I did notice Revelation(s), but I hadn’t gotten as far as shehole 
That is too, too bad!
I’d ignore the Revelation thing, because I know in IC, at least the branches of it I’ve occupied, that’s a pretty common way to refer to the book. For that, I condescend to forgive them. 
shehole, however, is not to be forgiven either in this age or the age to come!
Nor should it be!
Greetings 
Kudos… .Kudos … many Kudos to Cindy & Melchizedek for their posts … (cheering applause )
the applause is for both of their Considerate & at times humorous responses to this book …
The Greek MSS we currently have along with the Coptic, Syriac and even late dated Latin mss...
I wished that more people would engage in putting more effort into studying Church History instead of
running off to the nearest Religious bookstore -- consuming popularized versions of a) Fundamentalist claims
b) Evangelical claims and c) Bultmann & Co. claims ...
For example ---
in Menzies’s 1421, the amateur historian advanced a highly controversial hypothesis, that the Chinese discovered America; in this follow-up
1434 The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet sailed to Italy and ignited the Renaissance. By Gavin Menzies Harper Collins June 2008 Website The Renaissance …
Closer to home, China is enjoying another PR success. Every bookshop in Britain is presenting a book called 1434 by Gavin Menzies as a major history title.
as in Publishing success ----
[1421exposed.com/html/1434.html](http://www.1421exposed.com/html/1434.html)
Do the mysterious, ancient Chinese characters have a biblical meaning little understood before? What was the meaning of the 4,000-year-old Border Sacrifice that the ---
There seems to be a strong tie between quite a few Chinese characters and the Bible teaching … In the Old Testament people sacrifice lambs for their sins.
---- along with imaginative interpretative view of viewing the Chinese character for boat –
interpreted as 8 mouths in a boat – which is dramatic “proof” for the Ark ! 
I have actually seen this book -- which my "trusty" Conservative co-worker and close friend had ...
before some think my tongue in cheek is criticizing these two attempts -- 1434 & Chinese Characters
I am trying to find an alternative way of admiring their imaginative "Marketing & Publishing "
while expressing my doubt concerning the intended results for evangelizing "lost souls"
all the best !
Shehole!
must restrain self from commenting!
sounds like maybe they should’ve been proofread better!!!
bit of a shame…i found out about this through the Hellbound movie facebook updates…
it’s great to have some entry level questioning material, but i’d have thought people would want some more theological meat to chew over if they were questioning these things. TEU, for example, provided that, and attempted to give context for verses, translation info, cultural info, etc, which dug deeper than the surface.
Apparently, that is a legitimate spelling 
…I think it must be phonetic from the Hebrew or something, but it definitely doesn’t “translate” well into English… There are other clear examples of places they should have spell checked and grammar checked though.
I still think they bring up some very good points, which I will get to, but I think they were fairly sloppy in presentation, which definitely hurts the credibility of the message.
that’s a shame! it’s worth putting the effort in to polishing something up before releasing it…
What’s the old saying? If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right…
I’m camping this weekend, but hopefully I should have Chapter 2 up by the middle of next week.
This is a really long chapter, with a lot of twists and turns. Sorry about the length, even abbreviated. I’m posting it in two posts.
Chapter 2: Do you now believe?
In chapter 2, the authors begin to unpack their findings over and against what the CAM of modern evangelicalism teaches. Chapter 2 begins with the thought that one of the most popular beliefs is that a person in saved from the punishment for their sins if they have personally made the choice to believe in Jesus. So here, the author backs up the truck a bit and goes back to Genesis, emphasizing that God created ALL things in existence in “six days”, and in the midst of this creation, the famous Garden in which he placed man. Everything was provided for them in this garden, including a temptation; the tree of knowledge of good and evil, from which they were instructed not to eat, and they were duly warned of the consequence; death. The authors next point is that because A&E were created with free will, they were persuaded into disobeying God’s command, and we know the rest of how that went. He then moves into the covenant God made with Moses and the Hebrews, characterizing the Law as a list of rules that must be followed in order to regain the righteousness lost by Adam. The upshot is that no one could keep the law perfectly, and sacrifices had to be made for the inevitable slip-ups. God was not satisfied with this, so he made a promise to man; he would eventually send a Savior. (and here again, states that the purpose of this savior was to save us from the penalties of sin.)
