Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Jesus has taken away the barrier to God by His sacrifice for sin, but there is still one thing left to keep a person from eternal life. What is it? Friends, thank you for joining us today. This is Grace in Focus. We are a broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. And there you can find out about our subscription free magazine. It’s published six times per year bi-monthly, and it is free only if you live outside the lower 48 contiguous United States that you need to pay the postage. So get signed up today, we want you to have it. Sign up at faithalone.org. 

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

SAM: So Bob, I’ve got something a little different rather than just taking a question from our email and answering it, I wanted to share a little email exchange I had with someone. We had a guy who, he was asking a question about a Zane Hodges article that he read, and so he asked me some questions about it, and I responded, and then we had a few emails back and forth, and I wanted to bring it up because I do this a lot, and a lot of the times people either just never have anything to say about the feedback I give or respond negatively with, well, no, that’s not true, here’s what’s accurate. 

And so sometimes I’ll get into it with people through email, but I wanted to share this one because this was really encouraging because I shared the faith alone message and he seemed to respond very positively to it when that was clearly not his initial view. 

BOB: We’re calling this person, K.M., K.M., read an article by Zane Hodges, in which he was basically saying that Christ died for everyone for the sin of everyone, so that the issue in salvation is not our sin, it’s that we’re dead and we need life. And his point is, in Revelation 20:15, those who are cast into the lake of fire are those whose names are not in the Book of Life. It says nothing about those whose works aren’t good enough or who have too many sins, and yet, K.M. was thinking it sounded like universalism to him. That was his initial concern, right? 

SAM: Yeah, he said that, which I did explain that, and I think I got him to not think that Zane Hodges is a universalist. But what I really wanted to focus more on my conversation with him is, here’s a quote from his email, he says, this seems to avoid the condition of salvation that is to repent and believe. And so immediately, I was like, okay, I see where this guy’s coming from. If you have to believe and repent, then clearly he’s going to be confused by a verse like that in Revelation, and then any verse from the Gospel of John, because the word repent doesn’t appear in that Gospel when Christ is talking. So that’s where I went, and I shared him John 3:16, 4:14, 11:25-27, and then John 20:31 and told him, look, these are all examples of Christ evangelizing or clarifying the saving message, all talking about eternal life, and he never mentions repentance and he never mentions turning from sin. So what do you think of that? 

BOB: Yeah, that’s a great question, because my experience has been with a lot of people who believe that it’s believe and repent. With a lot of those people, they’re not particularly open. A lot of those people I’ve met are people who are convinced they’re right because of their tradition. Whatever their background is, if they believe it’s repent and believe, or in the case of Churches of Christ, they have some other things in there too, but it’s at least repenting and believing. It’s awful hard to convince them that it’s by faith alone. So how did K.M. respond when you pointed him to various verses that didn’t mention repentance? Because a lot of people will say, yeah, but you’ve got to take all Scripture into account, so they start quoting repentance verses. Did he not do that?

SAM: Well, he responded first with, the only criteria is belief. It’s not belief and repentance. So then I added some more clarification. I encouraged him, well, what are some verses that say, repent and believe for everlasting life or repent and believe to go to heaven or, because there aren’t any. So I wanted to kind of encourage him rather than just say, take my word for it, let’s say, here’s what the Bible says. I think the gospel of John is clear and that’s where I’m going to stand. So what are the verses that you would use? And so he brought up some verses from Mark, Acts, and Matthew, Mark 1:15, “the time this fulfilled and the kingdom of God is drawn near, repent and believe in the gospel” that—

BOB: We’ve talked about that before that that gospel is the good news that the kingdom is drawn near. 

SAM: Exactly. And it’s repent and belief together, but everlasting life isn’t there, life isn’t there, eternal life. None of the other words that we find in the gospel of John are with it. Right. So we can see that it’s a different message there. And then he brought up Acts 17:30, “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now charges all men everywhere to repent.” 

BOB: Yeah, which is great, but it doesn’t say he calls all men everywhere to repent so they can have eternal life. He calls all men everywhere to repent. 

SAM: Right? And then we have Matthew 4:17, which this is, I think one of the most famous ones used for this is, “From that time, Jesus began to proclaim and say, ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.’ “ 

BOB: Look in your Bible to Matthew chapter 3, I think it’s around verse 5, John the Baptist’s ministry has those exact same words, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is a hand.” It’s around Matthew 3:5 or so. 

SAM: Verse 2, “and saying repent for the kingdom of heaven as a hand.” 

