The Scriptures are for All People

For centuries, the hundreds of thousands who attended a Christian church were under the understanding, whether implicit or explicit in the way that the entrenched Roman institution ran things, that the Bible was for the clergy (or some of them) but not for the masses (no pun intended). As much as Roman Catholics or Roman Catholic historians may well dispute this assertion, from what I’ve read of history and understand about some of the reformation martyrs, I disagree with their assertions.

...to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons:” (Philippians 1:1)

The word "saints," άγίοις (hagiois), means those who are holy, or those who are devoted or consecrated to God. The similar Hebrew word in the Old Testament was used to describe the priests, the tabernacle, the utensils used for temple service, the garments of the priests, and anything else that was specially “set apart” for the Lord. “The radical idea then, as applied to Christians, is, that "they are separated from other men, and other objects and pursuits, and consecrated to the service of God."¹

It is also important to note that a saint is not a Christian who has attained a higher level temporal holiness than the average believer. Again, the Roman Catholic and other Eastern Orthodox Churches have perverted the truth that all believers are, in fact, saints in contrast to what the Bible says.

“But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” (1 Peter 2:9)

This sickening elevating of various saints over and above other believers has led to the belief (among others) that St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things. Don’t be worried, though, according to the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia, he is also the patron saint of at least 10 different things which may include pregnant women, donkeys, and horses.²

One of the many real problems with this elevation and veneration of particular saints is that the diligent Catholic can or should pray to St. Anthony to help you find something that is lost. Why pray to a man when we can go right directly to God and seek His assistance? Further more, we are only to pray to God and to God alone. The Roman Catholic answer to this objection is that praying to St. Anthony would be like praying with your friend at church. It is fine to ask them to pray for you, so why not ask someone who is closer to God than you are? The answer to that objection is that you can pray and request the prayers of other believers, but not of those who are not currently living on the earth. Saul met with the witch of Endor and they used wicked and evil practices to contact Samuel, and this type of activity has always been an abomination before God.

So, in short, there are no classes of believers. There is no business class, first class, and chartered-private jet classes of passengers on their way to heaven. All believers have the same standing as saints before God. All believers have been imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ so that all believers might become the righteousness of God in Him. (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21)

Furthermore, this letter is addressed to the saints, “including the overseers and deacons.” Paul’s letter was not only addressed to the various elders in Philippi, but it was addressed to all of the believers there. Why is this important? For centuries generations of the church attending masses were under the explicit understanding that they were not to read the Bible and that it was for the clergy alone. Wycliff, Tyndale, Luther, and others understood that the Bible was for all people and should be available in their own common language, and how were they received by the established religious system? All of these men were declared as heretics and persecuted based upon the doctrines that they found as explicit teachings in Scripture that were contrary to the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings. John Wycliff’s bones were dug up after his death and burned. William Tyndale was convicted of heresy and ordered to be burned at the stake. Mercifully, if murder can be merciful, Tyndale was strangled to death before his dead body was burned. Martin Luther was chased and a wanted man for most of his adult life.

The great and glorious truth of the fact that the Bible is for all believers is something to be fought for and, if necessary, to die for in order to preserve for future generations. Why? To answer this question, let me describe for you what the Bible is, what the Scriptures are, in its own words.

• It is Pure – “Every word of God is pure, it is a shield to those who take refuge in it.” (Proverbs 30:5)
• It is Truth – “Sanctify them in the truth, your Word is truth.” (John 17:17)
• It is Living – “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)
• It is Divine Power – “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)
• It is Divine Revelation – “¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” (Romans 1:16-17)
• It is of Divine Inspiration – “16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)


• It is a Light – “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalms 119:105)

It is the culmination of the revelation of God to mankind for all time: thousands of years of progressive revelation written by dozens of human authors with one message pointing to one Man, the God Man Jesus Christ, for the glory of God the Father. It is also the means proclaiming the way of salvation for all who would believe. The Word of God has been delivered to the masses by means of the martyr’s blood, from Able through Rami Ayyad. Who is Rami Ayyad?

“Rami Ayyad (30), the manager of the only Christian bookstore in Gaza, was killed by unknown assailants on October 6. At approximately 4:30 p.m. Ayyad was abducted as he closed up The Teacher's Bookshop, which is owned by the Palestinian Bible Society. Shortly afterwards, his family received a telephone call from him saying that he had been kidnapped and that he would be returned home late that evening. The following day, Ayyad's body was found near the bookstore at approximately 6:25 a.m. He had been shot in the head and stabbed multiple times.

