Dear Rev__________:
I have your letter which
came recently, objecting to my article, "Why I Disagree With All Five
Points of Calvinism." In the second paragraph of page 1, you say, "As
to will. . . "Then you spend the next two or three pages talking about
will and calling attention to Bible verses. You mention Titus 3:5
where the Bible says, " Not by works of righteousness which we have
done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."
I have just read this
section of your letter over several times, and you seem to confuse
works with will. For instance, you call attention to Isaiah 64:6 where
the Bible says, " all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. "
Trusting Christ for salvation is the opposite of works. When a man
believes that Jesus Christ died for him and fully trusts Jesus to save
him, and nothing else, then he's not working for salvation. He's
trusting Christ and what Christ did at Calvary.
But it is his own will
that he trusts Christ. God doesn't make anyone trust Him. In John 5:40
Jesus said, "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." He did
not say you cannot come; He said you will not come.
You go on to say in this
particular part of your letter, "We are sinners from birth. . . as
Adam, we hid ourselves from God."
It is true that Adam hid
himself from God. But when God came and called for Adam, Adam answered
God of his own will and he came out from his place of hiding of his
own will. God did not take Adam by the hand and drag him out of the
place of hiding. He simply called and Adam came out. Every man comes
to God of his own will.
In Matthew 23:37 Jesus
said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered
thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not!"
Still discussing the
matter of will, you make reference to Romans 5:12 and say that we are
dead in sin. Then you continue, "Note a dead person cannot move,
respond, walk, nor anything."
Now, you have a
misunderstanding of death. Death is not annihilation. Death is not
cessation of existence. Death is simply separation. Physical death is
the separation of the soul and spirit from the body, and spiritual
death is the separation of the man from God.
In the parable of the
prodigal son, when the prodigal returned home the father said, "This
my son was dead, and is alive again." The prodigal son was dead in the
sense that he was separated from the father. He was certainly capable
of making decisions while he was in the far country separated from the
father. As a matter of fact, he made the decision and went back to the
father. Luke 15:18-20 says, "I will arise and go to my father, and
will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before
thee. And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of
thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father."
Now, here is a dead
person who could move, respond, walk, see his need, decide to do
something about it, and go to the father. And verse 24 says, "For this
my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
Your misunderstanding of
death has led you to build a false doctrine based on an illustration,
instead of Scripture. In Genesis 2:17 God said to Adam, "..for in the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." If you'll read
the next few chapters of Genesis, you will find that Adam did not die
in the sense of ceasing to exist when he partook of the forbidden
fruit. As a matter of fact, Genesis 5:4 says, "And the days of Adam
after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons
and daughters." According to this verse, Adam lived eight hundred
years after he begat Seth, and Seth was not begotten until after Adam
disobeyed God.
Now, was God wrong when
He said to Adam, "Thou shalt surely die"? No. Well, did Adam die? Yes,
He died in the sense that God drove him from His presence, and he was
separated from God because of his sins.
When the Bible says that
men are dead in trespasses and sins, that does not mean they cannot
move, respond, walk, nor anything as you said in your letter. Adam did
a lot of moving and a lot of responding and a lot of walking in the
more than 800 years he lived after the fall.
So you see, when the
Bible says that "death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,"
that "death" is not to be compared with the body of a dead man lying
in a casket. I might say that what you see in the casket in the
funeral home is really not the man. The body that you're looking at is
only the house in which the man lived. The man who lived in that house
is still alive. He's either with Christ in Heaven, or he's in Hell,
depending on whether or not he trusted Christ as his Saviour. If he's
in Heaven, he can certainly move, respond , and walk. And if he's in
Hell, he can certainly move, respond, and walk.
I won't take the space to
quote the many Bible verses concerning the dead, but I suggest you
read the story of the rich man in Luke 16 and you will see that though
he had died he could still talk and make decisions. And if you'll read
Revelation 6:9-11 and Luke 15: 7 and 10, you will see that people who
are in Heaven are conscious. You will see that they rejoice. They
talk. They know what's happening on earth, and they ask questions of
the Lord. So you're wrong when you compare the spiritually dead state
of a sinner with that of a body lying in a casket.
Further in your letter,
you tell of a young girl who was supposedly led wrong by what you call
Baptist doctrine. You say she accepted Christ, and now she is living
immorally and impure.
Now, Mr.___________, I
can only say what the Bible says in Hebrews 12:8, "But if ye be
without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards,
and not sons." If the young girl you mentioned has trusted Christ as
Saviour, I can assure you that she has everlasting life and she will
be chastened. John 3:36 says, " He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life." Now that's a fact. It's not a matter of what I
think about it. It's a matter of what the Bible says. And Hebrews 12:8
makes it clear that those who trusted Christ as Saviour will be
chastised.
On page 5 you say, "Now
as to perseverance..." and you call attention to Revelation 3:5 and
talk about overcoming. You imply that this overcoming is some kind of
perseverance or effort.
First John 5:4,5 says,
"For whosoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that
overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of
God?" Here the Bible says plainly that the victory that overcometh the
world is our faith. We overcome the world by trusting Christ, not by
persevering.
I made it plain in my
article that I believe in eternal security, but the saints are not
secure because they persevere. They are secure because they have been
preserved. The word "perseverance" is defined in Webster's Dictionary
as "a persistent effort." "Preservation" is defined as "the act of
keeping or state of being kept from injury or decay."
The victory that
overcomes the world is not your perseverance. It is your faith,
according to 1 John 5:4.
You close your letter
with a P.S., "Note no human is born of his own will but of the will of
the parents. Christ says we are to be born again."
Again, you make the
mistake of using a human illustration in order to build a Bible
doctrine. You seem to make the same mistake that Nicodemus made in
John chapter 3. He tried to compare the spiritual birth to the
physical birth. In John 3:4 he said to Christ, " How can a man be born
when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb,
and be born?"
You cannot compare the
physical birth to the spiritual birth. Jesus said in verse 6, "That
which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit." They are two different things. You will be better
off if you will build Bible doctrine on what the Bible says rather
than on illustrations.
I hope this letter helps
you to better understand my position. I want you to re-read the
sermon, "Why I Disagree With All Five Points of Calvinism," carefully.
I'm glad you receive THE
SWORD OF THE LORD, and I want you to feel free to express your
opinions about anything you find written in the paper.
Sincerely in Christ,
Curtis Hutson
End of Book
