This is one of the best shorter dealing with Candace:
The Candace Situation Gets MUCH WORSE
UPDATE: As noted at 9:14, this was filmed before last night’s screenshots. From what’s visible so far, they may show private frustration, but they do not substantiate the strongest claims (e.g., TPUSA/Israel involvement, shooter framed, audit as motive). I’ll update a “Claims & Receipts” status in my comment in the video for anything else that’s verified. If enough new information is authenticated and it changes things, I’ll do a follow-up. Candace Owens has spent the last month making explosive claims about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, from billionaires and Israel to federal coverups. But hardly any of the receipts have surfaced. This video examines what she’s said, what the evidence actually shows, and the real damage that rumors can cause.
0:00- Intro 0:43- Why People Are Mad 1:18- Claim 1: Bibi’s Letter 2:42- Claim 2: Bill Ackman’s Intervention 4:01- Claim 3: The Shooter Was Framed 4:47- Claim 4: The Text messages Were Fake 7:55- Claim 5: TPUSA in on it? 9:56- Her Journalism Mistakes 13:02- The Fallout
1) Israel was founded by “Frankists” (“masquerading as Jews”).
You say: “The nation of Israel was established by some Frankists. . ..”
I taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College, and never heard or read such a thing. And even if there were any truth to it, it in no way explains the founding of Israel. For two thousand years, as part of daily ritual prayers, Jews prayed three times a day to be able to return to their homeland, Israel. That, plus the world witnessing what happens when Jews have no homeland — centuries of pogroms, massacres, and expulsions (which inspired Theodor Herzl to organize the Jews’ return to Israel — “Zionism” — in the late nineteenth century) culminating in the Holocaust — is what led to the reestablishment of the Jewish state. That Herzl came from the same general region as did Jacob Frank, who predated Herzl by about 150 years — a region with millions of Jews who were not Frankists — and therefore must have been a Frankist, seems like a pretty big leap.
2) Alleged “Frankists,” who were in fact ethnic Jews, were responsible for missing, and presumably murdered, Christian children around Passover time.
You say: “Catholics and Christians were going missing on Passover, then they would find bodies across Europe, and they were able to trace them back to Jews . . . . They weren’t Jews, OK? It was the Frankists, and just as Leo Frank killed Mary Phagan on Passover back in 1913 or 1914 — [it was done] on Passover for a reason. The Frankist cult, which masquerades behind Jews, still participates in this shit to this day. Why would you want, as a small nation that is the size of New Jersey, the pedophiles to flee there?”
Therefore, Israel was founded to be a haven for pedophiles — who, furthermore, engage in slaughtering Christians as part of a satanic ritual.
That is as close to the medieval libel of Jews — as butchers of Christian children to use their blood for baking Passover matzo — as I have heard in my lifetime. You mock the idea that this is another blood libel. But that is what it is. And given how many Jews were massacred, often tortured to death, because of it, Jews have good reason to loathe it.
You cite and deem as credible the two modern instances of the blood libel against Jews:
“Most people don’t know. They think that the nation of Israel was established because of World War II. No. There was a lot going on leading up to that. Learn about the Damascus Affair of 1840. Learn about what happened to Eszter Solymosi in Austria in 1880. There were Christians who kept on going missing on holidays and the entire Christian world rose up and began publicizing, trying to point to what they believed to be a satanic cult. Of course, all of that’s been erased. Most Christians don’t know this.”
In 1840, in Damascus, Syrian Jews were charged with butchering Capuchin friar Thomas, an Italian monk living in Damascus. The Capuchins in Damascus spread the charge, which resulted in 63 Jewish children being abducted from their families to force the families to divulge the location of the friar’s blood. And a Jewish barber named Solomon Negrin was arbitrarily arrested and tortured until a “confession” was extorted from him. Under torture Negrin said that seven Jews killed the monk in the house of David Harari. The seven men were subsequently arrested and also tortured. Two of them died under torture.
The other blood libel you cite as credible took place in Austria-Hungary in 1882. Jews were accused of murdering and beheading a 14-year-old Catholic girl named Eszter Solymosi. A girl’s body was found on the bank of the Tisza River, but though the body was dressed in Eszter’s clothes, it was not Eszter. And if it was, it proved the charges to be libelous — there was no injury to her neck.
Nevertheless, members of the local Jewish community were accused of having killed Eszter for ritual purposes, as it happened right before Passover. Jews, according to the centuries-old charge, use Christians’ blood to bake Matzo, the unleavened Passover bread.
Eventually, after 15 months of investigation, the Hungarian Highest Court (Kúria), in a unanimous verdict, acquitted of all the accused.
You repeat this libel of anti-Christian crimes committed by Jews in another podcast: “There’s a lot behind my refusal, my absolute refusal, to bend the knee to Israel, as many American politicians have done. There’s too much I’ve learned about their [Israel’s? Jews’?] history, about what was done to Christians, which they’re alleging now is blood libel — that none of that’s real, it didn’t happen. ..”
It didn’t happen, and repeating it does terrible harm. It is painful for me to know that the Candace I have known would say such things.
Candace Owens Has Drunk the Antisemitic Kool-Aid Dr. Brown interacts with her latest, disturbing comments, then speaks with author Jeff Myers about his important new book, Should Christians Support Israel? Seeking a Biblical Worldview in an Impossible Situation
Dr. Brown Interacts with Candace Owens and Piers Morgan Dr. Brown weighs in on this recent discussion on antisemitism, charges of genocide, and more, then answers your Jewish-related questions.
… According to Owens, Leo Frank killed Mary Phagan during Passover (in 1913) for these same nefarious, bloody purposes. (Apparently, he must have been a Frankist too, since his last name was Frank!) And, she states firmly, “this Frankist cult, which is masquerading behind Jews, still participates in this s— to this day.”
We will soon find out that it is these fake Jews who helped found Israel, which is why, she tells us, Israel is a sanctuary state for pedophiles. Surely, nothing antisemitic here! And surely, we shouldn’t stumble over the fact that most legal scholars believe that Leo Frank was falsely accused and wrongly convicted of the crime. Tragically, he was dragged from jail by an angry mob and lynched. But not to worry. After all, Frank was a Jew, right?
Owens claims that “the nation of Israel may have been established by some Frankists,” which is why “Zionists defend pedophiles and criminals.” But of course! How did we miss that? Yes, we are told, this is why Israel allows “pedophiles from America to flee and receive protection from their state.” (BTW, Owens jokes that she will punch you in the face if you dare say that Israel is our ally. They are anything but an ally and friend. All clear?)
What is Owens’s proof about the founding of Israel? “It is looking like Theodor Herzl’s family” came from the exact same area in Moravia and Bohemia “where the Frankist cult was founded.” And while Owens says “maybe” about her theory, she has read “a ton of books” and is quite sure about it. She also informs us that Herzl said that he didn’t care how many Jews had to die in order to establish the Jewish state. How did all the Herzl scholars miss this?
And why quibble over the fact that the Frankist cult originated primarily in Podolia, which is in modern-day Ukraine. After all, Ukraine, Moravia, and Bohemia are all in Europe, right? That’s pretty close! And, at some point in time, some Frankists were located in the same country where Herzl was born. So, obviously, he himself was a Frankist sex pervert, and as the founder of Israel, that explains why the Jewish state is a sanctuary for pedophiles.Candace is on a roll! And since no one questions whether Herzl was Jewish, it appears that the Frankists masquerading as Jews were Jews after all. Got it!
As for the fact that the Frankists had largely disappeared by the time of Herzl’s birth, again, why split hairs over things like chronology and history and dates and facts? Owens has a theory!
Not only so, but Owens wants us to know that Israel was involved in the assassination of JFK. It was a Mossad job!
But no one dared speak about these things. That’s because America is being held hostage by a foreign country — Israel! And so she fearlessly proclaims, “We are an occupied nation!”
But it gets darker still. Owens informs us that the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, was a Frankist. Don’t believe her? She has an ironclad answer: “Look it up!”
Unfortunately, not even my AI bots could figure out where this nonsensical and diabolical theory came from, with AI Claude pointing out that:1. “The Frankist movement was primarily active in the 18th century, while Brandeis lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”2. “Brandeis was known for his strong ethical standards and progressive reforms, which seem at odds with what is known about Frankist beliefs and practices.” 3. “There are no reputable historical sources that suggest Brandeis had any connection to Frankism.” (These are just some of the points Claude raised, which also noted, “This myth might have originated from anti-Semitic conspiracy theories …”)
But Owens has still more to say. She alleges that “every person who speaks about Israel has to basically say a statement like, ‘I don’t want to get killed.’” Yes, of course! No one in America or abroad would dare say anything negative about Israel or the Jewish people for fear of being killed by the Israelis. And if anything happens to her? “Blame the Zionists, like 1,000%, blame the Zionists …”
Thankfully, she provides an “easy litmus test” by which you can judge “any commentator.” If they don’t condemn Israel’s defense of pedophiles and acknowledge that Louis Brandeis was a Frankist, then they, too, are evil, psychopathic Zionists.
Sarcasm aside, Owens is peddling some really sick, terribly dangerous stuff, given her popularity and influence. ….
This next entry has such a good defining of the issue:
Tom Bilyeu: You’re not worried that she’s going full conspiracy?
Question to Tom: What is full conspiracy?
Tom Bilyeu:Let’s define it.
[ADAPTED]
They don’t have an internal map for how to judge whether something is plausible or merely intriguing. I think that Candace is seeing patterns where they don’t exist. There’s a big difference for me between somebody like Joe Rogan, who enjoys conspiracies, but feels very tethered to reality; and somebody like Alex Jones, who, even though he really does find a lot of this early stuff. If you watch his channel, literally every day is World War III, and everything is a conspiracy.
Candice has sort of marched her way out of the journalist box that I had in my mind, over into the icy patterns where patterns don’t exist, conspiracy theory box. I worry that she isn’t using an internal rubric with which to anchor herself to say, “okay, these things probably aren’t true.” She can make a wild claim and produce receipts [if you watch the first video in my post, you see here receipts are weak], but then another person can come along with receipts that counter it.
I have got that internal metric by which I judge things, and so I make my decisions based on that. It feels like Candace has lost that, or maybe never has, but she doesn’t have anything that she comes back to — and says: “like I say, I know better than to trust myself 100%. So, I think I have all the receipts. I still don’t trust myself 100%.” She trusts herself 1,000%. And I cannot figure out how life has taught anybody that that’s the right thing to judge things by.
Candace Owens just went hyper viral for her take on what happened to Charlie Kirk, but Tom isn’t convinced she’s seeing the full picture.
In this clip, Tom breaks down the fine line between truth-seeking and conspiracy, and why so many creators, even smart ones, risk drifting into dangerous territory when the algorithms reward outrage over evidence.
From Alex Jones to Joe Rogan, and now Candace Owens, Tom unpacks how good intentions can get lost in the noise, and what happens when confidence replaces critical thinking.
In this clip:
Why Candace Owens’ viral take raised red flags The psychology behind “seeing patterns that aren’t there” What it really means to think from first principles Why Tom says “truth” is often lost in the constellation of content
Watch until the end, where Tom explains how to avoid getting trapped in echo chambers and why it’s still possible to seek truth online without losing your balance.
At the 8-minute mark there is a question to the LOUDER w/CROWDER SHOW
What can we say to the people who listen to Candace and believe her, it feels like talking to a leftist at this point and I’m not sure how we can break through to them.
Candace…
Candace Owens has officially jumped the shark. Pushing a baseless conspiracy that the “feds” or even the administration killed Charlie Kirk.
(Jump to update if you wish) Dr. Leighton Flowers, Director of Evangelism and Apologetics for Texas Baptists, gives a brief 10 minute overview of Ephesians 1 from a Traditional/Provisionist perspective as in contrast with the typical Calvinistic reading.
Pages 132-138 of pastor Ronnie W. Rogers’ book, Does God Love All or Some: Comparing Biblical Extensivism and Calvinism’s Exclusivism. This is chapter 20, titled:
A Better Gospel!
THE GOOD NEWS ACCORDING to Calvinism is to be proclaimed to everyone everywhere, but it is not good news for everyone who hears. I believe the gospel according to Jesus presents a better gospel.
To many, it appears Calvinists, Arminians, Molinists, and Traditionalists (the last three I refer to, broadly speaking, as Extensivists) all believe the same thing about the gospel while merely differing on tertiaries. Consequently, they quite understandably retort, “Why all of this divisive bickering; let us just preach the gospel.” I wholeheartedly agree that we can all communicate the gospel message so that anyone and everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Consequently, we should do so and applaud all endeavors at such. I also believe both Extensivists and Calvinists can be evangelistic.
However, I do think it is incumbent upon Christians to make clear that even though these things are true, the differences between Calvinists’ and Extensivists’ perspectives regarding salvation do in fact influence the evangelistic and missionary endeavor. This influence is even determinative of what one can and cannot say to a lost and hell-bound individual and world when we communicate the gospel. These differences are not tertiary as some claim, for they do in fact change the raison d’être (reason for being or existence) of the gospel, the purpose for sharing the gospel, the language used in communicating the gospel, and the nature of our passion derived from the gospel. These dissimilarities are substantial. So much so they actually and unavoidably define the missiology of the church; accordingly, they are not tertiary. Our differences even affect our understanding of arguably the most well-known, lucid, humbling, and awe-inspiring verse regarding the gospel and mission of evangelizing (John 3:16).
John Piper asked the question, “What message would missionaries rather take than the message: Be glad in God! Rejoice in God! Sing for joy in God! . . . God loves to exalt himself by showing mercy to sinners.”[1]My answer to this question is the truth that when someone hears this glorious message that same someone has a chance, by the grace and mercy of God, to receive the truth of the message by faith. Further, without opportunity for all sinners to accept, Piper’s message should be changed to say, “Some can be glad in God if he predestined you” or “God loves to exalt himself by showing mercy to some sinners.” This rephrasing of his statement is not a mischaracterization of Calvinism, but rather it is the actual message of Calvinism, and everyone who understands Calvinism knows it. Unfortunately, it is popularly and ubiquitously stated in the manner cited by Piper (or similarly opaque phrases) that shield most from yet another disquieting reality of Calvinism. I would greatly appreciate Calvinists’ due diligence to speak in such a way that all can be reminded of this reality (as some Calvinists are very careful to do). Any suggestion this distinction is tertiary is baffling indeed.
Some like John Owen postulate a covenant of redemption which limits the atonement to the elect. David Allen gives several problems with Owen’s belief in the Covenant of Redemption. For example, “no such covenant within the Godhead is revealed in Scripture. . . . This shifts the focus from God’s revealed will in Scripture to a focus on God’s secret will in eternity.”[2]
The two irreconcilable approaches to understanding the presentation of the gospel can be seen in these brief synopses. Extensivists affirm that salvation is entirely a work of God because he has provided everything necessary, even the gift of faith, by which every sinner can by faith receive the salvation of the Lord.[3] The offer of salvation is unconditional, whereas the experience of salvation by an individual is conditioned upon grace-enabled faith (Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38). Many verses attest to the accuracy of this understanding of salvation. Man’s part in salvation is seen repeatedly in the book of Acts, e.g., Acts 2:37–41; 3:19–26; 7:51; 8:6–14, 22–23, 36–37; 9:35, 42; 10:34–35, 43; 11:21; 13:8–13, 38–41, 46–47; 14:1; 15:19; 16:30–34; 17:2–4, 11–12, 17, 30–31; 18:4–8, 19, 27–28; 19:8–9, 18; 20:21; 22:18; 26:17–20; 28:23–24. The epistles teach the same (Rom 5:1; Gal 3:26; Eph 2:8–9; Heb 11:6). In addition, God gave repentance as a grace gift (Acts 5:31; 11:18).[4]
In contrast, Calvinism generally argues the new birth precedes faith.[5] Piper asserts, “The native hardness of our hearts makes us unwilling and unable to turn from sin and trust the Savior. Therefore, conversion involves a miracle of new birth. This new birth precedes and enables faith andrepentance. Nevertheless, faith and repentance are our acts. We are accountable to do them . . . God grants us the inclination we need.”[6] The Synod of Dort says, “Men are chosen to faith . . . therefore election is the fountain of every saving good; from which proceed faith.”[7] R.C. Sproul declares, “We do not believe in order to be born again; we are born again in order to believe.”[8]
Such explanation creates an abstractness in Calvinism’s understanding of the gospel, which results in a concomitant chilling unfriendliness of the good news when shared one-on-one. It is one thing to say God loves Africa and desires the gospel to go there, or that he desires for Africans to be saved. It is quite another for the missionary to look into the eyes of a lost and perishing African and say God loves you and desires you to receive the good news of the gospel, which is the friendliness of the gospel in Scripture. The former has an abstract quality about it that the latter does not have (like the difference between saying I love Africans and then really loving the one who moves in next door). A Calvinist can say, “Believe in Jesus for the remission of sins,” but there is a secret aloofness embedded in the invitation for the vast majority of individuals who hear the gospel; an aloofness the Calvinist is very aware of and staunchly committed to.
Further, this abstract quality of Calvinism is the provenance of the good faith offer, which is reflective of Calvinism’s different understanding of the gospel. I for one find neither this abstraction, with its secret indifference for the majority of individuals who hear the gospel, nor the suggestion of such a concept as a good faith offer in the scriptural presentations of the gospel. This abstract quality transforms the simple straightforward gospel as seen in Scripture from being exoteric (available to all) into an esoteric gospel (only available to some). The exoteric gospel of Scripture calls upon every individual with whom we share to receive the gospel and gives every indication that he should and can believe. It is authentically and dependably what it appears to be, the good news of God’s love and compassion offered to all who hear.
In contrast, the esoteric gospel according to Calvinism says everyone should come, but the secret is that while God has told Calvinists to tell all the lost to come, be forgiven, and flee the wrath to come, the inner circle— Calvinists—know it has pleased God to exclude a host of individuals with whom the Calvinist presents this message. This means if one is to be consistent with Calvinism, the gospel must be protectingly presented so that the hearer believes God loves him and truly desires for him to be delivered from the fiery cauldron of God’s eternal fury; something no Calvinist can say to any particular individual unless God inspires him to intuit that the lost man to whom he is witnessing is one of God’s elect. If God gives such enlightenment it behooves the Calvinist to share such glorious news with the individual, or so it would seem.
According to Calvinism, the gospel is good news for some, but inherent in their understanding of the gospel is that for most with whom they speak it is the ghastliest horror one could ever imagine (whether a sinner desires to believe or not does nothing to palliate this point). That being the case, one may rightly question the righteous legitimacy of indiscriminately declaring a gospel so construed that, in any way, intimates it is for all who hear because it is emphatically not; something every knowledgeable Calvinist knows. To wit, if a Calvinist shares the gospel in such a way so that all those who hear believe God loves them and desires for them to repent and be saved by faith in Jesus, the Calvinist has been true to Scripture but not to Calvinism. One must genuinely ask, is there not a point when a good faith offer is transmogrified into an ungodly deception? Calvinists can avoid this point by determinedly shunning any semblance of offering, via precisely chosen guarded language, what the Calvinist is convinced does not exist. Or is the concept of a good faith offer an unchallengeable and un-fillable reservoir for storing gospel secrets of Calvinism? I am simply asking Calvinists to be clear in presenting what they so resolutely believe to be the whole good news, and I do not think that is too much to ask.
David Allen, referring to 2 Corinthians 5:19–20, says, “Here we have God himself offering salvation to all. But how can he do this according to limited atonement since there is no provision for the salvation of the non-elect in the death of Christ? Furthermore, how can God make this offer with integrity? It seems difficult to suppose he can. Without belief in the universal saving will of God and a universal extent in Christ’s sin-bearing, there can be no well-meant offer of salvation from God to the non-elect who hear the gospel call.”[9]
Extensivists follow the scriptural pattern of presenting the good news as good news for everyone who hears because, by God’s loving grace, they should and can believe. If they choose to reject, which they do not have to do, they will forfeit being adopted as a child of God and succumb to a sinner’s just deserts. This is based upon a clear, simple, and straight-forward reading of the clearest presentations of the gospel and the declared nature of God. Calvinism’s understanding of the gospel disallows any meaningfully eternal difference in the gospel if they simply said, “God hates you and has a terrible plan for you because the elect will get saved and the non-elect will not.” For Calvinists to respond that they are sharing the gospel out of obedience is not a solution to the problem I pose but rather it is symptomatic of it. Further, for a Calvinist to rely upon such an idea as a good faith offer does nothing to absolve God from intentionally obscuring his real plan.
In contrast to Calvinism, Jesus clearly warned those to whom he spoke to repent, with every indication they should and could, which warning he issued repeatedly (Matt 4:17; 11:20–21; Luke 5:32; 15:7; 24:47). The same can be said for the Apostles (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 8:22; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20). If Christ knew some of them could not repent because they were not the elect, his warning seems disingenuous and misleading. Some Calvinists will say Jesus was making a “good faith offer” (if there is such an idea) because as a man, he did not know who the elect were.
As an example of Jesus not knowing certain things, in his humanity, they reference Jesus saying “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matt 24:36). Of course, we all recognize as a human, Christ did not know certain things. However, this explicit statement of not knowing does not seem to justify the good faith offer since he gives every indication of speaking as forthrightly in presenting the gospel as he did regarding his second coming, consistent with the way things really are. There is really something to believe, he really as a human did not know the hour, which it seems all could choose to believe. There is no pretense. When he said he did not know, he really did not know, and they could believe what he said. They need not be cryptographically savvy.
Further, Calvinists’ reliance upon this example assumes they are justified in presenting something so that those who hear believe they can act on it when Calvinists know they cannot. That seems to be an illegitimate deduction. Clarification of the way things really are would only take a moment when Calvinists present the gospel according to Calvinism. I do not accept leaving the listener believing he is receiving a good offer when he is really hearing only a good faith offer to be noble evangelism. Unless one is a Calvinist who needs to justify the extra-biblical concept of the good faith offer, I doubt one would be able to mine it from this passage on the second coming. There is a crucial difference between Jesus not knowing certain things due to his role as a servant and his speaking forthrightly things that are either misleading or not true—do not correspond fully to reality. Moreover, Jesus stated he did not know the hour of his coming, but he never says nor even hints that he does not know the gospel.
Additionally, there are problems with assuming Jesus’s words were in any way misleading or ill-informed. First, Jesus would have to have forgotten all about unconditional election and selective regeneration. This seems unlikely since, as part of the Trinity, he would have had to help devise the plan of unconditional election, which would at least make his “good faith offer” a little less good than such an offer from your everyday Calvinist. While he did not know the hour of the second coming, he did know there was a second coming; to wit as a servant, he lacked precise knowledge of the event’s time not of the event, which he detailed in Matt 24–25. Second, and more problematic for the Calvinist, is that Jesus said he always did the will of the Father (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38; 17:4) and spoke not of his own initiative but what the Father wanted him to speak (John 3:11, 34; 5:19; 7:16; 8:26, 28, 38; 12:49–50; 14:10, 24, 31; 17:8). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit was upon Jesus filling him without measure (Isa 61:1; Matt 12:18; Luke 3:22; 4:1, 14; John 3:34; Acts 10:38).
Consequently, even if Jesus did not know, the Father and the Holy Spirit did know; therefore, the Calvinist doctrine of selective regeneration makes the Trinity complicitous in this misrepresentation. The obvious truth is that Jesus commanded them to repent because he was not willing that any would perish and desired that all would come to repentance (2 Pet 3:9); something God has grace-enabled everyone who hears the truth to do.
The gospel according to Calvinism is the gospel that is commanded to be preached to all, presented as available to all with an urgency that it be received by all, and yet cannot be received by all who hear the message; even though its universal availability is the obvious inference any listener would draw based upon most Calvinists’ carefully guarded presentation of the gospel (guarding the divulgence of the secret limitations of the gospel according to Calvinism). In reality, the doctrine of selective regeneration preceding faith dictates the gospel—good news— is really not good news at all because it cannot be received by anyone who just hears the good news, and this unavailability is just as true for the elect as the non-elect.
Reception of the Calvinistic gospel is divinely limited to the selectively regenerated; therefore, the primary good news of Calvinism is not the gospel, but rather that some to whom they speak are on the secret list of those who have been selected for regeneration, which results in receiving the good news — the gospel. That is to say, according to Calvinism, the gospel is not the good news to be received by all or any listener, but rather a description of the benefits that will be bestowed upon those on the secret list of the unconditionally elect. Simply put, the gospel according to Scripture is a better gospel than the gospel according to Calvinism.
