The Moral Nature of God (Part 3)
Divine Origination of Morality
Having established the moral nature of God guiding and constraining the heavens and the earth, I want to return to certain moral dilemmas posed by agnostics or atheists. God defines the moral existence of living things. They fit into His hierarchy of value. God oversees and determines the worth and right or orthodox treatment or administration of people, not vice versa.
God originates, discharges, or initiates morality. He, therefore, defines it too. Men do not sit in judgment upon God about morals. They have morals, because God created them in His image.
To consider a basic truth: all men die. They can protest that, but morally they deserve it. In the history of the world, men went from eternal life before the Fall, to eight hundred to nine hundred sixty-nine years before the Flood, and now men physically die in seventy to one hundred years more or less. Life on the way to death comes with many varied complications. Sin affected and continues to affect all of this, which relates everything to morality.
The Capacity of God in Moral Judgment
On His throne in His eternal throne room in His special presence and everywhere in His omnipresence, God upholds and watches over everything and everyone. He judges all things in every place at all times. Nothing escapes His judgment. He not only knows the present, but the entire past and future, including the secrets of men’s hearts. Always what He judges or determines is true.
If God requires Israel to kill every member of a tribe of people in the Old Testament, like the Amalekites or those in Jericho or Ai, that judgment is right. God doesn’t need to justify what He does or requires others to do, but He can justify it and often does. He bases this on superior knowledge and moral virtue.
Hitler and the Nazis of World War 2 Germany committed genocide against the Jews. God loves the Jews. More than any other being, God loved, loves, and shall love. His love is immutable. Still, He allowed the Jewish genocide, even predicted these hard times for future Israel in biblical prophecies. God chastised Israel through the siege of Jerusalem that Jeremiah explains in Lamentations.
When God does something, it is moral. If He tells Saul to kill all the Amalekites, that is just, not allowing them to live. Obedience to God is better than the alternative always. This is not wholesale invitation or promotion of genocide though.
The Unworthiness of Man to Judge God
After Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:1-7, God cursed man, woman, and earth. The other creation of God participates in that curse. Some might ask, why? And then they also might reject or repudiate God’s judgment in these matters.
Whether something is right or wrong, that is not up to people. They would have to start with a naturalistic explanation for why they’re in charge and able to make this determination. However, matter and motion can’t make judgments. If life is a mere accident, no one can be at fault for anything wrong or honored for anything right. The morals in God’s moral heaven and earth proceed from His moral nature. He is both Lawmaker and Judge.
Man’s depravity stops him from a successful moral judgment of God. He cannot see clearly through his lying eyes to know what is right and what is good. A man does not have the capacity to make a right judgment about what God does, causes, or allows.
Deserved Moral Judgment on All Men
By sin came death upon all men and death passed upon all men for all men sinned (Romans 5:12-19). Everything short of death is only by the work of the mercy of God by the grace of God. Salvation is of God (Jonah 2:9). It is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8-9). God judges righteous judgment in the death of sinners. Animals also die as they do because of God’s moral purpose. The curse of sin touches all of His creation, reminding mankind of the detrimental effects of sin. His only escape is the salvation of the Lord.
God authors morality. True moral judgments come from God. He is the final infallible authority for what is right and good. All men defer to His will for His creation.
More to Come
The Moral Nature of God (Part 2)
Heaven and Earth Necessitate a Cause
God is holy. God is good. He is righteous. He is love and more. Moral attributes are the essence of God.
We know that the heavens and the earth have a beginning. Since they do, they must have a cause. The cause of the heavens and the earth — space, matter, time, and energy — must arise from an uncaused cause, or else an eternal regression of causes.
Infinite, Powerful, and Personal Creator
To cause the heavens and the earth necessarily requires an infinite and powerful creator. No natural cause could precede as the first cause of the natural world. It must, therefore, exist outside of the natural world.
The natural world also demands a personal creator or else the cause would be just another natural thing. Related to something that begins to exist, causation comprises agency. For something to come into existence at a particular moment, a personal agent chooses to bring it into being. Only a personal cause can make that decision.
Tracing Back the Moral Attributes in Man’s Nature
Mankind is part of what God caused and moral attributes in man’s nature trace back to God in their origination. People accept, recognize, or acknowledge the reality of morals. Men judge between good and evil. A worldwide recognition of moral law points to one that transcends human opinion.
If all that exists is matter, space, and time, like naturalism says, then there is no foundation for objective moral values. The one and only God, Who alone created the heavens and the earth, is a moral being. No standard for morality exists outside of a transcendent God, separate from His creation.
Objective Moral Values
When witnessing a crime such as robbery, the act is not deemed wrong solely based on personal feelings or societal consensus. Robbery is recognized as objectively wrong because it violates a moral standard that exists independently of individual perspectives. Theologian John Frame compares two potential sources for absolute moral authority: impersonal and personal.
According to Frame, if moral authority were to stem from an impersonal source, such as a universal law or fate, it raises questions about obligation. For example, if fate dictates certain outcomes, individuals may feel no inherent obligation to adhere to this impersonal law. In contrast, if moral authority is derived from a personal source — specifically God — then there exists a clear obligation to obey divine commands because God is viewed as a supremely wise and authoritative figure.
