I was a panel member at the Free Grace Alliance National Conference today on the subject of the death and resurrection of Jesus in relation to the gospel.
But before I write about that, let me write about a different panel which I attended. This other panel was on the issues of assurance, eternal security, and justification.
Assurance, Eternal Security, and Justification
The panel which I only attended was related to the issues of assurance, eternal security, and justification. The basic question was “Does a person have to know that what they get from Jesus can never be lost in order to receive it?”
Of the three panelists, I heard one, Tim Nichols, give a clear answer “Yes” and the other two were a little more evasive. This was not really their fault since many of the questions from the audience were not really on topic. Some questions were related to the death and resurrection of Jesus, or the deity of Jesus, and other things.
The last question, however, was very revealing. It was “If you are witnessing to an unsaved person, and you want to tell them how to be saved, what would you say?”
1. Dave Anderson answered first with two words: “Free Grace.” I’m not sure what he meant by that. I doubt the person he was evangelizing would understand it either.
2. George Meisinger said that he tells as much of the gospel as he can to the person in the time he has. If it’s on an airplane, he is able to tell them lots more than if he is sharing with someone on their deathbed.
3. Tim Nichols answered similarly to George Meisinger, but emphasized that the message we share with unbelievers must come from the Gospel of John.
All in all, it was a great conference session.
Death and Resurrection of Jesus and the Gospel
The second panel discussion I attended was the one in which I was a participant. It concerned whether a person had to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus in order to be born again. The following are terribly poor summaries of the views presented:
(Note that due to comments for clarification, edits have been made to what was originally written. These are the crossed out sections below.)
1. Ken Wilson said, “Yes. We don’t believe in Jesus for everlasting life, but we have to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who takes away our sins.” I’m not sure who in Christendom (including Catholics) doesn’t believe this, but maybe I misunderstood him.
2. Tim Nichols argued that since nobody would ever dream of not presenting the death and resurrection, the question doesn’t really matter. This is true. Sometimes, Satan’s greatest ploy is to get us talking about theology rather than living out the theology we do know.
3. Larry Moyer said, “Yes, because the death and resurrection is central to the Gospel, and we must always share the Gospel when telling people about Jesus.”
4. Tom Stegall argued similarly to Larry Moyer, but more emphatically.
5. I certainly do believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus are central to the Gospel, and that without the death and resurrection of Jesus, there is no Gospel. All the truths of the Gospel (of which there are dozens-if not hundreds) are for the purpose of getting a person to believe in Jesus and so receive everlasting life. So I always present the death and resurrection of Jesus when I witness to people. So I argued similarly to Tim Nichols–that it’s a moot point.
Some did Believe in Jesus, but not in His Death and Resurrection
However, I did point out that we do have examples of people in Scripture who believed in Jesus and received everlasting life, but did not know about the death and resurrection of Jesus, and even when presented with these truths, did not believe them (cf. Matt 16:31-32; Mark 9:31-32; Luke 9:44-45; 18:31-34; 24:19-26; John 20:9, 24-30). There may be some examples from Acts and the Epistles as well, but it’s almost 2 am, and I’m tired. But just one example: One reason Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 is to persuade and convince the Corinthian believers about the resurrection of Jesus. It sounds like some of them had believed in the resurrection, but had turned away from it, but there apparently were others who had heard about the resurrection, but denied it as fiction. Paul is correcting these believers in Corinth about this.
So apparently, there are people who believe in Jesus, and lots of correct things about Him, but don’t have all their theological ducks in a row, but who are still considered by Biblical authors to be regenerate. It is possible to believe many wrong things about Jesus, but still receiver eternal life by believing in Him for it. I think it is possible there are people in the same category today. I may have talked with one a few weeks ago, which I mentioned in a previous post.
Due to the number of panelists, and the limited time, only one question from the audience was asked, and that one had nothing to do with the questions that I had come up with which I hoped to receive answers to. So I still don’t know how Tom Stegall would answer those questions. I refuse to speculate how he might answer them, because if there is anything more dangerous that theological speculation, it is theological speculation about someone else’s theology.
Thanks for the update. Were these panel discussions taped? Thanks.
I was given permission to record the discussion, and did so. If the FGA is not selling the audio, I don’t think they won’t mind me posting it online. I haven’t listened to it yet for sound quality. If they are selling it, you can probably purchase it through them.
Jeremy, I don’t understand why you make comments like this in regards to 1Cor. 15:
“It sounds like some of them had believed in the resurrection, but had turned away from it, but there apparently were others who had heard about the resurrection, but denied it as fiction. Paul is correcting these believers in Corinth about this.”
“So apparently, there are people who believe in Jesus, and lots of correct things about Him, but don’t have all their theological ducks in a row, but who are still considered by Biblical authors to be regenerate.”
The reason I do not understand the pertinence of the first part of the comment about Corinthians “who turned away” is because nobody on the panel argued that a Christian needs to keep on believing the death and resurrection of Christ to stay saved (perseverance).