NOTES
Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, 33.
Allen, The Extent of the Atonement, 217.
Spiritual faith is the ability to trust what God has said and is a gift given by God in creation as are all the endowments of man. It is also a gift in the sense that God restores the ability to exercise spiritually restorative faith as a sinner through the provision of grace enablements (John 12:35–36). It is not a gift in the Calvinist sense of being resultant of God’s irresistible grace upon the unconditionally elect, understood to be so in part by a misreading of Eph 2:8.
Repentance and faith are inseparable. Repentance focuses upon turning from sin, whereas faith focuses upon turning in trust to the Savior. Repentance is neither a predetermined irresistible work of God upon the unconditionally elect only, nor is it merely a humanly derived act. Rather, the ability to repent is given to all by God through grace enablements and is required by God for salvation.
See my answer to Calvinists’ argument for only a logical relationship between faith and regeneration in Appendix 4.
Piper, Desiring God, 62.
Canons of Dort, First Head of Doctrine, article 9.
Sproul, Chosen by God, 72–73.
Allen, The Extent of the Atonement, 786.
Dr. Leighton Flowers explains a Traditional Southern Baptist perspective of Eph. 2:8-9:
Yes, faith is a gift from God, but the point of contention between the Traditionalist and the Calvinist is whether it is a gift that is given irresistibly (or effectually).
Traditionalists affirm God enables (or grant) faith by means of His Word (the gospel), but we disagree that God effectually causes some people to believe the gospel while leaving others in a morally hopeless condition from birth.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (ESV)
What is “This”?
The main question is: What does this refer to? “This” is a demonstrative pronoun. Paul is demonstrating that something, this thing, is a gift. He’s pointing at something he just said in the previous phrase, “For by grace you have been saved through faith”, and he saying “this thing is a gift”. But what is Paul referring to as a gift? To help answer this question, let’s repeat this passage with the Greek word, gender, and number displayed:
For by grace [charis, feminine, singular] you have been saved [sesosmenoi, masculine, singular] through faith [pistis, feminine, singular]. And this [toutō, neuter, singular] is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
There are six possible interpretations for the gift. Based on the grammatical structure of the verse (seen above), four interpretations will be ruled out. They will be ruled out because ancient Greek authors used the gender and number of pronouns to make it clear to their reader which noun the pronoun is referring to. Here are the six possibilities:
1: The gift is “by grace you have been saved through faith” 2: The gift is “by grace you have been saved” 3: The gift is “been saved through faith”
4: The gift is only grace
5: The gift is only salvation
6: The gift is only faith
You’ll notice that the pronoun “this” [toutō, neuter, singular] does not match a single one of the previous nouns in question; neither “grace”, nor “saved”, nor “faith”. If Paul wanted to say only one of those was the gift, then all he would have had to do was match the gender and number of “this” with that noun. But he chose to make it match none of them. So the gift can’t be only the grace, nor only the salvation, nor only the faith.
Even though it’s not possible, interpretation six, that only faith is the gift, is often argued because faith is the last thing referenced. Most who quote Ephesians 2:8-9 to claim that ‘faith is a gift’ are arguing from this position. This seems like a natural interpretation to English readers because…that’s how we would denote which noun to which the pronoun refers. The problem is: Paul didn’t write in English. Piper, as well as many other scholars, correctly understand that this interpretation is impossible due to the grammatical formatting of the Greek.
In Greek, pronouns must agree with their antecedent in gender and number. English somewhat does this with pronouns like “he” and “she” but other pronouns like “they” and “it” are more difficult to determine. No so in Greek. All pronouns in Greek have gender and number, and they must always agree in gender and number to the noun they are pointing to, whether it is masculine, feminine, or neuter.
In the verse, “this” is neuter, meaning that it must connect two genders: Feminine, masculine, or neuter. Faith is a feminine word. The word “this” would need to be written as feminine for it to refer to faith. While interpretation 6 is quoted often, it can safely be ruled out. Interpretations 5 & 6 can be ruled out for the same mismatched gender problem. The remaining three interpretations are discussed by Piper and will be analyzed in the arguments below.
[….]
Why Didn’t Paul Just Say The Thing?
If Paul was concerned about anybody thinking that faith is something that you’re supposed to do, he would have simply written ‘faith is a gift’ somewhere in one of his many letters. Since Paul never wrote this, we cannot exegetically assume that this was his motivation. Paul could have said “these” to mean all three individually or he could have just added a sentence somewhere that clarified it. Claiming that this is what Paul was thinking or worried about is unsupported by any of his work.
Paul Wrote About Faith, Grace, Works, and Boasting Elsewhere
In order to make any claims about the motivations of Paul in regards to faith and boasting, we must take a close look at the other passages were Paul addresses these issues. As a matter of fact, several years before writing his letter to Ephesus, Paul wrote the letter to the Romans. In chapter 3 & 4, Paul goes into great detail about the relationship between salvation, grace, faith, works, and boasting. Since these chapters are much more explicit than Ephesians 2:8-9, we must incorporate them into our interpretation. Here are some snippets of his writings, but go read these chapters for yourselves and then read Ephesians 2:8-9.
“the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith . . . It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law“ (Romans 3:24-25 ESV)
“What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. 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”
“For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all”
“No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”” (Romans 4 ESV)
Paul makes it extremely clear that his concern for boasting lies in who is the justifier of our salvation, who powers it, who does the work. Paul spends all of this time communicating that promise must “rest on grace” and that this is accomplished only through faith as the means. If we are the justifier through works, then God is not glorified. Nowhere in the long exposition of Romans does Paul say that ‘faith is a gift’. Paul invalidates Piper’s argument by saying that our boasting from being justified by faith “is excluded.By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law”. Using Piper’s own reasoning, Paul could have easily said “Boasting is excluded because faith is a gift”. But instead he says “Boasting is excluded because of faith” . Faith is non-meritorious and is not worthy of boasting. No one can exegetically claim that faith is a work. If faith is not worthy of boasting because it is not a work, where is Paul’s concern that we ‘create faith’? Why does Paul say that “Abraham believed God”? This seems like the perfect place to drop this supposed additional information about faith being effectually given or that you are unable to put faith in God. Nowhere in the entire Bible does it say that man is unable to believe, repent, or put their faith in God unless effectually given faith. This concept has to be read into the text. If putting faith in God is boast worthy, why didn’t Paul address it as clearly as he addresses faith not being a work?
Does faith rob God of his glory? Romans 4 says no. Abraham “grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God”. The text doesn’t say God made Abraham grow strong in faith. Instead, the text gives Abraham credit for his faith. If this was a concern of Paul’s in the slightest, why would Paul write it this way? Paul clearly writes that salvation through faith gives God all of the glory. Where is Paul’s concern? Piper’s argument that faith somehow takes glory from God is an attempt to turn faith into a work. One can only boast if it is under the law of works. Assuming that Paul holds this concern is completely unfounded by his work.
Bibliotheca Sacra BSAC 122:487 (July 1965): 248–253. (PDF HERE)
Most Calvinistic commentators believe that the gift of Ephesians 2:8 is saving faith rather than salvation: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). This interpretation leads some to a hyper-Calvinistic doctrine of faith, which in turn leads to an unscriptural plan of salvation.
For example, Shedd says: “The Calvinist maintains that faith is wholly from God, being one of the effects of regeneration.”1This results in a strange plan of salvation. Because the sinner cannot believe, he is instructed to perform the following duties: 1. Read and hear the divine Word. 2. Give serious application of the mind to the truth. 3. Pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit for conviction and regeneration.2
Thus an unscriptural doctrine of total depravity leads to an unscriptural and inconsistent plan of salvation. Doubtless the sinner is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1b). If this means that regeneration must precede faith, then it must also mean that regeneration must precede all three of the pious duties Shedd outlines for the lost. A doctrine of total depravity that excludes the possibility of faith must also exclude the possibilities of “hearing the word,” “giving serious application to divine truth,” and “praying for the Holy Spirit for conviction and regeneration.” The extreme Calvinist deals with a rather lively spiritual corpse after all. If the corpse has enough vitality to read the Word, and heed the message, and pray for conviction, perhaps it can also believe. Incidentally, it would seem evident that the person who would pray earnestly for conviction must already be under a deep state of conviction.
Arthur W. Pink agrees with Shedd. He says the sinner is to “ask God … to bestow upon him the gifts of repentance and faith.”3
Berkhof’s position is similar: “This faith is not first of all an activity of man, but a potentiality wrought by God in the heart of the sinner. The seed of faith is implanted in man in regeneration.”4
The tragedy of this position is that it perverts the gospel. The good news becomes only a hopeful possibility. The sinner is wrongly instructed to beg for that which God is already beseeching him to receive (2 Cor. 5:20). He is given no assurance that his prayer will be answered. He is really being told that the condition of salvation is prayer instead of faith.
The one verse which seems to teach that saving faith is the gift of God is Ephesians 2:8. But a careful study of this verse and its context shows clearly that it is salvation which is the gift of God. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary gives this explanation: “The word that refers not to grace or to faith, but to the whole act of salvation.”5This is also the interpretation of Calvin, Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, Eadie, and others. The Greek text favors this meaning because the relative pronoun that (τοῦτο) is neuter while the word faith (πίστις) is feminine. In addition the whole context, especially verse 9, makes clear that the issue is salvation by grace opposed to the ever-present error of salvation by works. The same conclusion is reached by the grammarian J. Harold Greenlee.6
Sir Robert Anderson’s footnote on Ephesians 2:8 is well stated: “Eph. 2:8. ‘The gift of God’ here is salvation by grace through faith. Not the faith itself. ‘This is precluded,’ as Alford remarks, ‘by the manifestly parallel clauses “not of yourself,” and “not of works,” the latter of which would be irrelevant as asserted of faith.’ It is still more definitely precluded, he might have added, by the character of the passage. It is given to us to believe on Christ, just in the same sense in which it is given to some ‘also to suffer for His sake’ (Phil. 1:29). But the statement in Ephesians is doctrinal, and in that sense the assertion that faith is a gift, or indeed that it is a distinct entity at all, is sheer error. This matter is sometimes represented as though God gave faith to the sinner first, and then, on the sinner’s bringing Him the faith, went on and gave him salvation! Just as though a baker, refusing to supply empty-handed applicants, should first dispense to each the price of a loaf, and then, in return for the money from his own till, serve out the bread! To answer fully such a vagary as this would be to rewrite the foregoing chapter. Suffice it, therefore, to point out that to read the text as though faith were the gift, is to destroy not only the meaning of verse 9, but the force of the whole passage.”7
There are those who agree that Ephesians 2:8 does not prove that saving faith is the gift of God, but they believe the doctrine is taught by other passages, such as: Acts 5:31; 11:18; Phil. 1:29; 3:9; Romans 12:3; 2 Peter 1:1; 2 Timothy 2:25; and John 6:44–45. A careful look at these verses yields no proof that faith or repentance, as a synonym for faith, are special gifts of God.
“Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). If repentance in this verse refers to a special gift for salvation, then all Israel would be saved. It is evident that the reference is to God’s general offer of repentance, which most of the Jews rejected. The same explanation applies to Acts 11:18 where the Gentiles are in view.
“For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake” (Phil. 1:29). Sir Robert Anderson’s comment on this verse has been noted: “It is given to us to believe on Christ, just in the same sense in which it is given to some ‘also to suffer for his sake.’ ”8
“And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:9). It would be a strange and strained interpretation of this verse to make “the faith of Christ” refer to a gift of faith from Christ, which Paul then exercised as his own in order to receive the righteousness of God. The ASV renders the phrase “through faith in Christ.” Even if the AV rendering is accepted, the expression clearly refers to the gospel as centered in Christ, and not to the manner in which Paul obtained his personal faith.
“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3). The novice in Bible study would recognize that this section of Romans deals with the exercise of faith with the gifts for service (cf. Rom. 12:6) and has nothing to do with saving faith.
“Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:1). Here Peter states that believers have “obtained” their faith, but he does not say how it was obtained. To use such a verse to prove that saving faith is a special gift of God is only to show how desperate the advocates of this theory are for Scriptural proof.
“In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25). The gift of repentance of this verse is clearly to recover members of the church out of the snare of Satan, and has nothing to do with saving faith. Even this gift is not an unqualified sovereign bestowal because it is dependent on the instruction of Timothy and the co-operation of the one ensnared, as the context (vs. 26) indicates.
“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me” (John 6:44–45). It should be noted, first of all, that these verses do not say that saving faith is the gift of God. This is an assumption based on other assumptions. The method of obtaining faith is by hearing and learning of the Father. This is in harmony with Romans 10:17. Later the Lord explained his strong statement by the simple proposition that some could not come to him because of their unbelief (vss. 64–65), not because they did not receive a gift of faith. Some could not believe because they were interested in free bread and board, but not in the true bread from heaven. The sovereignty of God in salvation is a profound mystery that has its place in theology, but it need not be invoked to explain a problem which the Lord Himself explains in a far simpler way. The moral state of the enemies of Christ precluded their coming to the Father or Christ. The same situation is seen and clearly explained in John 5:44: “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?”
In the Bible there is no clear and dogmatic statement that saving faith is a gift of God. On the other hand, the Bible clearly states the way in which faith is obtained: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). The Scriptures speak of saving faith as “thy faith” (Luke 7:50), “his faith” (Rom. 4:5), and “their faith” (Matt. 9:2); but never as the faith of God.”
It can be agreed that saving faith is the gift of God in the broad sense in which all things come from God (1 Cor. 4:7; Rom. 11:35, 36). However, this is entirely different from the position that an unsaved person cannot believe until he first receives a special gift of faith from God. Such a doctrine is opposed by the “whosover” passages of the Bible, and by passages which beseech the sinner to be saved (i.e., John 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:20).
But it is argued that if the sinner has sufficient ability to hear the Word of God and be saved, then salvation is by works, or partly by works. Not at all! “Faith is no more than an activity of reception contributing nothing to that which it receives.”9
Machen, himself a Calvinist, agrees emphatically that faith is not a kind of good work: “The faith of man, rightly conceived, can never stand in opposition to the completeness with which salvation depends upon God: it can never mean that man does part while God merely does the rest; for the simple reason that faith consists not in doing something but in receiving something.”10
A gift from a good man to a beggar does not cease to be a gift because the beggar stretches forth his hand to receive it.
On the other hand, it is the hyper-Calvinist who is open to the charge of teaching salvation by works. Prayer is doing something, and the man who prays hard and gets saved could justly believe that he had made his contribution to the plan of salvation. Those who deny the sinner the ability to believe end by imputing to him the impossible and unscriptural ability to find God through pious works.
Calvin did teach that faith is a gift of God, but his conclusion was not based on Ephesians 2:8. Contrary to popular opinion, Arminius also believed that justifying faith is the gift of God. He said: “Faith is the effect of God illuminating the mind and sealing the heart, and it is his mere gift.”11However, he believed that God bestows sufficient grace upon all men to believe if they will. Thus he held a position in harmony with a sincere proclamation of the gospel to all men. But did not both Calvin and Arminius go beyond the authority of the Bible in teaching that saving faith is a special gift of God?
Many passages, and whole books of the New Testament, are written to prove salvation is a gift of God and not the reward of good works. But where are the passages to prove saving faith is the gift of God? Is not this theory a deduction from the doctrine of election rather than an induction from the teaching of the Word?
NOTES
1 W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, p. 472.
* After soldiers returned from ‘the war to end all wars,’ prohibition brought turmoil, but the economy boomed. A seemingly indestructible country complacently stood at the threshold of the Great Depression. And it came about in those days that Dallas Theological Seminary—first known as the Evangelical Theological College—had its birth. And at the end of the first academic cycle, the first student to graduate—a young man named Roy L. Aldrich—crossed the stage to receive his degree. (More Here)
I posted this on my Facebook (to the right) and TONY B made the following comment:
That’s not even a little bit true. The Lord rebuke you for, brother in Christ, for equating everyone on “the Left” as atheists. People vote Democrat or Republican for a variety of reasons, economic, social, political, etc. Most Christians aren’t even aware of the news item your meme mentions; are they atheists also? I voted Independent and Republican my entire life until Trump came along because I took the book of James seriously. Did you know the Bible says to mark those who cause division? Have you considered that you may have crossed the line into political idolatry? Respectfully, no man can serve two masters; whose words and methods do your words reflect?
Firstly, TONY B ascribed to me something not in the graphic nor anything I said. It reminded me of Dick Durbin doing the same when Bret Baier mentioned the DNC removing God from the platform.
… Secular members were asked to identify their political persuasion, with 29 percent selecting “Democratic” and 36 percent selecting “progressive/liberal.” While that totals 65 percent, 21 percent selected Independent. On the flip side, only 1 percent identified as Republicans, with 3 percent selecting “Socialist/Marxist” and 3 percent selecting “Green.”
As the Democrat Party lurches more Leftward in their positions, on writer comments on why it may be this way (I will emphasize) – Washington Examiner Archived:
… Given the values and beliefs held dearest by the Democratic Party, it is hard not to agree. Radicals have gradually pushed it further left, which has also been shifting the goalposts of society in a more secular direction ever since the Progressive Era of the late 19th century.
The Democratic Party has fully embraced feminism and its natural descendent, the LGBT movement. Both have propagated the idea that men and women are indistinguishable. This justifies the party’s attempts to mix and match the roles of the two sexes in society. They are opposed to the Christian idea that man and woman were made distinct from yet complementary to one another.
By destroying marriage and the distinctions of the sexes, the party helped craft sexual activity into a vital expression of choice and liberation. These are the party values over the Christian practices of restraint and modesty. It has removed the incentives to abstain from sex and promoted perverse sexual behavior. In doing so, it has helped to normalize sexual depravity.
The idol of abortion also affirms the desire of the Democratic Party to exempt society from taking responsibility for its actions. By dehumanizing children as “parasites” and framing abortion as a right, the party encourages people to blame others for their decisions to have sex. This is despite Christians asserting that all life is sacred and formed by God upon conception.
Intersectionality has had a similar effect. The party has adopted a caste system based on what someone is or claims to be rather than who someone is or what they have done. This places those deemed “victims” over those deemed “oppressors,” while Christians view all humans as made with equal value by God.
All of this derives from one source: pride. The Democratic Party lives and breathes on its prioritization of the self. …
So while all Democrats or Democrat voters are not “atheists” or God haters, neither are a majority of Muslims Jihadists. In a short, spliced up version of the must watch OG video, Raheel Raza discusses the non-violent aspect s of the Muslim faith that support the inner circle of Jihadists. Whether knowingly [intending to] or not.
The same can be said of moderate to even blue-dog Democrats (almost non left in the Party, BTW). Dave Rubin, once of the Young Turks, has for years noted how Bill Maher is evolving, but, all the stuff he complains about on the Left is empowered by who he votes for.
So Bill would be in that outer ring. And when Tony votes Democrat, he is as well. Tony may be “pro-life,” believe in the historicity of Christianity and all the benefits that the Judeo-Christian worldview offers, etc. But all that s shown to not be in fact what he believes when he puts a ticket in for Democrats. (Related video, related post to the Prager vs. Maher thingy.)
And remember, we are talking about the base of the parties. Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell — even though libertarians, always voted Republican. Because that is where their ideas had the most power and influence … at the root to affect the larger party. And here we are, small government freshman class of GOP and thinkers. Trump has gotten more small government ideas into mainstream and legislation [de-legislation] than Reagan ever did. Awesome.
And concern about killing Christians and the martyrdom in the world of Christians almost fully resides on the right. Why? Because we are packed full of Christians. Or those professing such. More than the atheist Left.
This is an old post, many links that were fruitful in 2012 are now dead ends… ~UPDATED TODAY 10/29/2025 – MEDIA AND PICS~
Most violence happens by those pushing a leftist ideal. Conservative violence is almost unheard of! Why? There is a goal of a perfect world being created in the here-and-now, and this naturally leads to organizations that encourage protest and violence. The most recent example of this are the Cleveland Bridge Bombers. The first player in this group of douche-bags looking to hurt and maim people and property is Brandon L. Baxter. On his FaceBook he has quite a few organization listed that he likes.
….Facebook profile, he lists his political views as “anarcho-communist,” and lists “#OccupyCleveland” as his employment.
A gang of anarchists arrested for allegedly plotting to blow up a Cleveland, Ohio bridge also talked about attacking an upcoming NATO summit in Chicago and this summer’s Republican National Convention in Florida, according to authorities. (ABC)
also, in his “liked” section just a few organizations he apparently endorses:
Bibliotheca Sacra BSAC 122:487 (July 1965): 248–253. (PDF HERE)
Most Calvinistic commentators believe that the gift of Ephesians 2:8 is saving faith rather than salvation: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). This interpretation leads some to a hyper-Calvinistic doctrine of faith, which in turn leads to an unscriptural plan of salvation.
For example, Shedd says: “The Calvinist maintains that faith is wholly from God, being one of the effects of regeneration.”1This results in a strange plan of salvation. Because the sinner cannot believe, he is instructed to perform the following duties: 1. Read and hear the divine Word. 2. Give serious application of the mind to the truth. 3. Pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit for conviction and regeneration.2
Thus an unscriptural doctrine of total depravity leads to an unscriptural and inconsistent plan of salvation. Doubtless the sinner is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1b). If this means that regeneration must precede faith, then it must also mean that regeneration must precede all three of the pious duties Shedd outlines for the lost. A doctrine of total depravity that excludes the possibility of faith must also exclude the possibilities of “hearing the word,” “giving serious application to divine truth,” and “praying for the Holy Spirit for conviction and regeneration.” The extreme Calvinist deals with a rather lively spiritual corpse after all. If the corpse has enough vitality to read the Word, and heed the message, and pray for conviction, perhaps it can also believe. Incidentally, it would seem evident that the person who would pray earnestly for conviction must already be under a deep state of conviction.
Arthur W. Pink agrees with Shedd. He says the sinner is to “ask God … to bestow upon him the gifts of repentance and faith.”3
Berkhof’s position is similar: “This faith is not first of all an activity of man, but a potentiality wrought by God in the heart of the sinner. The seed of faith is implanted in man in regeneration.”4
The tragedy of this position is that it perverts the gospel. The good news becomes only a hopeful possibility. The sinner is wrongly instructed to beg for that which God is already beseeching him to receive (2 Cor. 5:20). He is given no assurance that his prayer will be answered. He is really being told that the condition of salvation is prayer instead of faith.
The one verse which seems to teach that saving faith is the gift of God is Ephesians 2:8. But a careful study of this verse and its context shows clearly that it is salvation which is the gift of God. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary gives this explanation: “The word that refers not to grace or to faith, but to the whole act of salvation.”5This is also the interpretation of Calvin, Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, Eadie, and others. The Greek text favors this meaning because the relative pronoun that (τοῦτο) is neuter while the word faith (πίστις) is feminine. In addition the whole context, especially verse 9, makes clear that the issue is salvation by grace opposed to the ever-present error of salvation by works. The same conclusion is reached by the grammarian J. Harold Greenlee.6
Sir Robert Anderson’s footnote on Ephesians 2:8 is well stated: “Eph. 2:8. ‘The gift of God’ here is salvation by grace through faith. Not the faith itself. ‘This is precluded,’ as Alford remarks, ‘by the manifestly parallel clauses “not of yourself,” and “not of works,” the latter of which would be irrelevant as asserted of faith.’ It is still more definitely precluded, he might have added, by the character of the passage. It is given to us to believe on Christ, just in the same sense in which it is given to some ‘also to suffer for His sake’ (Phil. 1:29). But the statement in Ephesians is doctrinal, and in that sense the assertion that faith is a gift, or indeed that it is a distinct entity at all, is sheer error. This matter is sometimes represented as though God gave faith to the sinner first, and then, on the sinner’s bringing Him the faith, went on and gave him salvation! Just as though a baker, refusing to supply empty-handed applicants, should first dispense to each the price of a loaf, and then, in return for the money from his own till, serve out the bread! To answer fully such a vagary as this would be to rewrite the foregoing chapter. Suffice it, therefore, to point out that to read the text as though faith were the gift, is to destroy not only the meaning of verse 9, but the force of the whole passage.”7
There are those who agree that Ephesians 2:8 does not prove that saving faith is the gift of God, but they believe the doctrine is taught by other passages, such as: Acts 5:31; 11:18; Phil. 1:29; 3:9; Romans 12:3; 2 Peter 1:1; 2 Timothy 2:25; and John 6:44–45. A careful look at these verses yields no proof that faith or repentance, as a synonym for faith, are special gifts of God.
“Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). If repentance in this verse refers to a special gift for salvation, then all Israel would be saved. It is evident that the reference is to God’s general offer of repentance, which most of the Jews rejected. The same explanation applies to Acts 11:18 where the Gentiles are in view.
“For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake” (Phil. 1:29). Sir Robert Anderson’s comment on this verse has been noted: “It is given to us to believe on Christ, just in the same sense in which it is given to some ‘also to suffer for his sake.’ ”8
“And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:9). It would be a strange and strained interpretation of this verse to make “the faith of Christ” refer to a gift of faith from Christ, which Paul then exercised as his own in order to receive the righteousness of God. The ASV renders the phrase “through faith in Christ.” Even if the AV rendering is accepted, the expression clearly refers to the gospel as centered in Christ, and not to the manner in which Paul obtained his personal faith.
“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3). The novice in Bible study would recognize that this section of Romans deals with the exercise of faith with the gifts for service (cf. Rom. 12:6) and has nothing to do with saving faith.
“Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:1). Here Peter states that believers have “obtained” their faith, but he does not say how it was obtained. To use such a verse to prove that saving faith is a special gift of God is only to show how desperate the advocates of this theory are for Scriptural proof.
“In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25). The gift of repentance of this verse is clearly to recover members of the church out of the snare of Satan, and has nothing to do with saving faith. Even this gift is not an unqualified sovereign bestowal because it is dependent on the instruction of Timothy and the co-operation of the one ensnared, as the context (vs. 26) indicates.
“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me” (John 6:44–45). It should be noted, first of all, that these verses do not say that saving faith is the gift of God. This is an assumption based on other assumptions. The method of obtaining faith is by hearing and learning of the Father. This is in harmony with Romans 10:17. Later the Lord explained his strong statement by the simple proposition that some could not come to him because of their unbelief (vss. 64–65), not because they did not receive a gift of faith. Some could not believe because they were interested in free bread and board, but not in the true bread from heaven. The sovereignty of God in salvation is a profound mystery that has its place in theology, but it need not be invoked to explain a problem which the Lord Himself explains in a far simpler way. The moral state of the enemies of Christ precluded their coming to the Father or Christ. The same situation is seen and clearly explained in John 5:44: “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?”
In the Bible there is no clear and dogmatic statement that saving faith is a gift of God. On the other hand, the Bible clearly states the way in which faith is obtained: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). The Scriptures speak of saving faith as “thy faith” (Luke 7:50), “his faith” (Rom. 4:5), and “their faith” (Matt. 9:2); but never as the faith of God.”
It can be agreed that saving faith is the gift of God in the broad sense in which all things come from God (1 Cor. 4:7; Rom. 11:35, 36). However, this is entirely different from the position that an unsaved person cannot believe until he first receives a special gift of faith from God. Such a doctrine is opposed by the “whosover” passages of the Bible, and by passages which beseech the sinner to be saved (i.e., John 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:20).
But it is argued that if the sinner has sufficient ability to hear the Word of God and be saved, then salvation is by works, or partly by works. Not at all! “Faith is no more than an activity of reception contributing nothing to that which it receives.”9
Machen, himself a Calvinist, agrees emphatically that faith is not a kind of good work: “The faith of man, rightly conceived, can never stand in opposition to the completeness with which salvation depends upon God: it can never mean that man does part while God merely does the rest; for the simple reason that faith consists not in doing something but in receiving something.”10
A gift from a good man to a beggar does not cease to be a gift because the beggar stretches forth his hand to receive it.
On the other hand, it is the hyper-Calvinist who is open to the charge of teaching salvation by works. Prayer is doing something, and the man who prays hard and gets saved could justly believe that he had made his contribution to the plan of salvation. Those who deny the sinner the ability to believe end by imputing to him the impossible and unscriptural ability to find God through pious works.
Calvin did teach that faith is a gift of God, but his conclusion was not based on Ephesians 2:8. Contrary to popular opinion, Arminius also believed that justifying faith is the gift of God. He said: “Faith is the effect of God illuminating the mind and sealing the heart, and it is his mere gift.”11However, he believed that God bestows sufficient grace upon all men to believe if they will. Thus he held a position in harmony with a sincere proclamation of the gospel to all men. But did not both Calvin and Arminius go beyond the authority of the Bible in teaching that saving faith is a special gift of God?
Many passages, and whole books of the New Testament, are written to prove salvation is a gift of God and not the reward of good works. But where are the passages to prove saving faith is the gift of God? Is not this theory a deduction from the doctrine of election rather than an induction from the teaching of the Word?
NOTES
1 W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, p. 472.
* After soldiers returned from ‘the war to end all wars,’ prohibition brought turmoil, but the economy boomed. A seemingly indestructible country complacently stood at the threshold of the Great Depression. And it came about in those days that Dallas Theological Seminary—first known as the Evangelical Theological College—had its birth. And at the end of the first academic cycle, the first student to graduate—a young man named Roy L. Aldrich—crossed the stage to receive his degree. (More Here)
Dr. Leighton Flowers responds to a book recently published by Matthew Cserhati titled, “A Critique of Provisionism: A Response to Leighton Flowers’s ‘The Potter’s Promise.'” Join us LIVE as we demonstrate how Matthew’s arguments never get off the ground by surviving even the most basic level of unbiased scrutiny. To get your copy of Dr. Flowers book, Drawn By Jesus.
To assist in this video above, I will also excerpt a large portion of a must read book pictured below… it is a long read but well worth the time. Under that book quote I will put a very recent interview with Ken Wilson [Jump To] regarding Augustine… also worth your while IMHO.
Chapter IV titled: “Is God’s Grace Irresistible? A Critique of Irresistible Grace
[….]
The Bible and Irresistible Grace
What does the Bible say about irresistible grace? The easy answer is the Bible does not specifically address it. The phrase “irresistible grace” does not appear anywhere in Scripture. Neither can one find such important Calvinist words as “monergism,” “compatibilism,” or ordo salutis. This absence alone does not mean irresistible grace might not be a reality. Other doctrines such as the Trinity are described in Scripture but not with the theological name that we now give them. So let us examine Old Testament texts, New Testament texts, and the ministry and teachings of Jesus to see if they support irresistible grace. We will also see how the repeated all-inclusive invitations to salvation throughout Scripture and the descriptions of how to be saved argue against irresistible grace.
Key Texts Affirming Resistible Grace
Old Testament Texts—Some Scripture texts appear to deny irresistible grace and to affirm resistible grace explicitly. For example, in Proverbs 1, the wisdom of God personified speaks to those whom “I called” (Prov 1:24 NASB), to whom “I will pour out my spirit on you” (v. 23b), and to whom wisdom has made “my words known to you” (v. 23c). Nevertheless, no one regarded God’s truth, for the hearers refused God’s message and disdained wisdom’s counsel (vv. 22–26). Some might claim this message merely exemplifies the resistible outward call. The problem becomes complicated because these are God’s elect people, the Jews, with whom God had entered into covenant: “I called and you refused” (v. 24a). God makes them the offer: “I will pour out my spirit on you” (v. 23b), but they would not turn and instead refused to accept the message (v. 24). The grace that was so graciously offered was ungraciously refused. The proffered grace was conditional on their response. Acceptance of God’s Word would have brought blessing, but their rejection of it brought calamity upon themselves.
In the Prophets and the Psalms, God responds to the Israelites’ refusal to repent and their rejection of his Word:
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. As they called them, so they went from them; they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images. I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them. He shall not return to the land of Egypt; but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to repent. And the sword shall slash in his cities, devour his districts, and consume them, because of their own counsels. My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, none at all exalt Him. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.” (Hos 11:1–9 NKJV)
They did not keep the covenant of God; they refused to walk in His law. (Ps 78:10 NKJV)
“But My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would have none of Me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels. Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways!” (Ps 81:11–13 NKJV)
They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Though I taught them time and time again, they do not listen and receive discipline. (Jer 32:33 HCSB)
New Testament Texts—One of the most direct references to the resistibility of grace in the New Testament is in Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7:2–53, just before his martyrdom in vv. 54–60. In confronting the Jews who had rejected Jesus as Messiah, Stephen said, “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did” (v. 51 NASB). The Remonstrants referenced this specific Scripture, as do most scholars who reject the notion of irresistible grace. Stephen is not speaking to believers but to Jews who have rejected Christ. He not only accuses them of “resisting the Holy Spirit” but observes that many of their Jewish ancestors resisted God as well. The word translated as “resist” (antipiptō) means not “to fall down and worship,” but to “oppose, ” “strive against,” or “resist.”21 Clearly this Scripture teaches that the influence of the Holy Spirit is resistible. A similar account in Luke describes the Pharisees’ response to the preaching of John the Baptist: “But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him” (Luke 7:30 KJV).
Another example of resistance occurs in Paul’s salvation experience in Acts 26. As Saul was on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians, a blinding light hit him, and a voice out of heaven said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14 HCSB). Saul had resisted the conviction of the Holy Spirit in events such as the stoning of Stephen, but after his dramatic experience with the risen Christ, Saul did believe. Even so, some time lapsed before Ananias arrived and Paul received the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17). However, in both the Old and New Testaments, other people saw miracles yet continued to resist God’s grace.22
What do Calvinists say about these texts? First, Calvinists do not deny that people can resist the Holy Spirit in some situations. Unbelievers can resist the “ outward call” of the gospel, but the elect cannot resist the “effectual call.” John Piper has said, “What is irresistible is when the Spirit is issuing the effectual call.”23 However, Calvinistic explanations do not appear to help in this instance. The Jews, after all, were God’s chosen people, and the entirety of the Jewish people were covered under the covenant, not just individual Jews. Calvinist covenantal theology sees the entire nation of Israel as being God’s chosen people. The elect, after all, are supposed to receive the effectual call. Calvinists often quote, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” (Rom 9:13 NKJV) as strong evidence for election.24 But these divinely elected people have not only rejected Jesus as Messiah but resisted the Holy Spirit through many generations in history. Therefore, it would seem God’s grace is resistible, even among the elect who are eligible to receive the effectual call.
Resistible Grace in the Ministry and Teachings of Jesus
Throughout his teaching ministry, Jesus taught and ministered in ways that seem to be inconsistent with the notion of irresistible grace. In each of these occasions, he appears to advocate the idea that God’s grace is resistible. For example, hear again Jesus’s lament over Jerusalem: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! [The city] who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, yet you were not willing!” (Matt 23:37 HCSB, emphasis added; cf. Luke 13:34). What was Jesus lamenting? He was lamenting that despite God’s gracious love for “Jerusalem” (by metonymy including all Jews, not merely the leaders) and his desire to gather them to eternal security under his protection, and the many prophets and messengers he sent them with his message, they rejected the message that was sent them and “were not willing” to respond to God. In fact, the Greek sets the contrast off even more sharply than the English does because forms of the same Greek verb thelō (to will) are used twice in this verse: “I willed . . . but you were not willing.”25 Gottlob Schrenk described this statement as expressing “the frustration of His gracious purpose to save by the refusal of men.”26 Note also that his lament concerned the entire city of Jerusalem, not just a small number of the elect within Jerusalem. Indeed, Jesus’s “how often” signified even his preincarnate salvific concern about not only the persons living in Jerusalem at that time but for many previous generations of Jerusalemites.
Again, one might suggest that the prophets were merely the vehicles for proclaiming the general call, and thus these Jerusalemites never received the efficacious call. However, this argument will not do. First, the Jerusalemites were God’s chosen people. As the elect, they should have received the efficacious call, but in fact, they were still unwilling to respond. Some Calvinists might make this argument: the election of Israel included individuals within Israel, not all of Israel as a people. Only a remnant of physical Israel, not all of it, will be saved. But the proposal that God sent the efficacious call to just a portion of Israel nevertheless does not match up well with this text or numerous other texts.
Even so, the greater issue is that if Jesus believed in irresistible grace, with both the outward and inward calls, his apparent lament over Jerusalem would have been just a disingenuous act, a cynical show because he knew that God had not and would not give these lost persons the necessary conditions for their salvation. His lament would have been over God’s hardness of heart, but that is not what the Scripture says. Scripture attributes the people’s not coming to God to their own unwillingness, that is, the hardness of their own hearts.
What is generalized in Jesus’s lament over Jerusalem is personalized in the incident with the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18–23). The ruler asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 18 HCSB). If Jesus were a Calvinist, one might have expected him to answer, “Nothing!” and admonish the young ruler for the impertinence of his question, particularly the idea that he could do anything to inherit eternal life, as if to steal glory from God’s monergistic salvation. Instead, Jesus told him what he could do: he could go and sell all his possessions and give them to the poor. This instruction was not just about the young ruler’s money; it was about his heart. He loved his money and the privileges it gave him, and he just could not live without it. In other words, Jesus would not grant him eternal life unless he was willing to make a total commitment of his life to God, but the young ruler was unwilling to do so. Jesus let him walk away and face the solemn consequences of his decision.
Noting the rich young ruler’s unwillingness, Jesus then commented about how hard it is for a rich person to enter heaven—indeed, as hard as a camel going through the eye of a needle (Luke 13:24–28). Of course, if Jesus were a Calvinist, he never would have suggested that it was harder for rich people to be saved by God’s irresistible grace than for poor people. Their wills would be changed immediately and invincibly upon hearing God’s effectual call. It would be no harder for a rich person to be saved by God’s monergistic and irresistible calling than it would be for any other sinner. But the real Jesus was suggesting that their salvation was tied in some measure to their response and commitment to his calling.
The same idea of resistible grace arises frequently in the parables of Jesus’s teaching ministry. In the parable of the two sons (Matt 21:28–32), Jesus described their differing responses. One son initially refused to do the work he was told to do, saying “I don’t want to!” but later “changed his mind” and did it (v. 29 HCSB). Meanwhile, the other son said he would do the work, but later he did not do the work. What was the main point of this parable? The point was that tax collectors and prostitutes were going to enter the kingdom of heaven before the chief priests and elders who resisted Jesus’s teaching (vv. 31–32). The distinction between the two was not that one was a son and one was not, for they both were sons from whom the father desired obedience. The distinction between them is the response of each son— resistance from one, repentance and obedience from the other. Evidently Jesus thought that a personal response to the Father’s will is important!
A similar teaching follows in the parable of the vineyard (Matt 21:33–44). Using the familiar Old Testament symbol of a vineyard to represent Israel, Jesus told of the owner of the vineyard going away and leaving it in the hands of the tenants. He sent back a series of messengers and finally sent his own son to instruct the tenants about running the vineyard, but they rejected each messenger and killed his son in the hope of seizing the vineyard for themselves. The owner then returned and exacted a solemn punishment on the rebellious tenants. Jesus then spoke of the cornerstone, the rock that was rejected by the builders but became the chief cornerstone, obviously speaking of himself (vv. 42–44). Jesus then told the Pharisees that the kingdom of God would be taken from them and “given to a nation producing its fruit” (v. 43 HCSB). Again, the key differential was whether persons were willing to be responsive to the Word of God.
The parable of the sower (or of the soils) in Matt 13:1–23; Mark 4:1–20; and Luke 8:1–15 highlights the issue of personal responsiveness to the Word of God. The invariable element is the seed, which represents the Word. The variable factor is the receptiveness of the soil on which the sower sowed the seed. The seed on the path, on the rocky ground, and among the thorns never became rooted enough in the soil to flourish. The seed on the path was snatched away by the evil one. The rocky ground represents the person who “hears the word” and “receives it with joy” (Matt 13:20 HCSB) but does not flourish because “he has no root in himself” (v. 21). The seed that fell among thorns represents the person who also hears the Word of God, but the message becomes garbled by worldly interests. Only the seed that fell on good, receptive ground flourished. Again, the variable is not the proclamation of the Word but the response of the individual.
Resistible Grace in the All-Inclusive Invitations in Scripture
One of the most off-repeated themes throughout many genres of Scripture is the broad invitation of God to “all” people. This invitation parallels in many ways David L. Allen’s discussion on the issue of a limited atonement in this volume and in other works.27 However, the question relating to irresistible grace is why, when receiving irresistible grace is the only way persons can be saved, would God choose only a small number of people to be saved? In essence, Calvinists blame God for those who do not come. These lost souls cannot come because God did not give them irresistible grace, the only way they can be saved. Roger Olson compared the roles of Satan and God in Calvinism: “Satan wants all people damned to hell and God wants only a certain number damned to hell.”28 While Calvinists would insist that the sinners who reject the message of salvation merely receive their just deserts, there is really more to it than that. Calvinists affirm that God elected some for his own reasons from before the world began, and he gave them irresistible grace through his Spirit so they inevitably would be saved. Obviously, those whom he did not choose to give the irresistible effectual call but merely the resistible outer ineffectual call can never be saved. These are no more or less sinners than others, but God for no obvious reason does not love this group (Calvinists call this “preterition,” or intentionally overlooking some persons), while he loves the other group through election. God chose not to give them the means of salvation, and thus they have zero chance of being saved. The alternative perspective that I affirm is that God does extend the general call to all persons and unleashes the Holy Spirit to persuade and convict them of their need for repentance and faith. The Holy Spirit, however, does not impose his will irresistibly. At the end of the day, response to the grace of God determines whether the call is effectual.
The key issue, then, is whether salvation is genuinely open to all people or just to a few who receive irresistible grace. What does the Scripture say concerning this issue? First, Scripture clearly teaches that God desires the salvation of all people. The Bible teaches that:
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world. (1 John 2:2 HCSB)
“It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven for one of these little ones to perish.” (Matt 18:14 NASB)
“The Lord is . . . not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Pet 3:9 KJV)
“[God] wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim 2:4 HCSB)
The Greek word pas (πᾶς) and its similar cognate synonym words (pantes, panta, and hos an), meaning “all” or “everyone,” such as in 1 Tim 2:4 and 2 Pet 3:9, in all the standard Greek dictionaries means “all” without exception!29
Those who would like to translate the word pas as something other than a synonym for “all” should ponder the theological cost of such a move merely because it disagrees with their theological system. For example, Paul used the same term in 2 Tim 3:16, when he declared that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God”(2 Tim 3:16 KJV, emphasis added). He did not mean that God inspires merely some selected portions of Scripture but that God inspires all Scripture. Likewise, the Greek word pas (“all”), used in the prologue to John, makes the enormous claim about creation that “all things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3 KJV, emphasis added). Jesus was not involved in merely creating a few trees and hills here and there, but all things were created by him. We see the word again in Ephesians when Paul looked toward the eschaton and claimed that in the fullness of time will be gathered “all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (Eph 1:10 KJV, emphasis added). Thus, an accurate doctrine of the creation of the world, the inspiration of Scripture, and the consummation of the world hinges on an accurate rendering of the Greek word pas as “all.” So does the doctrine of salvation—that God desires the salvation of all people and has made an atonement through Christ that is sufficient for all people.
This same all-inclusive Greek word pas (translated as “everyone,” “all,” or “whosoever”) is used repeatedly in the New Testament to offer an invitation to all people who will respond to God’s gracious initiative with faith and obedience (italics in the following Scripture passages are mine):
“Therefore whoever [pas hostis] hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matt 7:24 NKJV; see Luke 6:47–48)
“Whosoever [pas hostis] therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever [hostis an] shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt 10:32–33 KJV; see Luke 12:8)
“Come to Me, all [pantes] who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28 NASB1995)
John the Baptist “came as a witness, / to testify about the light, / so that all [pantes] might believe through him.” (John 1:7 HCSB)
Jesus is “the true light, who gives light to everyone” [panta]. (John 1:9 HCSB)
Whoever [pas] believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever [pas] believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:15–16 NKJV)
“Everyone [pas] who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever [hos an] drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13–14 NASB1995)
“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone [pas] who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40 NASB1995)
“Everyone [pas] who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:26 NASB)
“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone [pas] who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” (John 12:46 NASB1995)
And it shall be that everyone [pas, hos an] who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Acts 2:21 NASB)30
“Of Him [Jesus] all [pantes] the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone [panta] who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” (Acts 10:43 NASB1995)
As it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever [pas] believes on Him will not be put to shame.” (Rom 9:33 NKJV)
For the Scripture says, “Whoever [pas] believes in Him will not be disappointed.” (Rom 10:11 NASB1995)
Whoever [pas] denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:23 NASB)
Whoever [pas] believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. (1 John 5:1 NASB1995)
Many more of these broad invitations are found throughout Scripture than space permits to list here. In addition, the New Testament often uses a form of hostis, which when combined with an or ean is an indefinite relative pronoun best translated as “anyone,” “whosoever,” or “everyone” and refers to the group as a whole, with a focus on each individual member of the group.31
An All-Inclusive Invitation in the Prophets
In the famous prophecy of Joel, the prophet commented on whom God delivers:
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call. (Joel 2:32 KJV)
Note that the “whosoever” (translated “everyone” in NASB and HCSB) refers to “the remnant whom the Lord shall call.” These are not two distinct groups but are one and the same.
All-Inclusive Invitations Offered by Jesus
Jesus offered an all-inclusive invitation in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout his teaching ministry. Note that Jesus did not say “whoso-elect” in these invitations; the invitation is always addressed to “whosoever.”32
“And blessed is he, whosoever [hos ean] shall not be offended in me.” (Matt 11:6 KJV; see Luke 7:23)
“For whosoever [hostis an] shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Matt 12:50 KJV; cf. Mark 3:35)
“If any man [tis] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever [hos an] will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matt 16:24– 25 KJV; cf. Mark 8:34–35; Luke 9:23–24)
“I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone [ean tis] eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” (John 6:51 NASB1995)
“If anyone [ean tis] is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” (John 7:17 NASB1995)
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone [ean tis] is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” (John 7:37 NASB)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone [ean tis] keeps My word he will never see death.” (John 8:51 NASB1995)
All-Inclusive Invitations in the Proclamation and Epistles of the Early Church
“And it shall be that everyone [pas, hos an] who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Acts 2:21 NASB)
“Of Him [Jesus] all [pantes] the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone [panta] who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” (Acts 10:43 NASB1995)
For everyone [pas, hos an] who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Rom 10:13 HCSB)
Whoever [hos an] confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:15 NASB1995)
All-Inclusive Invitations in John’s Revelation
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone [ean tis] hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” (Rev 3:20 NASB)
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Rev 22:17 KJV)
To be sure, Calvinists attribute all these verses to the “general call” or “universal call” that God gives to all people although he has no intention of actually saving many of them. But in so doing they impose their own theological beliefs on the text. These verses mention no difference between a “ general call” and “specific call,” or between “common grace” and “enabling irresistible grace.” Therefore, when we see the same all-inclusive invitation over and over again in the various genres of Scripture, the question must be asked if the Calvinist theological system is doing justice to the biblical text. Calvinists should take seriously Paul’s admonition in Rom 9:20 (NIV): “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?” In Romans 9 Paul was addressing believers from a Jewish background who believed they were among the elect people, the “frozen chosen.” But much to their surprise, God in his sovereignty extended salvation to others—the Gentiles whom they hated. If God has chosen to save those who come to him by faith in Christ, as Romans 9–11 repeatedly assert, who are we to disagree with his sovereign choice? Just so, if God says he desires the salvation of all people, I believe he means it, not just in his revealed (for Calvinists, evidently deceptive) will, but also in his secret (real) will. The call is indeed universal or general for everyone to be saved. But the elect are not limited to a select group that God has chosen because he especially and savingly loves them and rejects by preterition all others, but are coterminous with those who have trusted Christ as Savior and Lord.
Resistible Grace in Descriptions of How to Be Saved
Another line of evidence in Scripture that supports the idea that grace is resistible is in biblical descriptions of how to be saved. Whenever anyone in the New Testament asks a direct question about how to be saved, the answer never refers to election. The answer always calls for an action on the part of the person to receive the salvation that God has provided and offers to each person. In Scripture, eternal life is proffered to all those who hear the gospel, not just to a few select persons who receive effectual grace irresistibly. What do the New Testament salvific formulas say is required to be saved?
