Featured Questions and their Answers

The Protestant Response

Darryl and the Jesuits are both in agreement: No OT saints were admitted into the presence of God – aka Heaven/Paradise – until Christ’s atonement was effectuated by His ultimate ascension to Heaven.

Thomas Cartwright and the Protestant Reformers knew better. They understood the grace of God was sufficient in both Testaments to save to the uttermost.

Darryl would have us believe there is a salvation without eternal redemption. The OT saints were saved, he declares, but not eternally redeemed. Thus, he postulates a partial salvation which is no salvation.

Steps to Glorification

In Romans 8, Paul delineates the steps necessary to glorification.

The candidate must first be called according to God’s gracious, saving, predestinating purpose (vs. 28-29).

Abraham was called by God (Genesis 12).

In Romans 10:13 Paul declares, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, citing Joel 2:32.

Abraham called upon the name of the Lord (Gen. 8:12).

But first he built an altar to the Lord. Why?

It was because he was given the revelation of the only acceptable way to approach the Most High God – through the shedding of blood.

Cain and Abel were given the same revelation, but Cain rejected God’s way, preferring a works righteousness instead.

Abraham knew the promised Redeemer would be descended through Isaac, the son of promise. Therefore, he understood that should Isaac die, sacrificed as a burnt offering, God would revive him. For the promises of God cannot fail.

This event was a ‘figure’ of Christ who was to be put to death and would resurrect from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19).

Here we have in the book of Genesis (Chapter 22) an extremely detailed explanation of the Gospel in type, contrary to Darryl’s insistence that the Gospel was a mystery, hidden to everyone until Christ’s first advent.

From Calling to Justification

This is the second step to glorification (Romans 8:30).

Those whom God calls, He justifies.

Abraham was justified before Christ’s actual cross work (Genesis 15:6).

From Justification to Glorification

Next, Paul has the audacity to declare all those whom God has justified are guaranteed glorification. There are no exceptions.

Furthermore, there is no intermediate step between justification and glorification.

No Purgatory. No Limbus Patrum for OT saints. The saints who are alive at the return of Christ will not even experience death before their glorification.

Conclusion: Abraham fulfilled all the necessary steps to insure his immediate translation into the glorious presence of God, experiencing His glory firsthand.

Moses and Elijah

Luke depicts Moses and Elijah as appearing on the Mount of Transfiguration in glorious splendor (9:30 NIV). And why shouldn’t they be? They were already among the blessed in Heaven always seeing God (Matthew 5:8). They shone as did Moses’ face when meeting with the Lord (Exodus 34).

Of course, full and final glorification comes at the Second Advent of Christ.

The Lamb Slain From the Foundation of the World

The Jesuits and Darryl require Christ’s blood must be deposited in Heaven before OT saints could be allowed admission into the presence of God.

They do not understand the significance of Rev. 13:8.

In the mind of God, Christ’s atonement was an accomplished fact……before He created the world.

Christ would successfully make atonement for the sins of all God’s Elect; including those who lived and died before Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension.

It mattered not when Christ propitiated the Father on behalf of the Elect.

All His Elect, in their lifetimes, would be recipients of the saving graces which Christ pays for at Calvary.

Conclusion: All saints, OT and NT, are saved by the same grace, though the NT saints have the benefit of a clearer and deeper understanding of the Old Testament prophecies.

NEXT: Cartwright’s Refutations

 

Cartwright’s Refutations

The following Scriptures cited are from the Annotated New Testament Geneva Bible, 1602 edition (unless otherwise noted); the reprint of which is in my library. Thomas Cartwright’s responses are taken from his original Confutation of the Rhemists Translation, Glosses, and Annotations of the New Testament, published in 1618; the digitized copy of which is in my library.

Matthew 3:16: And Jesus when he was baptized, came straight out of the water. And loe, the heavens were opened to him, and John saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.

Cartwright: [Citing Ephesians 1:10: That in the dispensation of the fulnes of the times, he might gather together in one all things, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth, even in Christ] “Hereupon the Apostle affirmeth, that by his appearance all were gathered under him, as under their head, both those in heaven, and those also in earth. Noting that there were many in heaven before his coming, whose blessed estate was ratified by his appearance.”

[Ratify = “sign or give formal consent to (a treaty, contract, or agreement), making it officially valid.”]

