8 Responses to “December 4, 2009”

1. Ron Elkin
   December 10th, 2009 @ 9:02 am

   Sickness and disease occur in believers because we live in a fallen world that is under a curse. Spiritually we have been healed but we still grow old and die (this is part of the fall of Adam). I believe that God can and does heal people in this life physically but not always. Jesus didn’t heal every sick person he met. The New Testament doesn’t list every person who believed in Jesus while he was alive. Among them there were certainilh people who had physically problems. The records of church history do not record all believers being healed in the early church. Certainly, the healing ministry of Jesus, being fresh in the minds of the early church members, should have brought about mass healing for ill believers. God doesn’t explain everything to us, there are mysteries. So, why some are healed and others not, is a mystery. I was healed of bladder cancer two years ago, while my good friend Dennis Gilbert (an upstanding Jewish Christian – active in ministry) died of cancer two years ago. I can’t say that my faith was stronger then Dennis’. It was for God’s purposes that both things occured. In summary, we should seek healing through prayer and obedience but if it doesn’t come we should fault God or the believer.

2. Ron Elkin
   December 10th, 2009 @ 9:04 am

   The last line of my comments should read “In summary, we should seek healing through prayer and obedience but if it doesn’t come we should NOT fault God or the believer.”

   Please correct if you post the comment.

3. Mwiya
   December 10th, 2009 @ 2:16 pm

   Dr brown,

   Regarding the trinity, I’ve been thinking about the chalcedonian creed and how Messiah has two natures and yet is One person. He is God and wears humanity. This makes sense as even human have a spiritual nature and then the flesh also. Now it says that these two natures do not mix or something of that sort. This makes perfect sense pre-resurrection and Glorification. But now that He has eyes like flame of fire and his face shines forth like the sun and he has feet like burnished brass is that creed really truly descriptive of his nature now. I mean strictly speaking having eyes like fire and glory that shines like the sun is not a human thing but a Divine thing. And so would you say that the eastern orthodox view that sees the two being more “mixed” is more in view after the resurrection and the spirtualization of the human body so that it can dwell in the heavens as well as on earth? Or is chalcedon still the perfect description for the Messiah’s nature before and after the resurrection?

   Also regarding the Sonship of Messiah. Would you say He is the Son in the sense that as YHWH-The Word he has taken on human flesh and become the Unique Son of God among other sons such as angels for example. For the angels are also sons of God and yet not divine, and yet He is fully Divine and also Human and so is the Unique Son of God who can be heir of God and redeemer of mankind? I ask this because throughout the OT the idea of Father-Son relationship between the Word and the Father is not made so clear whereas a relationship of Self exrpession by God through His Word, the Messenger of His Presence and exact representation of His Being and Essence is made clear. So in other words does “sonship” refer more to Dualistic nature of Messiah as Fully God and yet also truly man?

4. Dr Michael L Brown
   December 10th, 2009 @ 9:46 pm

   Mwiya,

   Great questions, but a bit hard to answer in this setting — especially as I travel to India tomorrow. Can I recommend that you dive into my lengthy treatment of these issues in vol. 2 of my series Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus?

5. Mwiya
   December 11th, 2009 @ 8:06 am

   Sure thing,
   Thanks Dr. Brown

6. Troy
   January 8th, 2010 @ 4:55 am

   Remind White of the 6 Major Sins of Calvinism:

   1.You refuse to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated by erecting an idol called Total depravity which says you can’t so you won’t;
   2.You worship a god who sends people to Hell from birth without any opportunity to be saved and they could do nothing about it. What love is this? You worship a god who does not provide sufficient grace to all or is unable (impotent) to. Isn’t this what Hitler did to the Jews?;
   3.You worship an evil tyrant that must irresistibly impose its kind of regeneration on people without giving them the choice (not much of a gift). Isn’t this what Hitler did to his Aryan race?;
   4.Your god contradicts himself with his two wills you claim secretly doesn’t want all to be saved but openly says he does. If something is a secret then by definition you can’t make any claim about it or if it even exists;
   5.It’s wrong to give people false hope to deliver the gospel to them when your god made them unable to respond. There is no way around this duplicity and charade;
   6.The god of Calvinism could save all, but doesn’t; whereas God of the Bible doesn’t save all because most people refuse His love, e.g. Calvinists.