The Teachings of Jesus
Jesus directly tied salvation to faith in him realized through human response to the proclamation of the gospel:
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:14–18 NKJV).
The Need for Persuasion
At the end of the sermon at Pentecost, some of the hearers “were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37 NASB1995). Peter’s answer was not, “Are you elect or not?” His answer was, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v. 38). Even after this, “with many other words he [Peter] solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation!’” (v. 40, emphasis added). The word translated “exhorting” in the NASB1995 is variously translated in other Bible versions as “strongly urged” (HCSB), “entreated” (Weymouth), “pleaded” (NIV), or “begged” (NCV). The word that is translated “exhort” is parekalei, meaning to invite or summon someone to a decision, to beseech or implore someone, or to plead with or call someone to a decision.33 The same meaning applies to all six other usages of parekalei in the New Testament. Of course, had Peter known that grace was irresistible, he wouldn’t have wasted his time with such a solemn exhortation, knowing that God had already regenerated them by irresistible grace. What persuasion is necessary for one who is already convinced?
Likewise, Paul wrote that his preaching was an effort intended to “ persuade” people (2 Cor 5:11 NIV). The word Paul used here is peithō, meaning to persuade or convince someone, to try to win someone over to your point of view.34 Why would there be a need to persuade someone who had already been regenerated by irresistible enabling grace?
The Appeal to the Philippian Jailer.When the Philippian jailer saw the miraculous intervention of God in releasing Paul and Silas from his jail, he fell at their feet and asked the salvation question in the most direct way possible: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30 NASB). Peter did not respond by talking about election. Instead, he answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (v. 31; emphasis added). Being saved was conditional on his belief.
The Appeal to the Ethiopian Eunuch.After Philip had witnessed to the Ethiopian eunuch from the Old Testament prophecies, the eunuch exclaimed, “‘Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?’ And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God’” (Acts 8:36–37 NASB1995). And so he was baptized. Note that his being baptized was conditional upon his trust in Christ.
The Teaching of Paul. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation” (Rom 10:9–10 HCSB). Again, salvation is conditional on trusting in Christ.
To summarize, the Scriptures contain significant evidence against irresistible grace. The Bible specifically teaches that the Holy Spirit can be resisted. It repeatedly calls upon all people to respond to God’s gracious invitation. The descriptions of how to be saved focus on the requirement for a positive human response to God’s initiative. The texts do not seem to support irresistible grace, but they call upon persons to respond to the grace of God in specific ways. The plain reading of these texts tends to support the belief that God’s grace, by his own intent and design, is resistible, and choosing Christ is voluntary (guided by the conviction and convincing of the Holy Spirit).
Assessing Calvinist Arguments and Proof Texts for Irresistible Grace
In the previous version of this article in Whosoever Will, I explored seven theological concerns about irresistible grace.35 While I still affirm those concerns, in this article I have chosen to address some arguments and proof texts proffered by Calvinists to defend the notion of irresistible grace. Specifically, we will examine Calvinist proof texts in John 6 and 12; Rom 8:29–30; and Eph 2:1 in the light of the best hermeneutics.36 Then we will examine two theological arguments made by Calvinists—that irresistible grace is required for God to be sovereign, and it is necessary for God to receive glory.
Calvinist Argument #1: John 6:37–44, 65 and 12:32
Probably the Scripture most frequently cited by Calvinists regarding
irresistible grace is John 6:44, along with related verses in John 6 and 12:
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day. . . . No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. ” . . . And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” (John 6:37–40, 44, 65 NASB1995)
“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself” (John 12:32 NASB1995).
John Frame,37 R. C. Sproul,38 Matthew Barrett,39 Loraine Boettner,40 William Hendrikson and Simon J. Kistemaker,41 and Robert Yarbrough42 (among others) list these verses as among the primary proof texts for irresistible grace. To make their case, several of them referred specifically to a citation in Kittel’s ten-volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.43 As Sproul noted, one translation for the word “draws” (helkuō) is “to compel by irresistible superiority.”44 Barrett waxed eloquent to infer from that one definition that John 6:44 teaches God’s drawing is “indefectible, invincible, unconquerable, indomitable, insuperable, and unassailable summons,”45 words which appear neither in this text or any other biblical text regarding God’s grace, but appear only when Calvinistic presuppositions color the reading of Scripture. Calvinists like to appeal to other New Testament references in which the word “draw” is used literally, such as Acts 16:19 and Jas 2:6, in which prisoners are being physically dragged against their wills by authorities.
The Calvinist use of helkuō in Jas 2:6, Acts 16:19, and other places as justification for understanding helkuō in John 6:44 as meaning “to compel by irresistible superiority,” or a “forceful [irresistible] attraction,” commits a word-study fallacy known as “word loading” or “illegitimate totality transfer.”46 Word loading occurs when an interpreter takes a meaning of a word in one context (physical) and then seeks to apply that same meaning into a different context (spiritual). A simple example of this fallacy is to overlook the fact that the same word “spirit” (pneuma) that refers to the human spirit can also refer to the divine Holy Spirit. It is the same Greek word with two very different meanings, depending on the context. “The immediate context always determines the meaning for any word—no matter how many times a word carries such a meaning in another context.”47
Perhaps more embarrassingly for the Calvinists’ exegesis of John 6:44, the article on elkō in the abridged one-volume TDNT, which focuses more on biblical interpretation than general usage, was authored by the same Albrecht Oepke who authored the article in the ten-volume edition. Oepke noted that helkein in the Old Testament “denotes a powerful impulse . . . [that] expresses the force of love.” Oepke’s specific interpretation of John 6:44 deals a stunning blow to the Calvinist interpretation of that would-be proof text:
This is the point in the two important passages in Jn. 6:44; 12:32. There is no thought here of force or magic. The term figuratively expresses the supernatural power of the love of God or Christ which goes out to all (12:32) but without which no one can come (6:44). The apparent contradiction shows that both the election and the universality of grace must be taken seriously; the compulsion is not automatic.48
By no means is the abridged version of Kittel the only lexigraphical reference favoring a non-Calvinist reading of John 6:44. Note how the following well-respected lexicons address “draw” in John 6:44 to be interpreted metaphorically or figuratively rather than literally:
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., by Bauer and Danker: “to draw a pers. in the direction of values for inner life, draw, attract, an extended fg. [figurative] mng. [meaning] . . . J[ohn] 6:44 . . . J[ohn] 12:32.”49
The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament by Mounce: “met. [metaphorically] to draw mentally and morally, John 6:44; 12:32.”50
Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament by Hickie: “met., to draw, i.e. to attract, Joh. 12:32. Cf. Joh. 6:44.”51
Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament by Friberg, Friberg, and Miller: “figuratively, of a strong pull in the mental or moral life draw, attract (JN 6.44).”52
Greek and English Lexicon to the New Testament by Robinson: “to draw, by a moral influence, John 6:44. 12:32.”53
The New Analytical Greek Lexicon by Perschbacher: “met. to draw mentally and morally, John 6:44; 12:32.”54
Note that these respected lexicons all take “draw” in John 6:44 to be a figurative or metaphorical usage when applied to spiritual issues within persons. In short, these standard lexicons provide no support for the Calvinist reading of John 6:44.55
Other exegetical points can be raised to show the error of the Calvinist interpretation of John 6:44,56 but one more must be mentioned here. Who is it that the Father draws? Is it some arbitrary choice he makes in his “secret will”? Schreiner and Ware asserted that the “drawing” in John 6:44 is only for the elect:
Is [this an] unlimited or common grace, given to all? Or is it a particular grace, an efficacious grace given only to some? The second half of verse 44 answers our question, for there we find that . . . the one who is given grace (who is drawn by the Father) is actually saved (raised up). The drawing of the Father, then, is not general, but particular, for it accomplishes the final salvation of those who are drawn. God’s grace, without which no one can be saved, is therefore an efficacious [irresistible] grace, resulting in the sure salvation of those to whom it is given.57
Who are “all that” the Father will draw (John 6:37 NASB1995)? Woven throughout John 6 (and prior chapters) are repeated references to the necessity of believing in Jesus as Savior and Lord to receive eternal life (John 3:16, 18, 36; 6:27–29, 40, 54). Schreiner and Ware also acknowledged that those who are “coming” to Christ (John 6:35, 37, 44, 45) are essentially synonymous with those “believing” in Christ. John 6:39–40 are verses woven together with the preposition “for,” and these verses mirror the structure of each other in an ABCCBA pattern (“A” being the repeated phrase “raise them up,” for example).58 What this makes clear is that the identity of those whom the Father gives to Jesus are precisely identical with those who believe. Calvinist F. F. Bruce supported this reading of John 6:37–40: “In the first part of verse 37 the pronoun ‘all’ is neuter singular (Gk. pan), denoting the sum-total of believers. In the second part (‘the one who comes’) each individual of the sum-total is in view. This oscillation between the [believing] community and its individual members reappears in verses 39 and 40.”59
Likewise, Lenski noted that those who are given by the Father to the Son sum up “the whole mass of believers of all ages and speaks of them as a unit.”60 Vincent described it as “all believers regarded as one complete whole.”61 Jesus stated God’s will clearly and unequivocally: “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40 NASB). To be sure, because of human depravity, it is essential that the Father must draw humans unto himself through the convicting and convincing of the Holy Spirit. God’s grace is a necessary condition of our salvation, but God’s saving grace does not become operational in our own lives until we place our faith in Jesus Christ.
Ben Witherington pointed out the necessity of both God’s grace and human response by faith in addressing this passage:
Both God’s sovereign grace and human response play a role in human salvation, but even one’s human response is enabled by God’s grace. God’s role in the relationship is incomparably greater than the human one, but the fact remains that God does not and will not save a person without the positive human response, called faith, to the divine leading and drawing.62
Richard Lenski affirmed that both God’s grace and human response are voiced in John 6:37 and 6:44:
But in these expressions, “all that the Father gives,” and, “all that he has given,” Jesus speaks of all believers of all ages as already being present to the eyes of God, he also thus is giving them to Jesus. . . . God’s grace is universal. He would give all men to Jesus. The only reason he does not do so is because so many men obdurately refuse to be part of that gift. . . . “Him that comes to me” makes the matter individual, personal, and a voluntary act. The Father’s drawing (v. 44) is one of grace alone, thus it is efficacious, wholly sufficient, able to change the unwilling into the willing, but not by coercion, not irresistibly. Man can obdurately refuse to come. . . .63
Here [in John 6:44] Jesus explains the Father’s “giving” mentioned in v. 37 and 39: he gives men to Jesus by drawing them to him. This drawing [helkuō] is accomplished by a specific power, one especially designed for the purpose, one that takes hold of the sinner’s soul and moves it away from darkness, sin, and death, to Jesus, light, and life. No man can possibly thus draw himself to Jesus. The Father, God himself, must come with his divine power and must do this drawing; else it will never be effected. . . . The drawing is here predicated of the Father; in 12:32 it is predicated of Jesus, “And I will draw all men unto myself.” . . . The power by which these Jews are at this very moment being drawn is the power of divine grace, operative in and through the Word these Jews now hear from the lips of Jesus. While it is power (Rom. 1:16), efficacious to save, it is never irresistible (Matt. 23:37, “and ye would not”). Nor is this power extended only to a select few, for in 12:32 Jesus says, “I will draw all men.” The power of the gospel is for the world, and no sinner has fallen so low but what this power is able to reach him effectually.64
Therefore, we need not speculate about what God’s “secret will” might be, because Jesus clearly revealed what his will actually is: “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40 NASB; emphasis added). The Father draws those whom he has foreseen will believe in his Son as Savior and Lord! God’s grace is necessary for salvation, but God’s grace does not become operational in our own lives until we respond by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.
Calvinist Argument #2: Romans 8:29–30
Another proof text cited by many Calvinists is Rom 8:29–30, sometimes called the “Golden Chain of Redemption”:
For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; and those He called, He also justified; and those He justified, He also glorified. (Rom 8:29– 30 HCSB)
For example, Matthew Barrett argued that Rom 8:29–30 is an ideal example of the “effectual calling.”65 He cited Doug Moo in arguing that the links in the chain are all connected by the demonstrative pronoun “these” (toutous): “This leaves little room for the suggestion that the links in this chain are not firmly attached to one another, as if some who were ‘foreknown’ and ‘predestined’ would not be ‘called,’ ‘justified,’ and ‘glorified.’”66
The Priority of Divine Foreknowledge
I absolutely agree with Moo’s assertion. But it is ironic to me that Calvinists consider Rom 8:29–30 to favor their position. I cite it as a text favoring a non-Calvinist interpretation, so it obviously depends on the proper interpretation of the text. Note that the first link in that chain of redemption is not predestination, but foreknowledge. God does not first predestine the elect and then foreknow them. Rather, God’s foreknowledge of human responses comes first, with God’s election, calling, and justification flowing from his foreknowledge. The entire discussion of election in Romans 9–11 is framed by references to foreknowledge, both as a prologue to the discussion in Rom 8:29–30 and near its conclusion in Rom 11:1–2: “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (Rom 11:1–2 NASB1995; emphasis added).
Who are these people whom God foreknew? The apostle Paul made it very clear in Romans 9–11 that God will save whosoever will come to Him by faith:
What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” (Rom 9:30–33 NASB1995; emphasis added)
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Rom 10:8–13 NASB1995; emphasis added)
Exegetical Evidence
God’s foreknowledge is consistently affirmed in the Bible (Ps 139:1–10; Acts 2:23; Rom 8:29; 11:2; 16:27; 1 Pet 1:2). The Greek word translated “foreknew” is the verb proginoskō. In any standard lexicon, the root Greek word for “foreknew” (proginoskō) simply means knowing something before it happens.67 In his classic commentary on the letter to the Romans, Frederic Godet noted that “knowledge” is the “first and fundamental meaning” of prognosis.68 In his commentary on Romans, R. C. H. Lenski likewise affirmed that “both linguistically and doctrinally the knowing cannot be eliminated and an act of willing, a decree, be substituted. . . . ‘Foreknew’ ever remains eternal advance knowledge, a divine knowledge that includes all that God’s grace would succeed in working in us.”69 Ben Witherington also distinguished God’s foreknowledge from predestination:
Paul distinguishes between what God knows and what God wills or destines in advance. Knowing and willing are not one and the same. The proof of this is of course that God knows very well about human sin but does not will it or destine it to happen.70
The belief that divine election is based upon his foreknowledge of a believer’s faith is not a new idea. This understanding of Scripture goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. Lenski noted of the earlier church fathers, “The older dogmaticians interpreted: quos credituros praevidit, ‘whom he foresaw as believers.’”71 Gerald Bray and Ben Witherington also have documented that the belief in divine foreknowledge is seen in both Judaism and in the early church fathers, including Diodore of Tarsus, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Ambrosiaster, Cyril of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom.72 Election based on divine foreknowledge is also affirmed by Molinism, in which God’s foreknowledge is described as “middle knowledge.”
The Requirements for Salvation
What requirements has God sovereignly established for salvation? The Bible makes it abundantly clear that God requires repentance and faith for salvation. As noted earlier, every formulaic statement of what is required for salvation makes the necessity of repentance and faith crystal clear (Matt 10:32–33; Mark 16:15–16; John 3:14–17; 6:40; 11:26; 12:46; Acts 2:21, 27–30; 10:43; 16:30–31; Rom 9:33; 10:9–11; 1 John 5:1). The question is not what God could or might have done, but what he has done. God does foreknow, elect, and predestine a particular type of person from before the foundation of the world—and that is believers! Based on his foreknowledge of those who will (under the conviction of the Holy Spirit) repent of their sins and trust Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, God elects, predestines, justifies, and glorifies (Rom 8:29–30).
Since the traditional interpretation of Rom 8:29–30 as God electing based on his foreknowledge of the future faith of believers does not square with Calvinist theology, they reinterpret Rom 8:29–30 in various ways. Calvinist scholars have raised at least three challenges to the traditional interpretation of Rom 8:29–30: that “foreknew” really means “foreloved,” that God’s foreknowledge is not chronologically and logically before God’s predestination, and that genuine human freedom would violate God’s foreknowledge and sovereignty. What is wrong with each of these alternative explanations?
Does foreknew mean foreloved? No. As noted earlier, standard lexicons make it clear that the primary meaning of “foreknew” is “foreknew,” not “foreloved.” Witherington pointed out that the next reference to foreknowledge in Romans, Rom 11:2, makes this distinction between God foreknowing believers and election even clearer:
Love for God can be commanded, but it cannot be coerced, compelled, or engineered in advance, or else it loses its character as love. The proof that this line of thinking, and not that of Augustine, Luther, or Calvin, is on the right track is seen clearly in 11:2, where Paul says plainly that God foreknew his Jewish people, and yet not all of them responded positively to his call. Indeed, only a minority have as he writes this letter. God’s foreknowledge, and even God’s plan of destiny for Israel, did not in the end predetermine which particular individual Israelite would respond positively to the gospel call and which would not. In 10:8–15 Paul will make clear that the basis of that response is faith and confession.73
Does God’s predestination precede his foreknowledge? Some Calvinists suggest that foreknowledge is an overarching summary, so that the first link in the “Golden Chain of Redemption” is really predestination. However, although this view squares with Calvinist theology, it does not square with Rom 8:29–30. As noted earlier, the “Golden Chain of Redemption” is intended as a series of events, one following after the other, linked in each case by the Greek word hous, translated, “whom.” God foreknowing believers is clearly the first link in that chain.74 Witherington commented, “Hous, ‘whom,’ at the beginning of v. 29 must refer back to ‘those who love God,’ that is, Christians, in v. 28. The discussion that follows is about the future of believers.”75 Witherington lamented that what some commentators “seem to have clearly missed is that we continue to have reference to the same hous: once in v. 29, and three times in v. 30. . . .” One implication of this series of connected statements is that
since vv. 29–30 must be linked to v. 28, the “those who” in question are those about whom Paul has already said that they “love God”—i.e., Paul makes perfectly clear that he is talking about Christians here. The statement about them loving God precedes and determines how we should read both hous in these verses and the chain of verbs. God knew something in advance about these persons, namely that they would respond to the call of God in love. For such people, God goes all out to make sure that in the end they are fully conformed to the image of Christ.76
Does human freedom obviate God’s sovereignty? Calvinists question how God could foreknow all things before the foundation of the world and yet allow us genuine libertarian free will. If he knows for sure what we are going to choose to do before we do it, do we really have a choice? How could God foreknow that we are going to change our minds? Once God knows what we are going to do, does it not become fixed and determined so that we have no real free choice—we can choose nothing else?
The fundamental problem with these objections is that they put nonlogical limitations on God’s omniscience and foreknowledge. Human choices reflect our God-given creaturely freedom, and God foreknows the future free choices of individuals. As an omniscient being, God timelessly knows all future human choices (not only the actual choices, but also the possible choices in any conceivable circumstance). To deny the complete foreknowledge of God is to deny the omniscience of God.
Second, from a logical perspective, the claim that God’s foreknowledge takes away any real human choices fundamentally confuses the difference between knowledge and causation. Two plus two is not four because I know it; it is true because it is true in reality. In fact, two plus two equals four whether or not I believe it. Knowing something does not cause it to happen, even for God. Knowledge, no matter who holds it, is causally indeterminative. Therefore, it is a misconception to think that God’s foreknowledge of future human choices causes a person’s acceptance or rejection of faith in Christ.
Third, the claim that God’s foreknowledge takes away any real human choices fundamentally confuses the important distinction between necessity (what must happen) and certainty (what will happen). Since God’s omniscient knowledge does not cause future events, his (fore)knowledge does not make these events necessary. God knows future events with certainty, but that does not mean that those events had to happen by logical necessity. Future events are contingent on the future decisions of his free creatures.77 As explained earlier, God simply knows before we make those choices what our choices are going to be.
Ponder this analogy, although human analogies about God are inherently limited because he is not bound to our limitations of time and imperfect knowledge. Jim and Rusty were fans of a basketball team playing a game that would determine the league championship, but their schedules did not permit them to watch the game. So they taped it to watch later. Jim got out of the meeting early and witnessed the team making a remarkable comeback to win in the last seconds of the game. When Rusty came in, he did not know the outcome of the game (or that Jim had seen it). As their team trailed the opponent for most of the game, Rusty kept lamenting that their team was going to lose, but Jim told Rusty that he is confident that they could come back and win. Jim encouraged Rusty to have faith in their team. Sure enough, as Jim foreknew, the team came back in the last seconds of the game and won a dramatic victory. Rusty was amazed that Jim seemed so sure that their team would rally and win the game. In truth, of course, Jim did not really have “faith”—he had knowledge of what would actually happen that was inaccessible to Rusty.
The point is this: Jim’s certain knowledge of what would happen at the end of the game had exactly nothing to do with his team winning the game. His knowledge did not predetermine the fouls, the plays, or the last-second shot that won the game. Jim knew the result with certainty, but not of logical necessity. He simply knew ahead of time what would actually happen without causing what happened. Likewise, God knows our future choices with certainty without making them logically necessary. So the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom is coherent, and more importantly, it aligns with the description of God’s foreknowledge of human choices in the pages of Scripture.
[….]
FOOTNOTES
21 William E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1966), 286; Joseph H. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman, 1977), 51; BDAG, 90.
22 John Chrysostom said in a sermon on 1 Cor 1:4–5, “But some man will say, ‘He ought to bring men in, even against their will.’ Away with this. He doth not use violence, nor compel; for who that bids to honours, and crowns, and banquets, and festivals, drags people unwilling and bound? No one. For this is the part of one inflicting an insult. Unto hell He sends men against their will, but unto the kingdom He calls willing minds.” John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, homily 2, point 9 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1854), 17.
23 Piper and staff, “Five Points of Calvinism.”
24 Israel’s election to service as a chosen people and individual election to salvation for Christians are interwoven in Romans 9–11. Calvinists often do not give adequate attention to the former. See the article by William Klein in this volume.
25 Gottlob Schrenk, s.v. “theō, theleōma, theleōsis,” in TDNT, 3:48–49.
26 TDNT, 3:48–49.
27 Allen, The Atonement (see intro., n. 20); Allen, Extent of the Atonement (see intro., n. 10); David L. Allen, “Commentary on Article 3: The Atonement of Christ,” in Allen, Hankins, and Harwood, Anyone Can Be Saved, 55–64 (see intro., n. 20).
28 Roger Olson, Against Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 159.
29 Bo Reicke, s.v. “pas,” TDNT, 5:886–96; Thayer, “pas,” Greek-English Lexicon, 491–93; BDAG, 782–84. Danker noted that pas pertains “to totality” with a “focus on its individual components.” BDAG, 782. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida similarly observe that pas denotes “the totality of any object, mass, collective, or extension” (L&N 1:597).
30 Note the commentary on Acts 2:21 by John Calvin himself: “He [God] says, all things are in turmoil and possessed by the fear of death, only call upon Me and you shall be saved. So however much a man may be overwhelmed in the gulf of misery there is yet set before him a way of escape. We must also observe the universal word, ‘whosoever’. For God himself admits all men to Himself without exception and by this means invites them to salvation, even as Paul deduces in Rom. 10, and as the prophet had earlier recorded. ‘Thou Lord who hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come’ (Ps. 65.2). Therefore since no man is excluded from calling upon God the gate of salvation is set open to all. There is nothing else to hinder us from entering, but our own unbelief.” Calvin, “The Acts of the Apostles 1–13,” in Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, 12 vols., trans. J. W. Fraser and W. J. G. McDonald, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 6:61–62, emphasis added. Evidently Calvin does not always agree with Calvinists.
31 Thayer, “hostis,” Greek-English Lexicon, 33–34, 454–57; BDAG, “hostis,” 56–57, 725–27, 729–30. Danker noted that hostis means “whoever, everyone, who, in a generalizing sense,” and when combined with an “the indefiniteness of the expression is heightened.” BDAG, 729.
32 See also Mark 8:38/Luke 9:26; Mark 9:37/Luke 9:48; Mark 10:15; and Luke 14:27.
33 Otto Schmitz, s.v. “parakaleō,” TDNT, 5:773–79, 793–94.
34 Rudolf Bultmann, s.v. “peithō,” TDNT, 6:8–9.
35 Lemke, “Critique of Irresistible Grace,” in Whosoever Will, 109–62.
36 For more on sound hermeneutics, see Steve Lemke, Grant Lovejoy, and Bruce Corley, eds., Biblical Hermeneutics: A Comprehensive Introduction to Interpreting Scripture, 2nd ed. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2002).
