, 259, 282, 298,
Apostates, apostasy– 206-07, 209, 211-13, 220-4, 449 314, 361, 386-7, 424, 440, 444, 446-8
Apostolic preaching-- 103-8, 127 -view on general redemption– 282, 296,
Appointment-- 23, 316-323, 331-341, 348 -view of priority– 253, 266, ftn.
Aquinas, Thomas– 420 Calvinism, summary– 13, 14, 16
Aramaic – 85, 87, 95-6 -moderate– 14, 15, 239, 250, 285-296, 353, 415
Aristotle, Aristotelian philosophy-- 357, 420-1, 449 Calvinists, generally– 112, 118, 201, 210, 259, 267-8,
Arminianism– 13-17, 24, 111, 134, 175-6, 183, 185-6, 272, 280, 282-3, 291-2, 294, 302, 305, 315,
188-250, 194-5, 197, 199-201, 210, 215, 227, 230, 321,327-9, 335, 346, 352-60, 365-71, 387, 391-4,
233, 239, 241, 245, 269, 374, 387-8, 391, 395, 402, 410-11, 415-7, 420, 424, 429, 432, 434, 439,
410-1, 416-7, 420, 432, 434, 438, 443, 445 433-5, 447
Arminianism, classic, remonstrant, Wesleyan-- 16 Campbellites– 149
Arminianism, extreme– 12, 239-250 Carey, William– 405, 408, 410-12, 415
Arminius, James– 2, 13, 16, 23, 185-6, 188, 194-5, Carnal Christians– 146-7
197, 199, 200-201, 239, 267, 387–8, 395,442 Carson, D. A..-69, 76, 84, 291, 300-1, 327
Assurance of salvation– 1, 175-187, 383, 411, 433 Chafer, Lewis S.– 69, 111, 116, 120, 192, 267, 280,
Atonement, limited– 80-81, 282-3, 291-5 443
-response to– 283-296 Chamberlain’s Greek principle– 69, 86
Atonement, Old Testament– 63-4, 69-70 Character of theologians-- 446-8
Augustine, Bishop Aurelius– 6, 11, 17, 22-3, 28, 40, Charismatic movement– 135, 239, 243, 449
245, 267, 269-71, 281-2, 299, 329, 366, 376, 378- Choice-- 319-20, 342-3, 271
385, 394-5, 299, 420, 422, 443-449 Christ, the Rock– 84-90, 95-6
Authority– 3-9, 93-94, 182-184, 241 Christ-
Autonomy, man’s– 44-45, 48, 269-272 -confrontational ministry-- 71
-death-- 73-5
B -lineage-- 65-6, 70
Babel, Tower-- 56 -miracles-- 71
Baptism, Water– 104-108, 149-159 -prophetic ministry-- 72
Baptismal regeneration– 12, 149, 382, 384, 447, 449 -sacrifice-- 74
Baptism of the Spirit– 154, 158-159, 343 -sinless life-- 71
Baptists-- 386, 396, 411 -substitution– 74-5
Backslidden Christians– 181-2, 207-11, 214-20, 326-8 -teachings-- 71
Baxter, Richard– 14, 18, 23, 29, 38, 280, 378, 391, -unique claims-- 162
395,-6, 405, 406 Church fathers-- 40, 50, 90, 267, 270, 298, 302, 330-3,
Believe-- 100-102 355, 361, 379, 382-3, 355, 361, 379, 382-3, 443-
453
4, 449, 451 Doddridge, Philip-- 406, 409

Church growth– 265 Dort, synod, canons– 15, 17, 23, 282-3, 298, 388, 394,
Circumcision-- 150, 157 443-4, 452
Classic concept of God (CCOG)– 6, 35-6, 244 Doubts-- 182-4
Cocceius, Johannes– 390-1, 444 Drawing to Christ-- 274, 277
Coercion-- 356, 374, 382-3, 385 Dwight, Timothy– 240, 407, 410, 413-4
Cognitive process– 88-9, 449
Coke, Thomas-- 241, 393, 405, 410-1 E
Compatiblism– 355, 425-6, 430, 440, 449 Earnest of the Spirit-- 196
Conditional, God’s response– 355 Earth, centrality of-- 41
Confrontational paradigm– 264, 401-2 Eaton, Michael-- 175, 237
Context in interpretation– 7, 224-6 Edgar, Thomas-- 300-305, 336
Contextualization-- 108, 449 Edom-- 348
Conversion– 24,100, 102,105, 109-10, 118-9, 132-3 Edwards, Jonathan, Sr.– 177-8, 240, 259, 374, 393,
Conversion of first disciples– 99, 141 407, 409-11, 414, 426, 429
Conviction of the Spirit– 12, 19, 23 Edwards, Jonathan, Jr.– 240, 393, 407, 410
-extent of – 120 Egypt, redemption from- 60
-historical actualization– 117-120 Eklegomai, eklektos, ekloge-- 315-27, 336-7, 343, 430
-human instrumentality, by– 119-121 Election, so-called-- 337, 379, 416
-nature of– 121 -apostles, of– 321
-reactions against– 119 -church, of– 324-7
Corporate passages– 224, 341-3, 347-52 -conditional– 17, 336-7, 344
Corporate solidarity– 341-3 -corporate– 324-7
Cost of salvation-- 136-41, 145 -criteria of– 340-1
Counsel, God’s– 31 -insuring-- 218
Counterfeit believer-- 120, 201, 208, 213-14, 220, 449 -in Christ– 325-6
Covenant promises-- 48 -messiah, of– 319
Covenant theology– 390, 443-4 -mystery of– 339-40
Creation-- 18, 40, 41 -patriarchs, of– 314-5
Cross-- 70, 102, 104 -relation to foreordination– 336-9
Cross-cultural witness-- 400 -translation of-- 12, 315-327
Cultural gap, overhang– 88-9 -unconditional– 15, 16, 299, 327
-word study of– 315-327, 330
D Elegchein, elegchos– 21-2, 113-4, 119
Danish-Halle mission-- 402 Eliot, John-- 14, 405-8
Daniel’s prophecies-- 68 Erasmus– 40
Davidic dynasty-- 65 Esau-- 59-60, 348
David’s prophecies-- 67 Eternal life-- 12
Death, spiritual– 45-7 Eternal security– 12, 17, 21, 23, 188-238, 438
Decrees of God– 12, 18, 29-31, 33, 36, 65, 335, 345, Eternity past-28
352-8, 365,400, 415 Evangelical- 124
Decretal theology– 439,-40, 449 Evangelical & Catholics Together– 123-5, 133, 450
Deductive methodology– 4, 16, 253, 359-60, 438, 450 Evangelism– 415
Delegation of sovereignty– 47 Evil, problem of– 246
Demonstrative use of article– 33-4 Extrapolation of data– 16, 280, 352, 415, 425, 429-30,
Demosthenes– 331 441, 450
Denominational bias– 5-6
Depravity, man’s– 15, 45-9, 64-5, 267-8 F
Determinism-- 22, 36, 244, 355-8, 401, 420, 425-41, Faith alone– 126-30
450 -salvation’s condition– 30
Devout Gentiles– 106, 119 -as a gift– 20, 259-66, 365
Dichotomy of man– 50-53 -as obedience– 142
Dikaiosune, dikaiazein-- 125 -failing– 233-5
Disciple– 137 -implicit-- 170
Discipleship teachings-- 12, 20,23,136-48, 217 -prior to new birth– 253
Discoveries in this book-- 11 -required– 293
Dispensationalists– 445 -source of-- 262-6
Dispensational teaching-- 154, 224, 449 Fall of man– 45-50, 52
SUBJECT INDEX 455
False prophets-- 223 I

