Ahh! Western Christianity, with all of its scholarship and religious word studies, STILL MISS OUT on the main thrust of the New Testament.
Let me start by saying that I do believe in Justification by faith. But let me clarify that I do NOT believe it in the same mindset that Martin Luther and those other western scholars who came after him articulate or even expound on it! Luther even wants to remove the books of Hebrews and James from the New Testament because James emphasized salvation by works while Hebrews explicitly talked about how to avoid losing one's salvation!!!
The main reason for this is that although all their word studies based on the verbal inspiration of Scripture are quite accurate, they miss out on both the plenary inspiration of Scripture AND progressive revelation of God through his Word AND the central importance of FREE WILL in the whole of Scripture revelation!
Plenary Inspiration: Western scholarship utterly fails here. They echo Martin Luther's "Justification by Faith" and make it carelessly evolve into Sola Gracia which, sad to say, is NOT "entirely" scriptural (verbally, they point out Ephesians 2:5 and 8 because they are verbal inspirationists but plenarily or entirely, that is a half-truth at best). This further deteriorates into a false concept and articulation of the sovereignty of God. We have a term for this. We call these proponents, the hyper-grace or hyper-sovereignty people. By "hyper" we not only mean over-emphasis, like over-emphasis on grace, over-emphasis on sovereignty. We mean abuse of grace, abuse of sovereignty. Regardless, any abuse or over-emphasis diverts from the true biblical view. Because of this aberrant theology, this group cannot intelligently answer these two major questions:
There is a lot LOST in translation. When scripture says that John the baptizer is "crying in the wilderness", is he really "crying and weeping and moaning (verbal inspiration)" or is he just "declaring by shouting (plenary inspiration)"? The Greek is literally "proclaiming, shouting", but why is the Greek translated different ways in Scripture? How do we know if it is cry or shout or something else?
Another interesting example is the Greek airo in John 15:2. I have heard some interpretation that it means lift up and so it is interpreted as God lifts up someone who does not bear fruit. For verbal inspirationists (without the plenary context), this interpretation is plausible. However, if we apply the plenary view, the Greek literally has two meanings. The first meaning is indeed, "to lift up". Unfortunately, the second more common meaning is "to remove or take away from its place". So which one is correct? Well context, look at John 15:6. Whoever does not abide in Christ is taken away and thrown into the fire! But you may say, verse 2 talks about bearing fruit while verse 6 talks about abiding in Christ! Well, look at verse 4 and nothing could be clear as day, NOT ABIDING = NO FRUIT and equivalently and unequivocally, NO FRUIT = NOT ABIDING!
Galatians 5:14 says the law of God is fulfilled in ONE (Greek, heis) word, but what follows is NOT ONE word!!!
Context! Plenary view of the statement! So verbal inspiration is NOTHING without the plenary view or the contextual view. I hope we remember this when they expound on predestination or election! Verbal Inspirationists and literalists, BEWARE!!!
Progressive Revelation: Did God author the whole 66 books of the Bible only to condense it into Sola Gracia? Did God take pains to compose the whole bible just to talk about justification?
Justification is but a small fraction of Scripture. In fact, the whole of Scripture assumes FREE WILL, in fact ,ABSOLUTELY AUTONOMOUS free will of man! Hence, any interpretation that under-emphasizes free will is no longer Scriptural. Yes we should emphasize grace, but not at the expense of free will. Yes, we may emphasize sovereignty but not at the expense of free will.
Now, what is really the plenary view on the subject of salvation?
Jesus Christ almost NEVER talked about justification topics. In fact, almost ALL of his topics are about sanctification! Therefore, as far as Christ is concerned, SANCTIFICATION = SALVATION!!! In fact, in Luke 10 when the lawyer questioned Christ about how he can inherit eternal life, the answer that Christ affirmed was to fulfill the Great Commandment, nothing at that point to hint at justification but all about sanctification.
You know why most preaching on Galatians and Hebrews are mostly boring? That is because the expositors erroneously think that the main focus is justification.
You want to make your preaching cliff-edge or tightrope exciting? Preach Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews or any other New Testament book with the main context of sanctification. It will lead you from where the Calvinist Wesley became "Wesleyan" in doctrine.
