Tony Evans' Scandalous Theology

Welcome to the HolyNope podcast. I am the HolyNope and with me is the HolyDope, David Loewy.

And today we are going to talk about Mr. Tony Evans.

What's going on with Tony Evans, David? Well, I wish

I could say that things are going well for him, but they're not.

Recently, of course as probably many of the listeners know, he stepped down from ministry at this church in Texas due to some unnamed serious sin which had come to light somehow.

We don't know the details of it. And he has stepped down from his pulpit.

Also, as far as I can tell from some cursory research, it seems like his show

The Urban Alternative has been pulled from all or most of the radio stations which he had been on for decades.

So we don't know what the nature is of this particular sin, other than the fact that he says that he did not do something criminal or illegal, which is such a strange thing to say.

I don't know, simply conjecture, what that could possibly mean, why he would have to say that, that it wasn't a criminal thing that he did.

But he sinned in some way in his step down. I think the reason why we wanted to do a show about Tony Evans and break from our breakdown of come out in Jesus' name is not even in particular whatever this particular sin is, but because of something which now has been brought to light more popularly, and that is statements that he had made years ago, which

I was not aware of until relatively recently, where he espouses a form of Pelagianism and another heretical position that he calls

Transdispensationalism, which is not biblical, it's not even close to biblical, it's not even found anywhere in the

Bible, and I think we're going to be talking about that today on the show as well. He is certainly a man beloved by many people, in spite of some of the troubling teaching that he has been acquainted with throughout the years, and there's one clip in particular that we want to look at today that sort of exposes this form of Pelagianism about which you are talking.

How would you define for our audience Pelagianism, David? Well, Pelagius was a

British monk that lived during the same time as Augustine.

He was a contemporary of Augustine's, and he was, as I say, up in the British Isles, and concerned, in his words, being concerned about holy living, he taught that man needed to make choices in order to live a holy life, which, of course, we would also agree that man,

Christians, should make choices to, in obedience to God, to live in accordance with God's commands, yes, but Pelagius also taught that the sin of Adam was not handed down to his progeny.

Pelagius did not believe in original sin, that man,

Pelagius in essence taught, that man is born as a blank slate, and that we have it within ourselves to live lives which are either pleasing or displeasing to God, that Adam's sin did not carry down to his children.

He himself was guilty of it, but we, being the descendants of Adam, are not.

And so Augustine fought against this. One of the things that Pelagius was upset with Augustine about is

Augustine said, he did a prayer, Augustine issued a prayer where he said,

Lord, command what thou wilt, and give what thou commandest.

In other words, what he's saying, what Augustine was saying is, Lord, command whatever you wish for me to do.

But in addition to that, Lord, I'm asking you to give me the ability to carry out the commands which you command me to do.

To Pelagius, this didn't make any sense, because Pelagius says, well, why on earth would

God ever command something that man was unable to do in himself? This is the argument that Pelagius made.

And the reason he made that argument was because he was saying, of course man has it within himself to carry out

God's commands, because Adam's sin doesn't carry down to the rest of us.

This is what Pelagius' position is. And Augustine fought against this position and argued for the scriptural teaching of original sin, that all of us by nature are in Adam, as in Adam all die, so in Christ also be made alive.

And that is the explanation not only for why we are sinners, we're sinners by nature, not merely by choice, but also it's the explanation for death.

Why death even affects infants. If infants are innocent of original sin and do not have any taint of sin at all, then

Pelagius has no explanation for why the curse of death is upon infants.

That's just one thing that I'm sure we'll get to in a little bit, because Tony Evans brings this up, one about infants who have died, and he has his own explanation of that.

But in a nutshell, basically Pelagius taught that man does not have a sin nature, and by extrapolation from that, because man does not have a sin nature, if he makes right choices his entire life, man can enter heaven without the grace of Jesus, without trusting in Jesus, because we have it within ourselves to follow the law.

Of course this is heresy, it was condemned in 419 A .D. at the

Council of Carthage, it has been condemned for 1605 years, but Tony Evans is promoting this.

And that's, it's really grievous actually, because as you say, he's a beloved teacher, not just with those who hold to really wacky, crazy theological positions, but within broader, wider evangelicalism, which really does speak to the state of the evangelical church in America today, that people wouldn't care about these things.

I think that there's a lot of evangelicals that would listen to what we're about to listen to from Tony Evans, and see that there's nothing wrong with it, and at least not be able to articulate what is wrong with this form of Pelagianism that is being promoted by Tony Evans.

So let's listen to some of this clip, and then respond to it. I try to answer some of the hard questions.

What about those who can't leave, children, those who were born with mental deficiencies? What about those who don't get access to the word, and yet they are condemned by a holy

God? How does all that work? We try to tackle some of those questions too. Well, let's jump into it then.

What about children? What do you say about children who have died? Well, here's the thesis, and this is where there will probably be a theological skirmish over this one, but I believe that Jesus Christ, in his death, covered original sin.

