"But let us notice the problems with this view.
Problems with this view
1) It is not supported by Scripture
2) It is not supported by the London Confession
3) It makes apostles of all the saints
4) It makes Gospel preaching unnecessary
5) It makes Paul's teaching in Romans 10 false"
Brother Garrett summarizes his objections to the view of the effectual call he ascribes to Sylvester Hassell, David Pyles, and myself.
I want to point out first, that his criticism of this view of the effectual call is inchoate because this view is nothing more than he himself believes that the efficient power of regeneration is by the Spirit alone. His true divergence from this view is his insistence that the power of the Spirit only works by the gospel as preached by man.
However, it is clear that the Scripture presents the effectual call by the spirit as a call that may be separate from the gospel as preached by man in John 3:3-8, and that the LCF plainly grants this by using this passage as a proof text of effectual calling apart from the gospel as preached by man in the footnote to section 3 of Chapter 10 of the LCF. So, his points (1) and (2) above are clearly and incontrovertibly false.
Next, point (3) is fundamentally false because the requirement of Apostleship was that the Apostle must have physically seen Christ. This point confuses a spiritual perception of the person of Christ by the Spirit with a physical perception of Christ by the physical senses, which does not qualify the general saints as Apostles.
Besides this fundamental difference, Brother Garrett is unclear in objecting to this view because he himself must believe that unless Jesus by the Spirit resurrects man to new life, the good news as delivered by man would fall on the natural ears of men and not spiritual ears. Brother Garrett seems to be blind to the implications of Jesus' statement that only those with spiritual ears can hear, and only those who have been previously taught by the Father can embrace the gospel (John 6:45). How can this text be understood if hearing the gospel, even as preached by Jesus, was the basis of the effectual call? This text so clearly establishes that belief and faith in the gospel are evidences, not the efficeint cause of spiritual life.
The central error of Garrett is not realizing that his objection to this view can only be sustained if he proves that the Bible and the LCF are incorrect that the effectual call may not be apart from the gospel as preached by man in N.T. times.
Points (4) and (5) above have been overthrown in part one. The first half of part one debunks the facile claim of (4), and (5) is overthrown in my analysis of Romans 10:14-21 in the latter half, in which it is observed that Brother Garrett's appeal to Romans 10:14 to establish the possible salvation of the truly unevangelized is opposite the point of Paul in this passage. The Gentiles are not damned because they are unevangelized but shown to be damned because they reject the gospel and truth of God from nature. The Jews are not damned because they do not believe Paul's gospel, but they do not believe Paul's gospel because they are damned (Romans 10:16, 19, and 21). This is the central point, which shows by logical consequence that the gospel as preached by Paul revealed life and damnation; revelation of the purpose of God to life in those clothed in the righteousness of God in the purpose of God before the world was (Romans 1:17).
Also, Brother Garrett seems to take this view to exclude the idea that Christ reveals Himself spiritually through the gospel or with the gospel. This does not follow. Therefore, objecting to this view on the basis of many texts that speak of the work of the Spirit with or through the gospel as preached by man does not successfully refute the idea that Christ may be revealed apart from the gospel, as in John 3:3-8, and even if the texts did prove that, they would render the Bible contradictory on John 3:3-8.
This view simply insists that Christ may not only be revealed through the gospel as preached by man, which is in keeping with the LCF, Gill, and, plainly, the Scripture from John 3:3-8. It does not argue that Christ may not reveal Himself through the gospel, of course, as many of the texts Brother Garrett references establish.
Therefore when Garrett stated,
"These verses affirm that preachers preach the Gospel "with the Holy Ghost," and thus with the power of God, and this is sufficient to reveal Christ."
he does not successfully refute the Primitive Baptist position, which is that the Holy Ghost alone is the sufficient condition for revealing Christ, though this may and often does occur with the gospel, especially in the N.T. era, as in Acts 13:48. The gospel is not the efficient cause of revealing Christ; only the Spirit can do this - therefore, it is only proper to refer to the Spirit as the sufficient condition for regeneration as demonstrated by John 3:3-8. Now, the real question is, how can Brother Garrett claim this cannot occur apart from the gospel as preached by man when John Gill and the LCF plainly allowed that it not only can occur but does (albeit extraordinarily)?
