Author Archives: spencer

Calvinists squirming all over the world

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

By Spencer D Gear

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

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

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

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

Calvinists on God loving ‘the world’

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

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

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

Mine is the logical position for these reasons:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

Works consulted

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

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

Notes:

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

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

[3] Ibid., OzSpen#390.

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

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

[6] Ibid., OzSpen#397.

[7] Ibid., The Boxer#398.

[8] Ibid., OzSpen#399.

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

Crucify

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

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

Her difficulties were:

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

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

How should I reply?[2]

The doctrine of imputation

centerforinquiry.net

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The righteousness of Christ is imputed

clker.com

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

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

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

Grudem summarises this for us:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Works consulted

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

Notes

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

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

To evangelize or not to evangelize?

Who am I?

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

A Christian friend wrote to me recently and asked, ‘I’m wondering if you believe all Christians have a duty to evangelise? I’m trying to find someone who can explain the Scriptural case for it’. This is a penetrating question.

I had not thought too deeply about it of late but have taken it for granted from my evangelical church tradition that it is the responsibility of all Christians to engage in evangelism. My friend’s question got me to thinking about biblical support for my position.

Those supporting every-person evangelism

My friend summarised the understanding of the basic message of the people in his church who believe that all should engage in evangelism:

1. Evangelism is a universal command stated in Scripture.

2. Therefore all Christians should evangelise.

3. All Christians don’t evangelise.

4. Therefore those who don’t are less virtuous (e.g. lazy, scared, excuse-making, not prioritising the Kingdom, ignorant) at best, deemed immoral at worst (NB, disobedient or rebellious to Christ’s command).

5. Therefore it is the responsibility of other Christians to exhort the non-evangelising Christians to evangelise.

He provided no biblical references to support this view.

Those supporting evangelism as a special gift

The other group of the congregation promotes the view which he supports, that the evangelism is to be done by those with the gift of evangelism. He stated his position:

1. God uses the Church to accomplish His mission.

2. God equips individuals differently for ministry according to His purposes.

3. The Church body is to value diversity of ministry, valuing each member’s ministry as equally important to the whole.

4. The Scriptures records the Church leadership discouraging others imposing or elevating their personal faith commitments and understanding onto others due to the risk of creating disunity.

5. The Scriptures does not record the church leadership exhorting entire congregations to evangelise. (I may be ignorant here and will happily be proved wrong)

6. Therefore it seems biblically inconsistent to place explicit or implicit expectations onto all Christians that they should be exhorted by other believers to evangelise.

Please note that he provided no biblical references to support his position.

What does the Bible emphasize?

a. Some have the special gift of being an evangelist.

These Scriptures emphasise that gift:

Ephesians 4:11-12, ‘And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds[1] and teachers,[2] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (ESV).
Acts 21:8, ‘On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him’.

There are only three uses of the word ‘evangelist’ in the entire Bible. They are Acts 21:8; Eph 4:11, and 2 Tim 4:5. This latter verse exhorts Timothy to ‘do the work of an evangelist’ and is not speaking of the gift of an evangelist. However, the few mentions of ‘evangelist’ do not diminish the fact that it is one of God’s special ministry gifts to the church.

Charles Spurgeon once asked in a sermon:

WHAT IS THAT NECESSITY WHICH IS LAID UPON US TO PREACH THY GOSPEL?

First, a very great part of that necessity springs from the call itself: If a man be truly called of God to the ministry, I will defy him to withhold himself from it. A man who has really within him the inspiration of the Holy Ghost calling him to preach cannot help it. He must preach. As fire within the bones, so will that influence be until it blazes forth. Friends may check him, foes criticise him, despisers sneer at him, the man is indomitable; he must preach if he has the call of heaven….

I think it no more possible to make a man cease from preaching, if he is really called, than to stop some mighty cataract, by seeking, with an infant’s cup, to drink its waters. The man has been moved of heaven, who shall stop him?… I think if God has called a man, he will impel him to be more or less constantly at it, and he will feel that he must preach among the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ….

I have preached this sermon especially, because I want to commence a movement from this place which shall reach others. I want to find some in my church, if it be possible, who will preach the gospel. And mark you, if you have talent and power, woe is unto you if you preach not the gospel (Preach the Gospel, Sermon No 34, 3.1).

Spurgeon himself was one of those with this special gift.

b. Everyone to evangelize

1. Paul wrote to Timothy whose primary gift was pastoral and said, ‘As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry (2 Tim 4:5, emphasis added).

Timothy, who did not have the gift of evangelism, was commanded to ‘do the work of an evangelist’. This has application to every believer, no matter what their gifts, to engage in evangelism – sharing the Gospel with unbelievers.

2. Matthew 28:18-20 (emphasis added), ‘And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’.

So these disciples were to teach disciples to observe (i.e. put into practice) all that Jesus commanded them. What did he command them in these 3 verses? To go and make disciples of all nations. Evangelising is a prerequisite of discipleship. To make disciples among the nations means that ALL disciples need to put Matt 28:18-20 into practice. Yes, the original message was given to 11 disciples (Matt 28:16), but to be in the NT should mean that it is there for all Christians to put into practice, ‘Make disciples of all nations’, baptising and teaching to put into practice what Jesus commanded his original disciples.

Matthew 28 should be the most convincing as we are told to disciple all nations and teach them to put into practice what Jesus has commanded – evangelism and discipleship. It’s everyone’s responsibility. Obviously some have the special gift of evangelism (I’m not one of them), but I’m told to evangelise.

3. Second Corinthians 5:17-20 (emphasis added), ‘

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ¹⁸All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God’ (ESV).

Verse 17 gives the context of ‘anyone’ who ‘is in Christ’ – anyone who ‘is a new creation’. So this applies to all Christians. What is one of the roles of these Christians? God ‘gave us the ministry of reconciliation’ (v 18) and ‘we are ambassadors for Christ’ (v 19). So the ministry of reconciliation (we can call it witnessing or evangelism) is a requirement for ‘anyone’ who is ‘in Christ’ and ‘is a new creation’.

I consider that this is further evidence to demonstrate that sharing our faith – the ministry of reconciliation between rebel sinners and God – belongs to all believers, anyone who is a new creation in Christ.

c. Preaching the gospel by deeds?

There’s a challenging article by Duane Litfin in Christianity Today, ‘Works and words: Why you can’t preach the gospel with deeds‘ (30 May 2012). Part of this article states:

So let us say it again: The belief that we can “preach the gospel” with our actions alone represents muddled thinking. However important our actions may be (and they are very important indeed), and whatever else they may be doing (they serve a range of crucial functions), they are not “preaching the gospel.” The gospel is inherently verbal, and preaching it is inherently verbal behavior. If the gospel is to be communicated at all, it must be put into words.

Living for Jesus, being a light for him, or doing good deeds are not considered the Gospel. They may attract people to Jesus through your life, but words are needed to proclaim the Gospel.

The role of the gift of an evangelist

There is definitely a special calling to be an evangelist, e.g. Eph 4:11-14; but please note what the role is for these specially gifted people – including the evangelist:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes (Eph 4:11-14 ESV).

Let’s use the role of the special gift of evangelist as an example. The job description is:

‘to equip the saints for the work of ministry’. It doesn’t say the role of the evangelist is to equip other specially gifted evangelists for their role as evangelists.
This equipping of the saints builds up the body of Christ, and in thus doing it leads to….
‘unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God’, and it leads to….
maturity, which is a measure of the fullness of Christ in our lives.
By being equipped in this way, we will not be tossed about by false doctrine, cunning and deceitful schemes (i.e. we will be equipped in polemics).

I hope I’m not drawing a long bow here. One of the greatest deficiencies in the contemporary church, from my observation, is its inability to take these equipping verses seriously and do the job of equipping all believers for ministry. The practical questions could include:

(1) How do I know who are the gifted people in our church groups? I have generally found that they will become self-evident. Get me in any small group and it should become evident through my participation that my gift is that of a teacher. An evangelist’s gift will shine wherever he goes. My friend, Pastor Chuck Parrot of Covenant Baptist Church, Union, South Carolina, USA, has an obvious gift of an evangelist. Go with him to any store and you’ll soon find out, as we discovered when he visited us in Australia.

clip_image002 Covenant Baptist Church (Union SC)

(2) Which people will agree to being equipped? In the church I currently attend, I don’t know of any evangelist who would be able to equip people in evangelism. We would need to bring in an evangelist to do that. Or, should that be done by the pastoral team? I doubt it, knowing the current range of gifts.

(3) For much of the equipping in my ministry I have sought help from outside sources for Child Wise, How to parent your out-of-control-teenager, domestic violence counselling and prevention, preaching (homiletics), systematic theology, etc.

You also might be interested in John Stott’s view in his sermon, ‘Preach the Gospel: 2 Timothy 4).

Conclusion: Why are these emphases in the New Testament?

An issue for me in all of these verses is: Why are they in the New Testament if they are not to apply to the whole church? Originally they might have been addressed to 11 or 12 of Jesus’ disciples or Paul’s audiences, but they are in Scripture because we need to practise this teaching.