Ayyad is survived by a pregnant wife and two young sons.”³

Again, what is the Bible? It is the culmination of the revelation of God to mankind for all time: thousands of years of progressive revelation written by dozens of human authors with one message pointing to one Man, the God Man Jesus Christ, for the glory of God the Father. It is also the means proclaiming the way of salvation for all who would believe. The Word of God has been delivered to the masses by means of the martyr’s blood, from Able through Rami Ayyad. The message it contains, delivered to you and me, cost God’s own Son to endure mocking, humiliation, torture, and ultimately it cost Him His very life. And it costs you and me, a few mere dollars.

The end of this story for many individuals, if not most, in at least the Western church today is not so sweet or glorious at all. It was Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, who articulated the problem best when he said, “There is enough dust on some of your Bible's to write damnation with your fingers.”⁴ I understand if the unbelieving masses, who make no substantial claim to faith that would stand up to any investigation into their lives, never pick up a Bible to read it. It makes sense, these people are not saved and so it is foolishness to them! (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18) But how many people who attend Bible-believing churches are guilty of this same thing? How many haven’t cracked open a Bible, humbly searching and seeking the only source of Truth that we have, in days, weeks, or longer?

I’m not saying that it is always easy to read the Bible and study it for it’s depths of Truth. But the Bible is for us, and therefore we have the responsibility to be faithful and diligent to read and apply what God has graciously provided for us. One of my favorite modern evangelists, Ray Comfort, coined the phrase, “No Bible, no breakfast.” It is his way of making a covenant that he will not feed his body until he feeds his soul. I am not advocating a literalistic application of this saying for everyone, but I would say that we should make this kind of a resolution and intend to keep it every day. Whether we choose to not go to sleep, eat lunch, watch TV, or do anything else that we normally do on a daily basis without consuming the Word first, we must make consuming Scripture a priority.

One other reason why it is imperative that we read and know the Bible is that we are told so often in the Scriptures that man, in and of himself, is sinful, blind to God’s will, and able to be led astray from the truth. If our hearts are deceitful and wicked (cf. Jeremiah 17:9) and we’re able to be led astray, we need the Word to cut through all of that deceit and to show and judge our hearts true intentions and thoughts (Hebrews 4:12). Once our false understandings are exposed to the light, the Bible, through the power of the Holy Spirit’s working in us, can correct our understanding and cause our feelings and our thoughts to be more in line with God.

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¹ (from Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

² http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11562a.htm

³ Voice of the Martyr’s http://www.persecution.net/pnp.htm#1

⁴ C.H. Spurgeon

Reckless and Irresponsible

I first became aware of Hank Lindstrom and his ministry when I read an article entitled “Repentance” that was being advertised or promoted on crosswalk.com. You can read his article and the reasons why I disagree with his conclusions by reading “Is Turning from Sin Legalism?”

Well, following my initial exposure to Dr. Lindstrom, I have listened to his radio program or perused his articles very rarely and cautiously. I say cautiously because I want to see what he is saying, and rarely because so often, what he says is so wrong and infuriating.

Yesterday I decided to listen to one of his broadcasts to see if I’d hear anything good, beneficial, new, or whatever. I expect to hear him blast repentance and faith and promote KJV Onlyism, but thankfully he only promoted KJV Onlyism in his monologue…sort of.

About 2/3 of the way through his program on 11/29/06, a man called in with a heartfelt request for prayer on behalf of his son who had converted to Islam. One of the tactics used by the Muslims, and now by this man’s son, is to say that the Bible is corrupt and it is untrustworthy because of all of the different translations (KJV, NKJV, NASB, NIV, ESV, etc.). Hank responded to the caller’s statement by saying that, sadly, the current state of bible translations is in the favor of the Muslims because he agrees that current versions like NKJV, NASB, NIV, and RSV¹ have been corrupted by Satan in order to distort the gospel and mislead people.

But my problem was not primarily with the fact that his bible translation conspiracy theory gave credit to the Muslims’ attacks, but it was the following “fulfilled prophesy” that made my hackles stand up. When commenting about the state of affairs in the world and the amount of havoc that is caused by Muslims, Dr. Lindstrom said,

“We are being assaulted today, head on, with Islam. If you look up Daniel 9:11, you know the number “9 11” that’s when the twin towers were taken, well there is a verse there that talks about a curse coming because of our departure from God’s word. And if you look up the word “curse” in your concordance in Daniel 9:11, it is the Hebrew word “alah”. And truly hasn’t that been a prophesy fulfilled that Allah is the curse on this world today? And God said that He would bring this curse upon the world, and we are seeing the curse of Allah right now, and it’s because we’ve departed away from His word.”²

Well, first of all I did check Strong’s Concordance and found that the Hebrew word here is transliterated as “alah” and pronounced “aw-law”.³ But let me make sure that I understand this interpretation correctly. According to Dr. Hank Lindstrom, the meaning of Daniel 9:11 is that because of the world’s rejection of the Bible, God has cursed the world with Islam? I will argue that the current state of terrorism in the world is nothing but a curse and an abomination. However, to say that Daniel 9:11 is speaking about this because the Hebrew word for curse sounds like the name by which Muslims call God is absurd.

