Must a lost person believe specifically in the promise of “eternal life” in order to get saved (as the Grace Evangelical Society teaches), or is eternal life the result of believing in Christ? In passages such as John 3:14-17 for example, “eternal life” is the result of believing in Christ, not the required content of faith. So Bob Wilkin is twisting Scripture by turning the result of saving faith (i.e. “eternal life”) into the required content of saving faith.
To highlight the absurdity of Wilkin’s position, take a simple illustration based on John 3:16. Keep in mind that Wilkin is the one who teaches that all a lost person has to believe to be saved is snippets of text from the Gospel of John. So accordingly (using Wilkin’s logic and his slogan “Believe in Him for life”), if a lost person only hears the words “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever BELIEVES IN HIM should not perish...” (Jn. 3:16a), is that person saved or lost? (Notice that in the previous example the promise of “eternal life” is left out!) Based on Wilkin’s public statements, he would have to say that such a person could hear and believe that promise of Jesus and still be unsaved because the promise of specifically “eternal life” was missing! Yet Jesus nonetheless promised that whosoever “believes in Him” should “not perish”, i.e. would be saved!
So I’m just pointing out that the promise of “eternal life” is really not part of the content of the gospel message (even according to Wilkin if he were consistent with what he teaches) because if the promise of specifically “eternal life” was required to believe, then Jesus would be lying when he said that whoever BELIEVES IN HIM would “not perish”, because believing in Him is really not enough to save if believing in the promise of specifically “eternal life” is also required. Just a thought that I had pointing out the inconsistency of Wilkin’s position.
Charles Spurgeon has well said (and this may be applied to Wilkin's promise-only gospel): "Friends, I may surprise you by what I am about to say, but there is another fault into which we sometimes fall, namely, looking to God’s promises instead of looking to Christ as the propitiation of sin. The text [of Romans 3:25] does not say that God the Father hath set forth promises. Indeed he has given us exceeding great and precious promises, and they are true in Christ. We often err by going to promises instead of going to Christ....Oh, that we lived more on Christ and less on anything but Christ, nearer to Christ’s person, more surely resting on Christ’s blood [i.e. His death "for our sins according to the Scriptures," 1 Cor. 15:3; cf. Rom. 5:9-10], more simply accepting him as our all in all."[1]
Reference:
[1] C. H. Spurgeon, "Christ Set Forth as a Propitiation" (March 29, 1861), The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 7. Sermon on Romans 3:25.
7 comments:
Bob Wilkin says: “The object of faith which results in life eternal is the promise of God to the believer. God promises eternal life to all who rely on Jesus and Him alone for it: ‘He who believes in Me has everlasting life’.”
Source: Bob Wilkin, "Do Demons Really Believe?" (Grace in Focus newsletter, Nov/Dec 1992, https://faithalone.org/grace-in-focus-articles/do-demons-really-believe/)
Concerning this, Lou Martuneac has correctly said: "In Wilkins’s statements there are no clear mentions of the Lord Jesus Christ being the necessary object of faith, only the promise of Jesus. Crossless advocates teach that the lost can be saved by faith in a promise of eternal life apart from understanding or believing who the Guarantor of the promise is and what He did to provide salvation." (Source: Lou Martuneac, "What is the 'Crossless' Gospel? Part 1", https://web.archive.org/web/20080720182101/http://www.voiceoftheevangelist.com/Articles/TheologicalArticles/TheCrosslessGospel/tabid/306/Default.aspx)
Pastor Sensenig summarizes the truth well when he says, "People need something more to believe than just the promise of eternal life. They must also 'believe on the Lord Jesus Christ [Acts 16:31],' the only One who can give them eternal life." (Sensenig, "Grace Evangelical Society and the Content of Saving Faith", https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d63d5eabaa52d0001d2604f/t/623827b92299cb53d64bf53e/1647847354140/Grace+Evangelical+Society+and+the+Content+of+Saving+Faith.pdf)
Actually, something Bob Wilkin wrote in 2009 shows that the phrase "eternal life" is not exactly the same as "eternal security". The statement I'm referring to is when Wilkin said: "believe in Jesus for everlasting life that can never be lost." (Wilkin, "Four Free Grace Views Related to Two Issues: Assurance and the Five Essentials," Grace In Focus, [July/August 2009]: 1.)
The fact that Wilkin felt the need to clarify "everlasting life" by adding the phrase: "that can never be lost", shows that "everlasting life" and "eternal security" are not necessarily the same; or at the very least Wilkin's clarification shows that someone could believe in "everlasting life" without interpreting or understanding it to mean specifically "eternal security". And that is exactly my point! In other words, Wilkin's clarification (when he adds the words: "that can never be lost") shows that someone could believe they have "eternal life" yet not fully understand what it means, and not specifically connect it with "eternal security".
And in John 3:16 for example, it doesn't say "eternal life that can never be lost", it simply says "eternal life". So my point is that someone could believe the words of Jesus in John 3:16 but not fully understand what "eternal life" means, or maybe they just don't specifically connect it with "eternal security" at first. They believe it, but maybe they don't fully understand it. And Wilkin's own statement shows that this is a real possibility.
