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Chapter 0
The centrality of Isaiah 53 to the doctrine of the Atonement
by George Sidney Hurd
Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 is the last of four servant songs in which Christ is portrayed as the sin-bearing servant. It is by far the most referenced passage in the New Testament, being directly quoted 9 times, once by Jesus Himself (Luke 22:37; Matt 8:17; Mark 15:28; John 12:38; Acts 8:32-33; Rom 10:16; Rom 15:21; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 Peter 2:24). Apart from these direct quotes, it is alluded to some 75 times. For example, the writer of Hebrews says of Christ:
“...but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation” (Heb 9:26-28, cf. Isa 53:12).
Here the author of Hebrews presents Christ as being the vicarious sacrifice, bearing the sins of many in His first coming, alluding to Isaiah 53:12, “And He bore the sin of many.” He then goes on to say that, having put away sin once and for all by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb 7:27), when He comes the second time, it will not be as the sin bearer in which He became sin for us as our substitutionary sacrifice. Rather, when He comes again, He will come bringing salvation or deliverance to His people.
A more subtle allusion to Isaiah 53 is where Paul says: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). While it is not a direct quote, the only place in the Old Testament Scriptures where Christ the Messiah is seen to die for our sins as a sin offering is in Isaiah 53 (Isa 53:10). The New Testament is impregnated with many such allusions to Isaiah’s Suffering Servant passage, applying it to Christ and His vicarious sacrifice of Himself for our sins.
In the next blog I will demonstrate that the terminology throughout Isaiah 53 is penal and substitutionary in nature. However, since many who oppose the doctrine accuse us of reading Isaiah 53 through the lens of Anselm and Calvin, in this blog I will be citing specific references to Isaiah 53 made by numerous Early Church Fathers which clearly demonstrate that they understood Isaiah 53 to be penal and substitutionary in nature, just as the Reformers did after them. This differs from my previous blog, The Early Fathers and Penal Substitutionary Atonement, in that here I will only be siting their specific references to Isaiah 53 which contain penal substitutionary connotations.
Epistle of Barnabas (70 to 135 AD)
“For to this end their Lord endured to deliver up His flesh to corruption (καταφθορά, kataphthora, ‘death, destruction’) that we might be sanctified through the remission (ἄφεσις, aphesis, ‘pardon, remission of penalty’) of sins, which is effected by His blood of sprinkling. For it was written concerning Him… ‘He was wounded for our transgressions (ἀνομία, anomía ‘illegality, lawlessness’) and bruised for our iniquities (ἁμαρτία, hamartia ‘sins’): with His stripes we are healed. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb which is dumb before its shearer.” [1]
According to Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the Epistle of Barnabas was written by Barnabas, the companion of Paul (Acts 9:26-27). Here Barnabas makes reference to Isaiah 53 and employs clear penal substitutionary language. He presents Christ’s suffering and death as dying in our place, connecting it with the animal sacrificed on the Day of Atonement when its blood was sprinkled in order to make atonement/expiation for all the sins of the people (Lev 16:15-16, cf. Heb 9:13-14; 12:24; Isa 52:15). He then further demonstrates the substitutionary nature of His death by quoting Isaiah 53:5, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” He clearly understood the preposition “for” here in the substitutionary sense, as in “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for (huper) [2] us” (2 Cor 5:21).
As to the penal aspect of His death, we see him presenting Christ as having suffered the penalty for our transgressions against the Law. The word anomía, or lawlessness, is a legal term, and John states that all sin is anomía (1Jn 3:4). The penalty for sin or transgression is death (Gen 2:17; Ezek 18:20; Rom 6:23; Rom 5:17). Therefore, if Christ had not suffered the due penalty for our sin on the cross as our substitute, we would have been doomed to an irreversible state of death; there could have been no resurrection. The good news is that “Christ died for (huper) [3] our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day” (1 Cor 15:3-4). Paul then says that, “if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). Why? Because His resurrection was the demonstration that, through Christ’s substitutionary death, our sins have been remitted and death’s penalty, which was hanging over us, has been lifted. Another legal or forensic term Barnabas uses is “remission” (aphesis), which refers to “a legal pardon or remission of penalty.” [4] Therefore, Barnabas clearly understood Isaiah 53 in a penal substitutionary sense.
Epistle to Diognetus (2nd century)
“He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for (huper) transgressors (ἄνομος, anomos), the blameless One for (huper) the wicked, the righteous One for (huper) the unrighteous... For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors (ἄνομος, anomos)!” [5]
Here reference is made to Isaiah 53:11, “My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.” That the author of this epistle understood the single righteous One as bearing the transgressions of the many in a substitutional sense is clear, considering, not only his use of the preposition huper, which expresses the idea of substitution, but also his reference to the sweet exchange in which Christ took our own sins upon Himself and covered us with His own righteousness, thereby justifying many transgressors. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21).
Additionally, the word he uses for “transgressors” is anomos which is a forensic term used to refer to those who violate God’s law. The law could not simply be set aside as some argue. As the writer of Hebrews says, according to the law, “every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty” (Heb 2:2). We are justified only because Christ bore in Himself the just penalty due to us for our sins and transgressions.
Also, here in the epistle to Diognetus, the justification being referred to is the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us, just as the Reformers taught, rather than it being an infused righteousness, as held by the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. The author says that our sins have been covered by His righteousness – that our wickedness is hid in the righteous One, resulting in us having been justified. To speak of infused righteousness is to confuse justification with sanctification. As ungodly sinners, we were justified by faith in Christ the moment we believed, in spite of the fact that we are still in the process of being sanctified or set apart from sin by the indwelling Spirit of Christ (Rom 4:5-8; 5:18-19; 2Cor 5:21). Although we are still in a process of sanctification, our sins have been covered by His righteousness (1Cor 1:30-31; Gal 3:27).
Justin Martyr (100 to 165 AD)
“For Isaiah did not send you to a bath, there to wash away murder and other sins, which not even all the water of the sea were sufficient to purge; but… by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death, who died for this very reason, as Isaiah himself said, when he spake thus:.. He bears our sins, and is distressed for us; and we esteemed Him to be in toil and in affliction, and in evil treatment. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. With His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. Every man has turned to his own way; and the Lord laid on Him our iniquities.... And He shall bear our sins.” [6]
“For the whole human race will be found to be under a curse. For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them’… If then, the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that after He had been crucified and was dead He would raise Him up, why do you argue about Him who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father’s will as if He were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves? For although His Father caused Him to suffer these things in behalf of the human family, yet you did not commit the deed as in obedience to the will of God.” [7]
Justin Martyr here cites Isaiah 53, showing that it was the Father’s will to lay our sins on Christ that He might bear them instead of us. He also alludes to verse 10 where it says that “it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin.”
If the opponents of Penal Substitutionary Atonement mention Isaiah 53 at all, they will usually only cite the portion of verses 4 and 5, where it says: “we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions.” They then interpret it as though it said: “We thought He was stricken by God, but we were wrong. It was us who wounded Him.” However, if one continues reading the chapter, as Justin Martyr does, it becomes evident that, while He wasn’t stricken of God for His own sins, He was stricken by Him for our sins (v. 10). The Lord laid on Him our iniquities (v. 6). When Jesus cried out in Gethsemane “thy will be done,” He was referring to the Father’s will that He give His life a ransom for all. When Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only unique Son,” He knew that meant Him giving His life for us. This is clear, considering that He had just told them that He had to be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life, referring to Him being lifted up upon the cross. This is made even more clear later on when He said: “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.’ This He said, signifying by what death He would die” (John 12:32-33). He also said that He “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28).
These Apostolic Fathers lived in a time when the Church was under great persecution. For that reason, their focus in their epistles written to believers was more upon Christ’s victory over Satan than the forgiveness of sin. Observing this, in 1931 Gustaf Aulén concluded that Christ’s atonement is not about expiating sins but overcoming Satan. Based upon that, he came up with his new Christus Victor theory of the atonement, claiming that the Fathers never understood Christ’s atonement to be penal and substitutionary in nature. However, as we have seen, that is patently false. Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement is clearly stated by them multiple times.
Clement of Alexandria 150 to 215 AD)
“He Himself suffered for us, whom he might have destroyed for our faults’. ‘The Lord has assigned Him to our sins.” [8] (Isa 53:6)
“Mistake is a sin contrary to calculation; and voluntary sin is crime; and crime is voluntary wickedness. Sin, then, is on my part voluntary... Addressing those who have believed, he says, “For by His stripes we were healed.” [9]
Clement makes only passing allusions to the atonement of Christ, and for that reason some have concluded that the doctrine of Penal Substitution is totally absent from his writings. However, he does make a few statements which are sufficiently clear. Here I include two which allude to Isaiah 53. When he says that Christ “suffered for us” in the sense that “the Lord has assigned Him to our sins,” it is clear that he sees the suffering and death of Christ in Isaiah to be penal and substitutionary in nature, rather than Him simply suffering at the hands of wicked men (cf. Isa 53:5-6). In the second quote he uses forensic terms, referring to voluntary sin as a crime, and seems to connect release from the penalty for sins to Christ’s passion, quoting Isaiah 53:5 where it says, “by His stripes we are healed.”
Origen (184 to 254 AD)
“And since Celsus, although professing to know all about the Gospel, reproaches the Saviour because of His sufferings, saying that He received no assistance from the Father, or was unable to aid Himself; we have to state that His sufferings were the subject of prophecy, along with the cause of them; because it was for the benefit of mankind that He should die on their account, and should suffer stripes because of His condemnation... He was wounded for our sins, and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; by His stripes we were healed.” [10]
“And I asked to what character the expression would be appropriate, ‘This man bears our sins, and suffers pain on our behalf;’ and this, ‘But He was wounded for our sins, and bruised for our iniquities;’ and to whom the expression properly belonged, ‘By His stripes were we healed.’... For if the people, according to them, are the subject of the prophecy, how is the man said to be led away to death because of the iniquities of the people of God, unless he be a different person from that people of God? And who is this person save Jesus Christ, by whose stripes they who believe on Him are healed...?” [11]
Origin originated what later became known as the Ransom Theory of the atonement in which he speculated that Satan was tricked into accepting the death of Christ as a ransom for mankind, thinking that He would remain in Hades under his power. But Christ rose from the dead as our representative head, thereby destroying Satan’s dominion over those who believe. This is similar to the Christus Victor view, except that most who hold to the Christus Victor theory would reject the idea that a ransom was paid to the devil.
While Origin’s primary focus was upon his Ransom model, he in no way denied that Christ bore the penalty for our sins as our substitute. His quotes cited here from Isaiah 53 present Christ as bearing our sins on our behalf.
Commenting on Romans 3:24-26, Origin clearly presents Christ’s shed blood as making propitiation/expiation for our sins before God in order that He might forgive our sins without violating His own immutable justice:
“For above, Paul had said that Christ had given his very self as the redemption price for the entire human race so that he might redeem those who were being held in the captivity of their sins... Now he has added something even more profound and says, ‘God pre-determined him as a propitiation through faith in his blood.’ This means of course that through the sacrifice of himself he would make God propitious to men and through this he would manifest his own righteousness as He forgives them their past sins.” [12]
The opponents of penal substitution would have us believe that the Fathers who emphasized other benefits resulting from the atonement/expiation did so to the exclusion of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, but such is clearly not the case.
Eusebius of Caesarea (275 to 339 AD)
“So it is said: ‘And the Lord hath laid on him our iniquities, and he bears our sins.’ Thus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, became a curse on our behalf: Whom, though he knew no sin, God made sin for our sake, giving him as redemption for all, that we might become the righteousness of God in him... And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us.” [13]
“He bears our sins, and is pained for us, and he was wounded for our sins, and bruised for our iniquities, so that by His stripes we might be healed, for the Lord hath given Him for our sins. So, as delivered up by the Father, as bruised, as bearing our sins, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. With this the apostle agrees when he says, “Who spared not his own Son, but delivered him for us all.” [14]
“Psalms 88 and 69, again speaking in the Lord’s own person, tell us further that He suffered these things, not for His own sake but for ours. Thou has made Thy wrath to rest upon me, says the one; and the other adds, I paid them things I never took. For He did not die as being Himself liable to death: He suffered for us, and bore in Himself the wrath that was the penalty of our transgression, even as Isaiah says, He Himself bore our weaknesses.” [15]
Here Eusebius cites Isaiah 53 verses 6 and 12 to show that Christ, as the sin bearing servant, bore our sins, the Lord Himself having laid them upon Him. According to the Law, everyone must bear their own sins, referring to bearing the guilt and just penalty for sin (Lev 5:1; 7:18; 24:15). However, Eusebius correctly understands Isaiah 53 to be saying that Christ bore in Himself the just punishment due to us as our substitute.
Conclusion
We have seen that, in the New Testament, Isaiah 53 is the most cited passage from the entire Old Testament. We also saw how the Fathers frequently quoted from it, and how they understood it as affirming Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement in a manner amazingly similar to that of the Reformers.
In marked contrast to this, over the past few years I have read numerous popular titles opposing Penal Substitutionary Atonement, including, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God by Brian Zahnd; A More Christlike God by Bradley Jersak; That All Shall be Saved by David Bentley Hart; Unspoken Sermons by George MacDonald, and Christus Victor by Gustaf Aulén. What stood out to me was that, as far as I was able to determine, none of them even mention one phrase from Isaiah 53. In the Monster God Debate, Brian Zahnd did mention Isaiah 53 once, admitting that he found it to be a difficult text. [16] However, it was obviously not considered problematic by any of the New Testament authors or the Early Fathers.
The only exception was Gregory Boyd’s two volume book, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. I will consider some of his arguments in the next blog. However, his objective in writing his two-volume set wasn’t specifically to contest the belief in Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement, but rather to argue that God’s love is non-violent or cruciform. In a recent debate he had with William Lane Craig on the atonement, Did God punish Jesus on the cross?, he even seems to be in agreement with William Craig on some aspects of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
Considering the centrality of Isaiah 53 in the New Testament and in the writings of the Early Fathers, any theory of the atonement that must bypass Isaiah 53, or nuance the plain sense of the text to fit one’s model of the atonement, should be considered suspect. In the next blog we will examine the entire passage to determine what is actually being communicated to us through Isaiah.
[1] Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter 5:1-2,
[2] The preposition huper (ὑπέρ) in this context speaks of substitution, “instead of” (cf. 1Cor 15:29; 2Cor 5:15; 2Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Philemon 1:13).
[3] The preposition huper (ὑπέρ) in this context speaks of substitution, “instead of” (cf. 1Cor 15:29; 2Cor 5:15; 2Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Philemon 1:13).
[4] Kittel’s 10 volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says the following concerning the forensic nature of aphesis: “To be emphasised is the legal use much attested in the papyri
aphenei tina, ‘to release someone from a legal relation,’ whether office, marriage, obligation, or debt, though never in a religious sense. In the sense of ‘to pardon’ it is construed with the accusative of person and genitive of object.
[5] Mathetes, The Epistle to Diognetus, Chapter 9
[6] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 13
[7] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 95
[8] Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus 1:8
[9] Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus 2:15
[10] Origen, Against Celsus, Chapter 54
[11] Origen, Against Celsus, Chapter 55
[12] Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 2.8.1
[13] Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangélica, Chapter 10.1 trans. W.J. Ferrar,
[14] Ibid., 10:1
[15] Eusebius, Letter to Marcellenius
[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T27av-RF2-Y&t=179s
Brian Zahnd said: “I don’t shy away from Isaiah 53... It’s a difficult text, I get that.” 1:06.55 min.
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'Athanasius and the Universal Reversal
How many realize that Athanasius, after whom was named the Athanasian Creed, taught that literally all who die in Adam will be made alive through Christ’s substitutionary death? This is something those who deny that all will ultimately be restored try to deny since the Athanasian Creed is so highly esteemed by Orthodox Christians. I just realized this as I was looking into what he had to say about Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement. Here are just a couple of excerpts from his treatise “On the Incarnation of the Word.”