Do you know how our Christian brethren in Arab countries refer to God the Father? They use the word Allah. If you’re shocked, you shouldn’t be. The word “allah” is no different than the English word “god”. When we refer to God the Father, we capitalize the first letter in the word, but when we refer to other types of gods or goddesses, we do not. When a Hindu refers to deity while using the English language, they use the word god, and when we refer to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or the Father, we use the word “god” but we write it as “God”.

You may still be wondering what the point of discussing the words “allah” and “god” has to do with anything. The point is that the context of the use of a word determines the meaning of that word. For instance, look at the following example using the word “can”:

• I can do this. “can” means “am able”
• I would like a can of soda. “can” means “metal container”
• I have to use the can. “can” is slang for “lavatory”

If we attempted to force a single meaning of the word “can” onto all three of these sentences, you’d have gibberish and foolishness. Furthermore, if you lived in a country that spoke Spanish, and used the word “con” (sounds like “can”) which means “with” (i.e. chili con queso) and you forced the meaning “with” into these situations, you would not only have gibberish and foolishness, but it would be complete nonsense.

Why did I bring up Spanish? Well, Dr. Lindstrom made that leap right away when he equated the Hebrew word that sounds like the Arabic or Aramaic word for god with a specific reference to the Islamic religion. It is no less foolish to do what he did than it is to do it with the above “can” example.

Let me make the issue even more clear. There is a word in the New Testament that occurs 602 times in the KJV. This is the word that is translated “but”, it is the Greek word “alla” and it sounds exactly like “allah”. This word not only sounds like the Arabic or Aramaic word for god, but it also looks like it too (the letter lamda “l” has the “L” sound and kind of looks like an “L”). Should we understand or see some reference to Islam every time that this word is used in the New Testament? Of course not. It would be reckless, irresponsible, and wrong to do so. It would also make the message of the gospel all but unintelligible.

This is just one example of his reckless hermeneutics.⁴ The problem with bad hermeneutics is that you can distort and misunderstand the bible so much that the message and the truth is lost. It is almost funny (you either laugh or you cry) that someone who is an ardent KJV Only supporter (even though he has said that he is not one) and who heralds the current distortions of the bible with such a loud voice is so dangerously reckless with his personal bible study and interpretation.

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¹ In another broadcast, he called the RSV translation of the bible, the “Reversed Satanic Translation” Bibleline Radio Broadcast, 12/14/06 11:02

² Bibleline Radio Broadcast, 11/29/06 41:50

³ Brown, Driver, Briggs and Gesenius. "Hebrew Lexicon entry for 'alah". "The KJV Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon". .

⁴ Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation, especially of the Scriptures http://dictionary.reference.com/search?db=dictionary&q=hermeneutics

Baptism

Does the act of baptism save? In some circles of theology the answer is yes, and in others the answer is no. The differences on this issue are a microcosm of the differences on the overall theology of justification.

I hold to the position that the baptism is the act of a Christian who is obeying a command of Christ, and it is a symbolic and public profession of the faith that the believer holds. The act and meaning of baptism is summarized in the doctrinal statement of my church like this, “We believe that baptism is the immersion in water of a believer in Christ into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to show forth by solemn and beautiful symbolism, the believer’s identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, and that it is a Scriptural prerequisite to church membership (Matthew 28:19; Acts 8:36; Romans 6:3-5; 1 Peter 3:21; Acts 2:38-41).”¹

Before I go further, I must explain the reason why we hold that baptism (adult baptism by immersion) is a prerequisite of church membership. Jesus sets forth two ordinances, or acts, that are to be observed by all believers for all time, baptism and the Lord’s Supper (communion). The basic reason why baptism is necessary for membership at Ambassador Baptist Church is that baptism seems to be the first act of obedience to the Lord following conversion. All of the leaders, teachers, and other servants in the church must be found to be faithful and devoted servants of Christ. Since baptism is the initial basic command that believers are to obey, one cannot be an obedient servant of Christ if they have not been baptized.

