G. K. wrote:
Hey Jonathan! Hope you’re having a good week so far. I stumbled across this article on Bible.org: “Some Thoughts on Lordship Salvation”. In it, the author seems to side with the Lordship group in suggesting that belief also implies commitment or submission. Here’s a quote from it:
“There are, however, several observations which I would like to make. First, from a technical perspective, Deissmann in Light From the Ancient East gives several convincing quotations from the papyri to demonstrate that pisteuein eis auton [‘to believe in Him’] meant ‘surrender’ or ‘submission to.’ A slave was sold into the name of the god of the temple; i.e., to be a temple servant.17 G. Milligan, agreeing with Deissmann, asserts that this papyri usage of eis auton [‘in Him’] is also found regularly in the New Testament. “Thus, to believe on or to be baptized into the name of Jesus means to renounce self and to consider oneself the lifetime servant of Jesus.”18 Further, the phrase, eis to onoma [‘in the name’] is a legal formula in the Hellenistic world having reference to a legal transfer of ownership.19 Such evidence indicates that whatever faith is, it involves commitment. The analogy could be made to the wedding ceremony which by design establishes a new and ongoing lifetime relationship.”
I’m not sure what papyri he’s talking about, but what do you make of the notion that even in ancient secular writing, “belief” had more a meaning of surrender or submission or commitment or transfer of ownership? Of course, I know they’re trying to promote a Lordship view of faith as being more than trust. Do you know of any counter arguments to this? I know some have tried to say there’s a grammatical difference in the Greek between “believing Him” and “believing IN Him”, which I don’t find convincing, but this is not quite the same thing. These are ancient, secular examples of “eis auton” [“in Him”] actually implying commitment. Would appreciate your thoughts.
Jonathan Perreault wrote:
Hi G. K.,
Thanks for that question and the quote from that article. I do remember reading that article some years ago, and I remember that the author seemed to be promoting the Lordship view of faith. You know, I looked up those quotes you referred to, and it reminds me of that game called “telephone”. If you’re familiar with the game “telephone” then you probably see where I’m going with this. Because when I read the actual statement by Deissmann (not someone’s interpretation of his statement but his actual statement from page 323 of his book Light from the Ancient East), it didn’t say what it was being interpreted to mean or say. So for example, the statement by Dana and Mantey was mainly in reference to repentance and baptism, not believing in Christ. Yes, of course they are related, but I think we all agree that baptism is not a requirement for salvation. Furthermore, when Dana and Mantey referred to believing in Christ as submission, they didn’t actually quote any particular statement from Deissmann. Instead, Dana and Mantey just played the game “telephone” by saying: “Deissmann in Light From the Ancient East gives several convincing quotations [?] from the papri to prove that pisteuein eis auton [‘to believe in him’] meant surrender or submission to. A slave was sold into the name of the god of a temple”. (Dana-Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 105.) The problem with that particular statement is that when I looked up the actual reference in Deissmann, he wasn’t saying any of those things to define pisteuein eis auton [“to believe in Him”], but only to highlight the parallels between the ancient cultural practice of buying slaves & the New Testament truth of how we are redeemed by Christ. But who disagrees with that?! Certainly Free Grace people agree with that and affirm that! That doesn’t prove Lordship Salvation. I will provide you with the link to Deissmann’s book that I used. Maybe you can find where he talks about believing in Christ. I didn’t see it. Like I said, it reminds me of the game of “telephone”. It also might be a case of Lordship proponents wanting something to be true so badly that they will stretch certain statements or read things into statements that have been made, when in fact that’s not what the original statement said, nor even what it means in context. The link to Deissmann’s book Light from the Ancient East on the archive.org website is here. It’s striking that the same misrepresentation occurs in regards to whatever Milligan said. Notice that no one seems to have actually quoted his original statement. So again, it seems to be a case of one scholar appealing to another scholar who appeals to another scholar without actually checking out the original statement. Or they are reading something into it that is not actually there. Because concerning Milligan’s statement, M. James Sawyer quotes Dana and Mantey, but the statement by Dana and Mantey isn’t the original statement by Milligan, nor do they quote him directly. Dana and Mantey simply say, “G. Milligan agrees with Deissmann that this papyri usage of eis auton [‘into him’ or ‘in him’], is also found regularly in the New Testament.” Okay, so? Who disagrees with that? That doesn’t prove or support Lordship Salvation. Notice that Dana and Mantey (and apparently Milligan) don’t even connect it with the word “believe”! And even if they did connect it with “believe”, who would disagree? Of course we agree that the NT says “believe in Him”! So what Sawyer is saying here in his article doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny. What I’ve noticed is that the teaching of Lordship Salvation (LS) does not have New Testament support, because when you look more closely at the teachings of LS, what happens is that the supposed supporting statements or “convincing quotations” vanish like a mirage in the desert. Or to use another metaphor, the supposed support of LS collapses like a house of cards. Most people are not independent thinkers and they are not going to dig into it like you and I are doing. Most people (or at least the average reader) will just take whatever Sawyer says as gospel, and swallow it “hook, line, and sinker.” But as the Bible says, “seek and you will find” the truth!