“He it is that was crucified before the sun and all creation as witnesses, and before those who put Him to death: and by His death has salvation come to all, and all creation been ransomed. He is the Life of all, and He it is that as a sheep yielded His body to death as a substitute, for the salvation of all, even though the Jews believe it not.” (On the Incarnation of the Word, chapter 37).
“For the Word, perceiving that no otherwise could the corruption of men be undone save by death as a necessary condition, while it was impossible for the Word to suffer death, being immortal, and Son of the Father; to this end He takes to Himself a body capable of death, that it, by partaking of the Word Who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all... For being over all, the Word of God naturally by offering His own temple and corporeal instrument for the life of all satisfied the debt by His death. And thus He, the incorruptible Son of God, being conjoined with all by a like nature, naturally clothed all with incorruption, by the promise of the resurrection.” (On the Incarnation of the Word, chapter 9)
I also came across this article corroborating my conclusions: The School of Alexandria and Athanasius
“He it is that was crucified before the sun and all creation as witnesses, and before those who put Him to death: and by His death has salvation come to all, and all creation been ransomed. He is the Life of all, and He it is that as a sheep yielded His body to death as a substitute, for the salvation of all, even though the Jews believe it not.” (On the Incarnation of the Word, chapter 37).
“For the Word, perceiving that no otherwise could the corruption of men be undone save by death as a necessary condition, while it was impossible for the Word to suffer death, being immortal, and Son of the Father; to this end He takes to Himself a body capable of death, that it, by partaking of the Word Who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all... For being over all, the Word of God naturally by offering His own temple and corporeal instrument for the life of all satisfied the debt by His death. And thus He, the incorruptible Son of God, being conjoined with all by a like nature, naturally clothed all with incorruption, by the promise of the resurrection.” (On the Incarnation of the Word, chapter 9)
I also came across this article corroborating my conclusions: The School of Alexandria and Athanasius
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Chapter 0
by George Sidney Hurd
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Christ’s atoning death upon the cross, in which He bore the just penalty for our sins as our substitute, has always been central to the historic Christian faith. [1] However, in recent times this doctrine has come under severe attack from both Liberals and Progressives who often portray Penal Substitutionary Atonement as if it were a barbaric form of “cosmic child abuse” by an angry and vengeful father driven by a relentless bloodlust. In the place of Christ’s substitutionary death, they present atonement theories which would better describe some of the secondary results of Christ’s death on the cross rather than what He actually accomplished at Calvary when He bore our sins on the tree (1Peter 2:24).
This omission of the penal substitutionary nature of Christ’s death, in which He bore our sins, is facilitated in the English language by the conflation of two distinct words (expiation and reconciliation) into the single word “atonement.” The word “atonement” is a 16th century invention, meaning “at-one-ment” and is synonymous with reconciliation. In fact, when William Tyndale produced the first English translation of the New Testament from the Greek in 1526, he often rendered the Greek word for reconciliation (καταλλαγή, katallagē) and its cognates as “atonement” rather than “reconciliation.” [2]
However, the actual work of Christ on the cross as the sin-bearing Servant is expressed in Scripture using the Hebrew word kippur and its cognates. When kippur is used in the context of Levitical sacrifices it refers to the expiation or removal of sin by a substitutionary sacrifice. The equivalent for kippur used in the Greek LXX is ἱλασμός (hilasmos) and its cognates, which translate as, “propitiation, appeasement or satisfaction.” Christ’s substitutionary death reconciled the world unto God, but that reconciliation was not accomplished apart from Christ’s blood first having been shed in order to make expiation or propitiation for our sins (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17; 1Jn 2:2; 4:10).
Without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins, and without a previous remission of sins there can be no reconciliation, since the wrath of God is against all ungodliness and He will by no means acquit the guilty (Heb. 9:22; Lev. 17:11; Rom 1:18; Ex 34:7). Since life is in the blood, without the shedding of the innocent blood of the Lamb of God as our substitute there could have been no remission of sins, since it is the blood which makes expiation (kaphar) for the soul (Lev 17:11). We were reconciled unto God by nothing less than the blood of His cross (Col 1:20).
It is more difficult to present reconciliation as being possible without a previous expiation for sins in other languages, since only in English do they conflate these two distinct concepts of expiation and reconciliation into the single word “atonement.” All Spanish versions correctly render kippur as expiación and katallagē as reconciliación, as also do the French versions. Likewise, in German kippur is rendered sühne, and katallagē versöhnung, thereby maintaining a clear distinction between expiation for sins and its resulting reconciliation.
As we will see in a subsequent article, nearly all of the atonement theories formulated throughout history contain truth in the larger sense of atonement. However, since none of those accomplishments would have been possible without Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice in which He took away our sins, His expiation of our sins is the very fountainhead from which all other benefits flow. William Lane Craig, in his book, Atonement and the Death of Christ, aptly describes the atonement in the broader sense of the word as a multifaceted gem, the table of which is Christ’s substitutionary death for the sins of the world.
Christ fulfilled the Yom Kippur Sacrifice for Sins
Throughout the New Testament, especially in the book of Hebrews, the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross is seen to have been the fulfillment of that which had been foreshadowed in the Levitical ceremony of Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement (Expiation), on the 10th of Tishri, the first month of the Hebrew calendar.
Once a year on Yom Kippur, the high priest would take two male goats from the children of Israel to make expiation for their sins. The first goat was killed, and its blood was taken through the veil into the Most Holy Place and sprinkled on the mercy seat to expiate or make propitiation for all their sins (Lev 16:15-16). Its body was then burned outside the camp (Lev 16:27). The High Priest then placed his hands upon the live goat, confessing over it all the iniquities, transgressions and sins of the people, placing them all upon the head of the goat (Lev 16:21). Then the scapegoat was taken far into the wilderness, bearing upon itself all the iniquities of the people (Lev 16:20-22). In this manner, the children of Israel were cleansed from all their sins before the Lord for another year (Lev 16:30).
As is typified in the scapegoat, Peter said of Christ: “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree...by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Here Peter also cites from Isaiah 53, which speaks of Christ as the substitutionary sin bearing servant, saying that “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” and “for He shall bear their iniquities” (Isa 53:6;11). Also, Paul alludes to this when he says: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21).
In the book of Hebrews we see that Christ also fulfilled that which was foreshadowed in the sacrificial goat whose blood was shed and taken within the veil into the Most Holy Place where it was sprinkled upon the mercy seat, making expiation or propitiation for the sins of the people. Christ is seen to not only be the fulfillment of that which was prefigured in the male goat that was sacrificed for the people, but He also represented us as our High Priest before God.
I would recommend one reading through the entire book of Hebrews in one sitting in order to get the full picture, but here I will just quote a few verses which clearly present Christ as bearing our sins and by His own shed blood obtaining the remission of our sins once and for all.
“But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. 12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” (Heb 9:11-12)
“And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. 14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified... 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.” (Heb 10:11-14,18)
Here we see that Christ presented His own blood in the Most Holy Place in the heavenly tabernacle, of which the earthly tabernacle was only a type and shadow. Also, we see that the daily and annual sacrifices could not in themselves take away sins. Rather they pointed forward to the time when Christ would offer Himself once and for all, perfecting for all time those who are sanctified and justified through faith in His blood-offering for their sins (1Cor 6:11, cf. Rom 3:25).
Also, the author of Hebrews points out that the sacrificial animal’s dead body being taken outside the camp and burned foreshadows Christ having suffered as our substitute outside the gate of Jerusalem:
“For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.” (Hebrews 13:11-12)
We also see Jesus emphasizing this two-fold substitutionary nature of His suffering and death in the Last Supper. He said:
“This is My body which is given for (ὑπέρ, huper) you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 20 Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for (huper) you.” (Luke 22:19-20).
Here we see that, not only was His blood shed in our stead for the remission of our sins, but also the suffering He underwent in His body was for (huper) us. The preposition huper in this context speaks of substitution, “instead of” (cf. 1Cor 15:29; 2Cor 5:15; 2Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Philemon 1:13).
The timing in which Jesus spoke these words is also significant. He repeatedly said that His hour had not yet come until it was the time of the Passover. That is when He cried out saying, “Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour” (Jn 12:27). As the substitutionary Passover Lamb of God, He took away the sins of the world by shedding His blood for the remission of our sins (Jn 1:29; Rev 5:9; Matt 26:28). As Paul declares, “Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Cor 5:7).
Many today reject the idea that blood had to be shed in order for God to forgive sins. In a later blog I will answer some of the moral and logical objections to Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement. For the moment, I just want to demonstrate that it is indispensable to any biblical understanding of the atonement. The Scriptures are abundantly clear in stating that without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins before God, and for that reason He, out of His great love for us, sent His Son to be the propitiation/expiation for our sins (Heb 9:22; Matt 26:28; 1Jn 4:10).
The reason why the blood of a substitute was required is seen from the very beginning when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. God forbade them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and warned them saying: “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” However, while they did die spiritually that same day, they didn’t die physically but continued living in their bodies for nearly another thousand years. How could God be just and remain true to His word without them dying that same day as He said they would? This is where we see the first substitutionary blood sacrifice. On the very day that they disobeyed and ate of the tree, the blood of an animal had to be shed in order for God to make animal skins to cover their nakedness (Gen 3:21). This foreshadowed Christ’s own substitutionary sacrifice of Himself in order that we may be clothed with His own righteousness (Gal 3:27; 2Cor 5:21; Php 3:9).
The reason why blood was required to make expiation for our sins is given in Leviticus:
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement (kapar ‘expiation’) for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement (kapar, ‘expiation’) for the soul.” (Lev 17:11)
From the very beginning, the penalty for sin has been death (Gen 2:17; Rom 6:23). God says that “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezek 18:4). Furthermore, in Romans 1 Paul says that, while man may suppress the truth in their own unrighteousness, they intuitively know that those who practice sin are deserving of death (Rom 1:32). Since life is in the blood, and the penalty for sin is death, God’s own justice requires our lifeblood as the penalty for sin.
However, Paul tells us that, in God’s love and forbearance, He left sin unpunished until Christ should come to make propitiation/expiation for our sins through His own shed blood. He said of Christ:
“whom God set forth as a propitiation [3] by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Rom 3:25-26)
The Scriptural revelation that we are justified by faith in Christ’s shed blood in propitiation for our sins, rather than it being by works of righteousness which we have done, has always been an offense to worldly wisdom and the religious mindset. As Paul said:
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God... 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.” (1 Cor 1:18,23)
Many, like the unbelieving Jews of Paul’s day, ignore God’s gift of righteousness which is imputed to all those who simply believe in Christ’s finished work on the cross, seeking rather to establish their own righteousness under the guise of following Christ’s moral example (Rom 10:2-4; cf. Rom 4:5). Sadly, within the past 150 years many, even among those who believe in the final restoration of all, have abandoned the historic belief in Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement for our justification through the influence of Liberal thinkers like George MacDonald and others of his day who considered the belief in Christ’s finished work on the cross to be foolishness and even a denial of Christ. MacDonald said concerning Christ’s finished work on the cross and the need to place faith in Christ’s atoning blood:
“- some of you say we must trust in the finished work of Christ; or again, our faith must be in the merits of Christ in the atonement he has made in the blood he has shed. All these statements are a simple repudiation of the living Lord, in whom we are told to believe, who, by his presence with and in us, and our obedience to him, lifts us out of darkness into light...” [4]
Many, under the influence of men like MacDonald, would even say that Christ’s death and shed blood was not necessary for our salvation, since, according to them, it isn’t the death of Christ that saves us but His life, as if we could have the latter without the former. In contrast to this, Peter said that we were redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish or spot,” and warned that teachers would come among us even denying our Lord who bought us (1Pet 1:18-19; 2Pet 2:1). The author of Hebrews, after explaining in much detail how Christ’s blood made expiation for our sins, warned of the consequences of trampling underfoot the Son of God, counting the blood of the covenant by which we were sanctified as a common thing (Heb 10:29).
In conclusion, we have seen that there can be no atonement without Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Expiation, shedding His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. All other theories of the atonement should actually be understood as resulting from Christ’s atoning sacrifice, rather than them being the atonement itself. Cristus Victor, Recapitulation, or Moral Example, would have not even been possible if He hadn’t first made propitiation for our sins before God by shedding His own blood on the cross.
In the next two blogs we will be examining the sin-bearing servant of Isaiah 53 which is applied to Christ by Jesus Himself, as well as other New Testament authors. As we shall see, Isaiah 53 clearly uses the language of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
[1] In the following article I demonstrate that the belief in Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement was universally affirmed by the Church Fathers: https://www.triumphofmercy.com/blog/the-early-fathers-and-the-penal-substitutionary-atonement
[2] The Tyndale version of 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 reads: “Neverthelesse all thinges are of god which hath reconciled (καταλλάσσω) vs vnto him sylfe by Iesus Christ and hath geven vnto vs the office to preach the atonement (καταλλαγή).19 For god was in Christ and made agrement bitwene (καταλλάσσω) the worlde and hym sylfe and imputed not their synnes vnto them: and hath committed to vs the preachynge of the atonement (καταλλαγή).”
[3] The word used here is ἱλαστήριον which is used to refer to the mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled to make expiation for the sins of the people. Here is an example where ἱλαστήριον is used as an adjective, meaning “a propitiatory/expiatory offering” (see Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament, commenting on Romans 3:25).
[4] MacDonald, George . Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III (p. 147).
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The Fatherhood of God
by George Sidney Hurd
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In what sense is God the Father of all? When we receive Christ, we are born again as children of God – born of the Spirit of God – just as John says:
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)
This new birth is the rebirth of our spirit which was dead in sins: “even when we were dead in trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph 2:5). Christ explained to Nicodemus that it is the spirit of man that is born again: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Without this new birth, we cannot see, much less enter, the kingdom of God (Jn 3:3-5). Physically speaking, we are sons of God before the new birth. But flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1Cor 15:50). Nevertheless, Christ came to give us new life, and in due time, all will be made spiritually alive and will put on immortality:
“And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1Cor 15:45)
“…in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order.” (1Cor 15:22-23)
The majority of the Partialists (those who do not believe in the salvation of all) would say that God doesn’t consider us to be His sons until we have been born again – that men are creatures of God but that He isn’t our Father until we are born again, becoming part of the new creation. This, according to them, absolves God of all responsibility as a Father to mankind. But this is not what we find in the Scriptures. The Prodigal son never ceased to be a son to his father, even in the far country. When he returned, it was like being born again, but he never stopped being considered a son by his father.
The father in the parable is an expression of Father-God’s heart towards all His lost children. Even though they rebel against Him and are in the far country, wasting the Father’s hard-earned inheritance, His love for them never diminishes. What did the father say to the elder son when his lost son returned? “It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost (apólumi) and is found” (Luke 15:32). God considers all to be His sons and not just those who have already been made alive or born again. The Scriptures affirm the fatherhood of God and His loving care for all of His children:
“Men of Athens…. God, who made the world and everything in it…, gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth…. 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.” (Acts 17:22-29)
Here, Paul affirms the fatherly care of God towards all mankind, including the unbelieving men of Athens, saying that all are His offspring. I believe Paul would have been reproved in many traditional church circles today for stating that God was the Father even of unbelievers. This is not the only instance in which Paul states that God is the Father of all:
“one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4:6 NIV)
Here, we see God’s universal Fatherhood stated. Some Greek manuscripts end this verse with the personal pronoun “us,” and others with “you.” However, these pronouns were most likely added by traditional scribes who couldn’t accept that God is actually present in all His creation, including His lost sons, and therefore they added the pronouns to give the impression that God is only in believers. While it is true that Christ only comes to dwell in our hearts when we receive Him, there is also a very real ontological sense in which God is in all: “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Whatever the correct reading of the last phrase of the verse is, we can be certain that God is the Father of all, as Paul already stated some ten verses earlier:
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father…from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” (Eph 3:14,15)
Here, Paul includes both those who are in heaven and on earth as part of God’s family. Jesus also spoke to the multitudes, affirming that God was their Father:
“Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying…One is your Father, He who is in heaven.” (Matt 23:1,9)
Some would argue that God cannot be the Father of all because Jesus told the Pharisees that their father was the devil:
“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” (John 8:44)
“In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.” (1John 3:10)
However, it is obvious that it is not referring to their origin, but rather to their character. They originated from God, as do all, and not the devil. One’s conduct cannot change one’s origin. If an individual were to be separated from his father in infancy and imitated his adoptive father, would that make him less a child of his true father? No. However, those who have been born again normally act like God, whereas others may act like the devil. What these verses emphasize is that we cannot convincingly claim to be sons of God if we act like the devil.
