In this third post I will continue to critique an Internet treatise titled "Primitive Baptist Church: Bible Basic Doctrines" (See here) authored by Elders Johnson Vernon, Michael Ivy, and Don Watson, and found at the web page of Denton Primitive Baptist Church (www.dentonpbc.org). We are still looking at the section titled "Relationship Between Belief and New Birth" (pgs. 112-113).
Next, they wrote:
"F. John 10:26-28, "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." In this passage the sheep are those to whom Christ gives eternal life. Those who are not given eternal life do not believe. Only those who are given eternal life believe, thus belief is the evidence of the fact that God has given us eternal life (new birth)."
My Response
In all the scriptures these three apologists for Hardshell Hyper Calvinism have brought forth as proofs for their belief that 1) regeneration or rebirth or quickening precedes faith and repentance and that 2) faith and repentance are not necessary conditions for being regenerated or eternally saved, none actually affirm those propositions, but actually deny them. The above text, ironically, does not deny that believing in Christ is a necessary condition for being one of the sheep of the Lord as these authors surmise. Rather, again, they teach just the opposite, affirming that faith in Christ and following him are necessary for being a sheep in the sheepfold of Christ. It is bewildering how anyone could read the above words of Christ and come away saying that faith in Christ is not necessary for being eternally saved.
How does Christ describe and define a sheep of his?
First, he says that they hear his voice. By "hearing" he means more than just mere hearing but means hearing in the sense of paying attention to the voice of Christ, to heeding it, and following it. That is clear from the context.
Second, he says that they "follow" Christ and his voice. So, the voice cannot be some voice heard on a sub-conscious level so as not to be understood cognitively. Sheep when they hear the voice of their shepherd respond to it for it commands them. Further, following is what disciples do, and so one cannot be a sheep if one is not a disciple of Jesus.
Third, the sheep have an intimate relationship with their shepherd. He knows the sheep and the sheep know him. So, to be a sheep one must have an intimate relationship with the shepherd, that being what it means to "know" another. The idea that a person can be a sheep without knowing the shepherd (the Hardshell idea) is ridiculous.
Fourth, Jesus also says that the voice of a "stranger" (or another shepherd unfamiliar to the sheep) will not be followed, and the sheep will flee from him. (vs. 5) This shows that the sheep are they who remain followers of Christ.
Recall our logical formula which says "If P, then Q"; And, therefore, "if not Q, then not P." So, if you are a sheep, then you will be a follower of Christ, which is what is the essence of faith. You will know Christ and know his voice and heed that voice. If you do not follow Christ, do not know him, and do not heed his voice, then you are not a sheep. Sheep follow their shepherd because they know and trust him. If you follow another Savior or God, then you are not of the sheep, a proposition denied by most Hardshells who say that many of the sheep (regenerated) remain believers in false gods and do not know Christ nor believe in him.
Where in the text does Christ say that the sheep have everlasting life before or apart from their knowing and believing and following Christ the Shepherd? Answer: no place. Hardshells say that many who do not know Jesus and who follow other gods are sheep as Christ describes them. Huh? In this post (here) I give several citations where Hardshell leaders have affirmed this very thing. In this post (here) I cited these words from Elder T.L. Webb Sr.:
"I believe that God is the author of prayer. I have thought, and I believe today with all my heart, that every person in this world, who has prayed, will finally be around the throne of grace in heaven."
So, every religious person in the world is a regenerated, born again, sheep of Christ!
Next, they wrote:
"G. John 13:37, 38, "But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord who hath believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?" It is not the miracles we see with our natural eyes that enable or entice us to believe, but it is the miracle performed within us (new birth) that enables or causes us to believe. God must first cause us to be born again (reveal his holy arm within us) and then we can "believe the report.""
My Response
What an unscholarly commentary! First, the text cited is from John chapter twelve, not thirteen. Second, these Hardshell apologists read things into the text that are not there and make statements on the text that are foreign to it. In a recent series, where I gave a critique of another Hardshell apologist (Elder Harvey) who argued that when Jesus said the Sodomites would have repented had they seen the miracles Christ was doing that this proved that the Sodomites were children of God. (See here) Well, if the above authors are correct, the Sodomites did have the greatest miracle of all, i.e. the new birth. Third, verse 36, which I cited in the previous chapter, and which the authors of the treatise we are now examining left out, goes against what they say in their commentary on verses 37-38 in the above citation! In it Jesus says "believe in the light that you may children of the light." So, if faith precedes becoming birthed children of God in verse 36, why do the above authors say that verses 37-38 teach the reverse?
Next, they wrote:
"All thinking people (present active participle) have realized (perfect passive) this truth."
Here we see where the verb realized did not occur before the thinking, but was the result of the thinking. I could also say - "whoever is saying such things has shown himself to be a fool" where the participle "whoever is saying" is a present tense participle and "has shown" is a perfect tense. In that sentence the saying action of the participle preceded the verb has shown.
I also show that it is likely that the present tense participle (the ones believing) is a universal or gnomic present tense so that a past tense believing is included in the present tense, and so the text may be read thusly - "whoever has believed and who continues to believe has been born of God." I even cited Daniel Wallace, Greek scholar, who wrote the following:
“The gnomic present is distinct from the customary present in that customary present refers to a regularly recurring action while the gnomic present refers to a general, timeless fact…The gnomic present is generally atemporal.”
