August 20, 2017
taught by Ken McGarvey
First Baptist Church of Tellico Village, Tennessee
Here are a few principles.
1. Do not assume your intuitive answer or “what you’ve always been taught” is correct.
2. The answer may be simple or complex. The main part of salvation is simple; but its implications are complex. If John 3:16 was all we needed, then why a 1,000-page Bible?
3. Pay attention to what people who spent their lives studying the Bible say.
4. Consider the prejudices of the commentators, and their theological systems.
5. Everything in the Bible must be understood in its context — textual, theological, historical, social, immediate and long-term.
6. Don’t be afraid to end up with an “I don’t know.” But sometimes it may be an “I don’t know, but THIS seems to carry the greatest weight based on the evidence.”
A few other thoughts. In a criminal trial, the jury must determine guilt “beyond the shadow of doubt.” But a civil trial must arrive at a verdict “based upon a preponderance of the evidence.” With the Bible, there will be some of each.
A few examples:
What time of day was Jesus crucified? Mark and John give different times. Why? Is one of them wrong? Is the Bible inerrant? Here’s the introduction of an article in Bible.com that sheds a little light on the subject.
The differences in the gospel record on the time of Jesus’ crucifixion have long been an enigma to Bible scholars. Mark 15:25 reads that Jesus was crucified at the third hour. Under a Jewish or common reckoning time system, which started the day at sunrise, Jesus was crucified at about nine in the morning. However, in the Gospel of John, John writes that Jesus was at his final trial before Pilate at “about” the sixth hour (John 19:14). If John was using the same time reckoning system as Mark, Jesus was not yet on the cross around noontime that day. On the face of it then the gospels appear to present a chronological contradiction of when Jesus was lifted up on the cross. Perhaps an alternate title to this paper would be: The Time of Jesus’ Death and Inerrancy: Was Someone’s Watch Broken? This issue has been one that has been used to argue that the Bible has real contradictions that are beyond reconciliation. In his booko Jesus, Interrupted, Bart Ehrman referring to the day and time of Jesus’ death states: “It is impossible [italics supplied] that both Mark’s and John’s accounts are historically accurate, since they contradict each other on the question on when Jesus died.”2
Attempts at harmonization of the gospel accounts have included the following views: 1) a confusion of the numerals 3 and 6 in the manuscript transmission of John, 2) John’s use of a Roman time reckoning system of a civil day that started the day at midnight, 3) Mark’s reference to crucifixion as a general statement that included some event(s) that led up to the actual lifting of Jesus on the cross and, 4) the times being loose approximations that can be reconciled due to the fact that modern systems of time accuracy did not exist at the time in which the events occurred.
While a harmonization of these two accounts defies a definitive solution at least a few solutions are feasible such that the time of Jesus’ crucifixion is not a decisive proof text against inerrancy. While one cannot prove what an actual harmonized solution might be, neither can one prove an actual nonharmonistic view either. Indeed what Ehrman calls “impossible” is in fact possible within any standard evangelical definition of inerrancy including the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.3 And more than possible, this paper suggests that plausible harmonizations can be made consistent with about any inerrancy definition.
Okay, let’s put our brains to work and see what we can find out from the Bible about a simple and extremely important subject: how can a person be saved? Look at the following scriptures and notice the differences. Then let’s look at each of them carefully, so that we don’t get misled by something.
1. Acts 16:30–31 30 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
2. John 3:3–5 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
3. John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
4. Ephesians 2:8–10 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
5. Luke 18:18–27 22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
6. Matthew 25:31–46 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
7. Mark 16:16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
8. Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
9. Romans 2:6–7 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.
Exactly what then are the criteria for being saved? Repentance? Faith? Baptism? Doing good? Giving to the poor? I think at this point we must look at th totality of scripture. Though the Bible says little about “going to heaven,” it speaks of redemption, salvation, justification, forgiveness, eternal life and other words that may be synonymous with or descriptive of salvation. Our job is to reconcile each of these with the dozens of other references to find where the emphasis must lie. And then look at each of these statements within its own context — who is speaking to whom, on what occasions, for what purpose, and in what specific context are these words being spoken? But to try to establish “proof texts” from a single verse or occurrence, does not do justice to the totality and unity of the Word of God.