37 John Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord (Phillipsburg, PA: P&R, 2006), 184.
38 Sproul, Chosen by God, 69; Grace Unknown: The Heart of Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 153–54.
39 Barrett, “Monergism,” 141.
40 Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Faith (Philadelphia: P&R, 1984), 11.
41 William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Gospel according to John, 2 vols., New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 1:238.
42 Robert Yarbrough, “Divine Election in the Gospel of John,” in Still Sovereign: Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 50n10.
43 Albrecht Oepke, s.v. “Elkō,” TDNT, 2:503.
44 Sproul, Chosen by God, 69; Grace Unknown, 153.
45 Barrett, “Monergism,” 141.
46 See Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 53 (see chap. 3, n. 21); and Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 25–27.
47 Steve Witzki, “Free Grace or Forced Grace?” The Arminian 19, no.1 (Spring 2001): 2.
48 Albrecht Oepke, s.v. “elkō,” TDNTa, 227; emphasis added.
49 BDAG, 251.
50 William Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, Zondervan Greek Reference Series (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 1993), 180.
51 William J. Hickie, Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament (New York: Cosimo, 2007), 13.
52 Timothy Friberg, Barbara Friberg, and Neva Miller, Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament (Bloomington, IN: Trafford, 2006), 144.
53 Edward Robinson, A Greek and English Lexicon to the New Testament (Charleston, SC: Bibliolife, 2009), 240.
54 Wesley J. Perchbacher, ed., The New Analytical Greek Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009), 135.
55 Furthermore, if “draws” meant irresistible drawing, John 12:32 would affirm universal salvation.
57 Thomas Schreiner and Bruce Ware, introduction to Still Sovereign, 15. Schreiner and Ware thus interpret John 6:44 to mean, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise the one whom the Father draws up on the last day.” However, John 6:44 must be read in light of a preceding verse with a parallel construction, John 6:40: “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” (NASB). Therefore, the proper interpretation of John 6:44 should be, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise up on the last day the one who comes to me (through faith).” As noted above, the lexical definition of “draw” does not mean the irresistible drawing that Calvinists try to make it mean to suit their theology. This promise of the resurrection is given to believers who respond to the gracious invitation of God.
58 Witzki, “Calvinism and John 6, Part One,” 4–5.
59 F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 154.
60 Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1961), 463.
61 Marvin Vincent, Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament, 4 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1886), 2:150.
62 Ben Witherington III, John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 158, emphasis added.
63 Lenski, Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel, 464–65; emphasis added.
64 Lenski, 475–76; emphasis added.
65 Barrett, “Monergism,” 128–30.
66 Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 535; cited in Barrett, “Monergism,” 129.
67 Rudolf Bultmann, s.v. “proginoskō, prognosis,” TDNT, 1:715–16.
68 Frederic L. Godet, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1977), 325. Godet notes that “the act of knowing, exactly like that of seeing, supposes an object perceived by the person who knows or sees. It is not the act of seeing or knowing which produces this object; it is the object, on the contrary, which determines this act of knowing or seeing. And the same is the case with divine provision of foreknowledge; for in the case of God who lives above time, foreseeing is seeing; knowing what shall be is knowing what to Him already is. And therefore it is the believer’s faith which, as a future fact, but in His sight already existing, which determines His foreknowledge” (emphasis added).
69 Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Columbus, OH: Lutheran Book Concern, 1936), 558–59.
70 Ben Witherington III, with Darlene Hyatt, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 230.
71 Lenski, Romans, 559.
72 Gerald Bray and Thomas Bray, eds., New Testament VI: Romans (Revised), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998), 233–44; Witherington, Romans, 227–28. Additional early church fathers who endorsed this perspective on human freedom and foreknowledge include Origen, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Jerome.
73 Witherington, Romans, 229–30.
74 F. F. Bruce noted that these phrases are also connected in what is called a sorites construction, in which the predicate of one clause becomes the subject of the next clause. Bruce, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Tyndale, 1963), 176.
75 Witherington, Romans, 227.
76 Witherington, 229, n. 28.
77 For more on the confusion of contingency and necessity, see Kenneth D. Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010), 8–9, 31–38; and Robert E. Picirilli, Grace, Faith, Free Will—Contrasting Views of Salvation: Calvinism and Arminianism (Nashville: Randall House, 2002), 36–63.
Whether you are familiar with Augustine or not, chances are you have encountered Calvinism and its core doctrines—especially the idea of unconditional election. Perhaps you have Reformed friends who hold to the belief that God has sovereignly chosen some individuals for salvation and others for damnation, entirely apart from their free will. This deterministic view of salvation has become deeply embedded in much of Western Christianity. But what if we could trace this theological development to a specific moment in church history? What if we could say, with confidence, when and how this view was introduced—and argue that it was not part of the original Christian faith?
On today’s show, we take a critical look at one of the most influential figures in Christian history: Augustine of Hippo. We’re joined by Dr. Ken Wilson, Oxford-trained scholar and author of The Foundations of Augustinian Calvinism. In his historical research, Dr. Wilson demonstrates how Augustine’s later theology—particularly his embrace of determinism and unilateral grace—marked a significant departure from the teachings of earlier Church Fathers and laid the foundation for what would become Calvinistic theology.
The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism with Dr. Ken Wilson
This post is a continuation of an earlier excerpt (really, the same chapter) about the THE DISTINCTIVE TRAITS OF CULTS, by Hoekema. Below, he applies that basic criteria to Seventh-Day Adventism
Anthony A. Hoekema, The Four Major Cults: Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1963), 388-403.
I included pages 136 and 129-130 in the footnotes feeling they were important enough to add… as well as adding a few pages from the appendix (jump) from the chapter on Seventh-Day Adventism [pp. 151-153]. Hoekema referred to his own chapter quite a bit… I either removed the reference or italicized it. REMEMBER, he only lightly deals with Adventism here by applying his previous 5-points. But the entire chapter on it (pp.89-169, not included) is a thorough dealing with it as I have ever seen, to say the least.
IS SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM A CULT?
We must now turn to a question which has been considerably discussed of late: whether Seventh-day Adventism is to be considered as belonging to the cults, or as a denomination which may be classed with the evangelical churches. In a series of articles which appeared in Eternity magazine from September, 1956, to January, 1957, Donald G. Barnhouse and Walter R. Martin advanced the view that Seventh-day Adventism is not a cult, as had long been believed, but a branch of evangelical Christianity, though distinguished from other churches by certain peculiar ideas. In 1960 Martin published his Truth About Seventh-day Adventism,” in which he reasserted this position. In this volume he discusses and criticizes such Adventist teachings as “the sleep of the soul,”28 the annihilation of the wicked, the seventh-day Sabbath, the investigative judgment, the scapegoat doctrine, the remnant church, and the recognition of Mrs. White as the “spirit of prophecy,” In spite of his strictures on the above teachings, however, he asserts, “Not one of the deviations in Seventh-day Adventism is a deviation from the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith which are necessary to salvation” (p. 229). Martin therefore pleads with the members of the evangelical denominations to exercise spiritual fellowship with Seventh-day Adventists:
We hope that many who have looked upon Adventists as dangerous non-Christian cultists will revise this view. In the providence of God, and in His own good time, we trust that evangelical Christianity as a whole will extend the hand of fellowship to a group of sincere, earnest fellow Christians, distinguished though they are by some peculiar views, but members of the Body of Christ and possessors of the faith that saves (pp. 236-37).
By including Seventh-day Adventism in a volume entitled The Four Major Cults, I have already implied that I do not share the evaluation of this movement given by Barnhouse and Martin. While not denying that the Adventists teach certain doctrines in common with evangelical Protestant churches and in distinction from most of the cults (for example, the doctrine of the full deity of Jesus Christ), I am of the conviction that Seventh-day Adventism is a cult and not an evangelical denomination. In support of this evaluation, I propose to show that the traits which we have found to be distinctive of the cults do apply to this movement.
(1) An Extra-Scriptural Source of Authority. Seventh-day Adventists do have an extra-Scriptural source of authority in the writings of Ellen G. White, which are accepted by them as “inspired counsels from the Lord”…. That this is so has been shown on pages 100-108, above; the argumentation there given will not be repeated here. The reader is further invited to page through such Seventh-day Adventist publications as The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Principles of Life from the Word of God, and Questions on Doctrine to note how frequently a doctrinal position or the exegesis of a Scripture passage is based on a quotation from Mrs. White. We conclude that Seventh-day Adventists interpret the Bible in the light of the writings of Mrs. White, and that the books and testimonies of Mrs. White are for them, therefore, a source of authority superior to the Bible. This type of procedure, however, as we have seen, is a distinctive mark of the cult.
(2) The Denial of Justification by Grace Alone. Here we encounter one of the real problems involved in evaluating Seventh-day Adventist teachings: the baffling fact that the Adventists often theoretically take a certain position but then proceed to repudiate that position in the further elaboration of their theology. Regarding the doctrine in question, we find Seventh-day Adventists theoretically agreeing that we are justified by grace alone and not at all by obedience to law…. Yet we also find them teaching that one’s forgiveness can be cancelled after it has been bestowed, and that forgiven sins are not immediately blotted out because subsequent deeds and attitudes may affect the final decision…. Adventists further teach that it is possible for a person through subsequent sinful deeds and attitudes to lose the justification he once received. This teaching implies that one can only be sure of retaining his justification if he continues to do the right kind of deeds and to maintain the right attitudes throughout the rest of his life….
(i) The Investigative Judgment. It has already been shown that the Adventists’ doctrine of the investigative judgment (a doctrine which has no basis in Scripture) is not consistent with their claim that they teach justification by grace alone…. This is actually the Seventh-day Adventist position: (a) The investigative judgment determines who of the myriads sleeping in the dust are worthy of a part in the first resurrection.29 (b) What is examined in the investigative judgment are the lives of the individuals in question: particularly their faith in Christ, their confession of every single sin, and their faithfulness in keeping the law’s requirements.30 (c) What therefore determines whether a person will be saved is not primarily what Jesus Christ has done for him on the cross, but primarily what the individual has done in his life. He must have kept the law’s requirements, must have continued to do the right kinds of deeds so that his forgiveness has not been cancelled, and must have confessed every single sin. It is thus clear that what determines whether one is saved is the kind of life the investigative judgment reveals him to have lived, particularly his blameless keeping of the law’s requirements. And this position contradicts the Scriptural assertion that one is justified by grace alone.
How can anyone “faithfully keep the law’s requirements”? Do we not all fall very far short of keeping these requirements? Does not the Apostle John say, “If we say that we have no sin [and to have sin means to fail in some respects to keep the law’s requirements], we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (I Jn. 1:8)? The Apostle Paul, in fact, makes it unmistakably clear that no one can ever “faithfully keep the law’s requirements” when he says, in Romans 3:19 and 20:
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God; because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin.
He then goes on to say, “But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe…” (vv. 21, 22). He ends this brief exposition of the way of salvation by saying, “We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (v. 28). Elsewhere Paul tells us that he counted all things to be loss that he might gain Christ, “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Phil. 3:9). Paul, therefore, knew that he was saved, not on the basis of a future heavenly investigation of his keeping of the law, or of his own personally achieved righteousness, but on the basis of the righteousness which he had received from God through faith! How, then, can Seventh-day Adventists teach that man is saved on the basis of his “faithful keeping of the law’s requirements” as revealed by the investigative judgment?
The doctrine of justification by grace alone teaches that a person is saved because of what Christ has done for him. The doctrine of the investigative judgment, however, teaches that Christ does not know whether a given individual has been justified until his life has been investigated. If, as the Bible teaches, “the Lord knoweth them that are his” (II Tim. 2:19), and the Good Shepherd knows His own (Jn. 10:14, 27), why should Christ not know apart from this investigative judgment who are to be raised in the resurrection of the just? The only possible answer is: because he does not fully know what kind of lives these individuals have lived. But if this is so, what is decisive in determining whether one is to be saved is his faithful keeping of the law’s requirements. This position, however, vitiates the doctrine of justification by grace alone!
(ii) The Keeping of the Sabbath. It has also been shown above that Seventh-day Adventist teaching on Sabbath-keeping is inconsistent with the doctrine of justification by grace alone…. The Adventist position, briefly, is as follows: In the last days, after the world shall have been enlightened concerning the obligation of the true Sabbath, anyone who shall still refuse to keep the seventh day as the Sabbath shall receive the mark of the beast and be lost. It is clear that at that time at least, salvation will not be determined only by faith in the atoning work of Christ, but by faith plus works — specifically, the work of keeping the seventh-day Sabbath.
Let us see how Mrs. White describes the crucial role of Sabbath-keeping in the drama of the latter days. Just previous to Christ’s return, so she writes, there will appear in the sky a hand holding two tables of stone folded together. In this way “that holy law, God’s righteousness, that . . . was proclaimed from Sinai as the guide of life, is now revealed to men as the rule of judgment.”31The hand opens the tables, the words of which are so plain that all can read them. This public display of God’s law brings consternation to the hearts of those “who have trampled upon God’s holy requirements”; what is particularly called to the reader’s attention, however, is the despair of those who “have endeavored to compel God’s people to profane His Sabbath.” “Now,” it is said, “they are condemned by that law which they have despised.”32 It is therefore particularly failure to keep the seventh-day Sabbath which will be the unpardonable sin of—the last days!
To the same effect are the following words:
The enemies of God’s law, from the ministers down to the least among them, have a new conception of truth and duty. Too late they see that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seal of the living God. Too late they see the true nature of their spurious sabbath, and the sandy foundation upon which they have been building. They find that they have been fighting against God. Religious teachers have led souls to perdition while professing to guide them to the gates of Paradise.33
The point is clear: religious leaders have led souls to perdition by failing to teach them to observe the seventh-day Sabbath! They and their people, therefore, will be consigned to perdition, not because they failed to believe in Jesus Christ as Saviour and as the Atoner for sin, but because they failed to keep one of the ten commandments!
Next, according to Mrs. White, there comes the voice of God from heaven which declares the day and hour of Jesus’ coming and delivers the everlasting covenant to His people. “And when the blessing is pronounced on those who have honored God by keeping His Sabbath holy, there is a mighty shout of victory.”34 Thus the primary reason why God’s true people, here called “the Israel of God,” are blessed is not that they have trusted in Christ as their Savior, but that they have properly kept the fourth commandment!
Even if we should grant (which we do not) that Seventh-day Adventists are right in observing the seventh day as the Sabbath, we would still emphatically reject their contention that a sin against one of God’s commandments, committed by people who have always trusted in Christ for salvation and have always tried to serve Him sincerely, can be the basis for their everlasting perdition — since this is a sin committed in ignorance, and a sin which is repented of.35 Conversely, neither is it in harmony with Scripture to affirm that one must keep at least the fourth commandment perfectly in order to be saved.36 For the Scriptures teach that we all continue to fall short (husterountai, a present indicative), of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), and that no one can keep God’s commandments perfectly (I Jn. 1:8). We are saved, not because of our faithfulness in keeping any of God’s commandments, but because of what our Savior has done for us, and because His perfect righteousness has been imputed to us! We conclude that, though Seventh-day Adventists claim to teach justification by grace alone, their doctrine of the investigative judgment and their views on the Sabbath command are inconsistent with that claim.
(3) The Devaluation of Christ. At this point we must first acknowledge with gratitude that Seventh-day Adventists do not, like Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists, deny the full deity of Jesus Christ or the doctrine of the Trinity. Though some earlier Adventist writers had contended that the Son was not wholly equal to the Father, Seventh-day Adventists today affirm Christ’s complete equality with the Father, and the pre-existence of the Son from eternity…. Adventists also accept the doctrine of the Trinity, and that of the personality and full deity of the Holy Spirit….
As far as the work of Christ is concerned, Seventh-day Adventists teach the vicarious, substitutionary atonement of Christ…. Yet there remains some ambiguity in their teachings on the question of whether the atonement has been finished on the cross, since Mrs. White says on more than one occasion that Christ is making atonement for us today and frequently refers to a “final atonement” after the one completed on the cross….
While appreciating the Adventists’ recognition of Christ as fully divine, however, we must reluctantly observe that there are aspects of Seventh-day Adventist teaching which detract from the splendor of Christ’s deity and do in fact constitute a devaluation of Him:
(i) Christ is said not to have been able to blot out sins previous to 1844 but only to have been able to forgive them…. The forgiveness of sins only means, however, that these sins remain on record in the heavenly sanctuary; this forgiveness may be cancelled later if a person’s subsequent deeds and attitudes prove unacceptable…. This view, which was discussed and criticized in Appendix B (see … pp. 151-53), robs Christ of His divine prerogatives. The Pharisees accused Jesus of speaking blasphemy when He said to the paralytic, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” “For,” they said, “who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Lk. 5:20, 21). In Romans 8:33 and 34, moreover, we read, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?” The clear implication of the latter passage is that when God the Father has forgiven a sinner, his sins have been permanently blotted out; no one can bring charges against him any more. If the forgiveness of sins which Christ could bestow, however, only meant the placing of such transgressions on record in the heavenly sanctuary and did not mean the complete blotting out of those sins, Christ’s power to forgive was considerably less than the Father’s. By this teaching, therefore, Seventh-day Adventists are guilty of devaluating Christ.
(ii) Jesus Christ does not know who are His, since He must conduct an investigative judgment to determine “who… are worthy of a part in the first resurrection….37 In Appendix B it was pointed out that this Seventh-day Adventist teaching leaves us with a Christ who must do homework before he can determine who are entitled to the benefits of His atonement…. Surely this doctrine, too, robs Christ of His sovereignty and thus devaluates Him.
(iii) The very nature of the investigative judgment implies, as we have seen, that it is not one’s unbreakable connection with Christ that determines whether one is saved, but one’s deeds while on earth. In Seventh-day Adventist teaching, therefore, what is ultimately determinative for salvation is not Christ’s work but man’s work. This teaching, too, devaluates Christ.
(iv) The crucial importance attached to the keeping of the fourth commandment after the final enlightenment likewise detracts from the saving power of Christ. To quote Mrs. White once more, “When the blessing is pronounced on those who have honored God by keeping His Sabbath holy, there is a mighty shout of victory.”38 What is here all-important and all-determinative for salvation is not the atoning work of Christ in our stead, but the keeping of the fourth command! This exaltation of Sabbath-keeping and minimizing of the work of Christ also constitutes a devaluation of Christ.39
(v) Seventh-day Adventists teach that the sins of all men will be laid on Satan just before Christ returns, and that only in this way will sin finally be “eradicated” or “blotted out” of the universe. This teaching also detracts from the all-sufficiency of Christ. While we appreciate the Adventists’ insistence that Satan is not a sin-bearer and that he does not make atonement for sin, it must be pointed out that they do, however, assign to Satan an indispensable role in the blotting out of sin from the universe…. But this, as was also pointed out in Appendix B (see above, pp. 158-60), is to ascribe to Satan what should only be ascribed to Christ: the obliteration of our sins. If Christ completely bore our sins in His body on the tree, as I Peter 2:24 tells us, why should Satan still have to help eradicate these sins from the universe?
We conclude that, in these various ways, Seventh-day Adventists are guilty of devaluating Christ, and that the full deity which they officially ascribe to Christ is overshadowed by certain teachings which detract from His majestic sovereignty.
(4) The Group as the Exclusive Community of the Saved. Here again, we appreciate the insistence of the authors of Questions on Doctrine that Seventh-day Adventists do not believe that they alone constitute the true children of God, or that they are the only true Christians in the world, or the only ones who will be saved.40 At the same time, however, the Adventists do call themselves the remnant church, for two reasons: because they keep the commandments of God, particularly by observing the seventh-day Sabbath; and because they have the “spirit of prophecy” in the person of Ellen G. White….
At this point we should ask ourselves exactly what Seventh-day Adventists mean by the remnant church. It was pointed out above, on pages 128-29, that according to Adventist teachings the remnant church means the last segment of the true church left on earth. This judgment is confirmed by a statement found in a Seventh-day Adventist Bible-study textbook: “What, then, would be the ‘remnant church’? The last church, what is left at the end of time of God’s church on earth.”41 If this is so, the Seventh-day Adventist claim that they are the remnant church really means: we are the last true church left on earth, and all other groups which claim to be churches are not true but false churches.
Do Seventh-day Adventists actually teach that they are the true church of God? Yes, they do. This will become evident from the following quotations from the writings of Mrs. White, their inspired prophetess:
The decree that will finally go forth against the remnant people of God will be very similar to that issued by King Ahasuerus against the Jews. Today the enemies of the true church see in the little company keeping the Sabbath commandment, a Mordecai at the gate.42
I saw that the holy Sabbath is, and will be, the separating wall between the true Israel of God and unbelievers; and that the Sabbath is the great question to unite the hearts of God’s dear waiting saints.43
When the final warning shall be given, it will arrest the attention of these leading men through whom the Lord is now working, and some of them will accept it [the message about the seventh-day Sabbath], and will stand with the people of God through the time of trouble.44
To those who reverence His holy day the Sabbath is a sign that God recognizes them as His chosen people. It is a pledge that He will fulfill to them His covenant.45
The keeping of the Sabbath is a sign of loyalty to the true God.46
As the Sabbath was the sign that distinguished Israel when they came out of Egypt to enter the earthly Canaan, so it is the sign that now distinguishes God’s people as they come out from the world to enter the heavenly rest. The Sabbath is a sign of the relationship existing between God and His people, a sign that they honor His law. It distinguishes between His loyal subjects and transgressors.47
In the light of the above statements, what conclusions must we draw with respect to the other churches of Christendom? We are compelled to conclude that, according to Mrs. White, these other churches are not part of the true church, are not the true Israel of God, are not God’s chosen people, are not loyal to the true God, are not God’s loyal subjects, but transgressors. In fact, Christians who belong to churches which keep the first day as the Lord’s Day are said to be the victims of one of Satan’s most intensive campaigns against God’s law: “Satan strives to turn men from their allegiance to God, and from rendering obedience to His law; therefore he directs his efforts especially against that commandment which points to God as the Creator [the fourth].”48
We go on now to ask: Does Seventh-day Adventist teaching about the remnant church mean that those who are not members of this remnant group cannot be saved? In other words, do Seventh-day Adventists believe that their group is the exclusive community of the saved?
With respect to people who will be living on earth after the great enlightenment about the Sabbath day has been given…, when the final test of loyalty with regard to Sabbath-keeping shall have come,49 the Adventists do teach that all who then remain outside their group will be lost. Seventh-day Adventists contend that “before the final hour of crisis and testing all God’s true children — now so widely scattered — will join with us in giving obedience to this message [the one brought by the Seventh-day Adventist movement], of which the seventh-day Sabbath is a basic part.”50 On the other hand, those who then refuse to join the remnant church in keeping the seventh-day Sabbath will receive the mark of the beast and be lost:
…When Sunday observance shall be enforced by law, and the world shall be enlightened concerning the obligation of the true Sabbath, then whoever shall transgress the command of God, to obey a precept which has no higher authority than that of Rome, will thereby honor popery above God…. As men then reject the institution which God has declared to be the sign of His authority, and honor in its stead that which Rome has chosen as the token of her supremacy, they will thereby accept the sign of allegiance to Rome — “the mark of the beast.”51
It is clear, therefore, that Seventh-day Adventists do consider that their group will be the exclusive community of the saved at the time of the end, since all who then remain outside their group will be lost. We conclude that at this point the Adventists do reveal one of the distinctive traits of the cult.
With respect to people who are living now, the question is more complicated. It will be remembered that, according to Adventist teaching, those who fail to keep the seventh day as the Sabbath are transgressing the most important commandment of the decalogue…. The question now arises: Can Christians who repeatedly break this most important commandment still be saved?
