Atonement: In Reply to Hank

My last post regarding the eternal fate of Gentiles before the time of Jesus was overly long, and Hank — whose questions and comments prompted that post — has responded in detail. The quoted materials are from his response in the comments. (I’ve corrected typos.) And this is going to run long, too.

Jay,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I must admit, I don’t believe I had ever heard of the position that argued that the pre Christ Gentiles all just died, never to be raised again. No resurrection, no judgment, no reward, no condemnation. Is that what you really believe?

Since the late Second Century, Greek Platonic thought entered into Christian thought. Contrary to the Scriptures, Plato taught that each human has a soul that is innately immortal. If this is so, then we must find a place for the soul of every deceased person, either heaven or hell. The Catholic Church later modified this to add Limbo and Purgatory.

But the Scriptures consider only God innately immortal, and so immortality is a gift of God to those he saves.

(Rom 2:7 ESV) 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;

(1 Cor 15:53–54 ESV) 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

(1 Tim 6:16 ESV) who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

(2 Tim 1:10 ESV)  10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

If immortality is a gift given by God to the saved, then the rest are mortal and die — or else are raised to suffer a just punishments from a just God and then die. Only the saved become immortal. And there’s no reason to assume that all unsaved people are treated the same.

In short, conditionalism, as taught by Edward Fudge, gives rise to possibilities that would otherwise be unthinkable. And I’ve been convinced for about 5 years that Fudge is right. I tried to disprove him and then found myself persuaded.

However, the implications of Fudge’s thesis have not been fully explored in the literature (not that I’ve seen). I’ve been teaching the spiritual death of the pre-resurrection Gentiles here for two or three years, because I don’t see how else we can interpret Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill (Acts 17:30 in particular) and what he says in Romans (especially chapter 5). How else could God have overlooked their sin and yet death reigned at the same time? I think I first dealt with this in the God is Not Fair series.

On a side note, I’d be curious to know how long you’ve believed that and how many other past scholars (particularly of the CoC stripe, that took that position). Again, I truly never heard of this idea.

I have no idea who agrees with me, if anyone. Most commentaries that I’ve seen avoid the subject, and as I noted in the previous post, at least one asserts that good Gentiles pre-resurrection therefore went to heaven, which seems to me to contradict Romans 1 – 5. Moreover, I’m not comfortable with the narrative that good Gentiles went to heaven pre-resurrection but now, thanks to the good news, will go to hell unless preached to.

…

1. I assume that when Nineveh repented at Jonah and was spared, you must understand that to be from a purely physical and worldly standpoint, right? But, what about Matt 12.41 — “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here”?

We have to recognize that Jesus uses Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba in parallel. And there’s not the least reason in the Old Testament account to imagine that the Queen converted to worship Yahweh. Jesus commends her, not for her faith, but for being open minded — which is a good thing but not enough to save.

Just so, the Ninevites repented and so were spared from God’s wrath on earth.

(Jonah 3:10 ESV) When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. 

And so, there is no reason to imagine that God granted them a heavenly reward for their repentance. Not from the text of Jonah.

Jesus’ point is not that Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba will be in heaven while you Pharisees will not. Jesus’ point is that they — Gentiles and strangers to the Law — had sufficiently open minds to listen and see what God had to say to them through his representatives (who did not do recorded miracles), contrary to the scribes and Pharisees, who were asking for yet another sign from Jesus, obstinately refusing to hear a Prophet far greater than either Solomon or Jonah.

In fact, read literally, Jesus makes Nineveh the judge over the Jews! Obviously, Jesus is speaking figuratively —

This does not mean that they will issue edicts in the manner of judges, but long ago their conduct had set a standard that the current generation should have attained but did not.

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Pillar NTC; Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 326.

2. ROM2.26 Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

How, in what sense, could the uncircumcision (the Gentiles) “keep the righteousness of the law”? How could they (the Gentiles), “fulfill the law”? How could a Gentile be considered a Jew “inwardly, and be considered “circumcised in heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter”?

In this passage, Paul states the standard, and he then spends the next several chapters answering exactly this question. We are not left to speculate. And Paul will say repeatedly that works cannot save and so salvation is only by faith. I mean, he was not intending for us to stop here and not thoroughly absorb the teachings of chapters 3 and 4! Context is everything.

The answer finally comes in chapter 8 — a explanation of the how the “circumcision of the heart” concept (founded on Deut 30:6) is resolved under the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31.

(Rom 8:2–8 ESV) 2 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Works cannot save! Those who live according the flesh cannot be saved on their merit! The solution is the Spirit because the Spirit allows us to “submit to God’s law.” Those without the Spirit “cannot please God.”

And Paul has not forgotten circumcision of the Spirit. Rather, he is now explaining it.

