FG Theology and Matt. 7:21-23 (Part 2)
January 18th, 2008
(By Matt Waymeyer)
Today’s post is continued from yesterday’s discussion on “Free Grace” Theology and its interpretation of Matthew 7:21-23.
A Misguided Hermeneutical Approach
The second problem is that the FG view apparently sees John 6:40 as the interpretative key which unlocks the hidden meaning of Matthew 7:21. There is nothing in the immediate context which leads the interpreter to understand “the will of the Father” as faith in Christ, and only when this meaning is imported from John 6:40 does this interpretation emerge. But where does that leave the original hearers’ of the Sermon on the Mount? Without a copy of the Gospel of John in their hip pockets, they would be left completely in the dark, with the true meaning of Matthew 7:21 hidden from their eyes.
On top of that, even if the original hearers had possessed the Gospel of John, what would compel them to look to John 6:40 to discover the meaning of Matthew 7:21? FG teachers confidently state that the meaning of “the will of the Father” in Matthew 7:21 can be found in John 6:40, but how do they know that? The whole approach seems to betray a desire to preserve FG theology. Unfortunately, it does so at the expense of the clear meaning of Matthew 7:21-23.
A Complete Misunderstanding of John 6:40
Thirdly, the FG explanation completely misinterprets John 6:40. In other words, this interpretation not only ignores key details in the immediate context of passage under consideration, but it also uses John 6:40 to import into Matthew 7:21-23 meaning which is not even found in John 6:40! Put simply, the will of the Father in John 6:40 is not God’s will for mankind, but rather God’s will for His Son Jesus.
Consider the verse in its context. In John 6:38-40, Jesus says:
(38) For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (39) This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. (40) For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
Verse 38 is simple enough: Jesus says He has come to do with the will of the Father. He follows this up in verse 39 by explaining what this will is: that He (that is Jesus) would lose none of those whom the Father has given to Him, but rather that He would raise up all of these believers on the last day. In verse 40, Jesus elaborates further on what He has said in verse 39 (indicated by the explanatory gar [“for”] at the beginning of v. 40) by again explaining the will of the Father for Jesus. The will of the Father, He says, is that all believers will have eternal life (the emphasis being not on the present possession of eternal life but on the future culmination of it). And who is going to make sure they have eternal life? Who is going to accomplish the Father’s will and guarantee this eternal life by raising believers up on the last day? Jesus! As He says at the end of verse 40: “I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Jesus will indeed accomplish the will of Him who sent Him, and therein is the hope of the believer.
To summarize, the will of the Father in John 6:38-40 is not that people would believe—it is that those who do believe would have eternal life and that Jesus would guarantee this by raising them up on the last day. None whom the Father has given to the Son shall perish, because Jesus shall do the will of the Father. Therefore, to use John 6:40 to interpret Matthew 7:21 may seem to get FG off the hook, but it amounts to a careless handling of the Word of God. If FG teachers are determined to relieve the tension that exists between Matthew 7:21-23 and their theology, they will need to seek some other way to do it. My vote is that they jettison their theological system altogether.
This has been a great analysis, Matt.
If I may, I’d like to add something that I discovered after being inspired to look at this passage myself.
FG’ers might understand the “thats” in vv. 39 and 40 to be functioning as relative pronouns; e.g., The will of my father is that… This, if I’m not mistaken would require the greek relative pronoun, hóti. But in both v. 39 and v. 40 the greek word that gets translated “that” is hína, which introduces a purpose clause, and could be understood as “so that.”
So the passage isn’t saying, “This is the will of my Father: that” (hóti) this happens, that happens, etc. It’s saying, “My Father’s will is XYZ, so that (hína) this happens or that happens.”
Does that track? If you greek scholars know better than me, call me on it!
Although the primary use of hina is to introduce a purpose clause, if you check any decent Greek lexicon or intermediate grammar, you will find that it can also function much like the word hoti often does, in this case introducing the content of God’s will in John 6:39-40. BDAG and others offer many examples of this; perhaps the closet parallel is found in Matthew 18:14 because of how this verse also deals with the will of God. So I would suggest that FG teachers have erred not in their understanding of hina in John 6:39-40, but rather in their understanding of what comes after the hina.
