God. Real. Right.

“Once-saved-always-saved,” the doctrine of eternal security, is a hard pill for some people to swallow. A caller to my radio program is witness to just such. He claimed that since the letters to the churches in the Revelation were written to believers, and that God said to them that if they did not repent He would blot them out of His book, that it is obvious that some believers can lose their salvation. As I struggled to figure out what passage he could have in mind, it became apparent that his well-intentioned argument was based, as is often the case, on something not quite the same as the actual content of the passage of scripture so casually referenced.

To be precise, the caller’s claim was, “If the believers do not repent, God will blot them out of His book.” For perfect clarity, that statement could be symbolized as
~ R –> B
where “~” means “not”, “R” means “that believers repent”, and “B” means “that they will be blotted out.” The arrow, “–>”, represents implication, the “if-then” relationship in this case.

However, as it turns out, the only passage in the chapters he mentioned even vaguely similar to the caller’s reference is Revelation 3:5, which actually (more…)

Share on Facebook

Previously, Dr. Everett Berry addressed a listener’s claim that John 6′s statements about eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood are about the Eucharist, a common belief among Catholics and others who hold the doctrine of transubstantiation—not my view, of course. Here are the follow-up emails regarding that interchange. Obviously, I agree with Dr. Berry, and find his comments sufficient to make the point.

Here’s Gene-the-Catholic’s reply to Dr. Berry’s first explanation:

Dr. Everett, thanks for responding to (more…)

Share on Facebook

Dr. Everett Berry (Ph.D. Theology, Southern Seminary) is a frequent guest on “Live from Criswell”. His presence allows me to address more significant theological issues. He is a theologian, after all!

Here’s a follow-up e-mail he received after mentioning John 6′s comments about “eating my flesh” and such, followed by his reply to the email.

Dr. Berry, I heard you on Dr. Creamer’s radio show. I have a question for you. Why should we take John 6 verses 50-69 as symbolic? Why not take Him literally as Catholics do?
Thank you, Gene

And here is Dr. Berry’s reply:

Gene,

Thanks for the question. Briefly, when we deal with John 6, verses 50-69 are a part of the larger discourse that Jesus is having with the crowds, the Jews and his disciples. He begins by saying that the people are following him because they have eaten “literal” food. But they should rather seek the food which is eternal (6:27). He then interprets the eating of that food in several ways; as believing in the Father who sent him (6:29), as coming to him and believing (6:35), and as beholding and believing in the him (6:40). This being said then, when Jesus claims that the one who eats his flesh and drinks his blood will be raised on the last day (6:54), the point is that the one who has eternal life is the one who believes he is the bread from heaven who gives his flesh for his people. Furthermore, Jesus tells the disciples that the flesh profits nothing but his words are of the Spirit and so they give life (6:63). Those who eat them have eternal life but still there are those who do not (6:64). Also, just as a practical question, how does it make sense to interpret this passage as referring to the Eucharist when this ordinance has not been established yet. This would seem to be anachronistic.

Just food for thought. No pun intended.
Blessings,
Everett Berry

And my comment? I think the pun was intended.

There is more on this interchange here.

Share on Facebook

I teach and find biblically indisputable the doctrine of eternal security—once saved always saved. But there are passages which leave even those who agree with the doctrine scratching their heads. John 15 contains one of those passages. However, as with every similarly “offending” passage, the offense is all in the reader, and not in the text. Here are the first six verses of John 15:

1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.  2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.  3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.  4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.  5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.  6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

The confusion in the passage is built on (more…)

Share on Facebook

There are a few key passages which are disappointingly abused in defense of determinism in its varying forms and implications. Here is one of them.
(For those who already know the terms and want to save some reading: the point of this post is simply that Paul’s argument is inductive rather than deductive. This post is, by the way, an amendment of an insufficiently clear one from several years ago.)

