Issue 209 July August 2014 - Cross to Crown MinistriesApologetics and Reformed Theology: Approach #1 Steve West Reformed theology has been searching for an apologetic that is consistent

passage. First, God uses trials to spread the gospel. Paul says that his imprisonment has actually resulted in the advance of the gospel (Phil. 1:12-13). Trials are to be ex-pected for Christians. Contrary to what many TV preach-ers teach, trials do not mean that you lack faith or are not in God’s will. Quite the contrary. Acts 14:22 says that the Apostles strengthened “the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith and by telling them, ‘It is necessary to pass through many troubles on our way into the king-dom of God.’ Jesus said, “You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world” (John 16:33). Being in Christ doesn’t necessarily keep one from being in chains.1

Here we have a traveling Apostle who can no longer travel! This is like a chef with no taste buds or a concert

1 Stephen E. Fowl, Philippians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 39.

I remember when I was first converted we would meet in different homes after the evening service and discuss Scripture into the early hours of the morn-ing. One of the subjects most often discussed would involve what was called “eternal security.” At that point in our experience the doctrines of grace were not an issue simply because we had never heard of them. No one that we knew believed in election or ever heard of limited atonement. This was a period that occurred before the revival of sovereign grace that started in the fifties. We would often discuss Hebrews 6 and 10. These texts seem to teach that a true Christian could be saved and then be lost. One verse that really perplexed us was Matthew 10:22, “he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” We could never come to a satisfactory understanding of that verse. The reason we could not understand that verse was our ignorance of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.

We had heard the labels Arminianism and Calvinism, and we knew that the Calvinists were the good guys. We thought the main difference between these two theologies was the doctrine of what

Issue 2 0 9 Ju ly—Aug ust 2 014

… It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace … Hebrews 13:9

Enduring to the End—Matthew 10:22John G. Reisinger

Philippians 1:12-19 reads, Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has hap-

pened to me has actually resulted in the advance of the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is in the cause of Christ. Most of the brothers in the Lord have gained confidence from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the message fearlessly. To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and strife, but others out of good will. These do so out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely, seeking to cause me anxiety in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Just that in every way, whether out of false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed. And in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice because I know this will lead to my deliverance through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Notice four things we can learn and apply from this

Trials and the Kingdom of ChristA. Blake White

Reisinger—Continued on page 2

White—Continued on page 10

In This IssueEnduring to the End Matthew 10:22

John G. Reisinger

1

Trials and the Kingdom of Christ

A. Blake White1

Apologetics and Reformed Theology: Approach #1

Steve West

3

Heaven on Earth or Paradise Lost? Part 2 of 2

Dr. J. David Gilliland

5

Page 2 July—August 2014 Issue 209Sound of Grace is a publication of Sovereign

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was called “eternal security.” We thought the Arminians believed you could be saved and then lose your sal-vation and perish, and the Calvinists believed that a true Christian could not possibly lose his salvation. We called this “once saved always saved” or “eternal security” and equated Calvinism with that one doctrine. We would have called ourselves Calvin-ists simply because we believed in “eternal security.” Little did we realize that although Arminius did believe you could be saved and then lost, and Calvin believed that was impossible, that was not at all the main difference between the Arminians and Calvin-ists at the time of the Reformation. We would have denied, without realizing it, four of the five points of Calvinism and totally misunderstood the fifth point not understanding what it really taught. Here is a short review on Ar-minianism and Calvinism.

Arminianism – named after Jaco-bus Arminius (aka Jacob Arminius, James Arminius, and his Dutch name Jacob Harmenszoon) was a Dutch theologian, best known as the founder of the anti-Calvinistic school in Re-formed Protestant theology, thereby lending his name to a movement which resisted some of the tenets of Calvinism - Arminianism. The early Dutch followers of Arminius’ teach-ing were also called the Remonstrants, after they issued a document contain-ing five points of disagreement with classic Calvinism, entitled Remon-strantice (1610).1

Calvinism (also called the Re-formed tradition or the Reformed faith) is a major branch of Protestant-ism that follows the theological tradi-tion and forms of Christian practice of John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. Calvinists broke with the Roman Catholic Church

1 “Jacob Arminius,” Christian Classics Etheral Library, m.ccel.org/browse/ authorInfo?id=arminius, (accessed August 30,2104).

but differed with Lutherans on the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, theories of worship, and the use of God’s law for believers, among other things. 2

The vital difference between the Arminians and the Calvinists at the time of the Reformation was the free will of man not eternal security. Both groups were consistent in their position. The important point was not whether a believer could be saved and lost but why that was either possible or impossible. The Arminians did not re-ject the truth that man was a depraved sinner. It was a question of how far reaching his depravity was. They did not believe the sinner’s depravity ex-tended to his will. He still had a “free will” and the power to choose with his free will to either accept or reject the Gospel. Man’s ultimate salvation did not rest on God’s sovereign election but on man’s free will. Man was the “master of his fate and the captain of his soul.” He could either accept or re-ject the Gospel with his free will. On the other hand, the Calvinist insisted that man’s will was just as depraved as his heart and the rest as his being, hence the Calvinist added the word “total” to depravity. The Calvinists insisted that man was totally de-praved. The word total meant that sin had corrupted every aspect of man’s being including his will. The sinner’s will was just as much in bondage to sin as was his mind and heart. It did not mean that man was as sinful as it was possible to be. It meant his mind, his heart and his will had all been cor-rupted by sin. Total meant every part of man’s being.

Why did the Arminian insist that a person could be saved and then be lost, and why did the Calvinist believe just as firmly that such a thing was impossible? The answer is simple and logical. The Arminian believed that 2 “Calvinism,” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Calvinism, (accessed August 30,2014).

Issue 209 July—August 2014 Page 3

West—Continued on page 15

Apologetics and Reformed Theology: Approach #1Steve West

Reformed theology has been searching for an apologetic that is consistent with its doctrinal distinc-tives, and the quest has never been more complex than it is today. The mid-20th century saw the birth and growth of a new approach to apologet-ics called presuppositionalism, which continues to dominate the Westmin-ster Seminary circles of Reformed thought. The last two decades of the 20th century also saw the rise of a new perspective on apologetics referred to as Reformed epistemology. Both approaches emerged, in part, as cor-rectives to the standard apologetic approach that had been traditionally practiced in the church. The tradition-al approach—because of its historical pedigree—is usually referred to as classical apologetics.

Although many Reformed think-ers accepted presuppositionalism or Reformed epistemology, the new approaches have not cleared the field of all vestiges of the classical method, even in Reformed circles. In fact, the classical approach has been popularized in certain circles by the advocacy of people like R. C. Sproul. It is also—simply because the clas-sical method is so widely distributed in evangelicalism—accepted by many Reformed believers who have never thought about issues of con-sistency between their theology and their favored apologetic strategy. For example, it is entirely possible that a Reformed believer has picked up their apologetic from Ravi Zacharias, Lee Strobel, and C. S. Lewis, none of whom are Reformed. This by itself does not mean that their apologetic method is inconsistent with Reformed thinking, but it certainly raises the question: Would we expect that identical approaches to apologetics

would be found in non-Reformed and Reformed circles?