Nevertheless, in the sense of origin, even Satan and his angels are called sons of God (Gen 6:2,4; Job 1:6; 2:1). Jesus and John were referring to conduct rather than origin. We express this idea as: “Like father, like son.” In this sense, even the Gentiles who believe like Abraham are called “sons of Abraham” (Gal 3:6-7). However, all of us – without exception – are sons of God in virtue of the creation:
“Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” (Mal 2:10)
To say that God is our Creator, but denies being our Father, is contrary to God’s faithfulness. We consider it unacceptable when a man procreates a son and doesn’t accept responsibility for him as a father, and yet some would say that God is absolved of all paternal obligations towards His creation. They say that, even though He created us, He doesn’t regard us as being sons until we are born again. Thomas Allin in his book Christ Triumphant comments:
“We are told God is not the Father of all men; He is only their Creator! What a total misapprehension these words imply of all that is involved in creating man in the likeness of God, in the image of God…. For what do we mean by paternity and the obligations it brings? The idea rests essentially on the communication of life to the child by the parent. Now paternity is for us largely blind and instinctive; but Creation is Love acting freely, divinely; knowing all the consequences, assuming all the responsibility, involved in the very act of creating a reasonable immortal spirit…. It seems, then, very strange to seek to escape the consequences of the lesser obligation, by admitting one still greater; to seek, in a word, to evade the results of a divine universal fatherhood, by pleading that God is only the Creator of all. Hence a good Creator, freely creating for a doom of endless sin, freely introducing a dualism, is a profound moral contradiction. Can we even imagine a Good Being of His own freewill calling into existence creatures to hate Him forever, or certainly creating those who will, as He knows, hate Him forever, and sin forever!” [i]
Paul says that one who does not provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever (1Tim 5:8). How could we arrive at the point of thinking that God would not accept responsibility for all His children created by Him in His own image and likeness? The genealogy of Luke 3 ends in verse 38 saying, “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. If God has not denied that Adam, the originator of sin to the human race is His son, how is it possible that He would deny the sonship of Adam’s descendants who are victims of the sin nature which they inherited from him? As Father God has said: “Behold, all souls are Mine…” (Ezek 18:4). Thomas Allin also says:
“The essence of Christianity perishes in the virtual denial of any true Fatherhood of our race on God's part. Follow out this thought, for it is of primary importance. We lose sight of the value of the individual soul, when dealing with the countless millions who have peopled this earth and passed away. What is one among so many? we are tempted to say, forgetting that the value of each human being is not in the least thereby altered. Each soul is of infinite value, as if it stood alone, in the eyes of God, its Father. And more than this, we are altogether apt to forget another vital point, to forget whose the loss is, if any one soul perishes... It is God's loss: it is the Father Who loses His child. The straying sheep of the parable is the Great Shepherd's loss: the missing coin is the Owner's loss. In this very fact lies the pledge that He will seek on and on till He find it. For only think of the value He sets on each soul. He has stamped each in His own image…, and you must see how impossible it becomes to credit that unworthy theology, which tells you that such a Father can ever permit the work of His own fingers, His own offspring, to perish finally.” [ii]
[i] Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant
[ii] Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant
- Published on
by George Sidney Hurd
There is much confusion these days concerning the forgiveness of sins. Some go as far as to say that our sin is only against ourselves, rather than them being primarily committed against God, as seen in Scripture (Gen 39:9; Ps 51:4; 1Jn 1:9). [1]
Also, in spite of numerous passages indicating that repentance and faith are necessary in order to receive forgiveness, such as Acts 10:43, which says, “whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins,” it is becoming increasingly common to hear someone say that it is not necessary for one to believe in order to receive forgiveness of sins, since everyone was already forgiven at the cross 2,000 years ago.
It is true that Jesus, as the spotless Lamb of God, took away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29; 1Jn 3:5). His shed blood not only made propitiation to God for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world (kosmos) (Rom 3:25; 1Jn 2:2). By His once and for all sacrifice He purged our sins and then sat down at the right hand of the Father, having obtained eternal redemption for us (Heb 1:3; 9:12, 26-28). At the cross God the Father was in Christ, reconciling the world (kosmos) unto Himself, rather than holding our trespasses against us (2Cor 5:19). All created by Christ, whether in heaven or on earth, visible or invisible, were reconciled to the Father through the blood of His cross (Col 1:16,21).
The Scriptures clearly teach that Christ’s once for all substitutionary sacrifice made atonement for the sins of the whole world and not merely for the elect, or those who believe in this age. If one were to draw a conclusion from these verses alone in isolation from the overall teaching of Scripture concerning the forgiveness of sins, they could conclude that everyone since the cross is born into the world automatically forgiven for all their sins, without any need of repentance and faith on their part.
However, there is an important distinction in Scripture between God reconciling all unto Himself and all becoming reconciled unto Him (2Cor 5:19-20) – between the provision of forgiveness and our reception or appropriation of it (Acts 10:43).
What many fail to take into consideration is that the forgiveness obtained for us at the cross is not merely a relational forgiveness, such as when we forgive those who have offended us personally. Rather it is a judicial pardon or acquittal for transgressions against God’s immutable justice as the Judge of the living and the dead. That is why one must repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to receive the forgiveness or pardon obtained for us at the cross. Justification and forgiveness before God as our Judge is not imputed to us apart from faith in Christ, our Passover, who was sacrificed on our behalf as our substitute (1Cor 5:7; Rom 4:24-25). It is an absolution granted to us in Christ by the Judge of all the earth.
It is for this reason that we see throughout the New Testament that repentance and faith must precede forgiveness and justification. After Jesus had risen from the dead, and moments before ascending to the Father, He commissioned His disciples saying, “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). That the Apostles understood Jesus to mean that repentance and faith were a prerequisite to receiving the remission of sins is made clear by Peter a few days later when he said:
“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19)
Paul likewise proclaimed forgiveness of sins and justification as being conditioned upon faith, saying:
“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; 39 and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” (Acts 13:38-39)
In Acts 26 Paul recounts to king Agrippa the Lord’s commission to him when He appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Here he gives more detail as to the Lord’s commission for him to the Gentiles. Jesus said to him:
“I now send you to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.” (Acts 26:17-18)
Here we see that the message Paul was to proclaim to the Gentiles was that they were to repent, turning from darkness to light in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins, being sanctified by faith in Christ. Apart from such repentance and faith we have no forgiveness nor inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Him.
So we see that, contrary to the claim of some that everyone was already forgiven at the cross, Scriptures teach that forgiveness is granted and justification imputed the moment we place faith in Christ who was delivered up to death for our offenses and raised for our justification (Rom 4:25).
As God amply illustrated through the Old Testament sacrificial system, without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb 9:22; Matt 26:28). Forgiveness and justification are only possible through faith in His blood which propitiated our sins before God (Rom 3:25-26). That is why Jesus after His resurrection said, “he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). He also said that, unless one believes, they will die in their sins (Jn 8:24).
While it is true that Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world and that in time Christ will have drawn all unto Himself, resulting in all being reunited in Him (Jn 12:32; Eph 1:10), I believe it is a grave omission to tell the unrepentant that they are already forgiven without the need of repentance and faith on their part. Instead of telling them that they are already forgiven, we should be saying to them, just as Paul said, speaking to the men of Athens, that God “now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained” (Acts 17:30-31). [2] Instead of telling them that they are already saved, we should say as he did: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30-31).
[1] I further demonstrate that sin is against God in my blog: The Blurring of Biblical Distinctions.
[2] I examine the nature of Biblical repentance and the need for it in my blog True Repentance.
There is much confusion these days concerning the forgiveness of sins. Some go as far as to say that our sin is only against ourselves, rather than them being primarily committed against God, as seen in Scripture (Gen 39:9; Ps 51:4; 1Jn 1:9). [1]
Also, in spite of numerous passages indicating that repentance and faith are necessary in order to receive forgiveness, such as Acts 10:43, which says, “whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins,” it is becoming increasingly common to hear someone say that it is not necessary for one to believe in order to receive forgiveness of sins, since everyone was already forgiven at the cross 2,000 years ago.
It is true that Jesus, as the spotless Lamb of God, took away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29; 1Jn 3:5). His shed blood not only made propitiation to God for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world (kosmos) (Rom 3:25; 1Jn 2:2). By His once and for all sacrifice He purged our sins and then sat down at the right hand of the Father, having obtained eternal redemption for us (Heb 1:3; 9:12, 26-28). At the cross God the Father was in Christ, reconciling the world (kosmos) unto Himself, rather than holding our trespasses against us (2Cor 5:19). All created by Christ, whether in heaven or on earth, visible or invisible, were reconciled to the Father through the blood of His cross (Col 1:16,21).
The Scriptures clearly teach that Christ’s once for all substitutionary sacrifice made atonement for the sins of the whole world and not merely for the elect, or those who believe in this age. If one were to draw a conclusion from these verses alone in isolation from the overall teaching of Scripture concerning the forgiveness of sins, they could conclude that everyone since the cross is born into the world automatically forgiven for all their sins, without any need of repentance and faith on their part.
However, there is an important distinction in Scripture between God reconciling all unto Himself and all becoming reconciled unto Him (2Cor 5:19-20) – between the provision of forgiveness and our reception or appropriation of it (Acts 10:43).
What many fail to take into consideration is that the forgiveness obtained for us at the cross is not merely a relational forgiveness, such as when we forgive those who have offended us personally. Rather it is a judicial pardon or acquittal for transgressions against God’s immutable justice as the Judge of the living and the dead. That is why one must repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to receive the forgiveness or pardon obtained for us at the cross. Justification and forgiveness before God as our Judge is not imputed to us apart from faith in Christ, our Passover, who was sacrificed on our behalf as our substitute (1Cor 5:7; Rom 4:24-25). It is an absolution granted to us in Christ by the Judge of all the earth.
It is for this reason that we see throughout the New Testament that repentance and faith must precede forgiveness and justification. After Jesus had risen from the dead, and moments before ascending to the Father, He commissioned His disciples saying, “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). That the Apostles understood Jesus to mean that repentance and faith were a prerequisite to receiving the remission of sins is made clear by Peter a few days later when he said:
“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19)
Paul likewise proclaimed forgiveness of sins and justification as being conditioned upon faith, saying:
“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; 39 and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” (Acts 13:38-39)
In Acts 26 Paul recounts to king Agrippa the Lord’s commission to him when He appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Here he gives more detail as to the Lord’s commission for him to the Gentiles. Jesus said to him:
“I now send you to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.” (Acts 26:17-18)
Here we see that the message Paul was to proclaim to the Gentiles was that they were to repent, turning from darkness to light in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins, being sanctified by faith in Christ. Apart from such repentance and faith we have no forgiveness nor inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Him.
So we see that, contrary to the claim of some that everyone was already forgiven at the cross, Scriptures teach that forgiveness is granted and justification imputed the moment we place faith in Christ who was delivered up to death for our offenses and raised for our justification (Rom 4:25).
As God amply illustrated through the Old Testament sacrificial system, without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb 9:22; Matt 26:28). Forgiveness and justification are only possible through faith in His blood which propitiated our sins before God (Rom 3:25-26). That is why Jesus after His resurrection said, “he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). He also said that, unless one believes, they will die in their sins (Jn 8:24).
While it is true that Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world and that in time Christ will have drawn all unto Himself, resulting in all being reunited in Him (Jn 12:32; Eph 1:10), I believe it is a grave omission to tell the unrepentant that they are already forgiven without the need of repentance and faith on their part. Instead of telling them that they are already forgiven, we should be saying to them, just as Paul said, speaking to the men of Athens, that God “now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained” (Acts 17:30-31). [2] Instead of telling them that they are already saved, we should say as he did: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30-31).
[1] I further demonstrate that sin is against God in my blog: The Blurring of Biblical Distinctions.
[2] I examine the nature of Biblical repentance and the need for it in my blog True Repentance.
- Published on
A critique of the book, Pagan Christianity, coauthored by Frank Viola and George Barna.
by George Sidney Hurd
In their book Pagan Christianity, Frank Viola and George Barna make numerous radical claims. They argue that all Christian churches as we have known them, whether they be Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, or Evangelical, have no historical right to exist and must be abandoned since they are rooted in paganism. [1] They characterize all denominational and nondenominational churches as “institutional” as opposed to “organic,” as though anything with organizational structure is inorganic and detached from Christ, the Head of His body, the Church. The entire book is consistent with its thesis which is boldly stated at the outset:
“We are making an outrageous proposal: that the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to function as it does.” [2]
Reading through Pagan Christianity, I couldn’t avoid seeing a parallel between Karl Marx’s condemnation of all Capitalist governments, advocating for their deconstruction and replacing them instead with governments based upon communal living or Communism. Marx even based his doctrine upon a phrase taken from Acts 2:44-45. His motto was: “From each according to ability; To each according to need,” [3]
In Pagan Christianity they condemn everything from the buildings we meet in, to the clothes we wear on Sundays, to the preaching of a sermon from a pulpit and our form of worship, saying that all these and many more practices are unbiblical, pagan and must be abandoned if we are going to return to the organic Church of the first century. The criticisms they level against Church practice are too numerous to address in a single article. Here I will only be briefly focusing on three of the primary ones, 1) the buildings we meet in, 2) church leadership, and 3) formal Christian education.
1) The buildings we meet in
The authors of Pagan Christianity are against Christians building any type of structure for the purpose of assembly. They say: “There does not exist a shred of biblical support for the church building.” [4] However, it should also be pointed out that neither is there a biblical prohibition against believers having their own place in which to meet. They claim that building a structure specifically for meetings is rooted in paganism, without considering the fact that the idea of a synagogue or place of assembly is of Jewish origin, rather than pagan.
The word “synagogue” is derived from the Greek compound word sunagoge (συναγωγή), comprised of sun, “together,” and ágo, “to gather.” Similarly, the word “church” is eklesía (ἐκκλησία), from ek, “out of” and kaléo, “to call or assemble.” Both words sunagoge and eklesía were used of both the Jewish synagogue itself and also the congregation of the Jews which assembled within the synagogue (Deut 4:10; 23:2; Psa 22:22 LXX).
The authors insist that it is wrong to call the place of meeting “the church,” since the church is the body of Christ and not a locality. However, both synagogue and church were used by the Jews to refer both to the individuals meeting, as well as the place of meeting. In the same manner, we see that from earliest times Christians used the term “church” to refer both to the Church, the body of Christ, as well as the place where the Church met. [5] Most understand that when we say, “we are going to church” we are not referring exclusively to the building, any more than we mean that the movie is the building when we say, “we are going to the movies.”
Frank Viola claims that the Church imitated the pagans when they went from meeting in houses to actually constructing buildings in which to meet. However, pagan sects also had their humble beginnings in homes. God’s people Israel didn’t have a temple nor synagogues either until the days of the kings. Are we to believe that the Israelites also imitated the pagans? Viola actually insinuates that Jesus Himself was opposed to the temple, saying: “When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He made some radically negative statements about the Jewish Temple.” [6] However, Jesus never spoke disparagingly of the synagogues, much less the temple in Jerusalem. To the contrary, He called it God’s house and a house of prayer and cast out the money changers for desecrating it (Matt 21:13).
