Truth Magazine

By Mike Willis

The Scriptures are filled with statements demonstrating that one cannot be acceptable to God without faith. Here is but a brief sampling of them:

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Heb. 11:6).

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 (Mk. 16:15-16).

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life . . . . He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn. 3:16, 18).

These Scriptures are sufficient to demonstrate that one cannot be acceptable to God without saving faith. The unbeliever is condemned as a sinner before God; in order to be saved, his heart must be cleansed by faith (Acts 15:7).

Inasmuch as faith is so indispensable to one’s salvation, we raise the question, “How does one obtain faith?” A more important question cannot be imagined. It is tantamount to asking, “What must I do to be saved?” Though there are other things which a man must do to be saved in addition to having faith, no one can be saved from his sins without faith. Hence, we raise the question, “How does one obtain faith?”

The Calvinist Answer

The Calvinist answers the question somewhat differently than the Scriptures answer it. According to Calvinist theology, God has predetermined who will and who will not be saved. The former are known as the elect and the latter are known as the reprobate. This number, according to the Calvinist, is so fixed that it can neither be added to nor diminished. Furthermore, the choice as to whether one became a part of the elect or the reprobate was not made on the basis of anything which God saw in the man such as whether the elect were trying to live righteously and the reprobate wickedly. Rather, the choice was made arbitrarily on the basis of God’s sovereign will.

To the elect, God illumined the heart to give them faith. Hence, Calvin wrote as follows:

Here Paul calls faith “the work of God,” and instead of distinguishing it by an adjective, appropriately calls it “good pleasure.” Thus he denies that man himself initiates faith, and not satisfied with this, he adds that it is a manifestation of God’s power . . . . And God, to show forth his liberality more fully in such a glorious gift, does not bestow it upon all indiscriminately, but by a singular privilege gives it to those to whom he will (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, Chapter II, Section 36).

Notice that Calvin makes faith the work of God. Man does not have the ability to believe the word which is preached unto him until the Holy Spirit illumines his heart. According to the Calvinist, man is born totally depraved, unable to do anything good, being corrupted in all of his nature. Hence, he cannot even believe the gospel of Jesus Christ until the Holy Spirit illumines him. The preaching of the word of God by itself cannot produce faith, according to Calvin.

And this bare and external proof of the Word of God should have been amply sufficient to engender faith, did not our blindness and perversity prevent it. But our mind has such an inclination to vanity that it can never cleave fast to the truth of God; and it has such a dullness that it is always blind to the light of God’s truth. Accordingly, without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the word can do nothing (Ibid., Book III, Chapter II, Section 33).

Indeed, the Word of God is like the sun, shining upon all those to whom it is proclaimed, but with no effect among the blind. Now, all of us are blind by nature in this respect. Accordingly, it cannot penetrate into our minds unless the Spirit, as the inner teacher, through his illumination makes entry for it (Ibid., Book III, Chapter II, Section 34).

The consequences of this pernicious doctrine should be evident. If a man cannot exercise faith until the Holy Spirit illumines him to make him receptive to the word of God, man can do nothing in response to the gospel. Consequently, if a man has no faith, he has no faith because the Holy Spirit did not come to illumine his heart to give him faith. If the Holy Spirit did not come to illumine his heart to give him faith, He did not come because the Father had not selected that man as one of the elect. Hence, the man who is lost is lost because the Father willed that he be lost.

The Scriptures never taught such a damnable doctrine. The doctrine destroys any initiative in man to do the works of righteousness, to take the gospel into all the world, to pray, etc. This doctrine states that man can do nothing unless God has predetermined that he be among the elect. He cannot have faith unless God personally gives it to him. Hence, he cannot be saved because God does not want him to be saved. (Contrast this doctrine with the following verses: 2 Pet. 3:9; 1 Tim. 2:4; Jn. 3:16; Ezek. 18:21-23; 33:11.)

The mourner’s bench method of salvation stems from the Calvinist doctrine of salvation. The man is expected to go to the mourner’s bench and pray for God to send the Holy Spirit to illumine the mind that it might have faith. Hence, you find a man who already believes in God and the deity of Jesus Christ, has already repented of his sins, and is willingly submitting his life to God, praying for faith! The man cannot be saved, according to this doctrine, until he experiences some better felt than told sensation. If he does not experience it, he is not one of God’s elect.