Fatalism– 356 Image of God– 18, 36, 40, 42-4, 49-50
Foreign missions– 240 Imputation– 126
Foreknowledge– 12, 21, 23, 36, 244, 298-312, 335-7 Inability, human– 12268, 270-80, 365, 409, 415
-limited– 247-8 Inclusivism– 169-71
Foreordination– 2, 21, 332-4, 338, 379 Indians, missions to American– 408
-conditionality– 322-3 Inductive approach– 17, 40, 253, 438-9, 450
Fox, George-- 391, 403 Indwelling of the Spirit– 197-8
Franke, August-- 23, 406 Inerrancy of Scripture– 200, 450
Free will of man– 37, 44, 65, 104, 121, 245, 270-2, 354- Inheritance, related to election– 24, 338-9
5, 379, 387, 428 Inquisition-- 382
Freylinghuysen, Theodore-- 407, 409 Inspiration of Scripture– 9, 237
Fruitless Christians– 131-2, 146-7, 190, 202 Intercession, Christ’s – 195-6
Fuller, Andrew– 177, 186, 406, 409, 411-2, 415-6, 438 Interpretation of Scripture– 7
Intertestamental period-- 318
G Ironside, H. A.– 241-3
Geisler, Norman-- 267, 270-1, 420, 424, 428-9 Irresistible grace– 15-6, 22, 104, 111-2, 118, 201, 362-
General redemption– 17, 76-7, 81, 282-97, 450 5, 416-7
General revelation– 277 Irresponsible living– 434
Gentiles, gentile nations-- 56, 92, 105, Isaac– 58-9, 66, 347
Ginoskein– 311-2 Ishmael– 58, 347
Global evangelism– 23 Israel– 60, 62
God, author of sin?– 252-4 Islam, Muslim-- 171, 185, 356-8, 420, 435, 438, 451
God’s conditional relationships– 355
God, view of– 434-5 J, K, L
Gospel of the kingdom– 445 Jacob-- 59-60, 348
Grammar & syntax- 8 Jerome-- 381
Great awakenings-177, 186, 240, 393, 410-4, 448, 450 John the Baptizer– 66, 98, 107, 150-2, 176
Greek, classical-- 330 Judson, Adoniram-- 407, 413
Greek, koine-- 331 Judgment-- 167, 276
Greek philosophy-- 107 Justification by faith– 24, 123-30
Great commission– 103 Kaiser’s principle– 109
Great Protestant omission– 23, 399, 402-4 Kendall, R. T.– 191-2, 236-7
Griffin, Edward Dorr– 407, 410, 413-4, 416, 448 Keys of the kingdom– 91-3, 154
King James (authorised) Version– 333
H Kingdom predictions– 48, 445
Hades, Gates of– 90-1 Kingdom, word study– 30-1
Haystack prayer meeting– 413 Kosmos– 114
Hebrews, overview of book– 203-4 Lake of fire– 91
Helwys, Thomas-- 386 Lamb, sacrificial-- 62
Hendiadys– 450 Languages (tongues), gift of– 92, 117
Heresy-- 223 Legalism– 123, 156-9, 222-3, 238, 433-4, 450
Hermeneutics– 447, 450 Levitical sacrifices– 63-4
Hindus, Hinduism-- 171, 185 Liberalism, modernism–124, 134, 183, 185,248-9, 450
History, God’s workings in-- 354 Liberation redemption– 12, 19, 77-79
Holiness, God’s– 167 License to sin– 230
Holy Spirit Lightner, Robert– 69, 292
-Coming of-- 112-3 Limited atonement– 15, 80-81, 239, 282-96
-Eternal procession of-- 113 Lostness of humanity– 164-9
Honesty -- 8 Love, God’s– 358, 433
Horizein– 21, 32 Luther, Martin– 6, 40, 59, 123-8, 177, 269, 334, 362,
Humanity– 42-50 383-6, 404-7, 428, 442, 444, 448
Hyper-Calvinists– 3, 13-17, 20, 24, 111-2, 116, 120, Lutherans– 2, 15, 120, 123, 395-6, 403, 442
134, 175, 185, 188-91, 199-200, 218, 227, 233,
239, 253, 256-66, 276, 282-7, 292-4, 356-60, 387, M
411, 415, 426, 434-5, 438, 440, 444 MacArthur, John-- 137-45
Manicheanism– 383, 388, 394, 420, 444, 450
Marrow men of Scotland– 392
Marshall, I. Howard-- 13 Peter-- 85-90, 129

Matthew’s conversion– 142-3 Pharaoh– 60-1, 349
Mediate theology– 1, 22, 393-4, 425 Pharisees-- 19, 93, 128
Medieval– 384 Philosophy– 5, 419-23, 426-7, 446
Melanchthon, Philip– 23, 386, 390, 442, 448 Physical death, premature– 214-6
Mennonites– 2, 23, 240, 294, 385-6, 394, 450 Pierson, A. T.– 160-1
Messianic prophecies-- 65, 68 Pietistic movement– 112, 240, 391-2, 394, 408, 451
Methodology– 7-8 Pilate, Pontius– 32
Metanoeein (repentance)– 109-10 Pious heathen– 169
Middle knowledge– 248, 425, 427-8 Piper, John– 358-60
Mills, Samuel, Jr.– 407, 413 Pistis, pisteuo– 100-1
Missions– 399-418 Plan of salvation– 23
-Paul’s tours-- 105-8 Plato, Platonic philosophy– 53, 420-1, 440, 451
-Protestants in Brazil-- 403, 450 Polarization of theology– 442
Mistranslation-- 158 Post-conversion sin– 228-231
Monergism-- 14, 365, 451 Potter’s wheel– 350
Moody, D. L.-- 178, 186 Prayer– 247, 443
Moral attributes of God-- 43 Preaching, impact on– 439
Moravians–- 112, 240, 392, 406, 408-9, 448 Preappointment– 338
Mosaic law– 63-4, 68 Predestinate, predestination– 12, 21, 330-44, 351,
Moses-- 348 360, 378-9, 382, 387-91, 395-7, 416
Motivation in Christian life-- 230-1 Premillennialism– 443-5, 451
Murray, John-- 335-6 Preparationism-- 112, 178, 259, 374-5, 409, 451
Mystery of God’s election– 339-41, 355 Presbyterians– 396, 412-3
Preservation of the saints– 193, 234-5
N, O Presuppositions of Arminianism– 227
Nacham (relent)– 109-10 Prevenient grace– 111, 451
New birth– 12, 130, 158, 197, 373 Pride– 433-4
New Divinity movement– 23, 186, 393, 407-14, 448 Priority of repentant faith– 253-266
Newbiggin, Leslie-- 169-70 Proginoskein, prognosis– 21, 299-313, 334-6
Nicodemus– 141-2 Proorizein, proorismos– 21, 330-9, 343
Noah– 55 Proof-texting– 7, 33, 371, 451
Non-elect, witness to– 143-5, 293-4 Propitiation– 19, 69, 75-6, 179 196, 295-6
Omnicausality-- 11, 30-5, 39, 451 Prosperity gospel– 182, 243-4, 451
Omniscience-- 12, 31, 426 Prothesis– 30, 34-5
Original languages-- 7-8 Puritan(s)– 134, 189, 286, 395, 451
Origen of Alexandria– 330, 420-1 Purpose, God’s– 60
Original sin– 18
Old Testament quotations– 8 Q, R
Open theism– 12, 16, 18, 35, 244-9, 305, 420, 426-7, Quakers– 391
451 Quran – 357
Options, considering all– 8 Radmacher, Earl– 192
Ortlund, Ray, Jr.-- 37-38 Ransom-redemption– 12, 69, 76-7, 179, 196, 285
Overcomers– 219 Rebekah– 59
Owen, John– 286, 293-4 Rebellion, human– 48
Reconciliation– 19, 69, 79-80, 179
P Redemption– 69-70, 76-80, 285, 292, 414
Pagan saints-- 170 -liberation– 76-9, 179
Parables– 201-2 Reformation– 6, 124, 126, 129, 399-400, 417
Parakletos– 114-5, 121 -radical– 403
Passion, Christ’s-- 70, 72 -spiritual weakness– 399, 404
Passover– 61-2,3, 150, 285 -in Great Britain– 387
Patriarchs-- 314, 321 Reformed– 189, 452
Pelagius, Pelagianism– 40, 270, 380-1, 451 Reformers– 298, 382, 394, 404, 443, 448
Pentecostal movement-- 343, 416, 451 -theology of missions– 404
Perseverance of the saints– 16, 189 Regeneration– 268, 365
Personal pilgrimage, Olson’s-- 10 Religions, world– 160, 162-4, 171
Personalization of the gospel– 292-3 Remonstrants, Arminian– 267, 388, 452
SUBJECT INDEX 457
Remorse– 100, 133 T, U, V

