A common myth explodedSomeone posted a note that Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is fulfilling the Great Commission that Christ gave to the Apostles in Mt 28 and Mk 16, and the following exchanges took place.
It is common for many to claim that their ministry is based on the great commission given to them by Jesus Christ, even though the Scriptures is plain that the ministry of the NT pastors teachers is based upon the plain commands the apostles had given to the church - 1Tim 3, Tit 1.
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Hart
Decisional regeneration is unbiblical.
Jacobs
Preach it Richard!!!
Crabb
So Stephen, Peter, and Paul never preached the Gospel ? We give people the opportunity to chose. Those that are truly Regenerate Repent, those that reject the Gospel stand Guilty before God. But we present it as though it was a Choice. Repent and be Saved is Still a Valid Message ? I know that just say the magic words and sit around on the pews saying, we be saved, we be waiting on the rapture bus is Ridiculous !
Hart
Preaching of the gospel has NEVER resulted in spiritual regeneration of a sinner.
Crabb
So, We don't preach the Gospel anymore???
[That's a very foolish and imbecile conclusion! -- sing]
Hart
Preaching the gospel doesn't save anyone eternally.
Hart
Repentance isn't a 'step' toward the new birth; repentance can only occur after the new birth.
What we make of the Bible doesn't have anything to do with the new birth.
GOSPEL REGENERATION and DECISIONAL REGENERATION are Satan's lies - always trying to diminish the effectual work of Jesus in an effort to exalt man's free will.
Smith
The Gospel is the POWER of God for everyone who "Believes"![Rom 1:16] So We Must preach it and it does save! However, Just because we preach it doesn't mean WE are saved. Yes we must choose, but Jesus Christ is the Author and Perfecter of our "FAITH". Regeneration is simply God choosing us FIRST. Without HIM choosing us first, we would still be lost in our sins, namely pride. Sorry to disagree with you Richard, but I stand alone on the Bible. Our friend Billy has a lot MESSED UP theology, but I do have to say he has preached the Gospel in the past and his son, Franklin, is preaching it now. I disagree with "Decisional Regeneration" so don't misunderstand me. We are not Born again "BY" faith, but Born Again "TO" faith. Faith is the result of the New Birth.
As Heb 11:1 puts it: 11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,THE EVIDENCE of things not seen.
So faith is the "evidence" of an unseen work of GOD in our heart at point BEFORE we received Christ.
Back to the Gospel, it is what God "chose" to use as a tool being preached TO SAVE those who believe. 1 Cor 1:21-22.
Not everyone who "hears" the Gospel gets or is saved, That is where the "limited" atonement comes in. Only those whom God has "predestined" will be saved. But predestination is NOT the Gospel. He didn't tell us to out into all the world and preach "predestination" did He? No he said, Preach the Gospel and Make disciples. The disciplining happens in Church and that's where they here "Predestination". Then if they reject that doctrine of Truth, they reveal their "false" conversion. They went out from us, because they were NEVER of us says John.
Hart
Kelly, your question about the purpose of gospel preaching is given to us, his children ..... Luke 2:77-79 "To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."
1) to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
2) the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
3) to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
4) to guide our feet into the way of peace
Jesus Christ, our LORD remitted those sins for all his people.
Sitting in darkness (ignorance)
Shadow of death - not death itself, only in the shadow of it
Mark Smith @ "So we must preach it, and it does save!"
Saved from what, Mr. Smith? Believeth is a spiritual state of being which we do NOT put ourselves into - it's the capacity instilled by the Spirit. What we believe is not what saves us. Jesus is the only saving agent - Eternal Salvation
So again, Saved from what?
We need to be saved as Peter advised. We can save ourselves from this untoward generation of false prophets and false teachers!! - Time Salvation
Smith
How can they hear of Jesus with out a preacher, Richard? Yes, The work of Christ Jesus on the cross satisfying The Father's wrath and Holy Spirit raising Him from the dead on the third day is the Gospel. The saving agent, i.e. the POWER OF GOD unto salvation. GOD is the gospel as Piper would say. Saved from The Father's WRATH, Richard. Saved from sin and it's consequences. I don't know you Richard, but I'm just guessing your a KJV only. Sometimes you can be so "Reformed" that your a hindrance to the Spirit, i.e. quenching the Spirit. I pray you don't end up like the "circumcision" group Paul was talking about in Galatians and in Romans. Do I have to know Greek to be saved? Do I have to know Old English to be saved? Do I have to know Hebrew to be saved? Do I have to know Aramaic to be saved? Do I have to know everything there is to know to be saved? NO, I need to know Christ to be saved! John 17:3-4
3 And this is eternal life, that they may KNOW You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
How do we come to KNOW God? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It doesn't say Faith comes by hearing the KJV only. Are there some words left out of the NKJV? Yes, I agree, there some "important" words left out. But it is not enough to send anyone to Hell, Richard. How much did the thief on the cross beside Christ have to know to be saved, Richard?
