"Free, But Not Cheap!" | by Bible Truth Publishers

During the noon hour, a preacher of the gospel had gone down into a coal mine to tell the miners of the good news of salvation which comes through Jesus Christ. After telling them the simple story of God's love to sinners and God's remedy for their sins in His offer of a full and free salvation, their lunch break was over. As the men went back to work, the preacher came back to the elevator shaft to ride up to the top. Meeting the foreman, he asked him what he thought of God's way of salvation.

The foreman replied, "Oh, it's too cheap! I can't believe in a religion like that!"

Without commenting on his remark, the preacher asked, "How do you get out of this place?"

"Just get into the elevator cage and ride to the top" was the foreman's reply.

"Does it take long to get to the top?"

"No...only a few seconds!"

"That certainly sounds pretty easy and simple. But don't I need to help raise myself?" asked the preacher.

"Of course not!" replied the foreman. "All you have to do is get in the elevator cage, and it carries you to the top."

"Tell me about the company who opened the shaft and worked out all the details. Was there much planning, labor and expense to make it all work?"

"Oh yes, there was much calculating before they actually began sinking the shaft. The shaft is eighteen hundred feet deep, and it was completed at great cost to the company who owns the mine. It is our only way out, and without it we couldn't get to the surface," the foreman explained.

"That's exactly my point!" said the preacher. "When God's Word tells us that anyone who believes on the Son of God has everlasting life, you say, 'Too cheap!' You forget that God's work to bring you and others out of the pit of destruction and death was planned in divine detail and accomplished at a great expense. The cost was the suffering and death of His beloved Son on the cross! Now all that's left for you to do is believe."

You are "not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold...but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19).

"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

People talk about God helping them with their salvation; they say, "If I do my part, God will do His." They disregard the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ by Himself removed our sins and that their part is only to believe and accept what He has already done—all they have to do is "step into the elevator cage!"

"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24).

"By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

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Courtesy of Bible Truth Publishers

The Partial Gospel: What's "The Rest of the Story"?

The well-known radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would often close his daily radio program with a segment called The Rest of the Story. It consisted of presenting "little-known or forgotten facts"^[1] of important events on a variety of subjects.

Have you heard The Rest of the Story in regards to the gospel? Oftentimes people say the gospel is 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. They conclude the gospel by placing a period at the end of verse 4 so that it reads: "I declare unto you the gospel...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures." But in reality, the gospel doesn't end there! There is no period at the end of 1 Corinthians 15:4 in the biblical text. Instead, there is a comma at the end of 1 Corinthians 15:4, and then 1 Corinthians 15:5 begins with the linking word "and". In other words, the gospel includes verse 5: "and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve." So according to the Bible, the gospel not only includes Christ's death, burial, and resurrection — it also includes Christ's manifestation to His disciples (see 1 Corinthians 15:5; also see John 20:19-21:14). To put it more concisely, the gospel includes Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and manifestation (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-5). That's "the rest of the story" — the whole gospel message!

Commenting on the apostle Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:1, "I declare unto you the gospel," the New Testament scholar Dean Henry Alford (1810-1871) affirms: "I declare...the (whole) Gospel: not merely the Death and Resurrection of Christ, which were en protois [priority] parts of it".^[2] 

Darrel Bock similarly affirms: "In fact, only to speak of Jesus dying for sin – even to speak of Jesus dying for sin and rising again – is to give only about half of the gospel message….Paul in 1 Cor 15:3-5 summarizes the gospel as the fact that Jesus 'died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas.'"^[3]

The whole gospel includes the fact that the risen Christ "appeared in the presence of His disciples" (Jn. 20:30-31; cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-5). 

And now you know "The Rest of the Story"!

References:

^[1] "The Rest of the Story," Wikipedia.

^[2] Henry Alford, The Greek Testament, 4 Vols., Vol. 2, p. 602, ellipsis added; cf. Alford, The New Testament for English Readers, 2 Vols., Vol. 2, p. 229.

