One In Jesus

Now, notice that the first four Steps in the Five-Step Plan of Salvation are all found in “faith.” But not all of faith is found in the Plan of Salvation. In particular, the Plan omits trust in God’s promises given through Jesus. Yes, it’s sort of implicit that we are trusting God to forgive our sins if we execute the Five Steps correctly, but are we trusting God to love us? To give us an inheritance? My experience with 20th Century Church of Christ teaching is that we don’t. Indeed, many of our members have no confidence at all that God will save them in the end because they think their salvation depends on the perfection of their understanding and performance.

I can’t count the emails, phone calls, and personal conversations I’ve had with victims of 20th Century Church of Christ theology where I’ve been told how very unsaved these members felt. They knew they had to try to make it, but had little confidence that they’d really be faithful unto death. “Faithful” seemed an impossibly high standard. Continue reading →

Repentance

Let’s turn back to Rom 10, the home of many Plan of Salvation proof texts, and take a fresh look –

(Rom 10:9-17 ESV) ⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. ¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. ¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

¹⁴ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵ And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” ¹⁶ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” ¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Continue reading →

Metonymy

It’s been argued in the comments that Phil’s statement that we are saved by “faith in the plan” is mere metonymy (referring to something or someone by something intimately associated with it) for “faith in Jesus.” And, indeed, Phil may well have been engaging in metonymy. But if so, what doctrinal underpinnings cause him to think that “plan” is a fair and helpful way to speak of Jesus?

Obviously, metaphors matter. If I were to refer to my wife as “the old ball and chain,” that would tell you a lot about our relationship. And it wouldn’t speak well of it at all. Just so, if we refer to Jesus the person as “the plan,” then we’ve somewhat depersonalized him and reduced him to a concept. I can’t imagine that he’d be pleased. Continue reading →

On the understandability of the scriptures

K. Rex Butts writes,

What makes one so sure they understand correctly everything that scripture teaches as necessary? What if they are wrong? And if they are, how will they ever be saved since according to their view one cannot be saved if one is in error on any of these matters? How is this not faith in one’s own ability to reason and delineate scripture?

David Millican writes,

Did you expect me to understand your post? I know that you did, and therefore you believe that you have the ability to communicate your thought adequately enough to be understood. Yet somehow God, the Creator of our mind, ears, voices, and language is not able to communicate adequately enough to be understood. How much arrogance can one statement contain?

… I hold nothing for contempt for the argument that the Scripture can not be understood! Continue reading →

Introduction

I’m still trying to catch up on email, rest up, and such like. I thought I’d try to post some additional material on the “The Man or the Plan” series of posts before I disappear into the Great Smokey Mountains.

First, I must say I was surprised at how many commenters failed to see that the point of the series is my disagreement with Phil Sanders’ assertion that we are saved by “faith in God’s plan,” while the scriptures repeatedly and clearly teach that we are saved by faith in Jesus. I guess I should have captioned it “faith in the man or the plan” to be clearer.

Yes, there is a plan. Of course. But if we think we’re saved by faith in a plan, we’ve not understood the plan. In future posts, I’ll address the true nature of this plan further. Continue reading →