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Answering the “Cultish” Wes Huff Podcast on King James Only (Part Two)
Loving the KJV?
About middle of first episode, Wes Huff says he loves the King James Version, even though he also says in the same paragraph that he doesn’t recommend the King James Version of the Bible. Those like Wes love almost every English translation of the Bible for some reason or another, even though they differ in their underlying text two to seven percent. He thinks the KJV is wrong on a number of passages — longer ending of Mark, woman caught in adultery, and the inclusion of 1 John 5:7. But that’s okay, because no one is completely sure anyway.
Certainty is what makes the “KJVO cult.” To not be a cult requires something more in line with confidence, which is not perfection. Even though I think Huff would support verbal, plenary inspiration of scripture, he doesn’t think we know with certainty what those words are. The underlying text of the King James Version, based on naturalistic presuppositions, is too long.
Tradition? Liking a Clean Narrative and Stability?
Huff then says, “There’s something about humans that like tradition.” He’s saying that support of the King James is because of tradition. I don’t know anyone who says that. He gives no evidence that this is the reasoning behind a continued use of the King James Version. Huff is flat-out wrong on this. Maybe tradition in the Church of England results in the continued usage of the King James Version in certain Anglican congregations, but this isn’t true of the confessional bibliology, ecclesiastical text, or perfect preservationist crowd.
Furthermore, Huff says, people “like a clean narrative” and “stability.” That’s it. He just knows what people really think that they don’t say that they think. They do anyways, because Huff knows better. But this isn’t true. They have scriptural and historical presuppositions. The verses that teach the perfect preservation of scripture guide the expectations about the Bible just like many other doctrines. This is living by faith and not by sight.
Dumbing Down “Perfect”
One of the hosts asks Wes Huff, “If your Bible is not perfect, then how can it be the Word of God?” Huff starts his answer with the words, “I think it begs the question by what we mean by perfect.” Then he says, “I don’t know if I would use the word perfect, because the word perfect implies flawless.” Huff explains that for most of recorded history, you couldn’t do a photocopy of something. You had to write things down and sometimes mistakes were made, Huff says — even with the printing press, giving the example of the infamous “Wicked Bible.”
Question: “Is the Bible a supernatural book?” Could God keep every Word perfect? Did He say He would? Then that’s what we believe — what God said He would do.
Scribal Errors and Debunking God’s Promise of Perfect Preservation
Huff says, “We can’t just brush over the way God has preserved His Word.” He introduces that statement with the reality of scribal errors found in the massive manuscript evidence. He says, “God included humanity into the process.” Huff is true in that men copied scripture and made errors in copying. What he doesn’t mention are these underlying scriptural presuppositions of providential, divine preservation and a settled text. Men have faith in the inspiration of the original manuscripts and they also must have faith in the perfect preservation of the Words of God, based on His promises.
When Huff says we can’t brush away the way God preserved His Word, he’s saying that God didn’t preserve every Word, which itself isn’t preservation. It is unbelief. The prevailing scholarly view is that words were lost. They don’t want to say that, that they are still attempting to restore a lost text, but that is their view. This is their so-called non-cultish view. God said He would keep them, they would be available, but they weren’t, and this is reality.
Hebrews 10:7
The primary host of Cultish asks Huff about an argument from Gene Kim, an online Bible teacher and pastor in Berkeley, California, where he refers to Hebrews 10:7:
Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
Kim says that God has more than just manuscripts, but a Book. I believe Kim makes a good argument in the line of a settled text of scripture. You can’t just slough it off, like Huff does. God says, “the book” here in Hebrews, a quotation too from Psalm 40:7. Believers would expect “the book,” one book, not just fragments and copies of mere individual books. “The book of Moses” isn’t just one book, but five books. Yet, it is “the book.”
The historical interpretation of “the book” in Hebrews 10:7 is not an anachronism, what Huff calls it. I know someone who hand copied the entire Bible (many have done this) and it is still “the book” as a manuscript, a manual copy, not a printed edition, of the Bible.