Jacobs
Preaching of the Gospel of Christ is commanded. Still, decisional regeneration IS unbiblical. Salvation is MONERGISTIC not SYNERGISTIC.
Smith
Believeth is a spiritual state of being which we do NOT put ourselves into - it's the capacity instilled by the Spirit.
Where do you get this from scripture, Richard?
I agree, faith is a gift of God, but faith is what we do. WE can only do it when God sovereignty takes out a "heart" of stone and gives a "heart" of flesh according to the Spirit in Ezekiel. It says nothing of the will. Now I'm guessing your going to use:John 1:12-13 "But as many as "RECIEVED" Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were "BORN", not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
KJV
The word "RECIEVED" here is in the "active" voice.
How did they "receive" Him? Answer-He gave them POWER.
How did He give them POWER? Answer- Ezekiel tells us God changed the "heart". The problem is NOT the will of man. The problem is the "heart".[Jer 17:9, Luke 6:45]
When we were slaves to sin, are wills(the act of choosing) always choose sin, because our heart was evil. But in God's amazing grace, He changed our heart(i. e. the new birth) and made it pure. The word "BORN" here is in the "passive " voice. That is God's work of changing the heart. With the new heart we now have the ability to choose righteousness by obeying His word. We are not robots. We even have the ability to still choose sin. If the Spirit was "literally" controlling all my decisions, I would never sin. However, when I yield or surrender to the Spirit I am then 'Spirit controlled'. Do not misunderstand what I am saying Richard. I am on your side. I am thankful you are making a stand against "decisional regeneration", but don't get legalistic on us. God will reveal who the sons of God "really" are. But I hope we aren't trying to strain out a nat, only to swallow a camel.
Crabb
Even Jonah preached,"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown," and at that simple message the people repented in sackcloth and ashes. The goodness of God leads us to repentance and Jonah's simple sermon is living proof of this. But equally true is the fact that God still told Him to go and preach. God still uses His servants to Preach the Gospel, the hearing and receiving and regeneration was predestined before time. God still uses means to accomplish His will being carried out.
Hart
Mark, I get BELIEVETH from the inspired and preserved Bible.
Corrupt perversions change the grammar and wrest the focus to the action of the verb.
Mark, the King James Translation has been preserved for God's English speaking people. I speak and read English. Chinese, Russians, Spanish, etc. need NOT learn English to be eternally saved - Neither the Bible nor the gospel saves anyone for heaven. Christ alone saves eternally!!!
"The Bible does not teach that belief in Christ is what saves us from hell: but rather, belief tells that we ARE saved from hell. Paul tells us that the gospel brings eternal life to light. It reveals what is already there, and it enlightens us to believe all the more." - David Montgomery
Crabb
Richard are you going to answer my last comment about Jonah and Nineveh ?
Crabb
Some people read the Bible only to proof text what they already believe, when the Bible was written to be read as a narrative. In a narrative you don't get to pick and chose the parts that you accept, it is a whole and continuous story.
Sing F Lau
Kelly, if only you can distinguish between regeneration which is wholly by the work of God and without any instrumentality, and conversion which is by the instrumentality of the gospel ministry, you would save yourself from much confusion and serious error.
Preaching is VERY IMPORTANT, but it is very important ONLY for the purpose it was divinely ordained. The purpose of the gospel ministry is for the conversion of God's children.
The elect dead in trespasses and sins need to be regenerated, and this by the free and sovereign work of God alone, through His Spirit and for Christ's sake alone. No instrumentality is involved at all. Regeneration is the direct and immediate work of God in quickening the dead... it is a new creation. No human activity is involved... ZILCH, NIL.
Those regenerated, by direct and immediate act of God, need to be CONVERTED. God's children, born by the direct and immediate act of God, need to be brought to know the truth of their ETERNAL salvation by the free and sovereign grace of God. Those believing shall be saved from their errors, and falsehood and ignorance... they shall save themselves from this perverse and wicked generation. The gospel truth shall set them free from lies and falsehood.