Brother Garrett quotes Bob Ross:
"Brother Bob Ross, in his book "The History and Heresies of Hardshellism," wrote the following in chapter six:
Is the Word Spoken by Christ More Powerful Than
Other Inspired Revelation?
According to various Hardshell sources, the new birth (regeneration) is performed by the direct Word of Christ, spoken to the "dead alien sinner;" allegedly, there is power in that Word, but there is no such power in, with, through, or by the Written Word or preached Word, according to this view."
Bob Ross, and Brother Garrett, seem to misunderstand that the "word" "spoken" by Christ is other than an expression of the Spirit's work in regeneration, whether it is the Spirit's efficient work in contexts where the gospel is preached, immediately converting and delivering the reborn, as in James 1:18 (the early disciples were expressly born again unto gospel truth that they might be a firstfruit), or as the unmediated, effectual call of the infant or the mentally incompetent, per John 3:3-8. It is not spoken, physical language as men might communicate, but simply an effectual, resurrecting power enacted on those called from spiritual death. The life caused immediately exercises trust in the person of Christ they perceive by the spirit (1 Cor. 2:9,10), and immediately embraces whatever degree of mediated gospel truth that may be attendant to this call that is absolutely fundamental to the gospel and the spiritual perception of His person, such as 2 John 1:7 (as well as truths that this truth presupposes and makes significant, such as the state of condemnation, the Holiness of God, etc.).
More N.T. knowledge than this is not intrinsically salvific in terms of the effectual call (not that more than this is not salvific in terms of growing in grace). The most basic knowledge that all the elect have at regeneration as seen in John 17:3, is the intimate, personal, and fully spiritual knowledge/experience of the person of Christ, as a man may "know" his wife in a sexual sense, as the Song of Solomon focuses on this intimacy between Christ and the elect.
So it is clear that Bob Ross falsely views the idea of the "direct speaking" of Christ as a quickening separate from the quickening of the Spirit he even acknowledges in regeneration. Bob Ross seems to also falsely depict this view in that the effectual call may not be "with" the gospel as preached by man. No Primitive Baptist argues that God may not effectually call the elect under the sound of the gospel, they argue (1) that God also effectually calls apart from the gospel as preached by man as in John 3:3-8, and (2) that even when God effectually calls his children under the sound of the gospel, it is obviously the Spirit alone that can possibly cause spiritual life in that first instant of life from the dead.
Again, as I have often stated, Ross and Garrett assert an "instrumentality" to the gospel in the effectual call that can only pertain to the faith and repentance that are the results of the work of the Spirit. Given that they do not deny that only the Spirit is instrumental to spiritual life, it is a misnomer to refer to the gospel as "instrumental" to the spiritual life that is caused by Spirit alone.
What they appear to do is insist on an absolute, outward standard of faith and repentance that are consequent to regeneration that is indefensible in view of elect infants, Matt. 21:16, David's trust in God upon his mother's breast, John 3:3-8, or Peter's denial of Christ.
One other thing, it is ridiculous to use Sarrels as representative of the Primitive Baptists. Primitive Baptist orthodoxy is shown by the Fulton Confession.
Brother Garrett quoted Bob Ross:
"The position of the Baptists who wrote the London Confession of 1644 [articles 14, 15] and the London Confession of 1689 [articles 10, 14] is rejected by the Hardshells, as both of those Confessions conjoin the Gospel, or Word, and the Spirit, creating the immediate, simultaneous repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ by the sinner."
Bob Ross shows his bias here. The LCF only conjoins the Spirit and Word in the "ordinary" method of God's effectual call. It is clear he dishonestly omits that the Confession clearly supports in section 3 of chapter 10 the view that God effectually calls his elect apart from the gospel as preached by man, even in New Testament times. Their scriptural support is cited as John 3:3-8, which destroys Ross' claims.
Also, Ross is guilty of misrepresenting orthodox Primitive Baptist views of the LCF, as seen by the Fulton footnotes. Orthodox Primitive Baptists did not object to the LCF conjoining Word and Spirit, save in clarifying that the Spirit alone is the cause of spiritual life, and faith and repentance the Spirit's effect of this life, which is the view of Garrett and Ross and the emphasis of the confession itself in chapter 10, section 2 (which the Fulton brethren made plain as the basis of their clarification).