Moral Authority from God
Without God, morality would devolve into mere subjective preferences or cultural relativism. This leads to the conclusion that true moral obligations require a grounding in the character and will of a personal God who embodies these absolute standards.
Since moral standards start with God, men should look to God for theirs. This is God’s world. Everything operates according to the confines and scruples of His nature.
Moral authority proceeds from the personal God. This means a clear obligation to obey His words, sayings, and commandments. His will is the basis for which to judge and by which He judges everything.
Wes Huff on Joe Rogan: The Dead Sea Isaiah Scroll and the Hebrew Masoretic Text
Huff, O’Connor, and Rogan
Popular agnostic or atheist Alex O’Connor, not as popular as Joe Rogan but more than everyone else in this story, has caught onto an error made by evangelical apologist Wes Huff on Rogan’s show. O’Connor sees this as very important in a greater scheme of things. He also targets the cover-up of the error by Huff and many others who defend him. They won’t admit wrong or concede the error. These also talk like experts, yet saying with great confidence false things as though they were true.
Wes Huff and those who defend him are not know nothings. They show a wealth of Bible knowledge, but Huff and many of his defenders get their attention mainly from their presentation and production value. They know how to connect with a modern audience on youtube and podcasts. However, when they get their content wrong, it devastates their credibility in front of the world. And then it only gets worse when they then spin their mistakes. All this makes an Alex O’Connor seem more credible than they are.
What raises the level of this clash between Huff and O’Connor is the tangible perception of Joe Rogan. Rogan has said twice that a miracle occurred with the finding of the Isaiah scroll and its identicality (according to Huff) to the Hebrew Masoretic Text. A thousand year gap exists between the Great Isaiah Scroll, 1Qlsaa, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Qumran on the West side of the Dead Sea in 1947, and the Hebrew Masoretic Text, also called the Leningrad Codex. The latter is often called The Received Text of the Old Testament.
Miracle Claim
Even though 1Qlsaa is very close to the same as the Hebrew Masoretic Text of Isaiah, and the estimates are one to seven percent word difference, there are hundreds of variations. It is not close to word-for-word identical. Alex O’Connor focused on this because Joe Rogan called it a miracle. Rogan saw this kind of preservation of Isaiah as supernatural. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.
O’Connor appeared on the show of another popular youtuber and asked the host what was significant to the miracle claim of Rogan. O’Connor then answered his own question, saying that it implied the work of God and in particular the work of the Holy Spirit in this identicality of the Isaiah scroll and the Hebrew Masoretic Text. It is saying that God did something, so God is real and actively intervening. O’ Connor speaks of divine preservation of scripture. That’s Rogan’s thinking. If scripture is divine, people expect perfect preservation by God.
The Promise of God and Preservation of Scripture
Neither Huff nor any evangelical host then says, “Yes, God preserved it with perfection like God promised.” None of them say that. O’Connor asked an evangelical podcaster, “At what percentage of difference would it become a concern to you?” The podcaster pauses and says, Not fifty percent, but I would say, seventy-five percent (I’m paraphrasing). I contend that evangelicals like this man are conditioned to a degree of difference. They adjust their expectations for what God can and will do.
Sure, God can save. He saves. The most frequent thought is that God could have kept His Words. He just didn’t. He didn’t do it, and so He didn’t promise it either.
Does this sliding scale kind of approach to preservation of scripture do anything to the faith of professing saints? Of course it does. Rather than embrace a presuppositional approach that believes what God said He would do, they follow what they think is the so-called science. What I’m saying is real and evangelicals should stop acting like it isn’t. Alex O’Connor gets it, which is why he was hot on the trail of this Joe Rogan story. Everyone gets it, it seems, except these evangelical leaders. People in the pews of churches get it. The low percentage of confidence is intolerable to the normal Christian.
Great Isaiah Scroll Related to Hebrew Masoretic Text
Let me return to the Isaiah scroll and the Hebrew Masoretic. The actual physical manuscript, the Hebrew Masoretic, the Leningrad Codex, is one thousand years old. The Isaiah scroll is physically older, predating Christ’s physical appearance on earth. But the Hebrew Masoretic is the original between the two. Even the textual critics say this. Leading textual scientists say they know the Hebrew Masoretic Text (not the physical copy) was the master for the Isaiah scroll.
The scribes of the Isaiah scroll took a free or liberal approach to the text, which contains editing, morphological smoothing and updating, and a modernization of terms for an audience of second temple Judaism that no longer understood classical Hebrew forms. The scroll represents the language of Palestine in the time period of its copying. Textual scholars see the variations as that of a nonofficial, vulgar text. The Isaiah scroll is apparently closer to the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament, both of which represent a free rendering of the text.
The Hebrew Masoretic is not the Great Isaiah scroll. The former is original. It represents the text from which the scribes of the Isaiah scroll produced their rendering, which differs. Nonetheless, the two are amazingly similar and point to a dovetail moment in time. According to textual criticism, the two Hebrew texts are the same, but not word-for-word identical. Historically, however, the Isaiah scroll says that the text of Isaiah existed at that time. In fact, the copy of the Isaiah scroll in the Jerusalem museum was a copy of an even earlier copy of Isaiah, modernizing it to a small degree.
