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Jesus' Saving Message is Void? It is Sacrilegious to Suggest So!
by Antonio da Rosa
It is interesting in such a scheme as both mid-Acts dispensationalism and fundamental checklist soteriology that Jesus' message of evangelism, the saving message He preached while on earth, contained in the only expressly evangelistic book in the Bible (which by the way, by most scholars view, was the second to the last in the canon written) only had a 3 1/2 year shelf life!
It would seem curious to me that John, having been informed of this now necessary information, as Art and the checklist evangelists are concerned, by the Apostle Paul (or anyone else for that matter), does not make any such new information explicitly necessary in His gospel, but everywhere shows that the saving message of Christ is just that, the saving message of Christ that sufficiently tells us how to have everlasting life. His whole treatise is constructed to show that those who received everlasting life in the text upon hearing the saving message of Christ is the same way that his readership is to appropriate that life: simple faith in Jesus and nothing else.
Wouldn't you think that John, writing with an expressly and intentional evangelistic purpose, would clearly state that Jesus' saving message when He was alive is now insufficient? Why even produce testimony after testimony about Jesus' saving message if it is now void? Why risk giving the false impression, years after Paul died, that Jesus' message was still sufficient today!?!?
It just does not pass the critical thinking test. Why give such elaborate testimony to the saving message of Christ (which I take it in Art and the fundamentalists' estimation only had a 3 1/2 year shelf life) and then fail to clearly state explicitly that there is new content that is required from the standpoint of God (if indeed more information is required!)?
The facts mitigate against Art (and also the fundamentalists') shaky arguments.
1) John's gospel is explicitly evangelistic and written much after Paul's epistles
2) John's gospel fails to state anywhere that eternal life is gained by anything more than simple faith in Jesus, simple reliance on Jesus, simply taking Jesus at His word in His promise that guarantees everlasting life to the believer in Him.
4) Since it is true that John did not make any explicit statement concerning new Pauline disclosed requirements for eternal life, we can either conclude that:
a) John was misinformed years after Paul died or
b) John's treatise fails to clearly and explicitly articulate for us precisely how one is born again
4) Art and the checklist evangelists have failed to convince that the gospel is a technical term denoting exactly what one must do and believe to be born again and nothing else. There is no such verse that says "believe the Pauline gospel and you have eternal life and/or justification and/or eternal salvation". Everywhere those things are conditioned on faith in Jesus.
The mystery of the gospel in Ephesians is clearly the new information that God would make one organic unity out of Jews and Gentiles who believed in Christ.
Is that something too that must be believed in this Mid-Acts dispensation?
If the saving message of Christ is insufficient, where must one go to get all the information? We will not know what it is! Nowhere is it stated that one must believe this loose and ambiguous term, the gospel, and one has everlasting life. Where is the gospel, in its supposed technical sense, clearly, and sufficiently defined? Anyone who claims there is such a thing has never done a word study on the pertinent Greek words, especially as used by Paul himself.
1 Cor 15:3-11 doesn't even contain the deity of Christ or the necessity of faith alone.
John never says that Jesus' message was changed!
Imagine Art and the checklist evangelists calling the saving message that I preach a false gospel! That would put me under an anathema according to Galatians 1:8. Imagine me being rebuked by Christ at the Bema for repeating His saving message!
Jesus knew that the 4th gospel would give His words and be constructed with the purpose of being the only evangelistic book in the canon. Jesus is the Prophet Par Excellence! Art will not tell you, but the logical conclusion of his system will tell you to throw out the gospels as specific instruction for the church age. But funny. They give the teachings for those who are disciples of Christ.
Quite frankly, it is sacrilegious to suggest that Jesus' saving message, that was taught in the only purposely evangelistic book in the canon, authored by the Apostle John (which by the way Paul stated that the church was in the present position of "having been built on the foundation of the apostles" (Eph 2:20), John being one of these apostles), years after supposedly being instructed by the Apostle Paul on this new gospel (wasn't John there at the cross and already see Jesus risen from the dead? Didn't Peter preach the death and resurrection of Christ much before mid-acts?!) is now void. Imagine that. Jesus' saving message given in the only book that was purposely constructed for evangelism is now void. Sacrilegious to suggest so!