Unlike presuppositionalism and Reformed epistemology, the classi-cal method was not generated from Reformed soil. It is actually slightly more Roman Catholic than Protestant (depending on how anachronistic we want to be with our labels). Many of the classical arguments are not even Christian arguments. For example, the original cosmological argument was Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover.” The kalam cosmological argument, which forms the center of William Lane Craig’s theistic proofs, was originally developed by a Muslim scholar to prove the existence of Allah. The tele-ological argument (colloquially called the argument from design) has been used by Muslims, Christians, De-ists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others to argue for theism. Even academic philosophers use these arguments to demonstrate that there is a supernatu-ral deity or supreme being, or perhaps just a disembodied cosmic mind. Clearly these arguments do not aim to prove anything about the supreme be-ing that is particular to Christianity.

Despite some historical missteps in this regard (e.g., Thomas Aquinas continually adding conclusions like “and of course everyone understands this to be God” at the end of his arguments that, at best, might show there was a first cause, or a necessary being, etc.), contemporary apologists who favor the classical methodol-ogy are well aware that their theistic arguments yield very generic conclu-sions. A “first cause” argument really is as compatible with Islam or Deism as it is with Christianity. So classi-cal apologists argue that in order to defend Christianity, there needs to be a movement from philosophical argu-

ments that establish the existence of a generic theistic being, to arguments and evidence that the theistic being is really the God revealed in the Bible.

This sequential methodology is sometimes called a “two-step apolo-getic.” The first step is to demonstrate that theism is true; the second step is to show that there is strong evidence that it is specifically Christianity that is true. This second step normally ap-peals to historical data and evidence. The basic drift of the case is that since there is a theistic being that created the universe, it is entirely reasonable to think that this being has acted in the universe and revealed himself. (At this point, a careful classical thinker should really not use masculine pro-nouns of the deity, in that there is no reason whatsoever after the first step to think that the theistic being would be a “he.”) What kind of evidence do we find that a theistic being has, in fact, revealed himself by acting in the world?

The most common response is that history records the presence of occurrences that cannot be accounted for on the basis of natural law and scientific regularity. These anomalies are miraculous signs that can only be explained by supernatural activity and intervention. Scientific principles are not violated, but they are transcended. For example, when Elisha is out with a company of prophets who are chop-ping wood, one man’s axe breaks and the iron axe head flies into the nearby water and sinks. God miraculously raises it to the surface so that it can be retrieved. Now, it goes without saying that iron axe heads do not float spon-taneously. This is a miracle: but it is a violation of the laws of nature?

There is really no reason to think

Page 4 July—August 2014 Issue 209

what free will started, free will could stop. If you had the power to will your way into grace by believing the Gos-pel, you must also have the power to will your way out of grace. The Cal-vinist insisted that God’s free grace had the power to finish what it started. God’s sovereign election began and finished man’s salvation. Those who had been chosen to be sheep would not only hear the Savior’s voice and be saved, but they would continue to believe unto the end. The whole sheep motif in John 10 is only one of many texts proving this. Both the Calvinist and the Arminian believed that a sin-ner must indeed choose to be saved, and he must also endure to the end. However, the Calvinist insisted he will do both because of God choosing him to be a sheep. The elect chooses God only because God first chooses the sinner.

As I just mentioned, both the Arminian and the Calvinist were logical and consistent with their basic presup-positions. One of the implica-tions of the Arminians position was, without his realizing it, to give a sin-ner’s will more power than the will of the saint. According to this position, a person lost half of the power of his will when he trusted Christ.

A dear brother who rejected the Calvinist position was adamant that man had a free will and wanted to argue with me. I knew that he was a strong believer in the absolute se-curity of a believer. I told him that I would not discuss man’s free will with someone who did not believe in eternal security. He was quite ada-mant in insisting that I misunderstood

his belief. He assured me that he was firmly convinced of the doctrine of eternal security. In mock surprise I said, “How can you possible believe in both eternal security and free will?” He said, “What do you mean? What is the problem? I see no incon-sistency in believing both free will and eternal security.” I said, “You tell me a sinner has the power of free will to either accept or reject the Gospel, but a saint has not the power to reject the Gospel and be lost. You are telling me that a sinner has more will power than a saint. In your system a person loses half of his power of will when he is converted. Before he is convert-ed he has the power to either accept or reject Christ, but after he is saved, he can no longer reject the Gospel.” He looked dumbfounded and never answered.

I assured the man that biblical Cal-vinism be-lieved just as strongly as he did that per-severance in faith and good works unto the end are es-sential to true conversion. The differ-

ence between a biblical Calvinist and a consistent Arminian is not whether persever-ance to the end is essential; Biblical Calvinists believe that just as strongly as Arminians. They both believe that only those who endure to the end will be saved. The difference is whether all Christians will be able to so perse-vere. The Arminian believes that he must “hang on to the end with his free will” and some Christians will not be able to do so. The Calvinist believes that Christ hangs on to all the sheep his father gave him in eternity. Our Lord, the great Shepherd of the sheep, assured us that he will lose none of

the sheep that the Father gave him and for whom he died. The difference is not whether “hanging on is essen-tial,” but who furnishes the power to hang on. Does the Holy Spirit give all believers saving grace and power to persevere to the end, or does man’s so called free will furnish that power?

The Plymouth Brethren often say, “I don’t believe in the perseverance of the saints, I believe in the persever-ance of the Savior. This confuses the issue. I also believe in the persever-ance of the Savior. However, our Lord perseveres in prayer that saints will be enabled to persevere in faith. Jesus told Peter, “I have prayed for you that your faith fail not” (Luke 22:32). It is the Holy Spirit who empowers us to “keep on keeping on.” I believe in both the perseverance of the saints and the perseverance of the Savior. However, we persevere only because the Savior perseveres for us at the Father’s throne.

Others say, “I don’t believe in the perseverance of the saints, I believe in the preservation of the saints. Every time I hear that I think of a pickle in a jar. When God saves us he does not put us in a jar of grace and insulate us from all trials and temptations. The Christian life is a life of warfare, and we must fight and win the war. Cal-vinism insists that God’s grace will empower every true Christian to fight and win. He may lose some individual battles with sin and temptation, but he will not lose the war nor will he leave the battlefield.

One of the greatest books ever written on the subject of persever-ance is John Bunyan’s immortal book The Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan was my brother Ernest’s patron saint. He used to say,” I led my brother John to Christ, and he led me into the doctrines of grace, and I was more gracious leading him to Christ than he was in leading me to understand the doctrines of grace.” We never debated



The Arminian believes that he must “hang on to the end with

his free will” and some Christians will not be able to do so. The Calvin-ist believes that Christ hangs on to all the sheep his father gave him in eternity. Our Lord, the great Shepherd of the sheep, assured us that he will lose none of the sheep that the Father gave him and for whom he died. The difference is not whether “hanging on is essential,” but who furnishes the

power to hang on.


Gilliland—Continued on page 6

Principle #1: Remember Who Your God Is.