[Cartwright then cites Hebrews 11.] “Again, seeing the Fathers had faith whereby they attained both remission of their sins, and perfect righteousness in our Saviour Christ, whereby also they were sanctified, and walked uprightly before the Lord: it could not be that the kingdom of heaven, which is always open unto the just, should be shut against them.”

[Cartwright then accuses the Jesuits of always being in a “continual endeavor of lessening and darkening the merits of Christ’s death.”]

Cartwright continues, “Moreover, the example of Enoch, of Elias, and of Moses, all of which were certainly received into heaven, and whereof two of them appeared here on earth in glory [Matthew 17], do betray the falsehood of this wicked doctrine.” [I.e. the doctrine which Darryl and the Jesuits hold regarding OT saints not being immediately received into the Heavenly presence of God].

Hebrews 9:8: The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing (KJV).

[The Jesuit gloss read: “The way to heaven was not open before Christ’s passion; and therefore the Patriarchs and good men of the old Testament were in some other place of rest until then.”]

Cartwright: “It is a cursed gloss which correcteth the blessed Text; and so much the more as it is so violent a wrest, which instead of [that] which the holy Writer saith, that the way to heaven was not manifest in regard to knowledge, hath set down that the way was not open in regard of entry; as if the way could not be open to enter because it was not manifestly known.”

[manifest = “clear or obvious to the eye or mind.”]

“By which reason they may shut out Christian infants at this day, which doth not only not manifestly, but not at all know the way to heaven. And if the way to heaven be open to them for entry, although it be shut in knowledge: how much more was it open to the faithful under the Law who had sufficient knowledge of the way to the kingdom of heaven, although not so manifestly as we do, which is the drift of the holy writer in all these places, where the comparison is made between the peoples of both covenants.”

[N.B. The 1602 Geneva Bible translated this verse using the phrase “the way into the Holiest of all was not yet opened.” At first glance this seems to corroborate the Jesuit interpretation. However, the annotations of the Reformer Beza upon this verse states otherwise: “Of that yearly rite and the ceremony, he gathereth that the way was not by such sacrifices opened into heaven, which was shadowed by the Holiest of all.” In other words, the atonement offered by the High Priest was only a foreshadowing of the eternal, once and for all atonement to be made by Christ, and had no efficacy in and of itself. Thus, it had to be repeated year after year.]

Hebrews 11:40: God providing a better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

Cartwright: “These godly Fathers are said to be strangers upon Earth, and to have sought for their country which is in heaven, which if they missed of when they departed, they were greatly deceived and much confounded, which faith cannot suffer them to be. Neither should they have had courage to have left and lost all by death, unless they had been sure to enjoy their [heavenly] country when they departed out of this pilgrimage. [vs. 13-16].

“Nor would [they] ever have given over their tents, unless from thence they might have passed into a mansion house wherein they should ever abide. Neither is there any man who can, with joy, be put out of the cottage of his body only to remain afterward naked, but rather is willing to lay it down to the end that he may be clothed [2Cor. 5:1-5].

“Wherefore he saith [verse 16 of Hebrews 11] that the Lord had even then when these old Fathers lived and believed, long before the coming of our Saviour Christ, prepared them a City, whereas the Jesuits make their souls pilgrims, strangers and wanderers after they are departed hence: clean contrary to this holy Writer, who defineth this their pilgrimage in this life and bound it upon earth.

“Now whereas they are said not to have received the promise [v. 13], thereby is meant they received not performance of the particular promise of Christ’s coming in their time, but saw it, as it were, afar off. So that this not receiving of the promise was [indicative] of a want [i.e. ‘lack’] of clearness of light and knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and not a deprivation of happiness of all whom, even in this same chapter, he affirmeth that they obtained the promises [v. 33].

“Howbeit in that we have had the promise of his coming accomplished in our time, it is said that the Lord had disposed better for us then for them [v. 40]………”[Cartwright then interprets the ‘perfection’ referred to in verse 40 as pertaining to the perfection of the Body of Christ. This could not occur until the OT saints were united with the NT saints to comprise one perfect Body.]

Luke 16:22: And it was so that the beggar died, and was carried by the Angles into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried.

Cartwright: “That the faithful under the Law of God went, in soul, straight to heaven after the parting of body with the soul, hath before been declared upon Matthew 3:16.”

