Some excellent links and messages for deeper study and meditation for this Good Friday

With all the troubling news in our world today - the Islamic violence, the "gay agenda" seeking to destroy decency, etc.; it is good to focus on the meaning of Jesus Christ and His atonement on the cross today, traditionally known as "Good Friday".  "fixing your eyes on Jesus" (Hebrews 12:1-4)

Questions and Answers with Dr. James White  at the Confessing Baptist website.

This is a very good question and answer session with links to other lectures / videos that Dr. White has done for background to the questions.  Covers issues such as "Gay Christians" (Christians who struggle with same sex attractions), Islam, Covenant Theology, Theonomy, the Prosperity Gospel, Modalism.

What happened on Good Friday?   (A Harmony of the Gospel accounts)

The Cup of the Wrath of God.  (R. C. Sproul)

The Weight of the Cross.  ( R. C. Sproul)


Understanding Jesus' Cry from the Cross:  "Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachtani?", "My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?"  (Desiring God Ministries, Donald Macleod)


How do we understand Jesus' words and the balance of the Father pouring out His justice and wrath on Jesus as the sin-bearer, and that the Trinity was not ontologically split or separated?

Dr. White has often made the point that Jesus is quoting the first verse of Psalm 22, and expects the Jewish audience to know the rest of the Psalm, like when someone starts the first verse of "Amazing Grace" and many will naturally join in singing it, because they are familiar with it and have memorized it.

Jesus quoting Psalm 22:1 seems to invite the person to read the rest of the Psalm and notice especially these verses below that are also teaching about the suffering servant, the Messiah, who would be crucified and be the ransom for sin:

"But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people.7  All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,8   “Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.” Psalm 22:6-8
. . . 
My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;  And You lay me in the dust of death.16   For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.17 I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me;18  They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots."  Psalm 22:15-18

. . . All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, And all the families of the nations will worship before You.28   For the kingdom is the Lord’s And He rules over the nations."  Psalm 22:27-28

Excerpt from the Desiring God article by Donald Macleod:

"The words are an Aramaic-tinged quotation from Psalm 22, and although Matthew and Mark both offer a translation for the benefit of Gentile readers, they clearly want us to hear the exact words that Jesus spoke. At his lowest ebb, his mind instinctively breathes the Psalter, and from it he borrows the words that express the anguish, not now of his body, but of his soul.

He bore in his soul, wrote Calvin, “the terrible torments of a condemned and lost man” (Institutes, II:XVI, 10). But dare we, on such hallowed ground, seek more clarity?

Against All Hope

There are certainly some very clear negatives. The forsakenness cannot mean, for example, that the eternal communion between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was broken. God could not cease to be triune.

Neither could it mean that the Father ceased to love the Son: especially not here, and not now, when the Son was offering the greatest tribute of filial piety that the Father had ever received.

Nor again could it mean that the Holy Spirit had ceased to minister to the Son. He had come down upon him at his baptism not merely for one fleeting moment, but to remain on him (John 1:32), and he would be there to the last as the eternal Spirit through whom the Son offered himself to God (Hebrews 9:14).

And finally, the words are not a cry of despair. Despair would have been sin. Even in the darkness God was, “My God,” and though there was no sign of him, and though the pain obscured the promises, somewhere in the depths of his soul there remained the assurance that God was holding him. What was true of Abraham was truer still of Jesus: against all hope, he in hope believed (Romans 4:18).

Truly Forsaken

Yet, with all these qualifiers, this was a real forsaking. Jesus did not merely feel forsaken. He was forsaken; and not only by his disciples, but by God himself. It was the Father who had delivered him up to Judas, to the Jews, to Pilate, and finally to the cross itself.
And now, when he had cried, God had closed his ears. The crowd had not stopped jeering, the demons had not stopped taunting, the pain had not abated. Instead, every circumstance bespoke the anger of God; and there was no countering voice. This time, no word came from heaven to remind him that he was God’s Son, and greatly loved. No dove came down to assure him of the Spirit’s presence and ministry. No angel came to strengthen him. No redeemed sinner bowed to thank him."  

Donald Macleod  (see the rest here) at Desiring God Ministries. 