For many of the Israelites and many in the church today, God was spelled with a little g. But “our God,” says the psalmist “Turns the heart of the king, like rivers of water, where ever he wishes.” Again he says, “Our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He pleases.” Nothing happens in the universe but by the de-cree of God and for his glory. Regard-less of the physical and spiritual chaos around us at times, you will find calm and assurance in the character of a sovereign God. He is like the eye of the storm, for he is both its ultimate cause as well as the source of com-plete calm.

Above all else, God is jealous for his name. It is the worship of his name that he requires, as well as obedience to his precepts. He told Isaiah, “The LORD is my name … and I will not give my glory to another.” The issue is not just “moral values” or “ family values” but whose “moral values.” Furthermore, God is not only spelled with a capital “G,” but a capital “J,” for he has taken a new name since the days of Isaiah: “And they shall call his name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Jesus said, “if you have seen me you have seen the Father,” and “no one comes to the Father but through me.” This flies in the face of the modern notion that you can some how talk about God and the Bible, and keep the name Jesus out of the discus-sion. For example, here is a quotation from a newspaper article about the “ faith” of one of our politicians:

Asked whether he regards the Bible as the literal and inerrant Word of God, he said, ‘From Scripture you can gain a lot of strength and solace and learn life’s lessons. That’s what I believe, and I don’t necessarily believe every single word is liter-ally true’. He learned a lesson from an earlier campaign when he created controversy by telling a reporter that only those who have accepted Christ as their savior can enter the kingdom of heaven. ‘That’s a little insight into what he really believes’, said a friend. ‘He quickly learned to shut up so it will never be discussed.’

But note well the admonition to the early church in the book of Rev-elation. To the church at Pergamum he writes ,

“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The One who

has the sharp two-edged sword says this: ‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith

even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells” (Rev. 2:12-13).

To the church at Philadelphia he writes,

”And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this: 8’I know your deeds Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name”(Rev. 3:7-8).

This should remind us of Jesus’ words:

”For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will

be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).

Principle #2: Remember To Keep a View of the Ultimate Glory.

A dim view of heaven and the glories to come will always lead us to an unbiblical reliance on man’s power and influence. It is only with a clear view of heaven that we have the cour-age to persevere in difficult circum-stances. Jesus put it this way when writing to the Church at Philadelphia:

”I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name” (Rev. 3:11-12).

In his letter to the church at Colos-sae the Apostle Paul writes,

“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col. 3:1-4).

Not only does this attitude keep our eyes focused on the realities of the heavenly realm, but the resultant life-style protects us from the judgment of God. The apostle Paul continues,

“Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immo-rality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience” (Col. 3:5-6).

Principle #3: Remember the Weapons of our Warfare are Spiri-

Heaven on Earth or Paradise Lost? Part 2 of 2Dr. J. David Gilliland

This article was first presented some years ago by Providence Theological Seminary. We consider it worthy of reprinting. Ed.

Above all else, God is jealous for his name. It is the worship of his name that he requires, as well as obedience to his precepts.



could see the whole course of the bottle’s trip. When it veered north, you would be tempted to say, “It will never reach the Gulf,” but a little later you will see it turn back on course. From ground level, it looked like Pilgrim was going to perish. From God’s perspective, he was as secure in Christ as it was possible to be.

I have heard preachers say, “Da-vid’s sin of adultery and murder proves the doctrine of eternal security. I strongly object to that statement. Da-vid’s sin does not at all prove eternal

security. His sin of adultery and mur-der do not prove his security. All that his sin proves is that he was a sinner

like you and me. Read Psalm 51, and you will see the truth of the perseverance of the saints. You will see God dealing with a saint who has grievously sinned. You will see the Father dealing with an erring child. Listen to Peter openly deny his faith, and you will be ready to pronounce him a hypocrite who is without grace. However, that is not the last chapter. Peter’s tears of repen-tance prove the root of the matter was in him. He ultimately persevered and wound up in glory. Don’t ever try to judge anyone on one instance of their failure.

One of the major problems in dis-cussing whether a true Christian can fall away and be lost is the fact that you must make two wrong judgments if you believe such a thing is possible. You must first judge and declare that the person is a true Christian, and then you must judge again and say they have lost their salvation. Both of these are judgments that you have no authority to make. Unless you can see into a person’s heart you have no

that subject. I remember an incident before he became a Calvinist. He gave me a copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress and said, “This is a great book, but it has one weakness. The author does not believe in eternal security.” At that point in my brother’s theological pilgrimage he insisted that “eternal security” and the “perseverance of the saints” were basically the same thing with two different names. He radical-ly changed his mind when he became a Calvinist and really understood Bunyan’s position on perseverance.

An Arminian reading Bunyan will indeed get the impression that you can be saved and then be lost. Pilgrim was certainly defeated in some instances, but he always, in every case, rose up from that defeat and fought again. He ulti-mately conquered and finally made it to the heavenly city. He was bruised and bloody when he took some very wrong roads but he never quit fighting and ultimately was victorious. He was trapped in Doubting Castle, but God revived his faith and he escaped and lived to fight another day.

The Pilgrim progressed at differ-ent speeds. His pilgrimage was like a river. The Mississippi River sometime flows south, sometimes flows east and other times flows west. It even curls around and flows north. However, re-gardless of what direction it is flowing at a given point, it will always come back to moving south. If you would put a bottle with a cork in it into that river at its head, that bottle would, without fail, wind up in the Gulf of Mexico. At times it would look like it could not possibly reach the Gulf, but every bottle would reach the Gulf without fail. If you could view the bottle’s course from an airplane, you

basis to say, “so and so is saved.” The most you can say of any person is “so and so professes to be saved and they give every evidence that their profes-sion is legitimate.” If they renounce their confession of faith and live in open rebellion to God’s truth, you can only say, their professed conversion seems very much in doubt. If you say that you know for sure they are lost you are again making a judgment you have no right to make. You may have been more than ready to pronounce David’s profession of faith to be false and the evidence would have ap-peared to prove your statement, but you would have been wrong. When you heard Peter openly deny the Lord Jesus, you would have labeled him an apostate, and the evidence would have supported your concern. Again, you would have been wrong. A true Christian can backslide very badly. Likewise he can be overcome with temptation and sin. A child of God can sin in a worse way, in a given instance, than a lost man, and a lost man can live a very moral life. A true Christian cannot become an apostate, but he can sin badly.

There is a strong desire to label people as either saved or lost. This has made the subject of both assurance of salvation and the security of believers so difficult. The advent of the “carnal Christian” doctrine really confused the issue. Both the Arminians and the Calvinists at the time of the Refor-mation would have denounced the carnal Christian doctrine imbedded in modern evangelism as totally contrary to Scripture. As mentioned earlier, both the Arminians and the Calvinists agreed that perseverance was essen-tial to Biblical assurance and ultimate salvation. Their disagreement was not over whether perseverance was es-sential but whether it was certain and whether all Christian would be able to persevere to the end. The modern day carnal Christian doctrine teaches that perseverance is not essential to either assurance or ultimate salvation. This doctrine was literally invented to


Listen to Peter openly deny his faith, and you will be ready to

pronounce him a hypocrite who is without grace. However, that is not the last chapter. Peter’s tears of repen-tance prove the root of the matter was in him. He ultimately persevered and wound up in glory. Don’t ever try to judge anyone on one instance of their

failure.

