Dear Friends,

  If Paul followed the logical argumentation of dialectical rhetoric as appears so strongly that he did, particularly in the context of our present study, he faithfully and accurately represented his critics’ ideas.  What can we learn from Paul’s writings about these critics and what they believed?  A brief study of this question will prove to be of timeless value to us in our own age and culture.  It is likely that the primary emphasis of these critics had to do as much, or more, with culture than with theological belief, but Paul’s inspired insight leads us to a crucial fact.  What a person believes about culture and conduct will impact his/her belief about more timeless, eternal issues.  The opposite is equally true; our beliefs about eternal things will impose consequences onto our perceptions of cultural and conduct.  If an error in either area is allowed to grow in our minds, eventually that error will invade all aspects of our belief system and lead us into greater error.  It is for this reason that Paul and Barnabas “…had no small dissension and disputation…” with advocates of these errors ( Acts 15:2 ).  Whatever the details of the errant belief, Paul integrates it with both theology (God’s sovereign, personal, and individual election in the ninth chapter of Romans) and conduct (closing half of that chapter, along with the tenth and eleventh chapters of Romans, not to mention the intense practical/ethical teachings of the twelfth chapter) in his various New Testament letters, especially in the Roman and Galatian letters.  

  While Paul confronts the errant beliefs of his critics in these chapters, he misses no opportunity to draw our attention to the various points at which his teachings differed from them.  We may examine various details and nuances of this conflict, but we cannot reasonably miss the major distinction between the errant belief in God’s limited ability or willingness to communicate His will (according to them, through the gospel only—exclusively) and Paul’s teaching that God freely communicates His will to His regenerate children freely and clearly through the speaking or testimony of the “righteousness of faith” that corroborates the truth of the gospel—always—but is bestowed by God in regeneration prior to one’s faith-response to the gospel, and independent of that faith-response.  The speaking of the “righteousness of faith” serves as a foundational prerequisite to the testimony of the gospel, according to Paul.  

  Regardless of the various errant views that have invaded Christian belief since the first century, the distinctive truths that Paul taught, as well as the distinctive errors that he confronted and refuted in his various letters, has equipped God’s faithful believers to face, identify, and reject the multitude of those historical errors.  In this week’s study I draw only one comparison between the errors in the belief system of Paul’s critics with only one historical error that historical Baptists faced over two hundred years ago, the teachings of Andrew Fuller.  In contemporary theological circles it is not at all uncommon for people who believe in some of the doctrines of grace to refer to the five historical tenets of grace (sometimes referred to as Reformed theology, or Calvinism [though in fact John Calvin didn’t refer to them in this way; the “five points” originated with James Arminius as five points of disagreement with Reformed theology, and the Synod of Dort refuted Arminius’ errors, first affirming the five points of the doctrines of grace] all of which occurred after Calvin’s death).  Most “Calvinists” of our time prefer to describe themselves as “moderate Calvinists” (Millard Erickson or Norm Geisler as two well-known examples).  In fact they will often acknowledge that they do not believe in all five points of these historical doctrines.  Most people in this “moderate” school of belief reject particular redemption, or, as it is historically labeled “limited atonement.”  I avoid the term “limited atonement” because it is so non-descript.  Every professing Christian belief system in some way or another “limits” the atonement.  The Arminian believer limits the atonement to only those who believe the gospel and remain faithful.  A common “moderate” Calvinist belief of our time redefines election—and thus their view of the atonement—as “class election,” meaning that Jesus’ death effectually covers the sins of a particular “class of people,” those who by their own belief and/or other actions become identified with Jesus, God’s primary “elect.”  

  In fact Andrew Fuller was one of the first—if not the very first in the sense of contemporary “moderate Calvinism”—Baptists to believe and teach these ideas.  He referred to anyone who embraced all five of the historical points of the doctrines of grace as holding to a “cesspool” (his term) of “high-Calvinism.”  Much of the straw man criticism of “hyper-Calvinism” of our time is actually aimed at those who hold to all five points, and originates with those who reject one or more of the five doctrinal points.  