Repentance– 98-100, 109-10, 121, 132-3 Terms of salvation– 19, 93-4, 83-172
Repentant faith– 12, 20, 98, 102, 108, 158, 268 Tests of theology– 9-10, 378, 399, 419
Reprobation– 246, 349, 356, 439, 452 Thelema– 30, 35
Restorationist movement– 393 Theologians, Calvinistic– 15
Resurrection– 47, 72, 102-4, 208 Theological survey– 5
Revelation of God– 166-7 Theology, crisis in – 3
Rewards for believers– 191 Thiessen, Henry C.– 432
Rich young ruler– 143-5 Theusen, Peter– 378, 395-7
Rock, foundation of the church– 85-90, Tradition – 5-6
Roman Catholic– 123-6, 128, 130, 133, 149, 185, 232, Translation, translations– xi, 319-21, 333-4
245, 270, 382, 395-6, 402, 447 Trust– 100-101, 180
Root fallacy– 76 Tripartite nature, man’s– 50-53
Ryrie, Charles C.– 137 Truth– 435
TULIP– 2, 15, 366, 388
S Unbelief– 115
Sacramentalism– 124, 134, 420 Unevangelized, the– 164-9
Sacrifice of Christ– 70, 72-4 Unforgivable sin– 115, 184
Sacrifice, bloodless– 55 Unforgiving Christians– 217-8
Sadducees– 19, 93 Ungodly, Christ’s death for– 288-90
Salvation and rewards– 146-7 Universalism– 161, 289-90, 438, 452
Salvation’s uniqueness– 163 Universal divine causation– 29-30, 39, 345, 452
Sanctification– 24, 130-2, 231-3, 240-3, 362-3 Universal offer of gospel– 292, 351
Satan– 42, 47-8, 54-5, 114, 168, 116, 215, 265, 271, Virgin birth– 66, 70
428, 434-5 Von Welz, Justinian– 403
Schmidt, Georg– 406, 408-9 Vulgate– 21, 125
Scholasticism, scholastic– 382, 389, 421, 452
Sealing of the Spirit– 196 W, Y, Z
Second blessing– 243 Walvoord, John F.– 69, 120
Seeking God– 276-80 Warnings of Hebrews– 203-13
Semi-Augustinian– 17, 23-4, 268, 280, 380-2, 394-5, Wesley, John, Wesleyan– 5, 23, 186, 232, 239, 241-2,
452 250, 267, 374, 2392-4, 406, 410-1, 443-4
Semi-Pelagian– 23, 53,232, 241, 268, 270, 280, 380-2, Westminster confession– 15, 29, 30, 353, 356, 396,
384, 394-5, 452 452
Septuagint– 316-7, 301, 330, 452 Whitefield, George– 186, 392-3, 405, 406, 410
Sheol– 91 Whoever, salvation offer to– 291
Sin Wilberforce, William– 406, 409
-post-conversion– 228-31 Will, God’s– 34-5
-rationalizing– 434 Williams College– 413-4, 407
-unto death– 215 Word magic– 375
Sinless perfection– 232-3 Word of God– 94
Sovereignty of God– 27-39, 352 Word studies– 8
Defined– 30, 37 World, Christ died for– 286-7
Limited– 11, 47-56 Wycliffe, John-- 333
Spirit & soul of man– 44 Yada’– 300, 309-11
Spiritual death– 18, 45-7, 165 Zaccheus– 145
Sproul, R. C.-- 124, 253, 260, 268,-9, 271, 280-1, 287, Zanchius, Jerom– 126-7 291, 358, 383
291, 294, 364, 374, 429 Ziegenbalg, Bartholomew– 406,408
Spurgeon, Charles H.– 415, 439-40 Zinzendorf, Nicholas– 23, 392, 406, 408, 448
Stanley, Charles– 191, 214, 237 Zwingli, Ulrich– 385-6
Strombeck, J. F.– 188, 236-7
Substitutionary sacrifice– 15, 19, 73-5, 240
Sufficiency of Scripture– 9, 452
Syncretism– 22
Synergism– 365, 425, 452
Synod of Orange (Aurausio)– 23, 24, 268, 361, 381,
383, 394-5, 452
SCRIPTURE INDEX
GENESIS: JOSHUA: JEREMIAH:
1:26-27 42 24:15 271 1:4-5 37, 311
2:7 42 4:28 109
2:16-17 45 JUDGES: 8:5-6 109
3:15 54 21:25 48, 64 18:1-11 350
4:5-7 46 23:5-6 66
6:2, 11 46 1 CHRONICLES: 30:7 224
6:5-6 64, 269, 353 22:19 278 31:3 274
6:8-9 55 31:18f 110
8:21 49 PSALMS:
9:6 49 2:2, 7, 12 29, 67 EZEKIEL:
9:27 56 16:10-11 67 28:11-19 42
12:2-3 57, 347 19:1-4 166-7 37:1-14 366
15:6 57, 125-6, 289 22:1 72
16:10-14 58, 347 25:18 229 DANIEL:
17:18-23 58, 347 34:8 209 9:24-27 67
18:19 310 45:6-7 67
18:25 169 51:11-2 198 HOSEA:
21:12 347 65:2-5 366 5:15 278
21:17-20 58, 347 110:1-4 66-7 13:5 310
22:5, 18 57, 59 119:89 94
25:23 59, 324, 347 AMOS:
49:10 60 PROVERBS: 3:1-3 310
20:27 52 5:4, 6 278
EXODUS:
7:3 61, 349 SONGS: MICAH:
9:16-7 61, 349 1:3-4 274 7:19 229
12:13 61-2
33:11-2 310 ECCLESIASTES: ZEPHANIAH:
33:1-19 348 3:21 52 2:3 278
LEVITICUS: ISAIAH: MALACHI:

17:11 63 1:18-19 271 1:2-4 348
17:18 143 9:6 66
12:3 153
DEUTERONOMY: 38:17 229
4:29 278 41:8-9 348
10:16 150 42:1-7 317
16:3 150 53:4-5 67. 293
18:15 65 53:4-12 72-3, 288
29:29 340 61:10 320
30:6 150 65:1-2 308
30:19-20 271
32:21 308
458
SCRIPTURE INDEX 459
MATTHEW: 10:38 151-2 6:35,53-4 62,101