^[3] Darrell Bock, Recovering the Real Lost Gospel: Reclaiming the Gospel as Good News (Nashville: B and H Publishing Group, 2010), p. 3, italics his, ellipsis added. Cf. Bock, The Bible Knowledge Word Study: Acts – Ephesians (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries, 2006), pp. 310-311. 

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary: Still True to the Gospel

Although some today are using systematic theology to redefine the gospel,¹ such is not the case with Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS). All the way back in 1913, B. H. Carroll, the founder and first president of the institution, affirmed that "the gospel" in 1 Corinthians 15 includes the following four facts: 1) Christ's death for our sins, 2) His burial in a tomb, 3) His resurrection on the third day, and 4) His appearances to His disciples.²

     

Now, 100 years later, the school is still preaching that old, old story of Jesus and His love (Romans 5:8). In an article titled "We Should Study Systematic Theology for the Gospel," SWBTS faculty member Thomas White writes: "1 Corinthians 15:3-5 provides a short summary of the Gospel:

1 Cor. 15:3-5, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve." ³

May I say, that's a theological insight and a biblical insight!

ENDNOTES:

¹ For an example of this see the article: "The Strange Beliefs of Stegall's System".

² Commenting on 1 Corinthians 15, B. H. Carrol says: “This chapter commences with the statement of the facts which constitute the gospel. The first fact, ‘Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.’ Three ideas are involved in that fact: 1. Christ actually died. It was not a mere trance; it was actual death. 2. It was a vicarious, substitutionary, expiatory death. ‘He died for our sins.’ 3. He died for our sins ‘according to the Scriptures’ – that the Scriptures of the Old Testament and New Testament up to the time of his crucifixion clearly foretold his actual, substitutionary, and expiatory death. The second fact in the gospel is that he was buried – he was dead and buried – and that was according to the Scriptures. The Scriptures testified that he would be buried. The third fact is that on the third day, according to the Scriptures, he rose from the dead; and the fourth fact of the gospel is, that risen, he was visible to men, recognized by men, and identified by men.” (Carroll, An Interpretation of the English Bible [Grand Rapids: Broadman Press, 1948], 17 Vols., Vol. 13, pp. 246-247. Note: This book was originally published by the Fleming H. Revell company in 1913.)

³ Thomas White, "We Should Study Systematic Theology for the Gospel (cont.)," Theological Matters blog (April 12, 2013), italics his.

Biblical Repentance: Lost in Translation?

Recently a non Free Grace pastor warned me that I would be disciplined by the church if I tried to explain the right and wrong definitions of repentance to people in the congregation. He didn't want me to clarify the word repentance because he thought it might offend someone. But the Bible says: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth...” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

I'm convinced that a great need exists in the church today to clearly explain exactly what biblical repentance is (from the Greek) and also clearly explain what it's not. This need exists because the word “repentance” in our English New Testament is really not the best translation of the original Greek word metanoia.

   
Many Bible teachers agree that the word repentance is really not the best word to translate the Greek word metanoia. For example, notice the following statements:

• “The problem is not preaching repentance; it is giving a wrong definition to the word. Down through the centuries ‘repent’ has come to mean a far different thing than when it was spoken by John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, and Jesus Christ Himself.…If you look up the Greek word translated ‘repent’ in the King James Bible and used by Jesus, Paul, John and others in the New Testament, you will find that the [Greek] word metanoeo [which is simply the verb of the noun metanoia] means to think differently or afterwards, that is, to change the mind.” (Curtis Hutson, Repentance: What Does the Bible Teach? [Murfreesboro: Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1986], pp. 3-4.) 

• “Modern [Bible] translators…generally translate metanoia as repentance. While this is an improvement over the Latin translation ‘penance,’ it is in most cases, as we shall now see, a poor reflection of its meaning in the NT.” (Bob Wilkin, “New Testament Repentance: Lexical Considerations,” bible.org/seriespage/new-testament-repentance-lexical-considerations.) 