True Apologetics
Joe Rogan, thinking that Wes Huff said, “word-for-word identical,” says, “That’s a miracle!” It would take the providence of God, divine intervention, to get perfect preservation like that. Yet, what Rogan thought Huff was saying, he wasn’t saying. As O’Connor said: the Holy Spirit would be involved. Where did O’Connor get this idea? He studied the Bible at Oxford. O’Connor perhaps knows about this historic doctrine of preservation or at least the expectation of the supernatural related to the Word of God.
Moslems would seize gladly the imperfection of the text of the Bible, the non-miraculous nature of it. Apologetics proceed from giving scriptural answers and stand for the faith. Textual scientists dealing in percentages and incomplete assurance, that is not apologetics. Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Genuine Christians should not capitulate to such squishiness.
What God Did
The Great Isaiah Scroll was gone for over two thousand years, lost in the Qumran Caves in Israel. It was not available to God’s people, unlike the Hebrew Masoretic Text. That text continued before, after, and still today. Israel and then the church received the Hebrew Masoretic Text and translated it to many different other languages. Wes Huff could have told this story and explained why the Isaiah scroll was lost until 1947.
On the other hand, what a gracious discovery, the Great Isaiah Scroll. The book of Isaiah, a prophetic book, predates the fulfillment of many, many of its prophecies. Those were prophecies! We believe that, but here came a document that afforded evidence of that reality. But finding those copies in that cave, that isn’t a miracle. Any Christian already assumes, based on God’s promises that God preserved every Old Testament Word in the Hebrew Masoretic Text.
The Moral Nature of God
In recent weeks, I have meditated and continue to meditate upon the moral nature of God. As a reader, especially some of you, you might say, “You, the moral nature of God?!?! You’re not moral!” I agree. When you meditate on the moral nature of God, it doesn’t result in thinking you’re moral. Just the opposite. I fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
When I think of God’s moral nature, it goes further than seeing how abominable I am compared to Him. I also think of His grace and love, which are moral attributes of God. I fall short of His grace and love, but because of His grace and love, as a fallen human I rejoice.
Cause for Meditation on the Moral Nature of God
What caused me to increase my amount of thinking about God’s moral nature? Agnostics and atheists use moral arguments against the likelihood of the existence of God. It relates to two challenges to the existence of God. First, an all-powerful and all-good God would not allow for the suffering of men and animals and especially the latter. Second, the God of the Bible called for the genocide of the Amalekite children, as well as those of Jericho and the city of Ai. They have other arguments, but the main ones center on the morality of God.
In our discipleship of the lost, we spend several weeks studying God from the Bible. In that study, we consider the moral attributes of God. The term “moral” is not in the Bible.
Moral in the English Language
English is a new language compared to ancient languages, but the earliest usage of “moral” occurs in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer in the fourteenth century. It comes from the Latin, moralis, first used by Cicero to translate the ancient Greek, ethicos. The first two definitions are these:
1. Of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behaviour, especially for teaching right behaviour.
2. Conforming to a standard of right behaviour; sanctioned by or operative on one’s conscience or ethical judgment.
English men began using the phrase, “moral attributes,” of God first in the 17th century. In his huge work in 1682, The Existence and Attributes of God, Stephen Charnock does not use “moral attributes” to speak of God, although a few times he uses the word “moral.” John Locke uses the exact words, “moral attributes of God,” once in 1697 in his book, Remarks upon an Essay concerning Humane Understanding.
Thomas Stackhouse
Thomas Stackhouse in 1729 wrote the book, A Complete Body of Divinity, and in his Section XI, he titled it, “Of the Moral Attributes of God: And First, Of His Holiness.” On the first page of that section, he wrote something that I have thought about for several days before reading it. I had never thought about his moral nature like I began thinking, but what he wrote summarized especially one aspect on my mind:
But how transcendent forever the moral Perfection of the Divine Nature (his capitalization) may be, compared with those of Men, or any other intelligent Being; yet if the Reasons of Right, Good, and Fit, have the same Foundation in the Divine, that they have the human mind; the moral Attributes of God must be of the same Nature with what we perceive in Men, how much soever they may differ in the Degrees of Perfection: Otherwise we cou’d form no distinct Notions of them, nor cou’d they be proposed as fit Objects of our imitation.
Richard Fiddes
Stackhouse was saying that without God having moral attributes, we could form no distinct notions of them. We also would not propose them as fit objects of our imitation. I could add to that, no one could make a moral judgment on God without an ability of moral judgment that comes from God. Maybe Stackhouse thought of some of what he wrote, when he read an earlier work by Richard Fiddes in 1718, Theologia Speculativa: Or, the First Part of a Body of Divinity. In that book, he wrote:
Again, if the moral attributes of God be not founded in the same general reasons with those of men (and if they be so founded, the nature of them is still the same) then it would be impossible for us to form any distinct notions of the divine attributes, or rather any notions at all, but what would be very irregular and confus’d. For they being so farther of a moral consideration, that as we apprehend them as reasonable in themselves, if we do not know what common reasons to resolve them into, we at once destroy the morality of them, and all possible methods of reasoning upon them. What grounds, I say, can we have upon any principles of natural religion to attribute certain perfections to God, whereof we are not able to discover any natural reason; which yet is impossible for us to do, without knowing what they are, in some imperfect manner at least, in their own nature.
