Book Review: Heresy of the Grace Evangelical Society, Part 2

In the second edition of Kenneth Wilson’s book Heresy of the Grace Evangelical Society (Regula Fidei Press, 2021), Wilson added Appendix C to address “Acts 15 and Wilkin’s Errors in Logic” (pp. 195-209). While Wilkin’s view of Acts 15 is flawed, Wilson’s view of the passage is also troubling, at least from a Free Grace perspective. In this article I would like to critique both views and present a biblical response.

Similar to Appendixes A and B in Wilson’s book, Appendix C is likewise overly pedantic, confusing, and filled with partial quotes from Bob Wilkin. Following is my critique of both men’s views as it relates to Appendix C from Wilson’s book Heresy of the Grace Evangelical Society.

Bob Wilkin’s Errors:

Error #1: Wilkin is inconsistent in his interpretation of Scripture. Wilson is correct to point out that “If someone accepts Wilkin’s evangelistic purpose argument for the Gospel of John, ‘saved’ in the book of Acts should also mean justification since this is also evangelism.” (p. 197.) Apparently Wilkin changes the meaning of “saved” in the book of Acts from justification to sanctification, even though the word is used in an evangelistic context.

Error #2: Wilkin changes the meaning of words: e.g. “Christ”; “eternal life”; “saved”. According to Wilkin, the term “Christ” does not mean “Son of God” (Matt. 16:16; Jn. 20:31), but rather “guarantor of eternal life”. (Wilkin bases this on a skewed understanding of John 11:25-27, his favorite proof-text.) Similarly, the phrase “eternal life” means “eternal security” (again based on a misunderstanding of John 11:25-27), and the word “saved” only refers to sanctification, not justification (how convenient!). Wilson is correct to decry Wilkin’s “repetitive misuse of scripture.” (p. 205.)

Error #3: Wilkin says one must only believe in Jesus’ promise of eternal life (which Wilkin interprets to mean eternal security), without having to know or believe anything more about Who Jesus is (His person) and what He’s done (His work). Wilkin bases this largely on John 11:25-27 and other proof-texts taken out of context from the Gospel of John. Wilson is correct to call Wilkin’s view “Ludicrous.” (p. 207.)

Ken Wilson’s Errors:

Error #1: Wilson legitimizes a faith plus works gospel. Wilson attempts to prove that “97%” of professing Christians – including Roman Catholics, Seventh-Day Adventists, Greek Orthodox, and all others “Mistakenly adding a works requirement” for salvation – are nonetheless saved provided they also “believe Jesus Christ is their God and Savior” (pp. 205-206). But in contrast to Wilson, Jesus says “the way is narrow that leads to life and few are those who find it” (see Matthew 7:13-14). Lance B. Latham has well said: “Ask any Roman Catholic, ‘Do you believe in Jesus Christ?’ and he will answer, ‘Of course.’ Is this man therefore saved? The real question is, ‘Where is your hope?’ Are you DEPENDING upon Christ and what He has done at Calvary alone, or is your hope in penances performed, masses, baptism and so forth? This is not faith in Christ and His work; this is faith in YOUR own works, faithfulness to church, and therefore cannot SAVE!”[1]

Error #2: Wilson omits grace. I noticed that several times in Appendix C, Wilson seems to almost go out of his way to omit the word “grace” when quoting Scripture. For example, commenting on Acts 15:11 Wilson says, “in 15:11, ‘we shall be saved in the same manner as they,’ indicates this dispute concerned salvation.” (p. 196.) Notice that Wilson merely quotes part of verse 11, “we shall be saved in the same manner as they”. Yes, but how?! Acts 15:11 is Peter’s official statement in response to the legalistic Judaizers, and what he says in conclusion is noteworthy: “But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.” It’s unfortunate that Wilson omits this beautiful statement of God’s salvation BY GRACE! A few pages later in his book, Wilson once again omits grace when quoting the same passage of Scripture! Wilson uses ellipsis when quoting Acts 15:7: “Peter rose up and said to them...” (p. 198, ellipsis his). Yes, but what did Peter say? Peter highlighted “the grace of the Lord Jesus” (see Acts 15:11). Ironically, practically all the occurrences of the word “grace” in Appendix C are from statements by Bob Wilkin! Although Wilkin is wrong on the gospel, at least he understands salvation by grace (cf. Eph. 2:8-9); it appears that Ken Wilson does not.