NEXT: The Refutation by Another Famous Protestant Reformer

 

The Refutation of Francis Turretin

One hundred years after the publication of the Rheims New Testament, preeminent Protestant theologian, Francis Turretin, answered the question, ‘Whether the souls of the fathers of the Old Testament were immediately received into heaven after death or were cast into limbo?’ [Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 257).

Turretin’s Response: “This question lies between us and the papists who (the more easily to defend their hypothesis concerning the imperfection of the Old Testament) maintain that the fathers who lived under it were not immediately admitted into heaven, but were detained in limbo until the coming of Christ………

“On the contrary, the orthodox [i.e. Protestant Reformed] assert that the souls of the fathers were immediately received into heaven after death, where they enjoy happiness and are free from both kinds of punishment, both that of loss and that of sense.”

[Turretin explains why the Covenant of Grace demands their immediate admittance into heaven.]

“For since God promised that he would be their God, not temporarily, but eternally (nor is he the God of the dead, but of the living) – the fathers must necessarily still live even after death, at least as to some part of them (i.e., as to the soul), not with any kind of life, but with a happy and heavenly life, necessarily included in the promise. Christ expressly teaches this. When speaking of the dead fathers he says, “All live unto him” (Luke 20:38), not only in the mind and power of God because he can recall them to life and was really about to do this according to his decree; but they live because they are before him always and enjoy a divine life………

“Second, the ancients immediately after death were received into the bosom of Abraham, as appears from the example of Lazarus (Luke 16:22-23). Therefore they were also received into heavenly joy. For ‘the bosom of Abraham’ can be referred to no other than to eternal life. This is shadowed under the symbol of a sumptuous feast, in allusion to a custom of the ancients in which they were accustomed so to recline at their feasts that the one rested his head on the bosom of the other. This is said of John, because Christ reclining on the higher part of the couch had John next to him, who was therefore said to be leaning upon his bosom (John 13:23). Thus nothing is more natural than that it should be said here that Lazarus was to Abraham what John was to the Lord, [when speaking of] the heavenly feast. Christ elsewhere clearly unfolds this mystery when he says, “Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11), i.e., shall enjoy with him the celestial banquet. “To sit down with Abraham” and “to be in the bosom of Abraham” are the same, except that to be in the bosom is a mark of greater love because not all shall recline upon his bosom…..

“Now mention is made of Abraham, rather than of Jacob or any other saint because of two reasons. He was the father of believers in whose bosom (i.e., most loving embrace) they are collected who partake of the fruit of the same faith with him, as sons come together in the bosom of their father when they are graciously received by him. And also on account of his liberal hospitality during life, so that hospitality of the good, but wealthy, Abraham may be opposed to that of an inhospitable, yet wealthy provider of the feast…….

“Third, the thief is admitted into paradise before the ascension of Christ, according to the promise, “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43)…….Nor should it be said that paradise is limbo, because it appears from Scripture that paradise is located in heaven as a place of delight and eternal happiness (2. Cor. 12:2, 4; Rev. 2:7)…..Nor is this a privilege peculiar to the thief and not common to others, since faith and repentance (to whom this is given by Christ) is common to all true believers. Hence, Bellarmine [a leading Jesuit apologist] rightly proves from this passage that the saints immediately after death enjoy the vision of God.

“Fourth, Enoch and Elijah were translated to heaven (Heb. 11:5; 2 Kings 2:11). Although this was peculiar to them that they were bodily whirled into heaven, it was not singular that they were spiritually admitted into it; yea, they were the solemn pledge to the pious of the heavenly glory to be at length obtained……….

“Fifth, the ancient believers waited for a heavenly city (Heb. 11;10) and had a great consolation and certain hope of glory in death (which would not have been the case if they had yet to be hurled into hell [i.e. the upper part called ‘Limbus Patrum.’] How could Jacob have testified that he waited with such earnestness the salvation of the Lord (Gen. 49:18), and David that he committed his spirit into the hand of the Lord (Ps. 31:5), if they should still be far off from the face of God and were to be glorified only after many ages?..........

“The way into the holiest of all” is said not to be manifested before the ascension of Christ (Heb. 9:8); not that it was entirely concealed, but (1) that it was not so clearly made known, Therefore the fathers went into heaven through Christ (in whom they believed) because he is the way of entrance into heaven, but who was not yet clearly known because he had not yet come. (2) Again, it was not known to any of the Gentiles, as in the New Testament. (3) It was not as yet manifested by the actual ransom of Christ (which had not yet been paid), but only as to efficacy of merit. (4) Time is not compared with time here, but rather the mosaic sacrifices with the sacrifice of Christ, to intimate they could not open heaven to us, which was granted to the blood of Christ alone. (5) If Christ is said to been the first who entered into heaven, this is to be understood not as to time, but as to causality because the entrance of Christ was the true cause of the fathers’ entrance into heaven, no less than ours……….

