What Does God Say Is Cured By the New Covenant? The Blame Game
People have their favorite verses in the Bible, beloved ones they commit to memory. They know them well. Every verse, every word of the Bible is important, but there are key passages in it. If you think of Jeremiah, certain texts stand out. One of those is Jeremiah 31:31-34, the classic location for the new covenant.
I read Jeremiah again recently in my Bible reading. Something else stood out. If you google, “new covenant,” the first paragraph of the first link, which is the Wikipedia article, reads:
The New Covenant (Hebrew ברית חדשה berit hadashah; Greek διαθήκη καινή diatheke kaine) is a biblical interpretation originally derived from a phrase in the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34), in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament in Christian Bible).
31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
28 And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD. 29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. 30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
Can Anyone Be Effeminate? Consider the Chinese
As I begin to write this post, it feels like something canceled on twitter, youtube, and facebook. No one must think this or this way. It must not be said or written. Perhaps a future reeducation camp in store for someone who crosses this boundary.
I was speaking this week to someone from China and the subject of effeminate Chinese men came up. This story made the news at the beginning of September 2021. You can find articles at major news outlets, such as ABC News and the Washington Post, reporting that as Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), starts a third term, the government cracks down on every sector of society with a “rectification” campaign. As part of pressure to align with the government’s vision of a powerful China and a healthier society, the CCP has banned effeminate men on television.
Apparently the trend or growth of effeminate men in Chinese society spread across the border of China through South Korea. South Korean and Japanese singers influenced Chinese pop stars toward unacceptable “niang po,” a Chinese insulting slang for effeminate men, which means “girlie guns.” The National Radio and TV Administration said that broadcasters must “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics.”
In a positive way, China’s government has ordered its broadcasters to encourage masculinity, a practice just the opposite of that of the United States. Its government says it wants to put a stop to abnormal beauty standards. The Washington Post article quotes Rana Mitter, an Oxford professor of modern Chinese and politics as saying:
The party does not feel comfortable with expressions of individualism that are in some ways transgressive to norms that it puts forward.
China does not see a future without two clearly delineated roles between men and women. Where does China get that idea? China wants effeminate women and masculine men.
Is there hope for any country that forsakes the God-ordained or natural roles of men and women? 1 Corinthians 11:14 and Romans 1:26-27 read:
Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
China sees something abnormal or a transgression of natural norms and stops it. The United States encourages it and prohibits discouragement. Listening to a podcast a few weeks ago, Jordan Peterson in an interview seemed to bemoan or mourn the illegality in Canada of conversion therapy. Not long ago society required masculinity and the fulfillment of the male role in society. Now it’s bullying to do so.
Churches now cooperate with the perversion of men, ignoring effeminate behavior. Imagine someone in a church telling a boy to stop acting like a girl. Churches now exalt soft-spoken, effeminate sounding and acting men, calling their mannerisms the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Today’s tone police cancels masculine tone. Churches need their own rectification campaigns.
Will men do anything? Will the ostensibly godly men of churches do anything?
If the Lord tarries and you live, prepare for world takeover by the Chinese, the country with the last men standing.
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Other articles from What Is Truth on the subject.
Refreshing Honesty from “Desiring God” on Men Acting Effeminate
Noticeable Increase in Effeminate Sounding Men
Ability to Judge, Standard of Judgment, and Judging Effeminate Behavior (and Separating from It)
Beauty, Worldly Lust, Effeminate and Truth in the Real World
The Conflicting, Perplexing Calvinistic Doctrine of Free Will (Part Four)
A Hebrew word for “repent” in the Old Testament is nocham and it’s mainly used of God. It first appears in Genesis 6:6: “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” The Old Testament makes those kinds of statements several times. Compatible with that, consider the last two verses of the Old Testament (Malachi 4:5-6):
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: 6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Elijah comes, who is John the Baptist, and preaches to Israel. The LORD motivates Israel with His coming and smiting the earth with a curse. If they listen, God withholds the curse. If they don’t listen, the curse comes. The curse may or may not come. This is a warning. So what happens? A relatively few listen. The rest are cursed. This isn’t predetermination. This is how the sovereignty of God works. God does intervene with the warning and then later with the curse or punishment.
To read Malachi 4:5-6 any other way, complicating it with a wrong view of determinism, would pervert the plain meaning. The two ideas of Genesis 6 and Malachi 4 are complimentary: (1) God repents of what He was going to do because of what men have done, and (2) Men repent and God changes what He was going to do. Both of those concepts, which are in scripture in multiple places, speak of men, including unsaved ones, having a free will. They can make choices.
Men making choices doesn’t limit God. God makes up the rules, His laws, and He uses the responses of men to orchestrate His will according to providence. Man is not the determiner. He doesn’t make the rules or the laws. The Lord uses the wrong response by man and the right response by man both to still accomplish His purpose.
God does predetermine events. He knows everything. He has the power and wisdom to do whatever He wills. His will is perfect. Because all of this, God has free will to the greatest extent.