The Job of an Apologist
Exegesis
Huff and these men on Cultish are apparently apologists. What’s the point or purpose of apologists or apology? It is defense of what? Shouldn’t they defend what scripture says rather than defend a particular dogma that proceeds from a naturalistic presupposition, conforming scripture to a preconception? Instead, they undermine faith in a perfect Bible, because of the existence of textual variants. Where does denying verses of the Bible stop in the presence of “external evidence” that apparently disagrees with the teaching in the verses?
The historical, biblical interpretation of “the book” in Hebrews 10:7 is the present written scriptures as of the writing of Hebrews 10:7, which is the entire Old Testament, a singular book. “The volume of the book” is “the scroll of the book” both in Psalm 40:7 and Hebrews 10:7. A scroll speaks of a hand copy, that is still a book. This is simple exegesis that Huff will not engage. He ignores the biblical argument and instead shoots from the hip about the anachronism of “the book” as it relates to manuscripts, essentially creating a smoke cloud of obfuscation.
The Expectation of the Book
Huff says that these books, speaking of individual books of the Bible, “floated around independently.” According to scripture, these books were not “floating around.” We know that copies of individual books were sent and shared (Colossians 4:16).
The second host of Cultish then made a point that “the book” in Hebrews 10:7 is not the King James Version. Genius. Who says that? The Father said to the Son, “In the scroll of the King James Version it is written of me.” The point of Kim, I’m sure, is that saints should have an expectation of “the Book,” speaking of all the individual books into one book. What is controversial about that? He is saying that digging up all these fragments and portions of hand copies should not overturn the book God preserved and said He preserved.
“It Is Written”
Furthermore, a point I didn’t hear. Maybe Kim made it in his presentation. “It is written” is perfect indicative passive, meaning that it remains written in the writing of Hebrews. When was the volume written? Settled in heaven with the Father and the Son and continuing until the writing of Hebrews. This is teaching preservation of scripture. These apologists can’t dig into that, because it contradicts their naturalistic presuppositions, ignoring the doctrine of preservation.
I don’t know if Gene Kim thinks that “the book” is the King James Version or its underlying text (apparently, Kim is a Ruckmanite, which we oppose here vociferously). Either way, his point remains, that is, everything written in the book remains in the book. That is the underlying text from which the translation comes. That means the translation is “the Book.” Something is the Book. Kim is saying it is something. I am saying it is something. They are saying, it isn’t quite something. Maybe it is what is written. Probably not, because that’s “reality” as Huff says, which is his epistemology.
More to Come
Answering the “Cultish” Wes Huff Podcast on King James Only (Part One)
Cultish from Apologia Studios
Shortly after Wes Huff appeared on Joe Rogan, he came on a podcast, which affiliates with Apologia Studios, called “Cultish.” The men who do this show are also trying to become viewer or listener funded. In other words, they think they should go full time doing what they do. Their show came on my radar because of Wes Huff’s interview by Joe Rogan. The number of hits on this episode showed the Joe Rogan effect two times removed, 58,000 plus having watched this “Cultish” episode.
Just listening to the interview with Huff to answer King James Only, I would tell them, Don’t quit your day jobs. No one should fund this and for many reasons. It’s a hot mess. So why answer it? I’m doing it because it offers an evaluation of what kind of gibberish and absolute gobbledygook addresses King James Only. It reminds me of the typical left-winged rubbish, such as the woman at CBS who said free speech caused the holocaust. It is on that level, so ignorant, it’s hard to fathom. I find myself just wagging my head.
Straw-manning Versus Steel-manning
Maybe you’ve heard the difference between steel-manning and straw-manning a position. Wikipedia gives a definition to steel-manning (in case you don’t know):
A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person’s argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented.
These men, including Wes Huff, only straw-man the position. If someone were examining something to see if it is a cult (you know, out of concern for the cult member), he would want to give an accurate representation. They do not do that. This is in the nature of bias confirmation and speaking into the echo chamber.