I conclude with these biblical emphases:

(1) There are those who have the special gift of evangelism. They should exercise that gift AND use it to equip other believers for their ministries of evangelism. Some will need to ‘do the work of an evangelist’ even though their special gift is not evangelism.

(2) There are enough verses to emphasise that all those who are new people in Christ (i.e. all Christians) should be proclaiming the message of reconciliation through Christ and being ambassadors for Christ.

The Lost
(courtesy ChristArt)

Notes:

[1] The ESV footnote was, ‘Or pastors’.

[2] The ESV footnote was, ‘Or the shepherd-teachers’.

Turning trash into treasure (James 1:2-4)

Litter Disposal Clip Art

(image courtesy clker.com)

By Spencer D Gear PhD

Pollster George Barna in the USA ‘was commissioned to inquire of people what one question they would ask of God if they had the opportunity. By an overwhelming margin, the most urgent question was: Why is there so much suffering in the world?’[1]

Amongst some Christians I’ve heard comments like: If you are an obedient, growing and sanctified Christian who seeks to do the will of God, you will not experience horrible suffering. But I ask: What happened to Job, John the Baptist, and the apostle Paul? If bad things happened to them, why can’t they happen to you and me? Ron Rhodes tells the story of a Christian leader who was sledding and ran into a barbed wire fence he didn’t see. He was decapitated. A pastor got into his car and backed over his infant son on the driveway, killing him instantly. A Christian woman saw her husband and child killed when hit by a car. Surely these examples tell us that Christians are experience some of the tragedies of the world around us.[2]

As I was finishing preparation of this message, I received an email from a friend in the UK. He didn’t know I was preparing a sermon on this topic and he said that he had had a disagreement with his wife a few days ago and asked, ‘Why are relationships so difficult?’[3]

Have you ever asked?

(image courtesy lookseekblog.com)

Now let’s read for some answers.

James 1:1-4 (NASB)

Testing Your Faith

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.

Consider it all joy, my brethren [brothers and sisters], when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

A. Sit up & take notice: This must sink in

We could miss this emphasis in the biblical text, because our English translations begin James 1:2 with something like this: ‘Consider it’ (NIV, NLT, NASB, NET); or ‘Count it’ (KJV, ESV).

This word is addressing these Christians as a group[4] (2^nd person plural) with point action for themselves.[5] But what does it mean? Arndt and Gingrich’s Greek lexicon says that the verb[6] means to ‘think, consider, regard, deem it’.[7] Kittel’s Greek word study says it means ‘to regard as particularly important’.[8]

So, in down-to-earth Aussie lingo the Greek means: ‘Sit up & take notice. You must think about it to the point where it must sink in daily’. I ask you to sit up and take notice of what will bring you the greatest maturity in your Christian life now and in succeeding years.

What must we think about? The Greeks put the most important part of the sentence at the beginning.

The NASB starts, ‘Consider it all joy’. The Greek word order literally states, ‘All joy you consider (it)’.

B. Think on all the joy or the pure joy it brings

Is this saying you are to have all kinds of happiness when the Broncos beat the Bulldogs in footie or the Aussies beat the South Africans in cricket?

Is this happiness when the bank balance is comfortable and there are not too many bills to pay? Is James 1:2 talking about being happy when your health is good or manageable and the kids are behaving themselves?

What on earth is joy in a world of strife in Ukraine and Crimea? What about being a Christian in Syria or the South Sudan today? How can there be joy when a large aeroplane is lost on a flight and we don’t know its whereabouts?

What about being a Christian in the midst of the Holocaust, Soviet Gulag, the persecution of Nero? How about with a husband or wife who abuses you? Children who are rebels? Bullies on the job?

What does it mean to have ‘joy’ in the midst of those kinds of circumstance? This is chara in the Greek and related to the verb ‘to rejoice’.

Joy is more than a matter of mood because 1 Thess 3:9 asks: ‘How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?’ (NIV) We know that joy is one of the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22. It is fruit that the Spirit grows in believers.

It’s a paradox: The idea of joy in suffering came from Judaism. Take a read of the Book of Job. See also 1 Peter 2:20-24 and 4:12-14 where suffering is given a Christological perspective. These latter verses read:

¹²Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. ¹³But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. ¹⁴If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you (1 Peter 4:12-14 NIV).

Paul regularly reminded his readers of the source of joy. Its source was beyond human happiness or human joy. It is ‘in the Lord, and therefore outside of ourselves’. That’s why Paul reminded his readers of the origin of joy and exhorted them to manifest it. In Phil 3:1 he said, ‘Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice [i.e. have joy] in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you’ (NIV).[9]

Happiness is based on good outward circumstances. Joy is based on your inner relationship with the Lord and He causes joy to grow in you in your contentment in your relationship with Jesus.

We need to make something clear before we proceed:

C. Ladies: You are not let off the hook

In many translations, James 1:2 in English is addressed to ‘brothers’ or ‘brethren’. Does this exempt the ladies? Is the Book of James sexist and only addressed to blokes and the women can tune out and nod off for the next half hour?

In the NT, ‘adelphos’ can refer to a male brother. But Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon gives examples of how the plural form ‘can also mean brothers and sisters’. In Matt 12:50, Jesus said, ‘For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’. We have examples of the plural term ‘adelphoi’ (brothers) being ‘used by Christians in their relations with each other’ – see Acts 6:3; 9:30; 10:23; Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 5:11; Eph 6:23; 1 Tim 6:2; Rev 1:9; and 12:10.[10]

So for the book of James, you ladies are not left off the hook. James is addressed to ‘brothers’ who are male and female. That doesn’t sound too good in English. But in the Greek we can say that all Christians, male and female, can be addressed as adelphoi.

What happens to the Christian? You are living the daily Christian life and

D. Trash – the horrible stuff – comes into your life

The ESV translates as ‘meet trials’, NIV as ‘face trials’, NKJV ‘fall into various trials’, and NASB ‘when you encounter various trials’. So you can ‘encounter’ trials.

Is this like joining an ‘encounter group’ from the 1960s, 70s to deal with the trials and tribulations of life? These groups were gatherings of about 10-20 people where there was an opportunity to open up and share the emotional side of what was going on in your life as you experienced it with other group members. There was open sharing – and some had very emotionally charged encounters. It was hoped people would get in touch with their feelings, receive support from others and become more aware of the feelings of others.[11]

Is this what James is talking about? Those groups were a place where many secular and some Christian people went to encounter others and try to gain healing for their emotional ills. Is that what James is dealing with? I hardly think so.

‘Encounter’ or ‘meet’ or ‘face’ or ‘fall into’ is from the verb, peripipt?[12] which means to ‘become involved in’[13] or ‘to come on something accidentally … to be innocently involved in something … In James 1:2, … we have the figurative … emphasis on the swift and unexpected way in which [people] can be involved in temptation’.[14]

Because it is the subjunctive mood, in general, according to Greek guru, John Wenham, it ‘is the mood of doubtful assertion. In nearly all its uses there is some element of indefiniteness in the sentence’.[15] This means that it may happen or may not. This is accentuated by the use of ‘when’ or ‘whenever’ (hotan), which is a conjunction of uncertainty. And because it is the aorist tense it may happen suddenly – point action.

Has this happened to you? Difficulties in your life have come with no notice. It is doubtful and not certain when they come and they can come on you suddenly? That’s what James is communicating to us with that simple verb, ‘encounter’ or ‘fall into’.

Would you agree with Job’s friend, Eliphaz?

Job 5:7 states, ‘Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward’ (NIV)

Job said in Job 14:1, ‘Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble” (NIV)

We have lots of examples of evil and suffering in the Bible.

Job lost his family & all of his possessions;
David was pursued and persecuted by the jealous and angry Saul for a long time (1 Sam. 20:33; 21:10; 23:8);
The wife of Hosea was unfaithful to him (Hosea 1:2; 2:2, 4);
Joseph in the OT was badly treated by his brothers and sold into slavery (Gen. 37:27-28);
Herod’s step-daughter asked for and got the head of John the Baptist on a plate (Matt. 14:6-10);
Paul, the apostle, was jailed several times, was shipwrecked, beaten and left for dead (2 Cor. 11:25).[16] According to 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Paul wrote: ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed’ (ESV);

These examples show that those who obey God and seek to be faithful believers still may experience horrible suffering. This is suffering for God’s purpose in their lives!

But what are you encountering? The NASB calls them, ‘trials’.

1. Are you experiencing all kinds of life’s ‘garbage’?

I’ve heard Christians say to me, ‘I wish God wouldn’t send all of this junk into my life. It’s garbage and I want to get rid of it. I hate it’.

‘Trials of many kinds’ is the NIV translation. NKJV agrees with the NASB and calls them ‘various trials’. The ESV reads, ‘trials of various kinds’. Would you agree that the trials you experience in your life are just like that – many and varied? And they can come on you suddenly?

I was in the midst of preparing this message in November 2013 when I had another job to do and climbed a ladder in an attempt to clean the leaves from my house gutters, leaves from my neighbour’s trees. But the ladder collapsed and the back of my head slammed onto the concrete at our front door. I became concussed and ended up in Redcliffe hospital. Two weeks later I collapsed with a heart issue when taking a walk and landed head first into the gravel and into hospital and had an ICD implanted in my chest to regulate my heart rhythm. Two weeks later in the early morning while sleeping, I had a grand mal seizure and then into hospital. Talk about trials of various kinds happening suddenly.