But the thing that the death of Christ did was cover and overrule original sin, so that no man is condemned because they're born in Adam, but men are condemned because they consciously reject salvation.

And therefore, since an infant cannot consciously reject salvation, and since original sin was covered, infants going to pay salvation, going to heaven, people who have mental deficiencies so that they can't understand it going to heaven, and then

I have the big controversial one, and that is people who are in foreign lands. Well, that's where I was getting ready to go, because I was going to say, now wait a minute, because if I take that as a thesis, then of course

I no longer have any real work. I can sit back here, because those who are over in foreign lands, those who haven't heard the gospel, of course, as long as they don't hear it, they're straight.

They're okay. Well, if you could take that as a thesis, but you can't. And the reason why you can't is this.

The Bible says in Romans 1 that men suppress the truth. You cannot suppress what you don't have.

It's like holding a beach ball underwater. It wants to come up, but you're pausing it down. When a person rejects the revelation of God in nature or in conscience, they are condemning themselves, because something wants to come up that they keep pausing down.

That's not the scenario I'm painting. I'm painting a scenario where a person wants to know the true God, desires to know the true

God. That gives God three options. One, God can send him a missionary, the traditional way.

Two, God can give him a direct revelation of himself, like he did Paul on the master's road.

Or three, and here it is, God can trans -dispensationalize him. That is, relate to him out of another dispensation, because dispensations are based on information given.

So that all throughout the Bible, all people had to do was believe what God had revealed, and they were saved.

If a person believes, God, somebody's up there that created this. Somebody created me. I don't know who he is, but I want to know him.

If that person were to have a heart attack at that moment, God could not condemn him and be just, because God says, he who seeks shall find.

So since God makes that promise, if God doesn't give him the gospel or give him a direct revelation, then he has to judge him out of another dispensation.

Now, I would imagine you've got people coming at you from every direction with guns blazing. He says in that very strange diatribe that if a person rejects the light of general revelation or special revelation, this is not what he's talking about.

But if a person really wants to know God, then

God has to save that person based on whatever light they have.

That's the argument that Tony Evans is making, except there are many problems with this.

He also says that God cannot judge a person if they have not heard about Jesus Christ.

If they have not heard about the gospel, God would not be just if he judges that person.

I mean, that's such an attack on the sovereignty of God, the

Godhood of God, the judgment of God, to say that God cannot judge somebody unless he gives them the gospel.

Unless they hear the gospel, it's impossible for God to judge them. Such a wicked casting of a picture of God.

It's not the God of the Bible. And I want to say just a couple of things as he was speaking there that I thought of.

I mean, one is this. Romans 3, and starting at verse 10, says,

As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. Jews and Greeks are alike under sin.

So Jews had the revelation of God. The Greeks did not have the revelation of God.

And yet both are alike under sin. But then he goes on, the Apostle Paul, and he says this.

No one understands. No one seeks for God.

All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good.

Not even one. So this idea that he's espousing of the quote -unquote righteous pagan or the righteous heathen, the

Apostle responds to such an argument that he already can foresee somebody's going to make this argument.

What about the good man who lives in the tribe in the jungle somewhere? What about him?

And Paul's answer to the what about him is to say this. That person's not seeking

God. That person has turned aside from the light of general revelation and has sinned.

When he's talking, well, yeah, if you reject general revelation and if you reject special revelation, well, here's the point,

Tony Evans. Every natural man does reject general revelation and special revelation until a supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit goes on in that person's life. And the Holy Spirit takes out the heart of stone and gives the heart of flesh for that person to believe.

Outside of that happening, every person already does reject the light of God's general revelation.

And when we say general revelation, what we mean by that is the revelation of nature. The stars, the moon, the heavens declare the glory of God.

The skies proclaim the work of saints. The mountains, the trees, that man has no excuse and thus is condemned by his own sin.

Even those who have never heard the gospel, they stand condemned already.

Man is by nature condemned. This is the very thing that Tony Evans is denying here.

And like that interviewer astutely said as he was listening to Tony Evans, the interviewer said to him, well, this takes away all missionary work then, doesn't it?

Because if a person can be saved simply by following, quote, unquote, whatever light they have, then you better not preach the gospel to such a person because then they might hear it and reject it.

But if they follow the light that they have, according to Tony Evans, then they'll be saved under some trans -dispensationalism, some different dispensation of grace outside of faith in Jesus Christ, which goes against Acts 4 .12.

There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. This is the reason why the feet of those who bring good news are beautiful.

Because if they didn't bring the good news, those who are in pagan lands would be lost and condemned forever because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

All have. And no one, not even one, seeks

God in their flesh. I want to know this God. No one does. That's what Paul says.

And it takes the supernatural work of God in a person's life in order to cause them to turn to Christ.

So, I mean, even just in the first ten seconds of what he says, there's like three different hermetical things that Tony Evans says there.

