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The other day I received from a reader an interesting question about Christ’s blood, which I will paraphrase as follows:  Does a person have to hear that Jesus shed His blood for our sins along with hearing that He died for our sins, or is it enough to hear that He died for our sins? That is a good question. The Bible verse that immediately comes to mind is Romans 3:25. My understanding is that Christ’s blood is another way of saying His death (cf. Rom. 5:9-10); in other words, those two things cannot be separated. For example, after Adam and Eve sinned, the Bible says that God made garm ..read more

CALVINIST VIEW What is the meaning of spiritual “death” in the Bible? Does it mean the inability of man to believe the Gospel as Calvinists teach? Commenting on the judgment of Adam and Eve after the Fall, Dr. J. Vernon McGee explains the biblical meaning of death in the following words: “Death now comes to man. What is death? Physical death is a separation of the person, the spirit, the soul, from the body. Ecclesiastes says: ‘Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it’ (Eccl. 12:7). Man ultimately must answer to God. Whether ..read more

I just read the Middletown Bible Church article on Repentance that a friend of mine linked me to and had some questions about. Overall, I would say that the article was mostly good, although I can see how it would raise some questions in a person's mind in regards to forsaking sinful living for salvation. The main statement in the article that I thought was unclear was in the quote by Pastor Kelly Sensenig, when he said: "When you repent you will think differently and possess a different attitude about God, Jesus Christ, salvation, your own life of sin, and need for salvation. You will recon ..read more

According to Jesus, the content of saving faith now includes the cross! See John chapter 3 (vv. 14-15), when Jesus tells Nicodemus that "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believes in Him [i.e. "the Son of Man...lifted up"] may have eternal life." Jesus is prophesying of His coming crucifixion and saying that AFTER His death on the cross, it will be essential to believe — not merely in Jesus, but specifically in "the Son of man...lifted up [on the cross]" — for eternal life! (See John 3:14-15, cf. Num. 21:6-9.)  &nb ..read more

I recently ordered the Thru the Bible "featured resource" from the TTB.org website: The Complete 5-Year Series Flash Drive! What follows is my review of it. Overall I would say that I am very pleased with this product (I hesitate to call it a "product", but hopefully you get the idea); this is truly an invaluable resource and well worth the $35 cost. It  did take about 10 days to arrive by mail; so if you are used to the Amazon Prime next day delivery, it won't arrive that quickly. However, the shipping cost is included in the $35 price tag, which is really a bargain if you ask me. Pers ..read more

Tom Stegall is trying hard to find some biblical basis for his removal of Christ's burial from the gospel of salvation. Now he believes he has found it in the Gospel of John, of all places! Regarding this, Stegall says: "John's Gospel does not present Jesus' burial as the fulfillment of Scripture".[1] Really? Actually it does! Jesus Himself predicted His burial in John 12:7. And the Gospel of John details the fact of it in John 19:38-42, thus fulfilling Jesus' prediction. Is Stegall prepared to say that the words of Jesus are not "Scripture"? In the very first chapter of the Gospel of John ..read more

I just read a very revealing statement by Bob Wilkin that really surprised me. In a blog post last year, Wilkin said: “I talked with Mike Lii [another promoter of the GES gospel] during a ten-mile walk on Saturday, and he made an interesting point. He said that most hypothetical questions are not based on the questioner’s actual experience. For example, ‘If someone believes in a frog named Jesus for everlasting life, is he born again?’ Well, there is no actual example like that. ‘If someone believes that Jesús, his gardener, guarantees his eternal destiny, is he saved?’ Again, there is no su ..read more

Some years ago Daniel B. Wallace wrote a blog post for the Parchment and Pen blog titled "Inviting Jesus into your Heart", to which someone named John left the following comment: "The Book of Revelation Chapters 2 & 3 deal with the church ages, from the time of Paul, the angel (messenger) to Ephesus (dealing with the Gentile Christian Eras) to our Age (Laodicea)."[1] It's important to point out that John's view of Revelation chapters 2-3 is essentially the view set forth by Dr. C. I. Scofield in his Scofield Reference Bible. But notice how Wallace responds: he quickly brushes John's vi ..read more

In Distinction to Tom Stegall and the Groundless Gospel  * * *   In this article I would like to specifically respond to Pastor Tom Stegall’s “Proposed Change”[1] that he handed out to his church congregation—Word of Grace Bible Church—in 2007. (Stegall has since left Word of Grace Bible Church and is now Senior Pastor at Duluth Bible Church in Duluth, Minnesota.) The “Proposed Change” was probably an overreaction to the “crossless gospel” (although actually following in their footsteps!): Stegall felt the need to make “several slight changes” to his church’s doctrinal statement o ..read more