Seventh-day Adventists answer: yes, since these Christians who are members of the other churches of Christendom are breaking this command in ignorance. For it is said by the authors of Questions on Doctrine, “Seventh-day Adventists firmly believe that God has a precious remnant, a multitude of earnest, sincere believers, in every church, not excepting the Roman Catholic communion, who are living up to all the light God has given them.”52 The implication is that these Christians do not have the full light on the Sabbath question which God has given to the Adventists and hence can be temporarily excused from the obligation of keeping the fourth commandment properly. Note the following statement by Mrs. White:
But not one is made to suffer the wrath of God [visited upon those who shall refuse to keep the Creator’s rest day] until the truth has been brought home to his mind and conscience, and has been rejected. There are many who have never had an opportunity to hear the special truths for this time. The obligation of the fourth commandment has never been set before him in its true light.53
According to this statement, one cannot be punished for failing to keep the Sabbath law until the truth about this law has been brought home to his mind and conscience and has been deliberately rejected.
This means, then, that Christians outside the Seventh-day Adventist communion today can be saved even though they continually break the fourth commandment because they are still transgressing this command in ignorance of the truth which is recognized and taught by Seventh-day Adventism. This, however, puts the so-called recognition of the universal church of Christ by Seventh-day Adventists in a rather uncomplimentary light: there is such a universal church, to be sure, but it is completely in error in its understanding of and obedience to the most important commandment of the decalogue!
If, furthermore, the salvation of those outside Seventh-day Adventism depends on their remaining in ignorance of God’s real Sabbath requirement, the implication would seem unavoidable that, if these people wish to be saved, they should remain in ignorance of the Sabbath law. As we saw above, Mrs. White said that no one shall suffer the wrath of God “until the truth has been brought home to his mind and conscience, and has been rejected.” Suppose, now, that a Christian had heard the Seventh-day Adventist message about the seventh day but had concluded that this teaching was erroneous — could he after this still claim to be “transgressing” the fourth commandment in ignorance? In 1847 Mrs. White wrote, “And if one believed and kept the Sabbath and received the blessing attending it and then gave it up and broke the holy commandment, they would shut the gates of the Holy City against themselves, as sure as there was a God that rules in heaven.”54 The people here described were lost, obviously, because they “sinned” against better light. But what about people who have examined the evidence Seventh-day Adventists advance and have rejected it? Would not their salvation be equally in jeopardy?
If the situation is as the Adventists picture it, would it not be far better for those in the regular churches of Christendom to come out of those churches and to join the Seventh-day Adventists? This is precisely what is held before us as the goal toward which Christ is working: “The Great Shepherd of the sheep recognizes them [God’s true children now outside the Adventist fold] as His own, and He is calling them into one great fold and one great fellowship in preparation for His return.”55 If this is Christ’s great purpose, it is clear that true children of God now outside Adventism who have come into contact with Seventh-day Adventism and yet remain in their churches are going contrary to Christ’s purpose.
We conclude that though theoretically granting that people outside their community can be saved Seventh-day Adventists actually undermine that concession by their teaching on the remnant church. Since they claim to be the remnant church, in distinction from all other Christian bodies, they do manifest the cultist trait under discussion, though in a somewhat ambivalent manner.
(5) The Group’s Central Role in Eschatology. It will not be difficult to show that this distinctive mark of the cult is prominently and clearly discernible in Seventh-day Adventism. In analogous fashion to the other cults studied, Seventh-day Adventism claims to have been called into existence to fill a particular gap in the truth. Adventists assert that God raised them up “for the completion of the arrested Protestant Reformation and for the full and final restoration of gospel truth.”56God has brought the Adventist movement into being, so they allege, to bring His last great message to mankind.57 The rise of Seventh-day Adventism therefore marks the beginning of the final climax of sacred history.58 This movement has been called into being in order to prepare the church of the last days to meet her returning Lord.59
As we look more closely at the Seventh-day Adventist delineation of the events preceding the return of Christ, we note that they
place their own movement in the very center of the eschatological drama. We find these events pictured in great detail in the closing chapters of Mrs. White’s The Great Controversy. The announcement of the fall of Babylon (which designates various forms of apostate religion)60 is followed by the call, “Come out of her, my people”; this is the final warning given to the inhabitants of the earth.61 The various powers of the earth, including civil powers, Papists, and Protestants, now make a decree that all shall “conform to the customs of the church by the observance of the false sab-bath.”62 After this decree has been promulgated, all who, in opposition to Seventh-day Adventism, continue to observe “the false sabbath” [Sunday], shall receive the mark of the beast, whereas those who keep the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, will receive the seal of God.63
Those opposing the seventh-day Sabbath will now inaugurate a terrible persecution against keepers of the true Sabbath [Seventh-day Adventists and those who have joined them].64 Now comes the “close of probation,” when Christ ceases His intercession in the sanctuary, after which there is no further opportunity for anyone to receive mercy and be saved.65 There now follows the “time of trouble” predicted in Daniel 12:1, during which frightful plagues will be poured out on the enemies of God’s people [that is, those who refuse to keep the seventh day].66 Just when these enemies are about to wipe the Sabbath-keepers off the face of the earth, God sends deliverance, and strikes terror into the hearts of the would-be murderers.67
Now occurs the “special resurrection,” in which two special groups are raised from the dead: those who were responsible for the trial and crucifixion of Christ, and those who died in the faith of the third angel’s message — that is, faithful Seventh-day Adventists and others who have been keeping the seventh day who have died since 1846.68 Note that at this point Seventh-day Adventists are given a special position of privilege: they shall be raised from the dead before other believers, so that they may be able to see Christ return to earth!
The doom of the wicked is now declared from heaven, producing consternation in the hearts of those who have been breaking the law of God.69 God’s commandment-keeping people, however, who have sacrificed all for Christ, and have evinced their fidelity to Him, now sing a triumphant song.70 Opponents of the true Sabbath realize too late that they were wrong, whereas blessing is pronounced from heaven on those who have honored God by keeping His Sabbath holy.71 Now Christ returns,72 and calls forth the other believers from their graves.73 The living righteous are now transformed,74 whereas the wicked are all put to death.75 God’s people are now taken up to heaven for the millennium which follows…; after the annihilation of the wicked they will everlastingly inhabit the new earth….
For Seventh-day Adventists, therefore, eschatology is the arena in which the glorification of their own movement completes itself and in which they shall be completely vindicated over against their enemies. Since “the Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty” in the last days,76 we see that the antithesis between God and Satan becomes in the end the antithesis between Seventh-day Adventism and those who refuse to follow its special teachings. We conclude that since Seventh-day Adventists do picture themselves as playing a central role in eschatology this distinctive trait of the cult is also clearly applicable to their movement.
An Appeal to Seventh-day Adventists. It is recognized with gratitude that there are certain soundly Scriptural emphases in the teaching of Seventh-day Adventism. We are thankful for the Adventists’ affirmation of the infallibility of the Bible, of the Trinity and of the full deity of Jesus Christ. We gratefully acknowledge their teachings on creation and providence, on the incarnation and resurrection of Christ, on the absolute necessity for regeneration, on sanctification by the Holy Spirit, and on Christ’s literal return. It is, however, my conviction that the Adventists have added to these Scriptural doctrines certain unscriptural teachings which are inconsistent with the former and undermine their full effectiveness. It is also my conviction that, because of the Adventists’ acceptance of these additional teachings, Seventh-day Adventism must be classified, not as an evangelical church, but as a cult. The reasons for this judgment have been detailed above.
This does not mean, however, that there cannot be true children of God among the Seventh-day Adventists. This I would be the last to deny. What must be criticized, often severely, are the teachings of this group, not the individuals who hold to these teachings. Teachings we can and must evaluate in the light of God’s Word; individuals we must leave to the judgment of God, who alone can read the hearts of men.
In a spirit of Christian love toward members of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, therefore, and with grateful recognition of the soundly Scriptural elements in their teaching, I plead with my friends, the Adventists, to repudiate the cultic features and unscriptural doctrines which mar Seventh-day Adventism and to return to sound, Biblical Christianity. Whether the Scriptural emphases in Seventh-day Adventism will eventually gain the victory over these unscriptural teachings, or whether those in the group who wish to be loyal to Scripture alone should come out of it, is a question which only God can answer. But false teachings which cast a shadow over the faith once for all delivered to the saints must be repudiated by all who truly love the Lord.
FOOTNOTES
28 As has been pointed out, however, this is not an accurate way of describing Seventh-day Adventist teaching, which affirms, not that the soul sleeps after death, but that after death the soul ceases to exist (see above, p. 136).
PAGE 136
The same position is taken by the authors of Questions on Doctrine (pp. 511-32). It is therefore not quite accurate to say, as some do, that the Seventh-day Adventists teach the doctrine of soul-sleep, since this would imply that there is a soul which continues to exist after death, but in an unconscious state. A more precise way of characterizing their teachings on this point is to say that the Adventists teach soul-extinction. For, according to them, soul is simply another name for the entire individual; there is, therefore, no soul that survives after death. After death nothing survives; when man dies he becomes completely nonexistent.
Seventh-day Adventists do teach that there will be a resurrection of all men. The authors of Questions on Doctrine state that the time interval between death and the resurrection is negligible, since there is no consciousness in the so-called “intermediate state”:
While asleep in the tomb the child of God knows nothing. Time matters not to him. If he should be there a thousand years, the time would be to him as but a moment. One who serves God closes his eyes in death, and whether one day or two thousand years elapse, the next instant in his consciousness will be when he opens his eyes and beholds his blessed Lord. To him it is death – then sudden glory (pp. 523-24).
Conditional Immortality. Article 9 of the Fundamental Beliefs sets forth the Adventist position on immortality:
That “God only hath immortality” (I Tim. 6:16). Mortal man possesses a nature inherently sinful and dying. Eternal life is the gift of God through faith in Christ (Rom. 6:23)…. Immortality is bestowed upon the righteous at the Second Coming of Christ, when the righteous dead are raised from the grave and the living righteous translated to meet the Lord. Then it is that those accounted faithful “put on immortality” (I Cor. 15:51-55).
Seventh-day Adventists thus believe in conditional immortality: immortality is bestowed upon believers at the Second Coming of Christ. Man possesses no inherent immortality, and man has no immortal soul. Immortality in the absolute sense is possessed only by God. Immortality in a relative sense is bestowed only upon certain people — namely, those who believe. Unbelievers will be raised from the dead after the millennium, but they will not receive immortality. They will be raised only to be annihilated.153
153 Jehovah’s Witnesses, as we shall see, take virtually the same position on the intermediate state as do Seventh-day Adventists. Note that acceptance of the doctrine of conditional immortality implies a denial of eternal punishment. In Appendix E these doctrines (soul-extinction, conditional immortality, and the annihilation of the wicked) will be critically evaluated.
29 Fundamental Beliefs, Article 16.
30 Questions on Doctrine, p. 443; Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View: Pacific Press, 1911), pp. 482, 490; William H. Branson, Drama of the Ages (Nashville: Southern Pub. Co., 1950), p. 351. Note particularly Branson’s statement: “A Christian who through faith in Jesus Christ has faithfully kept the law’s requirements will be acquitted; there is no condemnation, for the law finds no fault in him. If, on the other hand, it is found that one has broken even a single precept, and this transgression is unconfessed, he will be dealt with just as if he had broken all ten.” It will be remembered that Mr. Branson was president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists from 1950-1954.
31The Great Controversy, p. 639.
32Ibid., pp. 639-40.
33Ibid., p. 640.
34Ibid.
35 Both of these points are implied in the quotations just given from pp. 639-40 of The Great Controversy. These individuals, it is there said, “have a new conception of truth and duty,” implying that they did not understand the truth or know their duty before this time. If these people are true believers, they will repent of their sin as soon as it is pointed out to them. Further, since it is specified by Mrs. White that these individuals will include ministers and religious teachers, we may assume that these are people who have been faithfully worshiping God on the first day of the week all their lives. Do Seventh-day Adventists mean to say that such people will be sent to perdition solely because, though they did keep the fourth commandment, they unintentionally kept it on the wrong day?
36As a matter of fact, how can Seventh-day Adventists be so sure that all who do keep the seventh day as the Sabbath are properly keeping the fourth commandment? Would Jews who reject Christ as the Messiah but keep the seventh day thus be saved, while Christians who accept Christ as Savior but keep the first day are lost? Christ Himself often severely rebuked the Pharisees for their misinterpretation of the Sabbath command, even though they did observe the seventh day (Mt. 12:1-8 and parallel passages; Mt. 12:9-14 and parallel passages; Lk. 13:10-17, 14:1-6; Jn. 5:10-18, 7:22‑24, 9:13-16). Surely, therefore, no one may naively assume that the mere observance of the right day (if Adventists are correct about the day) in itself guarantees the proper keeping of the fourth commandment!
37Fundamental Beliefs, Article 16.
38The Great Controversy, p. 640.
39 For it is presumed that thousands of those who at this time receive the mark of the beast for failing to keep the seventh day did believe in Christ as their Savior.
40 Pp. 187, 191-92; (see above, p. 129).
PAGE 129-130
This, of course, brings up immediately the question of whether Seventh-day Adventists believe themselves to be the only true people of God, to the exclusion of all others, including all the major denominations of Christendom. To this question we get an ambiguous answer. On the one hand, the authors of Questions on Doctrine assert that they have never sought to equate their church with the church invisible — “those in every denomination who remain faithful to the Scriptures” (p. 186). Seventh-day Adventists, these authors further point out, do not believe that they alone constitute the true children of God (p. 187), that they are the only true Christians in the world, or that they are the only ones who will be saved (pp. 191-92). Elsewhere the authors say: “We fully recognize the heartening fact that a host of true followers of Christ are scattered all through the various churches of Christendom, including the Roman Catholic communion” (p. 197).
On the other hand, however, these authors contend that the Protestant Reformation was incomplete, that God wants certain new truths to be emphasized now which were not proclaimed at the time of the Reformation (p. 189), and that God has given these new truths to the Seventh-day Adventist movement. The heart of this new message is the proclamation of the seventh day as the Sabbath (p. 189). This new message must now be brought to all, even to those orthodox Christians who accept the teachings of the Reformation, for only in this way can Christians prepare for the great test of loyalty which will come in the last days (p. 195).
Do Seventh-day Adventists now really believe that the vast majority of Christians who observe the first day of the week instead of the seventh belong to the universal church of God’s true people? Theoretically, they do. We appreciate their willingness to make this statement, which Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are unwilling to make. But, once again, we find that their doctrines are not consistent with this statement. For if the seed of the woman spoken of in Revelation 12 is the Christian church, and if the remnant of her seed is the last segment of that seed, and if the Seventh-day Adventist Church is that last segment, what conclusion can one arrive at except that other Christian groups are not members of the seed of the woman? If they are, why don’t they belong to the remnant?
Furthermore, if the message of the seventh-day Sabbath is now so important that God has raised a special people for its proclamation, and if the keeping of this day is now God’s will for all His people, how can men and women who refuse to heed this message still be counted as God’s true people? How can Seventh‑day Adventists say that there are people “in every denomination who remain faithful to the Scriptures” (p. 186), when these people fail to obey the most important commandment of the Decalogue? How can Adventists contend that these alleged members of the true church outside their fold are “living up to all the light God has given them” (p. 192)? They have the Bible, do they not? Doesn’t the Bible give sufficient light on the matter of the seventh day? The authors of Questions on Doctrine try to get out of this dilemma by saying, “We respect and love those of our fellow Christians who do not interpret God’s Word just as we do” (p. 193). This statement gives the impression that the question of the first day or the seventh is a minor matter on which differences of interpretation may be tolerated. But on another page we are told that Seventh-day Adventists have been raised up by God precisely for the purpose of proclaiming to the world the message of the seventh-day Sabbath! This implies that those Christians who interpret the Word as permitting a first-day Sabbath are dead wrong! How, then, can such utterly mistaken and misguided people be recognized as being faithful to the Scriptures and as belonging to the true church of Jesus Christ?
41Principles of Life from the Word of God (Mountain View: Pacific Press, 1960), p. 395.
42 Prophets and Kings (Mountain View: Pacific Press, 1917), p. 605 [italics mine, in this and in the next five quotations].
43 Taken from a letter to Joseph Bates written on April 7, 1847; found in A Word to the “Little Flock” (1847), pp. 18-19.
44 The Great Controversy, p. 611.
45 Testimonies, Vol. VI, p. 350; quoted in Principles of Life from the Word of God, p. 131.
46The Great Controversy, p. 438.
47 Testimonies, Vol. VI, p. 349; quoted in Principles of Life from the Word of God, p. 135. It is to be noted that statements like these do not agree with what is said by the authors of Questions on Doctrine, “we do not believe that we alone constitute the true children of God – that we are the only true Christians – on earth today” (p. 187). Since the statements quoted above were made by Mrs. White, Seventh-day Adventists cannot in good conscience repudiate them.
48 The Great Controversy, p. 54. We appreciate the fact that the authors of Questions on Doctrine seem not to wish to draw all these conclusions. Yet what is said in the above paragraph is clearly implied by the statements of Mrs. White quoted previously. The authors of Questions on Doctrine will therefore either have to admit that Mrs. White was mistaken when she made these statements, or that her words did not mean what she apparently intended them to mean. On the question of the attitude of Seventh-day Adventism toward other churches, see N. Douty, Another Look at Seventh-day Adventism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1962), pp. 193-203.
49 The Great Controversy, p. 605.
50Questions on Doctrine, pp. 195-96.
51 The Great Controversy, p. 449, quoted in Questions on Doctrine, p. 184. See also The Great Controversy, p. 605. Since those who receive the mark of the beast, according to Rev. 14:9-11, will be tormented with fire and brimstone, we conclude that people who fall into this category will be eternally lost.
52 P. 192.
53 The Great Controversy, p. 605.
54Letter to Joseph Bates, April 7, 1847, found in. A Word to the “Little Flock,” pp. 18-19; quoted in Douty, op. cit., p. 77.
55 Questions on Doctrine, p. 192.
56 Ibid., p. 615.
57Ibid., pp. 190, 194, 195.
58 Ibid., p. 617.
59 Ibid., pp. 615-617.
60The Great Controversy, p. 381.
61Ibid., p. 604. In the light of the entire context (see particularly pp. 606-607), it is obvious that Babylon here stands for churches which, among other things, continue to teach that Sunday is the day of the Lord.
62Ibid., p. 604; cf. p. 606.
63Ibid., p. 605.
64 Ibid., pp. 608-610.
65 Ibid., pp. 613-14. This “close of probation” is supposed to be indicated by Rev. 22:11 (p. 613). Cf. pp. 428, 490-91.
66Ibid., pp. 613-34.
67 Ibid., pp. 635-36.
68Ibid., p. 637…
69 The Great Controversy, p. 638.
70Ibid., pp. 638-39.
71 Ibid., p. 640.
72 Ibid., p. 641.
73Ibid., p. 644…
74The Great Controversy, p. 645.
75Ibid., p. 657.
76Ibid., p. 605.
APPENDIX
(3) A third reason why the doctrine of the investigative judgment is to be rejected is that this doctrine is based on a mistaken application of the Old Testament sacrificial system to Christ. This, of course, naturally follows from the previous point. If Seventh-day Adventists misunderstand the Old Testament sacrificial system, it follows that they will also misapply that sacrificial system to the work of Christ. Let us now look at this matter in detail.
First, the Adventists mistakenly apply the Old Testament sacrificial system to Christ by insisting that Christ only forgave sins previous to 1844 but did not blot them out. It will be recalled that Crosier taught this in his Day-Star article…, and that Seventh-day Adventists today still teach this (above, p. 117). This view ties in with their understanding of the meaning of the Old Testament sacrifices, as the following quotation will show:
In the sanctuary in heaven, the record of sins is the only counterpart of the defilement of the earthly sanctuary. That the sins of men are recorded in heaven, we shall show in the next section. It is the expunging, or blotting out, of these sins from the heavenly records that fulfills the type set forth in the services on the Day of Atonement. In that way the sanctuary in heaven can be cleansed from all defilement.15
The thrust of these words is that, previous to 1844, the sins of penitent believers, though forgiven, were recorded in the heavenly sanctuary; it was not until after 1844 that the process of blotting out these sins was begun.
In refutation, we reply that the conception of sins being recorded in the sanctuary is one which has been shown to rest on a misunderstanding of the Old Testament sacrificial system. Further, the thought that Christ did not blot out sins previous to 1844 is without one shred of Scriptural support. On the contrary, David exclaims in Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed (hirchiq, Hiphil perfect of rachaq, indicating completed action) our transgressions from us.”16 In Isaiah 44:22 we read, “I have blotted out (machithi, perfect tense, indicating complete action), as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins….” If in the Old Testament we are already told that God has blotted out the sins of His people, how can one say that Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, could not blot out sins in the New Testament era previous to 1844?
In fact, the entire distinction between the forgiveness of sins and the blotting out of sins — which is basic to Seventh-day Adventist theology — is foreign to the Scriptures. Does David suggest that there is any such distinction when he prays, in Psalm 51:1, “Have mercy upon me, 0 God, according to thy lovingkindness; According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions”? In the New Testament the word commonly used for forgive is aphieemi. The root meaning of this word is to let go or to send away; hence it has acquired the additional meaning: to cancel, remit, or pardon sins.17 Is there, now, any justification for the view that one’s sin can be canceled without being blotted out? When Jesus, for example, said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven” (Mt. 9:2), did He mean: your sins are now forgiven, but not yet blotted out; if you do not continue to live up to all my commandments, these sins may still be held against you? Why should the paralytic have been of good cheer, if this was the meaning of these words?
Seventh-day Adventists try to justify this distinction by appealing to the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 18:23-35. They contend that, since the king in the parable revoked his cancellation of the unmerciful servant’s debt, God may also withdraw forgiveness once granted — hence the forgiveness of sins does not necessarily mean the blotting out of sins.18 The flaw in this reasoning is that an earthly king cannot read hearts, whereas God can. The point of the parable is not that God may revoke forgiveness once bestowed, but that we must be ready to forgive others if we expect to be forgiven by God. Christ Himself expresses this point very clearly when He says, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Mt. 6:14, 15). In other words, a man who does not forgive those who have sinned against him has never really had his sins forgiven by God, though he may think so.
We conclude that the Seventh-day Adventist distinction between the forgiveness of sin and the blotting out of sin is completely foreign to Scripture and robs the believer of all assurance of salvation.
Secondly, the idea that Christ has been engaged since 1844 in a work of investigative judgment in the heavenly sanctuary is completely without Biblical support. For, according to the Scriptures, the present work of Christ in heaven is a work of intercession, not a work of judging. Note, for example, how clearly this is taught in Hebrews 7:25, “Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” The basic meaning of the verb entugchanoo, which is here used, is to plead for someone or to intercede for someone.19The thought of judging, of examining records, of determining whether individuals are worthy of salvation or not, is completely foreign to this word. The same verb is used in Romans 8:34, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” In both passages, the verb entugchanoo is in the present tense, indicating that this intercession is a continuing activity. In Hebrews 7:25, in fact, the infinitive phrase eis to entugchanein shows that this intercession constitutes the very purpose for which Christ now lives! On what Scriptural ground, therefore, can Adventists say that Christ is now engaged in a work of judgment?20
15 Questions on Doctrine, p. 435.
16On p. 443 of Questions on Doctrine the authors admit that this figure is one used in Scripture to express the complete obliteration of sin.
17 Arndt and Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 125.
18 Questions on Doctrine, pp. 439-40.
19Arndt and Gingrich, op. cit., p. 269.
20Adventists grant that Christ is our Advocate and that He pleads the cases of His own people in the investigative judgment (Questions on Doctrine, pp. 441-42). Since, however, by their own definition, the work Christ is doing since 1844 is a work of judgment, we can only conclude that their theology evinces a serious confusion between Christ’s work as Priest and Christ’s work as Judge. How can He both plead the cases of His people and judge them at the same time?
I was wrong about Seventh-Day Adventism! I put out an earlier video a couple of months ago about Seventh-Day Adventists and sadly, I didn’t go far enough in my research to determine what they truly believe. There are some major problems in their doctrine and over the next couple of videos I am going to discuss and debunk them as best I can.
I was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG about Seventh-Day Adventism – Part I
00:00 – Intro and purpose of this video 03:55 – The foundation for this discussion 06:32 – The errors of Ellen G. White 10:30 – How Adventists view Ellen G. White’s prophecies 16:23 – How Ellen G. White viewed her ow prophecies 20:49 – The Investigative Judgment Heresy 30:30 – Conclusions
Seventh-day Adventism is wrong about their beliefs and practices regarding the Sabbath. Many of their leaders teach and promote the idea that keeping the Sabbath is essential to salvation. In this video we are going to explore what the Bible really says about the Sabbath and whether the Seventh-Day Adventist position is biblically accurate or not.