Tony Evans was a person who I listened to when

I was a young Christian. I did not know any better, or perhaps he did not hold these views at that time.

If he did, I would not have known as a 22 -year -old brand -new Christian listening to WNBI Moody Radio.

I would not have known if he was like, this is transdispensationalism. Jesus died to take away original sin from everybody.

I would have just been like, oh, OK, I guess, whatever. These are like words that are flying over the top of my head.

So it's possible that he has held these views for a long time, and I just didn't know it. But this sincerely grieves me, man.

It grieves me that like Moody Radio and 1 ,500 other radio stations didn't care enough about the gospel, about orthodoxy, to say at that time, which

I think that interview was given like seven, eight years ago, to say at that time, hey,

Tony, man, we're not going to play your sermons anymore, because you're actually like a real legitimate heretic for holding these things.

That's actual heresy. This is something different even than Arminianism versus Calvinism.

It's something different than some variation of an eschatological position. This is actual heresy that was condemned 1 ,600 years ago, and he's espousing it and promoting it on evangelical radio stations.

And this is really, really bad stuff, man, and I think the church needs to wake up and stand against it. Looking at exactly what it is he says, we know that he believes that men of their own free volition can seek for God in a way that is pleasing to God, to which

God becomes bound to respond and save that person, if we're talking about someone living in an unreached people group, through transdispensationalism, meaning if they are in an unreached people group, that they, according to Tony, don't need special revelation.

They don't need the word of Christ through which, by the preaching of which comes faith.

They don't need the word of Christ. All they need is general revelation and to respond appropriately to general revelation, whatever that seeking would look like for an unreached person.

The problem is, as you've quoted from Romans 3, no one seeks for God. And so if there's a

Hindu in some foreign land who's never heard the gospel, does not have access to special revelation, which this is what we mean, by the way, by an unreached people group, meaning that you will be born, you will live, and you will die without ever hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is impossible for a practicing Hindu in one of those foreign lands who's never heard the gospel to not be suppressing the truth.

There seems to be this idea that false religions, someone practicing a false religion is somehow closer to God than someone who rejects religion, someone who is an atheist.

Some militant atheist must be much farther from God than a practicing Hindu. And of course, people like Joel Osteen would say, well,

Hindus love God, you know, because they're worshipping the divine, they're seeking truth or whatever. But Paul in Romans 1 posits false religions not as that with which we can build bridges with people in order to move them that one step closer to the true gospel or to a true relationship with God.

Paul presents false religions and that level of idolatry as the height of man's rebellion against God.

So there is no good Hindu or Buddhist or any practicer of a religion out there.

They are all in open, willing rebellion against their creator.

And the light of nature is only sufficient to condemn them to hell.

No one seeks for God. And so God is under no obligation, therefore, to save that person because they've said, well, somebody made the sun and I want to worship.

Yeah, I would even say that this is something as I was listening to you talk about this that just came to my mind.

And that is that even the term which he himself made up trans dispensationalism, the reason that he calls it that is because he's saying that such a person, the

Hindu who follows Hinduism, but believes that this is the way to God for for him and never hears the gospel, that such a person is saved based on whatever light that they're given and their following of that light and not the rejection of it.

But even that in itself is wrong on a number of levels. And here's the reason why.

First of all, I have to say, having a soft spot in my heart for actual evangelical dispensationalists,

OK, is that that has nothing to do with what dispensationalists believe.

There's there's no one at the Moody Bible Institute who is a professor there who is teaching what

Tony Evans is teaching here. OK, that's so even using the word dispensationalism, all that that's actually really going to do is cause people to really have a critique of something that no true dispensationalist actually holds on to.

But secondly, it betrays a misunderstanding of what even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say there are such things as dispensations.

All right. I know that as a covenant theology guy, I'm ill guy that you are. I'm probably historic premill myself.

But as a as a covenant guy, you would disagree with dispensationalists based on other matters than what he's talking about here.

But what he's saying actually misunderstands even what the dispensation of the

Old Covenant is actually teaching, because he said it would be like such a person was being judged as the

Old Testament saints were judged. Except where the Old Testament saints judged based on whether they followed the laws well enough.

Absolutely not. That is a wrong understanding of how the Old Testament saints were judged.

The Old Testament saints were judged in the same way that the New Testament saints were judged.

How was Abraham justified? Was it by his works? Was it by his following the light or whatever?

His walking in accordance? How was Moses justified by his work, walking along with the law?

Is that how he's justified? No. Abraham was justified by faith alone, by faith in the

Christ who was to come. Moses was justified not by his obedience to the law.

None of the Israelites were justified by their obedience to the law. No one is justified by obedience to the law.

And if they could be, then why would Christ have to come and die on the cross? Right? No one is.

So even his understanding of how the Old Testament saints were saved betrays a lack of understanding of salvation in the first place.

It makes me wonder, like, does Tony Evans believe that a person can be saved by works?

I think he does. I think he actually believes in salvation by works.