3:1 99 10:45 73, 77, 284 6:37,44, 65 272,367
3:11 151 12:30 52-3 6:43-5 273
4:19 103, 400 13:20 322 6:47 255
5:3 340 16:16 153 6:51 103
5:20 99 6:64-70 220,275
5:21-2,27-8,31-2, LUKE: 7:17 272
33-4,38-9,43-4 99 5:31-32 99 7:37-39 101,153,235,255
5:38-42 400 7:30 372 8:24 102,169
5:44 291 7:50 262 8:43-4 54,276
7:13-4 101-2 8:7 201 9:39-41 276
7:15-23 131,147,168, 8:11- 15 97,147,201-2, 10:9 102
182, 202, 223 258,271-2,340 10:11, 15 284
9:22, 28-9 262 8:50 262 10:16 367-8
10:37-9 138,140 9:22-25 139,217 10:27-29 194
11:1-15 176 9:32 143 11:25 103
11:20ff 340 9:35 319 12:24,32 103
11:28-30 101,137,340 10:22 273 12:31-2 48,112,116,274
12:31-2 184 10:27 367 12:37,39-40,48 276
13:1-43 371-2 12:41-8 202 12:46-7 287
13:11-13 201,372 13:5 99,165 14:6 103,162
13:18-23 201,235,258 14:15-24 366 14:16-20 112,197-8,235
13:44-6 145 14:27 140 14:26 198
15:6 6 15:11-31 279 14:30 55
16:17 274 17:19 262 15:1-16 216-7,321
16:18 85 18:13 75 16:7-11 112,115-6
16:19-21 90-1 18:18-27 143 17:1-11,20,24 28,195-6
16:24-7 139-40 18:42 262 273,284-5
17:5 319 19:1-10 99,145,166,290 20:22 52
18:21-35 218 22:32 234 20:31 255
19:16-26 143-4, 324 23:42f 158
20:22 142 24:47-9 103 ACTS:
20:28 73,77,98,102,284 1:4-5, 8 117,198
21:41-44 89,320 JOHN: 1:11 86
22:1-14 319-20,362 1:1-2 28 2:21 291
23:13 92 1:12-13 100,197,254 2:23 32,299,303-5
23:35 319 1:29 62,73,98,286 2:37-8 104,117,153-4,256
23:37-8 272,372 1:31-4 151 2:47 104
24:13 225 2:19 103 3:19 104
25:34 29 3:5-6 152 4:4,11-12 104,162
28:18-20 103,400 3:14-5 62 4:27-8 332
3:16-19 142,165,286,294 5:31-2 104,260
MARK: 3:25 169 5:33 119
1:4 151 3:36 100 7:51-4 104,119,372-3
1:14-5 98,152 4:13-14 101,234,255 7:54 119
2:1-12 152 4:42 287 8:12 105
3:28-9 229 5:24-5 47,101,116,254 8:20-23 220
5:34-6 152 5:37-40 272 9:1-19 368
6:12 152 6:28-9 128,265 9:20-29 402
9:7 319 6:35 62,103,137,234 9:35 105
10:20-1 143-4 6:35,40,58 195,255 10:43 105,154,291
11:14 263 4:17-21 59,195 11:7 50

11:15-21 105,198,256,260 5:1-2 257 11:29-32 147,215
13:38-9 106,291 5:6 290 12:8-9 261
13:42-48 106,118,368-70 5:5-11 79,194 12:13 156, 198,243
14:1 119,370 5:12 46,165 14:24-25 119
14:2 106 5:15, 19 124,285 15:1-3 222,290
14:27 92 5:18 288-9 15:44-46 51
15:7-9 106,256,308 6:1 230
15:8-11 129 6:1-10 157 2 CORINTHIANS:
15:17 92 6:23 47,124,260 1:21-2 196
16:14 118,370-1 8:9-11 198 2:5-11 51
16:15 106 8:12-13 215-6 3:18 43
16:19 93 8:15-6 180 4:3-4 48,115-6,168,208
16:30-1 106,118,155 8:18 334-5 5:10, 11 230-1
17:2-3 106 8:28-31 34-5,193,298-300, 5:14-15 230,288
17:10-12 107,263,279,341,370 331-6,363-4,371 5:17-21 73,79,287
17:27-31 50,107,166,290-1 8:32-34 324 7:10 100,133
18:4 119 9:1-29 347-51,371 10:5 419
18:8 107 9:11,16,18-22 348-50 13:5 222
18:27-8 107,260 9:30–10:15 351-2
18:28 119 9:30-32 257 GALATIANS:
19:4 107 10:6-10 180, 222,235,257,351 1:6-9 129
19:8 108 10:11-17 155,291,351 2:16,21 129
20:20-1 98,108,155 11:1-3 307 3:2-26 257
20:28 285 11:5,7 324-5 3:10 232
20:29-30 223 11:28-9 325,364 3:13 78,285
22:1-21 368 12:3 261 3:22 129
22:10-16 155 16:13 325 4:5 78
24:25 119 4:8-9 311
26:5 302 1 CORINTHIANS: 4:11 222
26:1-20 114,118,156,256, 1:14, 17 156 5:2-4 156-7,222
263,368,371 1:18–2:4 419 5:16 199
1:26-29 323,340 6:15 157
ROMANS: 2:7-10 332
1:1 362 2:11 52 EPHESIANS:
1:4 331 2:14-15 277 1:3-14 197,336-40
1:14-17 123,256,334,371,401 3:1-3 146 1:4 29,325-6
1:18-32 166,277 3:10-15 88,146,192,211 1:5 332
2:2 169 4:7 261 1:10-12 32-4,288,332
2:7 278 4:15 373 1:13 257
2:12-16 167 5:5 146,215 2:1-3 47-8
2:29 157 5:7 62,73 2:8-10 163,259
3:10-11 46,278 6:9 221 2:20 88
3:19-20 165 6:11 243 3:9-10 28
3:23 46 6:19-20 77,198 4:1 362
3:24-5 75,124,169,229 7:20 362 4:18 47
3:28 124 7:23 77 4:30 197,199
4:5 124 8:3 311 5:2 73
4:8 126 9:21 127 5:18 199
4:16 128,157,193, 10:1-4 88 5:25-6 285-6
256-7,260,266 10:20 168
SCRIPTURE INDEX 461
PHILIPPIANS: TITUS: 1 PETER:

1:29 261 1:1 3,326 1:1-2 242,298-300,305-6,322
2:12-13 218,261 1:9-14 3 1:3 197
2:1, 7, 10 3 1:4-5 195
COLOSSIANS: 2:11-12 237,290 1:9 258
1:20-23 223 3:5-6 157 1:7-13 306
2:2 177,187 1:10-1 68
2:8 6,420 PHILEMON: 1:18-21 29,73,306
2:11-13 150,157 10 373 1:21 207,261
2:13-4 229 1:23 156,234,258
2:15 116 HEBREWS: 2:4-8 87,319
3:10 43 1:3 134 2:9 322
3:12 325 2:1-3 204-6 2:23 197
2:9 208,290 2:24 73
1 THESSALONIANS: 2:14 48,55 3:18 73,286
1:5 176-7,187 2:17 75 3:20-1 156
4:3 242 3:12–4:13 205-7 4:1 73
5:19 199 3:14 209
5:23 51 4:2-3 180,258 2 PETER:
4:12 52 1:1 261
2 THESSALONIANS: 5:9 229 1:10-11 176,181,218,322,364
1:8 169 5:11–6:9 205,207-11 2:1,19 77
2:9-11 341 6:7-8 147 2:22 223
2:13-4 242,328,363 6:11 177,187 3:5 272
7:25-27 74,210 3:9 34
1 TIMOTHY: 9:11-15 74,210,229
1:3-11 2 9:24-28 74,210 1 JOHN:
1:4 323 10:1-4 210 1:8-10 181-2
1:12-16 276,289,341,368 10:10,12,14 74,210,242 2:1-2 75,196,287
2:1-6 363-4 10:22 177,187 2:19 221
2:3-4 2 10:26-39 211-2 4:10 75
2:5 162 10:29 120 4:14 287
2:2 177 11:1 176 5:1 259
3:2 2 11:4 46 5:7-8 120
3:9, 15 2 11:6-7 55 5:13 176,181,287
4:1, 6, 10-11 2 11:17-19 59 5:15-17 216,231
4:10 289-90,295 12:14 231,242 5:19 287
4:13, 16 3 12:25-29 212-3
5:8, 17 3 2 JOHN
6:2-3, 10, 17 3 JAMES: 1,13 326-7
6:10 288 1:13-14 48
1:18 156 JUDE:
2 TIMOTHY: 2:18-9 127 11 46
1:12 195 2:10 232 19 52
2:10 326 3:9 50 24 195
2:19-22 242,312 3:15 52
2:25 260 3:17 233 REVELATION:
2:10 219
3:4-5 219
22:17 291
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Most Relevant and Helpful Theological Works:
Baxter, Richard. Catholick Theologie. 1675.
Bryson, George L. The Five Points of Calvinism. Costa Mesa, CA: The Word for Today, 1996.
---------------------. The Dark Side of Calvinism: The Calvinist Caste System. Santa Ana, CA: Calvary Chapel, 2004.
Caragounis, Chrys C. Peter and the Rock. Berlin: DeGruyter, 1990.
Coate, Micah. The Cultish Side of Calvinism. Tucson, AZ: Micah Coate, 2011.
Cocoris, G. Michael. Lordship Salvation—Is It Biblical? Dallas: Redencion Viva, 1983.
Craig, William L. The Only Wise God: Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. Baker, 1987.
Daane, James. The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and Pulpit. GR: Eerdmans, 1973.
Dillow, Joseph C. The Reign of the Servant Kings. Miami Springs, FL: Schoettle Pub., 1992.
Douty, Norman F. The Death of Christ. Irving, TX: Williams & Watrous Publishing, 1978.
Eaton, Michael. No Condemnation: A New Theology of Assurance. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995
Fisk, Samuel. Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom. rev. ed. Eugene, OR, Wipf and Stock, 2002.
. Calvinistic Paths Retraced, Murfreesboro, TN: Biblical Evangelism Press, 1985.
Forster, Roger T. and Marston, V. Paul. God's Strategy in Human History. MinneapoIis: Bethany House, 1973.
Geddert, Timothy J. Double Take: New Meanings in Old Stories. Kindred, 2007.
Geisler, Norman L. Chosen But Free. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1999.
Gracely, Daniel. Calvinism:A Closer Look. Glassboro, NJ: Daniel Gracely, 2009.
Heard, J. B. The Tripartite Nature of Man: Spirit, Soul, and Body. Edinburg: T. & T. Clark, 1866.
Hunt, Dave. What Love Is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God. 2nd ed., Bend, OR: Berean Call, 2004.
Ironside,H. A. Holiness: the False and the True. Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Bros.
Johnson, E. H., and Weston, Henry G. An Outline of Systematic Theology. Phila.: American Baptist Publ.,1895.
Kendall, R. T. Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, 2nd ed. Carlisle, Cumbria, UK: Paternoster Press, 1997.
. Once Saved, Always Saved. Chicago: Moody, 1985
Klein, William W. The New Chosen People. GR: Zondervan, 1990.
Lightner, Robert P. The Death Christ Died. Des Plaines, IL: Regular Baptist Press, 1967.
. Sin, the Savior, and Salvation: The Theology of Everlasting Life. Nashville: Nelson, 1991.
Park, Edwards A., ed. The Atonement, Discourses and Treatises by Jonathan Edwards, John Smalley, Jonathan
Maxcy, Nathanael Emmons, Edward D. Griffin, Caleb Burge, and William R. Weeks. Boston: 1859
Pearse, Meic. The Great Restoration: The Religious Radicals of the 16th and 17th Centuries. Paternoster, 1998.
Radmacher, Earl D. What the Church Is All About: A Biblical and Historical Study. Chicago: Moody Press, 1978.
. Salvation. Nashville:Word, 2000.
Rice, John R. Predestined for Hell? No! Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1958.
. Salvation. Nashville: Word, 2000
Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism Today, rev. ed. Chicago: Moody, 1995.
. So Great Salvation: What It Means to Believe In Jesus Christ. Wheaton: Victor, 1989.
Sauer, Erich. The Dawn of World Redemption: A Survey of Historical Revelation in the Old Testament., 1951.
. The Triumph of the Crucified. GR: Eerdmans, 1951.
Stanley, Charles. Eternal Security: Can You Be Sure? Nashville: Nelson, 1990.
Strombeck, John F. Shall Never Perish. Moline, IL: Strombeck Agency, 1936.
Sumner, Robert L. An Examination of TULIP. Murfreesboro, TN: Biblical Evangelism Press, 1972
Thiessen, Henry C. Lectures in Systematic Theology. GR: Eerdmans, 1949 - The original edition is sound.
Vance, Laurence M. The Other Side of Calvinism., 2nd ed., Pensacola: Vance Publications, 1991.
Wall, Joe L. Going for the Gold: Reward and Loss at the Judgment of Believers. Chicago: Moody, 1991.
Extreme Calvinistic Theological Works:

Berkhof, L. Systematic Theology. GR: Eerdmanns, 1953.
Boettner, Loraine. The Reformed Faith. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1983.
. The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, 5th ed. GR: Eerdmans, 1941.
Boice, James Montgomery. Awakening to God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979.
Buswell, Jr., James Oliver. A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962.
Carson, D. A. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. Wheaton: Crossway, 2000.
. Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension. GR: Baker, 1994.
Carson, D. A., Moo, Douglas, and Morris, Leon. An Introduction to the New Testament. GR: Zondervan, 1992.
462
BIBLIOGRAPHY 463
Carson, D. A. and Woodbridge, John D. eds., Hermeneutics, Authority and Canon. GR:Academie, 1986
Chantry, Walter. Today’s Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic? London: Banner of Truth, 1970.
Clark, Gordon H. The Atonement, 2nd ed. Jefferson: The Trinity Foundation, 1987.
. Predestination. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987.
Crampton, W. Gary. What Calvin Says. Jefferson, MD: Trinity Foundation, 1992.
Custance, Arthur C. The Sovereignty of Grace. GR: Baker, 1979.
Feinberg, John S. No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God. Wheaton: Crossway, 2001.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. GR: Zondervan, 1994.
Hodge, Archibald A. The Atonement, GR: Baker, 1974 reprint (1867).
Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology, 3 vols. GR: Eerdmanns, 1968 reprint.
Hoekema, Anthony A. Saved by Grace. GR: Eerdmans, 1989.
Hoitenga, Dewey J., Jr. John Calvin and the Will. GR: Baker, 1997.
Jewett, Paul K. Election and Predestination. GR: Eerdmans, 1985.
Kuiper, R. B. For Whom Did Christ Die? A Study of the Divine Design of the Atonement. GR: Baker, 1959.
Lane, A. N. S., ed. Introduction to John Calvin’s The Bondage and Liberation of the Will .Baker, 1996.
MacArthur, John F., Jr. The Gospel According to Jesus. GR: Zondervan, 1988.
. Faith Works: The Gospel According to the Apostles. Dallas: Word, 1993.
. The Charismatics: A Doctrinal Perspective. GR: Zondervan, 1978.
Murray, John. Redemption: Accomplished and Applied. GR: Eerdmans, 1955.
Nettleton, David. Chosen to Salvation. Schaumburg, IL: Regular Baptist Press, 1983.
Neuser, Wilhelm H., ed. Calvinus Sacrae Scripturare Professor. GR: Eerdmans, 1994.
Owen, John. The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1959 reprint (1852).
Packer, J. I. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Chicago: IVP, 1961
Packer, J. I. & Johnston, O. R. “Introduction ,” in Luther’s Bondage of the Will. Revell, 1957.
Palmer, Edwin H. The Five Points of Calvinism in the Light of Scripture. GR: Guardian Press, 1972.
Pink, Arthur W. The Satisfaction of Christ. GR: Zondervan, 1955.
. The Sovereignty of God. rev. ed. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1961.
. Eternal Security. GR: Baker, 1974.
. Gleanings from the Scriptures: Man’s Total Depravity. Chicago: Moody Press, 1969.
Piper, John. The Justification of God, 2nd ed. GR: Baker, 1993.
Schreiner, Thomas R. & Ware, Bruce, eds. The Grace of God/ The Bondage of the Will, 2vols. GR: Baker, 1995.
Seaton, W. J. The Five Points of Calvinism. Edinburgh: Banner of Trusth, 1970.
Shedd, W. G. T. Dogmatic Theology. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1980 reprint.
Storms, C. Samuel. Chosen for Life. GR: Baker, 1987.
Turretin, Francis. trans., George M. Giger, Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Phillipsburg, NJ: P. & R. Publ.,1992.
Warfield, B. B. The Plan of Salvation. Eerdmans, 1935.
. Calvin and Augustine, ed. Samuel Craig. Phila.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1956.
White, James R. The Potter’s Freedom. Amityville, NY: Calvary Press, 2000.
Zanchius, Jerom. The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination. GR: Baker Books, 1977.
Moderate Calvinistic Theological Works:

Baker, Charles F. A Dispensational Theology. GR: Grace Bible College Publ., 1971.
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. By Henry Beveridge. GR: Eerdmans, 1964.
. Commentaries, trans. William Pringle, 22 vols. GR: Baker, 1979 reprint.
Chafer, Lewis Sperry. Systematic Theology, 8 vols. Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947.
Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology, 3 vols. GR: Baker, 1983.
Keathley, Kenneth. Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach. Nashville: B & H Academic, 2010.
Lewis, Gordon R. and Demarest, Bruce A. Integrative Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990.
Ryrie, Charles C. Basic Theology. Wheaton: Victor, 1986.
Strong, Augustus Hopkins. Systematic Theology, 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1906
Swindoll, Charles R. & Zuck, Roy B., eds. Understanding Christian Theology. Nashville: Nelson, 2003.
Walvoord, John F. Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Chicago: Moody, 1969.
. The Holy Spirit. Wheaton: Van Kampen Press, 1954.
Arminian Theological Works:

Arminius, James. The Works of James Arminius, trans. James & William Nichols, 3 vols. GR: Baker, 1986.
Bangs, Carl O. Arminius : A Study in the Dutch Reformation, 2nd ed. GR: Zondervan, 1985.
Bloesch, Donald G. Essentials of Evangelical Theology, 2 vols. NY: Harper Collins: 1978.
Duty, Guy. If Ye Continue: A Study of the Conditional Aspects of Salvation. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1966.
Forlines, LeRoy. The Quest for Truth: Answering Life’s Inescapable Questions. Nashville: Randall House, 2001.
Hildebrandt, Franz. Christianity according to the Wesleys. GR:Zondervan, 1996.
Marshall, I. Howard. Kept by the Power of God, 3rd ed. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1995.
Mickey, Paul A. Essentials of Wesleyan Theology: A Contemporary Affirmation. GR: Zondervan, 1980.
Oden, Thomas C. Systematic Theology, 3 vols.,Peabody, MA: Prince Publishers, 1998.
Olson, Roger E. Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006.
Picirilli, Robert E. Grace, Faith, Free Will: Calvinism & Arminianism. Nashville: Randall House, 1992.
Pinnock, Clark H., ed. The Grace of God, The Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism. GR: Zondervan, 1989.
. ed. Grace Unlimited. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975.
Shank, Robert. Life in the Son. Springfield, MO: Westcott, 1960.
. Elect in the Son. Springfield, MO: Westcott, 1970.
Tuttle, Robert G., Jr. John Wesley: His Life and Theology. GR: Zondervan, 1978.
Walls, Jerry L. & Dongell, Joseph R. Why I Am Not a Calvinist. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2004.
Wiley, H. Orton. Christian Theology. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 1952.
Williams, J. Rodman. Renewal Theology: God, the World, & Redemption. GR: Acadamie Books, 1998.
Open Theism Debate:

Basinger, David. The Case for Freewill Theism. Downers Grove, InterVarsity, 1996.
Boyd, Greg. God of the Possible. GR: Baker, 2000.
, Trinity and Process. NY: Peter Lang, 1992.
Erickson, Millard J. God the Father Almighty. GR: Baker, 1998.
Geisler, Norman L Creating God in the Image of Man. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1997.
. “Process Theology and Inerrancy,” in Lewis and Demarest, Challenges to Inerrancy. Moody, 1984.
. & House, Wayne. The Battle for God: Responding to the Challenge of Neotheism. GR: Kregel, 2001.
Gruenler, Royce. The Inexhaustible God: Biblical Faith & the Challenge of Process Theology. GR: Baker, 1983.
Nash, Ronald . Process Theology. GR: Baker, 1987.
Pinnock, Clark, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, and David Basinger, The Openness of God: A Biblical
Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1994.
Reichenbach, Bruce. Evil and a Good God (New York: Fordham Univ., 1982)
Richard Rice, The Openness of God (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1980).
Ware, Bruce. God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000).
Wright, R. K. McGregor. No Place for Sovereignty: What’s Wrong with Freewill Theism. InterVarsity, 1996.
Diverse Views Anthologies:

Basinger, David & Randall, eds. Predestination and Free Will: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986.
Beilby, James K. and Eddy, Paul R. eds. Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001.
Dieter, Melvin E., et. al.. Five Views on Sanctification. GR: Zondervan, 1987.
Okholm, Dennis & Phillips, Timothy. eds., Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World. GR: Zondervan, 1995.
Pinson, J. Matthew, ed. Four Views on Eternal Security. GR: Zondervan, 2002.
Most Significant and Helpful Historical Works:

Alexander, Archibald . Thoughts on Religious Experience. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1967 repr
Armstrong, Brian G. Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1969.
Bell, M. Charles. Calvin and Scottish Theology:Theology of Assurance. Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1985.
Bierma, Lyle D. German Calvinism in the Confessional Age. GR, Baker Book, 1997.
Cairns, Earle E. Christianity Through the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church. GR: Zondervan, 1996.
Cheriyan, C. Y. Orthodox Christianity in India. Kottayam, India: Academic Publishers, 2003.
Clifford, Alan C. Atonement and Justification: English Evangelical Theology (1640-1790), Oxford: 1990.
Conforti, Joseph A. Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement. GR: Eerdmans, 1981.
Crespin, Jean. About the Church of the Faithful in the Country of Brazil. France, 1564
Estep, William R. The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism. GR: Eerdmans, 1996.
Fletcher, Richard. The Barbarian Conversion: from Paganism to Christianity. NY: Henry Holt, 1997.
Gillies, John. The Martyrs of Guanabara. Chicago: Moody Press, 1976.
Hardman, Keith J. Seasons of Refreshing: Evangelism and Awakenings in America, GR: Baker Books, 1994.
Heick, O. W. and Neve, J. L. A History of Christian Thought, 2 vols. Phila.: Muhlenberg, 1946.
Hewitt, John H. Williams College and Foreign Missions. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1914.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 465
Hopkins, Mark. A Discourse occasioned by the death of Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin. Tuttle, Belcher, Burton, 1837.
Kling, David W. A Field of Divine Wonders: New Divinity and Revivals in W. CT (1792-1822), Penn. State, 1993.
Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of Christianity. NY: Harper & Row, 1953.
Lightfoot, J. B. The Apostolic Fathers. GR: Baker Books, 1956 (1891).
Lovelace, Richard F. The American Pietism of Cotton Mather. Christian University Press, 1979.
Macleod, John. Scottish Theology. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1946.
McGrath, Alister. History of the Doctrine of Justification: English Evangelical Theology (1640-1790), Oxford, 1987.
McKee, Elsie Anne and Armstrong, Brian G., eds. Probing the Reformed Tradition. Louisville: John Knox, 1989
McNeil, John T. The History and Character of Calvinism. NY: Oxford, 1967.
Murray, Iain. The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy. London: Banner of Truth, 1975.
. Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching. Carlisle: Banner of Truth,1995.
Nash, Ansel. Memoir of Edward Dorr Griffin. New York, Benedict, 1842.
Neuser, Wilhelm H. ed. Calvinus Sacrae Scripturae Professor. Eerdmans, 1994.
Newman, Albert Henry. A Manual of Church History, 2 vols. Phila.: American Baptist, 1899.
Noll, Mark A. The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity. Eerdmans, 2002.
Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform. InterVarsity, 1999.
Rooy, Sydney H. The Puritan Theology of Missions, Eerdmans, 196?.
Paine, Gustavus S. The Men Behind the King James Version. GR: Baker, 1977.
Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church, 8 vols. GR: Eerdmans, 1985 [1910].
Shelley, Bruce L. Evangelicalism in America. Eerdmans, 1967.
Shelton, Dan O. Heroes of the Cross in America. NY: Young People’s Missionary Movement, 1904.
Sweet, William Warren, The Story of Religion in America. NY: Harper, 1930.
Thuesen, Peter J. Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine. NY: Oxford, 2009.
Underwood, A. C. A History of the English Baptists. London: Baptist Union, 1970.
Warns, Johannes. Baptism: Studies in the Original Christian Baptism, trans. G. H. Lang. Paternoster,1957.
Wills, Garry. Saint Augustine. NY: Viking Penguin, 1999.
Woodbridge, John D. ed. Great Leaders of the Christian Church. Chicago: Moody, 1988.
Woodbridge,John D., Noll, Mark. A., and Hatch, Nathan O. The Gospel in America. Zondervan, 1979.
Most Significant and Helpful Missiological Works:

Beaver, R. Pierce. Pioneers in Mission. GR: Eerdmans, 1966.
. To Advance the Gospel. GR: Eerdmans, 1967.
Boer, Harry R. Pentecost and Missions. GR: Eerdmans, 1961.
Carey, S. Pierce. William Carey, D.D.
Davis, Walter Bruce. William Carey: Father of Modern Missions. Chicago: Moody,1963.
Godbey, J. E. & A. H. Light in Darkness: Missions and Missionary Heroes, 2 vols. St. Louis: Imperial, 1892.
Hesselgrave, David J. Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally. GR: Zondervan, 1978.
Hull, J. Mervin. Judson the Pioneer. Phila.: American Baptist Publications, 1913.
Judson, Edward. The Life of Adoniram Judson. New York: Randolph, 1883.
Kane, Herbert J. A Concise History of the Christian World Mission. GR: Baker, 1978.
. Understanding Christian Missions. GR: Baker, 1974, 1982.
Olsen, Viggo B. Daktar: Diplomat in Bangladesh. Chicago: Moody Press, 1973.
Olson, C. Gordon. What in the World Is God Doing? The Essentials of Global Missions , 6th ed., 2011.
Peters, George W. A Biblical Theology of Missions. Chicago: Moody Press, 1972
Warneck, Gustav. Outline of a History of Protestant Missions. trans. by George Robson. NY: Revell, 1901.
Wayland, Francis. Memoir of Judson. Boston: Philips and Sampson, 1853.
General Reference Works:

Elwell, Walter A. ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. GR: Baker, 1984.
Enns, Paul. The Moody Handbook of Theology. Chicago: Moody Press, 1972.
Harrison, Everett F. Baker’s Dictionary of Theology. GR: Baker, 1960.
Orr, James, ed. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 5 vols. GR: Eerdmans, 1955.
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia
Tenney, Merrill C. ed. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. 5 vols. GR: Zondervan, 1975.
General Works:
Andrew, Brother. And God Changed His Mind . . . Because His people dared to ask. Tarrytown: Revell, 1990.
Bakker, Jim. I Was Wrong. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996.
Baxter, Richard. The Practical Works of Richard Baxter. GR: Baker Book House, 1981 (1863).
Craig, William Lane. Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time. Wheaton: Crossway, 2001.
Kaiser, Jr., Walter C. Toward an Old Testament Theology. GR: Zondervan, 1978.
McClain, Alva J. The Greatness of the Kingdom. Chicago: Moody, 1 959.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Faith. GR: Zondervan, 2000.
Vos, Howard F. Religions in A Changing World. Chicago: Moody, 1959.
General Theological Works:

Alexander, W. Lindsay. A System of Biblical Theology. 1888.
Allen, Ronald B. The Majesty of Man: The Dignity of Being Human. rev. ed. GR: Kregel, 2000.
Anderson, Sir Robert. Redemption Truths. GR: Kregel, 1980 (reprint).
Barnes, Albert. The Atonement. Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, reprint of 1860.
Best, W. E. Justification before God (Not by Faith). Houston: W. E. Best Book Missionary Trust, n. d.
Helm, Paul. The Providence of God. Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
Hodges, Zane C. Absolutely Free GR: Zondervan, 1989.
. Harmony With God. Dallas: Redencion Viva, 2001.
. The Gospel Under Siege: A Study on Faith and Works. Dallas: Redencion Viva, 1981.
Ladd, George Eldon. A Theology of the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1974.
Luther, Martin. Sammtliche Schriften, 2d ed., ed. Joh. Georg Walch. St. Louis: Concordia, 1880-1910.
. The Bondage of the Will, trans. J. I. Packer & O. R. Johnston. Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1957.
. Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989.
McDonald, H. D. The Christian View of Man Wheaton: Crossway, 1981.
. The Atonement of the Death of Christ: In Faith, Revelation, and History. GR: Baker, 1985
Mell, Patrick H. A Southern Baptist Looks at Predestination. Cape Coral: Christian Gospel Foundation, n.d.
Moody, Dale, The Word of Truth. GR: Eerdmans, 1981.
Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. GR: Eerdmans, 1965.
Nichols, James. Calvinism and Arminianism, 2 vols. London: Longmans, et al, 1824.
Richards, James. Lectures on Mental Philosophy and Theology (1846)
Tiessen, Terrance. Providence and Prayer: How Does God Work in the World? Downers: InterVarsity, 2000.
Tidball, Derek. The Message of the Cross. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001.
Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments. GR: Eerdmans,
Wilkin, Robert N. Confident in Christ: Living by Faith Really Works. Irving, TX: Grace Evangelical Soc., 1999.
Woodbridge, John D. and McComiskey, Thomas E., eds. Doing Theology in Today’s World. Zondervan, 1991.
Commentaries:
Alford, Henry. The Greek Testament. orig. 4 vols. Chicago: Moody, 1958 [1849].
Gundry, Robert H. Matthew: A Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art. GR: Eerdmans, 1982
Henrichsen, Walter A. After the Sacrifice. Zondervan, 1979
Howley, G. D. C. ed. A New Testament Commentary. GR:Zondervan, 1969.
Nichol, W. Robertson. ed., The Expositor's Greek Testament. GR: Eerdmans, 1961.
Strauss, Lehman. The Book of the Revelation. Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Bos., 1964.
Walvoord, John F. and Zuck, Roy B., eds. The Bible Knowledge Commentary. Wheaton: Victor, 1983.
Linguistic and Exegetical Tools:

Abbott-Smith, G. A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 3d ed. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1937.
Balz, Horst, & Schneider, Gerhard, eds. Exegetical Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Eerdmans, 1978.
Blass, F. and DeBrunner, E. A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Literature, trans., Robert W.
Funk. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961
Botterweck G. J. & Ringgren, Helmer, eds., trans. John T. Willis. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. 11
vols., GR:Eerdmans, 1974-2006.
Brown, Colin. ed. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 3 vols. GR: Zondervan,1967.
Brown, Francis. The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon Hendrickson reprint, 1979.
Burton, Ernest DeWitt. Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek. Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark,1898.
Campbell, Constantine R. Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek. GR: Zondervan, 2008.
Carson, D. A. Exegetical Fallacies. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984.
Chamberlain, William Douglas. An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament. NY: Macmillan, 1952.
Cremer, Hermann. Biblico-Theological Lexicon of the New Testament Greek. J. & J. Clark. 1883.
Dana, H. E. and Mantey, Julius R. A. Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament. NY:Macmillan, 1927.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 467
Davidson, A. B. Hebrew Syntax, 3rd ed. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901.