Issue 209 July—August 2014 Page 7Gilliland—Continued from page 5

Gilliland—Continued on page 7

tual.

When Peter—trying to protect Jesus—cut off the ear of the high priest, Jesus told him to put his sword away. Likewise, He told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world I would be fighting.” He did not mean that we should avoid the battle for God’s truth, or that his kingdom does not involve this world in any sense. He meant that victory will not come by the sword or armed conflict, and that the struggle transcends mere individuals or na-tions. Note the words of the apostle Paul:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rul-ers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12).

One of those weapons is prayer, and we have seen how effective that can be (Rev 8:3-5). Another is the preached Word—our spiritual sword, but it is important that we keep it sharp. Our message needs to be clear and biblically accurate.

But unfortunately, the message from the Christian community has not been clear. In fact, from some quar-ters it has been frankly heretical. For example, in response to the devasta-tion of hurricane Katrina one popular ‘evangelical’ writer wrote:

Perhaps we would do well to listen to the likes of Rabbi Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed. Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures does it say that God is omnipotent. Kushner points out that omnipotence is a Greek philosophical concept, but it is not in his Bible … Instead of looking for God in the earthquake or the tsunami, in the roaring forest fires blazing in the western states, or in the mighty winds of Katrina, it would be best to seek out a quiet place and heed the promptings of God’s still small voice.

Brethren, this will not do! This just smacks of a twenty-first century Gnosticism. This is not the voice of God, but the voice of the false prophet; the one whose purpose ,ac-cording to the book of Revelation,is to give aid and comfort to the beast or the “City of man.” Even some sol-idly orthodox preachers seem all too eager to place the responsibility for such events into a category of mere “natural causes”—divorced from any association with sin and judgment. This theological hopscotch only leads to confusion and even greater error. It almost seems like we are trying to protect God, a noble thought perhaps but foolish in the end. What we need to be concerned about is God protect-ing us! As we have discussed, all evil and judgment is ultimately traceable to Adam’s sin and the fall. The real question—like Jesus’ response to the tragedy of the Tower of Siloam—is not why the tsunami devastated Indone-sia, “But why only Indonesia?”

Principle #4: Remember We Have to be Willing to Suffer.

Yes, Jesus was victorious, but it came by way of a cross. We too, if we are his disciples, will suffer for his sake. That is part of what Jesus meant when he said, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” The servant shouldn’t expect better than his master. If the world hated him, we can expect some of the same treatment—especially if we too are faithful to warn of the judgment and wrath to come.

I once saw an ad for a bicycle com-pany that showed a rider at the point of total exhaustion with a caption that read, “Either you know how to suffer or you lose.” That is certainly not an attitude you would associate with the church in America. One of the problems with the church today, at least in Western countries, is the ‘do

anything to maintain our lifestyle’ at-titude. That is true for us as individu-als as well as some of our high budget churches. That is not to say that we can’t enjoy the blessings of God when they come. But all too often we are willing to compromise to avoid any type of hardship. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in our preach-ing—and especially when the subject of ‘divine judgment’ is raised.

Rejoice in the times of blessing, but remember that a stand for Christ often leads to some type of suffer-ing—whether it be emotional, finan-cial, or even physical. Also remember that it is out of suffering that blessing usually comes. The apostle Paul could see it being as much of a gift as his faith:

“For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Phil 1:29).

Like the martyrs of Revelation 6, we need to develop the discipline of patient endurance − it is more powerful than you can ever imag-

ine. The greatest weap-on that this world has is the threat of death. The greatest weapon the Christian has is faith in the promises of God—in spite of death. The exer-cise of that faith is ultimately what it means to “overcome.” Remember the words of the apostle John:

“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is the one who over-comes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (I John 5:4-5).

Principle #5: Remember the Priority of the Gospel

Why did God reveal his acts of judgment in the past? Should that be part of our message today? When we look throughout the Scriptures, it

As we have discussed, all evil and judgment is ultimately traceable to Adam’s sin and the fall. The real question—like Jesus’ response to the tragedy of the Tower of Siloam—is not why the tsunami devastated Indonesia, “But why only Indonesia?”

Page 8 July—August 2014 Issue 209Gilliland—Continued from page 7

was part of the message of Noah, the Prophets, Paul and the New Testa-ment writers, and of course was an important part of the public preaching of the Lord Jesus. Ultimately, it has several purposes: protection of God’s people (Noah, etc), but ultimately a testimony to the true nature of sin and the curse—something so powerful, pervasive, and devastating that it can only have one solution—God himself in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the backdrop and reality of sin and judgment that puts the gospel into its biblical perspec-tive. For it truly is only the power of the gospel that can and will save us, not only from ourselves but also from the judgment that is coming. It was knowledge of this reality that allowed the apostle Paul to write,

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Rom 1:16-17).

Even through the arrogance, can’t you see the fear and desperation in the words of the modern media? We preach the principles associated with God’s judgment because the only possible solution is the gospel. The solution for God’s hatred of sin can only be found in his love for the redemption and rec-onciliation of sinners. In spite of the unspeakable horror of the tsunamis, earthquakes, wars, and rumors of war, God’s hatred and punishment of sin is seen most clearly in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. But that too is the where his love, redemption, and rec-onciliation is most clearly displayed—where justice and mercy have kissed each other. John Calvin once wrote, “The most important truth about God is that he can be propitiated.” The doctrine of propitiation—typologi-

cally reflected in the mercy seat of the Hebrew tabernacle —is irrelevant nonsense apart from the righteous indignation of a holy God. For a god who will not judge, is a god who cannot save. Without the reality of sin and justice, the cross becomes a mockery, foolishness, and a ‘stum-bling block.’ The commandment to ‘love your neighbor’– whether it involves non-believers or believers—means not only a willingness to help during times of difficulty and crisis, but should also carry with it a burden for the gospel. We are commanded to “speak the truth in love,” but there is no love without truth. The Scriptures are clear; if grace is real—and it is—then so must be the realities that it delivers us from.

There is also a final warning for the Church of our day. All the well-

meaning practi-cal efforts to reverse the ef-fects of God’s judgment in creation and society—what has been referred to in the past as “the social gospel,” and is sometimes

included in to-day’s broadly used term “missional,” do not substitute for the message of the cross and the necessity and priority of the salvation of the soul. Nor does a desire to serve our neigh-bors in the communities where we live and work supplant the biblical emphasis of the “called out” people of God that finds its expression in the local church. As important as our local communities are, it is the church and the faithful teaching and preach-ing of the Word of God, the love that believers have for Christ and his gos-pel, and the love that we have for one another that points to the realities of the next age. All the efforts to pro-duce ‘heaven on earth’ will never substitute for the ultimate desire of the human soul—life with God and

“heaven at last”.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away’” (Rev. 21:1-4 ESV).