Old Testament saints were saved by grace through faith. And the only way any unreached person is going to be saved is by grace through faith.

Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ, meaning that if we don't have access to special revelation, we cannot be saved.

Now, I want to ask your opinion on something else he mentioned in relation to this, and that is that God must do one of three things to this person.

And one of those things was that God must grant them supernatural revelation. And so when

I have discussed the issue of unreached people groups, especially with semi -Pelagians or Arminians, it's a tricky issue for Arminians and for semi -Pelagians because they believe that I have an inherent ability to choose

God. And that is innate within me. And no one can take that from me.

But that choice must be in response to special revelation, which is granted by the grace of God and the illuminating work of the

Holy Spirit. And so the question becomes, can God reveal in a dream or a vision or whatever, special revelation to someone in an unreached people group, a revelation that is sufficient for their salvation?

Are you asking me now? There's the question, can God do that? And does God do that?

Or should we expect God to do that? Yeah.

So the phrasing of the question, can, using the word can, can

God do something? Of course, my answer to that is unless it goes contrary to his own nature and attributes,

God can do whatever he wishes to do. Or unless such a thing goes against what his word has already revealed.

So if he's already revealed something about himself, can he then go and do contrary to what he's revealed about himself?

No, because he's revealed such a truth about himself. So can

God reveal himself in whatever way he wishes to?

Yes. But does he though? No. And here's the reason why.

Because Hebrews chapter one, starting at verse one, says this, long ago at many times and in many ways,

God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. So what are some of the ways that God spoke to the fathers by the prophets?

Well, he gave the prophets dreams, for instance. He calls

Samuel. In the book of 1 Samuel, he calls him to himself,

Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel gets out of bed and goes to Eli. And many of our listeners would understand, know that story.

He reveals himself through a burning bush to Moses. He reveals himself through a fire to Manoah.

And he ascends in the fire. He reveals himself at the trees of Mamre to Abraham.

So he revealed himself in diverse ways, many different ways. But then what else does the book of Hebrews say?

He spoke to our fathers by the prophets, verse two. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed as the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

So when Christ came, Christ gave us the revelation, the full revelation of himself.

And his apostles, whom he sent out, wrote the books of the

Bible that we have called the New Testament. And this is the way in which the

Lord speaks to us now. This is the, if you want to use the word, dispensation.

This is the dispensation in which we live, the dispensation of the grace of God. And this is the way that he speaks to us.

Now, here's the thing. Paul addresses this as well.

When he says in Romans chapter 10, let me just read this for you here.

All right. He says this. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

So, he says right before, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. All right, but if somebody doesn't know the

Lord, or they don't believe in the Lord, then how will they call on his name to be saved?

This is the answer that Paul is giving. And how are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard?

This is the question, like the Bible always has the answer, right? We would expect then, for Paul, if Tony Evans is going to be justified in what he just said, or the hypothetical question that you're asking, what about these people?

Can they just like receive dreams and special different things, God speaking to them? That this would be the place where the apostle would say, well, how are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard?

Well, they'll just get a dream. Like, you know, God's going to knock on the door of their heart in a dream, and then they have to invite him in.

And if they don't invite him in, then he'll stay outside, I guess. It's not what he says.

He says, and how are they to hear without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are set as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news?

So this is the way that the pagan is saved. By missionaries going out and preaching the gospel to those people, boldly going into places where the gospel has never gone, and preaching the truth to those people.

And the Holy Spirit then taking his word that he inspired, and applying it to the listener's heart for that person to repent and believe.

Applying it, taking out the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh. And I would submit that since the

Bible says salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved, and Paul says, how are they to believe unless someone is sent to them, that this is the missionary mandate, this is the great commission, this is the reason why

Jesus tells his disciples to go into all the earth and to preach the gospel to all of creation, this is the reason why, because there is no salvation outside of repenting and believing in the gospel of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Outside of that, everyone perishes. Everyone.

And for someone to say, well, that's not fair. God has to save them, is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of sin, of the nature of man's rebellion, of the nature of the grace of God.

Someone who says that puts themselves in the place of God, and they say, I'm more compassionate than God is, because if I was

God, I would just save all of those people. And so God has to do it the way that I want him to do it.

That's what that's actually doing, by saying that there's some way to save other than the way that God has said in his word.

Yeah, yeah. First, I fully agree with you, your thoughts on Romans 10. Paul says it very plainly.

How shall they believe if they haven't heard? How shall they hear if the preacher is not sent to them?

Special revelation is required for salvation. I have encountered this a lot with semi -Pelagians, modern -day

Arminians, that because their whole soteriology hinges upon the free choice of men, that everyone has a choice.

And that choice isn't, I'm going to seek after the general revelation. What they mean is that all people have a choice to choose or reject

Jesus. That's their position. And when you start talking with them about it, they will say that.

And maybe they've never articulated that before. But they believe that every person has the opportunity to accept or reject

Jesus. And we go to hell for rejecting Jesus, who we've heard about and we've chosen not to believe.