The author then goes on to point out that Jesus lived up to the standards of the Law; something no one else was ever able to accomplish, yet in spite of his faultlessness he was arrested, tried and executed. We all know the story… But now, here is where they begin to differ. The obvious details are not what are disagreed upon, but rather what actually happened “behind the scenes”, as this is what really matters. They agree that while Jesus was on the cross, the sins of the world were place upon him, and that (in their opinion) he “paid the penalty” for the sins of every man that ever was and ever would be, restoring the righteousness that we lost in the garden. But where the authors disagree with the CAM is that although Jesus “paid your debt”, it’s still your responsibility to accept this free gift that was given. The authors then promise we will look into the reasoning behind this later on.
The first text addressed is John 3:16, and they appear to agree mostly with the standard interpretation of this verse; namely that whoever believes in Jesus has everlasting life and whoever does not will perish. Though they cannot deny this meaning , they promise to explore a bit later in the chapter the hidden meaning in this thought, emphasizing that what was meant here cannot be fully understood without reading further in John’s book. (So far, so good; yay for context!). The authors then bring up Romans 10:19, stating that read by itself, it appears to lend credence to the idea that belief and acceptance is required, however, they say that later in the chapter, they will appeal to the wider context to show what the writer actually meant. Moving on, they cite 2 Corinthians 5:17, pointing out that the word “if” in that passage also seems to support the idea that there are some not in Christ. Ah, but again, context is key to understanding; all in good time. But now they want to take a slightly different strategy than the CAM does by attempting to appeal to John 3:16, by demonstrating that belief was not, in fact, the only requirement that Jesus spoke of. Cited texts are Matthew 19:16-22 where the man Jesus is speaking to is instructed to follow the commandments, but once the man says that he has, then Jesus ups the ante by adding something the man was unwilling to do. (Something smells fishy to the authors here, and it’s not St. Peter apparently.) The disciples were apparently bewildered by this exchange as well, as they feel is demonstrated a bit later in the passage in verses 25-26. So the question is put to us, why didn’t Jesus just explain to the man that belief in him was the only way?
So, some other requirements the authors point out Jesus mentions in his teachings are John 3: 1-15; (being born again) yet Jesus says nothing about the commandments here, nor does he explain what being born again means or how to effect it. The authors here ask the question; why is Jesus giving different requirements to different people, but never all of them to each person? Their conclusion is that Jesus is actually hinting at something bigger going on here, because there appears to be this pattern where Jesus gives a requirement, then demonstrates how the person is subsequently disqualified by the requirement.
The next text raised is John 5:28- 29, in which Jesus says he will judge the dead according to whether they have done good or evil. The authors ask, How many of the dead to you think never practiced evil? Their take on this is that Jesus is saying they will be judged by the law, which was hard enough, but now he ups the ante again with his words in Matt. 5:21-22, and 27-28 pointing out that now Jesus is actually teaching the Law as the requirement for eternal life, and not just the letter, but the full intent of the Law.
So, the question now is; how can mainstream Christianity say that belief is the only way, when Christ himself so clearly says otherwise? The authors examine a few more requirements in John 6: 50-66 (Eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and the famous ”no one can come to me unless it has been granted by the Father”)
What’s going on here, they ask? Why does Jesus not clarify what he means to these people. If belief was that important, why did he chase so many away? Did he not love them enough to give them a real chance, or could he not explain to them what he really meant?
The point the authors are trying to make with all this is that Jesus was saying that the requirements for eternal life go way beyond mere belief, but it seems clear that we cannot fulfil all of the other requirements, so can we really fulfil the belief requirement? The other point they’re trying to make, is that evangelical Christianity cannot claim that belief is the only requirement on a plain reading, they cannot simply ignore all the other requirements laid out. The authors here cite John 6:67-71 as evidence that the disciples don’t actually believe in him either. I personally think that he’s stretching the point here. I get that he’s pointing out that He chose the disciples rather than the other way around, and that one of them is even a betrayer; but I don’t think as he claims here, that Jesus was really saying none of them believed. However, the author then moves on to other evidence in other passages, as he claims this is also a repeated pattern, by which he hopes to make his point that even those closest to Jesus didn’t really fulfil the belief requirement either. So, let’s take a look at these other passages with them, and see if the promised pattern emerges.
Now, they point out what Paul says in Ephesians 2: 8-9 (grace, not works), and then what John says in John 6:28-29 (belief is a work). Actually, if this passage is read carefully, you will see that the work is God’s work, not ours, but the authors fail to point that out here. They instead ask the question, “is believing in Jesus a work?”, stating that every CAM member they have talked to says no. But it seems to them that if it were not a work, that it should be something that is easy to do, however clearly even the disciples had trouble with this; they witnessed Jesus’ miracles with their own eyes, yet Jesus tells them they don’t believe.