I shall only add, since I am arguing on occasion of what has been advanc’d by a learned person in one of the first stations of the church, that when God refers it, our selves being judges, whether his ways are not equal: if we are not to judge concerning the equality of them, according to our common notions what is just and right, the design of such an appeal be altogether impracticable. Neither could we be capable, as both reason and his positive commands requires we should, of imitating his perfections, did we not know, wherein his perfections consist; an unknown object of imitation evidently implying as great an inconsistency, as an unknown object of desire.
God Is Moral
I’ve been thinking, God is moral: that is why morality exists. This is in the writing of these above men too. God, the only God, created men with morality. They are moral creatures, since they are made in His image. They must think and behave morally.
God is moral. He did not begin morality. It didn’t start with Him. He is moral. God always is and with His moral nature, morality is too. Men got their morality from Him. At best they can reflect His nature, not judge His nature and whatever proceeds from it, like His actions. God acts in accordance with His nature always, so every act proceeds from His nature.
The Glory of God
No way can a man judge God or justify himself before God, like Bildad said in Job (Job 25:1-6). Just because a man cannot please God with his morality is not a pass for his immorality. God created him as a moral creature and God desires morality. God is the standard, which is why Paul wrote that all fall short of the glory of God. It is not that all fall short of a prescribed standard. No, they fall short of the glory of God, which is the perfections of God’s moral attributes. Like Paul says in Romans 5:6, they are ungodly. They violate His nature.
God comes first, then man’s perception of morality. Like Stackhouse and Fiddes say above, man doesn’t even have a notion of morality without God. He only reasons from morality, because God created him a moral creature. Even if he gets it wrong, he knows something is right or wrong. Man doesn’t know without God. Then he doesn’t know right or wrong without God. If not from God, then from what ether did this judgment come?
God is not wrong. He is always right, because He defines right. Whoever judges God as wrong did wrong in judging God.
God can’t be wrong. He just can’t. Wrong would mean something was wrong based upon something. God is the basis for all right. He is never wrong. If a man thinks He’s wrong, that man is wrong, not God.
The Problem of Animal and Child Suffering
A deer is caught under a fallen tree and starves to death confused and alone. The deer doesn’t understand a fall or a sin-cursed world.
God allowed a child to die. So why shouldn’t I allow a child to die? God did.
The point of the agnostic or atheist is that he’s justified in a rejection of God. He can’t accept the reality of God under these above and other circumstances. The skeptic rejects God on a moral argument.
More to Come
Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part six)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
When someone gets toward the end of preaching the gospel, he explains belief. God saves those who believe in Jesus Christ. All over the internet and then on paper churches do not say, believe in Jesus Christ, something that simple. No, they say, “Ask Jesus into your heart,” “Pray and ask Jesus to save you,” “Accept Jesus as Savior,” “Trust in Jesus Christ,” and other statements. I’m fine with “believe in Jesus Christ” or “receive Jesus Christ,” and then explaining that.
As a part of the explanation of “believe in Jesus Christ” is Jesus Christ Himself. Who is He? For someone to believe in Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ must be Jesus Christ. He must be the actual one. First, Jesus Christ is God. Second, and in no given order, although I could argue for one, He is Lord. People have complicated this over the last fifty plus years as much or more than anything in explaining who Jesus is.
Ask yourself why people will leave the Lordship of Christ out. Why has Lordship become such a controversy? It’s easy to understand how someone would not want Lordship. Lordship clashes with the will of the person to whom you’re preaching.
Jesus Is Lord
Not Synonymous with God
In the Lordship controversy, I’ve noticed that preachers or theologians will try to move Lordship into the category of Deity. They make God and Lord mean the same thing, so that believing Jesus Christ is God covers for believing He is Lord. The two have definite overlap like all of these necessary attributes of Who Jesus is. In a story from a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to Thomas, John 20:27-29 say:
John 20:27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
Verse 28 is key, when Thomas says, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus doesn’t refute that or alter it. He says, “Thou hast believed.” Thomas wasn’t saying, “My God and my God.” The two qualities of His nature are different and distinct and necessary.
A Requirement
Romans 10:9-10 shows this as a requirement:
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Non-Lordship advocates like to use Romans 10:9-10 for a gospel presentation and then leave out Lordship. What does it say? “Confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.” A few verses later, Paul writes in verse 13, a commonly used evangelism verse: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Again, an evangelist might say “Lord,” and then eliminate it from the explanation of salvation.
Usage of the Lord in the Gospels
In the English (King James Version), the two words, “the Lord,” are used 6,918 times. You see an early New Testament reference in an introduction of John the Baptist in Matthew 3:3: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Concerning Himself in the temptation in the wilderness to Satan in Matthew 4:7, Jesus says, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” And three verses later, He says to Satan, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
The angels at Christ’s birth proclaimed in Luke 2:11, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Just as an example of one of the ways the gospels refer to Jesus as the Lord in several instances, John 11:2 says, “It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.” Mary anointed “the Lord.” After His resurrection, John (20:18) writes of Mary Magdalene that “she had seen the Lord.” When John and Peter saw Jesus from their boat, John said to Peter, “It is the Lord” (21:7).