The Influence of Calvinism
Calvinists say, “Man doesn’t have free will, he has natural will, which is not free.” There are many ideas behind it, but nothing in scripture backs it up. The idea, that I read, is two main influences on the Protestant view of free will, Augustine and then later Luther’s writing, The Bondage of the Will. The Bible will get you a certain distance toward the point of Calvinism about free will, but it doesn’t get you all the way.
Calvinism, out of what seems like desperation, crafts a title, like R. C. Sproul uses, the “humanist view of free will.” He surmises this view is the majority view of believers, but when I read the view, I can’t imagine anyone believes it. Is this a scientific study based on poll research? He defines it this way:
[T]he choices we make are in no wise conditioned or determined by any prior prejudice, inclination, or disposition. Let me say that again: this view says that we make our choices spontaneously. Nothing previous to the choice determines the choice—no prejudice, prior disposition, or prior inclination—the choice comes literally on its own as a spontaneous action by the person.
Every choice comes because of prejudice, prior disposition or inclination. A high enough percentage thinks there is prior inclination or disposition, that I would say everyone believes that, just the opposite of what Sproul says.
The Bondage of the Will
Just because someone acts on the basis of his strongest inclination at the moment of that choice, terminology used by Jonathan Edwards in his work, Freedom of Will, does not contradict freedom of will. An unsaved man lacks in moral ability, but there are other means by which someone can choose Jesus Christ. He has the freedom to choose.
Romans 3:10-12 say man neither seeks after God nor understands God. Ephesians 2:1-5 say the lost are dead. I read though that the truth sets some free from being a slave to sin (John 8:32-36). All these though say to me that man can’t initiate the salvation. That’s also what I read in the Bible; we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
Can there be spiritual death and bondage to sin and free will? I’m writing, yes, but it’s also because it’s what I read in scripture. If man can’t do anything, because he’s in bondage, then he’s not responsible for anything. Yet, he is responsible. He’s responsible because God does reveal Himself to man. I read this in Romans 1 among other places.
When men asked Jesus in Luke 13:23, are there few that be saved? His answer put it on man and his obvious not striving to enter into the narrow gate. Everything fits this way. You read the parable of the soils in Matthew 13. Jesus starts teaching in parables so as not to harden their hearts. A less hard heart results in greater reception to the seed. The truth can harden a heart. Jesus talks about four types of hearts and all of these are about reception of the truth.
The Word of God, God’s Revelation
The Word of God, God’s revelation, is the supernatural cure for spiritual death and bondage to sin. Hebrews 4:12 says the Word of God is powerful. It is the sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17).
Revelation that defeats bondage and spiritual death starts with general revelation, which is general in its audience. This is the grace of God that appears to all men (Titus 2:11). Jesus said the truth is what sets someone free (Jn 8:32). Determination isn’t what sets people free. Regeneration isn’t what is said to set people free. Jesus freed dead Lazarus from the grave with His Words (Jn 11:43). God said, let there be light and there was light (Gen 1:3). Paul wrote, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17).
Faith is not a work. It is a gift. Philippians 1:29, “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.” It is given to believe on Christ. 2 Peter 1:1, “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.” These saints obtained like precious faith.
God gives faith. God gives it by means of His revelation. He gives it by means of the Word of God. Without revelation and without the Word of God, someone cannot believe. God initiates salvation. Salvation is of the Lord.
Tension
I don’t mind the claim of “a tension.” I think there’s a tension. The tension comes with two possible questions. For the Calvinist the question concerns why someone or who is predetermined to Heaven or predetermined to Hell. For a non Calvinist at least like myself the question concerns why someone responds to God’s revelation and some don’t. I have many verses behind the tension that I believe. All of scripture fits that tension. The Calvinist says something like, God is sovereign over everything and He doesn’t have to answer, like the Potter doesn’t have to answer to clay.
I can agree with the Calvinist about tension. God can do whatever He wants, and it’s always righteous. He’s always righteous. We are clay and He is the Potter. However, the Potter gives answers all over His Word.
Let’s say you’re the parent and your child asks why? You answer, I’m your Dad, that’s why. That’s true, but that’s not the kind of answer that we get again and again and again in scripture.
I would say that man’s will is in bondage. Maybe I and the Calvinist agree. Perhaps it’s just how the bondage is removed. Scripture says that God’s revelation is the delivering agent. Since the Calvinist believes in determinism, it seems to me that he makes up this regeneration by the Holy Spirit that precedes faith. I’ll leave it at that.
Faith pleases God and faith comes by hearing the Word of God. God isn’t glorified by adding something to scripture even if it’s for the purpose of glorifying God. I’ve noticed with Calvinists today, that for apparently completely depending on God’s sovereignty, they use Finney-esque new measures to accomplish church growth. I can listen to most Calvinists and hear them tie church growth success to human methodology. This is where I tell them I’m more Calvinistic than the Calvinists. I’m not trolling them. I think it’s true.