At the same time, Jesus, the eternal Son, who voluntarily became flesh for us; also voluntarily went to the cross to pay for our sins.

"No one takes My life from Me, I lay it down on My own initiative, and I take it up again . . . "  John 10:18  (one of the most important verses to know in dealing with Muslims, who think that Christianity teaches that God forced Jesus to pay for our sins in an unjust way.)

Jesus' prayer for unity in John 17

John 17:20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

Our friends in Rome like to point out that Jesus prayed in His "high priestly prayer" at the Last Supper that His followers would be in "complete unity", that they would "all...be one, Father..." So, they ask, why aren't Sola Scripturists joined together in perfect unity, as one institution, the Church? Did Jesus' prayer fail? Don't you Calvinists always say that God's will is always performed successfully?

We respond (for example, here, said far better than I ever could) that the unity Christ prayed for was not organisational or institutional in nature, but rather spiritual, as God builds together the Body of Christ into spiritual union with Christ. Presumably, RCs and Eastern Orthodox do not accept this identification of the unity Christ prayed for, but rather insist that the unity is institutional and organisational in nature. Let us see whether their contention holds water.

1) It has been proven over and over again on this blog alone that this claimed unity within Eastern Orthodoxy and Rome does not exist in reality.

2) Our opponents criticise the Calvinistic doctrine of God's preservation of His saints, once justified, as a violation of the free will of each person (not to mention other points of Calvinism, such as irresistible grace). Yet the very building of an institutional unity into a group of disparate and different people who have sinful tendencies, in order to bring an answer to the prayer of the Lord Jesus, would require "violation" of their free will. I mean, Protestants are creatures "blessed" with free will, and just look how organised they are, in their sin! (There are RCs who are more Augustinian and who are less; this would be an argument against the latter and against EO-dox.)

3) On that same topic, take a look at John 17:15 - "I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one."
Isn't it RC and EO dogma that God does not preserve His believers, but that they can in fact fall out of a state of grace? Didn't Jesus' prayer thus fail here (on RC and EO presuppositions)?

4) More pointedly, apparently the fact that we Sola Scripturists are not in communion with the RCC or the EOC is not an obstacle to our eventually landing in Heaven.

Whenever the Sacrament of Baptism is duly administered as Our Lord instituted it, and is received with the right dispositions, a person is truly incorporated into the crucified and glorified Christ, and reborn to a sharing of the divine life, as the Apostle says: "You were buried together with Him in Baptism, and in Him also rose again-through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead".

Baptism therefore establishes a sacramental bond of unity which links all who have been reborn by it. But of itself Baptism is only a beginning, an inauguration wholly directed toward the fullness of life in Christ. Baptism, therefore, envisages a complete profession of faith, complete incorporation in the system of salvation such as Christ willed it to be, and finally complete ingrafting in eucharistic communion.

Though the ecclesial Communities which are separated from us lack the fullness of unity with us flowing from Baptism, and though we believe they have not retained the proper reality of the eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Orders, nevertheless when they commemorate His death and resurrection in the Lord's Supper, they profess that it signifies life in communion with Christ and look forward to His coming in glory. Therefore the teaching concerning the Lord's Supper, the other sacraments, worship, the ministry of the Church, must be the subject of the dialogue.

23. The daily Christian life of these brethren is nourished by their faith in Christ and strengthened by the grace of Baptism and by hearing the word of God. This shows itself in their private prayer, their meditation on the Bible, in their Christian family life, and in the worship of a community gathered together to praise God. (source, emph. mine)

Or:

For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ... Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. In all of Christ's disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. (source, emph. mine)

In short, we Sola Scripturists are, by virtue of RCC's ex cathedra statement, united with Christ and thus on our way to Heaven (unless we commit a mortal sin, of course, but our Sola Scriptura convictions, refusal to participate in transsubstantiated Eucharistic suppers, and failure to join RCC are obviously not mortal sins, else they wouldn't have talked about being united with Christ, etc).
And my EO debate counterpart believes I am not headed to Hell as well.

