“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” (Mark 16:15–16, KJV 1900)
I generally do not have time to respond to every heresy on YouTube. However, when an heretical view is expressed at an allegedly Presbyterian church, I am compelled to offer at least a brief response. I recently came across this YouTube video of Dr. William Lane Craig, who was invited to speak on the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Grace Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Illinois. Grace Presbyterian Church is a member church of the Presbyterian Church in America. While I have many misgivings about Craig's views on the resurrection as well, today I will restrict my comments to his remarks about the salvation of those who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. During the question and answer session, a lady with Indian ethnicity asked the question about what happens to those who have never heard the Gospel? I am deducing that she has many relatives in India who have never heard of Jesus Christ and the Gospel; she obviously wants to know if they are automatically lost, since they have never heard of the saving grace of God in Christ. (Mark 16:16).
As a side note, the Evangelicals who support New Testament textual criticism argue that removing texts which are included in the traditional Textus Receptus Greek New Testament does not affect doctrine whatsoever. I disagree. To remove the longer ending of Mark 16:8-20 does affect doctrinal concerns because Mark 16:16 clearly says that those who do not believe will be condemned. The logical deduction from this proposition is not that those who have the light of nature will have another opportunity to be saved by the light they have or the information which they have; on the contrary, the text says that they are without excuse. God does not owe anyone salvation, nor do they have a right to it. If anyone is saved, it must be by the sheer grace and mercy of God. (Romans 9:11-21).
In contrast, Craig says:
Okay, the question here is, how does God judge people who have never heard the Gospel? And I think that the Bible indicates that God judges people on the basis of the information that they have. He judges them on the light that they have. Um, so that those who have never heard of Christ will not be judged on the basis of whether they have placed their faith in Christ--that would be manifestly unfair; they've never heard of Jesus. How would they place their faith in Him? Rather Paul says in Romans 1 and 2 that they will be judged on the basis of how they've responded to God's general revelation in nature and in conscience. Paul says in nature all men at any time in history, any place in the world, can know that there is an eternal and powerful deity, who has created the world. And in chapter 2 he says that God's moral law is written on the hearts of all people, even those who do not have the Old Testament law so that we do by nature what the law requires. We have an instinctual grasp of right and wrong; and so those who have never heard the Gospel will be judged on the basis of their response to God's general revelation in nature and conscience. Now that does not mean that someone can be saved apart from the work of Christ. What it would mean is that the benefits of Christ's death could be applied to someone with his his conscious knowledge of Christ. If he were to look out into the world and say, "I know there's a god has created all this," looking at his own heart and say, "I don't live up to the demands of God's moral law," and he flings himself on the mercy of this God, asking for forgiveness, and pleading for mercy and grace, uh, that person would be saved by grace through the blood of Christ, even if he had no knowledge of Christ. He would be like people of the Old Testament who had no conscious knowledge of Christ at all, but they responded to the light that they had and were judged by their response to that light. Now this raises all sorts of questions. Are there any people like this?
(Minute mark: 0:29-3:01).
This is one of the problems of inviting an Arminian or a Molinist to speak at a Reformed church on a different topic, namely the resurrection of Jesus. It opens up an opportunity for the divisive person to spread other misinformation about the Bible in the congregation.
However, there are several problems with Craig's interpretation of Romans 1-2. There are problems with his understanding of how salvation is effected by God's grace during the history prior to the coming of Christ and the revelation of the Old Testament.
My first response to his conjectures on Romans 1-2 is that Paul was writing to the churches in Rome; it was a pastoral epistle meant to deal with theological questions raised by Jewish and Gentile converts. Apparently, there was a debate between the two factions about matters of Jewish law and moral law as well as epistemological issues in regards to saving belief. Paul clearly says that natural revelation is not sufficient for saving faith in Romans 1:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” (Romans 1:18–21, KJV 1900)
The Bible does say that the wicked will be judged by the light or knowledge that they have. But this is in regards to degrees of punishment, not about their possibility of being saved apart from the Gospel message:
“And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” (Luke 12:47–48, KJV 1900)
If it were possible for anyone to be saved apart from the Gospel message, why did Jesus send out the apostles to evangelize the whole region around them? (Luke 10:1-17; Isaiah 52:10; Luke 24:47; Acts 2:39; Matthew 24:14.) In short, it would not be necessary to send out missionaries to unreached nations and people groups on the earth today if it were possible for individuals to be saved apart from the saving knowledge revealed in the Scriptures through special revelation. We know nothing of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ apart from the Scriptures. There is no further revelation of Christ apart from the Scriptures, especially direct revelation:
Q. 60. Can they who have never heard the gospel, and so know not Jesus Christ, nor believe in him, be saved by their living according to the light of nature?
A. They who having never heard the gospel, know not Jesus Christ, and believe not in him, cannot be saved, be they ever so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, or the laws of that religion which they profess; neither is there salvation in any other, but in Christ alone, who is the Saviour only of his body the church.