J I Packer wrote a wonderful book, A Quest for Godliness, in it he stated: ‘Ease and luxury, such as our affluence brings today, do not make for maturity; hardship and struggle however do’.[17]

Many of you know what I’m talking about. God allows these various trials into our lives, but what’s the purpose of them?

Before we get to the purpose or reason for trials for the believer, we need to talk about what they are. Are they …

2. Trash, garbage or something else?

Many English translations call them ‘trials’ (NIV, NASB, ESV, NET, RSV, NRSV), ‘troubles’ (NLT, CEV), or ‘temptations’ (KJV, Douay-Rheims, ASV, RV).

But what are these trials, troubles or temptations? Peirasmos can mean a ‘test, trial’ or a ‘temptation, enticement to sin’.[18] All of them can be involved. I know that you and I can give examples of what seems like trash through trials and temptations coming into our lives.

In this passage from James 1, God has something special to teach us about the trials of trash in our lives. They are:

E. Horrible stuff with a BIG purpose

(image courtesy vector.me)

James 1:3 tells us exactly why God allows the trials and temptations into our lives. It is for the ‘testing of your faith’. Of what kind of stuff is your faith in God made?

How are diamonds formed? I read an article online from geology.com which stated,

The formation of natural diamonds requires very high temperatures and pressures. These conditions occur in limited zones of Earth’s mantle about 90 miles (150 kilometers) below the surface where temperatures are at least 2000 degrees Fahrenheit (1050 degrees Celsius).[19]

Remember that precious diamonds are made through pressure and very high temperatures.

What about expensive pearls? Science from ‘How stuff works’ tells us that

the formation of a natural pearl begins when a foreign substance slips into the oyster between the mantle and the shell, which irritates the mantle. It’s kind of like the oyster getting a splinter. The oyster’s natural reaction is to cover up that irritant to protect itself. The mantle covers the irritant with layers of the same nacre substance that is used to create the shell. This eventually forms a pearl.[20]

Precious and expensive pearls are caused by an irritant.

God uses a similar process in helping Christians grow to maturity in Christ. Let’s

F. Get in step with God’s plan for you & me

(image courtesy Google, public domain)

How will the diamonds and pearls of sanctification come in our lives? Let’s follow these steps carefully to see how God brings you and me to maturity in the Christian life:

1. You need to know it (1:3)

Verse 3 begins, ‘for you know’ (ESV) or ‘knowing that’ (NASB). This is present continuing action of experiential knowledge.[21] You need to have this knowledge as a continuing experience in your Christian life. Knowledge of what? You will not be able to count it all joy when trials come into our lives unless you continually know by experience what God is up to with your life.

What is God up to? Stay tuned because the reasons are about to unfold.

This is what God is up to in every Christian’s life by allowing trials and temptations to come into your life at ANY time. God is engaged in the task of

2. Refining rubbish (1:3)

It is trash with a purpose in every Christian’s life.

The language in the English translations is that God uses trials in ‘the testing of your faith’ (ESV, NIV, NASB, NET, NKJV, RSV, NRSV), ‘trying of your faith’ (KJV), ‘proving of your faith’ (ASV).

We know from an examination of the papyri that this word, to dikimion, is a noun that means ‘testing’ or ‘means of testing’.[22]

How does that apply to trials as a ‘means of testing’ our faith? It is the …

3. Refining your faith (1:3)

How do you refine gold? Put it in a furnace. It is purified by the use of the fire of refining. To get purer gold, you put it through the fire of testing. This is the analogy James is using with this word. Your faith is like gold that stands the test of fire to examine its genuineness.

How genuine is your faith? You will know through the testing of the fire of trials.

Note God’s purpose for trials:

4. Trash that produces staying power (1:3)

The word ‘produces’[23] or ‘works’ is again continuing action in your life. It’s the middle voice, so it is referring to what happens for you. So trash is continuing to produce what?

Hupomon? is an old Greek noun that means ‘staying power’.[24] Our English translations will use language such as ‘steadfastness’ (ESV), ‘perseverance’ (NIV), ‘endurance’ (NLT, NASB), ‘patience’ (KJV). But the meaning is stickability, staying power. Oh for people in the church who have staying power, even through the most difficult times? Are trials going to make you or devastate you? Do you know God’s purpose in trials is to refine your faith and produce staying power in your Christian life?

Alister Begg wrote a book, Made for His pleasure. In it he stated something that resonates with James 1, ‘The truth is that more spiritual progress is made through failure and tears than success and laughter’.[25]

This staying power means, according to James 1:4, that

5. Trash brings the perfect result (1:4)

Notice how v. 4 puts it, ‘And let endurance [staying power] have its perfect result’. ‘Let’ is a present tense imperative – ‘let it keep on having’[26] what? It’s a ‘perfect result’ or ‘perfect work’. The thought is that trials, the trash in our lives, are to ‘carry on the work to the end or completion’, just like John 17:4, where Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said that he had ‘accomplished the work that you gave me to do’ (ESV).

Here’s the issue that we have to keep on knowing in experience and acknowledging: To get to the end of life and accomplish God’s perfect result or work for us, we need trials to refine our faith.

For what purpose?

6. Trash brings the ultimate result: Maturity & completeness (1:4)

Here we have a purpose clause in the Greek, which is the goal of trials in your life. Trials are for the ultimate purpose of refining us, through staying power, and bringing us to being ‘perfect [or mature] and complete’ (ESV). Greek exegete A T Robertson put it so well: we will be ‘perfected at the end of the task (telos) and complete in all parts…. “perfected all over”’.[27]

This will lead to …

7. Imagine it? Lacking in nothing (1:4)

What could this possibly mean that you are ‘lacking in nothing’ (1:4)? This is really a ‘negative statement of the preceding positive’ one.[28] James uses this kind of technique where he makes a positive statement and then gives the negative side of it. You can see it in 1:6. To lack nothing is another way of saying we are mature and complete.

G. Practical responses for trials

(image courtesy sharefaith.com)

For Christians who are going through trials, there is a special ministry of the body of Christ that I want to emphasise as I draw to a close. It’s a dynamic that is missing from many churches in this country:

Romans 12:14-15 (ESV) puts it very clearly, ‘Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep’.

This ‘one another’ ministry is so critical for other believers who are experiencing trials of various kinds:

‘Bearing with one another in love’ (Eph. 4:2);

Eph. 4:32 (ESV), ‘Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you’.

Eph. 5:20-21 (ESV), ‘Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ’.

Col. 3:13 (ESV), ‘bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive’.

1 Thess. 3:12 (ESV), ‘and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you’.

1 Thess. 5:11 (ESV),’Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing’.

Heb. 3:13 (ESV), ‘But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin’.

There is much more to this ‘one another’ ministry but we must be there with it for those experiencing trials. Those who are going through trials desperately need this. That’s enough for now, but I do find it in short supply in today’s evangelical church in this country. But it’s also a challenge to me to be more vigilant in this ministry to others.

H. Conclusion

There are times when I’ve thought: Lord, why did you allow me to have three horrific bouts of rheumatic fever when I was aged 6, 10, and 12 that left me with lifelong leaking heart valves and now 5 open-heart surgeries. Why, oh why, Lord do you allow for such suffering?

How do Christians get to become mature and complete in the Christian life? These are the steps that James gives that we must know and practice daily. It is not a politically correct message. It is not a message that goes down well with the heal-wealth false theology. In fact, many evangelical Christians have lost this perspective on the Christian life. These are God’s steps to maturity and completeness in the Christian life.

Consider it pure joy

Trials with a BIG purpose

Trials for refining faith

Trials for staying power

Trials for the perfect result

Trials for maturity & completeness

Trials lacking in nothing

That’s the message of James 1:1-4. Will you receive it now and for the futuer?

Material prosperity will not do it.
Obedient, well-behaved children will not cause it to happen.
Even good health is no guarantee more joy will be in your life.
What will it be for you?

I read a story by Amy Anderson in Forbes magazine online that was titled, ‘Trials should make us better, not bitter’.[29] It began with this story:

I heard a speech given by a 20-something young woman who had grown up without her sight or hearing. She underwent surgery in high school to have a cochlear implant, which partially restored her hearing and helped her to more effectively communicate her story. She is still totally blind. As she shared her life story with us, she asked us to close our eyes and to imagine a world where all we saw was darkness, no color, no light. She asked us to imagine how depressing that would feel. With eyes still closed, she asked that this time we imagine our world with color and light and joy. She then stated, “The second picture you imagined is what I choose to see every day.” Then she asked us to open our eyes. She proceeded to share with us that she had a choice in life, “to be sad and depressed and see only darkness, or to be happy and joyful and see color and light.” She stated that she was able to make the choice.

She acknowledged that many times it is easy in life to focus on our trials by saying, “I often think that many of us count our blessings on our fingers and toes, but count our trials with a calculator.” That statement is all too true. She shared that many of us spend our lives thinking “Why me? Why is my life hard? Why do I have to struggle? Why do I have to suffer loss? Why, why, why?”