Seventh-Day Adventism is WRONG About the Sabbath! – Part 2
00:00 – Review of Previous video 00:46 – Introduction 01:45 – Disclaimers 03:01 – How some Adventists are trained to evangelize 07:22 – Preview of topics covered in this video 08:19 – QUESTION #1 – Is obeying the Sabbath a requirement for salvation? 15:23 – QUESTION #2 – Didn’t God institute the Sabbath at Creation? 19:46 – QUESTION #3 – Is Worshipping on Sunday the Mark of the Beast? 26:44 – QUESTION #4 – Didn’t Jesus observe the Sabbath? 28:27 – Final thoughts
(Posted here originally June 2020. Updated PDF link.)
This is chapter 15 (The Ghost In The Machine) from Richard Milton excellent book entitled [originally published Jan 1, 1992], “SHATTERING THE MYTHS OF DARWINISM” (PDF), as well as a bit from near the end of the book regarding a “spellchecking” program to shore up his ideas from chapter fifteen. It really has to do with responding to the idea that a computer program is shown to “evolve.” That in some way there is an increase in novel information in the program that is adding to the specificity of the program apart from the designers/software engineers.
I would be remiss to not link to an article that also goes through this example well:
Enjoy… mind you this book was read by me in 1998, but the ideas here have been sustained through today.
Ghost in the Machine pp. 167-176
[167>] Russel and Seguin’s 1982 picture of a human-looking “evolved” version of a dinosaur was an impressive feat combining science and imagination in a constructive and entertaining way. Yet few in 1982 foresaw that in little more than a decade, over 100 million people around the world would pay to be scared by the even more impressive feat of the computer generated dinosaurs of “Jurassic Park”.
Nothing that has entered the evolution debate since Darwin’s time has promised to illuminate the subject so much as the modern computer and its apparently limitless ability to represent, on the monitor-screen, compelling visual solutions to the most abstruse mathematical questions.
The information handling capacity of electronic data processing, with its obvious analogy to DNA, has been enthusiastically enlisted by computer-literate Darwinists as offering powerful evidence for their theory; while genetic software systems, said to emulate the processes of genetic mutation and natural selection at speeds high enough to make the process visible, have become a feature of most up-to-date biology laboratories.
The computer has been put to many ingenious uses in the service of Darwinist theory. And it has changed the minds of not a few skeptics by its powerful visual imagery and uncanny ability to bring extinct creatures – or even creatures that never lived – to life in front [168>] of us. But, compelling though the visual images are, how much confidence should we put in the computer as a guide to the evolution of life?
In his book The Blind Watchmaker Richard Dawkins describes a computer program he wrote which randomly generates symmetrical figures from dots and lines. These figures, to a human eye, have a resemblance to a variety of objects. Dawkins gives some of them insect and animal names, such as bat, spider, fox or caddis fly. Others he gives names like lunar lander, precision balance, spitfire, lamp and crossed sabers.
Dawkins calls these creations “biomorphs”, meaning life shapes or living shapes, a term he borrows from fellow zoologist Desmond Morris. He also feels very strongly that in using a computer program to create them, he is in some way simulating evolution itself. His approach can be understood from this extract:
Nothing in my biologist’s intuition, nothing in my 20 years experience of programming computers, and nothing in my wildest dreams, prepared me for what actually emerged on the screen. I can’t remember exactly when in the sequence it first began to dawn on me that an evolved resemblance to something like an insect was possible. With a wild surmise, I began to breed generation after generation, from whichever child looked most like an insect. My incredulity grew in parallel with the evolving resemblance…. Admittedly they have eight legs like a spider, instead of six like an insect, but even so! I still cannot conceal from you my feeling of exultation as I first watched these exquisite creatures emerging before my eyes.[1]
Dawkins not only calls his computer drawings “biomorphs”, he gives some of them the names of living creatures. He also refers to them as “quasi-biological” forms and in a moment of excitement calls them “exquisite creatures”. He plainly believes that in some way they correspond to the real world of living animals and insects. But they do not correspond in any way at all with living things, except in the purely trivial way that he sees some resemblance in their shapes. The only thing about the “biomorphs” that is [169>] biological is Richard Dawkins, their creator. As far as the “spitfire” and the “lunar lander” are concerned there is not even a fancied biological resemblance.
The program he wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world. Indeed, if he set out to create an experiment that simulates evolution, he has only succeeded in making one that simulates special creation, with himself in the omnipotent role.
His program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection. On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selection in which he controls he sees some resemblance in their shapes. The only thing about the “biomorphs” that is biological is Richard Dawkins, their creator. As far as the “spitfire” and the “lunar lander” are concerned there is not even a fancied biological resemblance.
The program he wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world. Indeed, if he set out to create an experiment that simulates evolution, he has only succeeded in making one that simulates special creation, with himself in the omnipotent role.
His program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection. On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selection in which he controls the rate of occurrence of mutations. Despite Dawkins’s own imaginative interpretations, and even with the deck stacked in his favor, his biomorphs show no real novelty arising. There are no cases of bears turning into whales.
There is also no failure in his program: his biomorphs are not subject to fatal consequences of degenerate mutations like real living things. And, most important of all, he chooses which are the lucky individuals to receive the next mutation – it is not decided by fate – and of course he chooses the most promising ones (“I began to breed from whichever child looked most like an insect.”) That is why they have ended up looking like recognizable images from his memory. If his mutations really occurred randomly, as in the real world, Dawkins would still be sitting in front of his screen watching a small dot and waiting for it do something.
Above all, his computer experiment falsifies the most important central claim of mechanistic Darwinian thinking; that, through natural processes, living things could come into being without any precursor. What Dawkins has shown is that, if you want to start the evolutionary ball rolling, you need some form of design to take a hand in the proceedings, just as he himself had to sit down and program his computer.
In fact, his experiment shows very much the same sort of results that field work in biology and zoology has shown for the past hundred years: there is no evidence for beneficial spontaneous genetic mutation; there is no evidence for natural selection (except as an empty tautology); there is no evidence for either as significant evolutionary mechanisms. There is only evidence of an unquenchable optimism among Darwinists that given enough [170>] time, anything can happen – the argument from probability.
But although Dawkins’s program does not qualify as a simulation of random genetic mutation coupled with natural selection, it does highlight at least one very important way in which computer programs resemble genetic processes. Each instruction in a program must be carefully considered by the programmer as to both its immediate effect on the computer hardware and its effects on other parts of the program. The letters and numbers which the programmer uses to write the instructions have to be written down with absolute precision with regard to the vocabulary and syntax of the programming language he uses in order for the computer system to function at all. Even the most trivial error can lead to a complete malfunction. In 1977, for example, an attempt by NASA to launch a weather satellite from Cape Canaveral ended in disaster when the launch vehicle went off course shortly after takeoff and had to be destroyed. Subsequent investigation by NASA engineers found that the accident was caused by failure of the onboard computer guidance system – because a single comma had been misplaced in the guidance program.
Anyone who has programmed a computer to perform the simplest task in the simplest language – Basic for instance – will understand the problem. If you make the simplest error in syntax, misplacing a letter, a punctuation mark or even a space, the program will not run at all.
In just the same way, each nucleotide has to be “written” in precisely the correct order and in precisely the correct location in the DNA molecule for the offspring to remain viable, and, as described earlier, major functional disorders in humans, animals and plants are caused by the loss or displacement of a single DNA molecule, or even a single nucleotide within that molecule.
In order to simulate neo-Darwinist evolution on his computer, it is not necessary for Dawkins to devise complex programs that seek to simulate insect life. All he has to do is to write a program containing a large number of instructions (3000 million instructions if he wishes to simulate human DNA) that continually regenerates its own program code, but randomly interferes with the code in trivial ways, such as transposing, shifting or missing characters. (The system must be set to restart itself after each fatal “birth”.)
[171>] The result of this experiment would be positive if the system ever develops a novel function that was not present in the original programming. One way of defining “novelty” would be to design the program so that, initially, its sole function was to replicate itself (a computer virus). A novel function would then be anything other than mere reproduction. In practice, however, I do not expect the difficulty of defining what constitutes a novelty to pose any problem. It is extremely improbable that Dawkins’s program will ever work again after the first generation, just as in real life, mutations cause genetic defects, not improvements.
Outside of the academic world there are a number of important commercial applications based on computer simulations that deserve to be seriously examined. A good example of this is in the field of aircraft wing design where computers have been used by aircraft engineers to develop the optimum airfoil profile. In the past wing design has been based largely on repetitive trial and error methods. A hypothetical wing shape is drawn up; a physical model is made and is aerodynamically tested in the wind tunnel. Often the results of such an empirical design approach are predictable: lengthening the upper wing curve, in relation to the lower, generally increases the upward thrust obtained. But sometimes results are very unpredictable, as when complex patterns of turbulence combine at the trailing edge to produce drag, which lowers wing efficiency, and causes destructive vibration.
Engineers at Boeing Aircraft tried a new approach. They created a computer model which was able to “mutate” a primitive wing shape at random – to stretch it here or shrink it there. They also fed into the model rules that would enable the computer to simulate testing the resulting design in a computerized version of the “wind tunnel”- the rules of aerodynamics.
The engineers say this process has resulted in obtaining wing designs offering maximum thrust and minimum drag and turbulence, more quickly than before and without any human intervention once the process has been set in motion.
Designers have made great savings in time compared with previous methods and the success of the computer in this field has given rise to a new breed of application dubbed “genetic software”. Indeed, on the face of it, the system is acting in a Darwinian manner. The [172>] computer (an inanimate object) has produced an original and intelligent design (comparable, say, with a natural structure such as a bird’s wing) by random mutation of shape combined with selection according to rules that come from the natural world – the laws of aerodynamics. If the computer can do this in the laboratory in a few hours or days, what could nature not achieve in millions of years?
The fallacies on which this case is constructed are not very profound but they do need to be nailed down. In a recently published popular primer on molecular biology, Andrew Scott’s Vital Principles, this very example is given under the heading “the creativity of evolution”. The process itself is called “computer generated evolution” as though it were analogous to an established natural process of mutation and selection.[2]
The most important fallacy in this argument is the idea that somehow a result has occurred which is independent of, or in some way beyond the engineers, who merely started the machine by pressing a button. Of course, the fact is that a human agency has designed and built the computer and programmed it to perform the task in question. As with the previous experiment, this begs the only important question in evolution theory: could complex structures have arisen spontaneously by random natural processes without any precursor? Like all other computer simulation experiments, this one actually makes a reasonable case for special creation – or some form of vitalist-directed design – because it specifically requires a creator to build the computer and devise and implement the program in the first place.
However, there are other important fallacies too. The only reason that the Boeing engineers are able to take the design produced on paper by their computer and translate that design into an aircraft that flies, is because they are employing an immense body of knowledge – not possessed by the com put er – regarding the properties of materials from which the aircraft will be made and the manufacturing processes that will be used to make it. The computer’s wing is merely an outline on paper, an idea: it is of no more significance to aviation than a wave outline on the beach or a wind outline in the desert. The real wing has to actually fly in the air with real passengers. The decisive events that make that idea into a reality are a long, complex sequence of human operations [173>] and judgments that involve not only the shaping and fastening of metal for wings but also the design and manufacture of airframes and jet engines. These additional complexities are beyond the capacity of the computer, not merely in practice but in principle, because computers cannot even make a cup of coffee, let alone an airliner, without being instructed every step of the way.
In order for a physical structure like an aircraft wing to evolve by spontaneous random means, it is necessary for natural selection to do far more than select an optimum shape. It must also select the correct materials, the correct manufacturing methods (to avoid failure in service) and the correct method of integrating the new structure into its host creature. These operations involve genetic engineering principles which are presently unknown. And because they are unknown by us, they cannot be programmed into a computer.
There is also an important practical reason why the computer simulation is not relevant to synthetic evolution: because an aircraft wing differs from a natural wing in a fundamental way. The aircraft wing is passive, since the forward movement of the aircraft is derived from an engine. A natural wing like a bird’s, however, has to provide upthrust and the forward motion necessary to generate that lift making it a complex, articulated active mechanism. The engineering design problem of evolving a passive wing is merely a repetitive mechanical task – that is why it is suitable for computerization. So far, no-one has suggested programming a computer to design a bird’s wing by random mutation because the suggestion would be seen as ludicrous. Even if all of the world’s computers were harnessed together, they would be unable to take even the most elementary steps needed to design a bird’s wing unless they were told in advance what they were aiming at and how to get there.
If computers are no use to evolutionists as models of the hypothetical selection process, they are proving invaluable in another area of biology; one that seems to hold out much promise to Darwinists – the field of genetics. Since Watson and Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule, and since geneticists began unraveling the meaning of the genetic code, the center of gravity of evolution theory has gradually shifted away from the earth sciences – geology and pale-ontology – toward molecular biology.
[174>] This shift in emphasis has occurred not only because of the attraction of the new biology as holding the answers to many puzzling questions, but also because the traditional sciences have proved ultimately sterile as a source of decisive evidence. The gaps in the fossil record, the incomplete-ness of the geological strata, and the ambiguity of the evidence from comparative anatomy, ultimately caused Darwinists to give up and look somewhere else for decisive evidence. Thanks to molecular biology and computer science they now have somewhere else to try.
Darwinists seem to have drawn immense comfort from their recent discoveries at the cellular level and beyond, behaving and speaking as though the new discoveries of biology represent a triumphant vindication of their long-held beliefs over the irrational ideas of vitalists. Yet the gulf between what Darwinists claim for molecular biological discoveries and what those discoveries actually show is only too apparent to any objective evaluation.
Consider these remarks by Francis Crick, justly famous as one of the biologists who cracked the genetic code, and equally well known as an ardent supporter of Darwinist evolution. In his 1966 book Molecules and Men, in which he set out to criticize vitalism, Crick asked which of the various molecular biological processes are likely to be the seat of the “vital principle”.[3] “It can hardly be the action of the enzymes,” he says, “because we can easily make this happen in a test tube. Moreover most enzymes act on rather simple organic molecules which we can easily synthesize.”
There is one slight difficulty but Crick easily deals with it; “It is true that at the moment nobody has synthesized an actual enzyme chemically, but we can see no difficulty in doing this in principle, and in fact I would predict quite confidently that it will be done within the next five or ten years.”
A little later, Crick says of mitochondria (important objects in the cell that also contain DNA):
It may be some time before we could easily synthesise such an object, but eventually we feel that there should be no gross difficulty in putting a mitochondrion together from its component parts.
This reservation aside, it looks as if any system of [175>] enzymes could be made to act without invoking any special principles, or without involving material that we could not synthesize in the laboratory. [4]
There is no question that Crick and Watson’s decoding of the DNA molecule is a brilliant achievement and one of the high points of twentieth-century science. But this success seems to me to have led many scientists to expect too much as a result.
Crick’s early confidence that an enzyme would be produced synthetically within five or ten years has not been borne out and biologists are further than ever from achieving such a synthesis. Indeed, reading and rereading the words above with the benefit of hindsight I cannot help but interpret them as saying “we are unable to synthesize any significant part of a cell at present, but this reservation aside, we are able to synthesize any part of the cell.”
Certainly great strides have been made. William Shrive, writing in the McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, says, “The complete amino acid sequence of several enzymes has been determined by chemical methods. By X-ray crystallographic methods it has even been possible to deduce the exact three-dimensional molecular structure of a few enzymes.”[5] But despite these advances no-one has so far synthesized anything remotely as complex as an enzyme or any other protein molecule.
Such a synthesis was impossible when Crick wrote in 1966 and remains impossible today. It is probably because there is a world of difference between having a neat table that shows the genetic code for all twenty amino acids (Alanine = GCA, Praline = CCA and so on) and knowing how to manufacture a protein. These complex molecules do not simply assemble themselves from a mixture of ingredients like a cup of tea. Something else is needed. What the something else is remains conjectural. If it is chemical it has not been discovered; if it is a process it is an unknown process; if it is a “vital principle” it has not yet been recognized. Whatever the something is, it is presently impossible to build a case either for Darwinism or against vitalism out of what we have learned of the cell and the molecules of which it is composed.
It is easy to see why evolutionists should be so excited about cellular discoveries because the mechanisms they have found appear to [176>] be very simple. But however simple they may seem, as of yet no-one has succeeded in synthesizing any significant original structure from raw materials. We know the code for the building blocks; we don’t know the instructions for building a house with them.
Indeed, the discoveries of biochemistry and molecular biology have raised some rather awkward questions for Darwinists, which they have yet to address satisfactorily. For example, the existence of genetically very simple biological entities, such as viruses, seems to support Darwinist ideas about the origin of life. One can imagine all sorts of primitive life forms and organisms coming into existence in the primeval ocean and it seems only natural that one should find entities that are part way between the living and the nonliving – stepping stones to life as it were. It is only to be expected, says Richard Dawkins, that the simplest form of self-replicating object would merely be that part of the DNA program which says only “copy me”, which is essentially what a virus is.
The problem here is that viruses lack the ability to replicate unless they inhabit a host cell – a fully functioning cell with its own genetic replication mechanisms. So the first virus must have come after the first cell, not before in a satisfyingly Darwinian processes.
But despite minor unresolved problems of this kind Darwinists still have one remaining card to play in support of their theory. It is the strongest card in their hand and the most powerful and decisive evidence in favor of Darwinian evolutionary processes.
[….]
pp. 223-227
[223>] Earlier on I referred to computers and their programs as a fruitful source of comparison with genetic processes since both are concerned with the storage and reliable transmission of large quantities of information. Arguing from analogy is a dangerous practice, but there is one phenome-non connected with computer systems that could be of some importance in understanding biological information processing strategies.
The phenomenon has to do with the computer’s ability to refer to a master list or template and to highlight any exceptions to this master list that it encounters during processing. This “exception reporting” is profoundly important in information processing. For instance, this book was prepared using a word-processing program that has a spelling checker. When invoked, the spell checker reads the typescript of the book and compares each word with its built-in dictionary, highlighting as potential mistakes those it does not recognize. Of course, it will encounter words that are spelled correctly but are not found in a normal dictionary – such as “deoxyribonucleic acid”. But the program is clever enough to allow me to add the novel word to the dictionary, so that the next time it is encountered it will be accepted as correct instead of reported as an exception – as long as I spell it correctly.
In other words, the spelling checker isn’t really a spelling checker. It has no conception of correct spelling. It is merely a mechanism [224>] for reporting exceptions. Using these methods, programmers can get computers to behave in an apparently intelligent or purposeful way when they are really only obeying simple mechanical rules. Not unnaturally, this gives Darwinists much encouragement to believe that life processes may at root be just as simple and mechanical.
In cell biology there are natural chemical properties of complex molecules that lend them-selves to automatic checking and excepting of this kind. For example many molecules are stereospecific – they will attach only to certain other specific molecules and only in special positions. There are also much more complex forms of exception reporting, for instance as part of the brain’s (of if you prefer, the mind’s) cognitive processes: as when we see and recognize a single face in the crowd or hear our name mentioned at a noisy cocktail party.
In the case of the spelling checker, the behavior of the system can be made to look more and more intelligent through a process of learning if, every time it highlights a new word, I add that word to its internal dictionary. If I continue for a long enough time, then eventually, in principle, the system will have recorded every word in the English language and will highlight only words that are indeed misspelled. It will have achieved the near-miraculous levels of efficiency and repeatability that we are used to seeing in molecular biological processes. But something strange has also been happening at the same time – or, rather, two strange things.
The first is that as its vocabulary grows, the spelling checker becomes less efficient at drawing to my attention possible mistakes. This unexpected result comes about in the fallowing way. Remember, the computer knows nothing of spelling, it merely reports exceptions to me. To begin with, it has only, say, 50,000 standard words in its dictionary. This size of dictionary really only covers the common everyday words plus a modest number of proper nouns (for capital cities, common surnames and the like) and doesn’t leave much room for unusual words. It would, for instance include a word like ‘great’ but not the less-frequently used word “grate”.
The result is that if I accidentally type “grate” when I really mean “great”, the spell checker will draw it to my attention. If however, I enlarge the dictionary and add the word “grate”, the spell [225>]checker will ignore it in future, even though the chances are that it will occur only as a typing mis take – except in the rare case where I am writing about coal fires or cookery.
One can generalize this case by saying that when the dictionary has an optimum size of vo-cabulary, I get the best of both worlds: it points out misspellings of the most common words and reports anything unusual which in most cases probably will be an error. (Obviously to work at optimum efficiency the size of dictionary should be matched to the vocabulary of the writer). As the dictionary grows in volume it becomes more efficient in one way, highlighting only real spelling errors, but less efficient in another: it becomes more probable that my typing errors will spell a real word – one that will not be reported – but not the word I mean to use. Paradoxically, although the spelling checker is more efficient, the resulting book is full of contextual errors: ‘pubic’ instead of ‘public’, ‘grate’ instead of ‘great’ and so on.
It requires a human intelligence -a real spelling checker, not a mechanical exception reporter to make sure that the intended result is produced.
I said two strange things have been happening while I have been adding words to the spelling checker. The second is the odd occasion when the system has highlighted a real spelling mistake to me- say, “problem” instead of “problem” – and I have mistakenly told the computer to add the word to its dictionary. This, of course, has the very unfortunate result that in future it will cease to highlight a real spelling mistake and will pass it as correct. The error is no longer an exception it is now a dictionary word.
Under what circumstances am I most likely to issue such a wrong instruction? It is most likely to happen with words that I type most frequently and that I habitually mistype. Anyone who uses a keyboard every day knows that there are many such ‘favorite’ misspelled words that get typed over and over. Once again, only a real spelling checker, a human brain, can spot the error and correct it.
The reason that the computer’s spellchecker breaks down under these circumstances is that the simple mechanisms put in place do not work from first principles. They do not work in what electronics engineers call ‘real time’ (they are not in touch with the real world) and do not employ any real intelligent understanding [226>] of the tasks they are being called on to perform. So although the computer continues to work perfectly as it was designed to, it becomes more and more corrupted from the standpoint of its original function.
I believe that this analogy may well have some relevance to Darwinists’ belief that biological processes can at root be as simple as the spelling checker. It is easy to think of any number of simple cell replication mechanisms that rely on exception reporting of this kind. I believe that if biological processes were so simple, they too would become functionally corrupt unless there is some underlying or overall design process to which the simple mechanisms answer globally, and which is capable of taking action to correct mistakes. This is the mechanism that we see in action in the case of the “eyeless fly”, Drosophila; in Driesch’s experiment with the sea urchin and Balinsky’s with the eyes of amphibians; the ‘field’ that governs the metamorphosis of the butterfly or the reconstitution of the cells of sponges and vertebrates.
Darwinists believe that the only overall control process is natural selection, but the natural selection mechanism could not account for the cases referred to above. Natural selection works on populations, not individuals. It is capable only of tending to make creatures with massively fatal genetic defects die in infancy, or to make populations that are geographically dispersed eventually produce sterile hybrid offspring. It is such a poor feedback mechanism in the sense of exercising an overall regulating effect that it has failed even to eliminate major congenital diseases. Natural selection offers only death or glory: there is no genetic engineering nor holistic supervision of the organism’s integrity. Yet we are asked to believe that a mechanism of such crudity can creatively supervise a program of gene mutation that will restore sight to the eyeless fly.
This is plainly wishful thinking. The key question remains: what is the location of the supervisory agency that oversees somatic development? How does it work? What is it’s connection with the cell structure of the body?
FOOTNOTES
Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 1997), 167-176; 223-226.
(Editor’s Note. The author did not footnote what page he was quoting from, he only cited the work itself)
[1] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (London, England: Pearson Longman, 1986).
[2]Andrew Scott, Vital Principles: The Molecular Mechanisms of Life (Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers, 1988).
[3] Francis Crick, Of Molecules and Men (Seattle, WA: Univ of Washington Press, 1966).
[4]Ibid.
[5]William Shrive, Enymes, in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982).
Matthew 24:13 reads – “But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved” (NASB 1995)
Before and after this verse, MacArthur is rightly discussing the topic presented to the Jews. Their survival during the 7-year tribulation and the hunting of them by the anti-Christ. But in this verse he leaves the exegetical study of the Word of God and inserts a 16th century systematic reintroduced by John Calvin of Perseverance of the Saints. The “P” of the acronym, TULIP.
