Transcript

ANNOUNCER: How does a Christian become an overcomer? A Nike Christian, a victorious Christian. Let’s talk about that. Today, here on Grace in Focus, and we are just delighted that you’re joining us today. Grace in Focus is the radio broadcast and podcast division of the Grace Evangelical Society. We have a website at faithalone.org. We invite you to go there and learn more about us. One thing you’ll want to look into is our free magazine. It is published six times per year. It has great articles, full color, something you’d be proud to put on your coffee table. And yes, it is free. Free only you have to pay the postage if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States. Go to our website, get signed up. It’s faithalone.org. 

And now, with the continuation of our tough texts series, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates. 

KEN: We have been doing a series on what’s called tough texts. And at the GES Seminary, let us put in a plug for the GES Seminary, one of our classes is on tough texts. And we’re covering some of those. And by the way, we have all kinds of classes for the seminary. We do Greek, we do Old Testament Survey, we do books of the Bible, right? 

BOB: And all the theology classes. 

KEN: Right. I mean, we’ve got it all. So if you’re looking for some theological education, especially from a free grace perspective. 

BOB: And dispensational. 

KEN: That’s right. Come and look at what we got to offer. It’s all online through Zoom classes. We would love to have you. And this is one of the classes. These are the kind of passages that we go through. And today, we’re talking about the seven churches in Revelation. 

BOB: And specifically about the overcomers and the seven letters. Well, first of all, I guess, let’s talk about what the word overcomer means. 

KEN: It means an overcomer. 

BOB: Very good. That’s why they translate it. See, you have to go to seminary and get a doctorate in order to get these great insights. All right, let me throw a little to seminary stuff at you. The Greek word is nikao for the verb.

KEN: Like we get our word Nike from, right?

BOB: The noun is Nike. Right. And Nike in Greek mythology is the Greek goddess of victory. Nike basically means victory. So when they say, just do it, they mean just win. Nikao is a winner. Nikao is an overcomer. Nikao is a victor. And so someone who is victorious is an overcomer. 

So there’s two views. One view is all believers are overcomers, meaning all believers are victorious. 

KEN: When we talk about that, if you hear someone say that, they mean one of two things. They may mean that if you’ve believed in Jesus, you’ve overcome hell. You know, you’re not going to go to hell. You’ve overcome the world and you’re a believer. But other people mean that the believer is an overcomer because if they’re truly saved, they’re going to overcome sin. They’re going to live a victorious life. They’re going to produce good works.

BOB: Three main enemies, the world, the flesh, the devil, and we got to overcome all three. 

KEN: That’s right. Now some are going to say, well, if you’re truly saved, this is what’s going to happen to you because you were chosen by God and he’s going to make sure that you live a victorious Christian life. And then there would be other people—

BOB: That sounds like the Calvinist. 

KEN: Sure. The Calvinist and this would be the lordship salvation people. And then others would say, you know, the Arminian would say, well, you’ve got to overcome. And if you don’t—

BOB: right, you’re saved as long as you’re overcoming. And if you stop overcoming, you stop being saved. 

KEN: And so Jesus to the seven churches, He writes letters to the seven churches through John here. And these letters go to the seven churches. And to each of them, Jesus says, “now to the one who overcomes”. And that’s the issue. 

BOB: And He promises certain rewards to the overcomers. So let’s talk about some of the rewards. And then let’s come back. There’s a great quote from Dr. Ryrie, which is actually a bad quote. Maybe we should read this first, I guess, because he represents one of the views you’re talking about. 

KEN: Exactly. For those who know Charles Ryrie, he went to be with the Lord. When was that? 

BOB: About 2018 something like that. 

KEN: Yeah. And his, this gives you a flavor of why this is a tough text quote unquote. In his Ryrie Study Bible, the first time it’s mentioned is in Revelation 2 verse 7. By the way, these seven churches are addressed in Revelation chapter 2 and 3. And the first church is the church at Ephesus. And at the end of that letter, Jesus says, “To the one who overcomes, I will—” this. And here’s Ryrie’s comment. The phrase to him who overcomes. Right. 

BOB: And this is in the Ryrie Study Bible. 

KEN: Yeah, this is in the Ryrie Study Bible, which probably many of you have either used it or you’re using it now or used it in the past. Ryrie says, “that to him who overcomes, this is not a reference to an especially spiritual group among the believers—”and here it is, “but to all true believers.” So he takes the view that every time the Lord says “Now to the one who overcomes”, that the Lord is talking to all Christians. 

KEN: Okay. Now there’s two ways he could be saying that he calls him true Christians. Sounds like he’s taking the lordship understanding, but having taken Dr. Ryrie for both soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, and for senior theology, that’s probably not his view. It’s probably what you were saying earlier about the person who says, well, we’re victorious because we believe and because we believe we’re in Christ, who’s the victorious one. So even if we’re not victorious in our life, all true Christians are victorious by virtue of believing in the victorious one, which is one of the views you were talking about. But that’s not what he says it. The way he says it is all true Christians, which sounds like a lordship answer. 

KEN: Right. And to be fair to him, if you’ve got a study Bible like this, it’s very short. There’s not a lot of room to make comments. So what was his view? We can’t be absolutely sure. Was it just he wasn’t careful in his language here maybe because based upon what you said in his classes, he didn’t believe that all Christians live a godly life. So what does he mean by this? 