I was totally caught off guard by the words that came out of her mouth next. “I too, wake up each day and ask ‘Why me? Why am I so lucky to have ten fingers and ten toes? Why am I so lucky to have people that love me? Why am I so lucky to be able to walk? Why am I so blessed?’” WOW! That was all I could think in that moment. Just wow! She closed her talk by reminding us that “all of us are given trials to make us better, not to make us bitter.”

Will you

Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, ³knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

(image courtesy ChristArt)

Works consulted

Anderson, A R 2013. Trials should make us better, not bitter. Forbes, 10 April. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/amyanderson/2013/04/10/why-me/ (Accessed 11 March 2014).

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature.[30] Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House).

Begg, A 1998. What angels wish they knew. Chicago: Moody Publishers.
Begg, A 1996, 2005. Made for his pleasure: Ten benchmarks of a vital faith. Chicago: Moody Publishers.

Bennett, W H n.d. The general epistles, James, Peter, John, and Jude (The Century Bible: A modern commentary). H H Rowley & M Black (eds). London: Blackwood, Le Bas.

Beyreuther, E & Finkenrath, G 1976. ?????, in C Brown (ed), The new international dictionary of New Testament theology, vol 2, 356-361. Exeter: The Paternoster Press.

Brown, C (ed) 1976, The new international dictionary of New Testament theology,[31] vol 2. Exeter: The Paternoster Press.

Büchsel, O 1964. Egeomai, in Kittel, G (ed). Tr by G W Bromiley. Theological dictionary of the New Testament, vol 2, 907-908. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Hiebert, D E 1979. The epistle of James: Tests of a living faith. Chicago: Moody Press.

Michaelis, W 1968. Peripiptw, in Friedrich, G (ed). Tr G W Bromiley. Theological dictionary of the New Testament, vol 6, 173. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Packer, J I 1990. A quest for godliness: The puritan vision of the Christian life. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books.

Rhodes, R. 2004. Why Do Bad Things Happen If God Is Good? Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers.

Robertson, A T 1933. Word pictures in the New Testament: The General Epistles and the Revelation of John, vol 6. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press.

Ropes, J H 1916/1973. A critical and exegetical commentary on the Epistle of St. James. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

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

Notes:

[1] In Rhodes (2004:8). The footnote indicated: ‘Cited by Lee Strobel, “Why does God allow suffering?” Message delivered at Saddleback Valley Community Church, El Toro, California, February 26, 2000’ (Rhodes 2004:265, n. 1).

[2] Based on Rhodes (2004:12).

[3] Email received on 16 March 2014.

[4] 2^nd person plural.

[5] Aorist, middle, indicative.

[6] Hegeomai.

[7] Arndt & Gingrich (1957:344).

[8] Büchsel (1964:907)

[9] This paragraph is based on information from Beyreuther & Finkenrath (1976:361).

[10] Arndt &Gingrich (1957:15-16).

[11] Based on ‘Psychology glossary’, AlleyDog.com, 1998-2014, available at: http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Encounter+Groups (Accessed 9 March 2014).

[12] Peripes?te, 2^nd person pl, aorist active subjunctive.

[13] Arndt & Gingrich 1957:655.

[14] Peripiptw (Michaelis 1968:173).

[15] Wenham (1965:160).

[16] These scriptural illustrations were suggested by Rhodes (2004:12).

[17] Packer (1990:22).

[18] Peirasmos (A&G 1957: 646).

[19] ‘How diamonds form’ 2005-2014, geology.com, available at: http://geology.com/articles/diamonds-from-coal/ (Accessed 10 March 2014).

[20] ‘How do oysters make pearls?’ 1998-2014. Science, How stuff works, available at: http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/question630.htm (Accessed 10 March 2014).

[21] ‘Knowing’ is ginwskontes, present active participle from ginwskw. For experiential knowledge, A T Robertson calls it ‘experimental knowledge’ (Robertson1933:12).

[22] Arndt & Gingrich (1957:202).

[23] Katergazetai, present middle indicative.

[24] Robertson (1933:12).

[25] Begg (1996:106).

[26] Robertson (1933:12).

[27] Robertson (1933:12).

[28] Ibid.

[29] Anderson (2013), emphasis added.

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

[31] This is translated with additions and revisions from the German, Theologisches Begriffenslexikon zum Neuen Testament, original German 1971 (Brown 1976:3-4).

The Bible: fairy tale or history?

Bible closed by crisg - closed Bible book with bookmark magical by evaline02 - Two princesses in fairy tale illustration style, with a slug and grass in front.

(images courtesy Openclipart)

By Spencer D Gear

I asked a fellow on a Christian forum on the Internet: ‘Why are you not taking Jesus seriously and the challenge of what happens at death?’[1]

His reply was: ‘I don’t take fairy tales seriously’.[2]

When I asked him to provide evidence that The Bible contains fairy tales, there was a total silence. He likes assertions but not evidence.

Secularists think that way

That is not an uncommon response from unbelievers. There’s a webpage that asks, ‘What is your favorite bible fairy tale?’ On this page, people name their favourite Bible fairy tales as including: ‘An all-powerful perfect being creates the world, but he screws it up so bad, he wipes it out with a flood and starts over’; Noah’s Ark, creation, Daniel & the lions, those who live to be over 600 years old, Jesus lets people kill him, and unbelievers tossed into the Lake of Fire. Another is titled, ‘Fairy tales in the Bible’.

How does one know if the Bible contains fairy tales or is of some other genre?

How to assess the Bible as history

This is how I responded to the fairy tale assessment:[3]

With that kind of statement, you obviously do not know how to study history. I’m writing my PhD dissertation on an aspect of ‘the historical Jesus’ – not an aspect of the ‘fairy tale Jesus’. I’ve had to develop an entire chapter on methodology for investigating history and that included what is in the NT.

When you get out of your presuppositions and into an examination of how to do historical study, then we’ll have an opportunity to examine the Scriptures from an historical perspective.

Dr Paul Barnett (photo courtesy Patheos)

Ancient historian and Christian exegete, Dr Paul Barnett, who has taught history at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, has written:

Provided that we accept the limitations in the Gospel of Mark, in its brevity and single focus, we have good reason to believe it provides a historically credible account of Jesus’ activities in Galilee, the regions of Tyre and Sidon, Ituraea-Trachonitis, and the Decapolis. The words of Jesus, which are weighty and wise, are singularly applicable to the pericopes in which they occur. The parables in Mark as well as in Matthew and Luke are arguably authentic, based (in particular) on the cogent double criteria of similarity and dissimilarity. In any case, we argue that the gospel writers would neither invent nor omit a word of the Lord, though they felt free to adapt a word appropriately.

The narrative of Mark and the synoptics is set within the complex jurisdictions of the thirties, but not those as they would be altered in the decades following. As the narratives unfold we note the inconspicuous ways in which Jesus’ movements cohere with the political realities of those times. Furthermore, Jesus’ own path crossed the paths of the notables of that time, whether John the Baptist, the tetrarch Antipas, the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, or the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate. In the course of the narratives we encounter those who were eschatologically excited (‘the men of violence’) as well as the ‘sinners’ with whom Jesus aligned himself as a lawbreaker. Furthermore, we see Jesus as the worker of mighty deeds, including in those towns where most of his mighty works were done.

In brief, we have in Mark a gospel that is a useful source of information about Jesus’ words and actions in Galilee and adjacent regions in the north (Barnett 2009:247).

I’m sticking with the assessment of a long-time university ancient historian (and a Christian to boot) who knows his product about ancient history and how to assess historical documents.

And I’m not going with Matt and his throw-away line, ‘I don’t take fairy tales seriously’.

What qualifications do you have to assess any historical document? I find it disappointing that you are the one engaging in trifling mass media style sensational lines, instead of an examination of the biblical documents from an historical perspective – using historical criteria.

Jesus, logic and history

Paul Barnett, in examining the logic regarding Jesus and history, has stated that there are at least two senses in which Christianity is a historical religion. These include firstly, ‘that it has been continuously part of world history for a long time’, and secondly, because ‘Jesus was a real man who was born, lived and died at a particular time and place’ and this can be demonstrated by the same methodology used to investigate other significant persons from history (Barnett 1997:11).

Jesus’ resurrection as myth, fairy tale or history

There has been academic and popular controversy over whether the resurrection of Jesus should be regarded as an historical event. Should the NT records of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus be regarded as historical or of some other genre?

At the popular level, there are people like Joel Hoffmann who have written for The Huffington Post,

Some stories in the Bible were meant to be history, others fiction. But modernity has obscured the original distinction between the two kinds of biblical writing, depriving readers of the depth of the text.

Perhaps surprisingly, this confusion lies at the heart of the History Channel’s miniseries “The Bible,” which continues the pattern of blurring history and fiction, and thereby misrepresenting the nature of the Bible to its viewers (Hoffmann 2013).

