Archive for Gospel
The Basis of Our Expectation
When most Christians think about the parousia of Christ, at which time both the dead and living in Christ are to be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4: 16-17), they think of it as an imminent expectation. That is, the rapture and resurrection of believers is something that can occur during any generation. It doesn’t matter whether you are pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib; if you are solidly evangelical in your views, then you believe that the rapture intimately concerns you. Very well. But while the doctrine of imminency is confessed by all, it is less often understood why this element is essential to a true unfolding of the Gospel message.
We are aware of some who would postpone Christ’s second advent to a far future time. They urge Christians not to look for the second coming, which is the blessed hope of the church (Titus 2: 13), but for the evangelization of the world. They urge us to buy houses and cars, plant vineyards and oliveyards, make investments, and look for long-term schemes to reach fruition. One writer has even suggested that Christ will not return for another 36,000 years! This is wrong, all wrong. If only the truths concerning this matter were better understood, Christians would shun any doctrine that seeks to put off the coming of the King to receive us unto Himself.
The doctrine of imminency is indeed important, and is based – believe it or not – on the substitutionary, sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 23). Christ paid the wages when He died on Calvary’s cross. Hence, Christ’s death is substitutionary in nature. That is a simple equation, and easy to understand – as it well should be.
Think about it for a moment. If Christ’s death was substitutionary (which all Protestants admit), then it is evident that regenerate Christians need not die. That is, there is no more necessity for undergoing death. Wherefore Paul explicitly teaches: “Behold, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (1 Cor. 15: 51). That is, not all members of the Body of Christ shall undergo physical death; but regardless of whether we live or die, we shall all be tranformed into the image of Christ. In this regard, nothing has changed since the apostle penned these words.
For any Christian to claim that all the members of Christ’s body on earth at any given time must needs fall asleep in death, is to subvert this truth, and to demonstrate ignorance of the springhead whence it flows. Sometimes Preterists seek to solve the problem of imminency by relegating all the “expectation passages” to the first century, and positing their fulfillment in A.D. 70. But this method is inconsistent, and inadequate to deal with the facts. Paul’s teaching in Philippians 3: 20-21 places the rapture of believers in the immediate foreview of the church. Since the transformation of the living and dead did not occur in the first century, it is clear that it must still occupy an important place in our daily walk. There is only one body and one faith (Ephesians 4: 4-5). The church has received but one set of marching orders. How faithfully we adhere to these marching orders will reveal our value as stewards. It is a matter which concerns “all” (Luke 12: 41-48).
The questions we must ask is: Did Christ die for our sins? Was He raised for our justification? Is He coming again? If you answer yes to all three of these questions, then you will have to place more importance on the second coming, if you haven’t already. For the return of Christ is bound up with His sacrificial death on Calvary’s cross, and is therefore part of that “good news” which we are to preach. Any man who seeks to deny or wilfully obscure such good news will have something to answer for at the judgment seat of seat.
Why Hyper-Preterism Teaches A “Different Gospel”
Within the past week or so, a debate has arisen regarding the question of whether or not Hyper-Preterism presents a “different Gospel” from that of Futurist orthodoxy. Quotes have been offered from both sides — the general consensus of Futurists being that H.P. does, in fact, teach a different Gospel; while Hyper-Preterists insist that their system is a viable expression of Christianity, which maintains the same Christ, the same salvation, and the same “good news.”
But is the Hyper-Preterist position tenable? My answer is that it is not. In fact, I believe it can be demonstrated that Hyper-Preterism presents a message diverse from anything endorsed throughout the history of the church, and that, ergo, it stands in a class of its own. When seen in its proper light, it is evident that Hyper-Preterism teaches a new Gospel. And Paul pronounces all such teachers as under the curse (Galatians 1: 8-9).
But while a hue and cry may be raised regarding my conclusions in this matter, I trust the reader will bear with me as I adduce a few reasons in support of my thesis that Hyper-Preterism promulgates a Gospel different from “that we have received.”
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Firstly, the concept of “salvation” endorsed by Hyper-Preterism is radically different from that which Futurists espouse. Historically, Christians have always believed that salvation involves redemption from the consequences of Adam’s fall. These include moral and physical death as well as indwelling sin. That is, we see the results of Adam’s fall as being not simply moral in nature, but physical and anthropological as well. Paul writes, again and again, that the “entire man” is covered by Christ’s redemptive plan (see 1 Thessalonians 5: 23; Romans 8: 11; 1 Corinthians 6: 13-20; Ephesians 1: 14).