The doctrine of propitia-tion—typologically reflected in the mercy seat of the Hebrew tabernacle —is irrel-evant nonsense apart from the righteous indignation of a holy God. For a god who will not judge, is a god who can-not save.


Council on Biblical TheologyTuesday Evening July 22 to Friday Noon July25, 2014

Grace Church at Franklin4052 Arno Rd., Franklin, TN 37065

Theme: God’s Eternal Kingdom Purpose:NCT—Time for a More Accurate Way

Tony Costa. Christian Apologist & Adjunct Professor, Providence Theological Seminary (PTS). “The Sabbath and Its Relation to Christ and the Church in the New Covenant.”

Peter Gentry. Professor of OT Interpretation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. (Two Messages) “Ephesians 3:4-6: What the OT Says about the Inclusion of the Gentiles” & “God’s Dealings with Abraham: Conditional or Unconditional? One or Two Covenants?”

Gary George. Evangelist & Pastor, Sovereign Grace Chapel, Southbridge, MA; Board Member PTS. “The Regenerative Power of the Holy Spirit in the OT and the NT”

Frank Gumerlock. Professor of Church History and Systematic Theology, PTS. “Hebrews 11:8-19: God’s Land Promise to Abra-ham and the New Covenant”

Zach S. Maxcey. Graduate of PTS and Blog Administrator for PTS. “Daniel 9:24-27: The Messiah and the New Covenant”

W. W. Sasser. Pastor, Grace Church at Franklin and Board Member PTS. “Grace and Law: What’s the Big Deal?”

Greg Van Court. Pastor, Dayspring Fellowship Church, Austin, TX & Adjunct Professor PTS. “2 Timothy 3:16-17: The Profit-ability of All Scripture”

Kirk Wellum. Principal, Toronto Baptist Seminary, Toronto, Canada. “The Ecclesiological Implications of the New Covenant”

Stephen Wellum. Professor of Christian Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. (Two Messages) “What Is New about the NC?” and “The Nature of Typology Revisited: Do We All Agree?”

Blake White. Pastor, Spicewood Baptist Church, Spicewood, TX. “1 Corinthians 9:19-23: Not Under Law But Not Without God’s Law.”

For more information please visit http://ptsco.org then click on “Council on Biblical Theology”

Rethinking the Law by Eric Lane Is the Law of Moses (the Sinai code beginning with the Ten Commandments) the rule of life for the Christian, as it was for the Israelite in Old Testament times?

This question concerns many Christians, as it did the author of this book, and in fact it was the main motive for writing it. This question cannot be answered without a thorough examina-tion of the whole subject of the Law in both testaments.

The author is convinced that he has made this examination and in so doing has answered the question about the Christian’s rule of life. He offers his findings to other Christians in the hope that this will deepen their understanding of the whole subject and of Scripture generally.

Eric Lane was born and raised in London. He served in the Royal Air Force and is a graduate of Cambridge University with degrees in English and Theology. Eric served for nine years in the Anglican ministry in Carlisle and London, UK. After that he ministered in independent evangelical churches in various parts of the UK. He is now retired and living in Yateley, Hampshire.

226 pages, paperback with scripture index, $15.99 order from newcovenantmedia.com or as shown on pages 13 and 14

Page 10 July—August 2014 Issue 209White—Continued from page 1 Do not fear what they fear or be

disturbed, but honor the Messiah as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:14-15). The blood and pain of the saints is the fertilizer for the multiplication of Abraham’s seed.

Like the indigenous missionary who walked barefoot from village to village preaching the gospel in India. One day after a very long trip and much discouragement, he entered a village but was spurned and rejected. Exhausted he went to the edge of the village and lay down under a tree to get some rest. When he awoke the whole town was gathered around to hear him. They had come to check him out, and when they saw his blistered feet they concluded that he must be a holy man. They felt bad for rejecting him and wanted to hear his message.3

Or Natasha, whose story is told in the autobiography of Sergei Kourda-kov. Kourdakov was commissioned by the Russian secret police to raid Christian prayer gatherings and per-secute believers with extraordinary brutality and violence. The afflictions of one believer changed his life:

“I saw Victor Matveyev reach and grab for a young girl [Natasha Zhdanova] who was trying to escape to another room. She was a beauti-ful young girl. What a waste to be a Believer. Victor caught her, picked her above his head, and held her high in the air for a second. She was plead-ing, “Don’t, please don’t. Dear God, help us!” Victor threw her so hard she hit the wall at the same height she was thrown, then dropped to the floor, semiconscious, moaning. Victor turned and laughed and exclaimed, “I’ll bet the idea of God went flying out of her head.”

On a later raid, Sergei was

3 Recounted in John Piper, Let the Na-tions be Glad! (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 94-95.

shocked to see Natasha again.

I quickly surveyed the room and saw a sight I couldn’t believe. There she was, the same girl! It couldn’t be. But it was. Only three nights before, she had been at the other meet-ing and had been viciously thrown across the room. It was the first time I really got a good look at her. She was more beautiful than I had first remembered—a very beautiful girl with long, flowing blond hair, large blue eyes, and smooth skin, one of the most naturally beautiful girls I have ever seen … I picked her up and flung her on a table facedown. Two of us stripped her clothes off. One of my men held her down and I began to beat her again and again. My hands began to sting under the blows. Her skin started to blister. I continued to beat her, until pieces of bloody flesh came off on my hand. She moaned but fought desperately not to cry. To sup-press her cries, she bit her lower lip until it was bitten through and blood ran down her chin.

At last she gave in and began sobbing. When I was so exhausted I couldn’t raise my arm for even one more blow, and her backside was a mass of raw flesh, I pushed her off the table, and she collapsed on the floor. To Sergei’s shock, he later encountered her at yet another prayer meeting, but this time something was different:

There she was again—Natasha Zhdanova! Several of the guys saw her too. Alex Gulyaev moved toward Natasha, hatred filling his face, his club raised above his head. Then something I never expected to see suddenly happened. Without warning, Victor jumped between Natasha and Alex, facing Alex head-on. “Get out of my way,” Alex shouted angrily.

Victor’s feet didn’t move. He raised his club and said menacingly, “Alex, I’m telling you, don’t touch her!” I listened in amazement. Incred-ibly, one of my most brutal men was

pianist having her hands tied behind her back.2 He can no longer be on mission, but God can and does. The gospel spreads. Wouldn’t you think that imprisonment would hinder the spread of the message of Jesus? Not in God’s economy. God works through the most unlikely circumstances. I mean, he established his kingdom through the execution of the King! Who does that except the sovereign of the universe whose wisdom is expressed in a Roman instrument of torture and execution?

God has chosen to use trials to spread the gospel. Remember the Phi-lippian jailer? He saw Paul, Silas, and Timothy stripped naked and beaten with rods and then save him from sui-cide when they were free. God used their persecution to save this guard.

Are you facing trials right now? If not, you will be soon enough. Don’t be discouraged. Paul views his situa-tion with Christ-centered lenses. He knows that God is in control and that God is good. This is why when he was arrested, he sang hymns rather than complained (Acts 16). When you know deep down in your bones that God is sovereign and that he is good, it gives you a steel backbone. Come what may, this is God’s world and he knows what He is doing. He has good purposes for his children. Romans 8:28 never gets old: “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.” Don’t be discouraged.