Notable German, liberal, Lutheran theologian Rudolph Bultmann, had this view that was a supposed academically respectable way of evading the historicity of the resurrection:

If the event of Easter Day is in any sense an historical event additional to the event of the cross, it is nothing else than the risen [sic] of faith in the risen Lord, since it was this faith which led to the apostolic preaching. The resurrection itself is not an event of past history. All that historical criticism can establish is the fact that the first disciples came to believe in the resurrection. The historian can perhaps to some extent account for that faith from the personal intimacy which the disciples had enjoyed with Jesus during his earthly life, and so reduce the resurrection appearances to a series of subjective visions. But the historical problem is not of interest to Christian belief in the resurrection. For the historical event of the rise of the Easter faith means for us what it meant for the first disciples – namely, the self-attestation of the risen Lord, the act of God in which the redemptive event of the cross is completed (Bultmann 1953).

However, another German theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg, took a very different view. He claimed that Jesus’ resurrection needed to be investigated as a historical event. He stated that ‘whether or not Jesus was raised from the dead is a historical question insofar as it is an inquiry into what did or did not happen at a certain time’ (Pannenberg 1967:128). Craig Nessen’s assessment of Pannenberg’s view was,

Wolfhart Pannenberg powerfully contends for the historical character of Jesus’ resurrection based on the sources that commend it, both the testimony of original witnesses to the risen Jesus and the tradition of the empty tomb. Jesus’ resurrection has more credible historical evidence than many ancient events whose occurrence we don’t question, for example, some incidents in Julius Caesar’s life (Nessen 2004).

Leading NT historian and scholar on Jesus’ resurrection, N T Wright, considered that ‘we can and must discuss the resurrection as a historical problem’ and that there is no reason in principle why what happened at Easter ‘cannot be raised by any historian of any persuasion’. His view was that even from a Christian perspective, it ‘does not mean that there is no access to Jesus and his death and resurrection in the public world. Peter did not need to appeal to Christian writings when reminding the crowd of what they already knew about Jesus’ – see Acts 2:22 – and Wright suggested that ‘historical knowledge about the resurrection’, without presupposing the Christian faith, ‘cannot be ruled out a priori’ (Wright 2003:14, 21-22).

For a fuller explanation of the historical nature of both Old and New Testaments and how to establish their historical credibility and reliability, I recommend:

Craig B Blomberg 2009. The historical reliability of the Bible, 2nd edn. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press.
Walter C Kaiser Jr. 2001. The Old Testament documents: Are they reliable & relevant? Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press.
K A Kitchen 2003. On the reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

See my other articles on Christianity and history:

Conclusion

Those with a flair for the sensational and speculation may call the Bible a book of fairy tales.

Those like Bultmann who are committed to a liberal and sceptical worldview do not want to acknowledge the Bible as history but a metaphorical event.

Nevertheless, there are substantive Christian theologians and historians such as Pannenberg, Barnett and Wright who are prepared to conclude that the Bible can be investigated as an historical document.

Works consulted

Barnett, P 2009. Finding the historical Christ. Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Barnett, P W 1997. Jesus and the logic of history. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press.

Bultmann R 1953. The mythological element in the message of the New Testament and the problem of its re-interpretation Part 2. In Bultmann, R (and five critics), Kerygma and myth (e-book). Tr by R H Fuller. London: SPCK. Available at religion-online: http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=431&C=293 (Accessed 17 September 2013).

Hoffmann, J 2013. The Bible isn’t the history you think it is. The Huffington Post (online), 3 April. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-joel-hoffman/the-bible-isnt-history_b_2803409.html (Accessed 15 March 2014).

Nessen, C L 2004. The reality of the resurrection. The Lutheran magazine, Augsburg Fortress, beliefnet (online), available at: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2004/03/The-Reality-Of-The-Resurrection.aspx (Accessed 15 March 2014).

Pannenberg, W 1967. The revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth, in Robinson, J M & Cobb Jr., J B, New frontiers in theology: Discussions among Continental and American theologians, vol 3, 101-133. New York: Harper & Row.

Wright, N T 2003. The resurrection of the son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. (Series in Christian origins and the question of God, vol 3).

Notes:

[1] Christian Fellowship forum, The Fellowship Hall, ‘Why I avoid discussing life after death’, ozspen #267, March 10, 2014, available at: http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=261&nav=messages&webtag=ws-fellowship&tid=122769 (Accessed 15 March 2014). When checked on 5 August 2019, this forum was no longer available online.

[2] Ibid., Matt #268.

[3] Ibid., ozspen #270.

Noses out of joint over Bible translations

Cross Bible Globe

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

If you want to get a picture of how Christians can disagree over various Bible translations, I recommend a visit to one of the Internet Christian forums. I participate in a rather large one.[1]

Part of what one person wrote was:

The Bible needs to be translated every 100 years or so, or else it would be lost in understanding to the next generation. If you educate people on how to translate KJV but make no translations one day all you are left with is a few people who truly understand it, and that is not preaching God’s word throughout the world.[2]

Narrow thinking on English Bible translations

I think we are thinking too narrowly.[3] I suggest that we consider the rest of the world before investing one more cent in another English translation.

The task of Bible translation is an enormous one and here we are arguing over the KJV vs ESV, NLT, NIV, etc. These are some of the language and translation challenges in our world.

The British Council provides this information about English speakers:

How many people speak English?

‘English has official or special status in at least seventy five countries with a total population of over two billion’;
‘English is spoken as a first language by around 375 million and as a second language by around 375 million speakers in the world’;
‘speakers of English as a second language probably outnumber those who speak it as a first language’;
‘around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language’;
‘one out of four of the world’s population speak English to some level of competence; demand from the other three-quarters is increasing’.

English as first language

However, of the 375 million people who use English as their first language, what percentage is that of the world’s population? The world population clock, which I checked online as I was writing this article, says that the world’s population is 7.222 billion people (29 March 2014).
Therefore, 5.357% of the people of the world speak English as their first language. And here we are arguing about an archaic vs contemporary English translations.

Languages still needing to be put into writing

According to Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) of Wycliffe Bible Translators, ‘Nearly two-thirds of the world’s 875 million illiterate people are women’ (SIL);

According to Wycliffe Bible Translators,

The Worldwide Status of Bible Translation (2013) was:

6,900+ … the number of languages spoken in the world today.
1,999+ …the number of languages without any of the Bible, but with a possible need of a Bible translation to begin.
2,167 …the total number of current translation programs around the world, on behalf of 1.9 billion people.

The detailed statistics from Wycliffe were:

The Worldwide Status of Bible Translation (2013)

6,900+	…the number of languages spoken in the world today.
1,900+	…the number of languages without any of the Bible, but with a possible need of a Bible translation to begin.
2,167	…the total number of current translation programs around the world*, on behalf of 1.9 billion people.
1,707	…the number of those current translation programs that are being facilitated by Wycliffe, SIL, or other partner organizations.
1,294	…the number of language groups that have access to the New Testament in their heart language, representing 598 million people.
513	…the number of language groups that have access to the entire Bible in the language they understand best.
1,010	…the number of languages that have some portions of Scripture available in their language (one or more books)
Over 7 billion	…the population of the world.
180 million	…the number of people who speak the more than 1,900 languages where translation projects have not yet begun.

Although Bible translation is progressing at a more rapid rate today than ever before, an overwhelming amount of work is yet to be done.

So there are still 1900+ languages in the world today that don’t have any Bible translation available. And of the 7 billion people in the world there are 875 million who are illiterate. This means that when Wycliffe and associate organisations develop a language in print and translate the Bible, they have to teach the people to read and write. This is a massive task.

Notes:

[1] Here the topic was, ‘Understanding the KJV’, Christian Forums, Baptists, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7809418-4/#post65286019 (Accessed 29 March 2014).

[2] Ibid., Bluelion #12, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7809418-2/ (Accessed 29 March 2014).

[3] This is my post at as OzSpen #40 at ibid., http://www.christianforums.com/t7809418-4/#post65286019 (Accessed 29 March 2014).

God sovereign but not author of evil

By Spencer D Gear

Auschwitz-Birkenau (flickr)

Bill Muehlenberg is a Christian social commentator – a cultural apologist – based in Melbourne, Australia. His incisive assessments of cultural and Christian issues have earned him a solid reputation among many evangelical Christians for exposing what is happening in our culture. See his ‘Culture Watch‘ website.

In a recent post, Muehlenberg stated:

I actually had a guy recently send in this comment: “God cannot be ‘forced’ to do anything, you reprobate heretic.” Suffice it to say I did not bother to print this guy’s comment. So what was he on about here? Earlier I had written an article about God’s rejection of Saul

In it I said, “Overall, the biblical message is that God is indeed sovereign, but he is not directly the author of evil. This passage is one of many texts that must be examined in this light. And it serves as a strong warning to us all as well. God may well use a person for his purposes, but it is also possible for that person to reject God, forcing God to reject him.”

And for daring to say that, I am now a “reprobate heretic”! Do I laugh or cry at this? Obviously my point was that God felt compelled to act, in light of Saul’s bad choices and rebellion. Of course God is not forced to do anything in one sense. But this person leapt to an unwarranted conclusion about what I had said, and was ready to at least tar and feather me.[1]

It really is a sad state of affairs in the Christian church when Muehlenberg is called a ‘reprobate heretic’ for stating that God ‘is not directly the author of evil’. This, of course, relates to the Arminian-Calvinism debate where Arminianism allows for the manifestation of evil and some Calvinism supports God’s decreeing evil (as a general statement).