Hi G. K.,
Thanks for that question and the quote from that article. I do remember reading that article some years ago, and I remember that the author seemed to be promoting the Lordship view of faith. You know, I looked up those quotes you referred to, and it reminds me of that game called “telephone”. If you’re familiar with the game “telephone” then you probably see where I’m going with this. Because when I read the actual statement by Deissmann (not someone’s interpretation of his statement but his actual statement from page 323 of his book Light from the Ancient East), it didn’t say what it was being interpreted to mean or say. So for example, the statement by Dana and Mantey was mainly in reference to repentance and baptism, not believing in Christ. Yes, of course they are related, but I think we all agree that baptism is not a requirement for salvation. Furthermore, when Dana and Mantey referred to believing in Christ as submission, they didn’t actually quote any particular statement from Deissmann. Instead, Dana and Mantey just played the game “telephone” by saying: “Deissmann in Light From the Ancient East gives several convincing quotations [?] from the papri to prove that pisteuein eis auton [‘to believe in him’] meant surrender or submission to. A slave was sold into the name of the god of a temple”. (Dana-Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 105.) The problem with that particular statement is that when I looked up the actual reference in Deissmann, he wasn’t saying any of those things to define pisteuein eis auton [“to believe in Him”], but only to highlight the parallels between the ancient cultural practice of buying slaves & the New Testament truth of how we are redeemed by Christ. But who disagrees with that?! Certainly Free Grace people agree with that and affirm that! That doesn’t prove Lordship Salvation. I will provide you with the link to Deissmann’s book that I used. Maybe you can find where he talks about believing in Christ. I didn’t see it. Like I said, it reminds me of the game of “telephone”. It also might be a case of Lordship proponents wanting something to be true so badly that they will stretch certain statements or read things into statements that have been made, when in fact that’s not what the original statement said, nor even what it means in context. The link to Deissmann’s book Light from the Ancient East on the archive.org website is here. It’s striking that the same misrepresentation occurs in regards to whatever Milligan said. Notice that no one seems to have actually quoted his original statement. So again, it seems to be a case of one scholar appealing to another scholar who appeals to another scholar without actually checking out the original statement. Or they are reading something into it that is not actually there. Because concerning Milligan’s statement, M. James Sawyer quotes Dana and Mantey, but the statement by Dana and Mantey isn’t the original statement by Milligan, nor do they quote him directly. Dana and Mantey simply say, “G. Milligan agrees with Deissmann that this papyri usage of eis auton [‘into him’ or ‘in him’], is also found regularly in the New Testament.” Okay, so? Who disagrees with that? That doesn’t prove or support Lordship Salvation. Notice that Dana and Mantey (and apparently Milligan) don’t even connect it with the word “believe”! And even if they did connect it with “believe”, who would disagree? Of course we agree that the NT says “believe in Him”! So what Sawyer is saying here in his article doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny. What I’ve noticed is that the teaching of Lordship Salvation (LS) does not have New Testament support, because when you look more closely at the teachings of LS, what happens is that the supposed supporting statements or “convincing quotations” vanish like a mirage in the desert. Or to use another metaphor, the supposed support of LS collapses like a house of cards. Most people are not independent thinkers and they are not going to dig into it like you and I are doing. Most people (or at least the average reader) will just take whatever Sawyer says as gospel, and swallow it “hook, line, and sinker.” But as the Bible says, “seek and you will find” the truth!