The authors point out that if we read James, we learn that faith without works is dead. Their take on what this means is that actions speak louder than words. The disciples told Jesus several times they believed, and He responded to them the same way every time. They give as an example, John 16: 29-32. Now to me, this does not clearly support their position either. He doesn’t directly tell them they don’t believe, he simply asks the question, “Do you now believe?” Then, he tells them that they will be scattered and leave him alone. I think the authors take on this is that in this statement, Jesus is implying they don’t really believe yet, because he knows their actions are not going to match their words. Ok, perhaps, but I don’t think it as clearly supports their assertion as they think it does. Anyway, their point appears to be that the actual requirement was faith without doubt, which was something that appeared to be impossible for them.
Now, they show us a passage that deals with belief and works of the law with respect to the end times, Matt. 7:22-23. Here, they ask the question; how could anyone who has the ability to prophesy and cast out demons not believe? In terms of the standard viewpoint, nonbelievers wouldn’t even know to do such a thing, would they? The authors point here is that even supernatural practices cannot be counted as proof of believing to the extent Jesus’ requirement of belief as given.
Next, the authors ask the question of whether belief was a requirement before or after the cross. This is an interesting question, to be sure. Steve here says that the typical CAM answer to the reason Jesus gave other requirements for gaining eternal life was because people were still under the law since Jesus hadn’t yet given them the new covenant. The author’s position is that they agree that people were still under the law until the crucifixion, but they point us to the wording in John 3:18, emphasizing that whoever did not believe was condemned already. We are then pointed to John 5:24 Where Jesus is saying that if one believed in him, even before the cross, that person had already passed from death to life, even though none knew he was going to die yet. Interestingly, Jesus didn’t say “after I die you must believe”, he was telling them it was already too late if they didn’t.
So now the authors want to reveal this mystery they’ve been building up for us so far. They begin by pointing us to John 7 and 8, saying that these chapters give some good hints as to how things play out. The author paraphrases the point John 7:33-34 and John 8:21-24; seem to be making, which he states as: “I am leaving, but instead of coming with me, you will die in your sins, unless you believe in me”. And, “I’m going somewhere you cannot go, because you don’t believe in me; you will die in your sins. Then they contend that Jesus clarifies this point in John 8:28-29 when he declares that when they lift up the Son of Man (when he dies on the cross), you will know I am He.
They attempt to spell it out for us here: “I am getting ready to leave” (die on the cross). “You cannot go with me” (this was his job to do alone). “Instead, you will die in your sins” (Because they did not believe). Their whole point here is that it wasn’t a matter of whether or not they would perish as a result of their disbelief, but rather a matter of when and how. “When” they die is at the cross when Jesus dies. “How” they die is in their sins. So, wait for it; “When Jesus died, whoever did not believe in him, died in their sins, which not so coincidentally was everyone.”
The authors want to point out to us here that the statement Jesus makes in John 3:16 about belief being a requirement for eternal life was near the beginning of his ministry; He then spends the rest of his ministry pointing out to everyone that they in fact do not and cannot believe, so if anyone is to obtain eternal life, it would have to come by another means. This, they say, is the entire point. Jesus disqualified everyone from receiving eternal life on their own by raising the bar impossibly high (or more accurately, even more impossibly high than it already was).
Then comes what the authors refer to as “the Big Switch”. Here, the authors summarize that Jesus has died, and everyone else that remained has died in their sins, so what way is left for inheriting eternal life. Well, Jesus made it so that He was the only one that could redeem mankind for their sin. So, when the time came for those without sin to be granted eternal life and for those with sin to be punished, Jesus stepped in and took the sin of mankind upon himself instead. For the first time since the Garden, mankind was sinless. While Jesus carried our sin, the “punishment” came and the only one “deserving” of punishment at that time was the sin bearer, who happened to be Jesus. He knew the wrath was coming. He knew the judgment of God was coming. He knew everyone for all time was about to receive the guilty verdict, and face wrath and death. That was the moment that he stepped in and took our place.
This, according to the authors, was why God wouldn’t allow anyone the ability to believe, because if they had, He would have been forced to heal them and make them whole. But that wasn’t the way He wanted to do it. The “Big Switch” wouldn’t have worked if anyone had qualified on their own.
This way, when Jesus died, everyone died. Romans 11:32 “For God has shut up all in unbelief, so that He might show mercy to all”.
The review of this chapter is growing entirely too long at this point, so I’m going to attempt to very briefly summarize the rest of the chapter.
Ephesians 2:4-6; God made us alive together with Christ when we were dead in our sins. We were given new life when Christ was raised, not after we said a prayer and confessed to believe it.