Demosthenes, 31,4, Against Onetor.
Harris, Laird, Archer, Gleason, & Waltke, Bruce., eds.. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Moody, 1980
Jastrow, Marcus. Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud Babli, Yerushalmi and Midrashic Lit., NY: Judaica Press, 1982.
Kaiser, Walter. Toward an Exegetical Theology. GR: Baker, 1981.
Kittel, Gerhard, ed. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. 10 vols.,Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.
Lampe, G. W. H. A Patristic Greek Lexicon. Oxford, 1961.
Liddell, Henry George, Scott, Robert, and Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. NY: Oxford Univ., 1996.
Moulton, James Hope, and Milligan, George. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament . London: 1914-1929.
Parkhurst, John. A Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament, ed. by Hugh James Rose. London: 1829.
Robertson, A. T. and Davis, W. Hersey. A New Short Grammar of the Greek Testament 10th ed. Harper, 1958
Robertson, A. T. Word Pictures in the New Testament , 6 vols. Nashville: Broadman, 1930.
. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research. Broadman, 1934.
Rogers, Cleon L. Jr. and Cleon L. III. Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the New Testament. Zondervan, 1998.
Ross, Allen P. Introducing Biblical Hebrew. GR: Baker, 2001.
Stein, Robert H. Difficult Passages in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990.
Thayer, John Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. NY: American Book, 1886.
Tregelles, Samuel P. Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Turner, Nigel in Moulton, James Hope. Syntax, vol. III
Wallace, Daniel. Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Zondervan,1996.
Watts, J. Wash. A Survey of Syntax in the Hebrew Old Testament. Nashville: Broadman, 1951.
Young, Robert. Analytical Concordance to the Bible. GR: Eerdmans, 1936.
Articles:
Aldrich, Roy L. "The Gift of God," Bibliotheca Sacra. 122:487.
Berg, J. Vanden. “Calvin and Missions,” in Hoogstra, ed. John Calvin: Contemporary Prophet. GR: Baker, 1959.
Berkouwer, G. C. "Election and Doctrinal Reaction," Christianity Today. 5:586.
Chaney, Charles. "The Missionary Dynamic in the Theology of John Calvin," Reformed Review, 17:64, 24-38
Coates, Thomas. "Were the Reformers Mission-Minded?" Concordia Theological Monthly, 40:9, 600-611.
Constable,Thomas L. “The Gospel Message” in Campbell, Donald K. ed, Walvoord: A Tribute. Moody, 1982.
Gerstner, John H. & Jonathan N. "Edwardsean Preparation for Salvation," Westminster Theol. Jour., 42:5-50.
Godfrey, W. Robert. "Reformed Thought on the Extent of the Atonement to 1618," WTJ, 37: 133-171.
Gundry, Robert H. "The Language Milieu of First-Century Palestine." Jour. Biblical Literature 83 (1964): 404-408.
Hall, Basil. “Calvin Against the Calvinists,” John Calvin: Courtenay Studies in Reformation Theology. 1966.
Hargrave, O. T. “Free-willers in the English Reformation,” Church History, XXXVII (1968), 271-280.
Hoehner, Harold. “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ: Part V,” Bibliotheca Sacra 524 (Oct. ‘74) pp. 340-8.
James, Edgar C. “Foreknowledge and Foreordination,” Bibliotheca Sacra (July 1965).
Klooster, Fred H. “Missions–The Heidelberg Catechism and Calvin,” Calvin Theological Jour., 7:181-208 (1972).
McCoy, Charles S. “Johannes Cocceius: Federal Theologian,” Scottish Journal of Theology, 16:365.
Nicole, Roger. "Amyraldianism" in Encyclopedia of Christianity. (1964).
Olson, Roger. “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m an Arminian,” Christianity Today. 43 (Sept. 6, 1999) pp. 87-90, 92-4.
Sapaugh, Gregory. “Is Faith a Gift? A study of Ephesians 2:8, “ JOTGES, 7, no. 12 (Spring 1994), pp. 39-40.
Steffens, Nicholas M. “The Principle of Reformed Protestantism and Foreign Missions.”P. & R. Review, 5:241-53.
Ware, Bruce. “An Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of God,” JETS, 29:4, pp. 431-449.
Zwemer, Samuel M. “Calvinism and the Missionary Enterprise,” Theology Today 7:206-216 (July 1950).
Theological Papers:
Carter, Terry G. “The Calvinism of William Carey and its Effect on his Mission Work,” a paper delivered at ETS
2001 at Colorado Springs, Nov. 2001.
Edgar, Thomas R. “The Meaning of Proginosko,” a paper given at ETS Eastern Sect., March 30, 2001 at PBU.
Harless, Hal. “Parapipto in Hebrews 6.” Given at ETS, San Antonio, Nov. 2004.
Olson, C. Gordon. “Is the KJV the Basis of a Translational Rut? Given at KJV 400-Year Celebration at Liberty
University, October 1, 2011. Available on my website: www.mediatetheology.org.
Shahadeh, Imad. “Panel Discussion” at ETS 2000, Nashville, TN, November 2000.

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Christian Leaders’ Comments

Global Gospel Publishers

GLOBAL GOSPEL MINISTRIES, INC

Second abridged edition entitled, Getting the Gospel Right: A

All rights reserved ISBN 0-9624850-7-1

The diagram by George W. Peters on pg. 44 is taken from p. 56 of his book, A

Olson graphic on p. 122 improved and digitalized by courtesy of Walter Gramm

Cover layout is by the courtesy of Gerry Pruden of Bible Basics, International,

First edition: November, 2002

1 2 3 4 5 6 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012

Part V - A Middle Way Confirmed 377

Table of Charts and Diagrams

C. Herbert Hage, whose witness pointed me to Christ and whose

What in the World Is God Doing?

Published by: Branches Publications and Global Gospel Publishers --

A decade ago I was introduced to the delightful writing style of Gordon

AMP The Amplified Bible. GR: Zondervan, ©1965

As the gospel of Christ penetrates worldwide into thousands of people

C. Gordon Olson, October, 2012

What Is the Gospel?

salvation with doctrines of absolute predestination and irresistible grace.

Biblical Doctrine Is Foundational

book provides such a resolution! Actually, it is the fossilized systems of

How Can We Be Sure to Get It Right?

The priority of inductive methodology

to give to children (Lk. 11:11-13), I became impressed with an alternative

Avoiding problematic deductive, presuppositional approaches

scholars, but an emotional bonding to tradition is far more pervasive than

is tied in more closely to exegesis and predisposes toward a more inductive

Defective Interpretive Methodologies

original languages but build theology on erroneous English translations,

Distorted Perspectives and Attitudes

Testing Our Theology

My Personal Theological Pilgrimage

The Importance of Details

Major Exegetical Discoveries

Unique Features of this Book

3. Refutation of total inability, wrongly based upon Romans 3:11

Calvinism emphasizes divine sovereignty and free grace;

Evangelicals are divided into two or three polarized camps regarding

salvation for two reasons. It is intermediate to Calvinism and Arminianism

Evaluation of the general views

An Overview of a Mediate Soteriology

In creation God limited the exercise of His sovereignty.

God’s image in fallen man implies ability to respond to Him.

Christ died for all, but only believers are saved.

We must proclaim salvation on God’s terms.

The Spirit’s conviction mediately prepares sinners for faith.

Repentant faith is the only condition for the new birth.

We are not saved through discipleship.

True believers are eternally secure in Christ.

Foreordination is based upon foreknowledge.

God’s calling to salvation is not irresistible.

Christian history is replete with mediate antecedents.

World witness was restored by non-determinists.

The Resultant Plan of Salvation

instrumentality as the word of God is proclaimed.

It is close to impossible to understand the New Testament doctrine of

Any attempt to develop an inductive theology of salvation must start

It is imperative that sovereignty and depravity be defined biblically,

God Before the Foundation of the World

decrees means that God is no longer free to do whatever He wants. In this

The Meaning of God’s Sovereignty