Jonathan Perreault wrote:
Hi G. K.,
My point from the previous email was when M. James Sawyer said: “Deissmann in Light From the Ancient East gives several convincing quotations from the papri to prove that pisteuein eis auton [‘to believe in him’] meant surrender or submission to.” Okay, but where’s the actual “quotations” saying that? Sawyer never provides the actual “quotations”! You see what I mean? It’s all just “he said, she said” type stuff. No actual evidence, just hearsay. Just playing “telephone”. I sure would like to see the “convincing quotations” for myself, thank you very much. Instead of just relying on Mr. Sawyer’s word for it. Anybody can say anything they want. That’s not proof. That’s just opinion. That’s all Mr. Sawyer has provided. He wants the reader to either take his word for it, or disprove him. Well, that’s backwards. Since Mr. Sawyer is the one making the argument, the burden of proof is on him to substantiate it. Beside shifting the burden of proof, Mr. Sawyer’s style of argumentation is actually the logical fallacy of “appeal to authority”: “The appeal to authority fallacy is a type of informal fallacy that occurs when someone uses the authority, reputation, or expertise of a person or a source as the sole or primary reason to support their argument, without providing any other evidence or reasoning.” Mr. Sawyer has simply appealed to Deissmann without giving any further actual evidence, nor even the actual statements by Deissmann. This is an invalid style of reasoning, a logical fallacy. And it is therefore rightly rejected.
Jonathan Perreault wrote:
Hi G. K.,
Also, just to clarify when I said in the previous email that “Mr. Sawyer has simply appealed to Deissmann without giving any further actual evidence, nor even the actual statements by Deissmann.” When I said, “without giving any further evidence,” I want to clarify that I also do not consider Mr. Sawyer’s appeal to Dana and Mantey to be any different than his appeal to Deissmann, because Dana and Mantey cite or appeal to Deissmann in the same way: without providing his actual statements. They just “appeal” to him. They just mention him and give their personal opinion(s) about what he said; but they never provide his actual statements. So again, it’s the logical fallacy of “appeal to authority”. So that’s what I was referring to when I said that Mr. Sawyer doesn’t “provide any further actual evidence”: I was referring specifically to Mr. Sawyer’s statements about the “convincing quotations” by Deissmann. Mr. Sawyer didn’t provide them, and neither did Dana and Mantey. They both just “name dropped” Deissmann, which is the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. Like I said, when I read Deissmann’s book for myself (I looked up the actual page number provided by Sawyer), I didn’t see Deissmann say anything about believing in Christ. That wasn’t his point nor did he even mention it, at least that I could find. And my point also was: it’s really not my job to go and try to prove Mr. Sawyer’s argument for him! He made the statement, and thus the burden of proof rests on him to prove it. And the logical fallacy of “appealing to authority” is NOT the way to do it.
Blessings,
Jonathan
Jonathan Perreault wrote:
Here’s the link to page 323 of Deissmann’s book Light from the Ancient East, the book that Sawyer appealed to trying to prove Lordship Salvation. I have searched Deissmann’s book several times now, even searching specifically for the words “believe” and “belief” using the search feature in archive.org, and still I’ve found nothing that supports what Sawyer claims. I will provide you with the same link in the event that you want to take a look at it for yourself. The link to page 323 in Deissmann’s book is here. The book is free to borrow. This particular book does not even have a time limit to borrow it that most of the books do; it’s completely free to borrow with no time limits.
It’s sad to see the proponents of Lordship Salvation using tactics such as the logical fallacy of “appeal to authority” in scholarly debate and dialog. I view it as underhanded and intellectually dishonest actually. This is what we are dealing with and what we are up against. These Calvinists and Lordship Salvationists twist the Scriptures and twist the facts. It’s unfortunate that these types of tactics pass for “scholarship” today.