In another ironic turn, I say, the truth shall set you free. The Calvinistic view of free will is not biblical. It is not the truth. I have often heard and read Calvinists say that they just got their Calvinism from scripture. I can’t imagine anyone reading the Bible and getting a deterministic position. Unlike the Bible, it is conflicting and perplexing. From the very beginning of scripture to the end, the Bible tells a story in which men make choices based on free will.
The Conflicting, Perplexing Calvinistic Doctrine of Free Will (Part Three)
Part of the confidence and tone of certainty about predetermination and free will seems to come from ambiguity that conflicts and perplexes. A Calvinist will talk to you with a look of absolute conviction. It’s as if he’s bluffing. He knows something you don’t know and you can’t see. You’re looking, you want to know like he does, but you just don’t see it.
Some people talk about a kind of faith not anchored in scripture, which is mere fideism. I’ve had that charge made against me on the doctrine of preservation. Calvinism takes fideistic leaps in the dark.
A fairly recent article by Tom Hicks in the Foundation Journal (Fall 2016, Issue 106) he explicates Robert Shaw in his 1845 The Reformed Faith: An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith (p. 81) in writing:
The doctrine that God eternally and unconditionally decreed all future things necessarily follows from the fact that God is independent, all knowing, and unchangeable, which is what chapter 2 of the confession (WCF) teaches. Since God is independent, it follows that His decree cannot depend upon anything in the future or anything outside of Himself. Since God knows all things, it follows that God must have first decreed all things. And since God is unchangeable, it follows that God must have an unchangeable decree at the foundation of all that He does.
They say that God decrees all future things. So what do you want to know? Does God decree sin? Does man choose to sin? These are good questions, the answers of which seem contradictory. It is at the very root of Calvinism. You take away these foundational doctrines and you’ve got a different system. What matters, wouldn’t we ask, is what does the Bible say? The right position takes into consideration all of scripture according to the plain meaning of the text.
Listening to the late Calvinist R. C. Sproul explain the Arminian view of free will, he said Arminians came to their position to save or rescue God from a reputation of unloving and harsh, an uncaring manipulator. He didn’t provide any basis for this contention. It is a typical kind of argument that I hear in discussions.
What if Calvinism was a pendulum swing from Roman Catholicism, the latter teaching man can work his way? Could Calvinism have swung too far toward an unscriptural view of free will to ensure a position of salvation by grace with all for the glory of God?
In another clip by Sproul, he compares someone who believes in free will to an atheist. He explains that this is because if God is not sovereign, then God is not God. There is an informal logical fallacy here, called equivocation, because it’s a matter of a definition of the term, sovereignty. Is sovereignty the understanding of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), chapter three, paragraph one?
God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Ephesians 1:11 and Free Will
The London Baptist Confession says almost identical words. The authors said “God . . . ordain(s) whatsoever comes to pass.” This echoes an interpretation of Ephesians 1:11 to which I’ve referred already in this series:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
“Ordain whatsoever comes to pass” seems to match “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” Do those mean the same thing? I don’t think so. “Worketh” in Ephesians 1:11 is energeo. BDAG takes into consideration all its usage and says it means: “to bring something about through use of capability.” Does that compare to “ordain”? The Universal World Dictionary in 1706 says ordain means “to command or enjoin, to appoint or design.”
When I look at the meaning of words, I’m considering the history of the doctrine. What were they saying, when they said “ordain” in the WCF and LBC? I’m looking at old dictionaries around the same time to have a better sense of what they meant. However, a modern dictionary says that “ordain” in the religious sense means “to destine or predestine, to order or command” in the context that its being used.
Working all things according to the counsel of his will in Ephesians 1:11 is very similar to working all things together for good in Romans 8:28. God is not working all things period. He is working in a way or manner that all things fulfill God’s purpose, which is the understanding of “counsel.” Working in that sense is not the same as ordaining all things. What I’m describing fits much better with the rest of scripture also.
A. A. Hodge was the principal of Princeton Seminary from 1878 to 1886 and wrote A Commentary on the Westminster Confession. He amazes the convoluted ends he goes to reason that God controls or determines every single event that occurs in the entire universe at every moment. He writes:
The plan of God comprehends and determines all things and events of every kind that come to pass. (1) This is rendered certain from the fact that all God’s works of creation and providence constitute one system. No event is isolated, either in the physical or moral world, either in heaven or on earth. All of God’s supernatural revelations and every advance of human science conspire to make this truth conspicuously luminous. Hence the original intention which determines one event must also determine every other event related to it, as cause, condition, or consequent, direct and indirect, immediate and remote. Hence, the plan which determines general ends must also determine even the minutest element comprehended in the system of which those ends are parts. The free actions of free agents constitute an eminently important and effective element in the system of things. If the plan of God did not determine events of this class, he could make nothing certain, and his government of the world would be made contingent and dependent, and all his purposes fallible and mutable.