What Saith The Scriptures?

Having explained the Calvinist answer regarding how one obtains faith, let us now contrast that with what the Scriptures teach us regarding how one obtains faith. Let us begin with Romans 10. In verse 13, Paul wrote, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Then, he explained how one is able to call upon the name of the Lord.

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? (v. 14).

The implications of this verse are as follows: (1) a man must hear the gospel preached in order to believe; (2) a man must believe in the Lord in order to call upon Him; (3) a man must call upon the Lord in order to be saved. Notice the implications of this verse for our question, “How does one obtain faith?” Faith comes through hearing the message preached. Hence, Paul concluded, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (v. 17).

That the presentation of the word of God is what produces faith is presented explicitly elsewhere in the Scriptures. It is also evident from a study of John 20:30-31. John wrote,

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that believing ye might have life through his name.

The presentation of the evidence in the gospels was understood by John to be sufficient to produce faith in the one that read them or heard them read. The faith which would be produced was saving faith.

The implications of the Great Commission also lead us to the same conclusion. Jesus said, “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” (Mk. 16:15-16). The preaching of the gospel was able to produce faith in the man who wanted to follow the Lord.

The book of Acts confirms the conclusion which I have reached. When Peter preached the first gospel message, his preaching pricked the hearts of the three thousand who obeyed the gospel (2:37). The Samaritans “believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ” (8:12); hence, his preaching produced faith in them. When Paul was in Iconium with Barnabas, “they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed” (14:1). Their speaking the word of God produced faith. As Peter discussed his preaching to the house of Cornelius, he said, “Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe” (15:7). Indeed, men were led to faith in Christ through the preaching of the word (cf. John 17:20).

Conclusion

Faith, my dear friend, comes through the presentation of the word of God. The man is not a man of faith who merely has a warm feeling toward God; faith is not warm sentiment toward God. Faith is the result of the presentation of the facts of the gospel. A man’s faith is proportionately as strong as his knowledge of the word of God. A man of faith is a man who believes the word of God and spends his time trying to do what it says.

You can be a man of faith. You will not have to live your life in doubt as to whether or not God wants you to be saved. He does want you to be saved; He proved that He loves you and wants you to be saved by sending His Son Jesus to die for your sins. The question is not whether or not God wants you to be saved but whether or not you want to be saved. Do you want to go to heaven when you die? Do you want to live forever with God and escape the fires of Hell? If so, turn to God, believing His word. Make up your mind to repent of your sins and live obedient to the word of God. Be baptized to have your sins washed away through the precious blood of Christ. God wants you to be saved; do you want to be saved?

Truth Magazine XXII: 29, pp. 467-469
July 27, 1978

By Dale Smelser

There is some good usable material in this book, and some that probably was included principally because it was part of a paper on a theme Dr. Arthur Custance wanted to include in this volume. His information comparing the argument from teleology to the inadequacy of chance is strong. There is argument compatible with the quoted statement of Nobel Laureate A. V. Hill concerning “innumerable examples” in nature of superb engineering, which invites acknowledgment of an Engineer. Custance also examines statements of evolutionists such as George Gaylord Simpson and, under the scrutiny of a fellow scientist, leaves evolution’s postulates looking bare indeed.

His chapter on “Growing Evidence of Creative Activity” is a worthy addition to material published by others, not simply a rehash of the Creation Research Society’s material. This is not to disparage that, but Custance does his own thinking. He is effective in dealing with evolutionary “dead ends,” showing that just where the evolutionist needs a bridge, he never finds it. New types always suddenly appear with 99 percent of their history missing. Custance observes and demonstrates that the evolutionist has a faith based on “things not seen.” He demonstrates the enormity of the evolutionist’s problem and shows why a few evolutionists such as R. B. Goldschmidt are moved to conclude that no intermediate forms ever existed or were required. “He (Goldschmidt) proposed for example, that on one occasion a reptile laid an egg and to mother’s enormous surprise, a bird hatched from it “

Custance deals with problems the evolutionist presents to the believer in creation also. He does not run away from problems. He sometimes speculates as to possible and plausible solutions. Scientific data is (are) presented. For instance, the extraordinary variability of the human form in history, which the evolutionists see as progression, Custance is able to explain environmentally and genetically, and as contemporaneous.