Good observation, Mike, and thank you for your words of encouragement.
Thanks for that, Matt. I thought that there might be something like that; i.e., a different function of hina. And that’s really good to know. If you’d like to delete my comment, that’d be ok with me.
I’m just starting to learn Greek on my own, so I get excited when I can apply what I’m learning. Since I don’t know all the ins and outs and especially the all the exceptions, I’m prone to make some mistakes.
Thanks again for pointing that out, as well as for your biblical defense of biblical truth.
This is nothing more than classic antinomianism.
There mantra is,
Free from the law, oh blessed condition,
I can sin all I want,
And still have remission!
@Mike… Greek helps to confirm, but it is obvious without it. FG’ers just have a problem with the Lord requiring obedience for fear that their deeds will be exposed, plain and simple. And if that isn’t sad enough, while making excuses for themselves, they are making excuses for their entire congregations.
The FG’s theology stops at Eph. 2:8. If only they would read a few verses down..
Epeshians 2:10
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
As for the will of God, the Bible plainly states in 1 Thes. 4:2-4:
“For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour”
It is impossible to be sanctified (’separated’, ‘called out to be different’) to God from the world when you do and don’t do the same things it does.
Obedience to God is always a result of conversion.
(I hope I made sense).
God bless.
Bill
Matt,
Thanks for taking the time on this article. This is a very important subject. For the last couple of weeks I have been disussing the article called “Hebrews 6 and the loss of salvation.” I think that our understanding of this passage will be dangerously swayed by a misunderstanding of the concept of Lordship salvation. Maybe you could take some time to comment on that article.
thanks,
Robert
Bill:
The FG people do continue to read on to Eph 2:10. I think one of their problems though, is that they put a whole different meaning onto verse 8. They maintain that faith is NOT a gift. They maintain that the gift spoken of refers to salvation, not to faith. I’m not sure what their point is, other than to maintain their theology that man must believe first, then receive faith. I find that position absurd.
http://www.faithalone.org/journal/1994i/J12-94c.htm
So, if like verse 8 plainly teaches, that faith is a gift, it creates a problem for their theology. I think the point is well taken that they do the same thing with this Matthew passage.
Now, to be fair to their theology, while a person may believe, but 10 seconds later deny everything, they do say that is possible but highly unlikely.
I’ve read a lot of their theology and they do blast MacArthur all the time for his “Lordship Salvation,” theology.
All said and done, I’ll continue to use and love my MacArthur Study Bible. For me, FG theology has too many novel interpretations of scripture to suit me.
I have only one question to those deceived by FG theology… “How shall we who died to sin, still live in it?” (Romans 1:2)
Robert: Good question, but my schedule tells me I better leave that one for someone else to tackle.
Donald: I think you make a good point—in fairness to their view, FG teachers would say that the scenario I described is highly unlikely, and yet as you also said, still possible.
Regarding Donald Fahrenkrug’s post, his comments on 1-18-08 leave me puzzled.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Eph 2:8-9 kjv
1. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:
2. [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
To what in Point #1 does the word “it” in Point #2 refer: grace? saved? faith?
The word “it” is singular, not plural. Of the preceding things listed (grace, saved, faith), the word “it” can only refer to one of them – otherwise the passage would read “they are the gifts” rather than “it is the gift”. The wording requires that only one of the preceding can be considered the gift of God. If the word “it” refers to “faith”, so that we say faith is the gift of God referred to in these verses, then what is “saved”? “Saved” cannot also be the gift being referred to. If we let “faith” be the singular gift of God that these verses refer to, we cannot then use these same verses to support the notion that “saved” is a gift of God. Conversely, if we let “saved” be the singular gift of God that these verses refer to, we cannot then use these same verses to support the notion that “faith” is a gift of God.
On the other hand, the word “it” could refer to the entire process defined by the phrase “For by grace are ye saved through faith; …” Within this interpretation, “faith” would be part of the gift, as would “grace” and “saved”.
