Featured Saved Without Knowing the Resurrection?

I'm sorry I missed that. In which post did you answer it? I'd be happy to interact fully with you on that.

 

Again, in what post did you do this? I'm an old man and was in a hurrty--just yad a few minutes.

This was my own argument. There is a way to put quotes around it

My point was that in the Gospel presentations the witnesses were not mentioned, not that they were not mentioned at all.

 

I remember now. Sorry.

Okay, you make some good points, but if the Gospel was what you said it was, the witnesses should be mentioned in every Gospel presentation, not just some. And the burial should be proclaimed in every presentation, and it is in none.

And what you have not answered:
1. Can you name a single theologian, pastor, etc. who agrees with you?
2. Do you go soul winning? If so, are you sure to mention the burial and witnesses every time? And are they in the tracts you give out?

 

That proves nothing. You are still saying that half of the Gospel is through human effort. If my loved one dies and God leads me to a particular funeral home, I am still the one who buries my loved one. Scripture is very clear. The Bible specifically states that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus in
Matthew 27:60: "And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed." So you are saying a human action, the burial, is part of the Gospel of Christ.


If I am led by the Holy Spirit to give the Gospel to someone, it is still I who gives the Gospel. We humans are God's plan for the Great Commission.

Well, sure, God led. But it was still a human work to actually look with one's eyes. No one said that God was the witnesses in 1 Cor. 15. The witnesses were human, the eyes were human

Name them.

And again, do you do that? Are you sure to tell people that? Do you witness for Christ making sure of your Gospel, and are you sure you pass out tracts that have the burial and the witnesses? (That's a rare tract if you do, by the way. I've read and/or passed out 100s of different tracts, and it is very rare to see the burial and witnesses both in one.)

 

Please elaborate. How is lack of mention not a form of proof.

If a politician never mentions finances, isn't that a proof that it is not a concern of his?

So, in other words, you know no theologians, pastors, evangelists, or missionaries, or Bible teachers who agree with you about the content of the Gospel. If you did know someone you'd mention them and not obfuscate.

Oh, come on, I've given a bunch of Scriptures and discussed a bunch of Bible on this thread. The OP was all about the Scriptures.

We are discussing theology, so what's the matter with calling in a few theologians.

If you ask me, you're running out of answers and arguments, and want out.

 

I've been looking at my 50+ books on evangelism, and will give some quotes. Samuel Zwemer, a famous missionary of bygone days, wrote, "Until we grapple with the fact of sin we do not preach the gospel of 'the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.'" (Evangelism Today, 1944, p. 32). So the substitutionary atonement by Christ on the cross is central in the Gospel.

 

Zwemer (1867-1952) further wrote, "Paul's evangel was Christ crucified. He used 'the preaching of the Cross' as synonymous for Christianity's message to the world (1 Cor. 1:18). Paul always linked the Resurrection to the Crucifixion (1 Cor. 15:3-4).... The Resurrection of Christ confirms all He was and did and suffered for us on the Cross, sealing it with God's approval and confirming it by the greatest miracle of history" (Ibid., p. 49). So to Zwemer the Resurrection of Christ has as its importance that it verifies everything about our Savior!

This great Reformed missionary-scholar did not leave out the resurrection, but gave it great emphasis. "Above all, we need to give that message the place and emphasis it has in the New Testament. The word resurrection does not occur in the Old Testament. In the New Testament it is found 40 times" (p. 54).

He did not, however, give equal importance to the burial and to the witnesses. In fact, I can't even find where he mentions them.

 

Ray Comfort is a more modern writer, and his videos are very popular. While I disagree with some of what he writes (he occasionally goes all allegorical on Scripture, for example), he has some excellent emphases on preaching sin through the Law, and avoiding a Gospel that promises happiness without addressing sin.

At any rate, here's a quote about how to give the Gospel: "Take the time to explain the plan of salvation thoroughly: 'God loves you so much that He sent His only Son to suffer and die in your place, taking your punishment for you so that you could live. Then Jesus rose from the dead and defeated death. It is this simple: You broke the Law and Jesus paid your fine. If you will repent--turn away from sin--and place your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior, God will forgive you and grant you everlasting life. He will change you from the inside out and make you a new person in Christ'" (Way of the Master, 2006, p. 197).

Nothing about the burial and witnesses there, but a very clear statement of the Gospel.

 

Who is this aimed at? If at me, it is overly hypothetical. I've witnessed to hundreds in two languages, and never had anything remotely like this happen. I've read several books by others on folks getting saved (Dr. Wilson, John R. Rice, etc.), and even have a chapter like that in one of my own books, and what you are describing was not described in any of these books.

The reason for this is that no soul winner sees people saved without the Holy Spirit's power, and no one gets saved without the Holy Spirit's conviction (John 16:7-11) and then regeneration. And when the conviction comes, the prospect is either eager to hear the whole thing or eager to reject it. So it simply does not happen like in your hypothetical. Now if you can give me a real life illustration....

 

Let's put it biblically and logically. The Scripture is clear that the Gospel includes the Resurrection: 1 Cor. 15:1-8, the first ten chapters in Acts which I've gone through, etc. The Scripture is clear that the Gospel is necessary for salvation (Rom. 1:16, etc.).

So yes, post-crucifixion there must be knowledge of the resurrection for salvation. The Resurrection of Christ is what makes the rest of the Gospel powerful. "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification" (Romans 4:25).

That knowledge could be implicit or explicit. I am 100% in favor of making it explicit. However, many Americans know about the Resurrection of Christ implicitly because of their knowledge of Easter. At the same time, in the typical heathen country (I've preached in several, Buddhist, Shinto, Muslim, Hindu), the Resurrection is completely outside of their knowledge, implicit or explicit. In such a society, the wise witness and missionary makes sure to make the Resurrection of Christ explicit because of their complete lack of knowledge of it.

 

Greatly used Evangelist Bob Sumner wrote, "This 'believing' is a personal faith in the work of the Saviour on the cross, a believing that He died and rose again to provide a perfect redemption for sinners. You may want to explain that a dead Saviour, One who was not 'raised...from the dead,' could save no one" (Biblical Evangelism, 1966, p. 170).