With the extent that Hodge goes with his explanation of God determining “all things and events of every kind that come to pass” and the comprehensiveness of it, he still writes:
It must be remembered, however, that the purpose of God with respect to the sinful acts of men and wicked angels is in no degree to cause the evil, nor to approve it, but only to permit the wicked agent to perform it, and then to overrule it for his own most wise and holy ends.
Herein lies a contradiction. God does not contradict Himself. Either they are both true or they are both false. I understand that God does not ordain anyone to sin. I fully comprehend Hodge’s unwillingness to say that God determines evil. The WCF and LBC say the same. However, the comprehensive determinism of the first general statement clashes with the following statements.
James 1:13 and Free Will
James (1:13) writes:
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.
Why would someone say God tempted him to sin? From where would that thought or conception arise? If the sovereignty of God is deterministic, then someone could blame God for his sin. God determines things, yes, but not all things. That should be in the general statement.
James 1:13 sounds like, man has choices. Man cannot blame God for sin because man chooses to sin. God determines His will, His purpose, but not everything, but it’s also His will that man has a choice, a free will.
Thomas Boston (1676-1732) wrote a commentary on the Shorter Catechism, which is a shorter catechism of the Westminster Confession. He writes:
I am to explain the nature of a decree. The text calls it a purpose, a will. For God to decree is to purpose and fore-ordain, to will and appoint that a thing shall be or not be. And such decrees must needs be granted, seeing God is absolutely perfect, and therefore nothing can come to pass without his will; seeing there is an absolute and necessary dependence of all things and persons on God as the first cause. . . . He worketh all things, says the text. God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass; and nothing comes to pass but what he has decreed to come to pass.
Later in the same commentary, however, Boston writes:
God decreed the permission of sin for great and glorious ends. It is true, sin in its own nature has no tendency to any good end. If it end in any good, it is from the overruling providence of God, and that infinite divine skill that can bring good out of evil, as well as light out of darkness. . . . God decrees the permission of sin, as above explained, yet is not the author of sin.
The decree of God seems to allow for permission even in its definition. If God permits anything and does not determine everything, what is the basis for that exception in the decree? Again Calvinism conflicts and perplexes. Nothing comes to pass but what God has decreed to come to pass, but regarding sin, God merely permits it, not determines it.
Back to Genesis 50:20 and Free Will
Conflict and perplexity revolves around the compatibility of comprehensive or total determinism and permission only to do evil. If God decrees or ordains all things, which means predetermine all of them, why did God not also ordain the thoughts or intentions of Joseph’s brothers in Genesis 50:20?
But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Either God used their evil thoughts against Joseph or He ordained them. If He didn’t ordain them, only permitted them, and then used them, God doesn’t determine all things. If God doesn’t determine all things, then why believe that He determines or ordains who goes to Hell or who goes to Heaven?
God is sovereign. He determines what He wills. In His sovereignty, however, scripture reads that God willed or wanted free will for man. Genesis 50:20 offers a good example of this, since Joseph’s brothers chose their evil thinking or intentions, but there are many others.
(To Be Continued)
The Conflicting, Perplexing Calvinistic Doctrine of Free Will (Part Two)
Calvinists say that other systems limit God’s sovereignty or control. Apparently when those systems assign to man free will, they limit God’s sovereignty. Instead of God being in total charge, man is partly in charge. Calvinists would also say this means that in salvation, ostensibly man is getting involved to the degree that it’s not salvation by grace anymore, but salvation by works.
When I listen to Calvinists, trying to believe them, and they refer to all the passages they use to prove their point, saying them in very earnest, serious tones, getting hearty “Amens” from their adherents, I am not convinced. They are stretching and reading into the passages, sometimes changing the meaning of the words to get their conclusions.
For most of my adult life, I’ve said that “God is sovereign over His own sovereignty” (here and here). Sovereignty isn’t more or less than what God says it is. What we believe about sovereignty must come from all of scripture and not proof texts. The word sovereignty itself is part of the system, because it’s not a word in the Bible. Our understanding of sovereignty should arise from the Bible.
Because God is in control, possesses all power, He can accomplish what He wants in any way that He wants. Very often in scripture is the word, “will,” and for this doctrine, significantly, “the will of God.” God uses His power to accomplish His will. That doesn’t mean God determines everything. The Bible doesn’t read that way.
I’m not saying that God couldn’t determine everything. He has the power to do anything He wants to do. Everything can be in His control without His controlling everything. If God is not controlling everything, that doesn’t mean He isn’t in control. God is in total charge. Many verses teach this. However, it’s also easy to see that He exercises that sovereignty, that charge or control, by also allowing man free will.
Calvinists divide between natural will and free will, free will only possessed by believers, true Christians, or truly converted people. They say the unbeliever does not enjoy free will. There are verses they use to surmise this point, and I see how they get the point if those were the only verses that applied to their view, but there is much more.
