Reference: http://old-baptist-test.blogspot.com/2012/03/argument-for-will-all-hear-gospel.html
Brother Fralick stated:
"What I discovered, though, is that this position among many of the Primitive Baptists is reached not from biblical exegesis, but from philosophizing. Certain questions such as "What about all the heathen of the past who never heard the gospel?",in particular the American Indians before 1492, lie at the forefront of their mind and dominate their thinking. Instead of going strictly by what the Bible says of the fate of the heathen and granting it the first priority, they resort to speculation to answer the question. This conviction is then carried to the scripture, and a text is interpreted in the light of what they have already pre-judged to not be possible."
I can agree with Brother Fralick to an extent in that the focus of some Primitive Baptists in highlighting this idea is an inappropriate New Testament focus. The New Testament provides no rational assurance of salvation apart from belief in the gospel, and the emphasis of the salvation of the pagan apart from the gospel in order to undermine gospel preaching is a foreign New Testament emphasis. So, even if it were true, some Primitive Baptists that erroneously make this idea the center-piece of their theology do so in an ironic lack of conformity to the simple, New Testament pattern of Apostolic preaching.
The Bible is not totally clear about the fate of the heathen. Paul does say, "and how shall they hear without a preacher?" But he seems to answer his own question by, "But I say, have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world." He seems to suggest that the gospel was preached as far as God was willing at that time.
If one views the gospel as the means of God to apply eternal salvation to all of the elect, you can see why they would deduce the damnation of the heathen from these texts (Rom. 10:14,15). If one sees the lack of consistency with this and how the elect were saved in the Old Testament, which suggests that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a more evolved content of a more obscure promise made to Abraham and the Old Testament saints, a logical person ought to see that the fate of the heathen in the Old Testament is entirely dependent on God's direct revelation.
Actually, the first group considered that see the gospel as the "necessary" means of God, are forced to concede that God can directly reveal Himself, but insist that God has done this only on a minor scale. In what sense is it "minor". By population? How would a person begin to pronounce on this in ignorance of the full scale in which it may have been done?
What does this mean for the heathen people before the gospel era? Any answer is some degree of speculation. Everyone concedes that God has revealed Himself directly to pagan people before the gospel era. The Bible is not clear on the scale of such pre-gospel revelation, but does intimate it, even if one considered the case of Abraham alone. God spoke directly to Abimelech in a dream, instructing him that Abraham was a prophet of God and to let him go (Gen. 20:6).
It is ridiculous to conclude with certainty that all the pagan peoples before the gospel era were damned, as Abraham himself is an obvious counter-example.
What I would like to consider now, is Ezekiel's Valley of the Dry Bones. Brother Garrett is fond of considering this example to prove that God uses means in quickening. However, I want to observe that it was not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that Ezekiel spoke to the bones in this example. The words Ezekiel spoke are not up for debate, as Ezekiel 37:4-6 tell the reader what was spoken.
So the pertinent question becomes, how does Garrett even know that the spoken words of Ezekiel were used by God as a means? He doesn't know it, he begs the question. This example only shows his presiding assumption.
There is absolutely no indication that the actual words of Ezekiel served as the medium by which the bones were quickened. There is just as much basis in the text to argue that the quickening power of God coincided with Ezekiel's words, as that they employed his words.
In fact, there is every rational reason to deduce that they could not have been "instrumental". "Instrumentality" is a laughable concept in this example, really. "Instrumental" to what rational end, pray tell? I would like the reader to make special note that even a "medium" of nature that is employed by the supernatural might as well be an immediate, supernatural act when the dead are the object of this miracle.
Garrett may object, but Ezekiel was commanded to tell them to "hear". Does this mean Jesus was redundant when he said, "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear"? If the ears of natural men can spiritually hear, then Jesus obviously misspoke.
If God is a God that works by natural means, have we not laid the groundwork for Deism? How can Christians defend the truly miraculous and providential - that which occurs by the power of God alone, if such a proclivity in the Divine is accepted?
I doubt Garrett recognizes how dangerous this doctrine is, and that he has laid the ax at the root of the tree of the lifeblood of Christianity.
No comments:
Post a Comment