Zane Hodges has passed and recieved his rewards...

==This news brings mixed feelings to my heart. On one hand I am sad to see his family and friends have to deal with his departure during this time of the year.

On the other hand, I blame Mr. Hodges for spreading an easy believism that has done much damage to the modern church. The no-Lordship "gospel" is dangerous because it leads people to the false conclusion that they can have Jesus as their Savior but not as their Lord. Whether Hodges is in heaven or hell I can't say because I don't know if he personally fell under the curse of Gal 1:8-9. I do pray that he is in heaven with the Lord and that he will have eternal peace with his Savior. I also pray for the thousands who have been mislead by his false teachings.

 

Hodges mislead millions. It is ironic that you say he let his lord proclaim truths, when he spent so much time teaching that one not need a Lord for salvation.

 

Hodges taught that a person can stop believing in Christ and even repudiate Christ and still be saved. That means that Zane Hodges believed that God would save unbelievers. That is unbiblical. It is misleading. It was not the gospel.

Hodges was a great Greek scholar. He did not understand the gospel very well.

 

I am only responded to Alive in Christ to clearify certain points of confusion.

==Your right, the Gospel is justification by faith alone. However Mr. Hodges twisted that truth. He took it to mean that "faith alone" meant no need for repentance, and that a person could deny the Lordship of Christ and still claim to have true faith. What Mr. Hodges preached was not the Gospel that Jesus and Paul preached, it was not the Gospel preached by men like Luther and Calvin, what Hodges preached was a watered down "gospel" that lacked true power.

==Nobody is teaching salvation/justification by "doing, doing, doing, good deeds". The idea that Lordship salvation proponents teach that is a misleading strawman. One that Mr. Hodges constantly made. We believe that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (Rom 4:4-5, Eph 2:8-9). We believe that people who have true faith in Christ confess Him as their "Lord" (Rom 10:9). A person who wants salvation without relationship is not coming in true faith. A person who wants salvation without submission is not coming in true faith. A person who wants salvation on their terms is not coming in true faith. After salvation the "doing, doing, doing" is not to be saved or to saved, but it is evidence of true salvation. It is evidence of a changed heart (1Jn 3:4-10).

==Jesus Christ is Lord, correct. However to be saved you must confess Him as your Lord (Master: Rom 10:9). A person who refuses to confess Christ as their Lord is not coming to Christ in true faith.

==Are you saying that the teaching that salvation results in a changed life is legalism? Are you saying that the teaching that true faith is a submissive faith is legalism?

==Does it ring "utterly hollow" when free-grace proponents on this board point out the dangers of the "cross-less gospel" promoted by men like Zane Hodges? How can that ring hollow? Those are people who deny Lordship Salvation, like yourself, yet who have realized that something is terribly wrong with GES.

As for Scripture, Scripture never allows for the idea that a person can be saved and not experience a true change of heart that results in a new life. Scripture never allows for the idea that a person who's heart is set on rebellion can at the same time express true faith. True faith is a product of the Holy Spirit and with true faith comes a surrendered heart.

==GES has promoted the idea that a person can be saved without believing in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For a tragic example of the GES error see Bob Wilkin's article "Scavenger Hunt Salvation Without A List" published in the May/June 2008 edition of Grace In Focus. Zane Hodges agreed with the idea expressed by Wilkin. The criticism is not "utterly and ridiculously wrong", it is based on GES documentation. And again I would point out that there are freegrace (non-Lordship) folks who have taken up the charge against GES on this point.

==Because the message of GES is not the Biblical Gospel according to the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

==If you take the time to examine the context of Luke 15 you would see that the prodigal son parable does not have anything to do with eternal security (pro or con). It is a parable about salvation. More directly it is a parable about salvation of the repentant son (Lk 15:17-24) who represents sinners who come to Christ (Lk 15:1-2, 7,10,22-24) and the hardened heart of the older brother who represents the Pharisees and scribes (15:1-2, 25-32).

So the very idea that the prodigal son parable justifies the heresy that a person can be saved and "stop believing in Christ and even repudiate Christ and still be saved" is refuted easily by simply examining the text.

==I wonder how that fits with Matthew 10:32-33?

A believer may fall, and fall badly, but a true believer will never lose his/her faith. Why not? Because the Lord Jesus is the author and finisher of true saving faith (Heb 12:2, Lk 22:31-32). The only way a true believer could lose his/her faith was if they lost Christ. Since that cannot and will not happen, a true believer cannot lose his/her faith. Also the Scriptures clearly teach the perseverance in the faith is a sign of true salvation (Jn 8:31, Col 1:21-23, etc).

Again, however, you need to acknowledge that this is a point of disagreement within the freegrace camp. It is not just a point of disagreement between the Lordship camp and the freegrace camp.

 

No I don't mean like that at all. As you say, he never stopped being his father's son and he came back. Hodges was talking about people who do not come back.

But the prodigal son is not a story about believers backsliding, but about Jews not repenting and believing to begin with. Jesus told that parable to rebuke the Jews.

This is the biblical doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, that true believers never finally fall away. Hodges denied that.

That's exactly what it means.

True, and God's own will never finally forsake him.

Hodges apparently did not believe that.

 

Hodges....

From...
http://chafer.edu/journal/back_issues/v8n3_1.pdf

John...

I rest my case

 

I find it sad that we have mixed feelings about his passing. Perhaps, for good reasons.