G. K. wrote:
Thank you, Jonathan, for your help. I, too, have looked, and don’t see anything like they claimed. I can perhaps see how some equate belief with some kind of commitment, though, in some cases. Do you have any resources explaining how belief, in the New Testament sense, does not imply commitment or action? I’d be interested to see anything like that. My brain is thinking, “Well, it doesn’t actually SAY that belief is commitment or action, but it doesn’t DENY it, either...” [Editor’s note: But this is an argument from silence.] Would love some arguments against. And feel free to repost my questions, etc.
Hi G. K.,
My point from the previous email was when M. James Sawyer said: “Deissmann in Light From the Ancient East gives several convincing quotations from the papri to prove that pisteuein eis auton [‘to believe in him’] meant surrender or submission to.” Okay, but where’s the actual “quotations” saying that? Sawyer never provides the actual “quotations”! You see what I mean? It’s all just “he said, she said” type stuff. No actual evidence, just hearsay. Just playing “telephone”. I sure would like to see the “convincing quotations” for myself, thank you very much. Instead of just relying on Mr. Sawyer’s word for it. Anybody can say anything they want. That’s not proof. That’s just opinion. That’s all Mr. Sawyer has provided. He wants the reader to either take his word for it, or disprove him. Well, that’s backwards. Since Mr. Sawyer is the one making the argument, the burden of proof is on him to substantiate it. Beside shifting the burden of proof, Mr. Sawyer’s style of argumentation is actually the logical fallacy of “appeal to authority”: “The appeal to authority fallacy is a type of informal fallacy that occurs when someone uses the authority, reputation, or expertise of a person or a source as the sole or primary reason to support their argument, without providing any other evidence or reasoning.” Mr. Sawyer has simply appealed to Deissmann without giving any further actual evidence, nor even the actual statements by Deissmann. This is an invalid style of reasoning, a logical fallacy. And it is therefore rightly rejected.
Jonathan Perreault wrote:
Hi G. K.,
Also, just to clarify when I said in the previous email that “Mr. Sawyer has simply appealed to Deissmann without giving any further actual evidence, nor even the actual statements by Deissmann.” When I said, “without giving any further evidence,” I want to clarify that I also do not consider Mr. Sawyer’s appeal to Dana and Mantey to be any different than his appeal to Deissmann, because Dana and Mantey cite or appeal to Deissmann in the same way: without providing his actual statements. They just “appeal” to him. They just mention him and give their personal opinion(s) about what he said; but they never provide his actual statements. So again, it’s the logical fallacy of “appeal to authority”. So that’s what I was referring to when I said that Mr. Sawyer doesn’t “provide any further actual evidence”: I was referring specifically to Mr. Sawyer’s statements about the “convincing quotations” by Deissmann. Mr. Sawyer didn’t provide them, and neither did Dana and Mantey. They both just “name dropped” Deissmann, which is the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. Like I said, when I read Deissmann’s book for myself (I looked up the actual page number provided by Sawyer), I didn’t see Deissmann say anything about believing in Christ. That wasn’t his point nor did he even mention it, at least that I could find. And my point also was: it’s really not my job to go and try to prove Mr. Sawyer’s argument for him! He made the statement, and thus the burden of proof rests on him to prove it. And the logical fallacy of “appealing to authority” is NOT the way to do it.
Blessings,
Jonathan
Jonathan Perreault wrote:
Here’s the link to page 323 of Deissmann’s book Light from the Ancient East, the book that Sawyer appealed to trying to prove Lordship Salvation. I have searched Deissmann’s book several times now, even searching specifically for the words “believe” and “belief” using the search feature in archive.org, and still I’ve found nothing that supports what Sawyer claims. I will provide you with the same link in the event that you want to take a look at it for yourself. The link to page 323 in Deissmann’s book is here. The book is free to borrow. This particular book does not even have a time limit to borrow it that most of the books do; it’s completely free to borrow with no time limits.
It’s sad to see the proponents of Lordship Salvation using tactics such as the logical fallacy of “appeal to authority” in scholarly debate and dialog. I view it as underhanded and intellectually dishonest actually. This is what we are dealing with and what we are up against. These Calvinists and Lordship Salvationists twist the Scriptures and twist the facts. It’s unfortunate that these types of tactics pass for “scholarship” today.