John Piper was asked if you needed to be baptized in order to be saved. His answer was very profound. He said that one does not need to be baptized in order to be saved, but he went on to say that if a person willfully rejects being baptized after they have made a profession of faith, they might not be saved. Not for the lack of baptism, but for the lack of the fruit of baptism. If I reject to follow the command of my Savior, is He truly my savior? So, as much as I must affirm that baptism is not a prerequisite for salvation, the lack of submitting to the command of Christ to be baptized is a clear sign that one is not obeying Him, and this is a sign of an unbeliever.

Another point that I must articulate before going further is which position on baptism I am arguing against here. There are some traditions that embrace infant baptism as a symbol of the new covenant while not making the leap to affirm that one is saved by baptism (infant or otherwise). I do disagree with this understanding of baptism (held by Presbyterians and some other protestant denominations), but it is not nearly as big of a theological issue as the idea of baptismal regeneration held by others.

In my experience, two of the many verses that are brought up when someone is promoting a type of baptismal regeneration are John 3:5 and 1 Peter 3:21. On the surface, both of these verses seem to be saying that baptism is necessary for one to become a Christian.

“Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’” John 3:5

“Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you--not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 1 Peter 3:21

The first hurtle to jump over is the language barrier. The specific hurtle is with the Greek word “baptizw” that is translated baptize. The word and the use of this word don’t always require or imply a water ceremony, but it has gained that meaning because the Greek word was transliterated into English instead of translated. I deal with this issue in the first part of my pervious article, apostle.

John 3:5 is not a problematic verse when it is tossed in the face of someone who rejects baptismal regeneration. One of the ways that this has been argued in the past is that the baptism by “water” is referring to natural birth and the breaking of the bag of waters of the pregnant woman just prior to delivering her baby. Now, where this argument seems reasonable from a Western European standpoint, it would not have been the way that a first century Jew like Nicodemus. He was a teacher of the Law and any mention of baptism would have brought to mind the various places in the Law where cleansing was symbolized by baptism. One such place is with the story of Elisha and Naaman found in 2 Kings 5. The basic story is that Naaman (a Syrian) had leprosy and he went to see Elisha to be healed. Elisha told him that he needed to go to the Jordan and dip into the water 7 times, and if he did that, he would be healed. After some time, Naaman finally bends his will and humbles himself to go do the foolish act of dipping in the Jordan. Once he comes up the 7th time, the leprosy is gone.

This is not a story of the cleansing nature of water, nor is the point that the act of baptism saves. 1 Kings 5:13-14 show us what was going on in Naaman’s mind and why the humiliation of dipping in the Jordan was initially not acceptable to him. He wanted to do something, pay something, or otherwise have some credit for his healing. But the command of Elisha was to show that the power of God alone is what is able to cleanse a person.

Nicodemus would also have thought of Ezekiel 36 where the sprinkling of water was God’s way of saying that He was going to purify His people form the wickedness and idolatry that they were involved in. It was with not the sprinkling of the water that God would perform this cleansing; it was symbolic language to show the cleaning process of God.

1 Peter 3:21 seems a little more daunting to the Bible student at first, but once it is read in context, you can see that it is not advocating baptismal regeneration. The first key is found in the word “corresponding”, and we must understand to what illustration of Noah and the flood mean.

The story of Noah is found in Genesis 6-9. God was angry at all of humanity for our wickedness and he was going to destroy everyone, but He decided to save Noah. The text goes on to show that Noah and his sons built a very large boat, brought animals and supplies into it, and then Noah and his 7 relatives (his wife and his 3 sons and their wives) got into the ark. God then shut the door and He deluged the planet in a terrible flood that killed the men and animals that were not on the ark.

The question needs to be answered – what saved Noah. The obvious answer is God, but by what method did God save Noah? It was not the water that saved Noah, the water only brought death. Noah and his family were saved by the ark, by being inside of the ark they were protected from the wrath of God that He poured out on the world.

When did God pour out His wrath in order to deal with or judge the sinfulness of humanity? He did this to Christ on the cross. Christ was baptized into God’s wrath on the cross (Mark 10:38, Luke 12:50). We are saved by a baptism, but not the water baptism that the believer undergoes. No, we are saved by being found in Christ who was baptized in God’s wrath for the sins of those who would believe. The question then becomes, how can a man be found in Christ, and the overwhelming answer of scripture is that faith is the vehicle that God has divinely chosen to connect the sinner to the Savior (Acts 15:9; Romans 3:21-27; 4:5-20; 5:1-2; Galatians 2:16; 3:2-15).

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¹ Constitution of the Ambassador Baptist Church p. 4