Here's another statement by Bob Wilkin that show that "eternal life" is not necessarily the same as specifically "eternal security". In a blog article last year on the Grace Evangelical Society's website, Wilkin wrote the following:
"If someone says, 'I have eternal life,' he may mean I have it right now, but I can lose it. Likewise, 'Jesus gives eternal life,' does not indicate that it’s secure. Both statements could be made by someone who does not believe his salvation is irrevocable." (Wilkin, "Must Assurance of Salvation Be Based on Jesus' Promise?" GES blog, June 8, 2023, emphasis his.)
Exactly. This highlights the fact that believing in Jesus' promise of "eternal life" is not necessarily the same as believing in "eternal security". Furthermore, as I mentioned in a previous comment, John 3:16 doesn't say "eternal life that can never be lost", it simply says "eternal life". Therefore, someone could believe in Jesus' promise of "eternal life" without specifically understanding it or interpreting it to mean "eternal security". And Wilkin even admits it. But such a person still believes in the promise of Jesus! Yet Wilkin would have to say that such a person is unsaved because he or she has not believed in specifically "eternal security". It just shows that Wilkin's requirement for salvation (believing in "eternal security") is not what the Bible teaches. Wilkin is twisting Scripture to make it fit with his new requirement of believing in specifically "eternal security" up front for salvation.
I just found another example of how Wilkin twists Scripture in an attempt to bolster his promise-only gospel. Wilkin writes the following in an article titled "Is Salvation Merely the Result of Believing in Jesus?" (GES blog, Jan 7, 2022), he says: "C.C. asked what verses specifically say that we must believe in Jesus for what He promises? There are scores. John 6:47, which C. C. cites, is one. 'He who believes in Me has everlasting life.'"
But notice that John 6:47 does NOT say (as Wilkin suggests) that "we must believe in Jesus for what He promises". Instead, Jesus says (as Wilkin even admits by quoting the verse), "He who believes in Me has everlasting life." So the key phrase is when Jesus says, "He who believes in Me". Jesus doesn't say, "He who believe in Me and My promise". That is NOT what Jesus says. John 6:47 shows that everlasting life is the result of saving faith, not the required object of faith, nor even the content of belief. Compare John 20:30-31, which says: "these things are written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name." Again, eternal life is clearly the result of believing in Jesus, not part of the content of faith. Notice too that in John 20:31 the content of faith is stated to be "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God". Oddly enough, Wilkin the his GES folks teach that the unsaved DON'T need to believe in the deity of Jesus (that He is "the Christ, the Son of God") in order to be saved. So Wilkin is twisting John 6:47 in an attempt to support his mishandling of the Gospel.
According to Jesus, the content of saving faith includes the cross! See John chapter 3 (vv. 14-15), when Jesus tells Nicodemus that "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believes in Him [i.e. "the Son of Man...lifted up"] may have eternal life." Jesus is prophesying of His coming crucifixion, and saying that AFTER His death on the cross it will be essential to believe — not merely in Jesus, but specifically in "the Son of man...lifted up [on the cross]" — for eternal life! (See John 3:14-15, cf. Num. 21:6-9.) This dispels the often heard objection made by proponents of the "crossless" gospel, when they ask: "Were Jesus' disciples saved before or after the cross?" In light of Jesus' statement in John 3:14-15 that question is beside the point, because Jesus indicates that AFTER the cross is when it will be necessary to believe in what Christ did for us there on the cross for eternal life. In other words, after the cross is when the lost must believe in "the Son of man...lifted up" (Jn. 3:14) on Calvary's cross, on Golgotha's tree — He hung there and died for me! "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3; cf. Num. 21:6-9). Now after the cross, this is the gospel message that we preach. And it is perfectly consistent with what Jesus said in John 3:14-15!
In my blog post titled "The Cross Under Siege" (FGFS, Aug 6, 2009), I actually quoted Zane Hodges as affirming that the cross is now essential to believe for eternal salvation/eternal life, and that false doctrine says otherwise. The statement I'm referring to is when Zane Hodges says:
"False doctrine...tell[s] us that it is dangerous—even wrong—to trust completely in what Christ has done for us in dying for all our sins (1 John 2:2; John 1:29)." (The Gospel Under Siege, 1992 Edition, p. 147, italics his.)
Another statement to the same effect is when Hodges goes on to say:
"Either a man can look to the cross and find peace by believing, or he cannot....There is no escape from this conclusion. If I cannot trust completely in Christ and what He did on the cross, then the cross can give no peace about my eternal destiny." (The Gospel Under Siege, 1992 Edition, p. 148, italics his.)
As J. Vernon McGee has well said: "Christianity is a Person, and that Person is the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's who He is and what He's done. That's Christianity! And nothing else is Christianity. How we need to get back to Him!"
Source: J. Vernon McGee, from a sermon titled: "What Can Believers Do in Days of Apostasy?" Featured in a YouTube video titled: "The Power of the Word of God by J. Vernon McGee" (time stamp: 17:32 -17:52 minutes).
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