The authors intentionally ignore the primary reasons why the Church met in homes in its early days. In the first place, they were a persecuted Church with limited finances at their disposal. Secondly, if they had built conspicuous church buildings they would have been destroyed or confiscated in times of persecution. There are indications that they actually did begin to build more elaborate structures in areas where the persecution was less severe. In Syria in the Dura-Europos excavation they unearthed a well-preserved church building dating from 235 AD., over 35 years before the emperor Constantine had even been born. It was a very large house, probably donated by a wealthy convert, and it had been converted to accommodate a congregation by adding on a meeting hall, replete with a baptistry and religious paintings on the walls. [7]
In the introduction to their chapter against church buildings, Viola quotes the church historian Philip Schaff, but intentionally left out the part in which Schaff states the primary reasons why the Early Church first met in homes instead of church buildings. The following is the quote they cited from Schaff, in which I include in bold parenthesis the part they intentionally deleted in order to make their case that the building of structures for worship was wholly due to pagan influences. It reads:
“That the Christians in the apostolic age erected special houses of worship is out of the question (on account of their persecution by Jews and Gentiles, to say nothing of their general poverty; and the transition of a whole synagogue to the new faith was no doubt very rare.) As the Saviour of the world was born in a stable, and ascended to heaven from a mountain, so his apostles and their successors down to the third century, preached in the streets, the markets, on mountains, in ships, sepulchres, eaves, and deserts, and in the homes of their converts. But how many thousands of costly churches and chapels have since been built and are constantly being built in all parts of the world to the honor of the crucified Redeemer, who in the days of his humiliation had no place of his own to rest his head!” —Philip Schaff, nineteenth-century American church historian and theologian.” [8]
So, according to Schaff, the primary reason why the Early Church didn’t have synagogues to meet in, as did the Jews, was on account of their persecution and their general poverty. While very few of us would approve of the extravagance of some church buildings, as well as the Catholic Church’s practice of incorporating pagan symbols into their cathedrals in order to absorb the surrounding pagan culture, the New Testament nowhere prohibits the use of Church buildings in which to meet.
In fact, the Early Church did not exclusively meet in homes. They also met in Jewish synagogues and other places which could accommodate them in larger numbers, such meeting halls like the upper room which accommodated 120 disciples at once, or the upper room where Paul preached till midnight in Troas (Acts 1:15; 20:7-8). From the Church’s beginning on the day of Pentecost, they rapidly grew from 3,000 to “a great multitude” and met daily in the temple at Solomon’s court (Acts 2:46; 5:12-16).
I have been a part of Open Door Christian Church in American Canyon for nearly 40 years. When I first united with them, they were meeting open-air every Sunday in a park. When the rains came, we moved into my house since I had the largest living room. When we could no longer fit in my living room, we rented an abandoned showroom floor owned by an auto dealer on Broadway where everyone driving by would stare at us as we worshipped. We finally found a storefront location where wheelchairs had once been sold. We bought the property and as we grew, we eventually added on an auditorium to accommodate everyone.
When did we depart from being an organic New Testament church according to Viola? When we moved into the showroom floor? When we met in the storefront, or was it when we added on the auditorium? When I arrived in Mitú Colombia in the year 2000 we also outgrew our home, moved into a storefront and finally into our present church building. Throughout the whole process we saw the hand of the Lord working in wonderful ways and never sensed that we were in any way out of His will. Yet, according to Viola, we do not have a right to exist.
The truth of the matter is that the Early Church simply met wherever they could, given their circumstances. They met daily - both in houses and in whatever larger facilities were available to them, including even the catacombs of Rome. One of the most vibrant and biblically sound churches I was ever a part of met in a rented public hall that often had drunken parties on Saturday nights and we had to arrive early to clean up the mess, often including vomit.
I am greatly indebted to the pastors/overseers in that church since they grounded me in the Word and gave me the tools that I needed in order to better study the Scriptures for myself. I was with them for seven years before moving to another location where I planted another church, renting a hall owned by the Mendocino Gem and Mineral Society.
Rather than being critical of the places where believers come together to worship, we should be encouraging believers to meet wherever and whenever they can, just as the Early Church did. If they are able to have their own building in which to meet, praise the Lord. If they meet in a rented building, even if it is in the chapel of a denominational church, just as the Early Church often met in the Jewish synagogues, praise the Lord. The important thing is that, by whatever means necessary, we obey the Lord’s command to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is (Heb 10:25).
2) church leadership
Frank Viola and George Barna are against any leadership in the church apart from Christ Himself, the Head. In their words, the organic church must “make corporate decisions together under Christ’s headship without a stated leader over them.” [9] They further state: “If God’s people are properly equipped, they can have meetings that have no leader but Jesus Christ.” [10]
However, it is not so much a matter of whether a church could survive without any leader but Christ. Indeed, most of the churches that Paul planted did not have appointed leaders at first. The real question we must answer is, “is it God’s design that the church be without human leadership?” To this the answer from the New Testament is clearly no. Obviously, there would have not been qualified leaders in Paul’s churches composed of recent converts, since one of the qualifications for a leader in the church is that they not be a recent convert (1Tim 3:6). However, when the time was right Paul returned and appointed leaders in each church, or else he sent delegates, such as Timothy or Titus to appoint them (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5; 2Tim 2:2).
While it is true that Christ’s body is an organism, every organism must have organization in order to grow, and God has an established order or organizational structure within the body of Christ which is conducive to its growth until we reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers (pastor/teachers), 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” (Eph 4:11-12)
Even within the Godhead there is a complimentary subordinate relationship in which the head of Christ is God the Father, just as the head of the woman is man in the marriage relationship (1Cor 11:3). In the same manner, within the body of Christ, God has appointed first apostles, second prophets and third pastor/teachers (1Cor 12:28-30). The apostles oversee the churches which they establish – Peter primarily oversaw the churches of the circumcision and Paul oversaw those which he had established among the Gentiles. The prophets received specific direction from God for the churches in general (Acts 11:27-30), and finally the pastors are to oversee and feed the separate flocks which have been placed under their care, just as Peter states:
“The elders (πρεσβύτερος, presbuteros) who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: 2 Shepherd (ποιμαίνω, poimaino, “to pastor”) the flock (ποίμνιον, poimnion) of God which is among you, serving as overseers (ἐπισκοπέω, episkopeo), not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; 3 nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; 4 and when the Chief Shepherd (ἀρχιποίμην, arquipoimen) appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.” (1Peter 5:1-4)
Here we see that the elders or presbyters, the pastors or shepherds, and the overseers or bishops all refer to the same office. The same is demonstrated in Acts where Paul called together the elders or presbyters from the local churches that he had established in Ephesus, giving them final instructions:
“From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders (πρεσβύτερος, presbuteros) of the church. 28 Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock (ποίμνιον, poimnion) among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (ἐπισκοπέω, episkopeo), to shepherd (ποιμαίνω, poimaino, “to pastor”) the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:27-28)
Viola is against the pastoral role of leaders in the church as we know it today. He says:
“By his office, the pastor displaces and supplants Christ’s headship by setting himself up as the church’s human head.” He further says: “There is not a single verse in the entire New Testament that supports the existence of the modern-day pastor!” [11] But, what about Ephesians 4:11 which says that Christ gave pastors to the Church? Surprisingly, he responds saying: “This is the only verse in the entire New Testament where the word pastor is used. One solitary verse is a mighty scanty piece of evidence on which to hang the Protestant faith!” [12]
However, as we have already seen, the elder is also the overseer as well as fulfilling a pastoral role. Therefore, when Ephesians 4 says that Christ gave pastors to the church it only demonstrates that it is appropriate to refer to the elders as pastors.
In response to his claim that the pastor displaces Christ’s headship by setting himself up as the church’s human head, it only needs to be pointed out that the pastor or shepherd of the flock (ο ποιμην της ποιμνης, ha poimen tes poimes) is under Christ, the Chief Shepherd ((ἀρχιποίμην, arquipoimen). A Chief Shepherd necessitates undershepherds or pastors assigned to His flock.
Viola says that there shouldn’t be any human leader in a position of authority in the churches. This ignores the fact that the titles elder, overseer and pastor are all descriptive of a position of authority over those whom they are responsible to oversee or pastor (shepherd). That is why the author of Hebrews says:
“Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.” (Heb 13:17)
“Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct.” (Heb 13:7)
When Paul commissioned Titus to set the churches in order in Crete and ordain elders in every city, he said to him, “rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you” (Titus 2:15). Peter also warned against self-willed individuals who walk according to the flesh and “despise authority” (2 Peter 2:10). Yet this is precisely what Viola encourages. Since leadership is vulnerable to attack we are not even to receive an accusation against an elder/overseer/pastor, unless there are at least two witnesses (1Tim 5:19).
Viola also insists that in order to have a legitimate church there must be a plurality of elders. While certainly it is ideal to have more than one elder, nowhere in the New Testament does it say that there must be more than one elder in each assembly. Even when there is more than one elder or pastor, there must be one who leads. The churches are patterned after the synagogues. The synagogues also had a plurality of elders, but within that plurality there was also “the ruler of the synagogue” (ο αρχισυναγωγος, ho arquisunagogos, (Acts 18:8; Luke 13:14).
Most local churches have no other recourse than to begin with only one elder, usually the one who plants the church, since there wouldn’t be any members thay yet qualify to be an elder/pastor/overseer. Apart from not being a recent convert, they must also be blameless and able to teach, among many other qualifications (1Tim 3:1-6; Titus 1:5-9). I would encourage anyone who insists there must be a plurality of elders to have a church to go through those lists of requirements and ask themselves how many they personally know who would qualify as an elder.
Are we to ignore the qualifications in order to have a plurality of elders? Does the New Testament say that unless there is a plurality of elders there cannot be a legitimate church? No. As we already saw, Paul began churches before even one elder had been appointed. And since there was often a plurality of congregations in each city, there is no way for us to know whether the reference to elders in the plural form always meant that there was more than one elder in every group. One thing is certain – Paul would not have placed unqualified elders in a church if only one qualified. Neither would he have shut the church down until he could find more than one.
Viola is against the pastor preaching to the congregation, claiming that the sermon is pagan in origin. However, the flock of God is not entirely self-taught. God has appointed elders as the pastor/teachers of the flock. It is for that reason that one of their requirements for the office is that they be “able to teach.” Paul’s command to Timothy is applicable to all who are charged with feeding the flock of God. He said:
“Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine (teaching), but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” (2Tim 4:2-4)
The responsibility of the pastor is to feed the flock, and one of the primary ways he is to accomplish this is through the sermon in which the word is preached, convincing, rebuking and exhorting. That is precisely what a sermon is. The word “sermon” is from the Latin “sermo” “to talk, to disclose.” Obviously, one cannot preach or teach without talking or sermonizing. Viola seeks to vilify nearly every office, function and practice of Christian church, claiming that it is somehow all pagan in origin.
Just as with the Jehovah Witnesses, Viola is against pastors receiving a salary. He says: “As far as clergy salaries go, ministers were unsalaried for the first three centuries.” [13] However, that is definitely not the case. Paul speaking of the financial support for the elders said:
“Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. 18 For the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain, ‘and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his wages.’” (1Tim 5:17-18)
Paul, speaking of the pastor’s wages, actually says that the pastor is worthy of double honor. Admittedly, many today abuse this, using the pulpit to accumulate wealth. But the fact that Paul had to warn against them using godliness as a means of gain presupposes that they were entitled to a salary (1Tim 6:3-5; Titus 1:11).
Viola is also against all formal education saying, “Bible colleges, seminaries, and even Sunday schools were utterly absent from the early church.” [14] But is this true? While, just as with church buildings, the Early Church, being under constant persecution, could not build Bible colleges and seminaries as we have today, they did sit under the teaching of the Apostles. The Apostles in turn, committed the responsibility of equipping other men for the teaching ministry. Paul said to Timothy:
“Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me…” And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Tim 1:13; 2:2)
Whether or not they had an actual building in which to teach other faithful men the same teaching they had received from the Apostles is immaterial. What is essential is that pastors must first be taught the word before they can aptly teach others.
While little detail is offered in Scripture concerning the manner in which these faithful men were equipped for their teaching ministry, we do see Paul teaching the disciples in the school of the Greek orator Tyrannus in Ephesus for two full years after having been cast out of the synagogue (Acts 19:9-10). While it is not necessary for one to have a degree in order to be an elder, one of the primary qualifications is that they be able to teach the word, and Bible colleges and seminaries were formed for that very purpose.
Conclusion
In spite of their multitudinous quotes from other sources, it is apparent throughout that they approached the subject with the predetermined objective of finding pagan elements in everything related to the Christian church as we know it today. They often resort to deliberate misrepresentation of the sources that they quote as well as drawing conclusions based upon non sequitur reasoning. I cannot help but think that the real driving force behind most of their claims is an unresolved root of bitterness which, if not countered, will contaminate many in this present generation of self-willed believers who despise authority and as a result have unresolved issues with pastors or other leaders in the church (Heb 12:15).
I don’t see their criticisms as being in any way conducive to the growth of the true organic Church into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Rather I see it as being part of the overall destructionist movement in which an unprecedented number of Christians are abandoning the assembling of themselves together with others of like faith. As Paul said, we must endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:3). That will never come about as long as we focus in what is wrong with the Church instead of endeavoring to maintain the unity of the Spirit in spite of the defects and differences we may have concerning nonessential practices and doctrines.
[1] Viola, Frank; Barna, George. Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices . Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition, Loc. 274:
“…those who have left the fold of institutional Christianity to become part of an organic church have a historical right to exist—since history demonstrates that many practices of the institutional church are not rooted in Scripture.”
[2] Ibid. Loc. 258
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs
[4] Viola, Frank; Barna, George. Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (p. 42).
[5] Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Book 3, ch. 11.
[6] Viola, Frank; Barna, George. Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (p. 13).
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos
[8] Viola, Frank; Barna, George. Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices. (pp. 9-10). Quoted from Schaff's History of the Church Vol. I, chapter 9 - 56. Sacred Places.
[9] Ibid. (p. 217).
[10] Ibid. (p. 266).
[11] Ibid. (p. 106).
[12] Ibid (p. 106).
[13] Ibid. (p. 178).
[14] Ibid. (p. 200).
by George Sidney Hurd
In their book Pagan Christianity, Frank Viola and George Barna make numerous radical claims. They argue that all Christian churches as we have known them, whether they be Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, or Evangelical, have no historical right to exist and must be abandoned since they are rooted in paganism. [1] They characterize all denominational and nondenominational churches as “institutional” as opposed to “organic,” as though anything with organizational structure is inorganic and detached from Christ, the Head of His body, the Church. The entire book is consistent with its thesis which is boldly stated at the outset:
“We are making an outrageous proposal: that the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to function as it does.” [2]
Reading through Pagan Christianity, I couldn’t avoid seeing a parallel between Karl Marx’s condemnation of all Capitalist governments, advocating for their deconstruction and replacing them instead with governments based upon communal living or Communism. Marx even based his doctrine upon a phrase taken from Acts 2:44-45. His motto was: “From each according to ability; To each according to need,” [3]
In Pagan Christianity they condemn everything from the buildings we meet in, to the clothes we wear on Sundays, to the preaching of a sermon from a pulpit and our form of worship, saying that all these and many more practices are unbiblical, pagan and must be abandoned if we are going to return to the organic Church of the first century. The criticisms they level against Church practice are too numerous to address in a single article. Here I will only be briefly focusing on three of the primary ones, 1) the buildings we meet in, 2) church leadership, and 3) formal Christian education.
1) The buildings we meet in
The authors of Pagan Christianity are against Christians building any type of structure for the purpose of assembly. They say: “There does not exist a shred of biblical support for the church building.” [4] However, it should also be pointed out that neither is there a biblical prohibition against believers having their own place in which to meet. They claim that building a structure specifically for meetings is rooted in paganism, without considering the fact that the idea of a synagogue or place of assembly is of Jewish origin, rather than pagan.
