What exactly is the Gospel?

The Phoenix Burning BLOG is discussing the "Gospel" today and offers this definition:

When we speak of the essentials of the Christian faith, we speak of those doctrines which are bound together as The Gospel.

None of the proof texts Michael presented defined the Gospel in the same way. In fact, one had a very clear message about just what the Gospel is:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

In essence the Gospel, at least in this text, is the life story of Jesus. More particularly, it's the events in the life story of Jesus that, strung together, make His life story different than the life story of any other human person.

Why is His life story different? Was it His life? Lots of people have achieved fame in their communities but their names have been long forgotten. Was it His death? Lot's of people have died unjust deaths. No, it's really none of that. It was what happened after Jesus was killed. You see, unlike the rest of the people who had previously died, Jesus did not stay dead. He rose from the dead and lives even today.

That my friends, is the Gospel. Not some collection of doctrines, although doctrines do flow from that basic fact. And getting straight what the Gospel is, and is not, is one of the essentials.

This is one area where Calvinists have long been confused because they mix their Calvinistic doctrine with the Gospel. For many of them it then becomes essential to the faith to adhere to the five points.

Best all I can tell from Scripture we really need to believe is that Jesus died and rose again from the dead.

Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Is Calvary Different?

What does all of this Millennium stuff matter anyway? Isn't this BLOG supposed to be about Calvary Chapel?

Calvary Chapel has long been centered around a particular and narrow view of end times events, stated as:

We believe in the personal, visible, and pre-millennial second coming of Jesus Christ to the earth.

Yet at the same time, Calvary Chapel has long had a tenant that

We are not a denominational church, nor are we opposed to denominations as such, only to their over-emphasis of the doctrinal differences that have led to the division of the Body of Christ.

Yet, isn't this exactly what has happened? Not the denominational question, but the basic issue of whether or not Calvary Chapel's "distinctives" have "led to a division of the Body of Christ". If you change your views on the end times from the standard party line you will be cast out of Calvary Chapel. Isn't that exactly what they claim to be against?

Does Calvary Chapel overemphasize doctrinal differences when it comes to end times? Of course they do, and they do it constantly. Whether or not they are a denomination depends largely upon your definition of denomination. Smith's definition appears to be a cohesive group with different views than his. Doesn't Scripture tell us that God hates differing weights and measures?

Thousands and Thousands

Those who claim that a thousand is always a thousand (see last post) have probably not done a study even of the way that the Bible uses the word "thousand". Here's an interesting test text for the literalist view

Deu 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he [is] God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

Taken literally would this not set a minimum limit of the number of generations of humans? After all if there is a single person who loves the Lord, he will be faithful to to a thousand generations of their descendants. Or is the intent of the text to say "a very long time"?

Suppose a generation is about 25 years and if a thousand is always a thousand then God will keep covenant and show mercy for 25,000 years. Yet, Abraham loved God and he lived less than five thousand years ago. By this there are 20,000 years left until the end of God's mercy.

Or is God's mercy everlasting and the word thousand means a big number once again (like the cattle on the thousand hills)?

A Thousand is Always a Thousand

"A thousand is always a thousand" is what some say to defend their literal view of the millennium. They ignore the genre of the book which is apocalyptic in nature. In apocalyptic literature a literal number is almost never literal. But let's try another test text:

Psa 50:10 For every beast of the forest [is] mine, [and] the cattle upon a thousand hills.

Does that mean that God does not own the cattle on hill number 1001? Or was the intended meaning that God owns everything and the number 1000 merely a way of using a big number to make a point?

At this point the defenders of the millennium as 1000 literal years of 365 days will say, well that's poetic language there in Psalms. The fact is, this is Revelation, which is even more coded language and much less literal that the Psalms. It seems like the 1000 years is one way of saying a very long time, much longer than the lifespan of a person.

Tribulation and Millennium

The study of last things, or Eschatology, has focused often on two questions. The first question is that of the Millennium. The answer to the first question often sets the importance of the second question, which is that of the tribulation.

Generally, the order is believed to be some period of peace then tribulation then the Millennium. Timelines are often shown to illustrate the various views. They will not be repeated here but they can make the point.