Now, since we are united with Christ but not in communion with institutional RCC or EOC, since Christ prayed that His disciples would be united with Him, and since the RC and EO claim that Christ's prayer for unity would certainly not fail to be granted, we can conclude that Christ's prayer has either not yet been granted or that the unity He had in mind was not institutional / organisational unity. Either of these conclusions declaws the original argument cited at the beginning of this post.

(Also see TurretinFan's recent dealing with this passage and similar topics.)

Circle the wagons!

In order...

Me: Why is that reasonable? Isn't it the RC position that you have all this unity and the truth on your organisation's side?

David Waltz: The Church on Earth has wheat and tares.

Me: Christ's parable of wheat and tares refers not to the church but to the world.

Matthew Bellisario: Really? Where did you get your definitive interpretation from? ... Where did God tell you that this passage only refers to the world Rhology (sic)? Sources please.

Matthew the Evangelist: Matthew 13:24 Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 “But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. 26 “But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. 27 “The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 “And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ 29 “But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 ‘Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

36 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” 37 And He said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, 38 and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. 40 “So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. 41 “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, 42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 “Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Matthew Bellisario: Rhology, once again we can why you are a Protestant. It is because you are truly ignorant of the Scriptures. It is plain to see that you don't understand the many levels of Sacred Scripture. Do you not understand symbolic interpretation?

Matthew Bellisario: The fact is, this Scripture can be interpreted symbolically as referring to the Church.

Matthew Bellisario: Come on Rhology, yes or no? Can the passage be interpreted symbolically as referring to the Church?

Matthew Bellisario: So Rhology, is your interpretation of this passage infallible? There is the one interpretation that you subscribe to, and all others are wrong, correct? Calvin was wrong, St. Augustine was wrong, St. Jerome was wrong, St. Chrysostom was wrong? Their interpretations were not infallible, but yours is, correct?


The entire thread that begins with this interaction is a carnival of buffoonery. As if "the field is the world" is not itself a symbolic interpretation! Disappointingly, David Waltz has joined in the cacophony, but didn't even bother to include the Matthew 13 text.
I just reproduced some of this to show the circle-the-wagons-at-all-cost mentality of some our RC friends. If they were interested in honestly defending their position from the thrust of my original statement, there are other biblical psgs they could try to use. Their parade of mockery and missing the point shows their motivations are less than above board.

Poll - What was the "field" in the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13)?

How Roman Dogma Affects a Defense of the Deity of Christ

One major thrust of any biblical defense of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is to point out the places in the New Testament in which He explicitly receives worship.
I found 4 passages in which such worship directed to Jesus appears in the NT and discovered that the English word "worship" each time expresses one Greek word - προσκυνέω, proskyneō aka proskuneo.

John 9:35 - Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
36He answered, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"
37Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you."
38And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped (proskuneo) Him.

Revelation 5:11 - I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands,
12saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing."
13And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever."
14And the four living creatures kept saying, "Amen " And the elders fell down and worshiped (proskuneo).

Revelation 19:10 - Then I fell at his feet to worship (proskuneo) him. But he said to me, "Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship (proskuneo) God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

Revelation 22:8 - I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship (proskuneo) at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.
9But he said to me, "Do not do that I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship (proskuneo) God."


How does this relate to Rome? Roman dogma specifically endorses and approves the bowing down in a religious context to non-deity entities such as the Blessed Virgin, saints, and angels. Roman apologists contend that the Bible contains examples of people bowing down to other people, and it seems to be perfectly OK. Tim Staples has said:

Is kissing or kneeling down before a statue the same as worshiping it? Not necessarily. Both Peter in Acts 10 and the angel in Revelation 19 rebuked Cornelius and John, respectively, specifically for worshiping them. The problem was not with the bowing; it was with the worshiping. Bowing does not necessarily entail worship. For example, Jacob bowed to the ground on his knees seven times to his elder brother Esau (Gen. 33:3), Bathsheba bowed to her husband David (1 Kgs. 1:16), and Solomon bowed to his mother Bathsheba (1 Kgs. 2:19).

Another prooftext Roman apologists use is 1 Chronicles 29:20 -

Then David said to all the assembly, "Now bless the LORD your God." And all the assembly blessed the LORD, the God of their fathers, and bowed low and did homage to the LORD and to the king.