Usages of the Lord in Acts
Lordship of Christ is all over the gospel preaching of Acts. Five times in his sermon in Acts 2, Peter refers to Jesus as “the Lord.” In Acts 3:19 in that preaching of Peter, he says,
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.
When Saul went out persecuting Christians, they are called, “the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). Soon after, Paul’s conversion profession is the simple question, “Who art thou, Lord?” “And the Lord said, I am Jesus” (Acts 9:5). I’m not going to keep going because Lordship is so patently obvious.
Usages of the Lord in the Epistles
The New Testament includes Lordship in the requirement and it dovetails with repentance. This is something to which Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20:
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
“Ye are not your own” and “ye are bought with a price.” Jesus bought these saints. They are not their own any more, so they do not do what they want, but what He wants. People have such a hard time with Lordship, because of the nature of lust. They want what they want and this clashes with the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That’s also why so-called evangelists might leave it out. Believing in Jesus Christ means being owned and an outcome of obedience. You do not obey to be saved, but you believe you have a future of obedience to the Lord Jesus.
2 Peter centers on the Lordship of Jesus with its emphasis on the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The apostates turn away from Jesus to walk after their own lust. In doing so, they deny the Second Coming of Jesus Christ because they don’t want the judgment of the Lord that comes with it. Most don’t mind salvation, but since they don’t like Lordship, they reject it or turn away from it. Leaving Lordship out is creating a future of rampant apostasy, really buying into the apostates’ demands.
Explaining Jesus Is Lord
When I explain that Jesus is Lord in believing in Jesus Christ, I will say, “When you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe that He is Lord.” That means believing that He is on the throne and you are not. You relinquish the throne of your life. This is what Jesus said, Losing your life for His sake (Matthew 10:39, 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, 17:33, John 12:25). This is attached to losing your own soul, which is speaking of damnation. Believing Jesus is Lord is in effect giving up your life to Him. Then He can and will cleanse your soul.
More to Come
How Does Someone Receive the Gift of Faith That Saves? (Part Four)
The Gift of Saving Faith
Salvation is by faith, not by works. Faith is not a work. In Romans 4:16, Paul writes: “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace.” Grace and works are mutually exclusive, and since salvation is by grace alone, faith and works are also mutually exclusive. Paul then writes in Romans 11:6:
And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
If it is works, it isn’t grace. If it is faith, then it is grace. In Philippians 1:29 Paul writes:
For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.
There you see “it is given . . . to believe on him.” In the very first verse of 2 Peter, Peter writes:
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.
Justification By Faith Because It Is Not a Work
Peter says that people obtain like precious faith. In other words, it is given to them. This is saving faith. Galatians 2:16 communicates this same truth in a different way:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
This is explicit. We believed that we might be justified by faith and not by works. Faith can’t be a work, so it must be a gift. Since it is a gift, how do men receive that gift? The way God explains it through scripture is that the reception of the gift of saving faith starts with general revelation for everyone. Since general revelation is enough to vindicate God in his wrath against men (Romans 1:18-20), receiving general revelation will facilitate the provision of God’s Word, special revelation, to the one receiving His general revelation.
The Power of the Word of God and the Work of the Holy Spirit
Saving faith comes by hearing the Word of God. This specific Word of God that saves is scripture that proclaims the gospel. The Holy Spirit works through the Word of God toward the provision of saving faith (Ephesians 6:17). He uses the Word of God to reprove or convict the world of sin, or righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:7-11). A man is born again through the Word of God and by the Spirit of God (John 3:5-8, Acts 10:44, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, James 1:18, 1 Peter 1:21-25).
Is everyone saved upon the work of the Spirit of God through the Word of God toward salvation? No. In his sermon in Acts 7, Stephen says,
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
People can and do resist the work of the Spirit through the Word of God. This is again akin to hard heartedness and a worldly heart in line with the parable of the soils (Matthew 13). This is where a mystery lies. Faith comes from God, but not everyone receives it. Some resist this precious gift
Spiritual Warfare
The New Testament gives other descriptions to this work towards saving faith. The Apostle Paul to the Corinthians calls it spiritual warfare in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
Strongholds (verse 3) like imaginations (verse 5) are in people’s minds. The preacher or evangelist does not war after the flesh, so he uses spiritual weaponry. The strongholds are arguments that bring confusion and doubt against saving faith and salvation of the soul. These deterrents to salvation are cast down with the proper use of the sword. That is how imaginations are cast down. Then comes alignment with the knowledge of God and the obedience of Christ.
Not in the Wisdom of Men, But the Power of God
The evangelist does evangelistic work using the Word of God. He must diagnose the particular perverse imagination or false doctrine that impedes saving faith. He uses scripture incisively to remove the barrier to saving faith. Scripture is spiritual, so powerful at doing this, like Hebrews 4:12 says:
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
When one peruses all the evangelism examples in scripture, different approaches are taken to varied people and their situation. It’s all the gospel, but it customizes its dealing for each unique stronghold. Every time the evangelist uses scripture. Saving faith does not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:5).
How Does Someone Receive the Gift of Faith That Saves? (part three)
Saving Grace Appearing to All Men
Paul writes to Titus in a letter, an epistle, a Gentile man converted through evangelism in the Gentile region of Crete, a pagan island in the Mediterranean Sea, in Titus 2:11:
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.