Just to start, why does KJVO appear as a cult? That’s never explained. The subject matter doesn’t belong on a show about cults, but it’s low hanging fruit for the heavily tattooed Apologia crowd and its cohorts. If someone will call KJVO a cult, someone could easily call something an Alexandrian or Vatican text cult, and have similar grounds for it. If KJVO is a cult, how does calling it a cult help deliver someone, who embraces the King James Version as the Bible, from the cult to which he belongs?
The Vulgate Argument
The content of the podcast of part one begins actually around the six minute mark. The Cultish host asks Huff a question about bridging a gap between the Council of Nicea and 1611 and the King James Version, there seeming to be a crying need for a translation from the original languages in 1611. It’s not a bad question. Huff answers the question by saying that the contemporary view of Jerome’s Vulgate is similar to the KJVO view of the King James Version. He says the arguments for the Vulgate and the King James are about the same.
The Vulgate argument did not originate from Huff. It’s been around for at least fifty years, and it is a strawman. As the critical text became more and more accepted in evangelicalism, men began developing arguments against the prevailing view and King James Version support. Huff says the argument is that the Vulgate had been the Bible for a thousand years (404 to 1604) and the King James for five hundred years (1611 to 2025). Actually, five hundred years would span the period of the printed editions of the Textus Receptus (1516-2025) from which the KJV New Testament came.
Truth about the Vulgate Argument
It would be nice to have a conversation about these things from two sides. The acceptance of Jerome came from an apostate state church, those who also believed a false gospel and heretical works salvation. The true internal testimony of the Holy Spirit is not involved in the acceptance of Jerome’s Vulgate, as also seen in the Roman Catholic embrace of extra-scriptural tradition, Papal pronouncements, the magisterium, and apocryphal books. They did not look for preservation of scripture in the original languages or in making the Bible available for Roman Catholics.
The Textus Receptus and Hebrew Masoretic was received by those truly saved by grace through faith alone. They were the texts received by the churches as authentic. The Vulgate didn’t come from an original Hebrew or Greek Text. Jerome worked from the Greek Septuagint and Latin Translations, not original language texts. Later Jerome looked at Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament for the sake of accuracy, but he still stuck with Old Latin translations for his New Testament work.
Jerome didn’t translate from the Greek New Testament and consider that “the Bible of the church” as Huff invents on the spot. He does this on many different occasions when I’ve heard him in different podcasts. He says this with a face of total confidence, but it is absolutely untrue. Huff says that the Roman Catholic objection of an original language text is the same as the one of KJVO, that is, the Latin has been the Bible for one thousand years.
Original Language Preservation
Historically, after the fall of the Roman Empire and throughout the Middle Ages, there were limited vernacular translations due to low literacy rates and strict control over biblical texts by the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authorities. They didn’t want translation work done from original language texts, but in keeping with the approved Latin Vulgate, which become increasingly less understood by the rank and file citizens of Europe.
The argument for the King James concerns the preservation and availability of the original words of scripture in their original languages. The churches agreed on these words for hundreds of years. These were Spirit indwelt men and churches operating therefore with the testimony of the Holy Spirit. This is the heritage of the King James Version, not a magisterium model of Roman Catholicism. When you read the bibliology writings of truly converted theologians for hundreds of years after the printing press, they embraced the infallibility of the apographa, the copies of scripture, identical to the originals by providential preservation.
Huff says the KJVO and the Jerome Vulgate were “almost the exact same argument.” This is just an ad hominem and strawman attack that is patently false. What Huff really thinks will come out in this podcast and I’ll point it out when we get there. It was only Roman Catholicism arguing for continued use of Jerome’s Vulgate, not true churches.
Further along, Huff says that the apostles quoted from the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This is itself a new and common argument from critical text supporters, advocating for a corrupt translation of the Old Testament as an authority. This makes way for support of a less than perfect text of the Bible, not the biblical or historical view of the church.
Earlier English Translations
From the Vulgate conversation, the other Cultish host asked Huff about the history of English translations of the Bible. He mentioned Wycliffe and then Tyndale, also saying that Tyndale died for translating the Bible into English. At his execution on October 6, 1536, Tyndale was accused of “Lutheran heresy” for including prologues and footnotes that criticized church doctrine and authority. The charges did not say Bible translation.
