How To Get To Heaven When You Die

[Right Divider]

Post 195

https://theologyonline.com/threads/how-to-get-to-heaven-when-you-die.60548/post-1919748

 

[xfrodobagginsx]

Les Feldick was definitely one of the most approachable Bible teachers you could listen to. My aunt watches his show daily, and I’m very happy that she does. Because of his mid-Acts dispensationalism, he got a great deal of doctrine right, especially when it came to daily Christian living. His clear distinction between Israel and the Body of Christ, his emphasis on Paul’s unique apostleship, and his unshakable teaching of salvation by grace through faith give believers a simple, solid foundation for walking with the Lord day by day.

When it came to explaining the gospel in plain terms, Feldick excelled. He had a way of cutting through tradition and making Scripture come alive for everyday life. He even got it right about there being no requirement to be water baptized, which almost no one gets right these days. On these issues there is no disagreement. There’s virtually no daylight at all between what Les taught and what Bob taught and what I personally believe today when it comes to most of what Les talks about on his daily television show. It is definitely worth the time to watch.

There are, however, important areas where I believe he fell short. I will briefly touch on a few of the most significant.

While he rejected Covenant Theology, he still carried over parts of classical theism that, in my view, distort the nature of God. Chief among these is the traditional idea of immutability that goes far beyond God’s moral character and personality, presenting Him as unresponsive and unchanging in every respect. This idea that God cannot change in any way whatsoever is the premise upon which Covenant Theology is built. Indeed, the entire system of Calvinism flows logically from that single premise. He accepted the premise and rejected its natural conclusion. I doubt he was fully aware that he was making such a clean error, but that does not change the fact that he was doing so.

While Les rejected Calvinism generally and Covenant Theology in particular, he did not reject all of the doctrines that are predicated on the belief that God cannot change in any way whatsoever. He held to views on God’s foreknowledge, sovereignty, and relationship to time that are all but indistinguishable from Calvinism’s teaching on these issues and which clearly differ from Enyart’s teaching and my own. Feldick saw God’s foreknowledge as exhaustive and definite in every respect, meaning all future events were fully known as fixed before they occurred. He often spoke of God’s sovereignty in terms of total control over everything that happens, rather than as God being the highest authority who can allow genuine freedom within His rule, which is the biblical teaching. In addition, he taught that God exists outside of time, regarding time as meaningless to Him. These positions, while common in evangelical teaching, blur God’s relational engagement with His creation and make it impossible to take the biblical record of His interactions at face value. Whole swaths of Scripture are rendered almost meaningless, transformed into lengthy “figures of speech” that must be taken to mean the opposite of what they plainly say.

Feldick also accepted the standard evangelical view of original sin, teaching that all humanity is spiritually dead because of Adam’s transgression. I believe this misses the mark in a couple of different ways. First, it ignores the whole of Ezekiel 18, which emphatically teaches that God does not hold people guilty because of the sin of their ancestors. Second, it overlooks the universal effect of Christ’s work at Calvary, which resolved the impact Adam’s sin had on his race and allowed God to act toward mankind in a manner consistent with justice, holding people responsible only for the sins they commit themselves. In this understanding, people are spiritually alive until they personally sin, and it is at that point they become in need of salvation through union with Christ. That difference changes how we think about the state of humanity and the way we present the gospel.

His view of faith leaned toward the common evangelical definition, trusting God’s word without necessarily seeking full rational grounding. I see it differently. True biblical faith is reasoned trust, rooted in objective truth and sound logic. Faith that is not anchored in reality as God has revealed it can drift into superstition or mysticism.

And then there is Logos in John 1:1. Feldick followed the usual translation of “Word” without digging into the depth of the term. I believe Logos is best understood as “Logic,” or “Reason,” not merely as an abstract idea but as the living rational principle at the heart of God’s being. This understanding of John’s use of the word Logos changes the way we understand both the passage and the Person it describes, as well as the role sound reason should play in our doctrine and in our daily lives. It may seem like a small issue, but it has an enormous doctrinal impact.