For the record, all of those OT verses mentioned save 1 Kings 2:19 use a form of proskuneo in the LXX.
Protestants respond in numerous ways, one of which is to remind the Romanist that these occurrences are not in a religious context. To greet someone or to show honor to the king is clearly not worship. I've pointed this out myself at length. Romanists respond that this distinction is not as hard and fast as we make it sound.
"See?" they say, "It's permissible to proskuneo non-divine entities."

Now, it occurred to me the other day that The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the Jehovah's Witnesses, often experience the same allergy to throwing proskuneo around that we as Protestants do. But of course, it's a bit of a different animal for them, since JW dogma is henotheistic in nature. But if Jesus Christ were to receive worship as divine, then would that not weigh in favor of our contention that Christ is Himself Jehovah?
Consider James White's debate with on-again, off-again, now in good standing, now in poor standing JW apologist Greg Stafford. White mentioned the passages I printed above from Revelation 4 and 5, where the Lamb and the One seated on the throne are recipients of proskuneo from the beings surrounding the throne.
Dr. White plays a clip from his debate with Stafford starting at minute 23:15 of this video. You can hear Stafford insist that the proskuneo of the aforementioned passage does not apply necessarily to the Lamb, that is, Christ, in this scenario. Perhaps it is only the One seated on the throne, the Father (or Jehovah on Stafford's view), Who is receiving the proskuneo of the creatures and elders, etc, in this scene. Obviously, if Christ were to be on the receiving end of a proskuneo act and accept it as proper, the JW view would be seriously damaged, as such worshipful actions are due and properly rendered to Jehovah alone.
Read the passage through from Revelation 4 to the end of 5 and it becomes clear that there is no disjunction between the worship given to the Father and that given to the Lamb - Christ. Thus - zing! - the worship Christ receives is identical to that which the Father (Jehovah Himself on the JW view) receives. And the Father never objects, never corrects those who are worshiping, and neither does Christ. Thus John 5:22-23 is pictured as fully realised in the heavenly scene:

²²"For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, ²³so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

Thus, a useful weapon in the Christian's arsenal of arguments against Watchtower dogma is hamstrung on Roman Catholicism, as RC apologists try to justify their actions towards statues of dead people and angels by attempting to show that it's OK to proskuneo non-divine entities.
Catholic Answers seems not to see this:

The 1950, 1961, and 1970 editions of the NWT said that Jesus was to be worshipped (Heb. 1:6), but the WTS changed the NWT so that later editions would support its doctrines. The translators now decided to render the Greek word for "worship" (proskuneo) as "do obeisance" every time it is applied to Jesus, but as "worship" when modifying Jehovah. If the translators were consistent, then Jesus would be given the worship due to God in Matthew. 14:33, 28:9, 28:17, Luke 24:52, John 9:38, and Hebrews 1:6.

This is not to say that the RC has no useful or valid arguments against the Watchtower. I'm just pointing out that RC dogma and apologetic practice prevents them from using this argument.

Abraham and Isaac

(posted on my blog too)

Gen 22:1 Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."
Gen 22:2 He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."

...

Gen 22:5 Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you."

...

Gen 22:7 Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
Gen 22:8 Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.

...

Gen 22:10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
Gen 22:11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."
Gen 22:12 He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
Gen 22:13 Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind {him} a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.
Gen 22:14 Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, "In the mount of the LORD it will be provided."

(Source)


No need really to go over the story again in my own words; the historical account is plain.

Some argue that God is evil or unjust to order Abraham to murder his son. There are a few defenses against that statement, and I will touch on a couple before moving on to a more central point that I haven't ever heard made, though I'm sure better men than I have made it before.

Point 1) God didn't command that Abraham kill Isaac. He commanded him to "offer him as a sacrifice". Not the same thing.

Point 2) Abraham himself didn't think that God meant that he should actually kill Isaac.
See the boldfaced comment in verses 5 and 8 - why say "we will return"? Why state that the lamb will be provided?

But Abraham was just trying to keep Isaac from panicking and running away! (as has been said before)

Perhaps, but there's no indication from the text that this is so.
And why didn't Isaac run away, if he was so fearful, when Abraham got the stuff and all was ready and the lamb was still not there?