 

==I know what they teach. I use to belong to their organization before the Lord convicted me through Scripture about the errors of GES. We have no reason to place teachings on GES that they do not hold to. I checked and GES has not placed the article "Scavenger Hunt Salvation Without A List" on their website yet. In the article Bob Wilkin says the following:

"What about the virgin birth, the Trinity, Jesus' bodily resurrection, Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, Jesus' substitutionary death on the cross, Jesus' sinless life, Jesus' miracles, the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit, the convicting work of the Spirit, the hypostatic union, and so on? Knowing these things certainly makes it easier to believe in Jesus for eternal life. But does it follow that we must believe these things to be saved? No."

According to Bob Wilkins, founder of GES, a person does not need to believe in the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross or the resurrection of Christ in order to be saved. That is unBiblical in the extreme. In fact it is direct denial of the Gospel.

"Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures..." -1Cor 15:1-4

Compare what the Apostle Paul said with what Bob Wilkin said. They are worlds apart (see also Rom 10:9, Lk 24:44-49). You can deny the obvious problems with Wilkins, Hodges, and the rest of GES all you want. However at the end of the day their teachings are in error because what they teach does not match the Word of God.

I'm sure they will post that article in the future. Keep looking for it. Hopefully you will be shocked.

==Nothing I have said is derogatory. All I am doing is taking their actual teachings and measuring them by the Word of God. The thing about GES is that they are tricky. On the surface it sounds like they are in the mainstream. However it is when one goes deeper than the surface, when one gets into the meat of what they are teaching, then the problems appear. I have read most of their books and I once agreed with almost everything they said. Now I tremble at the very idea that I, for a season, agreed with some of their errors. I thank God that He is gracious and forgiving, even to those of us who strayed for a season. However I must admit that I never went so far as to teach a "crossless gospel" or deny the need of repentance like Wilkins/Hodges have done. I have to wonder about those, like Hodges and Wilkin, who camp out in error. Have they simply strayed or are they wolves in sheeps clothing? When they started teaching a crossless gospel I had to start thinking it might be the latter.

I admire several men in the freegrace movement (Charles Stanley, Charles Ryrie, etc). However they have not gone to the dangerous extremes of GES (Wilkin, Hodges, Bing, etc). The freegrace movement can be divided up into two camps: the extreme freegrace and the moderate freegrace. I fell into the moderate group for a period of time.

==On the surface it sounds the same. Yes. However it is when one gets into their actual teachings that problems show up. How many of Hodges or Wilkins books have you read? Which ones?

==Legalists? Because we believe that salvation results in a changed life (1Jn 3:4-10, Eph 2:8-10, Gal 5:19-26)? I know that is not what you mean. However it certainly seems like you are overlooking that aspect of GES. It is a tragic sign of the "downgrade" in our own day that holiness is equaled to legalism in the much of the church. This confusion I blame, in part, on men like Zane Hodges, Tony Evans, and Bob Wilkin. They have confused too many people. It is a tragedy.

 

And I find it sad that one has to be a believer in order to be a redeemed child of God.
A believer is one who has come to a belief on account of hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Was Paul saying he will get Jews redeemed by having them hear, or was he saying that they need to hear in order to believe ? Apparently it is the latter, yet this is not in connection with the redemption of those in Israel, the nation, who are of the Israel of God.

Jesus Christ went to the cross and redeemed His people by taking upon Himself all their sins, all their guilt, and tasting death in their behalf that they may be free of their sins, of their guilt, and have life where they had death.

His Lordship is unquestionable, whether His child obeys Him or not, whether or not His child proclaims Jesus is my Lord is beside the point. He is Lord.

This truth is akin to the truth that in this fallen world many peoples call on the names of many God, but the unchallengeable, undeniable, fact is that "there is no other name given under heaven whereby men must be saved".

The eternal redemption of His people is not predicated on their assent to His Lordship, or to their knowledge of His Name. Their eternal redemption is 100% grace.

The term "salvation by faith in Jesus Christ" is more properly understood in the context of gospel salvation, where a heathen is reached by, and hears, the gospel, is regenerated before or after the fact, and professes Christ as a result of his conversion, then is he saved from his heathen way of life, "by faith" in Jesus Christ.

 

Yet this is unequivocally taught in Scripture. If one does not believe, he is not a child of God.

 

Joh 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

 

Is your statement based on Scripture?

 

Um, How can you post in the "Baptist only" section? There has never, to my knowledge, been a Baptist Faith and Message, statement of faith, etc., that would not vehemently deny what you just stated.

Those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, in terms of a submissive trust, and have not repented, are not only not a "redeemed child of God", according to Jesus, they will spend an eternity in the tormenting fires of Hell, where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth"

 

Because I am a Baptist. The Baptist order I belong to most likely predates the order you belong to. :BangHead:

Well then your knowledge is suspect, and is very narrow. Try to broaden your knowledge, kind sir. :laugh: The Baptist people being of an independent and individualistic streak, I am sure you're likely to find some Baptist faith or message that will make your hair fall out. But then what will you do ? Un-baptist them ?

Well, then, pray tell this "non-Baptist", with this qualification you insist a redeemed child of God must possess, how will you reconcile the following Scripture to all having believed in Jesus Christ in terms of a submissive trust ?

All means all, at least in this context, it does, I presume ? And if all means all, then this. "all" would include those who lived before Jesus' time, and all people and all tongues mean to include all those who lived outside of the area of the earth which God chose to make Himself known, namely the isles and islands and other continents of the world regardless of chronology, right ?

There are approximately 7 or 8 such passages that use the phrase "weeping and gnashing" of teeth, choose one, and let's discuss it, in relation to eternal redemption and your requirement that those whom Christ redeemed must ALL have submissive trust before they qualify for redemption.