• “the English word repentance derives from the Latin and does not express the exact meaning of  [the Greek word] metanoia.” (Wendell G. Johnston, “Repentance,” Don Campbell, Wendell Johnston, John Walvoord, John Witmer, The Theological Wordbook [Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000], p. 296.) 

• “The word ‘repentance’ is not the best translation [of metanoia]. A better translation would have been ‘to change your mind.’” (James A. Scudder, Forever With God [Lake Zurich: Victory in Grace Ministries, 2010], p. 40.) 

• “As we said earlier, repentance is the translation of the Greek word metanoia, which means ‘change of mind.’...Repentance is a vital ingredient in saving faith....If one asks, which comes first, faith or repentance, it depends how one defines repentance. If one sticks with its biblical meaning - ‘change of mind’ - then one can only say that they come together. But if one defines repentance, as ‘turning from every known sin’ (as some Puritans were inclined to do), one can see the endless confusion that will emerge if such ‘repentance’ is demanded prior to faith. The result has been doom and gloom, being never quite sure they are saved, owing to a fear they have not repented enough.” (R. T. Kendall, One Saved, Always Saved [Chicago: Moody Press, 1985], pp. 193-194.)

• “In the English Bible the word [metanoia] is translated ‘repentance,’ but this rendering hardly does justice to the original, since it gives undue prominence to the emotional element.” (Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996], p. 480.) 

• “[The word] ‘Repentance’ suggests primarily sorrow for sin; metanoia suggests a change of mind”. (George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993], p. 36.)

• “the rendering found in many of our [Bible] translations, namely, ‘Repent’ - thus A.V., A.R.V., R.S.V., etc. - is probably not the best.” (William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1973], p. 196.)

• “It is evident that repentance is a mistranslation of metanoia. This fact was never more apparent than during the English and American revisions of the King James version of our Bible. Frequent debate centered around this word and it was the opinion of many that a suitable English equivalent should be sought for the Greek expression. It was agreed, however, that no one English word was sufficient to convey all that lay in the Greek. And, although it was admitted that the translation was poor, it was felt that the common term should be retained in the hope that it would come to convey all that its Greek derivative expressed. Several English words were suggested to the revisers, among them resipiscence (derived from a word meaning ‘to come to one's senses’), but manifestly none of them was appropriate. It seems to be the present task of the expositors, then, to pause at the reading of this word [repentance] and reiterate all that it is really intended to mean.” (William Walden Howard, “Is Faith Enough to Save? Part 3,” Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 99 [January 1942]: p. 96. Cf. Larry Moyer, Free and Clear [Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1997], p. 86.)

• “Repent (metanoeite). Broadus used to say that this is the worst translation in the New Testament. The trouble is that the English word ‘repent’ means ‘to be sorry again’ from the Latin repoenitet (impersonal). John [the Baptist] did not call on the people to be sorry, but to change (think afterwards) their mental attitudes (metanoeite) and conduct. The Vulgate has it ‘do penance’ and Wycliff has followed that. The Old Syriac has it better: ‘Turn ye.’ The French (Geneva) has it “Amendez vous.” This is John’s great word (Bruce) and it has been hopelessly mistranslated. The tragedy of it is that we have no one English word that reproduces exactly the meaning and atmosphere of the Greek word.” (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures of the New Testament, commentary on Matthew 3:2.) 

• “It is a linguistic and theological tragedy that we have to go on using ‘repentance’ for metanoia. But observe that the ‘sorrow’ has led to ‘repentance’ and was not itself the repentance.” (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, commentary on 2 Corinthians 7:9.) 

• “It is unfortunate that [the Greek word] metanoeo is translated ‘repent’ in the English Bible, for the English etymology denotes more the idea of penitence as sorrow, or worse, the [Roman] Catholic doctrine of penance, than it does the more accurate ‘change of mind.’” (Charles Bing, Lordship Salvation: A Biblical Evaluation and Response [Xulon Press, 2010], p. 69.)