On the other hand, Hyper-Preterists generally see Adam’s fall as having “covenantal” and “spiritual” implications alone. So the question naturally arises: do Futurists and Hyper-Preterists view “salvation” differently? Of course they do. Hyper-Preterists do not believe in the redemption of the physical body; and as they teach that Christ’s salvific work was fully consummated in A.D. 70, they deny (notwithstanding Paul’s expectation in Romans 7: 24) that the sin indwelling our members will ever be eradicated. This marks a sharp division between Hyper-Preterism and Futurism, which latter system holds that all of the physical, somatic, and anthropological effects of Adam’s fall will be eradicated at Christ’s second coming. Hyper-Preterists cannot possibly agree with this proposition, because they claim that Christ returned in A.D. 70, fulfilling all prophecy! From this it is obvious that Hyper-Preterists and Futurists define “salvation” differently. And so the substance of our respective “Gospels,” which reveal not only the fact of salvation, but what we are saved from, is fundamentally different.
Then, there is the matter of Jesus Christ’s atoning work on the Cross. Christians have historically held that Christ’s physical death on Calvary’s cross forms the basis of His atoning work (Colossians 1: 22; 1 Peter 2: 24). Because Christ paid the wages of sin (Romans 6: 23) on the Cross, becoming our substitute as the Second Adam (2 Corinthians 5: 21), Hyper-Preterists cannot possibly hold that those “wages” involve physical death — else their theological system would be invalidated. So they reject the notion that the physical death of Christ was substitutionary in nature. That of course, is consistent with their conviction that the body must die, and that there will be no future physical resurrection. The Hyper-Preterist concept of the atonement logically leads to the view that Christ’s physical death had no redemptive/theological significance beyond serving as a “sign” of some spiritual/covenantal transaction from which the atonement derives its real efficacy.
The third element I would like to point out, is the fact that Futurism bases its teachings on the assumed authority of the New Testament canon; whereas Hyper-Preterists propose to re-evaluate the canon in light of allegedly fulfilled events. H.P. therefore posits a set of teachings distinctly different from those delivered by Jesus Christ and His inspired apostles. The Hyper-Preterist conclusions are based on the application of a “critical-historical” hermeneutic, which essentially views the New Testament canon as having less authority those who seek to re-codify its teachings on the basis of “internal evidence” and deductive logic. Such a method is dangerous in the extreme, and reeks of German rationalism and Aristotelian chicanery. Dr. Paul Lee Tan was certainly correct when he wrote: “By misunderstanding the concept of Sitz im Lebem (life situation of the prophets), liberals eviscerate the practical relevance of the Scripture on the altar of the historical” (The Interpretation of Prophecy, pg. 103).
In consideration of these facts, it is therefore safe to allege that since the Hyper-Preterist concept of “salvation” comes from interpreting the Gospels in a non-canonical fashion, their teachings result in a Gospel distinctly foreign to that of Futurism, which interprets God’s message of salvation within the confines of canonical relevancy.
That said, there are many other disparities between Hyper-Preterism and Futurism which could be broached to good effect in demonstration of my thesis. However, I trust that the above points prove sufficiently to any rational enquirer, that Hyper-Preterists do, beyond any shadow of a doubt, teach “another Gospel.” Far from being anything like ours, it is founded on different plan of salvation, a different view of the atonement, and a different hermeneutic altogether. Let it be “anathema.”
Rev. R.E. Neighbour — Satan’s “Social Gospel”
(from The Folly Of Federation Between The Church And The World, 1914)
With Intro by I.M. Haldeman:
“The church is being led today to take the place of a factor in the civilization of the world, when the very name, “Church,” (ecclesia) signifies those who have been called out and separated from the world. In entering into such a partnership, she is forgetting that the world has been crucified unto her, and that she has been crucified unto the world.
“The church is being led to believe that the natural man can be made better and, finally, approved of God; when it is written: ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’
“Our Lord and His disciples give us fair warning concerning the attitude and operation of the Devil in the closing hours of this age. They have warned us that Satan will come, not with hoofs and horns, but as an angel of light, with his ministers of righteousness, and that his supreme work, his most appalling and successful work, will be to counterfeit the Church of Christ and the Gospel of Christ. What our Lord specifically warns us against is, a counterfeit Christianity, deceiving, if it were possible, the very elect.”
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Beyond doubt, Satan fathers many cults and many religions which sway the world with their power. Beyond doubt, these cults and religions which dominate heathendom and undermine Christendom, hold high ideals of morality and self-culture.
The one thing omitted in all of these religions, is Calvary – the one thing emphasized is the deism of man.
If then, Christians everywhere recognize Satan behind these false earth religions, – primarily because the sacrificial work of Christ is eliminated, why should not Christians recognize Satan as the prime mover in world-popular reform movements where the Cross is eliminated?
Be not deceived! All of Satan’s colossal enterprises, religious and semi-religious, in behalf of man’s betterment are doomed to failure.
The Cross is God’s only remedy and man’s only hope.