But so many PRESUMPTUOUS preachers claim that their preaching activity is ordained of God as an instrumental for the REGENERATION of those dead in trespasses and sins. They are like silly midwives who insist that they ALSO instrumental in the conception of the new lives which they were privileged to deliver! I haven't met any such deluded and self-conceited midwives... but I have met HORDES of such preachers - those who call themselves Reformed Calvinists, and other whom they consider 'deformed'.
Sing F Lau
Brother Kelly, please tell me... in all these activities of God, does preaching play any role?
" 29 ¶ For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified... See More: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."
Does the gospel ministry play any role in the predestination.... to the glorification of the elect? If so, where and how?
Crabb
Now this I can digest. The Ethiopian Eunuch was chosen, and Philip was the means that God ordained ?
Sing F Lau
Brother Kelly, I don't know what you intend to make of the Nineveh's story. What actually happened in Nineveh? Was there any gospel preached? What is that gospel?
Jonah preached, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." There was no gospel at all... that was CONDITIONAL threat of destruction upon Nineveh. And how did their repentance save them?
Were all the Ninevites saved with eternal life? Were they saved from their eternal condemnation because they believe the threatened judgment upon their city and repented?
The fact that you appealed to Jonah and Nineveh and likened it to gospel ministry and repentance reveals serious misunderstanding!
There is a gulf between the two that cannot be bridged! But you managed to bridge them!
Smith
So I was already saved before I believed? That is NOT what the Bible says: John 3:18 He that believeth ON Him is NOT condemned: but he that believeth NOT is condemned ALREADY, because he hath NOT believed in the name of the ONLY begotten Son of God.
KJV - JESUS CHRIST
Sing F Lau
Mark, see if I can help you understand a bit.
The Scriptures REPEAT many times, 'whoever believes HAS eternal life.' "Whoever believes has eternal life' is a statement of fact. It is not a statement of offer, i.e. making an offer to the dead in trespasses and sins, that if they believe, they shall have eternal life.
'Whoever believes has eternal life' is making a declaration of fact.... that the one believing DOES SO because he ALREADY possesses eternal life. And this is plain and simple, and COMMON SENSE - without eternal life, without being born again with eternal life, it is impossible for one to believe. Believing is an activity of the eternal life that has been bestowed by God at effectual calling out of the state of sin and death to that of grace and salvation.
THEREFORE, you must be SAVED by God first before you can ever believe. The salvation with which you have been saved by God is eternal salvation - saving you from the ETERNAL condemnation of your sins.
The finished work of Jesus Christ alone SAVES you with eternal salvation.
Your believing ALSO save you, BUT BUT BUT it does not saves you the way God saved you. Your believing does not save you from the eternal condemnation of your sins and bring eternal redemption to you. Your acts of believing does save you from falsehood, lies and errors, and brings you into the light of the knowledge of God.
There is a salvation which is wholly and solely by the FREE FREE FREE grace of God, i.e. COMPLETELY independent of any merit or aid or cooperation of men.... and that is eternal salvation.
There is a salvation that you, as a child of God, HAVE to work out for yourself with fear and trembling... beginning with repenting and believing in Jesus Christ, and all the way through your whole life until your last breath... and that is timely salvation, i.e. salvation that relates to this present life here n earth!
The former is wholly and solely monergistic.
The latter is synergistic, God's children responding to the grace working in them. They must work with fear and trembling... if they don't they messed up their life like Lot and Samson did.
Smith
Sorry, Sing, I was directing my last comment or 'rhetorical' question to Richard Hart. I failed to mention that in my last comment, but I agree with you Sing which is what I was trying to explain to Richard. =)
Sing F Lau
Mark, don't just quote Scriptures. At least explain them also.
The ETERNAL SALVATION by the free and sovereign acts of God that enables a man to believe and the salvation that is conditioned upon the faith of God's children are TWO very different and distinct salvations.
You need to learn to rightly divide the word of truth.
The life that is given you by your parents, and the life that you will enjoy by your obedience to your parents are two different and distinct lives.
Make sense to you?
Smith
The last time I checked Sing, God's Sovereign act of regeneration is not salvation. It is only a GRACE given as a "part" of the whole of salvation. How are we justified, Sing? Can I be justified without faith? Can I be saved without being justified? You guys need to chill, come off your HYPER-Calvinism. Come on man! Go out and try to win some souls!