Point 3) Abraham also believed that, even if the sacrifice were to go all the way thru to Isaac's death, God would resurrect Isaac. B/c he was a man of faith.

Hbr 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten {son;}
Hbr 11:18 {it was he} to whom it was said, "IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED."
Hbr 11:19 He considered that God is able to raise {people} even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
(Source)

Point 4) See Hebrews 11:19 - this sacrifice of a ram instead of a sinful human to atone for sin foreshadows the Mosaic Law to come, and each are foremost a type of the final and complete sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
Interestingly (and hat tip to Tim Staples of Catholic Answers, ironically, who I heard point this out), Abraham refers to a "lamb" that God will provide. Yet mere minutes later, God provides - not a lamb, but a ram. What of the lamb? It is yet another type of Christ, the spotless Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God, still to come in the future, in whom faith is expressed by Abraham the first Hebrew. God thus had a vested interest in taking a human to the brink of death yet substituting another in his place.

Point 5) As James 1 and 2 tells us, God was testing Abraham's faith in the fire of adversity. Would he trust God, that which is eternal and authoritative, or what he saw, which is temporal and seems authoritative and "normal"?

Point 6) I preface this point with 2 warnings, to apply to comments.

1. If you perform an internal critique, you must do so in accord with Christian presuppositions.
2. If you perform an external critique, you must provide a basis for morality that will extend to individuals who are not you. For a guide to what questions you need to answer in order to accomplish that, see my blogalogue with the atheist ChooseDoubt.
3. I suggest you at least skim my major points in this thread, culminating in this comment, to see what's gone before.
   

My central point - God has the right to kill anyone or that command anyone be killed at any time.
People die every second of every day. Man is fallen and sinful, and the penalty for sin is death - Romans 3:23 and following through the end of chapter 5. It is only thru God's forbearance and mercy that I or any other person draw the next breath. And the next, and the next. And of course, it is only thru His mercy in Christ's death and resurrection that eternal Hell is not everyone's final destination.

Murder is defined as the unjustified taking of human life.
Yet, as every man, woman, and child is sinful and bears the guilt of the sin of Adam, all are subject to the death penalty. This includes Isaac. This also includes the various peoples of Canaan, whom God commanded the OT Hebrews to put to death after hundreds of years of giving them time to repent of their perversions. This includes the millions of babies that die every year in the womb (re: Sam Harris' correct and yet wrongheaded and amazingly morally blind assertion that God is the greatest living abortionist). God is fully justified in putting anyone to death at any time thru any manner or agency He chooses.
Thus, even if God did not intervene before Abraham's knife swept downward, He would be fully justified.

So why does God set Himself apart as the God Who does not demand child sacrifice as Molech did? Why does He also call out as sinful the foreign deities that call on their people to sacrifice and the actions of child sacrifice in the Old Testament Canaanite societies?

A few possibilities:
1) Those deities are false. They don't exist qua deity.
2) Therefore, the origin of those ideas to sacrifice children is (either) human and/or demonic in nature. Neither human nor demon has the right to kill a(nother) human in anything close to this circumstance.
3) Such practices further idolatry and worship of false gods, which of course are no gods at all. Which of course violates the 1st Commandment.

So, God could conceivably demand child sacrifice and be justified in doing so, but does not demand such. God thus creates yet more space for distinguishing between Himself and the false gods to which these pagans held. That is a merciful thing to do. He also wrote into His Law that no one is to put their child to death. That is a merciful thing to do. He wrote it on the hearts of humanity in general (Romans 2:13-15) such things. That is a merciful thing to do. To set God, the true God, apart from false gods in His ability and authority to give life and take it, to set up authority to take life under certain conditions (ie, the gov't in cases of capital crimes), and to define how He will and will not be worshiped.

What is amazing is that, despite the obvious horror, and despite their knowledge that God is the only true God (Romans 1:18-26), some societies throughout history have nevertheless turned away to these invented foreign deities that demanded satisfaction thru child sacrifice. The story of evil here is, once again, man, not God.