Pushback by the authors on Romans 10:9 ; looking at the verses leading up to it, Israel’s problem is a lack of knowledge of God’s righteousness, not living up to a certain standard. God wants them to come to this knowledge because it is salvation from the law (Rom. 10:4), So Romans 10:9 is really about realizing you have already been given your right standing before God and are required to do nothing to obtain it. The gate that leads to life vs. the gate that leads to destruction is the realization that it has all been done for you rather than you trying to live up to an impossible standard; also the point of Acts 10:43 and Romans 1:16, Paul noting the benefits of believing and accepting what Christ has done for us; but not saying that unbelief nullifies the work he did. The same thought confirmed again in 1 Timothy 4:9-10. Jesus saved all men, but not everyone believes this. They invite us to examine 2 Cor. 3:3-17 describing the ministry of death vs. Christ’s ministry of life. The authors compare and contrast the two paths of Old and New covenants described in Matt. 7:13-14 as the accurate way of reading this passage.
The misleading “If” is then discussed in 2 Cor. 5:17 in context; The point? “If” as used in this passage does not signify doubt, or a chance that it didn’t or won’t happen, but are rather “If/ then” statements. Paul is saying that if Christ died for all (he did), then all died in Christ, and therefore all are made alive as new creatures. Also, the misleading “might”, at the end of the passage, which actually shows intention rather than doubt; Paul’s point here being that Christ was made to be sin for us or in our place, so that we would become the righteousness of God in him.
Romans 6: 4-11 Our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin would be done away with.
More issues raised in Chapter 2:
Belief in Christ for obtaining eternal life was a pre-cross issue (no one could do it, for the reasons already addressed). Belief is important for the reason that it can set your mind free from thinking you are at odds with God, but don’t make the mistake of thinking your belief qualifies you for eternal life.
What is done is done, and your acceptance of it is irrelevant when it comes to its effect: Romans 3:34, 2 Tim. 2:13. These, according to the authors confirm that our belief has nothing to do with the eternal outcome of the situation.
Good pick-up, Melchi. I appreciate you pointing this out to me – I hadn’t seen that before. And great review the rest of the post, too. On to your second post . . .
And yet “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him as righteousness.” I think the authors are r-e-a-l-l-y stretching it here. It would take too long for me to explore this and find out why it really doesn’t work for me – or more to the point, how to put it into words. But . . . just a few observations, though not complete:
First there’s the point that while they’re saying how Jesus is rebuking His disciples for not believing (enough), He’s actually talking to the priests and Pharisees in at least three of those passages. This I find annoying manipulation of scripture. Then there’s also the fact that it is “the god of this world” who “has blinded their eyes.” The “god of this world” is not Yahweh, but rather refers to the adversary. So I’m not sure where they get their idea that God didn’t want people to believe, or that He didn’t enable anyone to believe, or that if He had, He wouldn’t have been able to save anyone at all.
And the repeated mantra that Jesus came to take the penalty for our sins. That’s nice, but it just isn’t enough. It’s like cleaning out the distillery of bottled whiskey but leaving the place operational and then saying you’ve destroyed whiskey. Well, yes, but you see – there will always be more whiskey. And the bible never SAYS that Jesus came to take the penalty for our sins.
I appreciate these guys, but they’re exegeting like, well, youth pastors – who don’t expect people to be too hard to convince. If you’re cool and hip and fun to listen to, and make it sound reasonably believable, the kids will believe it. They’re nice kids and they like the youth pastor, and like their parents upstairs in the main auditorium, they just slurp it down. Not that they’re bad people at all. But this sort of effort (imo) just tends to damage the whole field. People read this and say, “See? I knew their argument didn’t hold water.” And then can you convince them to read a serious author like Parry or Talbott or Beauchemin or Bonda? Ha! I don’t think so.
Thanks for your hard work on this, Bro!
Love, Cindy
thanks so much Melchi,
i agree, there is some stretching going on. that isn’t to say i don’t think they’re “on to something”…i think some of what they’re saying is valid, but some of the way they set out to prove it isn’t the best.
also, the fact it seems to require Penal Substitionary Atonement is a weakness to me. i still find that system logically flawed: the whole God arbitrarily defines righteousness as something we can’t do because of our nature (garden of eden proved that), God gets angry at us for not meeting His impossible standards, God in a strange schizophrenic turn of mind decides to sacrifice Himself to Himself so that His anger at our arbitrary sin can be sated…it just doesn’t work for me, but maybe i’ve lost sight of a simpler view on this that does make sense.
so the “big switch” idea…well not bad from PSA perspective, but it doesn’t really answer the problems of PSA…
but if someone REALLY wanted to stick to PSA, they could use this i guess as support for a universalist point of view?
i guess i could say great that they’ve come this far! and hopefully they’ll influence others. but i hope they (and those who read them) continue to grow in knowledge and can realise the strengths and weaknesses of what they’re proposing and how they defend it and come up with a belief paradigm that is cohesive and really sets them and those that hear it free.
it sounds like a good start! and as i’m still early on in the journey myself, i can feel a certain camaraderie with them
It may be too early in the book summary to ask (although the question seems relevant to this chapter), but what do they do with verses such as “your faith has saved you, go in peace”?