There have been others who have made claims about the difficulty of the problem of evil for Christianity:

‘The most serious challenge to theism was, is, and will continue to be the problem of evil’, according to Ronald Nash (Nash 1988:177).
‘How can evil be compatible with the concept of a good God who is actively ruling this world? In the past these have been called “acts of God”’ (Boice 1978:229-230).
‘The Bible is clear that both good and evil cannot stem from one and the same essence (God). God is light, and “in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John1:5; compare Habakkuk 1:13; Matthew 5:48). First John 1:5 is particularly cogent in the Greek, which translates literally, “And darkness there is not in Him, not in any way.” John could not have said it more forcefully’ (Rhodes 2004:47).
Paul Little offered this penetrating analysis: ‘If God were to stamp out evil today, he would do a complete job. His action would have to include our lies and personal impurities, our lack of love, and our failure to do good. Suppose God were to decree that at midnight tonight all evil would be removed from the universe – who of us would still be here after midnight?’ (Little 1975:81).

Let’s look at a couple of examples of how this conflict plays out theologically.

1. God causes all evil: Calvinists

John Piper (Wikipedia)

a. John Piper, a Calvinist, stated:

‘So every spin of the roulette wheel … you know Las Vegas … every roll of the dice in your family board game, every reaching of the hand for the scramble of the letter, is determined by God’.[2]

Piper‘s view of the Sept 11, 2001 disaster in the USA was: ‘God, by his very nature, cannot or would not act to bring about such a calamity. This view of God is what contradicts the Bible and undercuts hope’.[3]

This kind of message is nothing new for Calvinism.

b. John Calvin agreed with such a sentiment:

Let us suppose, for example, that a merchant, after entering a forest in company with trust-worthy individuals, imprudently strays from his companions and wanders bewildered till he falls into a den of robbers and is murdered. His death was not only foreseen by the eye of God, but had been fixed by his decree. For it is said, not that he foresaw how far the life of each individual should extend, but that he determined and fixed the bounds which could not be passed, (Job 14:5).[4]

Is this what Calvinists want to affirm with God as the author of such evil?

Highlights of the Holocaust

AND,

September 11, 2001 (Wikipedia)

AND,

Daniel morcombe.jpg

Murder of Daniel Morcombe (Wikipedia) and Brett Peter Cowan (public domain), convicted murdered of Daniel Morcombe

So all of this is from the hands of God with God as the author of evil, according to the Calvinists cited above? Such a view is obnoxious and abhorrent, making God the sinner as the perpetrator of sin.

2. Norman Geisler’s response to a Calvinist, ‘God killed my son’

In his seminal book, Chosen but Free, Norm Geisler illustrated the illogical nature of the Calvinistic view of God and evil:

Not only does extreme Calvinism tend to undermine personal responsibility, it also logically lays the blame squarely on God for the origin of evil. Many years ago, when the late John Gerstner and I taught together at the same institution, I invited him into one of my classes to discuss free will. Being what I have called an extreme Calvinist, he defended Jonathan Edwards’ view that the human will is moved by the strongest desire. I will never forget how he responded when I pushed the logic all the way back to Lucifer. An otherwise very rational man responded to my question ‘Who gave Lucifer the desire to rebel against God?’ by throwing up his hands and crying, ‘Mystery, mystery, a great mystery!’ I answered, ‘No, it is not a great mystery; it is a grave contradiction.’ And this is because on the premises of extreme Calvinism, only God could have given Lucifer the desire to rebel, since there is no self-determined free choice and Lucifer had no evil nature. But if this is so, then logically it must have been God who gave him the desire to sin. In short, God caused a rebellion against God. Perish the thought!

The second example is also tragic. 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 (Geisler 1999:133).

3. God does not cause all evil: Arminians

Dr. Olson

Roger E Olson (Baylor University)

a. Roger Olson, an Arminian, disagrees with John Piper’s perspective:

I am not willing to rule out the possibility that God might send judgment on a city with a seemingly natural disaster. Who knows? (But I don’t believe God causes people to do evil as in the case of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.) God is God. He may very well have reasons I can’t even fathom. And, of course, in the end, we are told God will intervene in history and defeat his enemies. I’m sure that won’t be pretty. However, EVEN IF GOD TOLD ME a natural disaster that caused untold suffering was his judgment I would not announce it publicly. Unless, of course, he told me to. Does Piper claim God has told him to proclaim these things? Or is he just speaking out of his theological convictions? I’m not sure about that.

I think it is the height of insensitivity to target calamities in which husbands, fathers, mothers, children have died horrible deaths and pronounce them “God’s judgment.” I would urge Christians not to do that unless they are certain God has called them to do it and given them the reason that particular disaster was his judgment. And I would urge people like Piper not to do it unless they are also willing publicly to proclaim that a kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered child was also targeted by God and why. It’s all part of a package deal in his and their case (i.e., Calvinists). So, my challenge to them is to bite the bullet and not just proclaim natural disasters or even man-made disasters “God’s judgment” but also to explain that they believe every child murdered, tortured, raped is also suffering because God willed it.[5]

4. Jacobus Arminius on determinism, free will and evil

Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius (About.com)

At the time of Arminius’ ministry in the Netherlands (he lived 1560-1609), there were certain theological articles distributed extensively that accused him and Adrian Borrius, a minister of Leyden, of suspected ‘novelty and heterodoxy, of error and heresy, on the subject of religion’. He responded with a defence against these. One of those stated: ‘God has not by his eternal decree determined future and contingent things to the one part or the other’ (Article 7).[6]

In this response, Arminius stated that ‘a calumny … lies concealed under ambiguous terms’ that are ‘capable of inflicting deep injury’ but when these terms are explained the slander is exposed and loses its force. Calumny means ‘a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something’ (dictionary.com).

The ambiguous term in Article 7 is ‘determined’. In explaining this word, Arminius exposes his understanding of the origin and continuation of evil. His assessment was that ‘determined’ could be used two ways:

Firstly, the determination by God that something shall be done and it is fixed, but its ‘power, remains free either to act or not to act, so that, if it be the pleasure of this second cause, it can suspend [or defer] its own action’. So, by application, this understanding of God’s determination does not exclude the free acts of human beings in performing evil acts.
The second understanding of ‘determination’ is that when something should be done, it is fixed and ‘the second cause (at least in regard to the use of its power,) remains no longer free so as to be able to suspend its own action, when God’s action, motion and impulse have been fixed; but by this determination, it [the second cause] is necessarily bent or inclined to the one course or the other, all indifference to either part being completely removed before this determined act be produced by a free and unconstrained creature’. This means that God’s determination is fixed and there is no free act for the person involved. So, by application, God is the cause of evil in the past and present.

Arminius supports the first understanding of ‘determined’. He explained:

For I am aware that it is said, in the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, ‘Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together against Jesus, to do whatsoever God’s hand and counsel determined before (or previously appointed) to be done.’ But I also know, that Herod, Pontius Pilate, and the Jews, freely performed those very actions; and (notwithstanding this ‘fore-determination of God,’ and though by his power every Divine action, motion and impulse which was necessary for the execution of this ‘fore-determination,’ were all fixed,) yet it was possible for this act (the crucifixion of Christ,) which had been ‘previously appointed’ by God, not to be produced by those persons, and they might have remained free and indifferent to the performance of this action, up to the moment of time in which they perpetrated the deed. Let the narrative of the passion of our Lord be perused, and let it be observed how the whole matter was conducted, by what arguments Herod, Pontius Pilate and the Jews were moved and induced, and the kind of administration [or management] that was employed in the use of those arguments, and it will then be evident, that it is the truth which I here assert.

However, if the second understanding of ‘determined’ is accepted, he stated,

I confess, that I abominate and detest that axiom (as one that is FALSE, ABSURD, and preparing the way for MANY BLASPHEMIES,) which, declares that ‘God by his eternal decree has determined to the one part or to the other future contingent things.’ By this last phrase understand “those things which are performed by the free will of the creature’. He regards this second position as ‘falsehood’ because God in the administration of his Providence conducts all things in such a manner that when he is pleased to employ his creatures in the execution of his decrees, he does not take away from them their nature, natural properties or the use of them, but allows them to perform and complete their own proper motions. Were it otherwise, Divine Providence, which ought to be accommodated to the creation, would be in direct opposition (emphasis in original).

Arminius goes even further to ‘detest it as AN ABSURDITY: Because it is contradictory in the adjunct, that “something is done contingently,” that is, it is done in such a manner as makes it POSSIBLE not to be done; and yet this same thing is determined to the one part or the other in such a manner, as makes it IMPOSSIBLE to leave undone that which has been determined to be done’ (emphasis in original).

Arminius’ point was that human beings have been made (by God) with the ability for contingency, liberty and to be able to ‘freely act according to nature’ and that ability is impeded. It finds it a position of ‘insanity’ that it has been conferred ‘at the creation a power on the creature of acting freely or of suspending its action, and yet to take away the use of such a power when the liberty comes at length to be employed’.