ANNOUNCER: We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote The Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true. And GES president Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel. Bob’s new book The Gospel is Still Under Siege is a book about theological clarity on the biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s bookstore. Find it at faithalone.org/store. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s content. 

BOB: Let’s go through some of the rewards promised to the overcomers. In verse 7, the one that Dr. Ryrie was talking about, “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” So I suppose you could say, okay, all believers will be able to eat the tree of life. Verse 11 has, “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.” I think you could go, okay, the believer doesn’t experience the second death. So, okay—

KEN: And that’s true for all believers. 

BOB: That’s true for all believers. Although what this means is it’s a litotes, which means not only is he not going to be hurt by the second death, but he’s going to have an abundant experience. But okay, let’s say that hypothetically that’s true. Now where’s the next one? 

KEN: Verse 17, “To him who overcomes, I will give him some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone and a new name—” a number of rewards here, right, “written on the stone, which no one knows, but he who receives it.” 

BOB: Okay, so possibly you could say, okay, all believers are going to have that. Okay, let’s keep going. What’s the next one? 

KEN: The next one is in verse 26, “To him who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.” 

BOB: Oh, now we got a problem. Because there’s lots of verses that indicate that rulership is limited to believers who persevere to the end. Luke 19:20-26 falls there, 2 Timothy 2:12. If we endure, we’ll reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us. 1 John 2:28, 

KEN: Romans 8. 

BOB: Romans 8, yes, 17 and 18 and following. So this is a problem. Now what’s the next one? 

KEN: The next one is in chapter three, verse five, “He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before—” 

BOB: Okay, there’s another problem because in Matthew 10:32-33, Jesus says, “He who confesses Me before men, him will I confess before My Father who is in heaven, but he who denies Me before men, him will I deny before My Father.” And 2 Timothy 2:12 is Paul’s commentary on that, because he says, if we deny Him, He will also deny us the privilege of ruling. So this would be a problem for that view. What’s the next reference to the reward for the overcomer? 

KEN: Chapter three, verse 12, “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore, and I will write upon him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God and My new name.” 

BOB: Okay, so possibly you could say it’s true of all believers, but how about 3:21? KEN: That’s the last one. That’s the seventh one. “He overcomes, I will grant to him to set down with Me on My throne as I also overcame and sit down with My father on His throne.” 

BOB: Oops, that’s a problem because of all the verses we just mentioned. If you get into ruling verses, it’s absolutely crystal clear that some believers are going to rule and some believers aren’t going to rule. So if you take the view, ultimately, if you say that all believers are overcomers, then you’re ultimately saying, we must persevere to the end of our lives victoriously in order to get into the kingdom because a hundred percent of the believers are going to rule according to this view, right? 

KEN: Yeah, I’m wondering you had him. I didn’t have him in class, but would Ryrie say that all believers are going to rule based upon this? 

BOB: No, no.

KEN: Because let’s see, that’s, that’s what’s strange.

BOB: But I would think Dr. Ryrie would have said that only some believers would rule, but I can’t remember exactly. That’s a good question. 

KEN: Yeah, these are confusing notes. And these are the kind of of things we discuss in the top text class. We’ll, we’ll go through these. And the other thing I would say about all these churches before He says, “He who overcomes”, the Lord talks about doing good works. You know, the one who, you know, you’ve done this, you’ve kept, you’ve left your first love. You, you need to repent of yourself. 

BOB: Okay. How about this? The expression, “I know your works”. Look at your version there. How many times does the expression, “I know your works”, occur in the seven letters? He actually says the expression, “I know your works” in all seven letters, right?

KEN: Right. It’s in 2:2, 2:9, 2:13, 2:19. Right. It’s in 3:1, 3:8, and it’s in 3:15. So—

BOB: All seven letters, He starts out by saying, “I know your works”. The emphasis is on faith. In fact, nowhere does He call him believers, nowhere does He talk about their belief. He’s talking about their works. And He’s calling them to repent in most of the letters. 

KEN: Five of the churches, He tells them to repent. So even the word, you said at the very beginning to the one who overcomes— 

BOB: That’s a subgroup of the whole church. 

KEN: Right. And even the word is someone who’s victorious, someone who’s victorious in their Christian living. That’s not all believers. As he says to these seven churches. BOB: Okay. Now we do have an issue and that is what about 1 John 5:5? Could we say that when John says, “This is what overcomes to the world, your faith”, that when we believe, that faith in itself isn’t overcoming. But if we stop believing, we’re not continuing to overcome. 

KEN: Overcome the world. 

BOB: Yeah. And obviously if we’re not living the life, Revelation 2 and 3 shows we’re not overcoming. So I suppose you could argue from 1 John 5 that positionally believers overcome, but Revelation 2 and 3 isn’t talking about positional. 

KEN: He’s talking about how they’re living, what their deeds are. 

BOB: I know your works. 

KEN: I know your works seven times. 

BOB: All right. Well, thanks so much. And Ken, what are we going to do? We’re going to keep grace in focus.

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On our next episode: what is dead faith? Please join us. And in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.