The second part of your comment about people who “denied it as fiction” is self-defeating because when you say “the resurrection”, if you are speaking about the context of 1Cor. 15 accurately, you mean “the resurrection of believers” which is part of the promise of eternal life (cf. John 11:25-26). Thus you are really saying, “It sounds like some of them had believed in the promise of eternal life, but turned away from it, but there apparently were those who heard about the promise of eternal life but denied it as fiction…but who are still considered…to be regenerate”.
Obviously you are not trying to say that because the second part of it would deny your position. But please remember the heresy in Corinth did not regard whether Jesus Christ rose from the dead but whether believers will be raised from the dead.
— Greg
Greg,
Yeah, I’m not sure what I was writing in that post either about the believers in Corinth. I guess that’s what I get for trying to write something at 2am.
Thanks for pointing it out. I will edit the post.
Jeremy,
I was saddened to learn that the excellent questions you proposed were not answered. Was there any engagement or discussion at all of the “crossless gospel”?
Hi Jeremy,
Like Greg, I am commenting regarding your thoughts on 1 Corinthians 15. I think Greg makes a good point that in context, Paul is responding to a false teaching that denied the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12, 15b-16). Obviously, according to Paul, the resurrection of Christ would be involved in this false teaching, because, as Paul argues, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen” (1 Cor. 15:13, 16). With this in mind, I would like to specifically comment on your following statement Jeremy, in which you state:
“One reason Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 is to persuade and convince the Corinthian believers about the resurrection of Jesus. It sounds like some of them had believed in the resurrection, but had turned away from it, but there apparently were others who had heard about the resurrection, but denied it as fiction. Paul is correcting these believers in Corinth about this.”
In light of 1 Corinthians 15:1,2, and 11, I can’t understand how you can say: “others . . . had heard about the resurrection, but denied it as fiction. Paul is correcting these believers in Corinth about this.” Now what I mean is this: in the three verses listed above, the apostle Paul makes it clear that the Corinthian Christians he is addressing HAD “received” and “believed” his gospel message of Christ’s death and resurrection (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-4)! Thus, the Corinthian Christians are NOT an example of Christians who had never believed in Christ’s death or resurrection. More accurately, these Corinthian Christians were not “holding fast” to what they had initially believed (cf. 1 Cor. 15:2), and this was affecting their ongoing sanctification (their present tense salvation refered to in 1 Cor. 15:2a).
Hi Jonathan. Jeremy already crossed those comments on 1 Corinthians 15 out on the post. If you read his comment to Greg above yours, Jeremy acknowledged that it was late in the evening when he wrote it.
Ok, thanks Danny. I’m sorry for not realizing that. I mistakenly thought that was supposed to be underlining that was off a bit!
And by the way, thanks Jeremy for the first-hand report on the FGA conference.
Hi Jonathan,
I thought about just deleting the section I corrected, but read somewhere that when going back to edit a blog post, you shouldn’t delete anything, but cross it out and fix it so that people can see what was changed.
LOL Jonathan! Underlining that was off a bit! 🙂 Yes, I think you, me, and Jeremy all agree that the Corinthians’ not holding fast to the Resurrection that they initially believed was affecting their ongoing sanctification salvation.
What’s up Jeremy. I wanted to ask you, is there any real difference between the Hodges/Bryant tracts “You Can Be Eternally Secure” and “The Best News You’ll Ever Hear”?
Danny,
Yes, the two are very different. I prefer to yellow, smaller one since it is more concise and explains such things as sin, the death of Jesus, and why works are important after one receives eternal life.
Are you on the GES mailing list? If so, you should have received a free sample tract in the most recent mailing.
“You Can Be Eternally Secure” is kind of for “evangelizing” those who already think they are “Christians” while the “The Best News” is more for people who do not really think of themselves as Christians.
Hi all,
Ken Wilson requested that I make a minor adjustment to the way I summarized his position on the panel. I had stated that he anwered the panel discussion in the affirmative. You will notice above that I crossed out the word “Yes.”
He wanted to make sure I knew that he did not in fact say that. His view is that one must believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is, our sin bearer, the one who takes away our sin. He unofficially is undecided about whether a person has to know how Jesus is the sin bearer.
So, it appears that of the five people on the panel, only Tom Stegall answered the panel question with an unqualified “Yes.”
Jeremy,
Was there any other meeting after the panel with Tom or others from Duluth?
Jim
Jim,
I talked real briefly, for about one minute, with Tom and a few others from his circle of supporters after the panel. I thanked Tom for the articles he has written, and requested he stop using the term “crossless gospel” since it is a misnomer and seems to be intently pejorative. He said he would consider it, and asked that we stop using the term “Duluthian antagonists.”
That was it. I know there was a rumor flying about that they met with me for hours afterwards to “read the Scriptures to me,” but that did not happen, nor was I invited to join with them for further discussion.
Keep up the good work on your blog and some of the others you are commenting on. You are making good points, and people seem to prefer to attack you personally rather than deal with your points.
Were there any ladies on the panel?Also I’v been reading lots of deconversion stories and would like to hear your thoughts on this topic Jeremy.
No, no ladies. It was part of a group who didn’t believe ladies should be teaching men. At the time, I held a similar position. But no longer.