I think that I believe on sovereignty as much as it can be believed. I am attempting to believe exactly what the Bible says, no matter what the cost. Salvation is of the Lord. I believe that faith is a gift. God alone keeps me saved. I can list other beliefs I have that relate to the sovereignty of God.
Many Calvinist debates or heated discussions, I ‘ve witnessed, see the Calvinist accusing the non-Calvinist of not believing his verses of scripture. He also alleges that his foe does not believe in grace. This person doesn’t believe in the sovereignty of God. He limits God. Somehow then too, God isn’t getting the glory.
One avenue, strategy, or technique — I don’t know which of those it is — is expressing the peace, the joy, and the strength one derives from a true understanding of the Calvinist’s view of sovereignty. During hard times, just think this particular view of God and it will make you feel good. I think this during those expressions: “It doesn’t make me feel better if it’s not true.” I get as much peace as I can get from the truth.
In the extreme, the Calvinist says this person does not have faith. He does not believe in the grace of God. He is not giving God the glory. In essence, he also rejects scripture.
A browbeaten person might, usually a professing Christian, because the Calvinist will not do this with an unbeliever, someone who does profess faith in Christ might finally relent. He recruits Christians to his position of Calvinism. When they finally become a Calvinist, they finally have the key that opens the scripture, as if it is inculcating a hermeneutic.
Passages Used to Deny Free Will
Crucial in a right interpretation and even application of scripture is going as far as the text and also not going further than the text. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1:11 says that God “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” To prove that God determines everything, a Calvinist points to the words, “all things.” Indeed, God determines or controls every single happening of all time. That’s what the verse is telling us. This is an example of a Calvinist going further than the text to conform to the system.
I think you could look at that verse and say that God has His will and He works all things to accomplish His purpose and will. That isn’t determining everything. He is in charge and in control, but that isn’t controlling everything. This important verse to Calvinists doesn’t say as much as they read into it.
To elaborate on what I see it saying in light of everything else the Bible says, I say that God’s will is His end or His purpose. He makes sure occurs what He wants to occur. He must have power over everything in every moment to accomplish that. God must have vast wisdom. He must be able to be every place at once. He must know the past, present, and future like it is a kind of eternal present.
God in His sovereignty and power gives free will to man. He allows men to make choices. He still works everything to the end that pleases Him, that He wants. God either allows or causes every single thing that happens, so He is involved with everything.
I am not going to deal with every single verse a Calvinist might use. He may say there are better ones than what I’m listing. Another one is Genesis 50:20:
But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Passages that Present a Problem with the Calvinistic Doctrine of Free Will
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
The Conflicting, Perplexing Calvinistic Doctrine of Free Will
As I started to write this post, I thought about whether I decided to write it or whether God predetermined my writing it. After the smoke exited and cleared my ears, I started writing again. Are my fingers typing on their own?
The Calvinistic Doctrine of Free Will
Does Calvinism Square With Scripture?
Yes and Then No, the Bible with Mark Ward (part two)
Earlier this week, I wrote part one concerning two separate videos posted by Mark Ward. The second one I saw first, and since my name was mentioned, I answered. He cherry-picks quotes without context. Ward made what he thought was a good argument against the Textus Receptus.
In part one, I said “yes” to his assessment of IFB preaching. I didn’t agree, as he concluded, that a correction to preaching was the biggest step for IFB. A distorted gospel, I believe, is of greater import, something unmentioned by Ward.
NO
Bob Jones Seminary (BJU) invited Ward to teach on problems with the Textus Receptus (received text, TR), the Greek text behind the New Testament (NT) of the King James Version (KJV) and all the other Reformation Era English versions. It was also the basis for all the other language versions of the Bible. There is only one Bible, and subsequent to the invention of the printing press, we know the TR was the Bible of true believers for four centuries. Unless the Bible can change, it’s still the Bible.
Ward accepted the invitation from BJU, despite his own commitment against arguing textual criticism with anyone who disagrees with him. For him to debate, his opposition must agree with his innovative, non-historical or exegetical application of 1 Corinthians 14:9. It’s the only presupposition that I have heard Ward claim from scripture on this issue.
Critical text supporters, a new and totally different approach to the Bible in all of history, oppose scriptural presuppositions. They require sola scientia to determine the Bible. Modern textual criticism, what is all of textual criticism even though men like Ward attempt to reconstruct what believing men did from 1500 to 1800, arose with modernism. Everything must subject itself to human reason, including the Bible.
In his lecture, Ward used F. H. A. Scrivener to argue against Scrivener’s New Testament, giving the former an alias Henry Ambrose, his two middle names, to argue against Scrivener himself. It is an obvious sort of mockery of those who use the NT, assuming they don’t know history. The idea behind it is that Scrivener didn’t even like his Greek NT.
What did Scrivener do? He collated the Greek text behind the KJV NT from TR editions, and then printed the text underlying the NT of the KJV. It was an academic exercise for him, not one out of love for the TR. Scrivener was on the committee to produce the Revised Version.