So, I can recommend Les Feldick in many areas, particularly where his mid-Acts perspective shines, which happens to be the vast majority of his content. Yet it is wise to study his work with discernment, as with anyone’s teaching. His strengths are real, and they are substantial. So much so that I will say again what I said in a previous post: Les Feldick is much better than any other person who airs on Christian television, by a rural Oklahoma country mile!

Clete

P.S. I made a LOT of claims in this post that might be trying to make your head explode! For the sake be brevity, I intentionally made no effort to establish any of those claims but am more than happy to do so. Please feel free to ask me any question that this post generates in your mind. By all means, challenge me to defend anything you wish to challenge me on. That's what I'm here for!

As far as claiming that Les Teaches that God cannot change in any way, Les actually teaches that both the Calvinist view AND the Armenian view are correct at the same time. I have never heard him say that God can never chang His mind. He does however teach that God predertermines what happens AND gives us free will at the same time AND accomplishes His perfect will through our free will choices. That is true and Biblical. So I agree with Les on that. Your conclusion isn't necessarily his conclusion. I don't think Les necessarily believes in irresistible grace. He believes that God fireknows who will be saved and then predestines them to be conformed to the image of Christ as Scripture clearly teaches.

I also agree with Feldick that God foreknows all future events. That doesn’t mean that God fixed them that way or predetermined it that way. God at times intervenes and even changes certain events according to His Sovereign will, but He still knew before hand that it would happen, given the fact that He knows all things as Scripture clearly states. So I agree with him there as well.

John 16:30 KJV
[30] Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.

John 21:17 KJV
[17] He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

Again, Les Feldick teaches the Biblical view that yes all events are fully known and fixed and His foreknowledge is perfect, while at the same time, allowing for free will and God does exist outside of time.and yes it is meaningless to God as far as His Soveriegn will goes. He does not consider whole areas of Scripture as simply figures of speech. He takes it literally unless the Bible indicates otherwise. There are a couple of areas that he does believe God veils, such as some of the passages in Revelation, but even then, he uses Scripture to show the Scriptural meaning. One example would be the use of the word mountain as describing a Kingdom the passage where it talks about the beast coming out of the sea, which Les says believes is referring to the sea of humanity.

Feldick doesn't teach the Doctrine of original sin. He teaches that all men inherit their sin nature from Adam, as taught in Scripture. Yes we are all held accountable for our own sins, unless washed in the blood of Christ, but we sin because we inherited our sin nature from Adam.

Romans 5:12 KJV
[12] Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Faith is simply believing/trusting God to the Point of submission to His will. That other stuff you said about logic is not Biblical.

My conclusion regarding your concerns about Les is that his arguments are true and Biblically based and yours are not. I have given you a couple of verses to back up my view. I can give many more. Free will and Predestination happen at the same time. Illogical? Perhaps, but Biblical.

 

[Right Divider]

Illogical? Perhaps, but Biblical.

That is pure insanity.

 

[xfrodobagginsx]

That is pure insanity.

God is not a man. God can use human will to accomplish His perfect will. We see it all of the time. Politicians making free will choices that fulfil Biblical Prophecy. Do you really think they planned it that way? Of course not. God in His infinite power fulfills His perfect will through our free will choices. Pharoh was a perfect example. He made the free will choice to reject the Jews freedom and this accomplished the will of God as God could demostrate His mighty power through miracles, sihns and wonders. You can’t put God in a box.

 

[Right Divider]

God is not a man. God can use human will to accomplish His perfect will. We see it all of the time. Politicians making free will choices that fulfil Biblical Prophecy. Do you really think they planned it that way? Of course not. God in His infinite power fulfills His perfect will through our free will choices. Pharoh was a perfect example. He made the free will choice to reject the Jews freedom and this accomplished the will of God as God could demostrate His mighty power through miracles, sihns and wonders. You can’t put God in a box.

God is not illogical in any way, shape or form. God is the very definition of LOGIC.

