Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Today, a question about the relation of forgiveness of sins and the gospel of eternal salvation. Why did Peter and Paul preach forgiveness? What is the bullseye when talking about eternal salvation? Let’s talk about it together. This is Grace in Focus. Thank you for joining us each weekday here. We also produce short videos. YouTube Grace Evangelical Society is our channel. You can subscribe to that and we hope you enjoy our short videos. YouTube Grace Evangelical Society. Please visit us at our website, faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates. 

KEN: Bob, we have a question from one of our listeners named Chris. He refers to some things that Hodges wrote in one of his books about the forgiveness of sins. His question is, why did Peter and Paul both preach on certain occasions in the Scriptures, the forgiveness of sins—and by the way, he points out it was to Jews and Gentiles both—if that’s not an acceptable gospel presentation. 

And both of us have been in situations where we’ve talked to people who say that, hey, if you preach, believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, that’s acceptable because of these verses. They’ll say, well, didn’t Peter do that? And we see people saved. Didn’t Paul do that when he was evangelizing, saying, believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins? And this is Chris’s question here, that then why can’t we? And sometimes this is expanded to, can’t we just say, believe that he died on the cross? You know, but if you believe that he died on the cross for you and usually with the forgiveness of sins or if you believe he rose from the dead or if you believe he’s coming back again. But here specifically, let’s look at—now, Chris does not mention the passages that he’s referring to, but we think we know which ones he’s referring to. 

BOB: Okay. And does he mention the book? Is he talking about, Did Paul Preach Eternal Life? Should We? That was a booklet that Zane Hodges wrote. 

KEN: He doesn’t mention that. 

BOB: I bet that’s probably it. And in that, he says, sure, Paul preached forgiveness, but the bullseye for Paul was always eternal life. All right. Well, let’s look at one of the passages. I think that Chris might have in mind and that’s Acts 13 verses 38 and 39. This is where Paul was preaching in Antioch and his first missionary journey. And this was in the synagogue. It’s Jewish mostly, but there are plenty of God-fearing Gentiles present too. 

KEN: And part of his sermon in verse 38, he says, “Therefore, let it be known to you brethren.” Now, that makes me think he specifically is talking to the Jews here. In verse 26, he says, “Men and brethren, sons of the family of Abraham.” But then he also adds, “and those among you who fear God.” Now, that could be—

BOB: The God-fearers are normally Gentiles. 

KEN: Yeah, I remember doing some study on this long time ago, that does this refer to proselytes or does it refer to just Gentiles who were thinking about this? 

BOB: Yeah, they could be Gentiles who were circumcised and it actually become proselytes. But normally, from my reading, God-fearers were people like Cornelius or like Lydia in the book of Acts and they were not proselytes. They were simply worshiping in the synagogue. 

KEN: But certainly we would say the majority of the audience here are Jews. And he says, let’s see, “Therefore, let it be known to you brethren, that through this Man”, Christ, “is preached to you the forgiveness of sins” and then he adds, “and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses”, which is another clue that he’s talking to Jews here. 

So Chris’s point here is that here’s Paul is preaching to Jews and we’re going to look at a passage where he’s Peter is talking to Gentiles and is talking about the forgiveness of sins. But here, Paul is talking to Jews and he goes, in Christ, you have the forgiveness of sins. And you could be justified. Now, even that raises a question are those the same thing and I would say no. 

BOB: No, I would say no also and I was saying, look, is it inappropriate to say when you believe in Jesus, you get the forgiveness of sins? No, is it inappropriate to say when you believe in Jesus, you’re baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ? No, is it inappropriate to say when you believe in Christ for everlasting life that the Holy Spirit permanently indwells you? No, but none of those are saving. 

But here is the point where people mess up when it comes to Acts 13. They don’t keep reading. You see, a week later, they wanted to hear, the Gentiles in particular, wanted to hear more. So they came back and they preached again and notice, what verse is it, verse 44? 

KEN: “On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the Word of God.” 

BOB: So now we’re not just mostly Jews. We’ve got most of the city. 

KEN: Right. And in verse 46, Paul says—

BOB: And notice verse 45, the Jews oppose what Paul was saying. Now that that means there were more than Jews present. 

KEN: Right. And then it says, he’s going to refer to the Gentiles here. “Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, ‘it was necessary that the Word of God should be spoken to you first,’ the Jews, right, ‘but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life—’ ”

BOB: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. 

KEN: “Behold, we turn to the Gentiles.” 

BOB: Notice he doesn’t say you judge yourselves unworthy of the forgiveness of sins. You judge yourselves unworthy of justification. He says you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, for everlasting life. Why would he say that? Because that’s the bullseye. And then notice verse 48, which a lot of people miss. This is where Calvinists really botched this verse. But could you read 48? 

KEN: Sure. “Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the Word of the Lord. And as many has been a—”, well, then the New King James version, “has been appointed to eternal life believed.” 

BOB: Yeah, and this is tetagmenoi from tasso. And it means to put or place, often troops were put—it was a military term often where they would place troops. 

KEN: Get in formation. 

BOB: Right. Well, here, it could be, many people suggest that what Paul is saying, as many as were well-positioned to eternal life believed or who were open to eternal life, something like—

KEN: Or even positioned themselves. 