Also, did they really discuss the nearby verses in Rom 10 talking about confession and belief (that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead) in an if/then fashion (if you do this, then you will be saved)? Because your summary makes it seem like they didn’t. (I know you were trying to summarize a topic-rich chapter. But with their propensity to ignore nearby contexts when those are inconvenient to their point, as demonstrated in other regards, I’m left wondering…)
good questions, Jason.
I’m also curious about the mustard seed of faith. Jesus seems to indicate that even the tiniest bit of faith can grow to a huge tree. now God does the gardening, i’m sure…and possibly grants the seed. but it sounds to me like one can believe only a little and still it’s enough for God’s purposes.
Thanks Melchizedek for putting in the effort to provide this review of an interesting book.
The impression I am getting so far from your review is overall favorable towards what the authors are trying to do, which appears to be identifying the gospel as being what God has done for us in the living, dying and resurrection of Jesus. Conflating our belief with the gospel has really muddled the clarity and power of the gospel. His faithfulness, not our faith, is the core of the gospel. So very good to hear they are making an effort to make that clear. Unfortunately, they still are having a hard time shaking off the retribution/punishment meme that has seriously muddied the waters of Christian thought.
Sin in western Christian thought, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, has been seen as a willful act of rebellion against God which must be forcefully put down and punished. So God provides Jesus as the “punching bag” that the violence of His wrath is vented on so that he can justifiably forgive us sinners. What a truly appalling and erroneous concept of sin and God that is.
Jesus considered the healing of those sinners to be synonymous with forgiveness. Sin/debt being the same word in Aramaic should provide a clue that forgiveness requires no payback or penalty. If someone pays off your mortgage for you, the debt was not forgiven, it was payed off; not by you but by someone else on your behalf. Clearly that is not what was going on at Golgotha.
Jubilee is forgiveness of debt, the slate is wiped clean–“I will remember their sins no more.” What happened at Golgotha is the healing Jubilee of the cosmos. The life of God through Jesus the Healer indiscriminately poured out into a wounded, broken, dying world. Sin is simply a biblical term for all the brokenness, sickness and dysfunction that is expressed in all the horrific and mundane things that are wrong with this world. Jesus healed sinners because God holds nothing against them and through Jesus he has taken that healing and forgiveness to the farthest reaches of the universe and into the depths of forsakenness and despair.
Dave
Perhaps translating it as “your faith has healed you, go in peace.” is more to the point and removes all the baggage associated with being saved i.e., saved from punishment, wrath, hell etc. With that out of the way we may then be able to see more clearly the role the person’s faith has in their being healed by Jesus.
That is a good point, Dave, thanks for pointing that out. Sozo can be translated “healed” or “delivered” as well.
Overall, I would say that they do a good job of raising important points, but a fairly lousy job of supporting some of them from scripture, as well as ignoring the side issues that Jason and others have raised.
No, your suspicions are correct. They didn’t discuss this point in any detail, they more or less simply demonstrated the concept with a few “proof-texts”, dropped the bomb, and moved on. This seems to be their general M.O. for the book as well.
It seems there was some “discussion-lite” of this in passing, but certainly nothing meaty. I’d have to go back to that section to pull anything out of what little they did say, which I may do once I get through all the chapter review stuff, because I do think it’s important to try and answer questions like this. At the end of the book, they do encourage contact for questions and whatnot, I have a feeling I’m going to have a whole raft of points for them to address once I’ve heard all the commentary on here!
I have to admit I’m a bit befuddled on this point myself. I can see a form of substitutionary atonement working quite well based on the model they are presenting (I can certainly see elements of this in scripture), but it’s the penal part that just doesn’t really quite fit. They DO say that this is all a mystery, and that no one has quite figured it all out yet, which is true enough. I think you’re right that it doesn’t answer the problems of PSA even if it “works” on one level. I suspect this book is largely written for people who (among other things) take PSA for granted, however. Remember that these guys came straight out of mainstream, hardcore evangelicalism… They’re on the right track, but they’re navigating it with the theological equivalent of a street bicycle rather than an ATV…