Preservation, part 2. Shepherd.

So, we've seen how we deal with Romans 11 and its warnings (and by extension other warning passages in the Bible). In this case, what do we have to account for?

John 10:25-29 - "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand."


So, in review, the answer to David Bryan's question is that we don't favor any biblical passage over any other when figuring out a biblical position on Issue X. We look at all the data and derive thence the position. There are some passages that are clearer than others, for which we thank God. There are those that are less clear, for which we also thank God and thank Him for the clearer ones that clarify the less clear ones. The clarity assigns priority, you might say, of chronology for figuring out where to start, then one moves on to the less-clear for harmonisation.

First, the interpretation that one can be at some point in his life in such a state that he would go to Heaven forever if he were to die at that moment, and later in life be in such a state that he would go to Hell forever if he were to die at that later moment demands the question: Can one be sealed, adopted, transformed, and then UNsealed, UNadopted, UNtransformed, and then REsealed, REadopted, REtransformed? How many times? How many times can one be cut off, grafted back in, cut back off, grafted back in?
A hint is that Hebrews 6:4-6 informs us that the answer is Zero; that is, if one can indeed be unsealed, unadopted, etc, then it's impossible to come back.

Of course, all that is based on false premises.

Anyway, I'd like to examine the John 10 passage. Many people end up focusing on the "no one can snatch them out" but there's a more central statement to it. Specifically, Jesus says that His sheep will never perish. Given that the biblical language of death, particularly spiritual death, is usually equivalent to being condemned b/c of sin and spending eternity in Hell, Jesus is saying that, whoever His sheep are, they will not perish, they will not go to Hell, they will be rather with Him, forever (since He says "never").
So, who are His sheep?

V. 24 informs us that Jesus is addressing "The Jews", which usually means some mixture of the Pharisees, teachers of the law, scribes, etc. And these Jews prove their unbelief by asking Him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."
They do not accept Him as Messiah.
Jesus answers, "I told you, and you do not believe." These are unbelievers, called out for what they are by God Himself.
Next, v. 26-27, "you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
He compares and contrasts the 2 groups - these to whom He is speaking are not His sheep. In this life. Right now, at this moment in time, they are not His sheep. And there is another group in existence, His sheep, who DO follow His voice. Are these sheep people who have died in faith?
If so,
1) why say they will never perish?
2) why deny that someone could snatch them?
3) why describe the sheep as not hearing the voice of the stranger in v. 5?
4) why say that the sheep didn't listen to thieves and robbers who came before, in v. 8? Do these thieves and robbers have access to the faithful dead in Paradise?
5) why describe the wolf scattering the sheep in v. 12? Can that happen in heaven?

Etc. No, these sheep must be believers in this life.
The step is fairly simple now, for those who care what Jesus says. The sheep are believers in this life, and they will never perish. Thus, he who is a believer doesn't perish, ever.
Remembering that this is a separate question from assurance, that is, knowing that one is saved, the idea that one can fall out of a saved state, forwarded by David Bryan and his EO-dox brethren, Arminians, Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, semi-Pelagians, etc, lies refuted by God's direct statement. This is not unclear. Thus, as we said earlier, it is often an excellent and useful strategy to start here, take the concept as a given from now on, and work to harmonise other 'problem' passages and questions that may arise.

Let me deal here briefly with an easily-answered objection:

If I said that members of the Marlebone football club will never have to pay entrance fee to home games, does that have to mean that one cannot cease to be a member of the club and then have to pay?

In that case, would not the sheep perish? What then would be the point of saying what Jesus said?
Let's restate it like Orthodox would have us do:
"My sheep hear my voice except when they don't, and I know them except for the ones I don't know, and they follow me unless they don't follow me. I give the ones who don't unbecome sheep eternal life, and the ones who don't perish will never perish, and the ones that don't snatch themselves out of my hand, no one will snatch out of my hand. My Father, who has given the ones who don't perish to me, is greater than all, and and the ones that don't snatch themselves out of the Father's hand will not be snatched out."

Perhaps Orthodox knows of a textual variant in John 10 that I don't know about. It would be interesting to know.


I hope to address a different common objection in a 3rd post soon.