BOB: Right. 

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BOB: And so the idea here is not that God, this is not one of the election words. It’s not a chosen word. This is a word that refers to being positioned. What it’s saying is, there were people, verse 46, who judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, not God judging them unworthy. They judged themselves unworthy. 

KEN: And that’s what Paul says. 

BOB: And so now in verse 48, he said, there were people who did judge themselves worthy. And they, because they were open to eternal life and well-positioned,oncerning eternal life, they believed. And notice verse 49—

KEN: How about this? The way I would say it is they positioned themselves to be willing to believe. 

BOB: Absolutely. How about verse 49? 

KEN:  49, “And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region.” 

BOB: But the word spread through the whole region, primarily among the Gentiles, right? 

KEN: Yeah. What I would say about this as far as the part about the forgiveness of sins and the justification, he’s talking about the law of Moses. So when he’s preaching in the synagogue, he’s telling Jews who are well-steeped in this concept of forgiveness of sins, their whole religious practices. What he’s saying is Jesus has come to do all these things. You couldn’t be declared righteous by the law, but in Him you can. Right. You’re not going to find the forgiveness of sins and fellowship with God in the law, or in the sacrifices, you’re going to find it in Him. And you’re going to find eternal life in Him. You need to believe in Him for eternal life. And so the forgiveness of sins is very appropriate for a Jewish audience here who was looking to the law of Moses for these things. 

BOB: Now, are there people who have believed that by faith in Jesus, they’re forgiven, and yet they believe they can lose eternal life or lose their salvation? 

KEN: Oh, lots of people, every Catholic who goes to Mass. 

BOB: Right. Most people would say what I get is initial forgiveness, which actually is our view, right? You start the Christian life with a clean slate. But the point is, the bullseye is eternal life, verses 46 and 48. By the way, we see the same thing in Peter’s preaching in Acts 10. 

KEN: That’s the other one that we think Chris probably has in mind. 

BOB: Probably Acts 10:43, right? 

KEN: And Acts 10:43, in this case, Peter is talking to Gentiles.

BOB: Cornelius and his household. He was a lieutenant colonel like you, right? 

KEN: A centurion. Yeah, probably pretty close to that. 

BOB: Centurion was somewhere between a hundred and six hundred men or something? 

KEN: Well, normally they say it was about 60 men. So this would be like a, for you in the military, this has been like a company commander. 

BOB: A company. Is that like a major? 

KEN: A captain.  And it says he preaches to them, “To him”, Christ, “all the prophets witness that through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.” 

BOB: Okay. So he says they’re going to receive the remission of sins. And then the next verse says, while Peter was still preaching, the Holy Spirit fell on them. Coming back to Chris’s question, how can that be if he didn’t mention eternal life? 

KEN: And we would say, of course, he did. We know that the angel told Cornelius, go call him and he will give you words of life. 

BOB: In Acts chapter 11 verse 14, he will tell you how you and your household must be saved and words of life. And there’s two options. One option is he had already talked about eternal life and we just don’t have it written in the transcript. The other option is, as soon as they heard whoever believes in Him receives the forgiveness of sins, since they knew he was coming to tell them the saving message, as soon as they heard this, they realized, aha, when I believe in Him, I’m saved forever and I have the forgiveness of sin. 

KEN: In my view, this is the issue. The forgiveness of sins here is not the same thing as receiving eternal life. But the forgiveness of sins was, Peter was telling them you’re equal with the Jews. 

BOB: Yeah. That in fact, that’s why he goes on to say, who can forbid water who have received the Spirit just as we have. 

KEN: Just as we have. 

BOB: We Jews. 

KEN: That’s right. Before that, Peter was like, I can’t eat with you all. I can’t come into this house. And God says, oh, yes, you can. 

BOB: Galatians chapter 2, and Acts 9. 

KEN: Yes, because I have forgiven their sins. 

BOB: Yes, you’re right. 

KEN: And that’s the point here in Acts chapter 10, that Gentiles are equal members within the body. Yeah. The disciples knew that Gentiles could receive eternal life. But now they’re seeing, wow, they’re equal with us. They’ve been forgiven of all their sins, just like we are. 

BOB: And they’ve received the Spirit. 

KEN: Yeah. That’s what’s going on here. So this is something in addition to receiving eternal life. 

BOB: Yeah. So Paul and Peter both preached eternal life. If you’re looking 1 Peter chapter one, what is it about verse 24? He talks about you have been born anew by the Word of God. Isn’t that what it says? 

KEN: In 1 Peter 1:23, “Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever.” 

BOB: So there’s him talking about the same message as John 3, having been born again by the Word of God. And James does the same thing in James 1:18, “He brought us forth by the Word of truth.” So what you’re going to find is everlasting life is in all of the apostles. Certainly, if you read the gospel of John, you’re never going to find Jesus saying, “Whoever believes in Me has the forgiveness of sin.” 

KEN: He doesn’t say it one time. That’s exactly right. Well, thanks for the question, Chris. We hope this helped and remember, folks, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: why does the Old Testament say that God repented? Please tune in for that and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.