Brother Garrett stated:
"Even Hardshells sing these songs, and yet, as we have seen from Jason Brown's rebuttal to my writings on God's rest, they must do so in contradiction to their stated beliefs. To Hardshells, entering Canaan's land is equated with entering a Hardshell church! They sing - "to Canaan's land I'm on my way, where the soul of man never dies," but they sing what they consider to be error!"
This is false. Primitive Baptists do not fully separate the temporal rest of Christians from the final eternal rest of heaven. The temporal rest is a foretaste of the eternal rest. Entering Canaan's land in time is not fully equated to the full eternal inheritance, but it is reflective of the "already" and "not yet" kingdom theology of Gerhardus Vos.
Brother Garrett stated:
"Certainly there is rest enjoyed by Christians even in the wilderness. They rest in the finished work of Christ. Their hearts and minds no longer toil in anxiety. They enjoy mental rest."
And this is the sense of "rest" that believers enjoy in Hebrews 4:3, as also asserted by John Gill.
Brother Garrett stated:
"In my last entry I cited A. T. Robertson who stated that the present tense of eiserxometa(do enter) is to be seen as an example of what is called in Greek emphatic futuristic present indicative. Jason Brown thought that this was not possible, though he gave no evidence to refute what Robertson said. Perhaps he knows more Greek than Robertson? Jason is apparently ignorant of the "futuristic present" as used in Scripture. So, let me enlighten him."
Sure I gave evidence. The fact is that "do enter" is not future, just as the belief of those that enter is not future. The "shall enter" that Paul quotes from the O.T. is future indicative, but not the "do enter". Even if it is conceded that the entering in is future, it could simply refer to the full eternal inheritance, not that there is not still a temporal entering, which is consistent with the full eternal entering.
All of the futuristic present examples Brother Garrett gave indicate a present intention or action that is integral to the future occurrence. It is in this sense that his effort to exegete the "rest" of God as fully future fails because it is integral to entering into the full eternal rest of God that true believers are depicted as already resting in the present. Those that truly believe are already resting, and it is those that will fully inherit the eternal rest that do truly believe and do truly rest, even in the present.
Brother Garrett stated:
"How does one determine the time of the present tense verb? Context! The context of Hebrews 3 & 4 show that the writer focuses upon a future entering of the land of rest, as I have shown. He exhorts his readers to strive to enter this rest, which would not be the case if they were already viewed as being in the rest."
Even if this is true, and I believe it is, the exhortation to enter into the eternal rest is in time. If there was not a sense that believers could enter into an earnest of this rest in time, the exhortation makes no sense. The whole point of the exhortation is that true believers can enjoy the eternal rest in time, and it is only by pressing into this rest in time that the joys of eternal rest can temporally be enjoyed (and the fear of falling short of it be overcome).
Brother Garrett stated:
"Further, it is an error of Jason Brown to attempt to make the entering a continual process or one of degrees. He says this in order to deal with the force of the future aspect of Paul's words about striving to enter. But, there are no degrees in this entering, as there is in sanctification. One is either in or he is out. He cannot be half in and half out. Just as the "ceasing" from toil is not progressive or linear, so neither is the "entering." If verse 3 is interpreted as affirming that believers have already entered the rest, it would make no sense to exhort them to enter. If Jason is already in my house, it would be foolish for me to exhort him to enter it."
There are no degrees in the entry to the final eternal rest. But the sense in which Christians should fear, lest any of them seem to come short of it (4:1), certainly admits of degrees; otherwise Paul would have been clear about what "seeming" evidences would entail such shortcoming. Any sin is such a shortcoming. The whole point of Paul in verse 3, and the whole context, is to question the quality of the presumed belief in his audience. Paul is not asserting that they are presently true believers, but that they must take care to ensure that they are true believers because only true believers enter the rest of God in any sense - in time or eternity.
Brother Garrett stated:
"Why is it that Jason Brown argues so intensely against the view that makes this entering to be Heaven? Is it not because he does not limit entrance into Heaven to only Gospel believers? Is it not because he rejects the idea that perseverance is necessary for being eternally saved?"
I do argue that the rest of God is ultimately eternal rest. But the sense in which Christians are exhorted to labor to enter it, presumes that true believers can enter a foretaste of this rest in time. So, even if I were to concede that the "do enter" of verse 3, referred to a future entering of all true believers into eternal rest, it would still prove that a foretaste of this rest can be enjoyed in time, and that it must be so enjoyed, if there is to be any rational hope of the full eternal rest of God.
Above all, Hebrews 4:3 does not exclude a temporal entering in by true believers in the present, either by implication or by word denotation, and it is to true belief that Paul is exhorting the Hebrews.
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