That is probably the case with I John 5: 1 and I John 2: 29. Said Wallace further:
"Further, the present participle, especially in such formulaic expression Πᾶς ὁ + present participle and the like, routinely belong here." (Greek Grammar here)
Πᾶς ὁ + present participle is what we have in I John 5: 1 and Wallace says such expression "routinely belongs" to such a gnomic class of present tense.
The text says "whoever is believing continually that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God." We can write the same sentence this way: "whoever is not believing continually that Jesus is the Christ has not been born of God." Can we say that the unborn state preceded and caused the unbelieving state?
John is affirming that those who are not believers have not been born of God. John's purpose is not to establish an ordo salutis. His purpose is to identify those who have been born of God. John is not in the above text contradicting what he wrote elsewhere. In John 1: 12-13 he plainly says that people received Christ and believed in him and as a result Christ gave them the right or privilege to become the birth children of God, saying that those who received him were born of God when they received him. He recorded the words of Jesus who said "believe in the light that you may become sons of light." (John 12: 36)
Also, folks who believe that the text teaches that the birth precedes the believing will say that the perfect tense means that something that happened in the past has present effects. That is true. However, they err when they say that the effect implied is the believing, when in fact the birth itself or becoming children of God thereby, is the continued effect.
In the first post in this short series I cited what the authors said about John 1: 12-13 and focused in on how they omitted very important parts of this text, parts that contradicted their interpretation. They actually did it more than once. In another section of their work they wrote:
"Similarly, John 1:11-13 teaches us that God is sovereign in bringing about the new birth: "He came unto his own...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." This passage teaches the Sovereignty of God in causing us to be born again by first ruling all other possible causes. First, man's belief is ruled out as a cause for the passage shows that the birth took place prior to man's belief. This leaves us with the only logical conclusion that belief cannot be a cause of the new birth...Fourthly, the new birth is not the result of man's will or choice. Thus, man does not choose to be born again and because of his choice the new birth comes about. " (pgs. 101-102)
Notice the ellipsis once again (the...). They again left out the part that says "to as many as received him to them gave he the right to become children of God." I wrote about how the Hardshells have often used the ellipsis to take words out of context, whether it be from texts of scripture or texts from human writings. This is a tactic of dishonest people. See these posts here, here, here where I give examples of this.
Man's will is not excluded in his being saved, quickened, born again, or regenerated. John 1: 12-13 does not exclude the will of the one being born of God. How do I know that? First, because the text says that people "receive" and "believe" Christ in order for them to be given the privilege of becoming begotten children of God and members of the family of God. People choose to receive and believe. Both those words in the Greek are in the active voice which means that those people were the ones who actively did those two things and not passively.
Second, it is true that one cannot be saved or born again by the will of the flesh, which means it is not a choice that is originated by an impulse coming from the depraved nature of the sinner nor the result of natural generation. It is also true that no one can be saved or born again by the will of another person, such as a parent. But, this does not exclude God working in a sinner "to will" to receive Christ and to believe in him, and a will to be saved or born again. (Phil. 2: 13) The Psalmist said "thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power" (110: 3) and Paul says that sinners willingly and actively "believe" when God exerts "the working of his mighty power" (Eph. 1: 19) to make that happen.
In the Hardshell doctrinal treatise I am examining the authors have a section where they correctly say that being born again is also described as being "circumcised in heart." People choose, by God's grace and working, for that to happen. Moses told Israel, “Circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.” (Deut. 10:16) Jeremiah exhorted:
"Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings." (Jer. 4: 4)
Commented Dr. Gill:
"Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart - Content not yourselves with, nor put your confidence in outward circumcision of the flesh, but be concerned for the circumcision of the heart; for removing from that whatever is disagreeable to the Lord, even all carnality, sensuality, hypocrisy, and superfluity of naughtiness, and for having that put there which is well pleasing in his sight; and which though it is the work of God, and he only can do it and has promised it, yet such an exhortation is made to bring men to a sense of their need of it, and of the importance of it, and to show how agreeable it is to the Lord, and so to stir them up to seek unto him for it." (Gill's Commentary)
See my posting on spiritual circumcision (here).
So, it is not against scripture for sinners, by God's grace and inner working, to will for God to circumcise their hearts, to make them new men, transform them, to give them repentance and faith. We are told in scripture that "whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Joel 2: 32; Acts 2: 21; Rom. 10: 13). Surely people do that because they willed or chose to do so.
Jesus also said that people "come" to the Lord (which is equated with believing in him) because they willed to do so. So Jesus said to some alien sinners - "you will not come to me that you might have life." (John 5: 40) The Bible speaks of a "willing mind" (II Cor. 8: 12) and surely the grace of God at work in a sinner's heart preparatory to his regeneration produces such. Paul said "to will is present with me" and that was a will to do God's will. (Rom. 7: 18) The question for my Hardshell friends is this - can God produce a willing mind before regeneration? If not, why not? Solomon said "the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord" to turn it in whatever direction the Lord pleases. (Prov. 21: 1). Christians sing "Oh happy day! That fixed my choice on thee my Savior and my God." Even Hardshells sing this song.
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