His material on convergence is provocative. Convergence involves the existence of forms with similar features because of similar need, and which look alike, but which are phylogenetically unrelated. This fact is inconsistent with evolution’s argument from comparative anatomy, which says that the similarity of a character in different species shows common ancestry. Custance argues that homologies (similarity of structure) are neither due to chance, need, nor descent, but to a built in-design factor. His range of information is impressive.

He then, upon the basis of convergence, demonstrates how human skulls may be found sharing characteristics with apes, and yet be unrelated to them. He details how habits of culture, especially when sharing a similar diet and eating habits with apes can, given the human skull’s plasticity, produce ape-like characteristics. Diagrams and pictures help make the point. He believes of course, that such skulls represent man in a degraded state, not that in which man began. He does not believe that skull shapes we consider crude are necessarily the ancestors of more “refined” shapes.

In his section on “Evolution: An Irrational Faith,” Custance’s tone changes. He has thus far been mild, challenging but restrained. Here he takes off the gloves and, mixing metaphors, drives nails in a coffin he has preassembled for evolution. Biblical critics who contend 2 Peter had a different author from Peter because of differences in vocabulary, temperament, and style, would doubt the same authorship for the previous material. But considering what he says, no one can suspect him of being irresponsible.

While he has some good material challenging the “survival of the fittest” as an explanation for the order of life, he makes, I believe, a weak argument in contending frequent survival of the unfit. Some of his examples undoubtedly would become extinct and some did. He does, though, effectively refute the concept that nature is in a struggle wherein creatures are “red in tooth and claw.” In dealing with such, some of this argument may seem to deal with aspects of evolution that the scientific layman would consider minor. But taken as a whole, he is tearing down cherished strongholds that have been dear in evolutionary rhetoric, minor or not. Such should embarrass the evolutionist, but some of this could have been omitted and a condensed version of the book, wherein is a lot of usable substantive material, would probably be sufficient for most of us. But who is to say that how he wrote it and what he included will not effectively shake some young infatuated evolutionist?

Another feature of the book is an old idea of creation Custance accepts. He believes that God performed series of creations, starting with plant life that could grow in sand and crushed rock. With its decay came soil available and ready for the creation of other plant life. With that the earth was successively ready for new forms of life that God then brought into existence. When everything was ready for man, great catastrophes occurred, destroying most of this, and God then in six days brought into existence the order he desired to have and preserve, of all that he had before made.

In this he sides with Dathe and Rotherham who render Genesis 1:2: “But the earth had become a ruin and desolation,” instead of “And the earth was waste and void.” Thus in some instances the text says, “God created.” But in others where there was a remnant of life left. “The earth brought forth.” He contends this is not a concession to geology, and indeed attacks principles of the geological column imagined by the evolutionist. His is an idea that had gained some acceptance in the nineteenth century only to be eclipsed by Darwin’s Origin of Species.

Custance supposes that a tilt in the earth’s axis would have brought to pass such a catastrophe as he proposes, freezing animals in zones no longer temperate, and wrenching the earth’s crust, burying entire populations. Compare the frozen mammoths and gigantic animal graveyards. However, his scheme presupposes the existence of the sun during the earlier ordering of life, and in the Genesis scheme, the sun did not appear until the fourth day of that creation. Genesis is not just an ordering of life on the earth in an existent universe, it is the creation of the universe. There are many other arguments, I believe, against the position, but I am content merely to present the position here. For many it will detract from the book, but if one allows each set of information to stand on its own, he will find some value in the book.

My personal reaction to these four volumes? I like Noah’s Three Sons best. I liked Man in Adam and in Christ least, for reasons heretofore chronicled.

Truth Magazine XXII: 29, pp. 472-473
July 27, 1978

By Bobby L. Graham

This abominable product of one man, one of the darling productions of denominationalists, makes every effort to write the denominational creeds into a so-called Bible. In this one, there is a deliberate effort on the part of Mr. Bratcher to eliminate the idea of atonement by the blood of Christ and all idea of blood by changing the word blood to other words-16 times in reference to the blood of Christ and 20 times in reference to other blood than Christ’s.