What was this grace of God that appeared to all men? What appears to all men? Does the message of Jesus Christ appear to all men?
We know from scripture what appears to all men. It is general revelation. How does general revelation though bring salvation? Only the gospel, a message of special revelation, will save someone. General revelation falls short of being a gospel message.
Paul in Romans
Chapter 2
God intends to do more than condemn through general revelation. It is a vehicle toward special revelation by which God will save men. The Apostle Paul in Romans 2 in dealing with pagan Gentiles, who never heard of God’s law, which was a schoolmaster toward faith, says in verses 14-15:
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
The law of God in their hearts in accompaniment with their consciences bear witness to Gentiles. These uncircumcised pagans can and do become circumcised inwardly by faith. It is a circumcision (verse 29) of “the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” God receives praise for this work of grace in the hearts of Gentiles, even as no human explanation for this working exists.
Chapters 3 and 4
Pagan Gentiles without the special revelation of God are proven under sin before God (3:9) by means of the law in their hearts and their consciences. This law in their hearts stops their mouths that they might be guilty before God (3:19). He is not the God merely of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles and He justifies not just the circumcision but also the uncircumcision by faith. God operates in the hearts of those not through physical tables of the law but through inward tables in their hearts, also working toward justification by faith.
Like with the pagan Gentiles, God imputed righteousness to Abraham by faith in his uncircumcision (4:10). Abraham became the Father of them who believe, who are not of the circumcision (4:12). This is how Abraham is a Father of many nations (4:18).
Paul as Missionary in Crete and in Athens
The work toward Gentile salvation came without the written law and yet with the law in their hearts. That was the grace of God appearing to all men, that brings salvation. Salvation does require conviction of sin through God’s gracious means. This occurs with everybody. When God saves Gentiles in remote regions where a missionary brings the gospel for the first time, God already started working in those persons’ hearts. Paul under the inspiration of God reveals that in the first three chapters of Romans. This is what Paul wrote to Titus for such a people as those on the isle of Crete.
When God condemns a Gentile, he rightly condemns one for rejecting Jesus Christ, even if he never heard of Jesus. Every person possesses the possibility of receiving Christ, which is why Paul says he is without excuse. When the Apostle Paul went to Athens, he preached to them Jesus. Paul said that they ignorantly worshiped Jesus, when they worshiped “the unknown God” (Acts 17:22). It was not true worship, because it lacked sufficient truth, but Paul says that some kind of revelation occurred with them, albeit ignorant. Paul sprang off that foundation, that was already there, to preach to them.
Then Paul revealed the true identity of the unknown God, showing them that man God ordained, whom He raised from the dead, would judge them in righteousness. God had a basis to judge them even though they did not perfectly know Him. They knew Him enough because of the grace of God that appeared to them. That same grace brings salvation. Some of the Athenians mocked Paul, but others said, “We will hear thee again in this matter” (17:32). Certain men clave unto him and believed, and others with them (17:34).
The Story of Receiving the Gift of Faith that Saves
Do the stories of the Cretians on Crete and the Athenians in Athens reveal the work of God toward receiving the gift of faith? Yes. In the way toward saving faith comes someone with enough reception of the unknown God for the Apostle Paul to piggy back off of it to preach Jesus Christ. Missionaries going to godless pagans take this as an optimistic example and a model for how to do the work there.
My major purpose of writing this series is explaining how someone receives saving faith. At least some of the time, if not most of the time, someone will not receive saving faith until he receives a lesser faith based on general revelation. As a stronger position, I believe that everyone that receives special revelation first receives general revelation. This leads to large numbers of heathen conversions. Scripture and then history shows these examples.
Born Again of Special Revelation
The Apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:21 and 23-25:
21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. . . . . 23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: 25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
When you look at those verses, you see something to what Paul wrote in Romans 10:17 and what James wrote in James 1:18:
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Someone must hear the word of God for salvation. This is akin to Paul in Romans 1:16:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Is the gospel the word of God? It is, but it is not the word of God in general. It is part of the word of God that deals with true salvation. These verses themselves explain that in the original language.
Word and Word
Peter uses two different Greek words for “word” in 1 Peter 1:23 and 25. The “word of God” in verse 23 is logos, the word of God in general. However, in verse 25 Peter uses the word, rhema, twice. This speaks of a specific passage or passages with the gospel in it. There is special revelation and then there is the special message within the special revelation. Someone must receive that. That is “the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” “Word of God” in Romans 10:17 is also rhema. Logos is in James 1:18.
When God begets, meaning someone is born again unto salvation, through the Word of God (logos), someone preaches a particular word of God (rhema) with the gospel in it. People use scripture to preach a false gospel, so it isn’t the Word of God in general that saves. It is the true message of the Word of God, the rightly divided Word of truth that saves.
More to Come
How Does Someone Receive the Gift of Faith That Saves? (part two)
Rejection of the Gift of Faith or Suppressing the Truth
The rejection of God’s gift of faith, ‘biting the hand that feeds you,’ comes from ignoring or refusing general revelation from God. Even if someone does not recognize it or acknowledge it, it is rebellion against God. Romans 1:25 says that this lack of someone’s recognition and acknowledgement is turning the truth of God into a lie and worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator.