The Greek Words of the New Testament
Did the words of that New Testament exist before Scrivener’s NT? Yes. Very often (and you can google it with my name to find out) I’ll say, “Men translated from something.” For centuries, they did.
The words of Scrivener were available in print before Scrivener. Scrivener knew this too, as the differences between the various TR editions are listed in the Scrivener’s Annotated New Testament, a leather bound one of which I own. Ward says there are massive numbers of differences between the TR editions. That’s not true.
Like Ward’s pitting Scrivener on Scrivener and the KJV translators against the KJV translation, claiming massive variants between TR editions is but a rhetorical device to propagandize listeners. The device entertains supporters, but I can’t see it persuading anyone new. It’s insulting.
When you compare Sinaiticus with Vaticanus, there you see massive differences, enough that Dean Burgon wrote, “It is in fact easier to find two consecutive verses in which these two MSS differ the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree.” There are over 3,000 variations between the two main critical manuscripts in the gospels alone. That is a massive amount. Moslem Koran apologists enjoy these critical text materials to attack the authority of the Bible. It is their favorite apologetic device, what I heard from every Moslem I confront at a door in evangelism.
There are 190 differences between Beza 1598 and Scrivener’s. Scrivener’s is essentially Beza 1598. Many of those variations are spelling, accents, and breathing marks. As a preemptive shot, I know that all those fit into an application of jots and tittles. We know that, but we also know where the text of the King James Version came from and we know that text was available for centuries. God preserved that text of the NT. Believers received it and used it.
Men Translated from Something
When you read John Owen, what Greek text was he reading? He had one. Ward says there wasn’t a text until Scrivener. Wrong. What text did John Gill use? What text did Jonathan Edwards use? They relied on an original language text. What text did John Flavel and Stephen Charnock use? They all used a Greek text of the New Testament.
16th through 19th century Bible preachers and scholars refer to their Greek New Testament. Matthew Henry when writing commentary on the New Testament refers to a printed Greek New Testament. He also writes concerning those leaving out 1 John 5:7: “Some may be so faulty, as I have an old printed Greek Testament so full of errata, that one would think no critic would establish a various lection thereupon.”
The Greek words of the New Testament were available. Saints believed they had them and they were the TR. This reverse engineering, accusation of Ruckmanism, is disinformation by Ward and others.
The Assessment of Scrivener and the Which TR Question
Ward uses the assessment of Scrivener and the preface of the KJV translators as support for continued changes of the Greek text. This is disingenuous. The translators did not argue anywhere in the preface for an update of the underlying text. They said the translation, not the text, could be updated. That argument does not fit in a session on the Greek text, except to fool the ignorant.
Just because Scrivener collated the Greek words behind the KJV doesn’t mean that he becomes the authority on the doctrine of preservation any more than the translators of the KJV. It grasps at straws. I haven’t heard Scrivener used as a source of support for the Textus Receptus any time ever. I don’t quote him. If there is a critique, it should be on whether Scrivener’s text does represent the underlying text of the KJV, and if it does, it serves its purpose.
I have written on the “Which TR question” already many times, the most used argument by those in the debate for the critical text. It’s also a reason why we didn’t answer that question in our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them. If we addressed it, that would have been all anyone talked about. We say, deal with the passages on preservation first. We get our position from scripture.
I digress for one moment. Ward talks and acts as if no one has heard, which TR, and no one has ever answered it. Not only has that question been answered many times, but Ward himself has been answered. He said only Peter Van Kleeck had answered, which he did with a paper available online. Vincent Krivda did also.
The position I and others take isn’t that God would preserve His Words in Scrivener’s. The position is that all the Words are preserved and available to every generation of Christian. That’s why we support the Textus Receptus.
Ward never explains why men point to Scrivener’s. I have answered that question many times, but he doesn’t state the answer. He stated only the position of Peter Van Kleeck, because he had a clever comeback concerning sanctification. But even that misrepresented what Van Kleeck wrote.
The position I take, which fits also the position of John Owen, I call the canonicity argument. I have a whole chapter in TSKT on that argument. I’ve written about it many times here, going back almost two decades.
If pinned to the wall, and I must answer which TR edition, I say Scrivener’s, but it doesn’t even relate to my belief on the doctrine. What I believe is that all of God’s Words in the language in which they were written have been available to every generation of believer. I don’t argue that they were all available in one manuscript (hand-written copy) that made its way down through history. The Bible doesn’t promise that.
Scriptural Presuppositions or Not?
The critical text position, that Ward takes, cannot be defended from scripture. The position that I take arises from what scripture teaches. It’s the same position as believed by the authors of the Westminster Confession, London Baptist Confession, and every other confession. That is accepted and promoted by those in his associations.
Ward doesn’t even believe the historical doctrine of preservation. Textual variations sunk that for him, much like it did Bart Ehrman. Ward changed his presupposition not based upon scripture, but based upon what he thought he could see. It isn’t by faith that he understands this issue.