Well, the reality of unreached people groups presents a real problem for the semi -Pelagian, for the

Pelagian at this point because not everyone has a choice. Not everyone has the opportunity to have

Jesus in front of them, as it were, and say, no, I reject him.

I reject him. Not everyone has that choice presented to them. And so the next problem arises for the

Pelagian, the justice of God. If salvation depends upon the free choice of men in response to special revelation,

God must not be just to give all men special, if he doesn't give all men special revelation.

There's a big problem, not only with the nature of man, men, but with the character of God, that Pelagianism, semi -Pelagianism,

Arminianism, whatever you want to call it these days, can't answer. Well, and this is the question that the apostle already anticipated that people would be asking when he says in Romans 9, verse 14, what shall we say then?

Is there injustice on God's part? Why? Because he says, before Jacob or Esau was born, he said,

Jacob I loved, but Esau I have hated. So such a person, like you're talking about, would say, well then, how is

God being just then? He chooses this one for salvation, he chooses this one to not have salvation.

And what does Paul say? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom

I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So the reason that God raised up the pagan Pharaoh and hardened his heart after the sixth plague, every other plague,

God hardened Pharaoh's heart, God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Why did he do it? He did it because he was going to use

Pharaoh to glorify himself through judgment on Pharaoh and on the

Egyptians and on the Egyptians' gods. And that's the reason that he raised him up.

So, again, it goes back to, this is all an attempt by such people as Tony Evans to put themselves in the place of God and to say,

I'm more compassionate than what Paul reveals in Romans 9 about the character of God.

I'm more compassionate than that. And so I'm going to throw out what Paul says about the nature of God and the nature of God's sovereign choice and the way that God can have a right over his clay to make some for noble use and some for common use.

That such a person says, I don't believe in any of that. I need to explain all of that away and say, no, a truly compassionate

God is a God who must give every single person the opportunity to hear about Jesus and either accept

Jesus or reject Jesus. And that acceptance or rejection has to do completely and totally with something within themselves or else

God's not fair and I'm not going to believe in such a God. This is the argument that they're postulating.

And what I'm saying is that God that Tony Evans is proclaiming here is not the true

God. It is a false God. We have to throw out entire, not just verses of scripture, sections of scripture, sections of arguments that the apostles are making in order to make what he's saying even close to fitting.

Which it doesn't fit at all anyway because there's no place in the Bible that says that a pagan can somehow work his way up to heaven without faith in Jesus Christ or will be judged on some prior dispensation, which never existed, which never existed.

Yeah, I think that the predicament that the

Pelagian finds himself in at this moment forces him then to say, well,

God, because God is just, because no one's going to honestly charge God with injustice, that because God is just, just some way, somehow, he's going to give everybody that choice, that choice to accept or reject

Jesus. And if they reject, then they're doomed. So they don't know how, and they relegate it to the unknown, the abstract.

Somehow God's going to give them enough so that in their rejection they can be justly condemned.

And that's usually, I think, at this point, they're thinking of dreams for specific people.

But then, again, we're dealing with why is God giving this person a dream and not this person?

Why is God giving this person enough information and not this other person in the unreached people group?

And then we come back to God's sovereign choice, God's free will in whom he saves and how he saves them, which is ultimately what the

Pelagian needs to bow his knee to. Well, so I think that there are pits on either side of what the true doctrine is here on this subject.

There are pits on either side. You have the Pelagian, and I would even go so far as to say semi -Pelagian

Arminian pit, okay, which then puts all of the impetus upon man's vaunted free will as an explanation for his acceptance or rejection, why he's going to go to heaven or not.

It's all based on whatever man's free will is. And that is a pit, and it's not what Paul says.

That's not what John says in John chapter 1 when he says we are born not of the flesh nor of the will of man nor of blood, but born of God, that it is

God's choice. So you have the pit on one side rejecting that, that it's

God's choice instead of man. And then you have a pit on the other side, which unfortunately holds the very terrible name of hyper -Calvinism, which would say that man has no responsibility whatsoever, and it is all, only

God's sovereign choice, and so man shouldn't even preach the gospel because God is so sovereign that man's intellect or will has nothing whatsoever to do with believing in Jesus or not believing in Jesus.

I do believe, and I have to say this might turn off some of the people who are listening here, but it's our show, so we can say what we want as long as it's biblical, which

I believe what I'm about to say is biblical, and here it is. I believe it's only

Calvinism that actually embraces the mystery, right? Calvinism embraces the mystery of man's responsibility and God's sovereignty, and outside, outside of the doctrines of grace, you fall into one or the other of those two pits, and it is only the doctrines of grace which will affirm that man absolutely has a responsibility to believe and chooses not to, and also that God is sovereign over every single thing that ever occurs in the whole universe.