24:13 endures to the end … be saved. Cf. 10:22. The ones who persevere are the same ones who are saved—not the ones whose love grows cold (v. 12). This does not suggest that our perseverance secures our salvation. Scripture everywhere teaches precisely the opposite: God, as part of His saving work, secures our perseverance. True believers “are protected by the power of God through faith for … salvation” (1Pe 1:5). The guarantee of our perseverance is built into the New Covenant promise. God says: “I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me” (Jer 32:40). Those who do fall away from Christ give conclusive proof that they were never truly believers to begin with (1Jn 2:19). To say that God secures our perseverance is not to say that we are passive in the process, however. He keeps us “through faith” (1Pe 1:5)—our faith. Scripture sometimes calls us to hold fast to our faith (Heb 10:23; Rev 3:11) or warns us against falling away (Heb 10:26–29). Such admonitions do not negate the many promises that true believers will persevere (Jn 10:28, 29; Ro 8:38, 39; 1Co 1:8, 9; Php 1:6). Rather, the warnings and pleas are among the means God uses to secure our perseverance in the faith. Notice that the warnings and the promises often appear side by side. For example, when Jude urges believers, “keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 21), he immediately points them to God, “who is able to keep you from stumbling” (Jude 24).
John F. MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006), Mt 24:13.
This is not exegesis – but eisegesis. In fact, that idea of the Perseverance of the Saints is foreign to the Bible but not even hinted at in this eschatological warning to the Jews. The church will be gone, so it is the Jewish nation and other new Christians during this time that are trying to “persevere” to the end.
Matthew 24 has ZERO to do with this much later dogma. Making it to the end is the end of the 7-years.
This is a must listen presentation:
Neo-Calvinism vs. The Bible 042. Mathew 24:13 Dr. Andy Woods. 9-14-2025
Before going on with “another” post on Calvinism, a reader on my site’s Facebook (FB) was asking why all the hub-bub regarding the topic of Calvinism as of late… although worded differently:
QUESTION:
RANDALL L. ASKED ME ON MY FB PAGE:
…so what happens to a soul when you are so tired of hearing all the arguments instead of just hearing the Gospel?….there are many who believe that the Calvinists are heretics…there are many who believe that the Arminians are heretics…there are many who believe that the Charismatics/Non-Charismatics are heretics…what if John 3:36 is actually true?…He who believes on the Son has eternal life…
I RESPOND:
I am posting a lot on the topic because it is “new” to me. I say “new” [in quotes] because I live in the Santa Clarita Valley. Which is under the shadow of MacArthur. And the churches I have enjoyed in our valley are more reformed Baptist. And a Bible study I was in for 10-years was led by a part time Masters College professor. He was [and is] a discipling mentor to me and many men.
When pressed on the issues – for instance, we studied through the 1689 Baptist Confession for a long study – I would always joke that when I read James White, I was a 4-point-5 [4.5] Calvinist, and when I read Norman Geisler, I was a 3-point-Calvinist [3.0]. But the truth is being an Apologetic animal and getting a master’s in theology from a Lutheran seminary, I never accepted the idea of theistic determinism. As I had read CS Lewis and Norman Geisler’s many works in the 90s. I was inoculated against it, so-to-speak.
Some events happened about 6-months ago that when I told my running joke, it was stale in my mouth. Left a bad taste. So, I said to myself, “you know, I have said that for decades. No more. I need to really know-know the entirety of why I reject the 5-points.” And so, I have a two year+ reading plan and am gobbling up tons of videos and series.
And so, just 6-months into the new passion, I can confidently say that if the 5-points [or even 4 points] are true, then there is no rebellion by man against God. Calvary and the Gospel are secondary to election, etc.
But I have a lot more reading ta do.
Thank you for the question/statement – and I understand the frustration. My website has posts galore on the topic as well.
I may add that I love the Christian faith and all it’s history and theological turns. Of which I am still coming to grips with, as it is a large subject. Speaking of LOVE, here is Pastor Rogers chapter on love — well worth your time:
And this happens to be my current pinned post on my sites FB as well as my personal page. I wrote it when I saw this question on Dr. Flowers live stream:
FB PINNED POST
Most church goers do not realize what Calvinism teaches. A pastor might say we have free will, but that is from the pulpit. Get them in an honest conversation, they revert right back to TULIP, which negates free will. Then another pastor may note we do not have free will, and then define it in a fuzzy way, and then two sentences later say we are elected to salvation. THIS MEANS that we cannot make a choice to positively affirm [respond to] the Word of God – at all… but to reject it.
So, TULIP says that if you have three choices:
reject the Gospel message.
be ambivalent to the message of God’s Word.
see the truth in the grace enabled message of God’s Word.
TULIP only – only – allows for A. and B. The Holy Spirit inspired Word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword [cutting between soul and body], the facts of God’s work at Calvary, the preaching of God’s message via pastor’s or the broader body of Christ… NONE OF THAT IS EFFECTIVE.
Piper, MacArthur, many pastors I know, in the end say that one has to be unconditionally chosen before the time-space-continuum and drawn irresistibly to salvation – because they would never be able to even see the truth in the Gospel and have faith by what they see.
Which means those who are not drawn with the “U” and the “I” of TULIP, and chosen likewise to go to hell and be tormented eternally not because they rejected God’s message. But because our nature was designed this way through first and secondary causes, not by a “mother nature,” but by God’s decree.
The “T” ensures no one can respond to God’s many grace enablements.
They must be chosen by nothing in themselves. No ability to respond at all to the Holy Spirit drenched Word of God.
This makes Calvary and the Gospel secondary [ineffective] according to Baptist Reformed thinkers [Calvinists].
It is, really, for lack of a better idea: an anti-Christ theology.
Not only that, but, what is there for God to harden, provoke, or restrain if not the autonomous will of creatures?
If God knows the future because He planned the future [Sproul, Piper, MacArthur, etc.], when God hardens, provokes, or restrains…. is He working against Himself? Since He decreed it all to happen?
If the “T” of TULIP [total depravity] is a reality, wouldn’t hardening, provoking, or restraining someone be the same thing as digging up bodies in a cemetery and putting blindfold on the rotting cadaver?
In other words, does He plan the abuse of a child just to redeem that act in some way to bring glory to Himself? Is Satan superfluous?
Are all the prescriptions in the Bible making God out to be duplicitous – since he has planned our actions thru determinative means?
Or…
Is it more like Tozer notes — which lowers man’s position by making him/her responsible to God’s law; and keeps God’s holiness and glory intact as He truly redeems or judges such actions (is He judging Himself in Calvinism?)
God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, ‘What doest thou?’ Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.
Here I wanted to share a large clip from a slightly longer post… and may I set it up with a Piper endorsed book that [I think still] Desiring God [Piper’s site] still has it up on their website:
Ephesians 1:11 goes even further by declaring that God in Christ
“works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Here the Greek word for “works” is energeø, which indicates that God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends but that he actually brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory (see Ex. 9:13-16; John 9:3) and his people’s good (see Heb. 12:3-11; James 1:2-4). This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child: “The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Prov. 16:4, NASB ).14 “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other” (Eccl. 7:14, NIV).
John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 42.
This is probably the most employed logical fallacy of the Calvinistic believer when engaging in a debate over the claims of their TULIP systematic. Here is how the conversation typically goes:
Calvin: God brings about every meticulous detail for His own glory, including man’s sinful inclinations and choices.[1]
Hobbs: That claim undermines the character, holiness and goodness of God who abhors moral evil (Prov. 6:16-19; Jer. 7:31), is holy or separate from all evil (Is. 6:3; Ex. 15:11) and who does not even tempt men to sin (Jm. 1:13). He is the redeemer of sinful choices, not the one who brings them about!
Calvin: YOU TOO have the same problem because you believe God knows every evil thing that is going to happen but did not prevent it.
Notice that the Traditionalist (Hobbs) is critiquing an ACTUAL CLAIM of the Calvinistic systematic. The Calvinist does not answer that critique, but instead they commit the “you too” fallacy by appealing NOT to an ACTUAL CLAIM of the Traditionalistic scholars, but to their own philosophical conclusion about the infinite attribute of divine omniscience – a philosophical conclusion that Traditionalists deny.
So, the Traditionalist is critiquing an actual claim of Calvinism while the Calvinist is appealing to something all Traditionalists deny (i.e. if God knows something and does not prevent it then it is the same as Him determining it).
Let’s take a look at this same fallacy in a “real world” discussion and see how it plays itself out:
Calvin: I hired a mean kid at my son’s school to bully him so as to toughen him up so he can represent my name in a strong powerful way.
Hobbs: You did what?!? How can a good and loving father do that to his own child?! If your son finds out what you did he will never trust you again.
Calvin: YOU TOO did the same thing last year when your son told you about that bully and you sent him to school anyway. You didn’t have to send your son to school knowing there was a bully there. You could have prevented him from being bullied, but you didn’t, so YOU TOO are as bad as I am!
Hobbs: WHAT!? I did not hire some mean kid to mercilessly torture my son. I hated that he went through that. I wept with him. I worked with him every night on what to say and do in order to confront his bully. I helped redeem that horrible situation to make him stronger. I did not cause it, or bring it about, or make it happen for my own namesake. If someone went to my house and convinced my son that I had actually hired that bully last year then he would never trust me again. It would undermine my character and trustworthiness and completely ruin our relationship. I am the helper and redeemer of my son’s bad situation, not the cause of it! How dare you even compare what I did to what you did!
The idea that God’s choice to permit free creatures to make free choices and suffer the full weight and consequences of those choices is somehow equal to the divine meticulous determinism being promoted by pastors like John Piper is blantantly absurd. ……
“I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.” — Faye Wattleton, former president of U.S. Planned Parenthood
(I am posting most of the headers to each section, but #2 I post in full to compare to the 20/20 investigation many years ago (part of the original post): via THE FEDERALIST
New emails uncovered by Judicial Watch’s FOIA request detail how FDA employees were working with buyers to get ‘fresh’ aborted baby organs for experiments.
In what should have been a national headline, the exposure of the U.S. government’s involvement in trafficking aborted baby bodies is now even more newsworthy following Friday’s announcement from the White House. At President Biden’s direction, the Department of Health and Human Services reversed the Trump administration’s policy protecting preborn Americans from the callous dehumanization of organ harvesting and further desecration of their bodies in research disguised as “science.”
This sickening decision now gives license to our “best and brightest” government researchers and agencies, those in charge of steering the country towards medical breakthroughs and scientific progress, to use the skin, brains, and eyeballs of children in research that affects all of us and is funded by our money. For this very reason, we must know the full extent of how federal agencies traffic aborted baby body parts.
These top 10 shocking examples come from the latest emails uncovered by Judicial Watch’s FOIA request and recent investigations.
1. The FDA Paid $2,000 Per Baby
2. FDA Bought Organs of Dismembered Babies
The FDA bought organs like livers, brains, and eyeballs of dismembered babies for hundreds of dollars apiece, courtesy of ABR’s collusion with local Planned Parenthoods.
ABR fee schedules and pricing charts obtained during a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Investigation allow us to piece together how much a baby costs by body part, as if each child was a slaughtered animal sold in sections.
3. ABR Sold the Skin of a 21-Week-Old Down Syndrome Baby
4. The FDA Wanted ‘Fresh’ Babies
5. The FDA Asked for Organs from Late-Term Babies
6. The FDA Bought Skulls of Second-Trimester Babies
7. Busy Abortion Clinics Produced ‘Awful Specimens’
8. FDA Requested Boy Organs to Create Humanized Mice
9. FDA, ABR Employees Called Aborted Babies ‘Amazing’
10. Taxpayers Paid for FDA Trips to ‘Humanized Mice Workshops’ in Europe
All I can say is Big Government is an evil sombitch!
America’s utterly useless, hopelessly corrupt mainstream media has once again been scooped by New Media, this time on a major story involving a major left-wing institution. According to undercover video released Tuesday, for anywhere from $30 to $100 a pop, Planned Parenthood is happy to adjust the way in which it murders unborn children.
You want a heart? A liver? A lower extremity? Not a problem. While butchering this child — hopefully during a late-term abortion in order to bump up the price — Planned Parenthood will be super-duper-extra-careful to murder the baby in a very specific way that keeps those organs intact.
Why isn’t our media regularly investigating and calling for full transparency from a taxpayer-funded institution like Planned Parenthood?
Why doesn’t our media treat Planned Parenthood with even a tenth the scrutiny it does the NFL or Koch Industries?
The answer is simple: When the media targets certain institutions, there is big political and cultural upside for the Left. On the flip-side, if the media were to investigate others institutions, there is potential downside for the Left. Therefore, this is the media’s driving criteria when it comes to editorial decisions….
…Mysteriously, these “clumps of cells” are suddenly considered identifiable bodies with limbs and organs.
And with the calvarium, in general, some people will actually try to change the presentation so that it’s not vertex. So if you do it starting from the breech presentation, there’s dilation that happens as the case goes on, and often, the last step, you can evacuate an intact calvarium at the end.
In case you’re wondering, the calvarium is piece of the skull. According to Nucatola, as the abortionist is executing the child, he will sometimes “evacuate” it a certain way so the baby’s head can later be sold for money…
No one who is pro-abortion should have any problem with this. After all, so long as a woman is not inconvenienced by a pregnancy, nothing else matters. Besides, those organs probably come from “communities we don’t want too many of,” as Democrat heroine Margaret Sanger or Ruth Bader Ginsburg would put it.
ORIGINAL POST
(2007)
The following comes from my old blog dated June, 2007. It is an import perfect for the above new information.
Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Singer was the founding President of the International Association of Bioethics and, with Helga Kuhse, founding co-editor of the journal Bioethics. In his book “Practical Ethics,” he writes:
If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to the nonhuman animal.
If we can put aside these emotionally moving but strictly irrelevant aspects of the killing of a baby we can see that the grounds for not killing persons do not apply to newborn infants.
Remember that Peter Singer teaches ethics to generations of medical students. An ABC 20/20 SPECIAL turned up some horribly unsettling info about an industry that has come into being with the slow march towards the devaluation of human life:
A three-month “20/20” hidden-camera investigation has uncovered an industry in which tissue and organs from aborted fetuses, donated to help medical research, are being marketed for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars.
“20/20” has investigated one businessman whose company issued a price list charging what many call exorbitant prices for fetal tissue. In addition, ABC News “20/20” chief correspondent Chris Wallace has an exclusive interview with a whistle-blower who says two tissue retrieval companies he worked for went so far as to, on some occasions, encourage him to take fetal tissue obtained from women who had not consented to donate their fetuses to medical research. The report will air on “20/20 Wednesday,” March 8 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network.
Many say that fetal tissue is vital in scientific research that may provide dramatic medical breakthroughs, and federal law permits the donation of tissue from aborted fetuses for that purpose. But the law says companies that transport fetal tissue to medical research labs may only charge a reasonable fee to recover costs of collecting and shipping human tissue. “20/20’s” investigation found some companies are charging high fees — fees that critics say are not based on recovering costs; for example, the price list for one company, Opening Lines, includes listings of $325 for a spinal cord, $550 for a reproductive organ, $999 for a brain.
How are these prices determined? One “20/20” producer went undercover as a potential investor to meet Dr. Miles Jones, a Missouri pathologist whose company, Opening Lines, obtains fetal tissue from clinics and ships it to research labs. “It’s market force,” Dr. Jones told the producer about how he sets his prices. “It’s what you can sell it for.” He says he hopes to run his own abortion clinic in Mexico where he says he could get a greater supply of fetal tissue by offering cheaper abortions: “If you control the flow — it’s probably the equivalent of the invention of the assembly line.”
“That’s trading in body parts. There’s no doubt about it,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics.
Representative Thomas Bliley (R-VA), who chairs the United States House Commerce Committee, says his committee is now investigating four companies after finding evidence they may be selling tissue for a profit. He says the committee is interested in ensuring that people transporting fetal tissue only recover their legitimate costs. “It appears that it’s more than that. That it comes down to trafficking in tissue parts,” he tells Mr. Wallace. Rep. Bliley’s committee expects to hold hearings on this issue later this week. [Note: The House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health and the Environment has scheduled a hearing on Thursday, March 9, at 2 p.m., on the subject, “Fetal Tissue: Is It Being Bought and Sold in Violation of Federal Law?”]
Another piece to this puzzle was added with an article by MONA CHARIN, a nationally syndicated columnist when she wrote this in reference to another think tank article:
Body Parts For Sale
“Kelly” (a pseudonym) was a medical technician working for a firm that trafficked in baby body parts. This is not a bad joke. Nor is it the hysterical propaganda of an interest group. It was reported in the American Enterprise magazine–the intelligent, thought-provoking, and utterly trustworthy publication of the American Enterprise Institute.
The firm Kelly worked for collected fetuses from clinics that performed late-term abortions. She would dissect the aborted fetuses in order to obtain ‘high-quality” parts for sale. They were interested in blood, eyes, livers, brains, and the thymuses, among other things.
“What we did was to have a contract with an abortion clinic that would allow us to go there on certain days. We would get a generated list each day to tell us what tissue researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and universities were looking for. Then we would examine the patient charts. We only wanted the most perfect specimens.’ That didn’t turn out to be difficult. Of the hundreds of late-term fetuses Kelly saw on a weekly basis, only about 2 percent had abnormalities. About 30 to 40 babies per week were around 30 weeks old–well past the point of viability.
Is this legal? Federal law makes it illegal to buy and sell human body parts. But there are loopholes in the law. Here’s how one body parts company–Opening Lines Inc.–disguised the trade in a brochure for abortionists: “Turn your patient’s decision into something wonderful.”
For its buyers, Opening Lines offers “the highest quality, most affordable, freshest tissue prepared to your specifications and delivered in the quantities you need, when you need it.” Eyes and ears go for $75, and brains for $999. An “intact trunk” fetches $500, a whole liver $150. To evade the law’s prohibition, body-parts dealers like Opening Lines offer to lease space in the abortion clinic to “perform the harvesting,” as well as to “offset the clinic’s overhead.” Opening Lines further boasted, “Our daily average case volume exceeds 1,500 and we serve clinics across the United States.”
Kelly kept at her grisly task until something made her reconsider. One day, “a set of twins at 24 weeks gestation was brought to us in a pan. They were both alive. The doctor came back and said, ‘Got you some good specimens–twins.’ I looked at him and said: ‘There’s something wrong here. They are moving. I can’t do this. This is not in my contract.’ I told him I would not be part of taking their lives. So he took a bottle of sterile water and poured it in the pan until the fluid came up over their mouths and noses, letting them drown. I left the room because I could not watch this.”
But she did go back and dissect them later. The twins were only the beginning. “It happened again and again. At 16 weeks, all the way up to sometimes even 30 weeks, we had live births come back to us. Then the doctor would either break the neck or take a pair of tongs and beat the fetus until it was dead.”
American Enterprise asked Kelly if abortion procedures were ever altered to provide specific body parts. “Yes. Before the procedures they would want to see the list of what we wanted to procure. The (abortionist) would get us the most complete intact specimens that he could. They would be delivered to us completely intact. Sometimes the fetus appeared to be dead, but when we opened up the chest cavity, the heart was still beating.”
The magazine pressed Kelly again. Was the type of abortion ever altered to provide an intact specimen, even if it meant producing a live baby? “Yes, that was so we could sell better tissue. At the end of the year, they would give the clinic back more money because we got good specimens.”
Some practical souls will probably swallow hard and insist that, well, if these babies are going to be aborted anyway, isn’t it better that medical research should benefit? No. This isn’t like voluntary organ donation. This reduces human beings to the level of commodities. And it creates of doctors who swore an oath never to kill, the kind of people who can beat a breathing child to death with tongs.
Here is an actual price list from one of the now many companies that participate in the trafficking of human parts (more at Fathers for Life):
Opening Lines A Division of Consultants & Diagnostic Pathology, Inc. P.O. Box 508, West Frankfort, IL 62896 Fee for Services Schedule
> greater than
< same or less than
Unprocessed Specimen (> 8 weeks) $ 70
Unprocessed Specimen (< 8 weeks) $ 50
Livers (< 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $150
Livers (> 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $125
Spleens (< 8 weeks) $ 75
Spleens (> 8 weeks) $ 50
Pancreas (< 8 weeks) $100
Pancreas (> 8 weeks) $ 75
Thymus (< 8 weeks) $100
Thymus (> 8 weeks) $ 75
Intestines & Mesentery $ 50
Mesentery (< 8 weeks) $125
Mesentery (> 8 weeks) $100
Kidney-with/without adrenal (< 8 weeks) $125
Kidney-with/without adrenal (> 8 weeks) $100
Limbs (at least 2) $150
Brain (< 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $999
Brain (> 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $150
Pituitary Gland (> 8 weeks) $300
Bone Marrow (< 8 weeks) $350
Bone Marrow (> 8 weeks) $250
Ears (< 8 weeks) $ 75
Ears (> 8 weeks) $ 50
Eyes (< 8 weeks) 40% discount for single eye $ 75
Eyes (> 8 weeks) 40% discount for single eye $ 50
Skin (> 12 weeks) $100
Lungs & Heart Block $150
Intact Embryonic Cadaver (< 8 weeks) $400
Intact Embryonic Cadaver (> 8 weeks) $600
Intact Calvarium $125
Intact Trunk (with/without limbs) $500
Gonads $550
Cord Blood (Snap Frozen LN2) $125
Spinal Column $150
Spinal Cord $325
Here is the last article dealing with this topic, and is a recent discovery the devaluing of human worth under a more socialized medicine in Europe:
The true scale of the scandal of human organ retention by hospitals will be revealed today by the government’s chief medical officer, who will tell parents and professionals that 50,000 organs are being stored in hospitals in England alone. The number far exceeds expectations.
Liam Donaldson will say that what was done in the name of the NHS over many years was an affront to families who had lost their loved ones. Addressing a public seminar, whose audience will include top pathologists and other senior doctors:
“Some of the past practices around organ retention belong to an era where decisions were made by the NHS for patients, but not with patients. This has caused a period of immense distress for families, especially in places like Bristol and Liverpool, when they found out their children’s organs were taken without their knowledge. Something went seriously wrong in the way the health service dealt with the issue of organ retention.”
Prof Donaldson will pledge that the government “will do whatever it takes to put things right, changing the law if necessary to ensure that relatives are given the right kind of information so they can give consent in a fully informed way if they choose to do so.”
At Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, where an inquiry will report shortly, more than 3,000 children’s organs have been discovered; other hospitals were not thought to have anything like that number.
The chief medical officer will offer an unmitigated apology and assurances for the future to the parents of the Alder Hey children and those whose children died and had organs removed at the Bristol royal infirmary who have been invited to today’s seminar. None of the parents knew that hearts, brains and other whole organs would be removed and kept after the autopsy on their son or daughter.
Ian Kennedy, chairman of the inquiry into children’s deaths following heart surgery at Bristol, published an interim report into organ retention at the hospital last May. He found that the law was complex and obscure. Different laws covered hospital autopsies – which help doctors find out about the progress of disease – and those ordered by the coroner to find out the cause of death. Prof Kennedy recommended at least a new code of practice and preferably a new law.
Prof Donaldson has issued interim guidance to hospitals, requiring them to tell parents and relatives exactly what an autopsy involves and get their explicit permission if there is any need to remove organs. Today’s seminar is part of his information-gathering process on the way to producing his final report to the health secretary, Alan Milburn. That is expected, along with the Alder Hey inquiry report, before the end of the month.
Ed Bradley, chairman of the Alder Hey parents’ support group, said more than 140 parents and relatives had travelled to London for the seminar and were glad of the opportunity to give evidence, “however, we do question how much benefit can be gained from a one-day conference where we have only been given five minutes to represent our views.” They also felt it would be more appropriate to discuss the way forward after the Alder Hey inquiry had reported.
Alder Hey hospital is generally considered a special case, because whole organ systems were found to have been collected by a consultant pathologist, Dick Van Velzen, who is facing disciplinary hearings at the General Medical Council.
Bristol parents at the seminar will be asking for Prof Kennedy’s recommendations to be implemented and questioning why there has been no action since his report was published. “It was quite clear the law was in a mess,” said Steve Parker, chairman of the Bristol Heart Children’s Action Group.