Some news out of Ward’s speech is that he doesn’t believe that God preserved every word of the Bible. He says he believes the “preponderance of the manuscripts” view. I call it “the buried text view.” Supporters speculate the exact text exists somewhere, a major reason why Daniel Wallace continues looking. That is not preservation.
“The manuscripts” are an ambiguous, sort of chimera to their supporters. They don’t think they have them yet, so how could there be the preponderance of anything yet? That view, the one supported by two books by BJU authors, From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man and God’s Word in Our Hands, they themselves do not believe. Ward walked it back during his speech too. They don’t really believe it. It’s a hypothetical to them. Men of the two above books don’t believe at least that they possess the Hebrew words of 1 Samuel 13:1 in any existing manuscript. At present, like a Ruckmanite, they correct the Hebrew text with a Greek translation.
In the comment section of the above first video, Ward counsels someone in the comment section to use a modern translation from the TR, such the NKJV. The NKJV, Ward knows, doesn’t come from the TR. There are variations from the TR used in the NKJV, a concession that Ward made in a post in his comment section after being shown 20-25 examples. He wrote this:
First the concession: I am compelled to acknowledge that the NKJV does not use “*precisely* the same Greek New Testament” text as the one underlying the KJV NT.
He could not find 2 John 1:7 of the NKJV in any TR edition. Does it matter? It does, especially a translation that calls itself the NEW King James Version. The translators did not use the same text as the KJV used, however Ward wants to represent that. I would happily debate him on the subject. I’m sure Thomas Ross would.
Mark Ward has committed not to debate on the text behind the KJV. He is committed now to taking shots from afar, leaving the safe shores of vernacular translation to hit on the text. Even though he says the variations do not affect the message of the Bible, he continues to argue against the text behind the King James Version.
Yes and Then No, the Bible with Mark Ward (Part One)
My last post of last week, the shell game with Bible words, if you followed the links, referred to a session Mark Ward did at Bob Jones Seminary, where he did refer to Thomas Ross and myself. Someone sent that to me, and in my path to watching it, I became curious in another of his videos. I’ll deal with both here. One I essentially agreed with, and the other, no.
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Chronologically, Mark Ward first made a podcast from his greenhouse about attending an IFB meeting close to where he lived. An IFB pastor invited him because R. B. Ouellette was going to preach on the King James issue. He didn’t say which church this was. It was surely revivalist in the Hyles/Sword realm. Ward started out ready to deal with KJVOnlyism, but it turned into something else. Here’s the podcast.
Ward traveled to a special meeting at a revivalist IFB church to interact with KJVO. Based upon a heads-up from its pastor, he expected something promoting KJVO. Ward reported much he liked about the service all the way up to the Ouellette sermon. Ouellette opened to Job 31:35-36 to defend KJVO. A plain reading of Job 31 does not appear to do that.
Ward and Ouellette both graduated from Bob Jones University. In his criticism, Ward distinguished between using the Bible for what a man wants to say and preaching what the Bible does say. By his account, Ouellette did the former. He was not a herald, who delivers the Word of the King. Ward titled his podcast, “The Biggest Step the IFB Needs to Take.” He treats IFB with generosity, more than what I would. Instead of the KJVO issue, he found a “preaching” one instead.
YES
Bad Preaching
I wrote, “Yes,” in this title. I agree with the criticism of this typical, popular IFB preaching. If IFB apparently cares for the perfection of its Bible, then preach the Bible. Its leaders very often preach like Ward described. He reported loud “Amens” shouted all around, which supported a message that twisted the Word of God. Ward exposed a reason for someone to separate from IFB churches and men. I say “Yes” to Ward. I agree with him.
What causes a man to preach like Ouellette? It’s not that he is unable to preach the Bible. Why would he settle for something entirely not what the passage says? Underlying doctrinal problems exist especially regarding the Holy Spirit. Keswick theology, second blessing theology, or revivalism, all similar error but with a nuance of difference, affect preaching.
Many IFB believe the preacher becomes a vessel for a message from the Holy Spirit. They believe that through the Holy Spirit God gives the preacher something others can’t even see in a text. This is called “preaching.” God uses “preaching,” but by that they don’t mean the Bible. The Bible is used, but the preaching is something unique. They trust the man of God has been given something they haven’t ever seen and can’t see.
However, I dispute preaching as the biggest step for IFB. It isn’t the “I” (independent) or the “B” (Baptist) in IFB that’s the problem. “F” for Fundamentalism is at the root of the problem. Actual preaching of the Bible isn’t a fundamental of fundamentalism. In general, IFB does not confront bad preaching. It allows it and even encourages it. If someone spiritualizes or allegorizes a passage and reads something into a text, it doesn’t bring condemnation. However, the biggest step for fundamentalism isn’t its preaching.