That's what Jesus DID!
[O Smithy, being regenerated and given eternal life is not salvation? Being delivered from death and bron a child of God is not ETERNAL salvation?]
Smith
By Grace though faith! Does this explain anything to you?
Crabb
Sing God still uses means to accomplish His will. J. I. Packers book, "Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Both are true at the same time. God's Sovereignty is true, being Commanded to Evangelize is true too. We Evangelize because we know that if they are chosen, lost sheep, they will believe. They don't have a choice. I do not believe that we have a free will when it comes to Salvation.
Crabb
How beautiful are the feet of those sent to preach the Gospel. To deny this essential part of the Gospel is sheer Rebellion against Jesus' "Great Commission." Please do not tell me that you are going to explain this away. YES I BELIEVE ROMANS 9 AND EPHESIANS 1.
Sing F Lau
"By Grace though faith! Does this explain anything to you?"
I did say, when you quote Scriptures, you can do better by given your explanation... to see whether you have rightly divided the word of truth?
What does 'by grace through faith' mean?
By whose grace and through WHOSE faith?
How is that faith related to the salvation by grace?
If it is through your faith, then is it still by grace?
Take a look at a short article here:
http://things-new-and-old.blogspot.com/2008/01/saved-by-grace-through-faith-whose.html
Sing F Lau
"By Grace though faith! Does this explain anything to you?"
The Reformed Calvinists insist that their act of believing is the instrument to APPROPRIATE the eternal salvation which God has freely purposed and accomplished in Jesus Christ
The Bible insist that it is the faith OF - OF - OF Jesus Christ through which we are saved by God's grace with eternal salvation.
Bible insists that believing is the instrument to EVIDENCE and MAKE MANIFEST the eternal salvation that God has freely purposed, accomplished, and APPLIED to an elect personally.
There is an unbridgeable gulf between the two.
Sing F Lau
'Great Commission' - Crabb, there is great confusion here...
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I wrote this to an inquirer last week:
18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Verse 18: Jesus spoke to THEM... the apostles. The APOSTLES were commissioned.
Verse 19-20a: The scope of the commission
- TEACH all nations... i.e. TEACH God's children in all nations... not helping God make His children through their preaching!
- TEACHING enables them to identify the children of God, those who believe give evidence that they are God's children... such ONLY who give evidence of eternal life should be baptized.
- TEACHING them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded them, THE APOSTLES.
Verse 20b: Christ's promise of His presence with them through signs and miracles... as stated in Mark 16:17-18.
- 'I am with you alway', the pronoun 'you' are specifically the apostles, NOT anyone else!
- 'even to the end of the world', the end of the Jewish WORLD... in 70 AD.
- By then the commission was COMPLETED by the apostles.
The commission was clearly given to the apostles... TOGETHER with the UNIQUE promises mentioned in Mk 16:17-18 "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
THESE SIGNS SHALL follow them (addressed to the apostles) that believe (the commission Christ delivered to them)... making the signs part and parcel with the commission. It was a great commission because it was accompanied with those great promises of signs.
The great commission to the apostles and the unique promises to them are PART AND PARCEL of that commission. They cannot be separated. Whoever wants to claim that the commission to the apostle is still in force, then let them show the signs that Christ promised SHALL accompany that commission! What Christ has put together, let not man put them asunder.
Sounds a little blasphemous to hint of 'the unfinished work of Christ' - in whatever sense meant! Christ declared loudly from the cross, "It is finished." Whatever work Christ was commissioned by the Father to do, He finished and completed it! "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."
It is not less blasphemous to even hint of the apostles not completing the commission given to them! Christ Himself confirmed that the Apostles finished and completed the commission. Christ sent for the Roman army to raze Jerusalem because the gospel has been preached to 'ALL NATIONS' - 'all nations' in His definition, both in the commission in Mt 28:19, and His warning in Mt 24:14, "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." It was for a WITNESS unto all the Jews that were scattered in all the nations! It is NOT the 'all nations' idea of most preachers.
CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT - first, second and last rule of rightly dividing the word of truth.
'Great Commission' - Crabb, there great confusion, and delusion here...
Peruse these short article here:
http://things-new-and-old.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-commission-given-to-whom.html
http://things-new-and-old.blogspot.com/2008/02/preached-in-all-world-for-witness.html