And I don't know how those two things fit together, and I can never explain it this side of heaven, but I hold on to those things because the

Bible teaches them. That's the reason why, and what Tony Evans is doing here,

I really do believe this, he's trying to make up doctrine that is not in the

Bible in order, if I give him the highest benefit of the doubt, he's making up unbiblical doctrine in order to somehow defend the character of God, which needs no defending, and his way of defending it is actually attacking the character of God, because he's saying things that are absolutely untrue about the natural man and those who have never heard, and making up terms that have no foundation whatsoever in the

Bible, and if I'm going to give him the greatest benefit of the doubt, he's doing this because in his mind he thinks, this is the only way for me to explain how

God can still be fair and send people to hell who have never heard the gospel. That's the reason why,

I believe that's the reason why he's doing that. But that still makes him a false teacher, because the reality is, those people who do not hear the gospel of Christ, there can be no salvation for them.

And as a matter of fact, listen to what Jesus says in Luke chapter 12.

He says this, I'm going to start from Luke chapter 12 verse 42.

And the Lord said, who then is the faithful and wise manager whom his master will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

But if that servant says to himself, my master is delayed in coming and begins to beat the male and female servants and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and in an hour he does not know and will cut him into pieces and put him with the unfaithful.

And that servant, listen now, here it is. That servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, he will receive a severe beating.

But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating.

Everyone to whom much was given of him, much will be required. And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

All right. So here's what I would go so far as to say.

I do believe that those who hear the gospel, who sit under the special revelation of God, who hear the preaching of the word of God, who are like, say, they visit churches or they hear the

Bible, they hear the gospel, they hear about Christ, and such a person walks away from Christ, does not obey

Christ by believing, okay, that that person is under greater condemnation than the person who is in the heart of the jungle who never hears of the gospel.

Jesus doesn't say there in Luke 12 that that person receives no beating.

He says that he receives a lighter beating. He doesn't say he doesn't receive any.

He says he receives a lighter one. What does that mean? All that I can extrapolate from that is another place where Jesus says to Chorazin and Bethsaida, woe to you,

Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the miracles performed in you were performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in dust and ashes long ago, but as it is, it will be worse in the judgment for you.

Why does he say that? What he's saying is that to those who have heard the revelation of God and reject it, their condemnation will be a worse condemnation.

But that doesn't mean that those who never hear and yet still are sinners receive no condemnation but rather salvation.

That doesn't mean that. All it means is that the hell for those who have turned their backs upon the

Christ whom they have heard preached is going to be a worse hell than the hell for those who have never heard the gospel preached but are condemned based on their sin and sinning against the light of nature and the revelation that they have received in nature.

They're still going to hell unless they repent and believe in Jesus. They are still going to hell.

Now, that hell that they receive is still eternal. That hell is still a place that you would not want anyone to go to, all right, that we preach the gospel so that we might rescue some.

And I'm just quoting Paul so that I might rescue some. It's not even the preacher who's the one who has the ability to rescue, but the word, the power of the word, the

Holy Spirit applies it, okay, that the pagan in the heart of Africa or the heart of South America or whatever who never hears about Jesus, they die and they are condemned and they go to hell, but that that hell will not be as severe as the church -going person in America who has rejected the light of the knowledge of Christ.

Does that make sense? Would you agree with that? I would agree with that. I think that sins against knowledge incur greater punishment than sins done in ignorance.

I think as you've shared, the Scripture makes that very clear. Paul mentioned in Romans 2 that storing up wrath for yourself for the day of wrath.

And so certainly someone's condemnation is going to be all the greater who has sat under gospel preaching time and time again and has rejected it.

But that does not take away the responsibility of the person who's never heard the gospel.

They've been given the light of general revelation and they have rejected it.

And therefore, Paul says that even though they've never heard about Jesus, there in Romans 1, they are without excuse.

Again, their knowledge of God is sufficient only to damn them to hell. And so it's a reality out of which the semi -Pelagian camp seeks to get

God off the hook. And that's where they come up with these things. That's what Tony Evans is doing. He's getting

God off the hook so that he can remain fair, right? In Romans 2, that passage you just were talking about, listen to what

Paul says. For all who have sinned without the law, that's talking about the pagans who have not ever heard the law.

They don't have the law of God. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law.

I mean, case closed, there is no salvation then outside of Christ.

If they sin and they don't have the law, which of course Paul says all have sinned, whether they have the law or not, all are alike under sin.

If they sin without the law, they perish without the law. There is no dispensation, trans -dispensation or not, there's no dispensation in which a person is saved outside of faith in Jesus.

Right. And verse 14 says, For when Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.

And so the work of the law is written on the heart of the unreached person and his conscience, because he is a creature created in God's image, accuses him and excuses him and he will be judged accordingly.

So, David, let's talk about this other category of person that is mentioned in that clip that we shared and that is the category of who we might call, and I'll see what you think about this, the innocent.