G. K. wrote:
Thank you, Jonathan, for your help. I, too, have looked, and don’t see anything like they claimed. I can perhaps see how some equate belief with some kind of commitment, though, in some cases. Do you have any resources explaining how belief, in the New Testament sense, does not imply commitment or action? I’d be interested to see anything like that. My brain is thinking, “Well, it doesn’t actually SAY that belief is commitment or action, but it doesn’t DENY it, either...” [Editor’s note: But this is an argument from silence.] Would love some arguments against. And feel free to repost my questions, etc.
Jonathan Perreault wrote:
Hi G. K.,
You might want to take a look at Dr. Charlie Bing’s book titled Lordship Salvation: A Biblical Evaluation and Response. See especially chapter 5, “Discipleship and Salvation” (pp. 122-163). You might also want to email Dr. Bing and ask him if he can recommend any other resources in regards to your question. As far as some other ideas, you can try searching my Free Grace Library. I would suggest searching the books and articles under the heading “Lordship Salvation”. You can click on the individual books and articles and search them for whatever terms you are looking for, such as the word “commitment” for example. Thanks for giving me permission to anonymously post your questions. God Bless
G. K. wrote:
Thank you, Jonathan, I appreciate that. I am reading through Bing’s Lordship Salvation book as we speak. I started on chapter 4, though, Faith, and it’s almost eerie. It’s answering EVERY one of the questions I’ve had in the last 24 hours one-by-one, almost in the exact order they popped into my head! Between that and a bit of my friend Fruchtenbaum’s commentary, I’m feeling these doubts drop like flies. Is that coincidence, or God’s work? Hmm😉 [Editor’s note: That’s what’s called a God-incident!]
G. K. wrote:
Thank you, Jonathan, I appreciate that. I am reading through Bing’s Lordship Salvation book as we speak. I started on chapter 4, though, Faith, and it’s almost eerie. It’s answering EVERY one of the questions I’ve had in the last 24 hours one-by-one, almost in the exact order they popped into my head! Between that and a bit of my friend Fruchtenbaum’s commentary, I’m feeling these doubts drop like flies. Is that coincidence, or God’s work? Hmm😉 [Editor’s note: That’s what’s called a God-incident!]
4 comments:
Good morning! I'm Brazilian, and I follow your posts here on the blog. I am a defender of the Gospel of Grace, which here in Brazil is attacked as "hyper grace".
I study Free Grace teachings and found numerous points in agreement with HG teaching.
I recently came across a critique by Dr. Sam Storms of the view that repentance is a change of mind. See what he says:
"One of the mistakes that certain Hypergrace authors make is to build their belief about repentance on the root of the Greek word. But the meaning is not determined in this way, but rather by usage and context. If you want to learn more about it, I strongly recommend If you buy DA Carson's excellent Exegetical Fallacies (Baker) and read what he says about the root fallacy, a simple illustration should suffice.
If I asked you to define the word “butterfly”, I don't think you would say: “Well, let's see, when we separate the words that make up 'butterfly' we get 'butter' and 'fly'. This leads me to the conclusion that it must be a stick of butter that has somehow grown wings and is able to propel itself through the air. Or perhaps it refers to a very small insect that is actually made out of butter.” No! The meaning of words is not based on the linguistic elements or the roots of the words that compose them. We determine meaning based on usage.
So how is the word "repent" used in the NT? What are the contexts in which this word is found? A brief look at its use in Revelation 2-3 should suffice. On several occasions, Jesus exhorts the churches to repentance. To the church in Pergamum Jesus declared: “Therefore repent” (Rev 2.16a). And to the church in Sardis he said: “Remember, then, what you have received and heard. Keep it and repent” (Revelation 3:2). And to the church in Laodicea: “Those whom I love I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent" (Revelation 3:19)."
I am trying to formulate in my studies a response to this criticism. I would like to know your thoughts on this, and would be very grateful for your response.