What does the Millennium question hinge on? Really it hinges on two basic points. One of them is emotional more than Biblical. That is the notion that God is not finished with Israel yet and has some future plans for restoration of Israel. The second point is that the text from the Book of Revelation chapter 20 which speaks of a thousand years. Most would agree that the book of Revelation is full of symbols, but when it comes to this text the argument centers around whether the 1000 years is to be taken literally or symbolically. It's not a question of one side taking the Bible seriously and one side not taking it seriously (sorry Missler). It's a question of how we should take it, or more accurately, how it was intended that we should understand apocalyptic language.

The Cluelessness Continues

The latest question on the Phoenix Rising BLOG is:

What Is Your Position On The Rapture?

* Pre-trib
* Mid Trib
* Post Trib
* Pre-Wrath
* Amill
* Huh?

This guy can't even keep his basic categories straight. Since when is "Amill" a "position on the rapture? It's a non-sequitur. One's position on the millennium may be related to the rapture but that's not an answer the question. Most amillennialists would be see the rapture as happening after the tribulation.

Not only that but Mikey misses one key possibility - past-tribulationalism. That is the teaching that the tribulation happened in the past. Hence all rapture possibilities are future to the past (since we live in the future as compared to the past!)

The view that Jacob's Trouble happened when Jacob (Israel) was carried out to the nations by Rome in the year 70 AD has long standing. All that we are waiting for now is the any day return of Jesus Christ.

Michael's "pre-wrath" position on the rapture is nothing more than a failed attempt to rescue the pre-tribulational rapture doctrine from the proof texts which failed to prove the point to start with. The notion is that God will not allow us to see His wrath. The Biblical support for such a position is almost non-existent. The one text is misread and the verse after it which sets the context is uniformly ignored.

The "pre-wrath" position is simply based on a radical misunderstanding of the word "wrath" in the Bible and in prophetic language in particular. One such example is:

1Th 1:10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, [even] Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

and

Rev 6:16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

Spot the fallacy? It's the fallacy of equivocation. It is a failure to recognize that words have a range of meaning. Wrath in one verse is not necessarily relating to the same event as another verse. The first verse is describing eternal punishment and the second is describing a temporal (in time) judgment. Both describe God's reaction - punishment.

I wonder if the people who assert the pre-wrath position have a problem with the doctrine of Hell - the eternal wrath of God?

Picking just one point

From the page quoted below.

5. "P" = PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS - The Calvinists believed that salvation is entirely the work of the Lord, and that man has absolutely nothing to do with the process. The saints will persevere because God will see to it that He will finish the work He has begun. (Smith's pamphlet)

The Bible teaches this...

We might get the impression that we can lose our salvation (fall from grace) when looking at the following isolated verse:

Galatians 5:4 "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace."

But then when we look at the verse that immediately follows, we get additional information regarding what Paul was talking about:

Galatians 5:5 "For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith"

Paul is saying here in Galatians that salvation (i.e. Christ's righteousness) is received by faith, not by the works of the law. His point is not that we can fall from grace. He is telling the Galatians that they are missing the whole meaning of grace if they think they are justified by the law. In fact, this point is the main reason for him writing the epistle to the Galatians. The Greek word for 'fallen' is 'ekpipto' which means "to be driven out of one's course". So the Galatians were falling off course with respect to their understanding of the Gospel of grace. So was Paul telling the Galatians they were in danger of losing their salvation? Not in view of 2 Timothy 1:9, Jude 1:24, and other verses mentioned above, and we are not at liberty to ignore these other verses.

Once again, the author of the page does not deny the characterization by Smith of what Calvinists believe. He provides proof texts and arguments to back up the position. As much as it pains me to write this, it appears that Smith does not misrepresent Calvinism and that he has a valid critique. There are a lot of ways of going at this point.

Let's try and follow the Galatians 5 argument though and see if the critic makes the point he is trying to make.

Smith lists Gal 5:4 as evidence that someone can fall from grace. The author of the paper accuses Smith of ignoring the following verse which asserts that righteousness comes from faith. But exactly what bearing does that have on Paul's (or Smith's) point? Paul appears to be talking about someone who has ceased to be in faith and as a result lost their salvation. Smith's paradigm takes this into account. The Calvinist's paradigm can't deal with this as anything other than an impossible scenario. Hence, all of these sorts of warnings on Scripture are all hypothetical but empty threats since a person given the gift of faith can never lose that gift (according to the Calvinist).