The Cross has not failed. It will not fail, it cannot fail. It saves all who believe and it will guide them through the wreckage of this sin-cursed age, to the ages to come, where God will show the exceeding riches of His grace in Christ Jesus.
How dark will be the day of tribulation, when God’s wrath falls upon this Christ-rejecting, cross-despising age.
Arno C. Gaebelein — Paul’s Olive-Tree Parable
The Prophetic Parable of Paul demands our attention. It is found in Romans 11: 16-24. Two olive trees are used. The good olive tree is Israel; the wild olive tree represents the Gentiles. The good olive tree, on account of unbelief, had its branches broken off, and the branches of the wild olive tree were put upon the root of the good olive tree to partake of the fatness of the root.
Its meaning is very simple, not that the Gentiles, as it is claimed, were to take the place of Israel, and that all the national promises made to Israel are forever cancelled. It does not mean that the Gentiles have become Israel, but it means that the Gentile nations have their chance to partake of that grace covenant which God made with Abraham. Salvation by grace was offered to Israel; they rejected it. And now it is offered to the Gentile world.
God had announced this to Abraham. “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith (as Abraham was justified) preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed” (Gal. 3: 8). So during these Times of the Gentiles, since Christ died, the Gospel of Grace is offered to the Gentile world.
But there is a warning given to these ingrafted branches. They are not to boast; they are not to be highminded, they are not to be unbelieving, as the natural branches (Israel) were. In case the grafted-in branches are highminded and boasting, the threat is made that He Who spared not the natural branches will not spare the grafted-in branches, but cut them off, remove them from the root of the good olive tree and then, after He has removed them, put back the broken off branches into their own, good olive tree – “for God is able to graft them in again.”
This concerns the nations which have had the privileges of the Gospel. They form Christendom. As we shall see later they are turning away from the Truth of God and give it up. They reject ultimately all Divine revelation, deny Him, who is Christ and Lord. When this age ends in a religious apostasy, then God will cut off these grafted-in branches and will have mercy on Israel, and put them back upon the root of their own olive tree.
Theology For A Rainy Day
Since the Lord saved me by His grace in spring of 2004, I’ve come to a better understanding of my place in the cosmos. I don’t say “in the kingdom,” because I don’t believe the church and the kingdom are the same. But in the cosmos there is a niche for us all, small and insignificant though it may be.
I think that part of the secret to maintaining a Christian perspective is to remember who is administering the affairs of this world. Our worldview must be a Biblical one. At present, the world is run by Satan and fallen man. E.W. Bullinger writes:
“God is not administering, ordering, or ruling [the world's] affairs; though He is over-ruling all things in order to secure the accomplishment out of His secret counsels and purposes. His rule, and Dominion is in abeyance; and, while He is silent, He is, by His Spirit whom He has sent, bringing the world in guilty, of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (The Great Cloud of Witnesses, pg. 318).
A sober realization of these facts will keep our eyes looking up to Christ as the one hope we have. He alone is the bright and morning star (Rev. 22: 16). And so we get theology for a rainy day. Those who realize their high calling, as unfolded in the prison epistles of Paul (Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Titus, 1 & 2 Timothy), will learn to sit loose to the things of this world.
Moses the man of God once said: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom” (Psa. 90: 12). Only when the world’s image is effaced from our hearts will we ever truly know what real Christianity is about. Man must be made to learn how frail he is, that all carnal security may be shaken. He must understand that the sands of this aeon are fast running out. Until Christ comes to bind the usurper and establish His kingdom, the daily round of human existence is futile at best.
Christian discipleship can sometimes be burdensome. As pilgrims, our journeying to and from leads us sometimes to view ourselves as outsiders – mere visitants waiting for the “calling on high” (Phil. 3: 14); and so we forget our role as witness-bearers in this world. That is what a Christian must become, though, if he would serve his Lord properly: a lamp shining in the midst of a dark and unregenerate (and might I say, doomed?) world. To keep precious oil in our vessels, we must remain in communion with Him Who sits at the right hand of God. This entails setting our affections on things above, not on things on the earth (Col. 3: 1-2).
Moses knew what he was talking about when he said, “Let us number our days.” The fact that the things are this world are so fleeting gives us a standing reminder that we have a commission to carry out, which is more important than our own agendas. That commission is to bear witness to the Gospel in whatever way we can. All other programs must be subservient to this.
But most of us fail miserably when it comes to personal witnessing. I speak from experience. Side-tracked by ephemeral issues, we too often forget that bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel is infinitely more important than refuting error, in whatever shape it may come.
But like clouds that obscure the sun, those things that divert attention from Divine priorities tend to go away after a heavy rain. Solomon once said, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go the house of feasting; for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better” (Ecc. 7: 2-3).