Huff fails to reveal that the earlier English translations also translated the Textus Receptus and the Hebrew Masoretic, so that the underlying text of the King James was received and reigned before 1611. He also does not mention that Henry VIII authorized the Great Bible and ordered the translators to compare with Tyndale’s work. The King James Version is very close to Tyndale. Huff later says that part. They obviously also relied on his work. Tyndale, even though not carrying the name Baptist, which no one used yet, was Baptistic, even as he took a believer’s baptism position, even against both Puritan and Anglican alike.
Editions of the Textus Receptus
The next argument against this “cult” of KJVO from Huff relates to the underlying text of the King James being a Texti Recepti, rather than one Textus Receptus. Again, this is a strawman. The editions of the Textus Receptus, although they differ in a very small number of ways, represent one text. Those who printed these editions didn’t see them as different texts. Every historian and scholar knows that. Those who like to point out the several editions are angling for the King James translators doing textual criticism, as another faux argument.
You really can’t say that the King James translators were looking at Hebrew and Greek texts from which to translate and then also say that no text existed for the King James until Scrivener’s in the late 19th century. These contradict one another and this brings us back to a absence of a needed steel-manning.
Huff called the editions of Stephanus and Beza “updates” of Erasmus. The editions are homogeneous because they are the same text with minor variations, explained as corrections of minor errors. This period of printed editions did not continue past the middle 17th century. The churches settled, this explained as the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit.
The text behind the King James Version was a settled edition from the printed edition period. Huff says the translators used the science and art of textual criticism, which is a revisionist spin on what they did. All of the words in Scrivener’s were available to the King James translators and the churches. They possessed the original language words translated in 1611. No one was saying, “We don’t have a Greek text.” No one. That’s a modern innovation from those whom Huff mimics with this argument.
Underlying Text and Preservation
Huff entraps himself at about 22:45 in the podcast, when he reads the title page of the Trinitarian Bible Society Greek New Testament, which says the underlying Greek text of the 1611 King James Bible. The key word there is “underlying.” It underlay the King James Version, not proceeded from it.
One of the hosts asks Huff at about 24 minutes what is the difference between the critical text and the Textus Receptus and Huff says the critical text is “a text that is produced.” Good answer. You’ve got a preserved text and then a produced text. The latter does not represent the biblical doctrine of preservation. It denies it. Huff never mentions it. The doctrine of preservation should be at the forefront, but it isn’t because they deny the biblical and historical doctrine of preservation of scripture. They see it as naturalistic, something humanly produced.
More to Come
Profaning the Name of the Lord: How Can or Do People Do It?
Right now I’ve got several series going, and here they are, I believe. By mentioning these series, I’m saying that I want to finish them, Lord-willing. Go back and read these again or read them for the first time.
The Moral Nature of God (part one, part two, part three, part four)
Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six)
Biblical Equality and the Societally Destructive Lie of Egalitarianism (part one, part two)
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Non Specific Commands or Instruction about Not Profaning
The New Testament alone has about one thousand commands in it. About eighty percent of these, I would call “non-specific.” In the past, I’ve written that God requires specific application of these non-specific commands. When scripture is non-specific as such, it implies that the reader knows what God says. This realm of scripture is self-evident. God assumes that the reader of scripture knows what He means, and in His omniscience, God knows what people know and what they don’t know. He will judge them for their belief and practice of this scripture.
Perhaps you have watched a 1 1/2 to 2 year old child, who is not yet able to communicate well in a known language. However, the child knows what his parents, his siblings, and other adults are saying to him. Even if he can’t speak the language, he understands it. Therefore, the child is responsible for keeping what he knows. In a similar way, God knows that we know the meaning and the application of these non-specifics.