  I observe for your consideration that, while these “five points,” sometimes referred to under the acronym of “TULIP,” are historical and quite interesting, they are not a New Testament litmus test of sound theological belief.  Paul didn’t limit his theological teaching to these five points.  We commit regrettable anachronism when we superimpose these five historical points onto Paul and New Testament writers.  I also observe that a rather confusing multitude of various interpretations have historically developed around these five points.  For example, with John MacArthur’s “lordship salvation,” the doctrine of divine preservation (God’s covenant commitment to “preserve” His elect from final and eternal falling) has been morphed into a man-centric view of human “perseverance.”  When advocates of MacArthur’s view attempt to justify their belief based on historical confessions, they correctly mention confessions that use “perseverance,” but they often misrepresent those confessions as teaching a human-centric faithfulness to a particular belief system and ethical living instead of the historical belief of those who framed these confessions that God would “persevere” in preserving His elect from final separation from the love of God.  To grasp this morphed idea, one need only look up the definition of “perseverance” in the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, and check the use of the word in the sixteenth or seventeenth century.  

  We would serve our own spiritual minds better to allow New Testament terms and writings to stand as our final authority for belief and conduct, typically including the terms used in the English Authorized Version of our New Testaments.  For example, look up the word roots for “persevere” in an English concordance of the New Testament.  The word appears only once in the sixth chapter of Ephesians where Paul is exhorting the Ephesians to remain faithful in prayer, not at all the historical/creedal definition of this term.  

  A careful examination of both Paul’s belief system, divinely inspired and not Paul’s private beliefs, as well as his examination of beliefs that existed in his lifetime and conflicted with his teachings, will provide us with invaluable insights into Biblical truth.  

  May we be faithful students of Scripture,

Joe Holder

What Did Paul’s Critics Believe?

 
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!  ( Romans 10:14-15 )                                            

            If we carefully examine Paul’s teachings leading up to these verses—and following them, along with the ideas contained in the critics’ interaction with Paul, how much can we learn about both the critics’ views as well as Paul’s? 

What did Paul believe/teach?

            First let’s examine Paul’s sequential teaching in this context.  In the ninth chapter immediately after affirming God’s sovereignty in personal, individual election (not class election, or individual election based on God’s advance knowledge of our good works or our “decision”), Paul introduces key thoughts through his selective use of Old Testament passages. 

1.         Romans 9:25 .  As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. This quote comes from Hosea 2:23 .  Does Hosea teach in this verse that the pivotal decision comes from the people or from God?  As with Paul’s teaching on election in the earlier verses of this chapter, the decisive matter resides in God’s action, not in man’s. 

2.         Romans 9:26 .  And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.  This quote comes from Hosea 1:10 .  Based on what God will do, not what man will do, people who were not considered to be God’s people are so designated by God Himself. 

3.         Romans 9:27 .  Esaias also crieth concerning Israel , Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved….  This quote comes from Isaiah 10:22 , 23 .  Paul affirms that not all Israel shall be “saved” in what is the specific salvific sense of this passage.  Being a Jew either by race or by culture does not automatically give anyone an “Olly, Olly, ox in, free, free, free.”  Paul is moving the logical issue of his thought and teaching in a very specific direction. 

4.         Romans 9:29 .  And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.   This quote comes from Isaiah 1:9 .  Paul uses this passage to advance the point introduced in Verse twenty-seven.  There is a distinction between the whole family of God and the “seed” of those who remain faithful to Him.  The distinction between the two divided kingdoms in the Old Testament is telling.  Israel , the northern kingdom, corrupted God’s prescribed form of worship, embraced Baal worship, and eventually lost its identity.  Judah , the southern kingdom, struggled with many of the same problems, but retained God’s prescribed form of worship and was blessed by a kind divine providence to survive to the coming of Jesus. 

5.         Romans 9:33 .  As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.   This quote comes from Isaiah 28:16 .  The stumbling stone was laid “…in Sion…” not outside.  Thus it stands to reason that those who stumbled at the stone would be citizens of Zion , not foreigners. 

            Paul uses these verses to bridge the logical gap from his emphatic teaching on election by “grace, not race” to the point that he introduced at the beginning of the ninth chapter, his passionate and prayerful concern for some of God’s people among the Jews who missed the blessing that they, above all people, should have embraced. 

            When we move into the tenth chapter of Romans, Paul continues to build on the points that he made in the closing thoughts of the ninth chapter.  I do not believe that at any point in the ninth chapter Paul intended to include all national or cultural Jews in his concern.  His description of them ( Romans 9:3-5 ) is too detailed and too specific for such an interpretation.  Rather it follows more logically that he was concerned for elect Jews who failed to grasp the truth of Jesus as their Messiah and Savior. 