The word “synagogue” is derived from the Greek compound word sunagoge (συναγωγή), comprised of sun, “together,” and ágo, “to gather.” Similarly, the word “church” is eklesía (ἐκκλησία), from ek, “out of” and kaléo, “to call or assemble.” Both words sunagoge and eklesía were used of both the Jewish synagogue itself and also the congregation of the Jews which assembled within the synagogue (Deut 4:10; 23:2; Psa 22:22 LXX).
The authors insist that it is wrong to call the place of meeting “the church,” since the church is the body of Christ and not a locality. However, both synagogue and church were used by the Jews to refer both to the individuals meeting, as well as the place of meeting. In the same manner, we see that from earliest times Christians used the term “church” to refer both to the Church, the body of Christ, as well as the place where the Church met. [5] Most understand that when we say, “we are going to church” we are not referring exclusively to the building, any more than we mean that the movie is the building when we say, “we are going to the movies.”
Frank Viola claims that the Church imitated the pagans when they went from meeting in houses to actually constructing buildings in which to meet. However, pagan sects also had their humble beginnings in homes. God’s people Israel didn’t have a temple nor synagogues either until the days of the kings. Are we to believe that the Israelites also imitated the pagans? Viola actually insinuates that Jesus Himself was opposed to the temple, saying: “When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He made some radically negative statements about the Jewish Temple.” [6] However, Jesus never spoke disparagingly of the synagogues, much less the temple in Jerusalem. To the contrary, He called it God’s house and a house of prayer and cast out the money changers for desecrating it (Matt 21:13).
The authors intentionally ignore the primary reasons why the Church met in homes in its early days. In the first place, they were a persecuted Church with limited finances at their disposal. Secondly, if they had built conspicuous church buildings they would have been destroyed or confiscated in times of persecution. There are indications that they actually did begin to build more elaborate structures in areas where the persecution was less severe. In Syria in the Dura-Europos excavation they unearthed a well-preserved church building dating from 235 AD., over 35 years before the emperor Constantine had even been born. It was a very large house, probably donated by a wealthy convert, and it had been converted to accommodate a congregation by adding on a meeting hall, replete with a baptistry and religious paintings on the walls. [7]
In the introduction to their chapter against church buildings, Viola quotes the church historian Philip Schaff, but intentionally left out the part in which Schaff states the primary reasons why the Early Church first met in homes instead of church buildings. The following is the quote they cited from Schaff, in which I include in bold parenthesis the part they intentionally deleted in order to make their case that the building of structures for worship was wholly due to pagan influences. It reads:
“That the Christians in the apostolic age erected special houses of worship is out of the question (on account of their persecution by Jews and Gentiles, to say nothing of their general poverty; and the transition of a whole synagogue to the new faith was no doubt very rare.) As the Saviour of the world was born in a stable, and ascended to heaven from a mountain, so his apostles and their successors down to the third century, preached in the streets, the markets, on mountains, in ships, sepulchres, eaves, and deserts, and in the homes of their converts. But how many thousands of costly churches and chapels have since been built and are constantly being built in all parts of the world to the honor of the crucified Redeemer, who in the days of his humiliation had no place of his own to rest his head!” —Philip Schaff, nineteenth-century American church historian and theologian.” [8]
So, according to Schaff, the primary reason why the Early Church didn’t have synagogues to meet in, as did the Jews, was on account of their persecution and their general poverty. While very few of us would approve of the extravagance of some church buildings, as well as the Catholic Church’s practice of incorporating pagan symbols into their cathedrals in order to absorb the surrounding pagan culture, the New Testament nowhere prohibits the use of Church buildings in which to meet.
In fact, the Early Church did not exclusively meet in homes. They also met in Jewish synagogues and other places which could accommodate them in larger numbers, such meeting halls like the upper room which accommodated 120 disciples at once, or the upper room where Paul preached till midnight in Troas (Acts 1:15; 20:7-8). From the Church’s beginning on the day of Pentecost, they rapidly grew from 3,000 to “a great multitude” and met daily in the temple at Solomon’s court (Acts 2:46; 5:12-16).
I have been a part of Open Door Christian Church in American Canyon for nearly 40 years. When I first united with them, they were meeting open-air every Sunday in a park. When the rains came, we moved into my house since I had the largest living room. When we could no longer fit in my living room, we rented an abandoned showroom floor owned by an auto dealer on Broadway where everyone driving by would stare at us as we worshipped. We finally found a storefront location where wheelchairs had once been sold. We bought the property and as we grew, we eventually added on an auditorium to accommodate everyone.
When did we depart from being an organic New Testament church according to Viola? When we moved into the showroom floor? When we met in the storefront, or was it when we added on the auditorium? When I arrived in Mitú Colombia in the year 2000 we also outgrew our home, moved into a storefront and finally into our present church building. Throughout the whole process we saw the hand of the Lord working in wonderful ways and never sensed that we were in any way out of His will. Yet, according to Viola, we do not have a right to exist.
The truth of the matter is that the Early Church simply met wherever they could, given their circumstances. They met daily - both in houses and in whatever larger facilities were available to them, including even the catacombs of Rome. One of the most vibrant and biblically sound churches I was ever a part of met in a rented public hall that often had drunken parties on Saturday nights and we had to arrive early to clean up the mess, often including vomit.
I am greatly indebted to the pastors/overseers in that church since they grounded me in the Word and gave me the tools that I needed in order to better study the Scriptures for myself. I was with them for seven years before moving to another location where I planted another church, renting a hall owned by the Mendocino Gem and Mineral Society.
Rather than being critical of the places where believers come together to worship, we should be encouraging believers to meet wherever and whenever they can, just as the Early Church did. If they are able to have their own building in which to meet, praise the Lord. If they meet in a rented building, even if it is in the chapel of a denominational church, just as the Early Church often met in the Jewish synagogues, praise the Lord. The important thing is that, by whatever means necessary, we obey the Lord’s command to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is (Heb 10:25).
2) church leadership
Frank Viola and George Barna are against any leadership in the church apart from Christ Himself, the Head. In their words, the organic church must “make corporate decisions together under Christ’s headship without a stated leader over them.” [9] They further state: “If God’s people are properly equipped, they can have meetings that have no leader but Jesus Christ.” [10]
However, it is not so much a matter of whether a church could survive without any leader but Christ. Indeed, most of the churches that Paul planted did not have appointed leaders at first. The real question we must answer is, “is it God’s design that the church be without human leadership?” To this the answer from the New Testament is clearly no. Obviously, there would have not been qualified leaders in Paul’s churches composed of recent converts, since one of the qualifications for a leader in the church is that they not be a recent convert (1Tim 3:6). However, when the time was right Paul returned and appointed leaders in each church, or else he sent delegates, such as Timothy or Titus to appoint them (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5; 2Tim 2:2).
While it is true that Christ’s body is an organism, every organism must have organization in order to grow, and God has an established order or organizational structure within the body of Christ which is conducive to its growth until we reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers (pastor/teachers), 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” (Eph 4:11-12)
Even within the Godhead there is a complimentary subordinate relationship in which the head of Christ is God the Father, just as the head of the woman is man in the marriage relationship (1Cor 11:3). In the same manner, within the body of Christ, God has appointed first apostles, second prophets and third pastor/teachers (1Cor 12:28-30). The apostles oversee the churches which they establish – Peter primarily oversaw the churches of the circumcision and Paul oversaw those which he had established among the Gentiles. The prophets received specific direction from God for the churches in general (Acts 11:27-30), and finally the pastors are to oversee and feed the separate flocks which have been placed under their care, just as Peter states:
“The elders (πρεσβύτερος, presbuteros) who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: 2 Shepherd (ποιμαίνω, poimaino, “to pastor”) the flock (ποίμνιον, poimnion) of God which is among you, serving as overseers (ἐπισκοπέω, episkopeo), not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; 3 nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; 4 and when the Chief Shepherd (ἀρχιποίμην, arquipoimen) appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.” (1Peter 5:1-4)
Here we see that the elders or presbyters, the pastors or shepherds, and the overseers or bishops all refer to the same office. The same is demonstrated in Acts where Paul called together the elders or presbyters from the local churches that he had established in Ephesus, giving them final instructions:
“From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders (πρεσβύτερος, presbuteros) of the church. 28 Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock (ποίμνιον, poimnion) among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (ἐπισκοπέω, episkopeo), to shepherd (ποιμαίνω, poimaino, “to pastor”) the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:27-28)
Viola is against the pastoral role of leaders in the church as we know it today. He says:
“By his office, the pastor displaces and supplants Christ’s headship by setting himself up as the church’s human head.” He further says: “There is not a single verse in the entire New Testament that supports the existence of the modern-day pastor!” [11] But, what about Ephesians 4:11 which says that Christ gave pastors to the Church? Surprisingly, he responds saying: “This is the only verse in the entire New Testament where the word pastor is used. One solitary verse is a mighty scanty piece of evidence on which to hang the Protestant faith!” [12]
However, as we have already seen, the elder is also the overseer as well as fulfilling a pastoral role. Therefore, when Ephesians 4 says that Christ gave pastors to the church it only demonstrates that it is appropriate to refer to the elders as pastors.
In response to his claim that the pastor displaces Christ’s headship by setting himself up as the church’s human head, it only needs to be pointed out that the pastor or shepherd of the flock (ο ποιμην της ποιμνης, ha poimen tes poimes) is under Christ, the Chief Shepherd ((ἀρχιποίμην, arquipoimen). A Chief Shepherd necessitates undershepherds or pastors assigned to His flock.
Viola says that there shouldn’t be any human leader in a position of authority in the churches. This ignores the fact that the titles elder, overseer and pastor are all descriptive of a position of authority over those whom they are responsible to oversee or pastor (shepherd). That is why the author of Hebrews says:
“Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.” (Heb 13:17)
“Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct.” (Heb 13:7)
When Paul commissioned Titus to set the churches in order in Crete and ordain elders in every city, he said to him, “rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you” (Titus 2:15). Peter also warned against self-willed individuals who walk according to the flesh and “despise authority” (2 Peter 2:10). Yet this is precisely what Viola encourages. Since leadership is vulnerable to attack we are not even to receive an accusation against an elder/overseer/pastor, unless there are at least two witnesses (1Tim 5:19).
Viola also insists that in order to have a legitimate church there must be a plurality of elders. While certainly it is ideal to have more than one elder, nowhere in the New Testament does it say that there must be more than one elder in each assembly. Even when there is more than one elder or pastor, there must be one who leads. The churches are patterned after the synagogues. The synagogues also had a plurality of elders, but within that plurality there was also “the ruler of the synagogue” (ο αρχισυναγωγος, ho arquisunagogos, (Acts 18:8; Luke 13:14).
Most local churches have no other recourse than to begin with only one elder, usually the one who plants the church, since there wouldn’t be any members thay yet qualify to be an elder/pastor/overseer. Apart from not being a recent convert, they must also be blameless and able to teach, among many other qualifications (1Tim 3:1-6; Titus 1:5-9). I would encourage anyone who insists there must be a plurality of elders to have a church to go through those lists of requirements and ask themselves how many they personally know who would qualify as an elder.
Are we to ignore the qualifications in order to have a plurality of elders? Does the New Testament say that unless there is a plurality of elders there cannot be a legitimate church? No. As we already saw, Paul began churches before even one elder had been appointed. And since there was often a plurality of congregations in each city, there is no way for us to know whether the reference to elders in the plural form always meant that there was more than one elder in every group. One thing is certain – Paul would not have placed unqualified elders in a church if only one qualified. Neither would he have shut the church down until he could find more than one.
Viola is against the pastor preaching to the congregation, claiming that the sermon is pagan in origin. However, the flock of God is not entirely self-taught. God has appointed elders as the pastor/teachers of the flock. It is for that reason that one of their requirements for the office is that they be “able to teach.” Paul’s command to Timothy is applicable to all who are charged with feeding the flock of God. He said:
“Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine (teaching), but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” (2Tim 4:2-4)
The responsibility of the pastor is to feed the flock, and one of the primary ways he is to accomplish this is through the sermon in which the word is preached, convincing, rebuking and exhorting. That is precisely what a sermon is. The word “sermon” is from the Latin “sermo” “to talk, to disclose.” Obviously, one cannot preach or teach without talking or sermonizing. Viola seeks to vilify nearly every office, function and practice of Christian church, claiming that it is somehow all pagan in origin.
Just as with the Jehovah Witnesses, Viola is against pastors receiving a salary. He says: “As far as clergy salaries go, ministers were unsalaried for the first three centuries.” [13] However, that is definitely not the case. Paul speaking of the financial support for the elders said:
“Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. 18 For the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain, ‘and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his wages.’” (1Tim 5:17-18)
Paul, speaking of the pastor’s wages, actually says that the pastor is worthy of double honor. Admittedly, many today abuse this, using the pulpit to accumulate wealth. But the fact that Paul had to warn against them using godliness as a means of gain presupposes that they were entitled to a salary (1Tim 6:3-5; Titus 1:11).
Viola is also against all formal education saying, “Bible colleges, seminaries, and even Sunday schools were utterly absent from the early church.” [14] But is this true? While, just as with church buildings, the Early Church, being under constant persecution, could not build Bible colleges and seminaries as we have today, they did sit under the teaching of the Apostles. The Apostles in turn, committed the responsibility of equipping other men for the teaching ministry. Paul said to Timothy:
“Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me…” And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Tim 1:13; 2:2)
Whether or not they had an actual building in which to teach other faithful men the same teaching they had received from the Apostles is immaterial. What is essential is that pastors must first be taught the word before they can aptly teach others.
While little detail is offered in Scripture concerning the manner in which these faithful men were equipped for their teaching ministry, we do see Paul teaching the disciples in the school of the Greek orator Tyrannus in Ephesus for two full years after having been cast out of the synagogue (Acts 19:9-10). While it is not necessary for one to have a degree in order to be an elder, one of the primary qualifications is that they be able to teach the word, and Bible colleges and seminaries were formed for that very purpose.
Conclusion
In spite of their multitudinous quotes from other sources, it is apparent throughout that they approached the subject with the predetermined objective of finding pagan elements in everything related to the Christian church as we know it today. They often resort to deliberate misrepresentation of the sources that they quote as well as drawing conclusions based upon non sequitur reasoning. I cannot help but think that the real driving force behind most of their claims is an unresolved root of bitterness which, if not countered, will contaminate many in this present generation of self-willed believers who despise authority and as a result have unresolved issues with pastors or other leaders in the church (Heb 12:15).
I don’t see their criticisms as being in any way conducive to the growth of the true organic Church into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Rather I see it as being part of the overall destructionist movement in which an unprecedented number of Christians are abandoning the assembling of themselves together with others of like faith. As Paul said, we must endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:3). That will never come about as long as we focus in what is wrong with the Church instead of endeavoring to maintain the unity of the Spirit in spite of the defects and differences we may have concerning nonessential practices and doctrines.
[1] Viola, Frank; Barna, George. Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices . Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition, Loc. 274:
“…those who have left the fold of institutional Christianity to become part of an organic church have a historical right to exist—since history demonstrates that many practices of the institutional church are not rooted in Scripture.”
[2] Ibid. Loc. 258
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs
[4] Viola, Frank; Barna, George. Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (p. 42).
[5] Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Book 3, ch. 11.
[6] Viola, Frank; Barna, George. Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (p. 13).
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos
[8] Viola, Frank; Barna, George. Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices. (pp. 9-10). Quoted from Schaff's History of the Church Vol. I, chapter 9 - 56. Sacred Places.
[9] Ibid. (p. 217).
[10] Ibid. (p. 266).
[11] Ibid. (p. 106).
[12] Ibid (p. 106).
[13] Ibid. (p. 178).
[14] Ibid. (p. 200).