Romans 1:18-32 answer the question about what everyone knows. They know enough to deserve the wrath of God for rejecting Him. How do we know what we know? God tells us. One of the weaknesses of science is that it cannot prove a universal negative. People cannot be everywhere at once and see everything that can be seen to negate that something did or did not happen. Only God knows what people know and do not know. If God Almighty says people know it, then they know it. Science or man’s observation cannot prove this wrong.
It’s worse than not knowing. People “hold” or suppress the truth in their unrighteousness (1:18). When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God (1:21). And everyone starts by knowing God through general revelation.
Moving from General Revelation to More Revelation
General revelation is not enough revelation to give saving faith. Scripture says faith, which is saving faith, comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Very commonly people will question the love, grace, and mercy of God because people somewhere in the Congo or Ecuadorian jungle could not hear, see, or know enough for salvation. If none of these people did ever hear enough to receive saving faith, the implication or assumption of scripture is that they had the opportunity or they could have heard and known it.
When someone receives general revelation, he can and will receive more revelation. Everyone will receive enough revelation to receive more revelation. The Bible confirms this with various examples. The Lord Jesus talks about this when He mentions how much the people of Sodom (Matthew 10:15), Tyre and Sidon (11:21), and the queen of the South knew (12:42) versus Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin. When you look at that list, God judged Sodom and Tyre and Sidon and saved the queen of the South, and these are similar examples. What is the distinguishing or differentiating factor is what they did with the revelation they received.
Examples of Reception
Various people do have available to them in their lifetimes different amounts of revelation. The latter areas above received more to different degrees of revelation than the former. These examples give evidence of that. Furthermore, scripture communicates this same truth through narrative portions that are also authoritative for doctrine. One good example, given a lot of space in Acts 10-11, is Cornelius, the centurion. The Bible provides a paradigm for this point with the salvation of Cornelius, the centurion. One can also point to all those saved through mission endeavors and efforts throughout Acts.
Cornelius shows what happens when someone receives the revelation he has. God will give more. History also gives many other examples of this. Other examples in the Bible show in a negative sense what happens with certain ones who reject the revelation they do have, such as Pharoah in Egypt. Certain foreigners, like Nebuchadnezzar and those in the city of Nineveh show God’s mission and mercy mindset.
The Impediments to Reception
I want to go back to the 50 dollar example of sufficient revelation for saving faith. You won’t get to 50 until you receive 10. 10 is not enough. People will not get to 50 without receiving less than that, leading up to 50.
Someone who keeps receiving revelation of God will arrive at scripture to receive. Then someone must keep receiving scripture until finally he receives the gift of faith. That’s how it happens according to scripture. Jesus talks about the impediments to reception in Matthew 13. That is the best answer as to why someone does and someone else doesn’t receive saving faith.
Jesus presents four categories in Matthew 13 and each of them have to do with a receptive heart or not. He presents the saving revelation as seed. Three categories reject the revelation and one receives. One heart is a hard heart, another a worldly heart, and then one hard to categorize, what I would classify as a superficial heart, something either solely emotional or merely intellectual.
None of the four types of heart look like predetermination. God is sovereign. God chooses who He will save, but figured into that choice is how someone responds to revelation. He is sovereign over how He saves and does not save. All the way through and in the end, God is the determiner. Salvation is of the Lord. When He saves a person, that means He keeps saving someone.
When does someone get the sufficient scriptural knowledge for saving faith? Less knowledge from revelation is not helpful. Deep knowledge is better. in 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul tells Timothy that knowledge of the holy scriptures make someone wise unto salvation.
More to Come
How Does Someone Receive the Gift of Faith That Saves?
Faith Is A Gift
Two ideas seem to contradict. They don’t though. One, faith is a gift. Faith is not a work. Man is not saved by works. God gives man the faith that saves him. He doesn’t work for it.
Two, even though faith is a gift, most people do not get it. God gives the gift in a particular fashion and people then receive it in a God ordained way. Everyone needs to know this.
Seeming Contradiction
The seeming contradiction between the two thoughts are first how someone will get saving faith and others will not, even though it’s a gift. Scripture though deals with that. God gives a suitable explanation. We should accept the sufficiency of what God says. It’s enough to know and understand.
When someone says that faith is a gift, people will also see that as removing human responsibility. As you read this essay, which will report what scripture says, you will see that this biblical view does not eliminate human responsibility. Salvation is by grace. The truth that faith is a gift is crucial to that. But how is faith a gift? Let me explain.
The Path to Saving Faith
Everything that results in saving faith leads back to God. It starts with, one, general revelation. By general, revelation is general in its audience, not in its content. Everyone knows God through conscience, creation, history, and providence. Romans 1:18-32 say that all men know God. How does it say they know Him?
The true things about God to know Him are manifest “in them” (verse 19) — the law of God written in the heart and the conscience (2:15). Then “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (verse 20) — creation. This is “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). Providence and history are a little more technical to explain, but you can see enough how all people know God, so that Romans 1 verses 18 and 20 indicate they are without excuse as to God’s judgment upon them.