Historically, God has used perse-cution to grow the church. In AD 197 Tertullian said that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” When non-Christians observe how Christians suffer, they are compelled to know more about the God we serve. They will ask about our hope, as Peter puts it: “But even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed.

2 N.T. Wright, The Prison Epistles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 89.


White—Continued on page 12

protecting one of the Believers! “Get back!” he shouted to Alex. “Get back or I’ll let you have it.” He shielded Na-tasha, who was cowering on the floor.

Angered, Alex shouted, “You want her for yourself, don’t you?”

“No,” Victor shouted back. “She has something we don’t have! Nobody touches her! Nobody!” …For one of the first times in my life, I was deeply moved…Natasha did have something! She had been beaten horribly. She had been warned and threatened. She had gone through unbelievable suffering, but here she was again. Even Victor had been moved and recognized it. She had something we didn’t have. I wanted to run after her and ask, “What is it?” I wanted to talk to her, but she was gone. This heroic Chris-tian girl who had suffered so much at our hands somehow touched and troubled me very much.

The Lord later opened Sergei’s heart to the glorious good news of Jesus Christ. As he later reflected on Natasha, whom he never saw again, he wrote: “And, finally, to Natasha, whom I beat terribly and who was willing to be beaten a third time for her faith, I want to say, Natasha, largely because of you, my life is now changed and I am a fellow Believer in Christ with you. I have a new life be-fore me. God has forgiven me; I hope you can also. Thank you, Natasha, wherever you are. I will never, never forget you.”4

God has seen fit to use trial to spread the gospel.

When we suffer well, it provokes questions. When we lose our job, we don’t panic. When a loved one dies, we grieve, but we grieve as those with hope. When we get sick, we don’t de-spair but entrust ourselves to the One who care for us. When wronged, we do not revile in return. When perse-cuted, we do not curse but bless.

4 Quoted in John Piper, Desiring God (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2003), 275-78.

The second application from this passage is that our faithfulness in the midst of trials emboldens others to represent Christ. Philippians 1:14 reads, “Most of the brothers in the Lord have gained confidence from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the message fearlessly.” Notice that Paul assumes that speaking the message can be a fearful thing. His example should make us bolder to speak it fearlessly, which presupposes the presence of fear. This encourages me because often I am fearful of the opinion of others in evangelism. Isn’t that the main reason most of us do not witness to non-Christians? Natasha makes us all look like a bunch of faithless cowards, which is why we need to be reminded of such stories. How do we get over this fear?

Here are six ways to overcome this fear in speaking the message. First, fear God. Second Corinthians 5:11 states, “Therefore, because we know the fear of the Lord, we seek to persuade people.” When you see God for who he is, and grasp the reality of sin, grace, and judgment, the opinions of people become small. Second, work to grasp the gospel. “For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If One died for all, then all died” (2 Cor. 5:14). Third, love people. The most loving thing we can do for people is to tell them about Jesus. Eternity is at stake. Fourth, put your confidence in the message. The gospel is the power of God for salva-tion (Rom. 1:16). A few verses later in Philippians 1:27 the Apostle speaks of the “faith that comes from the gos-pel.” Colossians 1:6 says the gospel came to you and “is bearing fruit and growing all over the world.” God saves through his gospel. The gospel “works.” Fifth, do it. Speak the mes-sage. Paul uses two different verbs for evangelism here: preaching (kērussō) and proclaiming (katangellō). He also uses the word for “speak” (lalēō). Paul is not referring to standing on a box preaching but telling people about Jesus. Do it and you will find that though you may be dreadfully slouch-ing on the way to do evangelism, you

will be skipping on the return. Finally, surround yourself with faithful and mature Christian friends. Their faith-fulness will embolden you. You can also have your witness strengthened by reading Christian biographies and specifically missionary biographies.

The third thing to notice about these verses is that some preach Christ with wrong motives: “To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and strife, but others out of good will. These do so out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely, seeking to cause me anxiety in my imprison-ment” (Phil. 1:15-17). They really care about themselves. They are envious, contentious, and insincere. They proclaim Jesus out of rivalry, the very thing God commands us to avoid in the next chapter: “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility con-sider others as more important than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3; cf. 2:21).

Fourth, the message is what mat-ters. Philippians 1:18-19 reads, “What does it matter? Just that in every way, whether out of false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed. And in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice because I know this will lead to my deliver-ance through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Note the emphasis on “gospel,” “Christ,” “Lord,” and “message” in this small section. Clearly, the gospel message is what matters.

It is important to realize, though, that Paul is not here affirming a false message about Jesus. He rejoices when Christ is truly proclaimed. He “puts the gloves on” when people distort the message of Christ. One only needs to keep reading Philip-pians to see this. In Philippians 3:2 he warns of the dogs, the evil work-ers, and the pagans who seek to manipulate their god by mutilating their flesh. These are harsh words, but Paul knows well that to add to the gospel is actually to distort it. In 2


Corinthians 11:3-4, Paul chastises the Corinthians, saying, “But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a complete and pure devotion to Christ. For if a person comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit, which you had not received, or a different gospel, which you had not accepted, you put up with it splen-didly!” Similarly, in Galatians he warns that if the Apostles return with a different gospel, or an angel from heaven comes with another gospel – which really is no gospel – then damn the Apostles and the angel to hell (Gal 1:8-9)! Not quite rejoicing. Later in Galatians he says that if they insist on adding circumcision to the gospel of Jesus they might as well go ahead and lop the whole thing off (Gal 5:12)! Paul certainly does not rejoice when “another” Christ is preached.

If the message is pure and not diluted, Paul doesn’t care about his own reputation. He cares about the advancement of the gospel. “I know this will lead to my deliverance” is straight from Job 13:16, showing that Paul sees himself as a righteous suf-ferer who trusts God.

The king is being announced … celebrate!5 Christ is preached. Re-joice! The petty opinions fall to the wayside in light of what is central: the proclamation of the gospel. Black carpet, blue carpet, or green carped? Christ is proclaimed; rejoice! Pews or movie seats? Christ is proclaimed; Methodist, Presbyterian, or Baptist: if Christ is preached, rejoice! Contem-porary music or traditional music? Christ is proclaimed; rejoice! What used to be contemporary but is now traditional? Christ is proclaimed; rejoice! Friends, let us keep the main thing the main thing.

5 N.T. Wright, The Prison Epistles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 90.

White—Continued from page 12protect the fruits of another modern invention, the altar call.

Charles Finney first introduced the altar call. It was part of a whole new approach to evangelism. A Gospel based solely on the so-called free will of man was preached at mass meet-ings. Faith was reduced to believ-ing the Gospel facts were true. You believed in Christ the same way you believed that Lincoln was shot. The sermons preached at these mass ral-lies stressed “making a decision for Christ.” The biblical truth that salva-tion involved more than intellectual consent was lost. No longer did salva-tion involve receiving a living person by submitting your life to Christ as both your Lord and your Savior. Sal-vation only involved believing some facts of history were true. Trusting Christ meant accepting the facts of the cross as historical facts. You gave evidence of your faith, or your mental decision, by coming forward to the al-tar. This act proved that you had made a “decision for Christ.” A personal worker accompanied you to a separate room and gave you assurance that you were saved. In most cases, the personal worker also assured you that you were now perfectly secure and you could never be lost − regardless of how you felt or how you lived.