Brother Garrett quoted Bob Ross:
"This theory gives precedence of power to the spoken words of Christ, which He supposedly speaks directly to the individual. Notice that the "speaking," according to Beebe, PRECEDES the "hearing" and the "life." This would mean that Christ speaks to the "dead alien sinner" BEFORE the sinner is "alive." Therefore, the Word of Christ is addressed to the "dead," yet the Hardshells object to the Baptist position that the Gospel, or Word, is to be preached to the "dead," and is accompanied by the Holy Spirit in pursuance of God's sovereign purpose in effectual calling."
Primitive Baptists do not object to preaching to the dead, as they all plainly grant that they may, for all they know, preach to the spiritually dead. No one knows certainly who has or has not been effectually called. Some Primitive Baptists over the past century have opposed preaching the gospel on an inchoate basis. What they meant to say is that they did not preach the gospel from the basis that unless they did preach, men would be certainly damned as a consequence, as who could know that of a certainty?
No Primitive Baptist minister has ever denied that they have a duty to preach the gospel wherever they felt that God had impressed them to preach on the basis of God's command to them alone.
No Primitive Baptist would deny that it is possible that God has effectually called men under the sound of their preaching, according to the sovereign pleasure of God. Primitive Baptists are not logically opposed to preaching to the dead because they do not know who is spiritually dead.
What they mean to say, and have said in the past century by God-called ministers like Sonny Pyles in his sermon I noted last month, "To Whom Do We Preach and Where", is that gospel ministers ought to appeal to the spiritual inner man wherever they preach, even among the dead. Preaching cannot be addressed to the inveterate, natural man because the carnal mind is enmity against God (Romans 8:7), and the things of the gospel are spiritually discerned. The Primitive Baptists have only meant to say what Christ said, "He that hath an ear, let him hear."
Brother Garrett quoted Bob Ross:
"According to the Scriptures, Jesus preached the Gospel (Luke 4:16-21). Is the Gospel a part of the "WORDS" spoken by Christ which are "SPIRIT" and "LIFE"? Is this not the SAME Gospel that was preached by Peter, Paul, and the Apostles -- the "Words" of Christ which are "SPIRIT" and "LIFE"? Is not this SAME Gospel recorded in the Scriptures by the INSPIRATION of the Holy Spirit? Is not this Gospel "the WORD that goeth forth out of My mouth" (Isa. 55:11)? Is this Word void of spirit and life in its SPIRIT-INSPIRED WRITTEN FORM?"
The resurrecting power of Christ was obviously not directed to all those to whom Christ preached. Christ preached to many who he had no intention of quickening, manifestly. So what is Ross' point? The quickening power of Christ was only directed to those he intended to quicken, which was plainly discrete from those to whom he generally preached. When Christ did quicken, he did so by the power of the Spirit, the words were not instrumental to the power of the spirit, even as the power of the spirit was not mediated by spoken language in the healing of Jairus' daughter and many other miracles that Christ performed.
Besides all this, it is not the Primitive Baptist view that God does not effectually call under the sound of the gospel. The PB view is that the effectual call is by the Spirit alone in terms of the cause of spiritual life, whether the gospel is present or not, as it can plainly be absent according to John 3:3-8.
Brother Garrett quoted Bob Ross:
"Bob wrote:
"Hardshells are very "short" of any knowledge of what the Lord spoke to them, where He spoke it, and when He spoke it."
This is a silly jab, as there are plenty of people across all Christian denominations that cannot point to a specific point and time when they first believed in Jesus, having always believed in him, which lends credibility to the PB view rather than the farcical view of Bob Ross that such folks could only have been regenerated when they were emboldened by the Spirit to kneel before the front altar in open confession.
All Bob Ross succeeded in doing is overthrowing a straw man of the Primitive Baptist view of the effectual call, or, possibly, some aberrant views of so-called Primitive Baptists of the last century, like Sarrels. He did not even seem to understand the historic position, much less "overthrow" it. Christ's "speaking" and the work of the Spirit are synonymous concepts; both refer to the resurrecting power of God, which may occur with the gospel, or, as in John 3:3-8, apart from it.
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