Romans 8:29-30 is usually taken as an unbroken chain of activities directed at the elect—meaning: God glorifies every person He justifies, justifies every person He calls, calls every person He predestines to be like Christ, and predestines every person He foreknows. Of course, such a reading is not as self-evident as its proponents make it out to be. In fact such a reading controverts, or at least eisegetically obscures, the contextual meaning of the passage.
The problem reading it that way is evident when (more…)

Share on Facebook

Here is the audio of a message on Hebrews 9:1-15. If you right click the previous sentence you can download the file. If you left (normal) click it, it will begin playing in a new page. If you click the little arrow next to it, it should play on this page.
I presented it to one of my “home” churches, Bethany Baptist Church in Pleasant Grove. It is based on a sermon I prepared from that text for a summer leadership camp for youth in Kerrville, TX.
I apologize to those of you who listen to most of the messages I put online, because the final illustration is one I have used in another sermon here. :O

Share on Facebook

Because I am normally speaking in other churches on Sundays, I don’t get to sit in my Sunday morning Bible study class as often as I would like. But I was there this week. I am fortunate to have a teacher (Tom Green) who is smart, loves to study, and very good at provoking the members of the study to think about the material he is covering each week. Like many other SBC Bible study groups this week, we were studying 1 Samuel 24-31–in particular, the narrative about Saul in the cave (chapter 24) and camped with his troops (chapter 26), and the one about Nabal and Abigail (chapter 25).
Here is one thing provoked by that Bible study.
The context: Chapter 24 is about David’s (more…)

Share on Facebook

I know there is much confusion about how Jesus could be in the grave for three days and three nights if He died on Friday and rose on Sunday. The phrase three days and three nights is specifically given as the length of time Jesus says He will be in the grave in Matthew 12:39-40. It is certainly possible that Jesus is using a common expression to emphasize that He would not rise until the third day, rather than giving a hard “moment” of resurrection; that is, exactly seventy-two hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds. So Matthew 12 could be taken either way. The question is, which way should it be taken. (Remember, Jewish days begin at 6 pm.) Does Jesus need to die at the last moment on Wednesday afternoon, so there is time for him to be in the tomb all day and night Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and then He is resurrected on the fourth day, which would be Sunday? Of course not, since although there are (more…)

Share on Facebook

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.
The propositional components of this verse are:
(1) Just as
(2) through one man sin entered into the world
(3) and death through sin
(4) and so
(5) death spread to all men because all sinned
The broad flow of the verse is governed by (1) and (4). The words indicated by (1) are important to isolate because they anticipate a parallel or a comparison through (4). (2) and (3) together will be the content joined to (5) by (1) and (4). In other words, there will be a parallel between the intent of “through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin” and the intent of “death spread to all men because all sinned.”
Defining the terms: The flow of (2), (3), and (5) hinges on identifying some generic terms which will indicate where Paul is expecting an identifiable (if not fully equivalent) relationship between terms or phrases. So, in (2), “through one man” refers to the act of one man, which will be labeled “A”, for “Adam sinned”. (more…)