False Gospel
Fundamentalism is rife with a corrupted gospel. Ward commended the evangelism of IFB. What is the evangelism of IFB? Look all over the internet at the gospel presentations. Most IFB removes biblical repentance and the Lordship of Christ. Let’s say Ouellette rejected KJVO and started using the ESV, or even just the NKJV. Would he become acceptable to Ward, reaching his primary goal? Ouellette argues against repentance as necessary for salvation (I write here, here, and here). When you read doctrinal statements and the plans of salvation of those churches most associated with Ouellette, they’re the same.
A few years ago, James White participated in an interview with Steven Anderson. In White’s many criticisms of Anderson, he never mentions his false gospel. Anderson hosts an anti-repentance website. Anderson is worse than Ouellette, but both fall short of a biblical gospel. As White ignores Anderson’s gospel, Ward does Ouellette’s. This diverges from the often stated emphasis of evangelicals, the gospel of first importance. The version issue stokes greater heat than the gospel does.
Some IFB churches preach a true gospel even as some preach biblical sermons. Yet, a false gospel subverts IFB unrelated to the version of the Bible it uses. Years ago IFB allowed and even promoted the introduction and then acceptance of a false doctrine of salvation. I am happy Ward noticed the bad preaching of Ouellette, but his focus harms his ability to see the biggest IFB problem. Ward doesn’t mention the wrong gospel.
The Shell Game Played With Words About the Bible
You know right now the concern about the gender of pronouns used to address the sexes. The controversy revolves around calling a biological male, “him,” or a biological female, “her.” People change the meaning of the words and expect us to play along. You know it’s a man, but you call him, a her. You call he, a she.
Let’s say we’re talking about the words of scripture. Inspiration applies to words. God inspired words. And then someone says, I believe in the inerrancy of scripture in the context of words. We think he means, no errors in the words. I think he even knows that we think he means words. However, he doesn’t mean words. He’s not saying that there are no errors in the words.
Someone holds up a Bible and calls it the inerrant Word of God. He doesn’t mean words. He means something different. It’s hard to say what he means, but it’s probably the following. Inerrancy means that you can trust that the teachings of the Bible are without error. He doesn’t bring up inerrancy in the context of the teachings of the Bible. He brings it up in the context of words. He’s playing a shell game, moving those shells around very quickly. You thought he meant words, but he didn’t.
You think the bead is under the shell. That’s what someone wants you to think. The bead is words, but you see a shell. Words aren’t under the shell. It’s teachings, and even that is ambiguous, because even with that, he doesn’t mean teachings.
When someone says the teachings of scripture are inerrant, if that’s even what he means, because that can become very ambiguous, he doesn’t mean that you can’t find errors in the Bible. You can. However, all things considered, if you take all the combined passages of the Bible to come up with those teachings, all the right teachings are available in the Bible.
Men don’t even agree on what the Bible teaches, let alone on what’s right that it does teach. Two different men can say they believe in inerrancy and then disagree on ten different doctrines of scripture. It’s a hypothetical inerrancy. Let’s just say it. It isn’t inerrancy. I can agree to an ambiguous, hypothetical inerrancy, and then agree that the Bible is inerrant. I can hold up the Bible and say, this is the inerrant Word of God.
When I say the Bible is without error, I mean that it is without error. Every Word that God inspired has been preserved in the language in which it is written. Since inerrancy relates to what God inspired, if there are missing words, then it isn’t inerrant any more. I believe that and not in a hypothetical way. I’m not going to say that we both agree the Bible is inerrant, fully realizing that when you say “inerrant” you don’t even mean “inerrant.” You mean something that allows you to believe the Bible is inerrant without believing that it is inerrant. This is like calling him, her.
If the Bible is perfect, then it can’t be given extra perfection. There are those who do not believe it is perfect. They also don’t believe that scripture says that scripture is perfect. They believe that it is inerrant, but it isn’t perfect.
I would say, don’t call the Bible perfect if you don’t believe it. Also, don’t call it inerrant, if you don’t believe it is inerrant. Don’t make perfect and inerrant mean something different than what they obviously mean in light of what the Bible says about itself.
I can go through my Bible and show you a doctrine of its inerrancy and perfection. Then I ask, “Does the Bible teach that it is inerrant and perfect?” You say, “Yes.” So then I ask, “Okay, so which Bible is the inerrant and perfect one?” You say, “None are.” So is the teaching of the Bible inerrant and perfect?
I believe the Bible is perfect and inerrant because the Bible says so. Then you start peppering me with individual words, phrases, verses, and even larger passages. I explain every one of those texts based on the presupposition that I have. I can do it. Now let me get into your presuppositions, how you came to having them, or whether they are reverse engineered.
You say, I can see that there isn’t a perfect Bible. So now when you look at the passages that teach the Bible is perfect, they’ve got to mean something else. Where do those presuppositions come from? How did you get those presuppositions? How is that conservative?
I’m not playing a shell game when I say the Bible is inerrant and perfect. Many others are.
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