Explaining the Gift of Faith
Now let me explain this aspect of the gift of faith. Let’s say that saving faith is a 50, like 50 dollars. Someone arrives at saving faith at 50, starting with zero. General revelation does not get someone to 50. However, to get to 50 someone must accept something less than 50.
You want to borrow 50 dollars from me. You need 50. I have only 10, so I offer you 10. You reject the 10. When someone rejects the 10, this is a means of rejecting the gift of saving faith.
First, upon someone rejecting the most rudimentary knowledge of God, that everyone can know, God allows them to take a path of total apostasy. They become proud, professing themselves to be wise, when they’re fools, and it gets worse from there.
Second, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). The gift of saving faith originates from scripture. I’ll speak to this further, but the Word of God is also revelation. It has the power to give rise to saving faith.
Step Toward Saving Faith
A step toward God giving the gift of saving faith is general revelation. Everyone receives this, so everyone has the opportunity to receive saving faith for salvation. Everyone. That’s what Romans 1 says. What I’m explaining isn’t Calvinism.
By the way, just from general revelation someone might believe in God still in a way short of saving faith. However, he believes in a non-saving way. This is not faith enough to save and in that way, it still could be short-termed, point action kind of belief exercised by people who still are never saved.
I like also to view general revelation as bread crumbs that start down the path to salvation. This is a Hansel and Gretel metaphor. Crumbs led Hansel and Gretel to the famous Ginger Bread House in that story. Everyone who receives Jesus Christ unto salvation experiences general revelation toward the beginning of that path. He takes his 10 dollars on his way to 50 dollars.
More to Come
What About the Phrase about Scripture, “Inspired in the Original Manuscripts”?
“Inspired in the Original Manuscripts”
In the last few days, I watched on a podcast someone lecture on dispensationalism. While teaching, he used a phrase to describe scripture, “inspired in the original manuscripts.” That phrase does not sit well with me. For one, it is not itself scripture, and, two, it is not the historic belief of the church. What do people say about half truths? It is, however, a very common and popular phrase in church doctrinal statements today.
Many churches will say like this one does:
We believe that the Bible is God’s Word, that it is fully inspired in the original manuscripts.
The Bible is the Word of God, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, verbally inspired in the original manuscripts.
We believe that the Bible, exclusively comprised of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments is the Word of God, verbally and plenarily inspired, in the original manuscripts.
Only in the Original Manuscripts?
Why is the BIble verbally and plenarily inspired, only in the original manuscripts? Why do people say or write this? They don’t believe that we have every and all words today. They can’t say that we still have what God inspired in the original manuscripts. God inspired the Bible in the original manuscripts, but He didn’t keep the Bible, verbally and plenarily, for His churches today.
The “inspired in the original manuscripts” language is significant for what it does not say more than what it does. The authors of these statements know that we do not have the original manuscripts today. They really are being accurate with what they believe. Even in the original languages, the church does not have a verbally, plenarily inspired Bible. Why? God didn’t keep it. Some words were lost from the original manuscripts. You can’t trust the Bible then to the same extent.
An Explanation
Richard Muller, the historian, talks about when this doctrine of inspiration arose:
A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the views of Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. . . . Those who claim an errant text, against the orthodox consensus to the contrary, must prove their case. To claim errors in the scribal copies, the apographa, is hardly a proof. The claim must be proven true of the autographa. The point made by Hodge and Warfield is a logical leap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critics—who can only prove their case for genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.
Muller writes this in his Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 2, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology. This doctrine of inspiration arises with A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield. Muller calls it “a logical leap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum.” It’s easy to call “inspired” a text you do not have. This view that originated in church history with Hodge and Warfield differs greatly, Muller says, than what Turretin wrote and said:
Turretin and other high and late orthodox writers argued that the authenticity and infallibility of Scripture must be identified in and of the apographa, not in and of lost autographa.
A Novel Position
What kind of confidence does someone have in scripture that applies inspiration only to the original manuscripts? This person or these people cannot make that application to what believers possessed since then. It was in the 19th century that professing Christians began to make the statements like Basil Manly made on pages 84 and 219 in his book, The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration Explained and Vindicated:
We answer, we gain all the difference there is between an inspired and an uninspired original; all the difference between a document truly divine and authoritative to begin with — though the copies or translations may have in minute particulars varied from it — and a document faulty and unreliable at the outset, and never really divine. . . . The inspiration of the original scriptures is what we affirm; and this an entirely different question from the accuracy with which copies of them have been preserved.
Pastors and theologians did not use together the two words, “original manuscripts,” until the 19th century and then, not much. This increased greatly with rise of modernism or liberalism and the compromise with it. A Hodge and Warfield thought of themselves as protecting the faith of those whom the variants in copies would shake.
God Inspired His Words and Then Kept Them
If you say the verbal, plenary inspiration of scripture and leave out the words, “original manuscripts,” you are saying that God inspired His Words and then kept them. Those words remain inspired, so the copies are also inspired. Through history, believers took the position of the inspiration of both the autographa and the apographa. This is the historic and biblical position of the church.
Repeat this to yourself. Memorize it. “The inspiration of the original manuscripts” is made up. It is not some noble, historic creed. It is definitely. not. old. As Muller said, “a logical leap.” I would disagree only that it’s merely a leap. Not logical.
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