—— Part #3 ——
By: General James Green
Christian Epistemology
SCRIPTURALISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY GO TOGETHER, the former is a world and life view, the latter is the Theory of Knowledge—how we know God, His Word, His morality etc.. To have a skewed view of God/His Word/His Work/His Will, leads into heresies. Scripture, not feelings, is the epistemological foundation for a true theory of knowledge; if we don’t believe that God’s Word is inspired or infallible, we build upon a false foundation. This is what is transpiring these days—men disputing what God’s Word says about the condition of the lost and what will happen to them in the end.
When men start doubting that God’s inspired Word speaks of eternal punishment, they naturally search for alternatives, therefore they come up with universalism and annihilationism.
Scripturalism is a world and life view. A world view is a set of beliefs about the various issues of life. One’s world view will determine how one views the entirety of life, decisions made etc.. All world views have presuppositions which govern their system of belief; these presuppositions function as axioms from which all decisions are deduced. Scripturalism is the system of belief in which God’s Holy Word is foundational (the Rock) in the entirety of one’s philosophical and theological dealings (“Scripturalism” was coined by Prof. J.W. Robbins in 1993). I use this word to make my point—we must have God’s Word and Spirit to lead and guide us in this world, to make the right decisions. We cannot do as these Emergent church backsliders do—mix or combine “Christian” and “secular” notions (see 2 Cor. 10:5). This is how belief in and fear of Hell-fire has been lost. “Christians” are too busy seeing/feeling the way the world sees and feels, not according to God or His Word.
If we lose sight of 2 Timothy 3:16, 17, our world view/hereafter view will be clouded. The Bible is all-sufficient, but prideful and rebellious religionists want to mix the wisdom of the Bible with the “wisdom” of the world. Why do we allow ourselves to be duped/fooled by the wisdom of this world—it is foolishness when dealing in spiritual matters. Prov. 22:17-21 tells us that in Scripture alone do we find the certainty of Truth.
A Christian epistemology does not bring its approach to theology with “is there a God?,” but with “there is a God!” We begin with revelation, not doubt. Many assume what ought to be proved—but who can prove there is or is not God? We believe. I don’t have to prove to anyone that there is a God and the Bible is true—I believe. No one had to prove God to me in order for me to get saved—I believed. The Word of God does not go about begging for its evidence—it is.
Further, in Christian epistemology, there is no dichotomy between revelation and logic—they are. The Christian view of epistemology has its root in the Logos/Word doctrine. Dr. Gary Crampton writes, “According to the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ is the cosmological Logos (Jn. 1:1-3), the epistemological Logos (Jn. 1:9, 14), and the soteriological Logos (Jn. 1:4, 12-13; 14:6). He is the Creator of the world, the SOURCE (remember this word?) of all human knowledge, and the giver of solutions. As to the epistemological Logos, Christ is the ‘true light which enlightens every man coming into the world’ (Jn. 1:9). Apart from the Logos, the ‘inward teacher,’ knowledge would not be possible.” (The Trinity Review, 2011).
Live and Move
ACTS 17:28 IS WORTH NOTING: “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” So, our life comes from God, He is the SOURCE of all life and the SOURCE of ALL Truth and when men turn from Him, they turn from life and truth. We are “image-bearers” of God—God is immortal/eternal; the principles of reason (logic) and knowledge are innately given by God to man thru the Logos. But, as Romans one explains, that “the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the Truth in unrighteousness” (v. 18). This is what these folks have done who dispute Hellfire/punishment. Verse 19 says that “God hath shown it (truth) unto them.” Read the whole context vv. 18-32.
Acts 17:28 echoes a line in a poem attributed (rightly or wrongly), to Epimenides, the semi-mythical Cretan. No matter, truth is truth—in and by God, all men live, and move, and have their being. God is the very SOURCE of our existence; the principle of life “Zoe” comes from Him: the principle of motion, also, comes from Him; on a STRONG PROOF of the CONTINUAL presence and energy of the Deity. God is present by creation even in the sinner.
We are; i.e., we continue to be, because of His continued, present, all-pervading, and supporting energy—without soul/spirit the body does not live/move. Paul said, “as certain also of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring’” (v. 28b). Was Paul referring to Aratus, who wrote Phaenomena, or Cleanthus, in whose “Hymn to Jupiter” the same words occur. Paul was acquainted with these poets and their poems.
In verse 29 Paul writes, “…we are the offspring of God,” meaning God cannot be like those images of gold/silver/stone, formed by men’s hands—the parent must resemble the offspring.