• “Here, now, we come upon the practical and all-important point of this inquiry. For, putting these words, Metanoia and Repentance, side by side, is there not, on the contrary [to what some say], a most radical divergency between them?....At the best [the word Repentance] can only hang on the skirts of the great Greek expression [Metanoia]....How did such an extraordinary mistranslation get into our New Testament?...We feel prepared, at least, to say, with regard to the present subject, that the necessary employment of a paraphrase should not be an occasion for hesitation in making so important an alteration. We can leave it to the candid reader to judge which is the most [or least] objectionable; a resort to a paraphrase which really translates, or the preference for a technical word, to say nothing of an uncertain one, which is always in need of translation. Better, even, were the bald phrase ‘change of mind,’ with an explanation which would give it fullness and dignity, than the misleading rendering we have to put up with now.” (Treadwell Walden, “THE GREAT MEANING OF THE WORD METANOIA: LOST IN THE OLD VERSION, UNRECOVERED IN THE NEW," The American Church Review, Vol. 35 [July 1881]: pp. 148, 149, 153, 155; cf. Walden, The Great Meaning of Metanoia [New York: Whittaker, 1896], pp. 14, 15, 24, 29.)

In conclusion, it can be said that the English word repentance does not exactly express the meaning of metanoia. Therefore, in order to “accurately handle the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), it's necessary to explain the meaning of repentance much like Ezra and the Levitical priests explained the Pentateuch to Israel: “They read out of the book of the law of God, translating and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was read” (Nehemiah 8:8, HCSB).

God's Home Run

“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16, NKJV).

Recently I thought of an illustration to show how vital and important each part of the gospel is to the whole. Think of the gospel as God’s home run: “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). According to 1 Corinthians 15:1-5, the gospel of salvation has four action words (notice the four verbs in bold print):

1. Christ DIED... (1 Cor. 15:3)

2. He was BURIED... (1 Cor. 15:4a)

3. He was RAISED... (1 Cor. 15:4b)

4. He was SEEN... (1 Cor. 15:5).

God hit a home run when Christ died, was buried, was raised, and appeared. If a preacher removes the resurrection appearances from the gospel it would be like a baseball player hitting a home run and stopping at third base! Major League Baseball official rules say that when a batter hits a home run he has to physically step on all four bases. If the player doesn’t tag all four bases the home run doesn’t count. This is why all the teammates wait at home plate to congratulate the runner. Only after the runner tags home plate can the team put the run on the scoreboard. The Scriptures tell us that after Christ was raised on the third day, He appeared to His disciples. In baseball terms, Jesus rounded third and tagged home. Not only did Christ hit “the walk-off home run” (the game-winning home run), He tagged all the bases and scored it!

   
So to recap the baseball illustration, God hit a home run when:

1. Christ DIED for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3) — Jesus hit our sins out of the ballpark (John 19:30) and rounded 1st base,

2. Christ BURIED in a tomb (1 Cor. 15:4a) — Jesus rounded 2nd base,

3. Christ RAISED on the third day (1 Cor. 15:4b) — Jesus rounded 3rd base,

4. Christ APPEARED to His disciples (1 Cor. 15:5) — Jesus physically tagged home plate in the presence of His teammates (John 20:30-31) and scored the winning run!  

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The Free Grace theologian William R. Newell has written the following excellent summary in his commentary on Romans 1:16:

“this good news concerning Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and appearing, ‘is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth.’ There is no fact for a preacher or teacher to hold more consistently in his mind than this.” (Newell, Romans Verse-By-Verse, pp. 18-19.)

“Again we repeat that it is of the very first and final importance that the preacher or teacher of the gospel believe in the bottom of his soul that the simple story, Christ died for our sins, was buried, hath been raised from the dead the third day, and was seen, IS THE POWER OF GOD to salvation to every one who rests in it—who believes!” (Newell, Romans Verse-By-Verse, p. 19, emphasis his.)