But, that's nothing more than begging the question that they seek to prove. For the Calvinist, there can be no proof texts of losing salvation since salvation can't be lost. Once again Calvinism shows itself to be completely circular. The five points cohere together logically but only in relation to each other. At every Scriptural test they falter.

In this case it is because to a Calvinist faith is not something we possess but something that is itself completely foreign to us and completely a gift of God without any part of our own. God is loving God through us since, to the Calvinist, we are completely incapable of loving God on our own. Ignoring the narcissistic aspects of that sort of love, it completely empties a human person of any of the image of God which to the Calvinist has to be completely obliterated in God's creation. God is incapable, in Calvinism, of creating beings who are capable of loving Him on their own so they have to be altered individually by God to love God. Being born again takes on a radical meaning in such a system.

Now that's an interesting system, and it is certainly internally consistent, but it makes a mockery of God's creative skills and reduces Him to not much more than a playground bully who always wins by force.

Cal(vary)-minianism

Here's a critique of Calvary Chapel's pamphlet on Calvinism. Reading the conclusion written in all caps was enough for me. I feel like yet again I am being shouted at by some shrill Calvinist. No offense intended for those non-shrill Calvinists who read this page.

Most of the paper is insertions of Scripture passages supporting the Calvinist view. It is an interesting read since most Calvinists deny that Smith's pamphlet is an accurate representation of their views. This paper does not so much deny the accuracy of Smith's pamphlet as try to defend the Calvinist position.

Anyone have time to take this task on? Comments welcome.

Chuck Smith attacks the historical church

Chuck Smith has once again publicly attacked the historical church. This time his target is the Catholic Church.

I suppose it's not odd that someone like Smith, who denies the resurrection of the flesh, would go after a historical church, like the Catholics, which affirm the resurrection of the flesh. But really, who's the greater heretic someone who prays to saints or someone who denies the resurrection?

What the other BLOGs won't publish

I've put up a few comments onto the "From the Ashes" BLOG which have all been moderated out. I guess I will need to respond here. Why are they so afraid that they have to moderate?

Dispensational Disasters

I've often been amazed at so-called Dispensational Christianity.

They raise money to relocate Jews from Russia and other countries back to Israel.

They believe that the anti-Christ will kill 1/3 of the Jews in Israel during the tribulation.

If they love Israel as much as they say, why do they want to bring them back to be slaughtered?

Ruptured Rapture

I challenge Dispensational Christians to produce one single verse which unequivocally teaches a Pre-Tribulational Rapture. Just one verse. For Calvary Chapel this is a distinctive. Yet there's no actual Biblical evidence for this teaching. It took me about 3 months as a new Christian reading the Bible to realize this doctrine is false. How do people attend Calvary Chapels for 30 years and not realize it? Is it all about wishful thinking? How can Calvary hold to such a shaky distinctive?

The Promise Jesus Made to Israel

Dispensationalists love to pick and choose from the promises to Israel and look for those which portend a bright future. Often this leaves them picking and choosing which parts of God's Word they want to believe. Nowhere is this more apparent than with what Jesus Himself said about the consequences of Israel's disobedience. Why is it that Dispensational Christians care so little about the words of Jesus?

Mat 23:37-28 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Another promise to faithless Israel

Lev 26:27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;
Lev 26:28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
Lev 26:29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.
Lev 26:30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
Lev 26:31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors.
Lev 26:32 And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.
Lev 26:33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

God's Promises to Israel

I read this on the former Phoenix Preacher's new BLOG and it got me thinking:

As a “dispensational” Christian I believe that God still has a plan for Israel and He will keep His ancient promises to her.

Which promises particularly? How about this promise?

Deu 29:19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
Deu 29:20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
Deu 29:21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
Deu 29:22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;
Deu 29:23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
Deu 29:24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
Deu 29:25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:
Deu 29:26 For they went and served other gods, and worshiped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
Deu 29:27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
Deu 29:28 And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

As a non-Dispensational Christian, I can say that we've already been there, done that. 70 AD!