(Rom 8:9–11 ESV) 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Those who have the Spirit will be saved and those without the Spirit will not. Period. And so this is the same contrast Paul expressed in Rom 2:26 explained in spiritual terms — in terms familiar to Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, all of whom spoke of these things. (I covered this in much greater detail in the God Is Not Fair series.)

3. JHN10.16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

Who were the “other sheep” that were “not of this fold”?

Who says all sheep are saved? Who is “this fold”? Obviously enough, Israel, except most of Israel rejected Jesus and was lost. This is the not the parable of the lost sheep, where those in the fold are saved. This is a reference to Ezekiel 34, where the sheep are all the people of Israel. In short, the other fold is all Gentiles.

The allusion is to Gentile people, those who are not part of Israel. They too must hear the message of the gospel. Of these Jesus said, They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be (lit. ‘they shall become’) one flock and one shepherd. Jesus was foreshadowing apostolic times, when his gospel would be taken to non-Jews, to Samaritans and Gentiles, something that would take place through the preaching of his disciples. Then all peoples would hear his voice, believe in him and be incorporated into the body of his disciples.

Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale NTC 4; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 234.

4. JHN11.52 And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

Who were the “children of God” who were not of “that nation”? Doesn’t “that nation” refer to Israel?

Once again, and this time quite plainly, Jesus is looking ahead to the coming Kingdom when Gentiles would be invited in. He’s not looking backwards.

D.A. Carson writes from a Calvinist perspective —

Barrett himself decisively opts for the latter, on the grounds that 1:12–13; 3:3, 5 ‘make it clear that men become children of God only by receiving Christ, by birth of water and Spirit’ (cf. also Vellanickal, pp. 214ff.). Why then are they called ‘children of God’ before they are regenerated and gathered? The answer is in line with the predestinarian strain in this Gospel: Jesus already has sheep in other pens whom he must bring (10:16); certain people have already been given to the Son by the Father (6:37ff., 44, 65), even if they have not yet become disciples. The thought is akin to Acts 18:9, 10. For them Jesus lays down his life, ‘to bring them together and make them one’.

D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Pillar NTC; Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 423.

Closer to my own point of view is Bruner —

We may, therefore, appropriately end John 11 with a brief parade of Israel’s main texts foretelling and celebrating the Messiah’s magnetic worldwide work, honored just now afresh and unconsciously by Caiaphas’s Prophecy, as the crowning meaning of the raising of Lazarus (I will heighten relevant words and phrases):

Isaiah 2:3: “Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.’　”

Isaiah 42:6: “I have given you, [Servant of the Lord], as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations.”

Isaiah 43:5: “I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, ‘Give them up,’ and to the south, ‘Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth—everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.’　”

Isaiah 45:21: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.”

Isaiah 49:6: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Isaiah 56:7: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Amos 9:11–12, according to James’s momentous Jerusalem-Council Decision for the Gentiles in Acts 15:13–18: “James replied, ‘My brothers, listen to me. Simon [Peter] has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. This agrees with the words of the prophets [specifically Amos 9:11–12], as it is written, “After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up, so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.”　’　”

Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John, A Commentary. In other words, Jesus is speaking of those who will become children of God as promised by the prophets. I’ve found no commentary arguing that Jesus is saying the Gentiles are already saved.

5. ACT10.34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.

What does “accepted with him” mean? Doesn’t it mean “saved”? It it simple meant “acceptable TO BE saved”, then wouldn’t that mean that most men were not allowed to be saved, no matter what? Can “whoever fears God and does good is accepted with him” really mean – “unsaved/unforgiven”?

Hank, “accepted with him” is a dreadful translation in terms of modern English. You really need to use a translation less than 400 years old. Modern translations generally say “acceptable” or “is welcomed by” (NET).

Peter is speaking of Cornelius being accepted by faith in Jesus, not that he’d somehow been saved by some unrevealed Gentile covenant pre-resurrection.

(Act 10:34-35 ESV) ³⁴ So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵ but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

But the KJV is closer to right to translate “works righteousness” as “does righteousness” rather than “does what is right.” That sounds like a works salvation when Cornelius had just been saved upon coming to faith in Jesus as Messiah.

“Righteousness” refers to covenant faithfulness, which to a Christian, is to believe Jesus is the Messiah — which is exactly what Cornelius did — and this is what saves, not doing what is right. Again, context matters greatly. And Peter was speaking to a Jewish audience about the Gentiles being faithful to God’s covenant with Abraham to believe God.

Those are my first thoughts here. I will chew on what you write some more and see if I can better understand your position. I would like to know who else believed and/or believes as you on this, and read what they have/had to say.

I couldn’t ask for anything else. Thanks.