We see in verse 30, that God commands ALL men everywhere to repent of their idolatry, which disgraces the only immortal God and debases man. The Greeks had plenty of gods/goddesses they worshiped; Paul found the altar with the inscription, “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD,” whom the Athenians worshiped also (did they know that THAT GOD was the GOD of the Jews, unknown to them in a sense?)
Going on to verse 31, Paul stresses that God has “appointed a day, in the which He will Judge the world in righteousness,” not according to how men perceive God to be—ALL LOVE!!—but by God’s eternal justice.
We can be assured that Jesus Christ will judge ALL men justly—menwill reap what they have sown, and they will be judged for what they have done (and not done) as Rev. 20:12 supports.
This Biblical Truth enrages the “love wins out” group and the “all will be annihilated” group—they feel that God would be unjust to inflict eternal punishment on anyone. Did Lot’s wife deserve to become a pillar of salt for one glance back at Sodom? Yes! God warned them not to (see Gen. 19:26). Wow! The death penalty for one glance! Did Nadab and Abihu deserve to die for faulty worship (Num. 3:4; Lev. 10:1, 2)? Yes! Did Achan and his family deserve to die for thievery (only Achan stole; Josh. 7:24, 25)? Yes! And what about Uzzah dying because he steadied the Ark of God—a seemingly noble thing (see 2 Sam. 6:6, 7). And what about Ananias and Sapphira, in the N.T., who died for keeping back part of what was theirs (see Acts 5:1-10)? The Bible and history are replete with God’s acts of justice. So, why are men offended by God’s capital punishment on whole nations (e.g. Israel for one!)? Where is God’s love in all this?
Either we accept the Bible as it is or we go about changing it—as many are doing today. But they will not escape God’s justice either.
Who would ever have believed that the whole human race was brought to “ruin” by ONE act of disobedience? Yet it is so (Read Genesis 3). Both Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s prohibition—God did WARN them, didn’t He? Yes! Gen. 2:17; “You must not eat from the tree…for when you eat of it, YOU WILL SURELY DIE.” Did they die that very day of disobedience? Yes and no. Yes, they died a covenant death; no, they lived several hundred years afterwards…and died physically.
Can a Christian die a covenant death? YES!This old LIE, “Once saved, always saved,” flies in the face of God’s justice. Jesus likens our salvation to a marriage, when adultery (spiritual) is committed, the vow/covenant is broken, hence, He has every right to divorce us—and He will if we insist and persist in sinning (as today’s church is SO GUILTY OF!!).
SIN
SIN IS AN ATTACK on the infinitely Holy God. He, therefore, justly sets penalties for sin in this world and the one to come.
Dr. John Stott has said, “The eternal existence of the impenitent in Hell would be hard to reconcile with the promises of God’s final victory over evil, or with the apparently universalistic texts…these texts…lead me to ask how can God in any meaningful sense be called ‘everything to everybody’ (1 Cor. 15:28) while an unspecified number of people still continue in rebellion against Him and under His judgment” (Evangelical Essentials, p. 319).
This is Stott’s argument for annihilation which is based on supposed universalist passages.
Let me answer, Stott. God’s promises of “final victory over evil” are CONDITIONAL, not UN-CONDITIONAL (see our trilogy on “once saved, always saved?”). Those “unconditional” promises are not found in your, or my, Bible.
The truth is, dear ones, appealing to those “universalist texts” and “Annihilationists texts” is futile—they DO NOT EXIST! The Bible clearly teaches the final destination of the wicked: “The fiery lake of burning sulfur” (Rev. 21:8). It is evident that God does not view the wicked being eternally alive in the Lake of Fire as incompatible with His being “all in all.”
God’s ultimate victory does not include ALL being saved, nor the wicked becoming extinct. Rev. 22 speaks of both joy for the redeemed and the misery of the wicked, being CUT OFF from the joy of eternal fellowship with God. Rev. 21:4 refers not to BLOTTING OUT of the wicked, but to the Conditional Immortality?
BEFORE I FORGET, some within the Emergent Camp also adhere to reincarnation, Dojo (a Japanese term meaning “place of the Way”) and many other cult/occult concepts, check it out.
Now, what is conditional immortality? The late Clark Pinnock sums it up this way (he saw it as a crucial issue): “This is clearly an important issue in our discussion because belief in the natural immortality of the soul which is so widely held by Christians, although stemming more from Plato than the Bible, really drives the traditional doctrine of Hell more than exegesis.” Thanks Clark, but Biblical exegesis is the foundational teaching/belief in Hell-fire punishment theology!
Clark continues: “Consider the logic: if souls must live forever because they are naturally immortal, the lake of fire must be their home forever and cannot be their destruction…I am convinced that Hellenistic belief in the immortality of the soul has done more than anything else (specifically more than the Bible) to give credibility to the doctrine of everlasting conscious punishment of the wicked” (The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent, p. 252). Well, so far, Pinnock offers NO conclusive proof otherwise—we’re all waiting to have proof of annihilation.