“The promise sometimes denotes the first advent of Christ in the flesh promised in the Old Testament; sometimes the second in glory promised in the New. The ancients died without “receiving the promise” (Heb. 11:39) – namely, to be brought in the latter advent of the Lord (Heb. 10:36-37) – which they are also about to receive; but not without us, for what we now expect will be common to us with them. Thus God has set before us “something better” (Heb. 11:40) with regard to the former advent, in which we alone rejoice.”

Conclusion: The many errors of Roman Catholicism have penetrated into the evangelical churches. This teaching of the Jesuits, embraced by Darryl, is but one of several.

NEXT: Was the Gospel a Mystery hidden from all people in Old Testament Times?

 

Was the Gospel a Mystery Hidden from all People in Old Testament Times?

Darryl thinks so: “…..the Mystery of the Gospel was not being revealed to men in past Ages and generations, and was not revealed to the sons of men or Saints…..”

Scripture says otherwise.

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:

27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me (Job 19:25-27).

Unbeknownst to Darryl, the Patriarch Job knew the following:

(1) He was counted among the redeemed sinners.

(2) His Redeemer lives…..eternally so.

(3) The Redeemer would be manifest at a future time.

(4) As one of the redeemed, Job would resurrect from the dead.

(5) He would live eternally as does his Redeemer.

(6) His Redeemer is God in the flesh.

(7) He will see his Redeemer even after death.

Translated into Gospel language this passage says:

“The Redeemer, who is both God and man, comes to give eternal life to those who believe in their personal need for redemption through Him and in Him alone.”

The book of Acts is replete with references to the Gospel of Christ preached in the Old Testament:

Acts 10: 43…..To him [Christ] give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth on him [OT time or NT time] shall receive remission of sins.

Acts 13:32-33….And we declare unto you glad tidings [the Gospel] how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same [promise] unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second psalm….[i.e., the promise and the Gospel are one and the same.]

Acts 15:11…..But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they [the OT saints of verse 10]. I.e., since the Gospel is the doctrine of the saving grace of God in Christ, they too were saved by the same Gospel of grace, though not with all the precise details given in the NT.

Acts 26:22-23….Having therefore obtained help from God, I continue unto this day, witnessing to both small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come; that Christ should suffer and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles. [Paul acknowledges His Gospel is nothing more than that preached by the prophets and Moses.]

Consider these Scriptures:

Galatians 3:16-17….. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. [Paul acknowledges the promise to Abraham was a covenant of God in Christ; i.e., the Gospel of grace.]

Hebrews 11:26…..Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. [Christ was no mystery to Moses.]

John 5:39……Search the Scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. [Christ is the Gospel. Christ is in the OT. Therefore, the Gospel is found in the OT.]

The Gospel of Christ is indeed a Mystery, but not to all Men

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost (2 Cor. 4:3).

This verse speaks to the inability of the natural man to comprehend the things of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:7-14).

Flesh and blood cannot conceive or grasp that which must be revealed supernaturally by the Spirit of God (cf. Matthew 16:17; Acts 16:14).

Furthermore, the Gospel of Christ was purposefully hidden from the Gentiles, who knew not the prophecies and had not the Scriptures, God permitting them to walk in blindness (Acts 14:16; Psalm 76:1; Psalm 147:19-20).

But now the Mystery of Christ is revealed to them: That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body [as OT believers] and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel (Ephesians 3:6).

Conclusion: Unless one is born of the Spirit, whether in the Old Testament or New, the true Gospel, the true Christ and the true God will forever remain a mystery, as it does to the Jews, yesterday and today.

All those [OT & NT] given by the Father to Christ for redemption are the same ones given the gifts of repentance and faith by the Holy Spirit. These are God’s Elect, for whom Christ died a substitutionary penal death. They will all be saved. God promises as much. The promises of God cannot fail.

Darryl is certain he has found ‘pulpit myths’ and is determined to expose them.

Unfortunately, obsessive conviction, excessive repetition, a strong penchant for sarcasm combined with a haughty spirit do not make for spiritual truth.