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(Better for Judas Not to have been born
by George Sidney Hurd
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“The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” (Matt 26:24)
Many understand this passage as though it said that it would have been good for Judas never to have existed, but what it actually says is that it would have been good for Judas not to have been born. In other words, it would have been better for him to have been aborted before birth. In Ecclesiastes 6:3 it says: “If a man begets a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with goodness, or indeed he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he” (Eccl 6:3). A stillborn child was conceived and therefore exists, but since he died in the womb, he would go to heaven without having to face judgment. While it is certain that he would lose the great opportunity of an earthly development, Solomon says that if he were to live without fulfilling his purpose in life and die without burial, it would have been good for him not to have even been born. Therefore, when it says that it would have been good for Judas not to have been born, it is saying that it would have been better for him to have been stillborn than to live and face the consequences of betraying the Son of God. It is not saying that it would have been better for him to have never existed, as many suppose.
Jesus uses the same expression that Solomon uses elsewhere in Ecclesiastes 4:3. In this passage Solomon explains the reason why he considered it better for one not to have been born:
“But better off than either are those who have never been born (LXX gínomai), who have never seen the injustice that goes on in this world.” (Eccl 4:3 TEV)
The reason Solomon gives as to why it would be better not to be born is because of the evil one faces in this life on earth. He says nothing concerning the afterlife in this regard. Surely, Judas’ recognition that he had played into Satan’s hands, betraying the Savior and shedding innocent blood, made him wish he had never been born. When he realized how Satan had used him, he refused to receive the payment and threw the money at the feet of the chief priests and elders. Then, wishing he had never been born, he went out and hanged himself.
According to the traditional view of eternal punishment for the vast majority, it would have been better for almost all rational beings to have never existed and not just Judas, since according to them the majority will be tormented throughout all eternity. Also, tradition says that all who commit suicide will go to hell forever, and since Judas committed suicide, they would say that it would have been better if he had never existed for that reason as well. However, in the Scriptures there is total silence concerning the destiny of those who commit suicide. Therefore, to my way of reasoning, we should not presume to know that which God has not revealed. If we wish to make a pronouncement concerning suicide, I believe that we are safer to cite the words of Jesus when He said: “every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men” (Matt 12:31).
This article is an excerpt from my book The Triumph of Mercy
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The Unpardonable Sin
by George Sidney Hurd
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“Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Matt 12:31-32)
“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; 29 but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation.” (Mark 3:28-29)
When the scribes attributed the power that Jesus had to cast out demons to Beelzebub, the prince of demons, Jesus sternly responded with this warning. Therefore, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit consists of seeing an evident manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit and attributing it to the devil, knowing it was the Holy Spirit.
The majority in the Church today would say that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a sin that will never ever be forgiven by God, and for that reason have called it “the unpardonable sin.” Since it is difficult to pin down exactly what constitutes the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, many live in constant fear that they may have committed the “unpardonable” sin. The traditional understanding of this passage has caused emotional breakdowns and numerous sensitive individuals have even committed suicide because of it. Many more have gone back into the world without hope of salvation, thinking that in some way they have committed this sin. These passages, as traditionally translated and preached from some pulpits, have become an instrument in the hands of the accuser, causing despair in the hearts of many throughout history.
It is worthy of note that many of the early Church Fathers who spoke the same Greek in which these words were originally written, did not understand this sin as “unpardonable.” Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (AD 295 to AD 373) wrote: “If they repent they may obtain pardon, for there is no sin unpardonable with God to them who truly repent.” [1] Saint Chrysostom, AD 386 said: “We know that this sin was forgiven to some that repented of it.” [2]
How could it be that those who lived closer to the time of the Apostles believed that it was possible to be forgiven for the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, while today the majority deny the possibility of forgiveness? They were familiar with the Scriptures in the original language and defended Scripture’s absolute authority even as we do. I see three main reasons.
In the first place, the Greek Fathers were not reading a translation influenced by tradition, but were reading the New Testament in Greek as originally written. The influence of the traditional doctrine of eternal punishment can be seen in the majority of our translations when compared with the original. Let’s take a closer look at these verses. Mark 3:28-29 have been translated in the following manner:
“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; 29 but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation.” (Mark 3:28-29 NKJV)
We see that the translators translated aión which means “age” with the word “never,” giving the impression that there would never be any possibility of ever receiving God’s forgiveness. The text simply says, “he does not have forgiveness into the age (eis ton aiona).” There is a lot of difference between “into the age” and “never.” The phrase rendered “eternal condemnation” is aioniou kriseos “eonian judgment.” That means that one who blasphemes the Holy Spirit is guilty of a sin with age during consequences. The word aionios, here rendered “eternal” has reference to a long but indefinite period of time, “that which pertains to an age,” and should not be translated “eternal.” I further demonstrate this in my blog: The Duration of Punishment. A literal translation of verse 29 communicates better what Jesus actually said:
“but whoever may speak evil in regard to the Holy Spirit hath not forgiveness to the age, but is in danger of age-during judgment. (Young’s Literal Translation)
Reading a literal translation, we can now understand how the Greek Church Fathers could say that the “unpardonable” sin was pardonable. Now let us examine the words of Jesus according to Matthew:
“Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Matt 12:31-32)
First Jesus says in verse 31 that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, without saying for how long. In verse 32 He explains that one will not receive forgiveness “in this age or in the age to come.” He did not say that one would never ever be forgiven for all eternity, but that one will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the coming age. “This age” was the age in which Jesus was ministering. The coming age would be the millennium or, according to some, “the Church age.” That is far from saying that one will never ever be forgiven. Even if He would have said “into the ages of the ages” the time of forgiveness would eventually arrive because ages are segments of time and have no relationship to eternity. The end of the ages will eventually arrive.
Also, not receiving forgiveness does not automatically mean exclusion from the kingdom of heaven in hell. When Michal despised David for dancing before the Lord, the Lord made her barren for the rest of her life. Though she wasn’t forgiven for the rest of her life, she continued as the queen with many privileges as David’s wife (2Sam 6:14-23). We should not interpret “will not be forgiven” as being synonymous with going to hell forever. If I were to hire a brother to do some work in the church and discovered that he was stealing building materials, I probably wouldn’t give him employment again anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean that I would forever exclude him from the fellowship or that he would cease being my friend.
The second reason why the Greek Church Fathers had no problems with believing that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit could be forgiven was because they knew the merciful and forgiving heart of God. From the Scripture they knew that “the Lord will not cast off forever. Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies” (Lam 3:31-33); that He “will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever” (Ps 103:9), and that “His mercy endures forever” (Ps 107:1). That “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and He relents from doing harm” (Joel 2:13). There are many examples in the Scriptures of God, in His infinite mercy and great kindness, relenting of punishment declared against people, and the Church Fathers had no reason to think God had changed.
One example is Nineveh. The word of the Lord declared against Nineveh was: “yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). However, when the people of Nineveh repented, the Lord relented of the punishment He had declared against Nineveh. When Jonah realized that God had repented of the evil declared against them, he was very angry and he said to the Lord: “I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness, one who relents from doing harm” (Jonah 4:2). Both Jonah and the early Church recognized something of the nature of God that the traditional Church today still needs to rediscover - that God is abundant in loving-kindness, One who relents from doing harm.
Another example is the case of Coniah (or Jeconiah cf. 1Chron 3:17). God swore an oath against him, saying that none of his descendants would rule again in Judah:
“As I live, ‘says the Lord,’ ‘though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off’; 30 Thus says the Lord: ‘Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.” (Jer 22:24,30)
God said that even if Coniah were the signet ring on His right hand, he would pluck it off. He even declared him childless. These words didn’t leave room for any hope that any of his descendants would ever again reign in Judah. But was the curse pronounced against him and his descendants carried out as declared, or did God relent of the punishment He had pronounced? Coniah was carried away captive to Babylon where he died. But when the 70 years of captivity were fulfilled, king Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem. God relented of the evil declared against the descendants of Coniah, and his grandson Zorobabel was placed as ruler of Judah (cf. 1Chron 3:17-19). The Lord prophesied through Haggai declaring a total reversal of the curse declared against Coniah and his descendants:
“And again the word of the Lord came to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying, 21 ‘Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying: ‘…I will take you, Zerubbabel My servant, the son of Shealtiel,’ says the Lord, ‘and will make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Hag 2:20-23)
Here we can see that truly God is a God full of mercy who relents of punishments declared against the sons of men. He clearly declared to Coniah that He would pluck him off the throne like a signet ring off His hand and that none of his descendants would ever rule in Judah. Now, 70 years later, He says to his grandson: “I will make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you.” This declaration is a direct repeal of what was declared against his grandfather Coniah 70 years earlier.
The Greek Fathers before the influence of Saint Augustine and the institutionalized Church, still saw the Lord as being a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness, One who relents from doing harm (Jonah 4:2). They still believed that mercy triumphs over judgment. However, the Church, under supervision of the governing authorities, changed the face of God and introduced the Church to the cruel god of the dark ages.
So, we can see that the Greek Fathers, reading the warnings of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in the original text, would not have had any problem accepting the possibility of eventual forgiveness of all sins, including the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. This, combined with a knowledge of the forgiving heart of God, knowing that He doesn’t reject forever and that He is merciful and full of lovingkindness and relents of punishment, brought them to the conclusion that God will eventually forgive all sins, even the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
This article is an excerpt from my book The Triumph of Mercy.
[1] Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant
[2] Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant
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“Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Matt 12:31-32)
“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; 29 but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation.” (Mark 3:28-29)
When the scribes attributed the power that Jesus had to cast out demons to Beelzebub, the prince of demons, Jesus sternly responded with this warning. Therefore, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit consists of seeing an evident manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit and attributing it to the devil, knowing it was the Holy Spirit.
The majority in the Church today would say that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a sin that will never ever be forgiven by God, and for that reason have called it “the unpardonable sin.” Since it is difficult to pin down exactly what constitutes the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, many live in constant fear that they may have committed the “unpardonable” sin. The traditional understanding of this passage has caused emotional breakdowns and numerous sensitive individuals have even committed suicide because of it. Many more have gone back into the world without hope of salvation, thinking that in some way they have committed this sin. These passages, as traditionally translated and preached from some pulpits, have become an instrument in the hands of the accuser, causing despair in the hearts of many throughout history.
It is worthy of note that many of the early Church Fathers who spoke the same Greek in which these words were originally written, did not understand this sin as “unpardonable.” Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (AD 295 to AD 373) wrote: “If they repent they may obtain pardon, for there is no sin unpardonable with God to them who truly repent.” [1] Saint Chrysostom, AD 386 said: “We know that this sin was forgiven to some that repented of it.” [2]
How could it be that those who lived closer to the time of the Apostles believed that it was possible to be forgiven for the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, while today the majority deny the possibility of forgiveness? They were familiar with the Scriptures in the original language and defended Scripture’s absolute authority even as we do. I see three main reasons.
In the first place, the Greek Fathers were not reading a translation influenced by tradition, but were reading the New Testament in Greek as originally written. The influence of the traditional doctrine of eternal punishment can be seen in the majority of our translations when compared with the original. Let’s take a closer look at these verses. Mark 3:28-29 have been translated in the following manner:
“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; 29 but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation.” (Mark 3:28-29 NKJV)
We see that the translators translated aión which means “age” with the word “never,” giving the impression that there would never be any possibility of ever receiving God’s forgiveness. The text simply says, “he does not have forgiveness into the age (eis ton aiona).” There is a lot of difference between “into the age” and “never.” The phrase rendered “eternal condemnation” is aioniou kriseos “eonian judgment.” That means that one who blasphemes the Holy Spirit is guilty of a sin with age during consequences. The word aionios, here rendered “eternal” has reference to a long but indefinite period of time, “that which pertains to an age,” and should not be translated “eternal.” I further demonstrate this in my blog: The Duration of Punishment. A literal translation of verse 29 communicates better what Jesus actually said:
“but whoever may speak evil in regard to the Holy Spirit hath not forgiveness to the age, but is in danger of age-during judgment. (Young’s Literal Translation)
Reading a literal translation, we can now understand how the Greek Church Fathers could say that the “unpardonable” sin was pardonable. Now let us examine the words of Jesus according to Matthew:
“Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Matt 12:31-32)
First Jesus says in verse 31 that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, without saying for how long. In verse 32 He explains that one will not receive forgiveness “in this age or in the age to come.” He did not say that one would never ever be forgiven for all eternity, but that one will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the coming age. “This age” was the age in which Jesus was ministering. The coming age would be the millennium or, according to some, “the Church age.” That is far from saying that one will never ever be forgiven. Even if He would have said “into the ages of the ages” the time of forgiveness would eventually arrive because ages are segments of time and have no relationship to eternity. The end of the ages will eventually arrive.
Also, not receiving forgiveness does not automatically mean exclusion from the kingdom of heaven in hell. When Michal despised David for dancing before the Lord, the Lord made her barren for the rest of her life. Though she wasn’t forgiven for the rest of her life, she continued as the queen with many privileges as David’s wife (2Sam 6:14-23). We should not interpret “will not be forgiven” as being synonymous with going to hell forever. If I were to hire a brother to do some work in the church and discovered that he was stealing building materials, I probably wouldn’t give him employment again anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean that I would forever exclude him from the fellowship or that he would cease being my friend.
The second reason why the Greek Church Fathers had no problems with believing that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit could be forgiven was because they knew the merciful and forgiving heart of God. From the Scripture they knew that “the Lord will not cast off forever. Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies” (Lam 3:31-33); that He “will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever” (Ps 103:9), and that “His mercy endures forever” (Ps 107:1). That “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and He relents from doing harm” (Joel 2:13). There are many examples in the Scriptures of God, in His infinite mercy and great kindness, relenting of punishment declared against people, and the Church Fathers had no reason to think God had changed.
One example is Nineveh. The word of the Lord declared against Nineveh was: “yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). However, when the people of Nineveh repented, the Lord relented of the punishment He had declared against Nineveh. When Jonah realized that God had repented of the evil declared against them, he was very angry and he said to the Lord: “I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness, one who relents from doing harm” (Jonah 4:2). Both Jonah and the early Church recognized something of the nature of God that the traditional Church today still needs to rediscover - that God is abundant in loving-kindness, One who relents from doing harm.
Another example is the case of Coniah (or Jeconiah cf. 1Chron 3:17). God swore an oath against him, saying that none of his descendants would rule again in Judah:
“As I live, ‘says the Lord,’ ‘though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off’; 30 Thus says the Lord: ‘Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.” (Jer 22:24,30)
God said that even if Coniah were the signet ring on His right hand, he would pluck it off. He even declared him childless. These words didn’t leave room for any hope that any of his descendants would ever again reign in Judah. But was the curse pronounced against him and his descendants carried out as declared, or did God relent of the punishment He had pronounced? Coniah was carried away captive to Babylon where he died. But when the 70 years of captivity were fulfilled, king Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem. God relented of the evil declared against the descendants of Coniah, and his grandson Zorobabel was placed as ruler of Judah (cf. 1Chron 3:17-19). The Lord prophesied through Haggai declaring a total reversal of the curse declared against Coniah and his descendants:
“And again the word of the Lord came to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying, 21 ‘Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying: ‘…I will take you, Zerubbabel My servant, the son of Shealtiel,’ says the Lord, ‘and will make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Hag 2:20-23)
Here we can see that truly God is a God full of mercy who relents of punishments declared against the sons of men. He clearly declared to Coniah that He would pluck him off the throne like a signet ring off His hand and that none of his descendants would ever rule in Judah. Now, 70 years later, He says to his grandson: “I will make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you.” This declaration is a direct repeal of what was declared against his grandfather Coniah 70 years earlier.
The Greek Fathers before the influence of Saint Augustine and the institutionalized Church, still saw the Lord as being a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness, One who relents from doing harm (Jonah 4:2). They still believed that mercy triumphs over judgment. However, the Church, under supervision of the governing authorities, changed the face of God and introduced the Church to the cruel god of the dark ages.