7. Nakdimon
   January 25th, 2010 @ 7:03 am

   Hello Dr Brown,

   I have heard about the upcoming discussion on Calvinism with Dr James R. White of AOMIN.org and looking forward to it. I like Dr White and have been listening to his show for almost 3 years now, but I disagree with him on Calvinism. I have heard him saying that he can’t find anyone that can walk through John 6 with him. (in particularly verses 37-44) Here is my take on John 6.

   “37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away… 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day… 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

   Reading this passage, there is a clear distinction between the “drawing to” and the “coming to” the Son of God. The fact that the Father draws people to the Son, doesn’t mean that they are saved. The Calvinists equate the “drawing to” the Son with the “coming to” the Son. Clearly, the Son says here that the “drawing to” the Son has to do with the ability to come to the Son. He says “No one CAN COME to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” [emphasis mine], meaning that no one has THE ABILITY to come to the Son unless the Father draws them, i.e. this ability is given to them by the Father. And those that are drawn, have the ability to come to the Son and have eternal life.

   Now the other question becomes “who are drawn”? Is there only a select group that has been drawn? No ALL men are drawn, as is stated in John 12:

   30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw ALL MEN to myself.” [emphasis mine]

   Now Calvinists will claim that the word for “all men” in verse 32 is not referring to “all men” but to “all the elect”. This is begging the question. There is nothing in this text that limits the word “all men” to a particular group. On the contrary. Yeshua talks about the “judgment of the world” in the preceding verse, thus including the entire world in the verse where He refers to “all men”.

   In the process, Calvinists claim that the ones that are bought are only the elect. This is absolutely contradicted in the New Testament. For example, in 2 Peter 2:1-3 it reads:

   1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

   So there will be false teachers that will deny the Lord that bought them. According to Calvinists’ doctrine of “limited atonement”, only those that will be preserved for eternal life are bought by the blood of Yeshua. The blood of Yeshua was not shed for those that reject Him and in the process perish. Calvinists will object to this text and claim that this is about the Israel of Old. However, this, again, is simply begging the question. First of all, the emphasis in the text points to Peter’s contemporaries and does not point back to the Israel of Old. Second, when Peter says “…They WILL secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them…” and “2 Many WILL follow their shameful ways and WILL bring the way of truth into disrepute.” and “3 In their greed these teachers WILL exploit you with stories they have made up.“ it is quite clear that this Peter clearly points to FUTURE false teachers not back to Israel of the past, clearly pointing to the buying of those future false teachers by the blood of the Lamb. Thirdly, I have heard James White object to the reading of this verse being applied to Yeshua because of the greek word “despotes”, saying that since the word “kurios” is not being used here, it doesn’t refer to Yeshua but to the Father, therefore not talking about the blood atonement of Yeshua. This argument is very strange, because even if it is referring to the Father and having established that this is about Peter’s contemporaries being bought by the blood of the Lamb, how on earth, then, can it not be referring to the buying of the Father through the blood of the Son? Even if it is about the Father, how did the Father buy those people if not through the blood of the Son?

   But then the Calvinist says, that since man is totally depraved man cannot even accept the Gospel and then fall away. It takes regeneration to accept the Gospel and once you have been regenerated, you cannot fall away. But this, again is contradicted by Scripture, I will, again, give one example, even though there can be raised a few. In Matthew 13, in the parable of the sower, Yeshua clearly says about the rocky soil that this refers to “the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy”, but then “he lasts only a short time” and “he quickly falls away”. So if it is true that one must first be regenerated before one can receive the Gospel AND once one is regenerated one cannot fall away, why does this scripture say the exact opposite? Either the one that falls away was not regenerated first, which means that the concept of regeneration before faith is false, or the one that falls away was regenerated before he received the Gospel but then the regenerated person can indeed fall away, which falsifies the doctrine of limited atonement. (a major one being Hebrews 10:26-29)

   As I said, there are more such passages, but I think this will do for now.

   Blessings through the Messiah, the Savior of the world,
   Nakdimon

8. Nakdimon
   January 25th, 2010 @ 7:23 am

   Jeremiah 19: 1 This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests 2 and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, 3 and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. 4 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5 They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.

   According to Calvinists, God works everything, even every evil, according to the pleasure of His good will and has therefore predestined every single event that happened in history according to His council. But here it clearly says that the evil of Israel was something that He never commanded or even entered His mind. Actually the Hebrew says literally “my heart”. (Hebr. Libi [lee-bee] = my heart) So how can this have happened, clearly outside of the council of God, since according to this text God never even thought of having Israel doing this?

   Shalom,
   Nakdimon

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