Error #3: Wilson doesn’t compare Scripture with Scripture, and he reads his preconceived theological viewpoint into the biblical text. Wilson tries to make the case that the false teachers in Acts 15:1 were Christian brethren who were also requiring works for salvation in addition to faith in Christ. Wilson says, “There is no valid exegetical reason not to connect the certain ones (tines) in 15:1 with the certain ones (tinas) in 15:5 [i.e. ‘Pharisees who had believed’] and 24 [‘some of our number’] discussing salvation.” (p. 196, emphasis his.) But even if the false teachers in 15:1 were indeed brethren, it would simply mean that believers were teaching false doctrine. In other words, the text doesn’t say they got saved by faith plus works. Remember, faith plus works was their requirement for salvation (Acts 15:1), not necessarily God’s requirement! Even Wilson admits this when he says that the conversion of the Gentiles “forced the Christian Jews in the Jerusalem church to reassess God’s requirements for salvation.” (p. 198, emphasis his.) But getting back to Wilson’s earlier statement, he misses the point when he argues that the exegesis of Acts 15 doesn’t rule out the possibility that the “certain ones” in 15:1 were believers. That is to say, Wilson thinks it possible and even likely that the false teachers in Acts 15:1 are believers. But to use a common metaphor, Wilson is “missing the forest for the trees.” That is to say, Wilson is not interpreting Acts 15:1 in light of the whole counsel of God’s Word. How so? Because when the apostle Paul comments on these events in his epistle to the Galatians, Paul describes these Judaizers as “false brethren” (Gal. 2:4). This is also an exegetical point, and Wilson completely misses it because he fails to compare Scripture with Scripture; he fails to compare Luke’s account in Acts 15 with the apostle Paul’s explanation of the same events in his epistle to the Galatians. Wilson merely says in a tiny footnote at the bottom of the page, “The question of the relationship and timing between Acts 15 and Galatians 2 (false brethren) is still debated.”[2] Wilson quickly dismisses Galatians 2 with a virtual wave of the hand (he apparently feels that it has very little bearing on Acts 15), but is this the correct approach? Commenting on Acts 15:1-5, Arno C. Gaebelein states, “The second chapter in Galatians must here be considered for it gives additional information on this visit to Jerusalem.”[3] Similarly, J. Vernon McGee affirms: “The Epistle to the Galatians gives us a full explanation of the council [at Jerusalem].”[4] McGee is highlighting the importance of Galatians 2 in connection with the events described in Acts 15. Commenting on the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Stifler more specifically states “that Paul, in all probability writing afterward about this very meeting, calls some of its members ‘false brethren’ (Gal. ii. 1-5). To all appearance, too, the men who precipitated the question now in Jerusalem were not the men who started the strife at Antioch.”[5] Commenting on Acts 15:1, the 19th century New Testament Greek scholar A. T. Robertson similarly affirms: “In Gal. 2:4 Paul with some heat describes these Judaizers as ‘false brethren, secretly introduced who sneaked in to spy out our liberty.’ It is reasonably certain that this visit to Jerusalem described in Gal. 2:1-10 is the same one as the Jerusalem Conference in Acts 15:5-29 in spite of the effort of Ramsay to identify it with that in Acts 11:29f.”[6] Dean Henry Alford, another NT Greek scholar, takes the same view when he writes the following concerning Acts 15:1 and the Greek indefinite pronoun tines: “1. τινες] Called in Galatians 2:4, παρείσακτοι ψευδάδελφοι, οἵτινες παρεισῆλθον κατασκοπῆσαι τὴν ἐλευθερίαν ἡμῶν ἣν ἔχομεν ἐν χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ [‘intruding false brothers, who have come in to spy on our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus’].”[7] When understood in this light (and in contrast to Wilson’s view), it seems evident that the Judaizers in Acts 15:1 were actually “false brethren” (Gal. 2:4). This fits nicely with Luke’s account. Notice that in Acts 15:1, Luke does not call them brethren; he simply says “some men”. Wilson wants to conclude that those in Acts 15:1 are the same group as in 15:5, based on the fact that the indefinite pronoun tines (“some men”, 15:1; “certain ones”, 15:5) is used to describe both groups. But in so doing Wilson is reading too much into the text and not comparing Scripture with Scripture. To cite another example of this, Wilson says that “Hodges and Wilkin miss the tines connection in Acts 15:1, 5, and 24 in the Greek by citing only the English text.” (p. 200.) Wilson is trying to connect Acts 15:1, 5, and 24 simply because all three contain the Greek indefinite pronoun. In other words, Wilson is basically saying that since Acts 15:1, 5, and 24 all use the Greek indefinite pronoun tines (translated as “some men” or “certain ones”), we should therefore conclude that all three indefinite pronouns refer to “the same believing Jewish group” (p. 196). How convenient! This is what Wilson is trying to prove in the first place, not what the text says. It seems quite a circular argument to say that each occurrence of tines (in Acts 15:1, 5, and 24) refers to Christians when that is what you are trying to prove in the first place! Wilson is reading too much of his preconceived theology into the text, and ignoring Paul’s statement in Galatians 2:4 where he calls at least some of the Judaizers “false brethren”.