Solomon did not know when he’d die, but he knew it could be at any moment. And then he would go down to the grave, not to awaken until the trumpet called him forth. Surely without this hope to sustain him, existence would have been a miserable thing.
It was the hope of resurrection that made life worth living. It was the simple fact that also sustained Job throughout all His afflictions. It was the coming of the Savior, the second Adam, to receive what the first Adam had forfeited, and to bring in the long-awaited kingdom, that sweetened the earthly pilgrimage of the fathers. It was the hope of the second coming that bolstered Paul as he languished in his prison. It is the same hope that motivates us today.
Without being too sentimental, I call this “theology for a rainy day.” Throughout the ages, the hope of Christ’s return has always exercised a salutary effect on the human heart. If you the reader are missing the blessed realization that the Savior will soon come, or have allowed it to become obsured by the things of this world, I urge you to look into the Scriptures of truth, “that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1: 18).
Lapsed Or Apostate?
Is it possible to “fall away” from the faith? Despite what man’s systems of divinity would tell us, and what creeds and councils have stated in the past, I believe that the Word of God leads us to answer in the affirmative. And yet, when we come to investigate this doctrine of spiritual apostasy, we must be careful. After all, I think there is a difference between someone who is actually apostate, and one who is merely lapsed. How is this distinction defined in Scripture?
Perhaps the most lucid text which speaks of apostasy is Hebrews 6: 4-6. This gives us the spiritual character of one who has “fallen away” from the faith. Paul writes: “For it is impossible for those who have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have taste the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.”
Here we find that it is not possible for one who is truly apostate to repent. A parallel text is 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-12, which refers to the climax of that spiritual defection which will occur at the close of the present interval between Christ’s first and second advents. From these and other Scriptures, is clear that there is a certain threshhold which a man may eventually cross in departure from the truth, beyond which there is no possibility of return.
However, in 2 Timothy 2: 25-26, Paul tells Timothy that the servant of Lord is to instruct in meekness those that oppose themselves, “If peradventure God will give them repentance unto the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves from the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”
Here, the word translated “recover” is the Greek verb “ananepho,” which literally means “to become sober again; come to one’s senses; recover sobriety.” The KJV margin gives the rendering “awake.”
Hence we see that Paul is not talking about those outside the church, who were not in need of recovery, for they had never accepted Christ; but those within the church who had temporarily fallen away from the truths they once received, and were opposing themselves. Paul holds out hope that these may repent; whereas concerning those of Hebrews 6: 4-6, he says the very opposite. This allows us to distinguish between the lapsed and the apostate.
Now it is possible, I suppose, for a Christian to lapse from the faith for a prolonged period. We hear of those who embrace heresy for many years. But the key is, they eventually repent and recover themselves. This marks them as lapsed, rather than apostate.
I myself lapsed for a brief period in 2005-2007, when I accepted the doctrines of Hyper-Preterism. However, I recovered myself in time. Had I been an apostate, I never could have repented, for my spiritual blindness would already have become fixed.
So, what it boils down to, is that a lapsed person will always “come back around,” whereas an apostate will remain in his error until the day he dies.
But how do we know who are lapsed, and who are apostate? The answer is, we don’t! And that is why it is important to preach repentance, and the absolute need to return to the faith delivered by Jesus Christ and His apostles.
Thankfully, God has not left salvation up to us. Man has a tendency to allow eternal life to those he feels are “good enough,” or plausibly genuine in their profession. But God lays down distinct principles of salvation, which can only be neglected at one’s risk. There is nothing so hard on the flesh, or so offensive to man’s pride, as the doctrine of repentance. Leave this out, and you allow lapsed Christians to wallow in their error, to their own harm. But preach repentance, and you may wake them up.
Sadly, most Christians are not sensitive to the spiritual warfare going on around us. They do not feel the danger seething beneath the very crust of this earth on which we walk. Either they are entrenched in the the things of this world, or have neglected prayer and study of the word, — in fact, there are any number of reasons why they would fail to take seriously the Scriptures which speak of need for perseverance in the faith. As always, we must have our senses exercised to discern between good and evil (Hebrews 5: 14).
Those who espouse an epicurean Christianity, which seeks to draw as much honey from this life as it can, will be dangerously apt to broaden God’s plan of salvation so as to include in it many persons whom God has no intention of saving at all. Let us be careful.
Of course, I am not making any breach in the doctrine of “once saved, always saved.” However, it is impossible to know if one is truly saved or not. That will not be known to mortal men until the “day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus according to my (i.e. Paul’s) Gospel” (Romans 2: 16). Until then, the wheat and tares must grow together.
At any rate, our lack of knowledge in this department should not impede us from doing all that we can to recover those who are lapsed, and to fence and shield Christians from the false doctrines of those who are truly apostate. In this and other matters, may God grant us the grace to be as “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10: 16).