What Did Paul’s Critics Believe?

            A modern and highly corrupted view of these verses suggests that God intended to set up a world-wide kingdom during Jesus’ first advent, but the fact that so many Jews rejected Him surprised and disappointed God, so He developed “Plan B,” and instituted the “church age” as a second-best alternative to His primary intent.  At its heart, this view reveals its abominable error in that it rejects God’s omniscience.  Secondly, it also ignores a multitude of Old Testament passages that clearly—and in surprising detail—predict the very fact that Jesus would be the rejected Corner Stone, as well as predicting God’s primary intent of establishing the “church age” during the First Advent.  God never intended to set up a world-wide millennial kingdom during the First Advent. 

            During the Old Testament God directed that true worship was to be conducted in the context of Mosaic Law and Levitical priesthood.  However, from the beginning God’s intent for New Testament worship (Study the new covenant prophecy in Jeremiah 31:27-34 ) was that a new form of worship would be based on God’s Law written in individual hearts of His elect children, not on external tablets of stone and stored in a central place of collective worship. 

            Paul’s teaching in the first thirteen verses of the tenth chapter of Romans affirms this truth, especially by his emphasis on the internal communication of the “righteousness of faith,” as categorically distinguished from external forms and rules handed down from an exclusive priesthood and center of worship.  If we hope to understand the message of this chapter, we must come to terms with the significant difference between theology based on human agency and theology based on God’s direct and immediate work of grace in the hearts of His chosen people. 

            The implication of the ideas in Romans 10:14-15 is that only those who hear the message of the gospel from external sources and who respond specifically to it can ever be embraced in God’s saving grace.  This idea stands in stark contrast to Paul’s assertion in the first thirteen verses that God’s presence already indwells His regenerate elect people, and that indwelling presence and influence “speaks” to them with true and life-changing moral convictions. 

            We are witness in our generation to a rather impressive parallel to this same debate.  Beginning with Andrew Fuller in the late eighteenth century, Baptists and many other fellowships of Christians began attempting to reconcile these two diametrically opposite ideas so as to make them one.  The idea that election is individual and personal, but that God uses the gospel to effect regeneration, to actually convey the eternal consequences and blessings of election to the elect, is the dominant view of many “grace-believing” fellowships in our time.  We may thank God that they have embraced divine election and many of the implications of the doctrines of grace, but we should also understand that they have not fully embraced the effectual working of God’s grace in regeneration, or the new birth, that must occur prior to any external appeal or manifestation of that work in an individual’s life. 

            The question rather specifically “boils down” to this.  Which comes first, the new birth, or faith and a faith-response to the gospel?  In John 5:24 Jesus affirmed in the simplest of terms that the hearing believer already possesses eternal life, has already passed from a state of spiritual death into a wondrous state of spiritual life. Cherish the words.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. ( John 5:24 , KJV )

This same apostle John, still under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, confirmed this truth again. 

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. ( 1 John 5:1 , KJV )

A. T. Robertson, a highly respected New Testament Greek scholar from the first half of the twentieth century, and a man who sincerely believed more the theology of Paul’s critics than of Paul in our study passage relative to how the elect come to initially possess the indwelling work of grace, nevertheless confronted the weighty truth of this verse in his writings. 

“The Divine Begetting is the antecedent, not the consequent of the believing” (Law). (1) 

Notice Robertson’s point in this quote.  “The Divine Begetting is the antecedent…” that is, it comes first or before the act of “believing.”  If the “Divine Begetting” precedes the individual’s act of believing, believing cannot logically either cause or be instrumental in that “Divine Begetting.” 

            Whether Paul’s critics embraced all the nuances of Fuller and our contemporary “grace believers” or not we cannot fully know, but it seems quite clear that they were inclined in that direction to some degree.  Paul’s critics affirm that God either cannot or will not in any way communicate Himself to His elect except through the external means of preaching.  If Paul agreed with them on this point, there would be no disagreement, and Paul would not so challenge this idea or offer a distinctly different view in opposition to them.  Paul holds strongly to the prior work of grace in the heart, including the abiding testimony of the “righteousness of faith” that speaks to a regenerate elect person apart from the words of preaching, though always in harmony with the message of true gospel preaching. 

            Following these verses Paul challenges and contradicts the allegation even more directly.  “But they have not all obeyed….” ( Romans 10:16 )  God willing, we shall dwell on these following verses in coming studies.