An example of a non-specific through scripture starting with the Old Testament, is the direction by God not to profane Himself (Ezekiel 22:26), His name (Leviticus 18:21, 19:12, 20:3, 21:6; Amos 2:7, Malachi 1:12), His sanctuary (Leviticus 21:12, 23; Ezekiel 23:39, 24:21), the holiness of the Lord (Malachi 2:11), the holy things (Leviticus 22:15), the temple (Acts 24:5), and people’s own selves (Ezekiel 28:16; Jeremiah 23:11; Hebrews 12:16). God commands to be holy, which is also non-specific, but in a negative fashion, He also commands not to profane.
Understanding Profanity
On another occasion, I thoroughly explained the concept, idea, or teaching of “profane.” I wrote a series, “Judging Music: Blurring the Distinction Between the Sacred and the Profane” (part one, part two), in which I showed how profanity occurs with music. Of course, someone does the profane and not the holy when he sins, either doing what he shouldn’t do or not doing what he should do. Even with sinning, someone must again apply non-specific commands to obey them.
Many of you reading have walked into a hotel or a hotel room and received a first impression. You can see something superior versus average. Maybe the average doesn’t violate a code, but it doesn’t pop like the look of wonderful and amazing. When someone does work for you, you also know the difference between the two. You know the difference between a good caulking job, average, and poor. Probably many of you wouldn’t even accept average, let alone poor, and you know the distinctions.
Do you remember the story of Belshazzar’s Feast in Daniel 5? This is the narrative of “the writing on the wall,” which has become a common expression. Belshazzar, a pagan king, holds a great feast and serves the drinks in the vessels looted from the Solomonic Temple. These were sacred to God, which meant no common or profane use of them, only something sacred. Anyone who did so blasphemed God. Upon this occasion, Belshazzar lost the kingdom and with direct relationship to this profanity.
Vulgarity
The Bible does not show how not to profane something, whether the very serious profaning of God Himself and His name or the profaning of a believer. Scripture implies that we know. Even if someone says, “Nothing is sacred anymore,” something is still sacred even when everyone turns everything into the profane or the common.
Related to common and profane as English words is the word “vulgar.” Vulgar is not always wrong. The idea behind Jerome’s Vulgate, whether it succeeded or not, was to get the original languages into the common language of the Roman Empire. “Vulgate” means common or colloquial speech. However, very often when someone says, “That was vulgar,” he means “profane.” Being vulgar was bad.
Some Things Are Still Sacred Anymore
Just because the world and even those who profess Christianity diminish what is sacred to the profane or common, does not mean that nothing is sacred or everything is profane. The sacred or holy is still sacred or holy to God and God knows when people profane or make common or vulgar what is holy to Him. Usually much other sinning will accompany such an approach or attitude that either profanes what is holy, accommodates it, or allows it.
Based on my knowledge according to a now large sample size, it is my opinion that a very small minority of churches work on keeping the non-specific commands of not profaning God and His things. I also believe that those who do not keep these commands are in fact blaspheming God parallel to Belshazzar above. They might expect the handwriting on the wall, which is not a good thing for them.
More to Come
The Moral Nature of God (Part 4)
God’s Goodness
Imagine a deer running through the woods at the very time a dead tree falls, trapping the deer helplessly alone. The deer starves to death in solitary confusion. An agnostic might ask and say, “If there is an all powerful, good God, why or how would He allow this to happen? This is immoral.”
In and with His sovereignty, God created and sustains heavens and earth. Everything was perfect and then man sinned against God. God allowed Adam and Eve to sin. Sin is wrong, but allowing them to sin is not. God does not sin and He does not tempt anyone to sin James writes (1:13):
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.
James says many other things in chapter one of his epistle that indicate the moral nature of God, that with God is only good. On the other hand, sin ruined men and all men sin. Paul writes in Romans 3:12 that there is no man that does good. Goodness does not characterize man, even as Jesus says in Matthew 19:17: “There is none good, but one, that is God.”
The Nature of the Fall of Man
An agnostic, again elevating himself above God, might question the Fall of man through sin. What did he do? He ate of a tree. It was worse than that. He disobeyed God, rebelled against Him, and put his self and even Satan above God.