It is really stupid and ludicrous to argue that we who believe about eternal torment only believe so because we were/are influenced by Platonic philosophy. I rarely read his writing although he wasn’t so far off on a lot of things. It is God ALONE/ONLY who grants immortality.
“Conditional immortality” is the belief that some have it and others do not. Conditional immortality is another term for annihilation.
When we use the term, “immortality of the soul” to describe our final destiny—this does not mean a disembodied spiritual life, but a holistic/whole resurrected one on the new earth—body-soul-spirit.
Actually, annihilationism causes unrepentant sinners to underestimate their fate; universalism causes the sinner to have a false hope for the future.
Why do we find in the book of Matthew 4 texts referring to the day of judgment, if such isn’t going to happen? “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” can be done only by people who exist!!
end of death, sorrow, etc. for the redeemed. Death and Hell being cast into the Lake of Fire does not signify the obliteration of the wicked, but the end of the power of the first death over humans.
God is “all in all” insomuch as He reigns over both the saint and sinner.
Our Commission
MATT. 28:19, 20 IS OUR COMMISSION for missions: “Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you…” Part of that teaching is on Hell-fire/punishment for the unrepentant.
Heretic Brian McLaren tells us otherwise in his heretical book “A Generous Orthodoxy.” Following is his quote: “I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (if not all?) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. This will be hard, you say, and I agree. But frankly, it’s not at all easy to be a follower of Jesus in many ‘Christian’ religious contexts, either” (p. 293).
Continuing this theme, what does Unity teach about sin and salvation, Heaven, and Hell? On the Unity website, we read, “Sin is our separation from God, the Good, in consciousness. Salvation is now—not something that occurs after death… Heaven and hell are states of consciousness, not geographical locations. We make our own Heaven or Hell here and now by our thoughts , words, deeds” (www.unityonline.org.).
McLaren states: “The church has been preoccupied with the question, ‘What happens to your soul after you die?’ As if the reason for Jesus coming can be summed up in, ‘Jesus is trying to help get more souls into Heaven, as opposed to Hell, after they die.’ …I don’t think that the entire message and life of Jesus can be boiled down to that bottom line” (from a PBS special on the Emerging church).
On Hell, Brian McLaren says, “For many Christians, their faith is primarily about what happens to people after they die. That distracts them from seeking justice and living in a compassionate way while we’re still alive in this life. We need to go back and take another look at Jesus’ teachings about Hell. For so many people, the conventional teaching about Hell makes God seem vicious. That’s not something we should let stand” (Beliefnet Interview Online).
Emergent leader, Brian McLaren, tells an audience in Nampa, Idaho, that the word “salvation” was actually about us humans saving the planet and that Jesus’ use of the phrase “the world” was actually referring to the earth and not to lost humanity. (McLaren clearly states the same on pages 65-66 of his book, “A Generous Orthodoxy.”)
Saving the planet? Look at this:
“Go then and save the planet, baptizing it into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching it to observe everything that I have commanded you…” (Matt. 28:19-20—Jesus???)
Is it any wonder that people are confused today?
I don’t really have to prove the existence of Hell (I can’t anyway), I merely bear witness of what God’s Word says about it.
I can easily see why God-hating atheists view the teaching of Hell as vicious and reprehensible, but for “Christians” to disbelieve and mock it IS DANGEROUS. Hell-fire teaching is not a TERROR TACTIC to prompt obedience (would be good if we could SCARE THE HELL out of people now!). HELL-FIRE TEACHING IS THE TRUTH!!!
Many people have personal aversions to the reality of Hell, but we can’t be silenced, for we are COMMANDED to teach it. Today’s backslid Church has fallen victim to empiricism—the idea that we can only believe in what our natural senses tell us is real. All this “Political Correctness” bull that has led to religious tolerance has “ruined” the church. America’s shift in values is another factor for NO Hell teaching—it isn’t NICE! Well, TO HELL WITH NICENESS!
Americans in general, and “Christians” specifically, have become preoccupied with the soft (i.e., “effeminate La-Las”) virtues of “love”, “tolerance”, “kindness” etc. Whatever happened to Hard Truth/Love? Gone bye-bye!
Another factor is the change from a (Biblical) morality emphasizing duty and obligation to a morality emphasizing individual rights and liberties. Christianity has become churchianity; churchianity has become Canaanized; hence, “unbelieving believers”.
In years gone by, pulpits that smelled of sulfur/brimstone have been replaced with those reeking of French whore perfumes. OH, FOR THE HELL-FIRE PREACHING TO RETURN!