Along with the Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible, this unwarranted piece of literature removes the word begotten in John’s writings, as in John 3:16; and it has Jesus disavowing any intent to abolish the Law and the prophets, but “to give them real meaning” in Matt. 5:17; puts Peter as the rock in Matt. 16:18, although Jesus did not say that Peter was the rock; says Saturday night in Acts 20:7, as well as referring to the fellowship meal instead of breaking bread, as it also does in Acts 2:42.

The doctrine of faith alone gets its share of support in Romans 1:17 and 3:27-28 by the addition of the words only and alone.

Rom. 3:25, 5:9; Eph. 1:7; and 1 Pet. 1:18 are just four passages where the word blood was removed as uncultured and repugnant to the mind of Mr. Bratcher.

1 Cor. 2:14 refers to “the man who does not have the Spirit,” instead of the natural man as in the Greek text; 1 Cor. 14:2 lends aid to the current error on tongues by speaking of “strange sounds” rather than unknown tongues.

Acts 2:1 supports the idea that all believers received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Gal. 1:22 refers to Christian churches, inserting the word Christian where there is no justification for doing so.

The TEV has Jesus saying in Matt. 9:13 that he came not to call “respectable people, but the outcasts,” but such wording does not even come near to the idea Jesus meant to convey, though it does express the social gospel view of Jesus’ mission.

The language of inspiration was overlooked in order to talk about certain ones going to hell in Acts 8:20, Gal. 1:8, 9.

Matt. 3:11 sets baptism forth as, a means of showing that repentance has already taken place, but John’s statement spoke of baptism unto repentance.

1 Cor. 16:2 talks of putting something aside, as if it could be a private action performed at home, but the verse really speaks of putting something into a common treasury to prevent a later collection.

Such disrespect for the word of God is intolerable, especially in a so-called Bible!

Truth Magazine XXII: 28, p. 460
July 20, 1978

By Bruce D. James

Today’s language fails to set forth the beauty and preciousness of Jesus. But God inspired men through the Holy Spirit to select the most striking figures and metaphors to remedy the deficiency in modern day language. In the Old and New Testaments, earthly and heavenly objects are used to reveal the Christ. He is the “Rose of Sharon,” the “Lily of the Valley,” and the “Plant of Renown.” He is a rock-a refuge-and a strong tower. He is referred to as the light of heaven and in Rev. 22:16, “the Bright and Morning Star.”

The Morning Star is the brightest of all stars. Therefore, the metaphor sets Jesus in the fore front of glory. Other stars seem insignificant compared with the morning star, and so it is with other teachers when compared with Jesus. In other words His place is the supreme light of the world.

But let us not forget that the metaphor also relates to Christ in His subjective or mediatorial character. He is likened to a star because the glow of the eternal Sun is thrown upon Him. As the star or planet has thrown upon it the light of the sun, so all the rays of the Godhead were shed upon the person of the Savior. “He was the brightenss of his Father’s glory, and express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3).

Yet, in a very real sense, Jesus is compared to a morning star. The function and the glory of the morning star is to proclaim the dawn or the new day. When the morning star rises the new day is not far behind. Jesus is a morning star in at least three ways:

1. In regard to the world’s creation. Chaotic darkness and confusion fled at His appearing. He created all things by the word of His power (John 1:3; Heb. 1:2; Col. 1:16).

2. In regard to the world’s hope of deliverance from sin and its actual redemption. In the fulness of times, the morning star appeared bringing life and light into the world;

3. In regard to that great and notable day, the judgment day. In this day, He shall appear in all His glory-as the bridegroom of His kingdom-as the avenger of the ungodly-and as the Prince and Lord (2 Thess. 1:7-10; 2 Pet. 3:8-14).

Finally, let us remember that a star is something which any man who can look up can see, and whose light and guidance any man can enjoy. Therefore, let us walk in the light of the Bright and Morning Star, look to it at all times, to be guided to the realm of eternal joy and Peace.

Truth Magazine XXII: 28, p. 457
July 20, 1978