He abhors such a position as it is

CONDUCING TO MULTIPLIED BLASPHEMIES. For I consider it impossible for any art or sophistry to prevent this dogma concerning “such a previous determination” from producing the following consequences: FIRST. It makes God to be the author of sin, and man to be exempt from blame. SECONDLY. It constitutes God as the real, proper and only sinner: Because when there is a fixed law which forbids this act, and when there is such ‘a fore-determination’ as makes it ‘impossible for this act not to be committed,’ it follows as a natural consequence, that it is God himself who transgresses the law, since he is the person who performs this deed against the law. For though this be immediately perpetrated by the creature, yet, with regard to it, the creature cannot have any consideration of sin; because this act was unavoidable on the part of man, after such “fore-determination” had been fixed. THIRDLY. Because, according to this dogma, God needed sinful man and his sin, for the illustration of his justice and mercy. FOURTHLY. And, from its terms, sin is no longer sin.

I never yet saw a refutation of those consequences which have been deduced from this dogma by some other persons. I wish such a refutation was prepared, at least that it would be seriously attempted. When it is completed, if I am not able to demonstrate, even then, that these objections of mine are not removed, I will own myself to be vanquished, and will ask pardon for my offense. Although I am not accustomed to charge and oppress this sentiment [of theirs] with such consequences before other people, yet I usually confess this single circumstance, (and this, only when urged by necessity,) that “I cannot possibly free their opinion from those objections (emphasis in original).

I have provided this detailed explanation from Arminius because it explains in some detail why Arminianism refuses to give up free will given to human beings at creation and to refuse to accept the Calvinistic view of determinism / determination with regard to the origin of evil and the contemporary problem of evil. I recommend that you read this section online.

Arminius provided logical and biblical reasons why Calvinistic determinism should be rejected because,

(1) It makes God the author of sin, which is an absurdity for the sinless, perfect, holy Lord God Almighty;

(2) God is the one who transgresses his own law and makes him a sinner – which is a blasphemous concept;

(3) God, to demonstrate his justice and mercy, needed human beings, not to perform the acts of evil, but to be vehicles for God to perform original sin and contemporary acts of sin – this is blasphemy;

(4) How can sinful actions in society (September 11, 2001 tragedy; Holocaust slaughter; murder and rape of human beings) be regarded as sinful if God is the originator of such evil? God is the sinless, righteous Lord God who cannot commit sin. Calvinism makes God an evil monster by redefining who this God is and how he acts in society.

God’s attributes include:

‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’ (Isaiah 6:3 ESV).
‘Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?’ (Psalm 71:19).
‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all’ (1 John 1:5).
‘This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him’ (Psalm 18:30).
‘He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!’ (Deuteronomy 32:4 NLT).

That God should be accused of being the originator of evil and to be the contributor to causing evil in our contemporary world flies in the face of the very nature of God and his attributes.

But have a guess what is accused of being the real heresy? It is Arminianism. Did you realise that? Take a read of Pastor Pribble now:

5. Arminianism as a heresy

Google (public domain)

a. Stephen Pribble, pastor of Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Lansing, Michigan regards Arminianism as a heresy, writing,

Arminianism is indeed a heresy, a serious departure from the historic faith of the Christian church…. Is Arminianism a heresy? Yes.

Are Arminian preachers heretics? In a sense, yes, though most have not been condemned as such by a church council having the authority to make such a determination.

Can an Arminian preacher be a “damnable heretic” who preaches a false gospel of man’s free will instead of the true gospel of God’s sovereign grace? Yes, surely….

Is Arminianism a damnable heresy? Yes.[7]

That is an example of the kind of antagonism towards Arminianism by one Calvinist. However, he is not alone.[8]

b. Phil Johnson, the executive director of ‘Grace to You’, the John MacArthur organisation, wrote:

But let me be plain here: Simple Arminianism doesn’t fall in that category [heresy]. It’s not fair to pin the label of rank heresy on Arminianism, the way some of my more zealous Calvinist brethren seem prone to do. I’m talking about historic, evangelical Arminianism, of the classic and Wesleyan varieties — Arminianism, not Pelagianism, or open theism, or whatever heresy Clark Pinnock has invented this week — but true evangelical Arminianism. Arminianism is certainly wrong; and I would argue that it’s inconsistent with itself. But in my judgment, standard, garden variety Arminianism is not so fatally wrong that we need to consign our Arminian brethren to the eternal flames or even automatically refuse them fellowship in our pastors’ fraternals.

If you think I’m beginning to sound like an apologist for Arminianism, I’m definitely not that. I do think Arminianism is a profound error. Its tendencies can be truly sinister, and when it is allowed to go to seed, it does lead people into rank heresy. But what I’m saying here is that mere Arminianism itself isn’t damnable heresy. It’s just grossly inconsistent with the core gospel doctrines that Arminians themselves believe and affirm.[9]

6. A mediating position: Sin and God

Andrew Wilson has proposed a conciliating position between Calvinism and Arminianism. I recommend a read of his article at it provides an exposition of these two summary points on a mediating, biblical position between Arminianism and Calvinism, ‘Piper and Olson: Does God ordain all sinful choices?’[10]

1. Firstly, ‘the purpose of God in ordaining that Joseph be sold into slavery, and that Pharaoh harden his heart, and that the Assyrians attack Israel, and that Jesus be executed despite his innocence, is explicitly redemptive. All of those evil things happen because through them, in the providence of God, the redemption of the world is ultimately being accomplished. God uses Joseph to save many lives, and Pharaoh’s stubbornness to show his power and demonstrate his support of Israel, and the Assyrians to drive Judah to repentance, and so on, right through to the cross. In all of these examples, the sinful human choices are part of God’s plan to bless the world through the seed of Abraham’.

2. Secondly, ‘clarifying that God ordains some sinful human choices but not all of them enables us to engage in theodicy with integrity. As I have said here before, many high Calvinists answer like Arminians when asked about the problem of evil, displaying a fatal inconsistency which indicates either that their Calvinism doesn’t work, or that they haven’t really thought about it properly. If you believe that God ordains all sinful choices, from the fall to the Holocaust and beyond, then saying that Auschwitz was a tragic result of God giving humans freedom is simply not an option; Nazis killed Jews because God ordained that they would, even if they remain morally culpable for it. But if you believe, as I do, that God ordained some sinful choices in the history of his people and his Son, but always with redemptive purpose, then the classic answer to the Holocaust question is the right one: God allows human beings to make evil choices, even though it grieves him when we do. And this, if we’re honest, is much more compelling on an Alpha table than saying it was all pre-planned for God’s greater glory. Especially when the Bible doesn’t actually say that’.

7. Conclusion

The Calvinistic position that God is the author of evil and the one who decrees evil in our contemporary world – as applicable to all circumstances – cannot be supported from the Scriptures. The holy, righteous, good, perfect and sinless God of light cannot be the one who creates evil. To use Arminius’ words: ‘It is an absurdity’ to promote such a view as it makes God a sinner.

The Arminian position with its emphasis on the God who made human beings free will persons and what God decrees can be accepted or rejected, has many positives.

However, the mediating position of Andrew Wilson seems to have the considerable weight as a theological position. It demonstrates that there were times when God ordains some sinful human choices, but mostly he does not. However, it does have the challenge that on those occasions, the holy, righteous God does decree sin. That leads to Arminianism as being the preferred position.

However, I have grave concerns over Arminius’ view that Herod, Pontius Pilate, and the Jews could have chosen not to crucify Jesus, in spite of the fore-ordination of God. It makes God’s eternal plans putty in the hands of the fickle perpetrators of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Rwanda Massacre Victims of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia

Idi Amin (Wikipedia) Rwanda massacre 1994 (BlackPast.org) Victims of Pol Pot & Khmer Rouge, Cambodia (The Holocaust explained)

Who was the author of these gross sins? Human beings or God?

Here are some more of my articles for your consideration:

Conflict over salvation

Calvinist misrepresents the Reformed

Sent to hell by God: Calvinism in action?

The injustice of the God of Calvinism

Blatant misrepresentation of Arminians by Calvinists

Is a Calvinistic God a contradiction when compared with the God revealed in Scripture?

Works consulted

Boice, J M 1978. The sovereign God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Geisler, N 1999. Chosen but free. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers.

Little, P E 1975. Know why you believe. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Nash, R H 1988. Faith and reason: Searching for a rational faith. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.

Rhodes, R 2004. Why do bad things happen if God is good? Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers.

Notes:

[1] Bill Muehlenberg, Culture Watch, ‘On heresy hunters’, 9 April 2014, available at: http://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/04/09/on-heresy-hunters/comment-page-1/#comment-354036 (Accessed 12 April 2014).

[2] ‘John Piper addresses God’s sovereignty amid calamity’, August 30, 2012, The Wartburg Watch 2014. Available at: http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/08/30/john-piper-addresses-gods-sovereignty-amid-calamity/ (Accessed 12 April 2014).