On the other hand, [it is] is in brackets, which tells us these two words are not part of the manuscript. To what then does “the Gift of God refer if we leave off [it is]?
In his 1-18-08 post, Donald Fahrenkrug’s states – “So, if like verse 8 plainly teaches, that faith is a gift, …” Hopefully my presentation above shows that it is not at all “plain” to many thoughtful folks that verse 8 refers to faith as the gift.
Any comments on the above? And one further question. I assume that “saved” in these verses refers to the salvation we shall experience at some future point when we are finally united with Christ forever (which places “faith” before “saved” in the sequence of things, gift or not). If that is correct, then is it also correct to state that these two verses are not discussing the process of regeneration – the point where the dead man is brought to life? Or is the act of regeneration assumed in the word “saved”?
Richard,
You correct…well, almost. The “it” is not in the text. But what is in the text is the “that.” Which is actually a singular, neuter pronoun. Thus it can neither refer to “faith” or “grace” because they are both of feminine gender. The question to ask is: That what? the answer is simple…that salvation. The reason the pronoun is in the neuter form is because “salvation” is not stated, but it is implied by the context and discussion at hand.
Those who press for “faith” do so on the basis of theological preference rather than the text and context teaching.
http://free-grace.blogspot.com/2006/02/broad-way-contrasted-with-narrow-matt.html
For the FG view, click on the above.
To Jacob L:
“How shall we who died to sin, still live in it?” (Romans 6:2)
Romans is a tricky book to quote from. It is a legal arguement made by God’s Lawyer. Through Grace we are freed from the Law and live under Grace. We have died to sin, not in that we sin no more, in that we are no longer in it’s ownership.
Romans 7 particulary verses 14-25 :
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
When we give our lives to God we are still in sin and will be until we loose the earthy form.
That however does not seem to be the problem with FG. It seems that there is concern that one might be thought to recieve Jesus and then walk away and not follow him. It seems on the face of it pretty evident that this is true and happens a lot more frequent than one would like to think. The first one that comes to mind was Judas.
Grace is totally free. No stings are attached. Try it for three and if you do not like it, return it no questions asked.
I susspect that is a little to unstructured for you, but that is pretty much the way Paul lays it out. It is not suprising that this discussion exists however. James wrote is tract to correct what he and those arround him felt was a denial of works. Paul says that we are saved from the hold of sin by faith and faith alone, and there is no question about that from me, but James is correct that if a person yeilds to GOd, there will be works in his life.
In the passage here 6 : 38-40, it i sclear that God’s will is that all who come to Jesus will have eternal life. The trick here is that God’s will has been given over to a second will, free will. It is God’s will that all men come to him, but clearly God’s will is not done on earth.
Now I am not familiar with the Free Grace movement, but if they are saying that those who accept Christ and walk away will be raised up on the last day, I doubt it. I do not however second guess God.
Doctrine will smother the Love every time. Jesus says that he is the way. Church is not for creating a new “law” it is for scommunity and fellowship. It for building up each other and voluntarily holdong each other accountable for what we feel called to do.
Matt Waymeyer is right the scripture have all we need, there is no need or calling to add to or take away fron that.
Antonio da Rosa is the most vocal apologist in the blogosphere for the teaching of Zane Hodges. He does not speak for the Free Grace community at large.
Some of the most extreme statements you will read anywhere on the Gospel come from Antonio. His views are examples of what the GES faction of the Free Grace community has spiraled down to by following the teaching of Hodges. Here is an example from Antonio, “The Mormon Jesus and Evangelical Jesus are one and the same.” Read it here…
http://indefenseofthegospel.blogspot.com/2008/01/can-biblical-jesus-mormon-jesus-be-one.html
Antonio da Rosa’s “Crossless” interpretation of the Gospel and extremism is NOT representative of the Free Grace community at large.
Scores of godly Bible-believing pastors, who would consider themselves in the Free Grace community, utterly reject the teaching of Zane Hodges, Bob Wilkin, GES on the Gospel. The Hodges faction in the FG community has become a rapidly shrinking group that tries to portray itself as the voice of the Free Grace community at large.
LM