Jan 8, 2009

Driscoll a Hyperist?

In a recent blog post, Calvinist pastor Mark Driscoll wrote:

"Third, God is fully sovereign. In regards to evangelism, God’s sovereignty includes selecting when and where we would live, who would we meet, and granting us the opportunity to do evangelism so that the elect will be saved. This is because God is sovereign over both the means and ends of evangelism. God has not only determined who will be saved, but has also determined how He will save them—and this often (not "always"? SG) includes using our evangelistic efforts, though God can also save people apart from us (and the gospel? SG) as He chooses. God often (not "always"? SG) chooses to allow us to be involved in the process so that we might share in the joy of seeing people’s earthly and eternal lives forever transformed through Jesus."

"Lastly, the fact that Jesus remains to this day an active evangelist is of great encouragement to me personally. It means that children who are aborted in the womb, those mentally incapable of understanding the gospel, and those people who have lived in times and places that missionaries did not visit are not necessarily beyond the hope of salvation. Indeed, Jesus could visit and save anyone anywhere because He remains The Evangelist."
("Evangelism" by Mark Driscoll - emphasis mine)

See here

Friends, this is "hardshellism" and "Hyper Calvinism." Notice how Driscoll says the heathen and others can be saved by the personal witnessing and preaching of Christ. Notice also, from the following citations, that this is a view the Hardshells have put forth historically.

Wrote Elder Sarrels:

"...in perhaps the vast majority of cases the elements of conversion––repentance, faith, and justification––may be present only embryonically..." (Systematic Theology, page 369)

"The more advanced intellectual Christian concepts about all of these progressive steps which unfold in the believer's experience do not prove that these do not exist embryonically in the obscure, yet spiritual, exercise of the quickened soul in heathen lands. The child of God, be he heathen or cultured, may not understand all that is woven around his life in God, yet in germ all is there. (See Rom:2:14)"

Now notice what Elder Potter said:

“...the Bible and the ministry are not absolutely essential for the heathen to know there is a God." (Debate on Foreign Missions-Chapter 4 - MR. POTTER’’S SECOND SPEECH)

"And by his Spirit he can, and I will say he will, and does, quicken the benighted soul of the heathen and prepare him for heaven and glory. If that is not true, what mean all the Scriptures I have quoted here to you?" (Fifth Speech)

Elder Claud Cayce wrote:

"A saving knowledge and faith in Christ does not come through the gospel; but one must have that before he can be reached through or by the gospel."

Elders R. H. Pittman and S. Hassell wrote in answer to the following question.

"Q. Will any persons be saved unless the gospel is preached to them?"

A. While it is true that the ministry is to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, as the Spirit of God may direct them, and as the providence of God may open the way to them, and it is the duty of other members to help them on their way after a godly sort, and those to whom they minister in spiritual things should minister to them in carnal things, as the Scripture teach, it is at the same time true that all the elect and redeemed people of God, both infants and adults, will be saved. (Psalm 33:12; Isa. 35:10; 45:17; 53:11; Jer. 31-34; Matt. 1:21; 11:25-27; 16:16,17; John 5:25; 6:37-40; 10:27-30; 17:1-3, 24; Rom. 8:28-39; I Cor. 1:26-31; 12:3; Eph. 1:1-14; I Pet. 1-5; Rev. 5:9,10). Jesus is the Great Preacher, and, by His omnipresent Spirit, He preaches His gospel savingly to His people (Isa. 61:1-3,10,11; Luke 4:16-30; Heb. 2:11,12; Psalm 110:3)."

Now, does Driscoll not make himself a neo-Hardshell?

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