Rom. 10:14; 2 Thess. 1:8-9; Eph. 2:12; John 1:10-12; John 8:24; Mark 16:16; 1 Cor. 1:20-24; John 4:22; Rom. 9:31-32; Phil. 3:4-9; Acts 4:12; Eph. 5:23. (Westminster Larger Catechism).
The Canons of Dort makes the same declaration in Canons III & IV, Rejection of Errors 5:
PARAGRAPH 5
Who teach: That the corrupt and natural man can so well use the common grace (by which they understand the light of nature), or the gifts still left him after the fall, that he can gradually gain by their good use a greater, that is, the evangelical or saving grace, and salvation itself; and that in this way God on His part shows Himself ready to reveal Christ unto all men, since He applies to all sufficiently and efficiently the means necessary to conversion.
For both the experience of all ages and the Scriptures testify that this is untrue. He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his ordinances, they have not known them (Ps. 147:19, 20). Who in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own way (Acts 14:16). And: And they (Paul and his companions) having been forbidden of the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not (Acts 16:6, 7).
As for Craig's accusation that God would be unfair if He did not grant everyone a "chance" to be saved, the obvious response is that the result would be universal salvation. Why accuse God of being unrighteous in damning anyone at all? After all, humans invent many excuses for the evil that they do. God does not owe anyone grace or mercy. If we have any rights at all, they must be rights granted to us by our Sovereign God, not rights that we could demand of Him. Secondly, since even faith is a gift of God, it is God who ultimately decides who will be saved or lost. Libertarian free will does not exist. Even the fall of Adam was foreordained by God, and the entire human race is fallen in Adam and accountable to God for their own sinful nature and their actual sins committed in thought, word and deed. No one deserves anything other than eternal judment and everlasting torment in hell. To suggest otherwise is to accuse God of unrighteousness, which is itself a rebellion against God. There are no contingencies in God's unchanging and eternally immutable mind. He foreknows the future because He decreed it to be so. Yet, God is not the author of man's sin. He is the remote cause of everything without being the direct cause of man's secondary choices.
Unfortunately, many Presbyterian denominations today, including the Presbyterian Church in America, and many local churches, do not believe the Bible has much to say about anything. Instead of standing on the Bible and the most definitive confession of faith ever produced, namely the Westminster Confession of Faith, they have a very minimal doctrinal statement posted on their websites. No need to get into too many details, they say. But Dr. Gordon H. Clark criticized this sort of minimalizing of biblical teaching:
The Protestant Reformation, the greatest religious awakening since the days of the Apostles, was characterized by a zeal to understand God's Word. Not only were its obvious teachings emphasized, e.g., the sufficiency of Christ's work for our salvation and the uselessness of purgatory and penance, but also its deeper doctrines, e.g., predestination, were carefully examined.
However, two or three centuries later, after the love of many had waxed cold, and when unbelief came in like a flood, the discouraged and fragmented faithful became Fundamentalists and were content to defend a few vital doctrines. Sometimes they even said that Christians ought not to go too deeply into the Scriptures. It is presumptious, [sic] useless, and worst of all, divisive.
Such an attitude is not recommended in the Scriptures themselves, nor was it the practice of the Reformers and Westminster divines. The Bible says that all the Scripture is profitable for doctrine, not just some. And the Reformers did not draw back from the difficult passages on predestination, foreordination, and God's eternal decrees. Really, these passages are not difficult to understand, though many people find them difficult to believe. But if they are God's words, then we should study, believe, and preach them.
The Westminster Confession, summarizing the Bible, asserts in Chapter III that God from all eternity did ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Obviously, if God is omnipotent, if nothing can thwart his will, and if he decided to make a world, then all his creatures and all their actions must be according to his plan.
This is easy to understand; but many people find it difficult to believe that God planned to have sin in the world. . . . What does the Bible say? If the Bible talks about foreordination, we have no right to avoid it and keep silent.
Summarizing the Scriptures, the Confession says here that God is not the author of sin; that is, God does nothing sinful. Even those Christians who are not Calvinists must admit that God in some sense is the cause of sin, for he is the ultimate cause of everything. But God does not commit the sinful act, nor does he approve or reward it.
Dr. Gordon H. Clark. What Do Presbyterians Believe? The Westminster Confession Yesterday and Today. 1965. (Trinity Foundation: Unicoi, 2001) pp. 36-37.
The short response to Dr. William Lane Craig is that Jesus died on the cross only for the elect, that only the elect have all their sins paid for by the work of Christ, and only the elect have the wrath of God against them propitiated. Only the Holy Spirit can regenerate a lost sinner and cause him or her to be born again. (John 3:3-8). It is only through the preaching of the Gospel that sinners are effectually called. (Romans 10:10-21).
In the Old Testament we learn that only those whom God had chosen were saved. God chose Abel over Cain. He chose Israel over the other nations; and only Israel was saved in the Old Testament. The other nations were all judged. (Deuteronomy 7:6-8; Exodus 19:5; Amos 3:2; 1 Peter 2:9).
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