To claim that God acts illogically in any way is pure blaspheme.

 

[Clete]

As far as claiming that Les Teaches that God cannot change in any way, Les actually teaches that both the Calvinist view AND the Armenian view are correct at the same time.

They are in fact both false at the same time.

I have never heard him say that God can never change His mind. He does however teach that God predertermines what happens AND gives us free will at the same time AND accomplishes His perfect will through our free will choices. That is true and Biblical. So I agree with Les on that.

Well, I don't have access to transcripts of his shows so I can't prove it one way or the other but you can't hold to one without the other and maintain a logically consistent doctrinal system, which most Christian don't even try to do.

And no, it is not "true and biblical". There is, in fact, nothing at all biblical about it. Any passage that you think teaches that God predetermines everything is an example of eisegesis, which is a fancy term that just gives a name to when one reads their doctrine into a text, conforming scripture to the doctrine rather than letting the text say only what it actually says and conforming one's doctrine to that. The latter being call exegesis.

Your conclusion isn't necessarily his conclusion.

Logically it is. Whether he was consistently logical is definitely in question.

That isn't any sort of slight against the man's character. It's just sort of the normal mode for people. Christians, by a large, don't really care or pay any attention to whether a particular doctrine they've chosen to believe is fully integrated into and is fully compatible with the rest of their theology.

I don't think Les necessarily believes in irresistible grace.

It was not my intention to suggest that he was a Calvinist, only that he was Calvinistic.

He believes that God foreknows who will be saved and then predestines them to be conformed to the image of Christ as Scripture clearly teaches.

Well, that Calvinism 101! I mean that is "Irresistible Grace" in a single sentence.

I also agree with Feldick that God foreknows all future events.

Not based on the bible, you don't.

I'm sure that statement comes as a shock but it's totally true. If you believe that, it's because of Augustine (and then Luther and Calvin), who imported such ideas into Christianity from Greek philosophy. The doctrine is predicated on the doctrine of immutability which teaches that God cannot change in ANY WAY whatsoever. Aristotle taught that. Augustine practically worshiped Aristotle and was convinced by his mother's bishop, a guy named Ambrose of Milan, to interpret the bible in the light of Augustine, which he did. The rest is history.

That doesn’t mean that God fixed them that way or predetermined it that way.

Logically it does.

I won't bother to prove that here but am quite willing to do so upon request.

God at times intervenes and even changes certain events according to His Sovereign will, but He still knew before hand that it would happen, given the fact that He knows all things as Scripture clearly states. So I agree with him there as well.

The bible does exactly the opposite of clearly stating that God knows the future in any exhaustive sense. It flatly does not teach that. It teaches that God knows all knowable things that He wants to know.

John 16:30 KJV
[30] Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.

John 21:17 KJV
[17] He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

"All" pretty nearly never means "every single one".

Genesis 18:21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”​

​

Genesis 22:12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”​

You see? There are "proof texts" for every position under the sun. Your response at this point is forced to be one of two things....
1. Allow my proof texts to convince you and thereby begin to take your proof texts as the hyperbole they are.
2. Convert my proof texts into figures of speech and insist that "All" means "every single possible thing" even though it almost never does.

In short, one set of passages are figures of speech and the other means what it says. You're forced to choose. Not that YOU are forced to choose but that EVERYONE is forced to choose. I am, you are, everyone who reads the bible is forced to accept one set at face value and the other as some form of figure of speech. That much is inescapable. The question then WHY you'd pick one to take as face value over the other.

Unlike the John passages where we have a good grammatical reason to understand that "all" doesn't mean "every single one", the Genesis passages give no contextual or grammatical reason to think that these are figures of speech. The ONLY reason to do so is doctrinal. So the choice is between eisegesis and exegesis. Do we conform scripture to our doctrine or do we conform our doctrine to scripture?

dAgain, Les Feldick teaches the Biblical view that yes all events are fully known and fixed and His foreknowledge is perfect, while at the same time, allowing for free will and God does exist outside of time.and yes it is meaningless to God as far as His Soveriegn will goes.