Let me start by saying that I do believe in Justification by faith. But let me clarify that I do NOT believe it in the same mindset that Martin Luther and those other western scholars who came after him articulate or even expound on it! Luther even wants to remove the books of Hebrews and James from the New Testament because James emphasized salvation by works while Hebrews explicitly talked about how to avoid losing one's salvation!!!
The main reason for this is that although all their word studies based on the verbal inspiration of Scripture are quite accurate, they miss out on both the plenary inspiration of Scripture AND progressive revelation of God through his Word AND the central importance of FREE WILL in the whole of Scripture revelation!
Plenary Inspiration: Western scholarship utterly fails here. They echo Martin Luther's "Justification by Faith" and make it carelessly evolve into Sola Gracia which, sad to say, is NOT "entirely" scriptural (verbally, they point out Ephesians 2:5 and 8 because they are verbal inspirationists but plenarily or entirely, that is a half-truth at best). This further deteriorates into a false concept and articulation of the sovereignty of God. We have a term for this. We call these proponents, the hyper-grace or hyper-sovereignty people. By "hyper" we not only mean over-emphasis, like over-emphasis on grace, over-emphasis on sovereignty. We mean abuse of grace, abuse of sovereignty. Regardless, any abuse or over-emphasis diverts from the true biblical view. Because of this aberrant theology, this group cannot intelligently answer these two major questions:
- If salvation is entirely the work of a loving God, are all people saved regardless of mindset or behavior? If not all people are saved, then is God really sovereign or loving?
- If God is absolutely sovereign, why does his world have problems and suffering? Or try President Duterte's "stupid god" question, "Why would a perfect god create a perfect creation and then introduce something to destroy it?"
NOTE THAT BOTH ARE NOT ISSUES FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE ABSOLUTELY AUTONOMOUS FREE WILL OF MAN.
There is a lot LOST in translation. When scripture says that John the baptizer is "crying in the wilderness", is he really "crying and weeping and moaning (verbal inspiration)" or is he just "declaring by shouting (plenary inspiration)"? The Greek is literally "proclaiming, shouting", but why is the Greek translated different ways in Scripture? How do we know if it is cry or shout or something else?
Another interesting example is the Greek airo in John 15:2. I have heard some interpretation that it means lift up and so it is interpreted as God lifts up someone who does not bear fruit. For verbal inspirationists (without the plenary context), this interpretation is plausible. However, if we apply the plenary view, the Greek literally has two meanings. The first meaning is indeed, "to lift up". Unfortunately, the second more common meaning is "to remove or take away from its place". So which one is correct? Well context, look at John 15:6. Whoever does not abide in Christ is taken away and thrown into the fire! But you may say, verse 2 talks about bearing fruit while verse 6 talks about abiding in Christ! Well, look at verse 4 and nothing could be clear as day, NOT ABIDING = NO FRUIT and equivalently and unequivocally, NO FRUIT = NOT ABIDING!
Galatians 5:14 says the law of God is fulfilled in ONE (Greek, heis) word, but what follows is NOT ONE word!!!
Context! Plenary view of the statement! So verbal inspiration is NOTHING without the plenary view or the contextual view. I hope we remember this when they expound on predestination or election! Verbal Inspirationists and literalists, BEWARE!!!
Progressive Revelation: Did God author the whole 66 books of the Bible only to condense it into Sola Gracia? Did God take pains to compose the whole bible just to talk about justification?
Justification is but a small fraction of Scripture. In fact, the whole of Scripture assumes FREE WILL, in fact ,ABSOLUTELY AUTONOMOUS free will of man! Hence, any interpretation that under-emphasizes free will is no longer Scriptural. Yes we should emphasize grace, but not at the expense of free will. Yes, we may emphasize sovereignty but not at the expense of free will.
Now, what is really the plenary view on the subject of salvation?
Jesus Christ almost NEVER talked about justification topics. In fact, almost ALL of his topics are about sanctification! Therefore, as far as Christ is concerned, SANCTIFICATION = SALVATION!!! In fact, in Luke 10 when the lawyer questioned Christ about how he can inherit eternal life, the answer that Christ affirmed was to fulfill the Great Commandment, nothing at that point to hint at justification but all about sanctification.
You know why most preaching on Galatians and Hebrews are mostly boring? That is because the expositors erroneously think that the main focus is justification.
You want to make your preaching cliff-edge or tightrope exciting? Preach Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews or any other New Testament book with the main context of sanctification. It will lead you from where the Calvinist Wesley became "Wesleyan" in doctrine.
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