Antonio
It is interesting in such a scheme as both mid-Acts dispensationalism and fundamental checklist soteriology that Jesus' message of evangelism, the saving message He preached while on earth, contained in the only expressly evangelistic book in the Bible (which by the way, by most scholars view, was the second to the last in the canon written) only had a 3 1/2 year shelf life!
It would seem curious to me that John, having been informed of this now necessary information, as Art and the checklist evangelists are concerned, by the Apostle Paul (or anyone else for that matter), does not make any such new information explicitly necessary in His gospel, but everywhere shows that the saving message of Christ is just that, the saving message of Christ that sufficiently tells us how to have everlasting life. His whole treatise is constructed to show that those who received everlasting life in the text upon hearing the saving message of Christ is the same way that his readership is to appropriate that life: simple faith in Jesus and nothing else.
Wouldn't you think that John, writing with an expressly and intentional evangelistic purpose, would clearly state that Jesus' saving message when He was alive is now insufficient? Why even produce testimony after testimony about Jesus' saving message if it is now void? Why risk giving the false impression, years after Paul died, that Jesus' message was still sufficient today!?!?
It just does not pass the critical thinking test. Why give such elaborate testimony to the saving message of Christ (which I take it in Art and the fundamentalists' estimation only had a 3 1/2 year shelf life) and then fail to clearly state explicitly that there is new content that is required from the standpoint of God (if indeed more information is required!)?
The facts mitigate against Art (and also the fundamentalists') shaky arguments.
1) John's gospel is explicitly evangelistic and written much after Paul's epistles
2) John's gospel fails to state anywhere that eternal life is gained by anything more than simple faith in Jesus, simple reliance on Jesus, simply taking Jesus at His word in His promise that guarantees everlasting life to the believer in Him.
4) Since it is true that John did not make any explicit statement concerning new Pauline disclosed requirements for eternal life, we can either conclude that:
a) John was misinformed years after Paul died or
b) John's treatise fails to clearly and explicitly articulate for us precisely how one is born again
4) Art and the checklist evangelists have failed to convince that the gospel is a technical term denoting exactly what one must do and believe to be born again and nothing else. There is no such verse that says "believe the Pauline gospel and you have eternal life and/or justification and/or eternal salvation". Everywhere those things are conditioned on faith in Jesus.
The mystery of the gospel in Ephesians is clearly the new information that God would make one organic unity out of Jews and Gentiles who believed in Christ.
Is that something too that must be believed in this Mid-Acts dispensation?
If the saving message of Christ is insufficient, where must one go to get all the information? We will not know what it is! Nowhere is it stated that one must believe this loose and ambiguous term, the gospel, and one has everlasting life. Where is the gospel, in its supposed technical sense, clearly, and sufficiently defined? Anyone who claims there is such a thing has never done a word study on the pertinent Greek words, especially as used by Paul himself.
1 Cor 15:3-11 doesn't even contain the deity of Christ or the necessity of faith alone.
John never says that Jesus' message was changed!
Imagine Art and the checklist evangelists calling the saving message that I preach a false gospel! That would put me under an anathema according to Galatians 1:8. Imagine me being rebuked by Christ at the Bema for repeating His saving message!
Jesus knew that the 4th gospel would give His words and be constructed with the purpose of being the only evangelistic book in the canon. Jesus is the Prophet Par Excellence! Art will not tell you, but the logical conclusion of his system will tell you to throw out the gospels as specific instruction for the church age. But funny. They give the teachings for those who are disciples of Christ.
Quite frankly, it is sacrilegious to suggest that Jesus' saving message, that was taught in the only purposely evangelistic book in the canon, authored by the Apostle John (which by the way Paul stated that the church was in the present position of "having been built on the foundation of the apostles" (Eph 2:20), John being one of these apostles), years after supposedly being instructed by the Apostle Paul on this new gospel (wasn't John there at the cross and already see Jesus risen from the dead? Didn't Peter preach the death and resurrection of Christ much before mid-acts?!) is now void. Imagine that. Jesus' saving message given in the only book that was purposely constructed for evangelism is now void. Sacrilegious to suggest so!