Sometimes I am pressed to label myself theologically. I try to avoid doing so. It is not that I am in any-way ashamed of what I believe; it is because labels like Calvinism and

Arminianism are mostly worthless since their meanings have lost much of their original intent. I usually wind up saying I am mild Calvinist in a hyper-Arminian generation. That sounds like I am joking but that is re-ally an accurate statement.

One last thing should be noted. When we emphasize the necessity of persevering in faith and good works unto the end, it does not mean that sal-vation is the reward we earn by per-severing. Hebrews 3:14 sets forth this truth: “For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” We do not persevere to the end and finally partake of Christ. We partake of Christ the moment we believe the Gospel. Our holding our confidence steadfast unto the end in perseverance is the proof that we really did partake of Christ in true repentance and faith. Hebrews is not saying we will ulti-mately partake of Christ as a reward for our perseverance, but rather true saving faith will always persevere because of the very nature of saving faith. The doctrine is not “if you hold fast you will ultimately be saved.” That would make faith and persever-ance a work that earned salvation.3 We will say more about this in a future article on Hebrews.

3 Additional information on the Synod of Dordt may be found by visiting http://www.theopedia.com/Synod_of _Dordt.


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Issue 209 July—August 2014 Page 15West—Continued from page 3

so. Imagine that the water was two feet deep and Elisha had seen where the axe head fell. Suppose he waded out into the water, bent down, grabbed the iron, and picked it up out of the water. Would anyone think that this constituted a violation of the laws of nature? Of course not. Now what would have happened if God used his power—his celestial “hand” if you will—to exert the force required to raise the iron to the surface of the wa-ter? Yes, this would be a supernatural act, and it would transcend the nexus of natural cause and effect relations, but it would in no way be a violation of natural principles.

Acts of power are one way a theistic being could reveal his pres-ence, but he could communicate in other ways as well. For example, he could speak. God could reveal him-self in voices, visions, writing, or any number of ways. In fact, there is no reason why a theistic being couldn’t teach the human race deep truths. If such teaching was combined with miraculous acts, they would lend each other mutual support. Some witnesses might be impressed by the power, while others may be cut to the heart by the exposition of truth—but when combined, the power in act and authority in word would form strong evidence for the divine. The signs would authenticate the speech, and the speech would validate the signs.

In the case of a person who maximally exemplified power and authority in both word and deed, all their claims would be validated. If the miracle-worker and profound spiritual teacher claimed to be God, this asser-tion would likewise be validated. Or would it? Perhaps such a tight conclu-sion really runs ahead of the persua-sive force of the argument. But what if a miracle-worker who was also a great moral and religious prophetic teacher was reduced to passivity and made the object of the most impressive miracle in the history of the world?

What if, as the Gospels report, a man claimed to be the Son of God, that he had the full essential nature of deity, that he was the King and the Mes-siah, the fulfillment of all God’s plans and promises, etc., and then he died a sacrificial, substitutionary death, only to be resurrected from the dead? If we do not find this revelatory package satisfactory, what more could be done to convince us that God existed and that Jesus was his Son?

The heart of this second step, of course, is to actually argue for the historical reality of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is done in a variety of ways. Some attempt to establish that the New Testament is generally historically reliable, and then give the resur-rection accounts the benefit of the doubt. Others try to mount a his-torical case using neutral principles of historical inves-tigation, usually with the aim of proving that Jesus died, was buried in a known tomb, that three days later the tomb was empty, and that many people were sincerely convinced that Jesus appeared to them in a resurrected state. Of course, there is a lot of supporting argumentation that goes into this case, but such detail is beyond the scope of our purposes here.

In the analysis of a classical apologist, philosophy demonstrates the existence of a theistic being, and history reveals his revelatory activity which climaxes in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So the first step shows that a being exists who is compatible with the Christian God, and history shows that he actually is the Christian God: the movement is from “theism is true; some god exists” to “theism is true, and the theistic being is the God of the Bible.”

This sequence is not universally accepted, even by those who endorse the type of apologetic that utilizes traditional theistic arguments and putative Christian evidences. Some apologists believe that the historical case for the resurrection is so strong that it eliminates the need for the first step in the classical paradigm. In other words, history demonstrates that Jesus rose from the dead, and the only real explanation for that event is the direct, miraculous intervention of God. Rather than first proving theism in order to make miracles a live intel-lectual option, it is the historical mira-cle of the resurrection that proves the-ism. Certainly in this latter scheme, the case is made even stronger if good

philosophical arguments for theism exist, but they are not absolutely necessary.

Operat-ing under roughly the same umbrella when it comes to philosophy

and histori-cal evidence, a third group believes that there is no one particular “best” sequence for laying out the case for Christianity. This approach, some-times called the cumulative case approach, envisions the apologist’s task like a lawyer preparing and presenting a brief to the court. All the evidence and arguments should be interlocking and mutually reinforcing, but there is no mandatory order in which the exhibits need to be pre-sented and the points laid out. In the end, it is the case as a whole which is assessed. Normally this approach is joined with a belief that the actual evi-dence and arguments for Christianity are less coercive than many classical apologists maintain, but that is an issue of perceived probability rather

West—Continued on page 18

What if, as the Gospels report, a man claimed to be the Son of God, that he had the full essential nature of deity, that he was the King and the Messiah, the fulfillment of all God’s plans and promises, etc., and then he died a sacrificial, substitutionary death, only to be resurrected from

the dead?


Laurelville Family Conference August 7-10, 2014

For more than 30 years members and friends of Covenant Baptist Church of Uniontown, PA, and Grace Chapel of Kingwood, WV, have met together in beautiful Laurelville, PA, for a time of teaching of God’s Word and fellowship.

The Conference will be held in the Solarhouse. This facility has 32 rooms sleeping 2-4 each, with private baths. It has both a large and small meeting room and includes an atrium.

Check in time is 5:00 p.m. on the 7th. Evening sessions will begin at 7:00 p.m. and morning sessions will be held at 10:30 a.m.

If you would like further information or would like to register for the 2014 Laurelville Family Conference, please contact before 7/20/14: Ron and Pam Kelly 313 Irish Meadows Lane Bruceton Mills, WV 26525 304-379-1029 [email protected]

2014 Registration Fees: Solarhouse: 2 adults per room: $89.10/day ($10 more per child over 11) Camping: Full Hook-up (Water, Elec., Sewage) $23/day Hook-up (Water, Elec.) $19/day Hook-up (Water) $16/day

Breakfast and Lunch will be provided daily. There are several nice, reasonably priced places to have your evening meal just a short distance away. Arrangements may be able to be made to eat all meals at the Laurelville kitchen at an additional cost. (Ask when registering.)