Share on Facebook

No chapter argues more significantly or more voluminously for the truth of the resurrection than 1 Corinthians 15. Interestingly, however, Paul is neither asserting nor proving that truth to unbelievers. Rather, he speaks to Christians (albeit weak and even carnal ones) who are part of the church at Corinth. So his argument actually works through a different means and in a different direction than how it is usually preached. Normally the passage is used apologetically–that is, it is given as if to say the historical veracity of the resurrection is empirically undeniable, having been witnessed by those identified in verses 5-9. But that direction is not where Paul takes the argument at all.
The heart of his argument for the resurrection is in the syllogism he presents in verses 13-19, to which he then adds verses 20ff to make obvious the impact of the syllogism and to clarify that the relationship between the resurrection of Christ and everyone else’s resurrection is efficient rather than simply implicit. To save space, take DR to represent the proposition “that there is a resurrection of the dead,” CR to be “that Christ has risen from the dead,” PV to be “that the apostle’s preaching is vain,” FV to be “that the Corinthians’ (believers’) faith is vain,” SS to be “that the believers are still in their sins,” SP to be “that those who sleep (have physically died) in Christ are destroyed,” and MM to be “that believers are the most miserable (pitiable) of people.” Also, take “that we have hope in Christ in this life only” as equivalent to the denial of DR (“that there is a resurrection of the dead.” Paul’s syllogism then should be fairly obvious, beginning in verse 13 and ending in verse 19. (For those not familiar with the symbols, “~” means “not,” “–>” means “implies,” “^” means “and,” and “. :” means “therefore.”)
Verse 13 provides the first premise (in this case the minor premise) and is supported by (or simply restated in) verse 16. Verse 14 provides the beginning of the second premise (in this case the major premise) completed and supported in verses 15, 17, and 18. Finally, verse 19 provides the conclusion, which is, as it turns out, a reduction to absurdity (a reductio ad absurdum argument.) So the syllogism starts out looking like this:
~DR –> ~CR
~CR –> PV ^ FV ^ SP ^ SS
. : ~DR –> MM
The lack of syllogistic structure above is resolved with the simple observation that Paul refers to believers as the most miserable (pitiable) of people in verse 19 in order to abbreviate his (hypothetical) claim that the apostle’s preaching is vain (in verse 15), that the believers’ faith is vain (in verse 17), that the dead in Christ are simply rotting in the grave (in verse 18) and that the Corinthians are still in their sins (in verse 17.) (To be a bit more precise, SS is actually an implication of FV in Paul’s argument, but that fact does not change the value of this structure.) With that equivalence, the structure is straight up.
~DR –> ~CR
~CR –> MM
. : ~DR –> MM
Here’s the point, especially clarifying verse 19: Paul is not saying that if there is no resurrection, Christian life is an abysmal disappointment. Rather, Paul expects his readers to see MM as an absurdity. Since the structure of his argument is undeniable and he has emphasized (if not proven) the truth of the implicit relationship between each subject and predicate in the premises, then the absurdity of the predicate of the conclusion can lead to only one conclusion, the denial of the subject of the first (minor) premise, that the dead rise not. Like this:
~DR –> MM
~MM
. : DR
In other words, Paul assumes (for good reason) the Corinthians will respond to verse 19 by asserting that they certainly are not the most pitiable of all people. That is, he believes they will assert that the preaching they have heard is not vain, that their faith is not vain, that they have been delivered from their sins, and that their dead loved ones are not just decaying in the grave. And he has argued such that if they make that assertion, they will have to acknowledge that the dead do indeed rise. That acknowledgment then at least allows for the possibility that Christ also rose. Of course, the possibility of Christ rising is not at all the final disposition of the argument for Paul, which is why he asserts in the next verse (20) not only that Christ has risen from the dead, but that Christ’s resurrection not only makes the resurrection of the dead necessarily possible (the contrapositive of the original first premise in verse 13,) but more importantly that Christ’s resurrection of the dead paves the way for the resurrection of the dead more generally.
Now back to the weight of the reductio ad absurdum argument in verses 13-19: Paul does not begin with the fact of the resurrection then argue that the Corinthians ought to be more holy as a result of the fact for which he has provided evidence. Rather, he argues that their commitment to the faith is already real (although poorly lived, as the rest of the epistle attests) and that therefore the resurrection is undeniable. It is a more fideist than evidentialist argument. Of course, it could hardly be otherwise, written not as an apology to unbelievers but an appeal to believers.
The point here is simply that if believers’ lives have been changed by the gospel then the objective content of the gospel message, including the literal nature of the resurrection, is thereby validated. As always, miracles (even the greatest miracle: the resurrection) do not produce faith; rather, in this case epistemologically, faith (and its subsequent transforming power in the lives of the Corinthians) justifies the miracle–a fideist position indeed!

An explanatory note and a followup question:
An explanatory note: Fideism here is not just that salvation is by faith alone, nor does it include the idea that faith is purely subjective, without regard to objective content. It is simply the advocation of initial, volitional faith as the foundation within which Christianity is preached both to the lost and saved. That commitment of faith is independent of sufficient evidence or any other prior cause and therefore an expression of the free will (a gracious gift from God to humans.) The lost ought to make that commitment-choice. The saved have made that commitment-choice.
A followup question: But is it not possible that Paul made his evidential apologetic (based on the witnesses) first, then argues from that fact to the conclusion that without the resurrection they would be the most pitiable of men? The answer is no, because he already introduced the belief they have in reality in verse 2. In fact, he premises all his claims with the necessary relationship between their faith (unless you believed in vain,) their salvation, and their standing in what he preached to them. First they believe in the content of his message, which includes the objective truth of the resurrection. Everything else follows.

Share on Facebook