God, the Lawgiver and Judge, commanded man not to eat of that tree. God would not have man to know evil. Later in Genesis 3:22, the Father speaking to the other two members of the Godhead, said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” The agnostic again attacks the moral nature of God, as if God selfishly did not want man to become like Him. That’s not what God is saying in Genesis 3:22.
Adam and Eve are God’s creation. With His knowledge of good and evil, God has no ability to sin. Adam and Eve did. They became as God, but this does not mean they became identical to God. No. They knew evil internally and experientially. God is holy and separate from sin. He knows evil, but on the outside, not in a personal experience. The only future plan for eternal life must include redemption from sin and that would not occur with and to everyone.
The Morality of the Curse on Earth
The Single Eye of God
God does not see the heavens and the earth through a dark or evil lens, such as men do. The eye of God is single and He allows only light through it (Luke 11:34-36). The eye of man is by nature evil and so also is full of darkness. This incapacity and ruination disallow man from the same moral judgment as God. With God is no variableness nor shadow of turning (James 1:17). God sees everything in an untainted, single eyed, enlightened manner. He sees everything past, present, and future and with complete moral clarity, unfettered by sin.
As right and good punishment for sin, God cursed the earth that He created. It would no longer be the same until a later date when God would reverse all of this through Jesus Christ. This curse includes the animals.
Cursed Ground and Its Consequences
When God cursed the ground in Genesis 3:17-19, animals received and continue receiving the effects of that. Animals experience the consequences of the Fall, the fact that God has cursed the ground. All animals as a result of the Fall will decay. They get diseases, age, and die in many various fashions. The whole animal kingdom changed. In an uncursed state, Isaiah 11:6 reports:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
Furthermore, Isaiah 65:25 says:
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.
Natural predators no longer predatory, the lion or the wolf not killing lambs any more. This new condition characterizes the earth with the curse lifted.
Creation Groaning
Romans 8:20-22 say that God’s creation groans under the impact of sin. An agnostic might say, “That’s not fair to the animals.” This is a moral judgment from a fallen creature on a holy God, who knows all things with perfect clarity or light, not impeded by darkness. God expresses the conditions for the animals in Jeremiah 12:4:
How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He, shall not see our last end.
John Gill comments: “Wickedness is the cause not only of the withering of the grass and herbs, but of the consumption of birds and beasts.” In this moral realm where God is Lawgiver and Judge, animals along with the rest of God’s creation suffer under the results of the entrance of sin. The purpose of God is pure in His inclusion of effects on everything. His grace still works in a manner that it is not as bad as it could be. This is the mercy of God. However, God is just in His dealings and judging God is not the right moral reaction to Him.
The Morality of God
The morality of God is morality. His assessment is the right assessment. His judgment is just.
Another aspect of the judgment of God is that He knows all possible outcomes. He can even answer the question, “What’s the alternative?” He knows every alternative. The one God chooses in fitting with His nature.
God is pure good with zero variableness. He gives every good and perfect gift. Humans enter and interact with whatever earthly scene with very limited perspective and context. One could ask, “What is the greatest good in every situation?” People don’t know that. God knows what will benefit the most people and He judges evil in an untainted manner related to its past, present, and future. Whatever He allows or causes is the greatest good for the most people.
In a sin-cursed world, no one deserves life according to the morality of God, but even with that outcome of sin, God allows or causes the greatest possible good for the most people. He also knows when no one or even just a few in a particular culture will turn from their wicked ways and He spares those who deserve sparing in this lifetime. God spared Rahab in Jericho, indicating this truth.
Deserved Outcomes
A cycle of life and death resulted from the Fall of sin that impacts all of creation. Everyone and everything suffers because sin is very bad. Sin is deserving of the outcome it receives, even as God governs morality.
A future new heaven and new earth will starkly contrast with this present age of doom and destruction. Why? Sin is gone, so the results of sin are gone.
The same agnostics most often justify immorality in a multitude of ways. They expect God to wink at sin and then continue winking at it. This manifests their immoral nature. They have a different set of expectations than God and for God, skewed by their own depraved nature.
More to Come
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).
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