[3] John Piper 2001. ‘Why I do not say, “God did not cause the calamity, but he can use it for good”’, Desiring God, September 17, 2001. Available at: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-i-do-not-say-god-did-not-cause-the-calamity-but-he-can-use-it-for-good (Accessed 12 April 2014).

[4] Institutes of the Christian religion 1.16.9. (Accessed 12 April 2014).

[5] Roger E Olson 2012. ‘My response to John Piper’s recent statements about God and tornadoes’, March 8. Patheos, available at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/03/my-response-to-john-pipers-recent-statements-about-god-and-tornadoes/ (Accessed 12 April 2014).

[6] Arminius, J 2013. The works of James Arminius, vol 1, The apology or defense of James Arminius (online), Wesley Center Online, Northwestern Nazarene University, available at: http://wesley.nnu.edu/arminianism/the-works-of-james-arminius/volume-1/the-apology-or-defense-of-james-arminius/ (Accessed 12 April 2014). All of the following Arminius’ quotes are from this website. The Works of James Arminius may be accessed at the Wesley Center Online, available at: http://wesley.nnu.edu/arminianism/the-works-of-james-arminius/ (Accessed 13 April 2014).

[7] Stephen Pribble n d. ‘Is Arminianism a damnable heresy?’ Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Lansing, Michigan, available at: http://www.all-of-grace.org/pub/pribble/damnable.html (Accessed 12 April 2014).

[8] David J Stewart is another example in his article, ‘Arminianism’, in which he tried to demonstrate that ‘Arminius taught heresy’ at jesus-is-savior.com. Available at: http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Doctrines/Arminianism/arminianism.htm (Accessed 12 April 2014).

[9] Phil Johnson, Executive director, Grace to you 2008. ‘Why I am a Calvinist, Part 1’, available at: http://www.gty.org/Resources/articles/10194 (Accessed 12 April 2014; emphasis in original).

[10] All of these Andrew Wilson citations are from his article, ‘Piper and Olson: Does God ordain all sinful human choices?’ Thinking Matters, 15 October 2012. Available at: http://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/does-god-ordain-all-sinful-human-choices (Accessed 12 April 2014).
Copyright © 2014 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 29 October 2015.

A Calvinist’s deceitful attempt

Vector image of yellow light bulb

(courtesy publicdomainvectors.org)

By Spencer D Gear

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

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

What to do with an isolated quote?

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

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

He edited & censored elements of the quote [6]

Double Check Mark Clip Art

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Wesley (image courtesy Wikipedia)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are faith and repentance gifts of God?

Faith Dynamite

(images courtesy ChristArt & ChristArt)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What must I do to be saved?

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

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

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

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

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

The Scriptures affirm two elements in having faith in Jesus:

(1) God saves and gives faith, and

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

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

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

Bossmanham explained:

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

Works consulted

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

Notes:

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

[2] Ibid., OzSpen #699.

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

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

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

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

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

How could very good human beings commit the first sin?

Sticky Sin

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

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

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

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

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

Free choice not good enough

Sin Stain

(courtesy ChristArt)

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

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

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

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

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

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

But have a guess what? Judgment day is coming:

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

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

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

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

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

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

An internal free act of revolt [4]

Sinful Behaviour

(courtesy ChristArt)

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

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

Theologian W G T Shedd put it this way:

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

Shedd then added,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Augustus Strong points in this direction:

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

Conclusion

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

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

Notes:

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

[2] Ibid., OzSpen #62.

[3] Ibid., dhh712 #63.

[4] Ibid., OzSpen #64.

Are camels recorded in Genesis ridiculous?

(image courtesy, (Google, public domain)

By Spencer D Gear

It is not unusual to hear or read the secular media hacking into biblical Christianity.

Near the beginning of 2014, some of you may have been exposed to what seems like a tirade of derogatory comments in the mass media about camels recorded in the Book of Genesis; Genesis can’t be trusted, and the Bible is unreliable. This is a sample of what I’ve read:

‘Camels had no business in Genesis‘, New York Times, 10 February 2014.
‘Camel bones suggest error in Bible, archaeologists say‘, Fox News, 6 February 2014.
‘Earliest Camel Bones Contradict Bible, Archaeologists Say‘, (Nature World News, 5 February 2014).
‘Camel bones discovery suggests biblical inaccuracies‘ (Statesman, 6 February 2014).
‘Camel archaeology contradicts the Bible‘ (The Times of Israel, 5 February 2014).
‘Will camel discovery break the Bible’s back?’(CNN, 11 February 2014)

From these articles, there are statements such as these:

‘There are too many camels in the Bible, out of time and out of place’.

‘One should be careful not to rush to the conclusion that the new archaeological findings automatically deny any historical value from the biblical stories’.

‘Archaeologists from Israel’s top university have used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the arrival of domestic camels in the Middle East — and they say the science directly contradicts the Bible’s version of events’.

‘In addition to challenging the Bible’s historicity, this anachronism is direct proof that the text was compiled well after the events it describes’.

‘Scientists say a new discovery involving camel bones is calling the accuracy of the Bible into question’.

‘The more precise dating puts domesticated camels in Israel “centuries after the patriarchs lived and decades after the Kingdom of David,” according to the researchers’.

‘A scientific report establishing that camels, the basic mode of transportation for the biblical patriarchs, weren’t domesticated in Israel until hundreds of years after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are said to have wandered the earth’.

We could go on and on with examples trying to disprove the accuracy of the Bible. But, what’s the truth? Should we chuck out the Book of Genesis as an unreliable piece of literature that should be treated as containing myths? Or should we treat it as Jesus did? You’ll find some of Jesus’ evidence in the articles,

‘Jesus, the New Testament and Genesis‘;

‘The use of Genesis in the New Testament‘; and

‘Genesis: Real, reliable, historical‘.

I recommend equipping yourself for a rebuttal of these mass media anti-Genesis views by becoming acquainted with the issues in these articles:

But there were camels in ancient Egypt

Lita Cosner’s article, ‘Camels and the Bible‘ (Creation Ministries International, 11 February 2014) provides evidence to contradict the Israeli archaeologists. I’m grateful for those who know their Bible and the scientific literature and have material available to demonstrate the futility of the anti-Genesis charges.

Cosner wrote,

The first mention of camels in Scripture is in Genesis 12, after Pharaoh took Sarai into his palace. “He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels” (12:16). Job, widely regarded as living around the same time as Abram, had 3,000 camels at the beginning of the book, and twice as many at the end. He lived in Uz, which was in Arabia.

So the biblical evidence is that there were camels in Arabia around 2000 BC, and that Pharaoh had some too. This matches what we see from the archaeological record. A paper titled ‘The Camel in Ancient Egypt’ stated, “The proposed time of camel entry into Egypt after its domestication in Arabia was found between 2500 and 1400 BC”.[1] So not only did domesticated camels exist, they were in Egypt when Abraham was there. So this fits the biblical account perfectly.

(image courtesy Google, public domain)

See another refutation of the anti-camel stance in, ‘Camels in Genesis Prove Old Testament is ‘Very Accurate,’ Professor Claims as He Refutes Archaeologists’ Findings‘ (Christian Post, 16 February 2014). It stated:

“What these archaeologists are doing… is when they read about somebody like Abraham having camels, they’re saying, “Aha! The Bible is saying that camels were widespread in Palestine during this period of time, and there’s no archaeological evidence for that,” Dr. Andrew Steinmann of Concordia University-Chicago tells Issues, Etc., a Christian radio station….

Steinmann agrees there’s no archaeological evidence for widespread use of camels in Palestine at this time, but adds that that’s not what the Bible is saying.

Amy Hall, a staff with the Christian group Stand to Reason, has transcribed the professor’s interview on her blog.

“What it is showing is that somebody who originally came from Mesopotamia, like Abraham, he did have some camels,” she quotes the professor as saying. “And then the other mentions of camels in Genesis and in the early part of the Bible have to do with either people related to Abraham that were living in the Arabian Desert (for instance, the Ishmaelites…have camels when they come and buy Joseph and take him down to Egypt), or other peoples like that, associated with the Arabian Desert-the Amalekites…who live on the edge of the Arabian Desert are mentioned a number of times having camels. But there’s no mention of Israelites owning camels….”

Here is some more evidence in support of camels at the time of Abraham:

‘Theology professor counters claim that camel bones disprove Bible, explains Abraham owning camels‘ (Global Dispatch, 17 Feb 14).

‘Abraham, Camels and Egypt, or, Where did Abram get his Camel from?Genesis 12:1‘ (Studylight.org).

‘Is the Bible Wrong about Camels?’(Stand to Reason).

I pray that you will be equipping the people in your church to provide a defence of the Christian faith when this kind of opposition comes. Here I’ve attempted to provide enough links to get you started with a few opportunities for equipping. We are blessed that there are equipping ministries who have researchers and writers to deal with these issues – and provide us with ready information to pass on to our church people.

In addition, these ministries make their material freely available on the Internet.

‘Again, it’s the problem of [the archaeologist’s] assumptions’ (Stand to Reason)

Notes:

[1] Saber, A. S., The camel in ancient Egypt, Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting for Animal Production Under Arid Conditions 1:208–215, 1998, p. 208.