Antonio
posted by Antonio at 1:55 PM
5 Comments:
Hi Everyone:
the checklist evangelists
FG Evangelist: [i] Do you believe in someone called Jesus?
Man in hospital bed: No – Apart from the Bible, there is very little record of Jesus of Nazareth and that most was written years after he was supposed to have lived.
FG Evangelist: [ii] So you don’t believe the Bible – or more particularly John’s Gospel?
Man in hospital bed: No – it was written by fools for bigger fools – Religion is a racket!
FG Evangelist: Well…OK…[iii] Do you believe in eternal life?
Man in hospital bed: No. When you’re dead, that’s it. No Heaven , no Hell, no Hereafter
FG Evangelist: [iv] So you don’t believe then that we need to have faith in Jesus Christ to be guaranteed eternal life?
Man in hospital bed: No, I don’t…that’s the thing I find most objectionable about you born again people – this just believe business. It’s the way that you are all cocksure of your so called salvation – strutting around as if you had an inheritance up in heaven with your name written on it!
FG Evangelist: [v] You don’t believe then that people can have eternal life and know it?
Man in hospital bed: No, I don’t. Here! I hope you have no more questions on that checklist. I’m getting tired.
FG Evangelist: What checklist?
Regards,
By
Colin Maxwell, at Sunday, March 16, 2008 2:05:00 AM
Antonio, you make such an excellent point.
By
Matthew Celestine, at Sunday, March 16, 2008 5:57:00 AM
Antonio,
Are you baiting me?
Sacreligious? Who is the person known on these blogs as the most vocal opponent of Christ’s death being necessary to saving faith? Isn’t that you?
You suggest in what you’ve posted here that no one could possibly imagine the Lord rebuking you. But I find this quite easy, for you are denying that Christ gave any further truth for saving faith beyond what was preached before the cross. I don’t think this is pleasing to him at all.
I marvel at you. You infer that you are answering me by saying, “Didn’t Peter preach the death and resurrection of Christ before mid-Acts?” I marvel, because this is so far from answering anything I’ve said. I suppose you would like it if I said Peter didn’t preach that Christ died and arose from the dead because that would be so easy to disprove. But that isn’t what I’ve said, and I’m sure you know it. So let me clarify for you how you can really answer me. It’s very simple. Just show me in the record of Peter’s preaching before Paul where he stated that Christ died for our sins. That will refute me. I don’t think you can do that. But please feel free to prove me wrong.
And while you’re thinking about that, here are some words we know for sure that Peter did actually say and which I’d like you to help me understand. You will readily recognize them. He said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” I ask you here, Did Paul preach that? Do you preach that? I’ll bet you really don’t believe anyone today needs to be baptized for the remission of sins to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, do you? Whatever you think these words mean, surely you don’t deny that Peter said them. So tell me please, in light of these words, how is Peter’s preaching the same as Paul’s, and ours?
By
Art, at Monday, March 17, 2008 6:11:00 AM
goodnightsafehome,
Your making an argument by scenario, which is a logical fallacy.
First it misrepresents FG believers as a fools.
Second, your point?
V/R
Jim
By
Jim, at Saturday, March 29, 2008 5:44:00 AM
Jim writes: goodnightsafehome,
Your making an argument by scenario, which is a logical fallacy.
First it misrepresents FG believers as a fools.
Second, your point?
V/R
You seem to be the only one who has taken offence at it, and that nearly two weeks after it was posted.
Seeing you have missed the point, (although it does appear to be pretty obvious) I'll explain it just for you. Antonio made reference to what he called "checklist evangelists." I responded by making my own checklist of things which FG Evangelists require the sinner to believe in order to be saved. It seems to me a bit rich to accuse others of having a checklist, when the accuser evidently has his own. Therefore the little bit of ironic humour at the end was not altogether out of place. Perhaps if I had put a :0) at the bottom, it might have deflected your criticism. Then, perhaps, it might not (?)
Unsure what V/R means, so unable to respond to it.
Regards,
By
Colin Maxwell, at Saturday, March 29, 2008 7:00:00 AM
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