Laurelville Mennonite Church Center is located about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, at the foot of the Laurel Moun-tains of southwestern Pennsylvania.

You may log onto www.laurelville.org for more information concerning the variety of activities available while at Laurel-ville such as: hiking trails, swimming, miniature golf, volleyball, basketball, tennis, and ropes course.

2014 Conference Speakers

Pastor Dennis GundersonDennis has served as Senior Pastor for 26 years in three Tulsa churches since 1984, and is currently President of Grace & Truth Books. He is the author of Your Child's Profession of Faith and Courtship or Dating: So What’s the Difference? and is also an Adjunct Professor at Tlapaneco Bible Institute, Guerrero, Mexico. Dennis and his wife Naomi have been married since 1976, and have four sons. He is an avid mountain climber, cyclist, and photogra-pher.

Pastor Jason McClanahan Jason was born and raised just outside of Charleston, WV. He graduated from West Virginia State University (B.S. Social Work - May 1997), Virginia Beach Theological Seminary (Master of Divinity – May 2001), and The Mas-ter's Seminary (Doctor of Ministry - May 2008) in Los Angeles. After planting and pastoring Providence Baptist Church in Westerville, OH for 7 years, he moved back to Charleston to pastor Randolph Street Baptist Church in 2007. Jason married his wife, Ginger, in 1995 and they have 3 children: Ty (16), Olivia (14) and Julia (11).


2014 John Bunyan Conference

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QTY CD NO SPEAKER TITLEJB14-A01 A. Blake White The Gospel Gift of God’s Righteousness JB14-A02 Steve West The Old Covenant ShepherdJB14-A03 Steve West The New Covenant ShepherdJB14-A04 Larry McCall Loving Your Wife as Christ Loves the Church, #1JB14-A05 Steve Wellum. Underpinning and Understanding Biblical Theology

JB14-A06 Peter Gentry Overview of How the Covenants are Central to the Plot Structure of Scripture Culminating in the New Covenant

JB14-A07 Peter Gentry Exposition of the Covenant at Creation and Its Foundational Role in the Understanding of the New Covenant

JB14-A08 Steve Wellum Understanding the Covenants—Central to Theology

JB14-A09 Gentry, Wellum, White“Round Table” discussion of Sessions 5–8

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JB14-A11 A. Blake White Mark’s Prologue and the Isaianic New Exodus (Mark 1:1-15) includes Q & R

JB14-A12 Steve West The New Covenant Undershepherds includes Q & R

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Page 18 July—August 2014 Issue 209West—Continued from page 15 are calibrated to their environment. It

has to be assumed that the world is a cosmos rather than chaos. Yet clearly these two assumptions are dependent on each other. When it comes to hu-man cognition and our ability to know anything whatsoever, the only way we can trust our minds and senses is if they are embedded in a consistent, regular, ordered world: but we can only know that the world is consistent, regular, and ordered if we can trust our minds when they tell us it is!

Even more troubling is the fact that this apologetic method assumes that the human mind, using noth-ing but its own powers of rationality, can build up logical arguments that prove that the God of the Bible exists. Starting with the world around us and our intellectual powers of logical analysis—even without ever reading the Bible or hearing about Christian-ity—we could simply reason our way to the existence of God. Now, the end result of our reasoning process may be

more generic than the biblical God-head, but it would still be a deity. (Or would it? What does it mean to prove the existence of a supernatural being that is less than God?)

These observations are not even approaching a real criticism of this apologetic method. The goal in this article is not to critique and assess the classical stream of apologetics; rather, the goal is merely to sketch its meth-odological features. Although there are people in the Reformed commu-nity who practice classical apologet-ics, many others have come to regard it as inadequate (at a minimum) and dangerous (at worst). In fact, both presuppositionalism and Reformed epistemology are, in some ways, schools of thought that are partially based on a rejection of the classical/evidential method. Before examining these reasons, however, both alterna-tives need to be sketched themselves, and that task will be undertaken in the next two articles.

than methodology.

It should be obvious that there is nothing specifically Reformed about an approach to apologetics that trades in these types of philosophical argu-ments and historical evidences. This approach to apologetics is just as much at home in the Roman Catho-lic church as it is in R. C. Sproul’s study. There are many more non-Reformed adherents to it than there are Reformed adherents. This by itself does not mean that Reformed think-ers should reject the approach: after all, there are far more non-Reformed people taking communion on a given Sunday in America than there are Re-formed people taking communion, but that is hardly a reason to think com-munion is inconsistent with Reformed theology!

Nevertheless, this entire approach to apologetics is based on massive assumptions. It has to be assumed that the human mind and human senses

Sam Storms

We say we want revival…but on our terms. Sadly, we pray:

1. “Come Holy Spirit… but only if You promise in advance to do things the way we have always done them in our church.”

2. “Come Holy Spirit… but only if I have some sort of prior guarantee that when You show up you won’t embarrass me.”

3. “Come Holy Spirit… but only if Your work of revival is one that I can still control, one that preserves intact the traditions with which I am com-fortable.”

4. “Come Holy Spirit… but only if Your work of revival is neat and tidy and dignified and understandable and above all else socially acceptable.”

5. “Come Holy Spirit… but only if You plan to change others; only if You make them to be like me; only if You convict their hearts so they will live and dress and talk like I do.”

6. “Come Holy Spirit… but only if You let us preserve our distinctives and retain our differences from others whom we find offensive.”


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The lines of Scripture are more valuable than mines of gold!

God's Word is the star which directs us to Heaven!

Scripture is the field where "the Pearl of great price" is hidden.

The Scriptures are the richest jewels that Christ has left.

The Word is so full of goodness, justice, and sanctity, that it could be breathed from none but God. It bears His very image. It has no errata in it.

It is a beam of the Sun of Righteousness.

It is a crystal stream, flowing from the Fountain of Life.

It commends to us whatever is "just, lovely, and noble."

This "sword of the Spirit" cuts down vice!

Out of this tower of Scripture—is thrown down a mill-stone upon the head of sin!

The Scripture is the Royal Law, which commands not only the actions—but the affections.

Where is such holiness to be found—as is dug from this Sacred Mine? Who could be its author—but God

Himself?

God's Word is the judge of controversies—and the rock of infallibility!

All truth must be brought to the touchstone of Scripture.

This blessed Book will fill the head with knowledge—and the heart with grace!

The Scripture is a rock of diamonds—a chain of pearls adorning the Christian, and glorifying God.

The Scriptures are profitable for all things. Is the believ-er cast down? Here are "comforts to delight the soul!" Is he assaulted by Satan? Here is "the sword of the Spirit" to resist him.

The Scripture is the chart, by which the believer sails to eternity!

The Scripture is the Christian's Sundial, by which he sets his life!

The Scripture is the Christian's Balance, in which he weighs his actions!

The Scripture is the Christian's Map, by which he daily walks!

Thomas Watson—Choice Quotes on Scripture

Documents

Issue 209 July August 2014 - Cross to Crown MinistriesApologetics and Reformed Theology: Approach #1 Steve West Reformed theology has been searching for an apologetic that is consistent