Namely, infants and handicapped. He says that, now, this is connected to the other thing we need to talk about, which is what

Jesus accomplished on the cross. Tony Evans says that infants go to heaven when they die because Jesus removed original sin on the cross.

Now, there's two things we need to discuss. Was it just original sin that's removed by Jesus atoning death on the cross?

And is that the basis upon which all infants go to heaven? Oh, and the third question, because we've never talked about this, do you believe that all infants go to heaven or do you not?

Maybe let's talk about the third question first. Okay.

Do all infants, or we can also extend that and say those without the mental capacity to even be able to comprehend the gospel, be able to comprehend their own nature, their own sin nature.

So infants and those who are severely handicapped and unable to know their right hand from their left.

Here's what I'll say, being very careful with my words here.

And in acknowledgement that the scripture does not have a verse that says, word for word, all babies go to heaven.

There's not a verse that says that. And there's not a verse that says all mentally handicapped people go to heaven.

Nevertheless, even though there's not a verse that says it, I believe that we can make deductions from the scripture that would seem to indicate that yes,

I believe that we can see some places in the

Bible that would indicate that that is the case. Let me give you just a couple of examples of that.

One is this, of course, the classic example of after David sins with Bathsheba and murders

Uriah, as a punishment, God takes his son, his infant son dies.

David is in mourning. And after his son dies, David says, he will not return to me, but I will go to him.

Now, ostensibly, what David means when he says that is that he knows that he is going to go to heaven when he dies.

And when he says he won't return to me, he's saying his son is not going to come back alive again.

But he will go to him in that he will see his boy again in the kingdom.

This is what at least some historical commentators would say that that's what

David meant by that. Now, a person might say, I'm just putting it out there, that when

David says he won't return to me, but I will go to him, that what David is referring to there is the grave and not heaven.

I'm going to go to the grave just as my son went to the grave. OK, so let's just keep that in our mind, then, that David says that.

Secondly, I would say there are a number of occasions where Jesus speaks about children.

He says, unless you become like a little child, you cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven.

So then what does he mean by that? He means that you have to have a kind of childlike trust in the

Lord in order to enter into heaven, something which children sort of by nature have childlike trust in their parents, for instance.

All right, what else does Jesus say about children? Once parents were bringing their children to Jesus for him to lay his hands on them, and the disciples tried to stop them from coming.

And Jesus said, let the little children come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

All right, so there's a few examples that we can see of seemingly

Jesus saying that one must have a childlike attitude, a childlike faith, and then a more explicit example where children are coming to him, and he says, let the children come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And then we see the example of David saying that he's going to go and be with his son.

And of course we see the example of Christ himself showing compassion on people, right?

Just Christ is the compassionate Savior. He is. And he does not hold sins against people that those people have not committed.

All right, now what Tony Evans would go so far as to say is, well, we have not committed the sin of Adam.

Okay, and so he doesn't hold that against us. But that's not true, man. We have, because we were in Adam.

As Hebrews 7 says, that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek, because he was in the loins of Abraham, way back when

Abraham was paying a tithe to Melchizedek. Therefore, Levi also paid the tithe to Melchizedek, even though Levi hadn't been born yet.

What does that mean? It means that he was in Abraham. In that very same way, we were in Adam, and thus guilty of the sin that Adam committed.

Are all people, including infants then, do we, does that original sin apply to infants?

Yes, it does. Yes. And that's actually the reason why there are, sadly, instances of infants dying.

If infants were sinless, they would not die, because death is the wages of sin.

I'm not saying conscious sin. I'm saying having a sin nature, right?

Infants have a sin nature, and since the wages of sin is death, therefore, the fact that infants die means that infants also have a sin nature.

Okay, that being said, how, since I said earlier, and not just David, who cares what

David Loewy says, the Bible says, there is therefore, there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

Salvation is found in no one else. So here's what I would say. This is what

I would say. Is that in the case of those, like infants, who do not have the ability to exhibit conscious faith in Christ, can they be saved?

My best answer to that is this. If they can be saved, it is because God takes out the infant's heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh, and gives them a special measure of grace through faith.

That we actually see an example in the Bible of a person who was filled with the

Holy Spirit from birth. That person is John the Baptist. That could

God then give the Holy Spirit to an infant and cause them to believe in Christ at the moment of their death?

I think the answer to that is yes, he could do that. He could do that. Could he do that for a mental invalid?

Yes, I believe that he could do that. Somebody who doesn't have the light and walking in the light that they have.

I'm not talking about that kind of a person. I'm talking about a person whose brain is impossible, doesn't work.

Could God, could the Holy Spirit come and take that person's heart of stone out and give them a heart of flesh?

I mean, I believe that he could do that. He could do that. And honestly, that is as far as I can go.

That's as far as I can say, do I believe absolutely? Is there some scriptural text that proves that all infants and all mental invalids go to heaven?

No, there's not. All I can do is say, potentially, the

Lord may give some special measure of his grace to such a person. And even in that case, give that person faith in Christ to believe.