Error #4: Wilson’s view nullifies grace. Commenting on Wilkin’s “errors in logic”, Wilson goes on to say (quoting Wilkin), “‘Paul indicated that the Judaizers were proclaiming a false gospel and he anathematized them. (Gal. 1:6-9). Works salvation was explicitly rejected at the Jerusalem Council as well.’ So where did Wilkin prove ‘works salvation is not a saving message’ from these texts?” (p. 202.) Wilson is saying that Wilkin’s statement is a “misrepresentation of faith in Christ plus works as ‘works salvation’”. (p. 202.) Au contraire![8]  Wilkin’s statement is not a misrepresentation of Wilson’s view, because adding even one work to salvation by grace nullifies grace (see Rom. 11:6; Gal. 2:21). Commenting on Acts 15:1-6, Charles Ryrie makes an insightful remark that highlights the error of Wilson’s statement. Ryrie points out that “Paul and Barnabas were discerning enough to see this as not simply a question of fellowship, but one [i.e. a question] of the fundamental doctrine of salvation by grace versus salvation by works.”[9] So here Ryrie says that the message of the Judaizers (which was salvation by faith plus works) was in reality “salvation by works”! Ryrie is saying that in essence, what “salvation by faith plus works” really boils down to is: “salvation by works.”

ENDNOTES:

[1] Lance B. Latham, The Two Gospels, p. 46, emphasis his.

[2] Kenneth Wilson, Heresy of the Grace Evangelical Society, p. 199. Notice that in his statement above, Wilson doesn’t even bother to put “false brethren” in quotes. But he should have, since that’s verbatim what the apostle Paul says in Galatians 2:4. Sadly, Wilson is dismissing the apostle Paul’s words in Galatians and instead he (Wilson) is reading his preconceived theological viewpoint into the text of Acts 15:1 in order to arrive at the conclusion that the “some men” in v. 1 are Christian brethren. (While there are good Bible teachers who take the view that Acts 15:1 describes Christian Judaizers, such an interpretation does not seem to adequately explain the apostle Paul’s words in Galatians 2:4 where he calls the Judaizers “false brethren”.) But to elaborate on Wilson’s point regarding “The question of the relationship and timing between Acts 15 and Galatians 2” (p. 199), some theologians are of the opinion that Paul’s account in Galatians 2:1-10 describes a different event from the one in Acts 15. But commenting on this, F. N. Peloubet writes the following excellent summation: “Some critics find a difficulty in reconciling the two accounts, but the opinion is almost unanimous among conservative and radical critics alike, that the two accounts describe the same event. ‘The discrepancy is only apparent, and disappears on careful scrutiny of the Greek text.’ ‘I recognize in the language of Paul a lively picture from the interior of the same council whose external history is recorded in Acts 15.’” (F. N. Peloubet, The Teacher’s Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, p. 202, emphasis his.)

[3] Arno C. Gaebelein, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 260.

[4] J. Vernon McGee, Acts: Chapters 15-28, p. 14.

[5] James M. Stifler, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 132.

[6] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, Vol. III, p. 221.

[7] Henry Alford, The Greek Testament, Vol. II, p. 147.

[8] “Au contraire” is French for “on the contrary”.

[9] Charles Ryrie, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 82.