If you want to see Storms' full post, here it is:https://www.samstorms.org/enjoying-god-blog/post/hyper-grace-and-repentance
Hi Eliezer,
Very interesting question! First of all, I’d say that the illustration that Sam Storms uses actually disproves his entire argument about the “root fallacy” because a simple Google search points out how the word “butterfly” came about, and the word’s meaning is in fact related to the root words “butter” and “fly”. In an article titled “Why are butterflies called Butterflies?” on the Carleton University website (from the Department of Biology) it says:
“Old German names included ‘botterlicker’ (butter-licker), ‘molkendieb’ whey-thief and ‘milchdieb’ (milk-thief). It has been suggested that people in the middle ages believed that butterflies stole milk and butter.” (https://carleton.ca/biology/cu-faq/why-are-butterflies-called-butterflies/)
The website also lists some other possibilities for the origin of the name “butterfly” that are also related to the root words “butter” and “fly”. My point is simply to highlight the inaccuracy of Sam Storms illustration and to show that the name “butterfly” is in fact related to the root words “butter” and “fly”.
But more than that, apparently Storms wants us to believe that a word’s meaning is completely unrelated to its etymology. But this is a self-refuting argument because even Sam Storms agrees that “changing one’s mind” is involved in biblical repentance! The problem is that Sam Storms goes farther and adds in his own theological bias or presupposition into the biblical word metanoia when he says that a change of behavior is also conveyed in the meaning of the word itself. Storms uses Revelation chapters 2-3 attempting to prove this, but his example falls short of making that connection, because we agree that context determines usage, and Jesus’ command to “Repent!” (“Change your mind!”) in this context is in regards to the church’s behavior. That doesn’t show that the word repent means behavior change, it just shows what the change of mind is about, which in this context is in regards to their behavior (Rev. 2:4-5, 2:16, 3:2, 3:19).
Futhermore, Sam Storms is a theologian, not a NT Greek scholar. It should concern Storms that numerous New Testament scholars agree that the biblical Greek word metanoia means “to change one’s mind”. (For specific examples see my article “The Meaning of Repentance: Quotes from the Ancients, Lexicons, and Theologians”.) If this definition is a “root fallacy” as Storms claims, then he is charging some of the world’s foremost biblical Greek scholars with a serious error. I should also point out that in D. A. Carson’s book Exegetical Fallacies, he never once mentions the words “repentance” or “repent”. The truth is, Carson never discusses “repentance” in his book at all! So for Storms to use Carson’s book to make that connection is tenuous at best. Indeed, commenting on Acts 26:20 in his NIV Zondervan Study Bible, Carson notes that “26:20 repent and turn to God. Either (1) ‘repent’ and ‘turn to God’ are synonymous or (2) it means a change of mind (‘repent’) followed by a change of life direction (‘turn to God’). In either case, the change in his converts would be evident in their ‘deeds’ (see Eph 2:8—10; Phil 2:12 and notes).” This understanding of repentance is completely consistent with the traditional Free Grace view of repentance as a change of mind, which should evidence itself in a change of behavior (see Matt. 3:8; Lk. 3:8; cf. Eph. 2:8-10).
I also want to comment on when Sam Storms says, “the repentance to which Jesus calls the church involves stopping one kind of behavior and embracing another kind of behavior. Stop abandoning your first love and ‘do the works you did at first.’ That is genuine repentance.” But think about it: if changing one’s behavior and doing good works “is genuine repentance” as Storms argues, and if repentance is required for salvation (which they agree that it is), then salvation would be by works! This is in effect what Storms and other Reformed theologians are saying, even though of course they would never admit it because it clearly contradicts what the Bible teaches (see Isa. 64:6; Rom. 4:4-5; Titus 3:5-7; Eph. 2:8-9). Yet works-salvation is nonetheless the logical implication of what they are saying. It just highlights the inconsistency of their position. By defining repentance as simply “a change of mind”, it keeps salvation free and “not by works” (Titus 3:5, KJV)!
I know you asked about Sam Storms, but Wayne Grudem (another Reformed theologian) similarly distorts the meaning of biblical repentance, and thus you may also want to read my article related to this titled “Free Grace Theology: 6 Ways Grudem Misrepresents Biblical Repentance” (FGFS, December 14, 2019).
I’ve linked to it above, but the article is also available in the Free Grace Library on this website, along with other resources on the topic of repentance. In the Free Grace Library, see under the heading: “Repentance”.
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