So, we can see that the Greek Fathers, reading the warnings of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in the original text, would not have had any problem accepting the possibility of eventual forgiveness of all sins, including the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. This, combined with a knowledge of the forgiving heart of God, knowing that He doesn’t reject forever and that He is merciful and full of lovingkindness and relents of punishment, brought them to the conclusion that God will eventually forgive all sins, even the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
This article is an excerpt from my book The Triumph of Mercy.
[1] Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant
[2] Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant
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The Future Judgments of God
by George Sidney Hurd
The purpose of this blog is to address the assertion of a growing number of people that there will be no future judgment. I have seen this view presented in two primary forms.
On the one hand, there are some Progressives who combine Jesus’s statements, “the Father judges no one,” and “I judge no one” (Jn 5:22; 8:15), and proceed to argue from this that God will never judge anyone.
On the other hand, the Full Preterists teach that everything prophesied in Scripture, including the Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the binding of Satan, the creation of the new heavens and the new earth, as well as the final Great White Throne Judgment, were all fulfilled in 70AD when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies.
These recent interpretations (and I emphasize recent) are appealing to our present permissive society in which many, even within the churches, want salvation without repentance, relationship without commitment, and freedom without accountability.
“God Judges No One”
Many Progressives teach that God does not directly judge anyone, but rather each individual judges themselves upon seeing their life review. This concept seems to have gained popularity from William Paul Young’s bestseller, The Shack, which came out in 2007. In the Shack, when the time came for Mack’s judgment, Jesus didn’t even accompany him, but simply said: “You have an engagement… I’ll wait for you here.” [1] When he entered the judgment chamber, Mack was met by a beautiful woman named Wisdom who said to him, “…you are not on trial here… You will be the judge!” [2]
As I previously mentioned, in order to substantiate the idea that God judges no one and that we simply judge ourselves, they often quote phrases from two different passages divorced from their context. The first phrase is extracted from John 5:22 where Jesus said: “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son.” They then combine it with another phrase taken from John 8:15 where He said: “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one (present tense, 'I am judging no one').”
Based upon these two phrases they conclude that, since the Father, who judges no one, has committed all judgment to the Son, and the Son in turn said, “I judge no one,” we will therefore never have to appear before God in judgment. William Paul Young expresses this by presenting Christ as simply telling Mack that he had an engagement and that He would be waiting for him outside. They also quote John 12:47 which says:
“And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him (present tense, ‘I am not judging him’); for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”
However, in John 8:15 as well as 12:47 Jesus was not speaking of an eschatological judgment which all must face, but rather was referring to the judgments we make against people in the present. In this sense, Jesus was saying that He wasn’t judging anyone since His purpose in becoming incarnate was not to judge the world but to save the world.
This in no way negates the fact that the Father has committed all judgment to the Son and that a judgment day is coming when all (even believers) must appear before Him to give an account for the deeds done in the body (Rom 14:10). Paul made this clear on various occasions:
“And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He (Jesus) who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead.” (Acts 10:42)
“He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained (Jesus). He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31)
“I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom.” (2 Tim 4:1)
While justified believers will be resurrected in the first resurrection unto life rather than the resurrection unto judgment 1,000 years later (Jn 5:29, cf., Rev 20:4-6), all without exception must appear before Christ to give an account of themselves to God. For believers, their judgment is for rewards or loss of rewards, rather than it being a penal judgment. I describe the nature of the judgment of believers with more detail in my blog: Rewards for Good Works. However, it is God to whom each of us must give an account, not ourselves.
While the notion that one is not accountable to God is appealing to many in this generation, it has no support whatsoever in Scripture. Even if one were to reject the authority of Scripture by saying that they are followers of Jesus, not the Bible, as most Progressives do, they are still faced with Jesus’ own declaration that the hour is coming when He will exercise His authority to execute judgment (Jn 5:26-29).
“The Final Judgment took place in 70AD”
Full Preterism, (especially the Universalistic varieties of it), are also very appealing to the unrepentant, since they interpret Jesus’ words such as Matthew 12:36-37 as meaning: “I say unto you that for every idle word men (living in this Old Covenant age) may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment in 70AD.” According to them, when Paul said that God had ordained Jesus to be the judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42), it only applied to those who were living or had died prior to 70AD, which, according to them, marked the close of the Old Covenant age. Paul also spoke of a judgment which included all believers, saying:
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2Cor 5:10). “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom 14:12).
In spite of what Paul says here, according to Full Preterists, believers today will not have to give an account of themselves to God, since Paul in his epistles was only addressing Old Covenant believers who lived prior to the Preterist’s 70AD judgment. They say that the Great White Throne Judgment took place in 70AD, and for the past two millennia we have been living in the new heavens and the new earth and there is no future judgment awaiting anyone, whether they be believers or nonbelievers.
There are more problems with this view than I can address in this brief article. In the first place, while Israel was judged by God and left desolate in 70AD, Christ did not personally come to judge Israel at that time, much less all the living and the dead among the nations. When Christ does come a second time it will be to deliver Israel, not to destroy her (Rom 11:25-28). Jesus said that Israel wouldn’t see Him again until they say: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matt 23:39). That certainly wasn’t the case in 70AD. I demonstrate that the Second Coming of Christ is yet future in my blog: Where is the Promise of His Coming? Since His judgments take place at His appearing and during His kingdom reign, they are all yet future (2Tim 4:1).
There are two judgments which are said to take place at His coming. First, there is the Bema Seat Judgment of Christ in which believers are rewarded according to their works (Rom 14:12; 1Cor 3:11-15; Rev 22:12). There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, so this judgment is not penal, as it is for the unjust, but rather for rewards or loss of rewards. The result of this judgment is that each one will receive praise from God (1Cor 4:5).
The other judgment which takes place when He comes and sits upon His throne is the judgment of the nations as described in Matthew 25:
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” (Matt 25:31-32)
This is not the judgment of believers, but the judgment of the living Gentiles among the nations who will either be granted or denied entrance into His eonian kingdom, depending upon how they treated Christ’s brethren in their tribulation. Christ’s brethren would be all the born-again sons of God living at that time who suffered the great tribulation, including all Israel who will be saved when they look upon Him whom they pierced at His coming (Rom 11:26; Zech 12:10, cf. Rev 1:7).
The sheep are not part of the body of Christ. They are not granted entrance into the kingdom based upon faith in the gospel but simply for having shown kindness to Christ’s brethren. They, along with the Jews who believe when they see Christ coming, will repopulate the earth during the Millennium. The goats will be denied entrance into the kingdom, instead being sent into eonian punishment or correction (κολασιν αιωνιον, kolasin aionion).
Neither the judgment of believers, nor the judgment of the nations, can reasonably be seen to have been fulfilled in 70AD. Life went on as usual in the Church until it eventually merged with the Roman Empire, sinking the Church into the Dark Ages. Not something we would expect of a Church which is co-reigning with Christ over the nations. Nor can the sheep and the goats among the nations be seen to have been separated in 70AD. After nearly 2,000 years have passed, there is just as much evil and injustice in the world, if not more.
However, those are not the only judgments which will take place after Christ returns. In Revelation 19 thru 21 we see that after Christ returns, Satan will be bound for a thousand years in the abyss and the saints will be resurrected to reign with Christ over the earth for a thousand years. After the thousand years have ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will deceive the nations which will have repopulated the earth during the Millennium. Those deceived by Satan will mount a final rebellion against Christ and His saints, but fire will come down from God out of heaven and devour them.
Then all who were not part of the first resurrection at the beginning of Christ’s reign, as well as those who lived and died during the Millennium, will be resurrected for judgment at the Great White Throne Judgment. All whose names are not found written in the book of life at that time will be cast into the lake of fire. After this we see the new heavens and the new earth, with the New Jerusalem descending from heaven upon it. In this new earth it says:
“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev 21:4)
According to the Full Preterists, nearly two millennia have passed since the Great White Throne Judgment and the creation of the new heavens and the new earth. Yet death is still universal, as is sorrow and weeping. How can anyone reasonably believe that all judgment has passed and that we are now living in the new earth?
Both Full Preterists and Partial Preterists attempt to argue that the Millennium should not be understood as a literal 1,000 years. The Partial Preterists, believing that the Great White Throne Judgment is yet in the distant future, must stretch 1,000 years out so that it lasts thousands of years. The Full Preterists, on the other hand, must shrink the 1,000 years to a ridiculously short period of time, considering that Scripture calls it 1,000 years.
Since Full Preterists argue that the Great White Throne Judgment occurred at or around 70AD, they must somehow make the 1,000 year Millennium fit within that timeframe. Some argue that the 1,000 years is the 38 years from the ascension of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. Others take the 1,000 years as being the 3 year timespan between the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of Masada in 73AD. Still others stretch the 1,000 years out to extend from 70 to 135AD, which was when the Bar Kochba revolt was suppressed.
However, it should be readily obvious to any reasonable mind that none of these Jewish revolts which were squelched by the Roman armies are in any way comparable with the Great White Throne Judgment described in Revelation 21. There is a great difference between the Roman army putting down a Jewish rebellion and the Great White Throne Judgment in which all the dead, small and great, must stand before the Judge of the earth, being judged according to their works.
There is no justification for understanding the Scripture’s reference to 1,000 years as not being a literal 1,000 year time-span. Preterists often cite examples where the number 1,000 is used in Scripture in a nonliteral manner. In order to demonstrate that 1,000 can mean less than 1,000, Full Preterists often cite 1 Samuel 18:7, which is the song that the women of Israel sang after David had slain Goliath. They sang, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” They argue that, since it says that David slew thousands when in fact he had only slain Goliath, we should not take the reference to Christ’s 1,000 year reign literally either.
On the other hand, the Partial Preterists who want to stretch out the 1,000 years to represent several millennia appeal to certain Psalms which would seem to allow for the number 1,000 being representative of a larger number. For example, one Partial Preterist says:
“Another example is the claim that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (see Ps. 50:10). Actually, God owns all the cattle on all the hills of the planet, yet to the Jewish reader, using the number one thousand was not limiting God’s cattle ownership! A third example is in this verse: Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere... (Ps. 84:10). If understood literally, this verse would mean 1,001 days elsewhere would be better than a day in the house of God. Clearly, that was not the psalmist’s message.” [3]
However, what Preterists fail to take into account is that these are simply examples of poetic prose where everyone reading them immediately knows that they were not intended to be understood literally. On the other hand, the number 1,000 to the Jewish people would be taken with wooden literalness if it had reference to specifics such as the number of cattle that one owned, monetary sums, units and measures, as well as a census or a timespan such as the duration of Christ’s earthly reign.
Daniel understood the prophesied 70 years of the Babylonian captivity in a literal sense, and indeed it was literally fulfilled. In fact, there is no instance in the Scriptures where the Jews understood specified timespans in a nonliteral sense. Preterists themselves often argue for a literal fulfillment of the 1,260-day prophecy, claiming that it was the exact length of time during which the siege of Jerusalem took place, from AD 66–70.
I would also point out that the Early Church Fathers, who spoke in the original Greek language of the New Testament, took both the 1,260 days and the 1,000-year reign of Christ literally, as I demonstrate in my blog: Premillennial Futurism – The Belief of the Early Church and also in my book: Last Days – Past or Present? What more reliable authority could possibly be appealed to as to the way we should understand the reference to the 1,000 years than looking to the Early Greek-speaking Fathers!
Clearly, there is no reasonable way that one can interpret the Scriptures using a normal literary hermeneutic and conclude that all judgments are past and that we are living in the new heavens and the new earth. If, instead of interpreting Scriptures normally, one resorts to spiritualizing and allegorizing the plain teaching of Scripture, it becomes possible to make the Bible appear to say whatever one pleases, but that will not change the fact that the day is coming when Christ will literally judge both the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom (2Tim 4:1). To tell the unrepentant otherwise is a grave omission, to say the least (Ezek 3:18-19).
It is easy to see why the Preterist and Progressive views are becoming so popular in our Postmodern culture, in spite of the fact that they lack any solid biblical foundation, since they offer salvation without repentance, relationship without commitment and freedom without accountability. Just as the false prophets who spoke soothing words of peace and prosperity to Israel when in fact God was about to judge them for their sins, all too many teachers today do not tell the unrepentant what they need to hear but only what they want to hear.
In conclusion, I would like to leave my readers (especially those who consider themselves to be spiritual teachers) with Paul’s instructions to Timothy in light of the fact that Christ is going to judge both the living and the dead at His appearing, since I believe that it is very relevant to the times in which we are living:
“I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom:
2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2Tim 4:1-5)
[1] Young, William P. The Shack . Windblown Media. Kindle Edition. Loc. 2502
[2] Young, William P.. The Shack . Windblown Media. Kindle Edition. Loc. 2634
[3] Welton, Jonathan (2013-11-01). Raptureless: An Optimistic Guide to the End of the World - Revised Edition Including The Art of Revelation (Kindle Locations 5374-5385). BookBaby. Kindle Edition.
The purpose of this blog is to address the assertion of a growing number of people that there will be no future judgment. I have seen this view presented in two primary forms.
On the one hand, there are some Progressives who combine Jesus’s statements, “the Father judges no one,” and “I judge no one” (Jn 5:22; 8:15), and proceed to argue from this that God will never judge anyone.
On the other hand, the Full Preterists teach that everything prophesied in Scripture, including the Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the binding of Satan, the creation of the new heavens and the new earth, as well as the final Great White Throne Judgment, were all fulfilled in 70AD when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies.
These recent interpretations (and I emphasize recent) are appealing to our present permissive society in which many, even within the churches, want salvation without repentance, relationship without commitment, and freedom without accountability.
“God Judges No One”
Many Progressives teach that God does not directly judge anyone, but rather each individual judges themselves upon seeing their life review. This concept seems to have gained popularity from William Paul Young’s bestseller, The Shack, which came out in 2007. In the Shack, when the time came for Mack’s judgment, Jesus didn’t even accompany him, but simply said: “You have an engagement… I’ll wait for you here.” [1] When he entered the judgment chamber, Mack was met by a beautiful woman named Wisdom who said to him, “…you are not on trial here… You will be the judge!” [2]
As I previously mentioned, in order to substantiate the idea that God judges no one and that we simply judge ourselves, they often quote phrases from two different passages divorced from their context. The first phrase is extracted from John 5:22 where Jesus said: “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son.” They then combine it with another phrase taken from John 8:15 where He said: “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one (present tense, 'I am judging no one').”
Based upon these two phrases they conclude that, since the Father, who judges no one, has committed all judgment to the Son, and the Son in turn said, “I judge no one,” we will therefore never have to appear before God in judgment. William Paul Young expresses this by presenting Christ as simply telling Mack that he had an engagement and that He would be waiting for him outside. They also quote John 12:47 which says:
“And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him (present tense, ‘I am not judging him’); for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”
However, in John 8:15 as well as 12:47 Jesus was not speaking of an eschatological judgment which all must face, but rather was referring to the judgments we make against people in the present. In this sense, Jesus was saying that He wasn’t judging anyone since His purpose in becoming incarnate was not to judge the world but to save the world.
This in no way negates the fact that the Father has committed all judgment to the Son and that a judgment day is coming when all (even believers) must appear before Him to give an account for the deeds done in the body (Rom 14:10). Paul made this clear on various occasions:
“And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He (Jesus) who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead.” (Acts 10:42)
“He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained (Jesus). He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31)
“I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom.” (2 Tim 4:1)
While justified believers will be resurrected in the first resurrection unto life rather than the resurrection unto judgment 1,000 years later (Jn 5:29, cf., Rev 20:4-6), all without exception must appear before Christ to give an account of themselves to God. For believers, their judgment is for rewards or loss of rewards, rather than it being a penal judgment. I describe the nature of the judgment of believers with more detail in my blog: Rewards for Good Works. However, it is God to whom each of us must give an account, not ourselves.
While the notion that one is not accountable to God is appealing to many in this generation, it has no support whatsoever in Scripture. Even if one were to reject the authority of Scripture by saying that they are followers of Jesus, not the Bible, as most Progressives do, they are still faced with Jesus’ own declaration that the hour is coming when He will exercise His authority to execute judgment (Jn 5:26-29).
