Kenneth Wilson has written a book entitled Heresy of the Grace Evangelical Society: Become a Christian Without Faith in Jesus as God and Savior. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of GES, but you will not find many of them in Wilson’s book. Indeed, he actually had the opposite effect from what Wilson wanted. The day it was released, Grant Hawley of Free Grace Alliance disavowed Wilson’s work, which is no surprise since Wilson called Hawley’s views heretical. Several of Wilson’s fans have come out to say that this book caused them to question his other works, which is quite reasonable. Kenneth Wilson is most well known for his studies on church history. I appreciated an article that he wrote last year for SBL and even quoted it positively in our recent volume on current issues in soteriology,1 but having seen how poorly he represents his contemporaries, we are left wondering how well he deals with theologians of old. In the same volume, I criticized Christian Pluralism, which is the position that Wilson takes, so in retrospect, I would have loved to interacted with his book there, but perhaps that is a discussion for another day.[Read More]
Soteriology
The Magic Elf Analogy
Roman Catholicism is a false religion. The gospel according to Roman Catholicism is not salvific. This is a point where most Christian Pluralists will disagree with Faith Alone in Christ Alone.
When we say “Faith Alone in Christ Alone,” we refer to the school of thought that a man is saved when he believes in Christ Alone for salvation, rather than believing in his own work, or, by extension, in some combination of Christ’s work and his own works. When we say, “Christian Pluralism,” we refer to the school of thought that a man does not need to believe in Christ for salvation, but can rely on his own works instead, so long as he has some belief about Jesus. There are various camps within both of these schools of thought, but that’s the issue in a nutshell (read a more thorough and boring article here or download a full book here).[Read More]
Book Announcement! “Current Issues in Soteriology”
Next week (May 27, 2021), we will be launching the website of The International Society for Biblical Hermeneutics (www.biblicalhermeneutics.org). We will also be launching our first ISBH volume, which will consist of papers presented at the symposium on “Current Issues in Soteriology.” The volume will be free and available on kindle.
In the mean time, sign up for ISBH updates and announcements at www.biblicalhermeneutics.org.
Here is the preface from that volume:
On Reconciliation, Soteriology, and All that Jazz (2 Cor. 5:18–20)
Jesus did some things for everybody and some things for believers only. It is important to understand this to maintain a consistent theology of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone. If we confuse the work done for everyone with the benefits given to believers, then we could mistakenly think that faith alone in Christ alone is unnecessary. Likewise, if we confuse what Jesus did for believers and what Jesus expects from believers, then we could mistake faith alone in Christ alone as insufficient.[Read More]
A Quadrant Model of Soteriological Compromises [Abridged]
The following is an abridged version of a paper that was presented at the 2021 ISBH symposium on “Current Issues in Soteriology.”
A Quadrant Model of Soteriological Compromises [Abridged]
Our soteriological perspective can be described as Faith Alone in Christ Alone (FACA). This view is not held by consensus but rather is derived biblically. Many who fall under the umbrella of Christendom reject our perspective, typically because they deem FACA either to be insufficient or unnecessary to varying degrees, and outside of Christendom are those who reject the Gospel for even more reasons. The following chart shows the relation of FACA to other perspectives:
Justification, Sanctification, Glorification, and Pinocchio
Paul has been invited to contribute a chapter to an upcoming book entitled, Moral Theology and the World of Walt Disney. His submission is on anthropological, hamartiological, and soteriological implications of Pinocchio. Here is an excerpt from the soteriology portion of his draft.
Disney’s Pinocchio brings about a salvation essentially in the one grand event of his death and resurrection after rescuing Geppetto. After proving his maturity, Pinocchio is rescued from his donkey-puppet body into the new body of a real boy. However, the Bible presents salvation in an entirely different manner which actually consists of three phases. These three phases are salvation from the penalty of sin (often called, “justification”), salvation from the power of sin (often called, “sanctification”), and salvation from the presence of sin (often called, “glorification”).
[Read More]