You do not believe a single syllable of this because of the bible but because of Augustine's importation of Greek philosophy into Christian doctrine.

He does not consider whole areas of Scripture as simply figures of speech.

Oh yes he does and so do you!

Either "all events are fully known and fixed and His foreknowledge is perfect" or the entire chapter of Genesis 22 is one enormous figure of speech.
Either "all events are fully known and fixed and His foreknowledge is perfect" or the entire book of Jonah is one colossal figure of speech.

And not just "figures of speech" but really weird figures of speech where when God says things like "now I know" or "I will know" or "it never entered my mind" (Jeremiah 19:5), it isn't merely that God doesn't mean precisely what it seems to mean, but rather that is means the absolute opposite of what it says. "Now I know" means, "I always knew", "I will know" means "I know already", "It never entered my mind" means, "I thought of it before time began".

And again, there is no contextual or grammatical reason to think that any of these passages are any sort of figure of speech at all. The only reason to do so is doctrinal (eisegetical).

He takes it literally unless the Bible indicates otherwise.

I'm sure that's his intent. I've seen it a million times over the years. Such claims, as false as they might be, are not outright lies. They believe what they are saying but are unable to see that they're not actually doing what they are claiming they're doing. Indeed, that they are often doing the reverse and not realizing it. It's a doctrinal form of paradigm blindness.

There are a couple of areas that he does believe God veils, such as some of the passages in Revelation, but even then, he uses Scripture to show the Scriptural meaning. One example would be the use of the word mountain as describing a Kingdom the passage where it talks about the beast coming out of the sea, which Les says believes is referring to the sea of humanity.

Feldick doesn't teach the Doctrine of original sin. He teaches that all men inherit their sin nature from Adam, as taught in Scripture. Yes we are all held accountable for our own sins, unless washed in the blood of Christ, but we sin because we inherited our sin nature from Adam.

Romans 5:12 KJV
[12] Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

This is typical Christian doctrine that attempts to have it both ways. Again, I don't have a Les Feldick lexicon (for want of a better term) and so will have to take your word for it here but when you combine what you've said here with what you said above about exhaustive foreknowledge, predestination, etc, the inescapable conclusion is that total equivalent of "Original Sin" whether you choose to call it that or not.

Faith is simply believing/trusting God to the Point of submission to His will. That other stuff you said about logic is not Biblical.

Of course it is entirely biblical. You showing up to declare otherwise has no effect on it whatsoever.

Here's the difference between what you do and what I do....

If you can refute a single syllable of what I've said. I'll hear it gladly!

I MEAN THAT!! If you can demonstrate that I've gotten something wrong I am sitting here, right now, at my computer, BEGGING you to show me.


Prediction: xfrodobagginsx will make NO ATTEMPT to do so - none!

I so desperately hope that I'm wrong!

My conclusion regarding your concerns about Les is that his arguments are true and Biblically based and yours are not.

Prove it.

I have given you a couple of verses to back up my view.

Which I have responded to and shown to be lacking for objectively valid reasons.

I can give many more.

Please do!

Free will and Predestination happen at the same time. Illogical? Perhaps, but Biblical.

If so then the bible is false - by definition.

If the contradictory (i.e. illogical) can be true then why do you even care what Les Feldick taught? Why would you care about what anyone teaches? If logic doesn't work and irrational truths are a thing (which they aren't) then by what means would you ever be able to declare that anything I've said is not biblical or that anything Les said was biblical?

That's a real question! You just told me "that his (Les') arguments are true and Biblically based and mine are not". How do you know that? What did you use, other than logic, to come to the conclusion that my "ARGUMENTS" aren't biblical but that Les' "ARGUMENTS" are?

Please! By all mean, explain it to me!!

You won't be able to! If logic doesn't work, no knowledge is possible. That includes doctrinal knowledge. More than that, no communication is even possible. You can't read, a single syllable of the bible, much less understand, accept as true and integrate what you read, without using logic to do it.