“The Final Judgment took place in 70AD”
Full Preterism, (especially the Universalistic varieties of it), are also very appealing to the unrepentant, since they interpret Jesus’ words such as Matthew 12:36-37 as meaning: “I say unto you that for every idle word men (living in this Old Covenant age) may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment in 70AD.” According to them, when Paul said that God had ordained Jesus to be the judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42), it only applied to those who were living or had died prior to 70AD, which, according to them, marked the close of the Old Covenant age. Paul also spoke of a judgment which included all believers, saying:
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2Cor 5:10). “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom 14:12).
In spite of what Paul says here, according to Full Preterists, believers today will not have to give an account of themselves to God, since Paul in his epistles was only addressing Old Covenant believers who lived prior to the Preterist’s 70AD judgment. They say that the Great White Throne Judgment took place in 70AD, and for the past two millennia we have been living in the new heavens and the new earth and there is no future judgment awaiting anyone, whether they be believers or nonbelievers.
There are more problems with this view than I can address in this brief article. In the first place, while Israel was judged by God and left desolate in 70AD, Christ did not personally come to judge Israel at that time, much less all the living and the dead among the nations. When Christ does come a second time it will be to deliver Israel, not to destroy her (Rom 11:25-28). Jesus said that Israel wouldn’t see Him again until they say: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matt 23:39). That certainly wasn’t the case in 70AD. I demonstrate that the Second Coming of Christ is yet future in my blog: Where is the Promise of His Coming? Since His judgments take place at His appearing and during His kingdom reign, they are all yet future (2Tim 4:1).
There are two judgments which are said to take place at His coming. First, there is the Bema Seat Judgment of Christ in which believers are rewarded according to their works (Rom 14:12; 1Cor 3:11-15; Rev 22:12). There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, so this judgment is not penal, as it is for the unjust, but rather for rewards or loss of rewards. The result of this judgment is that each one will receive praise from God (1Cor 4:5).
The other judgment which takes place when He comes and sits upon His throne is the judgment of the nations as described in Matthew 25:
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” (Matt 25:31-32)
This is not the judgment of believers, but the judgment of the living Gentiles among the nations who will either be granted or denied entrance into His eonian kingdom, depending upon how they treated Christ’s brethren in their tribulation. Christ’s brethren would be all the born-again sons of God living at that time who suffered the great tribulation, including all Israel who will be saved when they look upon Him whom they pierced at His coming (Rom 11:26; Zech 12:10, cf. Rev 1:7).
The sheep are not part of the body of Christ. They are not granted entrance into the kingdom based upon faith in the gospel but simply for having shown kindness to Christ’s brethren. They, along with the Jews who believe when they see Christ coming, will repopulate the earth during the Millennium. The goats will be denied entrance into the kingdom, instead being sent into eonian punishment or correction (κολασιν αιωνιον, kolasin aionion).
Neither the judgment of believers, nor the judgment of the nations, can reasonably be seen to have been fulfilled in 70AD. Life went on as usual in the Church until it eventually merged with the Roman Empire, sinking the Church into the Dark Ages. Not something we would expect of a Church which is co-reigning with Christ over the nations. Nor can the sheep and the goats among the nations be seen to have been separated in 70AD. After nearly 2,000 years have passed, there is just as much evil and injustice in the world, if not more.
However, those are not the only judgments which will take place after Christ returns. In Revelation 19 thru 21 we see that after Christ returns, Satan will be bound for a thousand years in the abyss and the saints will be resurrected to reign with Christ over the earth for a thousand years. After the thousand years have ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will deceive the nations which will have repopulated the earth during the Millennium. Those deceived by Satan will mount a final rebellion against Christ and His saints, but fire will come down from God out of heaven and devour them.
Then all who were not part of the first resurrection at the beginning of Christ’s reign, as well as those who lived and died during the Millennium, will be resurrected for judgment at the Great White Throne Judgment. All whose names are not found written in the book of life at that time will be cast into the lake of fire. After this we see the new heavens and the new earth, with the New Jerusalem descending from heaven upon it. In this new earth it says:
“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev 21:4)
According to the Full Preterists, nearly two millennia have passed since the Great White Throne Judgment and the creation of the new heavens and the new earth. Yet death is still universal, as is sorrow and weeping. How can anyone reasonably believe that all judgment has passed and that we are now living in the new earth?
Both Full Preterists and Partial Preterists attempt to argue that the Millennium should not be understood as a literal 1,000 years. The Partial Preterists, believing that the Great White Throne Judgment is yet in the distant future, must stretch 1,000 years out so that it lasts thousands of years. The Full Preterists, on the other hand, must shrink the 1,000 years to a ridiculously short period of time, considering that Scripture calls it 1,000 years.
Since Full Preterists argue that the Great White Throne Judgment occurred at or around 70AD, they must somehow make the 1,000 year Millennium fit within that timeframe. Some argue that the 1,000 years is the 38 years from the ascension of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. Others take the 1,000 years as being the 3 year timespan between the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of Masada in 73AD. Still others stretch the 1,000 years out to extend from 70 to 135AD, which was when the Bar Kochba revolt was suppressed.
However, it should be readily obvious to any reasonable mind that none of these Jewish revolts which were squelched by the Roman armies are in any way comparable with the Great White Throne Judgment described in Revelation 21. There is a great difference between the Roman army putting down a Jewish rebellion and the Great White Throne Judgment in which all the dead, small and great, must stand before the Judge of the earth, being judged according to their works.
There is no justification for understanding the Scripture’s reference to 1,000 years as not being a literal 1,000 year time-span. Preterists often cite examples where the number 1,000 is used in Scripture in a nonliteral manner. In order to demonstrate that 1,000 can mean less than 1,000, Full Preterists often cite 1 Samuel 18:7, which is the song that the women of Israel sang after David had slain Goliath. They sang, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” They argue that, since it says that David slew thousands when in fact he had only slain Goliath, we should not take the reference to Christ’s 1,000 year reign literally either.
On the other hand, the Partial Preterists who want to stretch out the 1,000 years to represent several millennia appeal to certain Psalms which would seem to allow for the number 1,000 being representative of a larger number. For example, one Partial Preterist says:
“Another example is the claim that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (see Ps. 50:10). Actually, God owns all the cattle on all the hills of the planet, yet to the Jewish reader, using the number one thousand was not limiting God’s cattle ownership! A third example is in this verse: Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere... (Ps. 84:10). If understood literally, this verse would mean 1,001 days elsewhere would be better than a day in the house of God. Clearly, that was not the psalmist’s message.” [3]
However, what Preterists fail to take into account is that these are simply examples of poetic prose where everyone reading them immediately knows that they were not intended to be understood literally. On the other hand, the number 1,000 to the Jewish people would be taken with wooden literalness if it had reference to specifics such as the number of cattle that one owned, monetary sums, units and measures, as well as a census or a timespan such as the duration of Christ’s earthly reign.
Daniel understood the prophesied 70 years of the Babylonian captivity in a literal sense, and indeed it was literally fulfilled. In fact, there is no instance in the Scriptures where the Jews understood specified timespans in a nonliteral sense. Preterists themselves often argue for a literal fulfillment of the 1,260-day prophecy, claiming that it was the exact length of time during which the siege of Jerusalem took place, from AD 66–70.
I would also point out that the Early Church Fathers, who spoke in the original Greek language of the New Testament, took both the 1,260 days and the 1,000-year reign of Christ literally, as I demonstrate in my blog: Premillennial Futurism – The Belief of the Early Church and also in my book: Last Days – Past or Present? What more reliable authority could possibly be appealed to as to the way we should understand the reference to the 1,000 years than looking to the Early Greek-speaking Fathers!
Clearly, there is no reasonable way that one can interpret the Scriptures using a normal literary hermeneutic and conclude that all judgments are past and that we are living in the new heavens and the new earth. If, instead of interpreting Scriptures normally, one resorts to spiritualizing and allegorizing the plain teaching of Scripture, it becomes possible to make the Bible appear to say whatever one pleases, but that will not change the fact that the day is coming when Christ will literally judge both the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom (2Tim 4:1). To tell the unrepentant otherwise is a grave omission, to say the least (Ezek 3:18-19).
It is easy to see why the Preterist and Progressive views are becoming so popular in our Postmodern culture, in spite of the fact that they lack any solid biblical foundation, since they offer salvation without repentance, relationship without commitment and freedom without accountability. Just as the false prophets who spoke soothing words of peace and prosperity to Israel when in fact God was about to judge them for their sins, all too many teachers today do not tell the unrepentant what they need to hear but only what they want to hear.
In conclusion, I would like to leave my readers (especially those who consider themselves to be spiritual teachers) with Paul’s instructions to Timothy in light of the fact that Christ is going to judge both the living and the dead at His appearing, since I believe that it is very relevant to the times in which we are living:
“I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom:
2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2Tim 4:1-5)
[1] Young, William P. The Shack . Windblown Media. Kindle Edition. Loc. 2502
[2] Young, William P.. The Shack . Windblown Media. Kindle Edition. Loc. 2634
[3] Welton, Jonathan (2013-11-01). Raptureless: An Optimistic Guide to the End of the World - Revised Edition Including The Art of Revelation (Kindle Locations 5374-5385). BookBaby. Kindle Edition.
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Articles by George Sidney Hurd
https://www.triumphofmercy.com/blog
Index of Passages Implying a Universal Restoration
To Whom should I Share and When?
Are Modern Visions of Hell of God?
Myth: Jesus spoke More Often about Hell than Heaven
Is Biblical Universalism a Deterrant to Evangelism?
Saving Faith
The Book of Life
The Overcomers
Attaining to the Resurrection
What is Gehenna?
The Second Death
I Never Knew You – Depart from Me
Is the Gospel a Proclamation?
Does God Get What He Wants?
Created Out of Nothing or Out of God?
Are there few who are saved?
“They will go away into Everlasting Punishment”
Eternal Destruction from the Presence of the Lord
The Rich Man and Lazarus
Every Knee shall Bow and every Tongue Confess
Her Gates are always Open
The Age of All Ages
Temporal vs. "Eternal" in 2Corinthians 4:18
The Fatherhood of God
Does “All” simply mean “Jew and Gentile alike”?
Is the Receiving of Romans 5:17 Active or Passive?
Distinguishing Biblical Universalism
Spiritual Deconstruction
Has Everyone already been Forgiven?
Are the Gates of Hell Locked from Within?
Shedding Light Upon the Roman Catholic Dogma of Purgatory
Is Sheol the Grave?
What about the Doctrine of Conditional Immortality?
“The Dead Know Nothing”
Death is not Cessation but Separation
The Testimonies of Near-Death Experiences
Is One’s Destruction the End of all Existence?
Shall not Perish
Sulfur, Salt and the Refiner's Fire
Is there Hope for Reprobates?
Understanding the Wrath of God
Who are the Elect of God?
Total Depravity and Universal Reconciliation
The Fatherhood of God
Does the Restoration of All include the Animal Kingdom?
What must I do to be Saved?
True Repentance
Universalism – The Majority View according to Strong
Who Destroyed Sodom and Why?
"Kill all the women except for the virgins"
Rewards for Good Works
Is Satan Real?
What meaneth the phrase, “let the unjust be unjust still?”
The “Unpardonable” Sin
Better for Judas Not to have been born
The Theosis or the Divinization of man
The Faith of Jesus
Seeing the Father through Jesus
The Straight and Narrow Grace-Walk
True Living Faith Works
The Unadulterated Gospel
The Blurring of Biblical Distinctions
What does the word "Word" mean to Jesus?
Upon Which Foundation?
Are All Sins Equal?
Not Forsaking the Assembling of Ourselves Together
What should a New Testament Church look like?
Does God approve of Slavery?
The Role of Women in the New Testament
What Meaneth This?
How Literal is the Concordant Literal Version?
The Inerrancy of Scripture
Biblical Inerrancy throughout Church History (1 of 4)
Why should we contend for the Inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures? (2 of 4)
Understanding Biblical Inerrancy (3 of 4)
How was our Bible formed? (4 of 4)
Has Our New Testament Changed over the Years?
The Love of God
Is God’s Love Unconditional? (1 of 3)
What is Conditional about God’s Unconditional Love? (2 of 3)
The Love and Hatred of God? (3 of 3)
The Fear of the Lord
Understanding the Fear of the Lord (1 of 2)
Fear Him who can Destroy both Body and Soul (2 of 2)
The Question of Evil
The What of Evil (1 of 3)
The Where of Evil (2 of 3)
The Why of Evil (3 of 3)
Original Sin
What about Original Sin? (1 of 3)
Are Babies Vipers in Diapers? (2 of 3)
Objections to Original Sin (3 of 3)
Understanding the Atonement
Defining Atonement (1 of 6)
The Sin bearing Servant I (2 of 6)
The Sin Bearing Servant II (3 of 6)
Forensic Atonement in Romans (4 of 6)
Complementary Theories of the Atonement (5 of 6)
Objections to Penal Substitution (6 of 6)
Christ bore Man’s two-fold Penalty on the Cross
The Justice of God
Is Salvation Transactional?
The Early Fathers and Penal Substitutionary Atonement
George MacDonald and the Atonement
Did Christ’s sacrifice on the cross change God’s attitude towards us?
Homosexuality and the Bible
Does the Bible affirm the Homosexual Lifestyle? (1 of 2)
The Six So-called Gay Clobber Texts (2 of 2)
Reincarnationism
Resurrection or Reincarnation? 1 of 2
Resurrection or Reincarnation 2 of 2
Open Theism
Open Theism - Does God know My Tomorrow? 1 of 2
Open Theism - Does God know my Tomorrow 2 of 2
Answers to Objections against a Universal Restoration:
1) The Restoration of All
2) The Reconciliation of All
3) The Universal Reversal
4) The Salvation of All
5) The Duration of Punishment
6) Hope for the Dead
7) The Testimony of the Fathers
8) The Logic of Universal Reconciliation
Has God Rejected Israel:
1) ¿Has God rejected His People Israel?
2) Has the Church Replaced Israel?
3) God’s Irrevocable Promises to Israel
4) Should we bless National Israel Today?
God's Glorious Plan for the Ages
God's Glorious Plan 1 of 2
God's Glorious Plan 2 of 2
The Manifest Sons of God
The Man-Child Company (1 of 3)
The Manifest Sons of God (2 of 3)
The Identity of the 144,000 (3 of 3)
The Trinity and the Deity of Christ
The Importance of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ (1 of 5)
Jesus is the Yahweh Elohim of the Old Testament (2 of 5)
The Christophanies of the Old Testament (3 of 5)
Jesus Christ - the Eternal I AM (4 of 5)
The Triunity of God (5 of 5)
The Trinity and the Ante Nicene Fathers
Eternal Preexistence of Christ
The Eternal Preexistence of the Son of God (1 of 3)
The Eternal Preexistence of the Son of God (2 of 3)
The Eternal Preexistence of the Son of God (3 of 3)
Preterism vs. Futurism
Where is the promise of His coming? (1 of 2)
Last Days – Past or Present? (2 of 2)
Was the Great Commission Fulfilled Prior to 70 AD?
Premillennial Futurism – The Belief of the Early Church
The Objective Evidences for a Late Dating of John's Revelation (1 of 2)
Examining the Interpretive Arguments for an Early Dating of John’s Revelation (2 of 2)
The Two-Gospel Doctrine Examined
Are there Two Different Gospels in the New Testament? (1 of 4)
Are there Two Groups of Believers, or are We One Body? (2 of4)
Are there Two Separate Scriptures for Two Groups of Believers? (3 of 4)
Are Paul’s Epistles Incompatible with the rest of the New Testament? (4 of 4)
Books by George Sidney Hurd
LINK FOR AUTHOR'S AMAZON PAGE
- All titles are available in English and Spanish.
- The Triumph of Mercy is also available in French