BOB: So Matthew 3:2, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” and then 4:17 is Jesus saying repent for the kingdom of heaven as a hand. Now this probably is not the beginning of Jesus’ ministry because it appears from the gospel of John that the wedding of Cana was before this and His ministry with Nicodemus was before this and that Jesus’ ministry began with talking to people about the free gift of eternal life, but he did preach repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, but not in order for individuals to be born again, but in order for the kingdom to come for Israel. 

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.

SAM: And so I think he’s starting to grasp what I was saying about, there’s a separation between belief and repentance. Repentance is significant, but it’s not a factor of receiving everlasting life or not. And I think he’s starting to understand that based on the email.

BOB: That is great. And you know the what the name is for the approach you’re using here, it’s called the “broken record approach.” In other words, he brings up verses like Acts 17:30 or Mark 1:14 and 15 or Matthew 4:17. And you may or may not give a short explanation of those, but what you come back to is, none of those verses talk about everlasting life or being with the Lord forever or having salvation that cannot be lost. And none of them are mentioning believing in Jesus either. As a result, you got him to see, through that broken record approach, that what we find again and again and again in the gospel of John is the one who believes in Jesus has everlasting life. And there’s no mention of repentance or any other, anything.

SAM: And I’m really encouraged because then his email goes on and he starts asking a lot of other really, really good questions that are natural responses to the things I’ve told them. If you believe it’s faith alone in Christ alone, it’s a free gift, then there are other questions that you need to ask when you get to other parts of the Bible like, the next question he asked was, it’s bugging me because if we simply believe, but then we live like the devil, it opens the door to he says antinomianism and easy-believeism. 

That’s a question that a lot of people ask is, well, does that mean I can just live however I want and some people will answer that with the sort of backdoor works salvation answer of no, of course you can’t. If you start living like the devil, then you weren’t saved to begin with, but my answer to him again, I guess you’re right, the broken record is we can’t look to the ends to justify what Scripture says. We look to what Scripture says to justify the ends. Even if that’s a hard thing to wrestle with, someone could be living a life of sin and still be a believer, that doesn’t change the fact that what Christ says allows for those two things to be true at the same time. 

And then I gave him the prodigal son example of here’s a son, a child of God, a believer and he lives in sin, he squanders what Christ has given him, but then he returns and he’s accepted back because his father was waiting for him; at no point in that parable was he ever not a son. 

BOB: That is so good. And one of the things I like to say is that most evangelicals need evangelizing. And what I mean by that is we don’t have to go out and find atheists to evangelize. Yes, we want to evangelize atheists. Yes, we want to evangelize Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims, but we also want to evangelize people from within Christianity who are confused, who believe in faith plus works or faith plus repentance. In the case of K.M., he may have been born again before you started interacting with him. He might not. But either way, he’s not going to have assurance unless you can bring the message around to him. 

And I would like to encourage each of you—share this simple message with family members, with friends. It’s so much easier to evangelize with a way that Sam is talking about. Most people in the world today know that Jesus died and rose again or at least they know that command or that teaching in Scripture, and most people understand they’re sinners. The real question is, do they know that simply by faith in Jesus they have eternal life? 

And that’s where I came to faith, with the same approach you use, the broken record. Warren Wilkie used Ephesians 2:8-9, and he must have quoted it 50 times to me over the course of five days I met with him, five one hour sessions. And I finally got it. And I finally realized it’s just by faith apart from works. And all of us can help people see that simple message. 

And so we do share about the fact that Christ has taken care of our sin problem. That was the article that K.M. had trouble with at the first. But we don’t share it from the standpoint of, so that means you’ve got to deal with your own sin problem. We share with the point, he’s dealt with your sin problem. He’s removed that barrier. So now you don’t need to clean up your life or turn from your sins. What you need to do is believe in Him. You need to get in the Book of Life. 

And so it’s a real beautiful approach, this broken record approach. And the gospel of John is so important for this because over and over again, we see the three elements believe in Lord Jesus Christ for what he promises—everlasting life. 

SAM: Yeah. I’d rather call it the truth and love approach. 

BOB: Truth and love? Okay.

SAM: I think that’s what it is, there’s no snark, there’s no sarcasm, there’s no demeaning, there’s no emotions of you’re a sinner, you’re evil, it’s a sharing God’s word. But doing it in a way that doesn’t push people away, it makes them want to seek it for themselves. 

BOB: Truth and love is a wonderful way to share the message of eternal life. Either with people who are born again or people who aren’t, either way, we’re wanting people to grasp the good news that’s simply by faith in Jesus, we know we are secure forever. Let’s all keep grace in focus, amen. 

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On our next episode: is faith through general revelation enough to be saved. Please come back and join us and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.