Now, I understand, I can already hear the objection of Tony Evans, if I was talking with him right now, where he would say this.

So if he can do that for an infant, then why can't he do that for the pagan?

If he can do that for the infant, why can't he do that for the mental invalid?

Then why can't he do that for the person who's in the heart of Africa somewhere? They are categorically distinct individuals.

Yes, I do believe it's a different category, because we're not talking about those who are consciously sinning.

There's what the difference is. That the mental invalid and the infant is not consciously sinning against any light.

They don't have a light because they're an infant. Even though they're not consciously sinning, they're still guilty of the sin of Adam.

So they have sin nature. So, I don't know, man. I mean, that's...

That's what you would say. That's what I would say. What about you? I'm curious as to your opinion on the matter as well.

Do you think that what I said was wrong? I don't think what you said was wrong.

I think you gave a great caveat. I think a lot of people would argue that David's talking about the grave there and not necessarily heaven.

However, I am a good Reformed Baptist, a good Calvinist. So what

I believe is that all elect infants go to heaven. I believe that all infants and all severely handicapped, those in this category, are heaven bound.

And here's why I believe that. As a friend of mine says, he believes that it impugns the character of God to suggest that he would punish innocent human beings.

Now, we would say, whoa, man, there are no innocent human beings. I want you to look, however, at Jeremiah chapter 19, verse 4 and 5.

He's dealing with Israel's apostasy, the offering of their children in the fire to false gods.

He says this, because they have forsaken me and made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known.

And because, here it is, they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which

I never commanded or spoke of, and listen to this, nor did it ever enter my mind.

This is the omniscient God speaking. It never entered his mind to offer innocent children in the fires of Molech, that is, to cause those little ones to suffer.

And so there seems to be this category in scripture of the innocent, and I think infants and those who are severely handicapped, who do not have the capacity to process, understand, and respond to revelation are in this capacity, and the

Lord would never even think about putting them to the fire, as it were.

And so I think that I agree with that, that it does impugn the character of God to suggest that he would send little babies to hell.

I mean, we're Calvinists, and we believe, you know, I've gone sort of away from this position.

I still think it's true, but it's not, I think our children are holy.

But as a good Calvinist, I also believe with Holy Bacchum that they're vipers and diapers, right? They have sin natures, and from the moment they can express themselves, they are expressing their selfishness, they are expressing their anger, they are expressing their sinful tendencies that spring up from their sinful nature.

And yet, even though I know that, like, I'm created in the image of God too. Looking at this little precious baby, you know, especially a newborn, who's never even had the opportunity to commit actual sin, to do anything good or bad, it's unthinkable that this little precious newborn baby would go to hell forever to suffer.

I can't even fathom that. Now again, as you said, there is no verse that says all babies go to heaven.

However, I think when we consider the character of God, the overall witness of Scripture, I personally conclude that all elect infants go to heaven, and all infants are elect.

This is a different category from a person who volitionally sins against the light of nature,

God's creation, the general revelation that he has, or potentially, in addition, rejects

Christ, for those who hear of Christ, that conscious, volitional sin is judged by God.

And, you know, if somebody wants to read a really good book, and a really difficult book on this subject, and I say difficult, not difficult to understand, but difficult to receive, okay, they should read

Arthur Pink's The Sovereignty of God. And he talks in that book and gives just Scripture after Scripture after Scripture about God's actual hatred of the non -elect.

That, you know, in evangelific times that we've been living in right now, it's become common to say

God hates the sin and he loves the sinner, and God, you know, loves everybody,

Jesus loves everybody, he loves everybody the same, okay, and that's simply not true!

It's not true. Now, there is a sense in which someone's going to reply in the comment section of this video, and they're going to say, yeah, but John 3, 16,

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. There is a sense in which the benevolent love of God is cast upon the entire world, so that even the pagan

Richard Dawkins, the atheist Dawkins, who spits in God's face, even

Christopher Hitchens, who wrote a book called God is Not Great, still had food in their refrigerators, and they, at least in Christopher Hitchens' case, he's dead now, had breath in their lungs, and, you know, many benefits of the benevolence of God in the world, and so there is a sense in which the benevolent love of God is cast upon the whole world, the sun shines on the just and the unjust, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust, absolutely, but God's love of complacency, his satisfactory love, his salvific love, if you want to put it in that term, is only given to his elect, and upon those who are not his elect, the

Bible says that he hates them. He hates Esau.

Esau is representative of the unbeliever, the Edomites.

In Isaiah 63, it talks about the Lord coming from Edom, his robes stained red, and Isaiah is saying, from where did you come?

I came from stomping the winepress of the wrath of God. This is what he's saying, and their blood splattered all of my garments.

That is the way that God looks on all of those who do not belong to Christ.

They are called the children of wrath. They are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only son.

They are condemned. God, there is a sense, a true biblical sense, that God actually hates those people.

He hates them. What is the good news of the cross? What is it that Jesus accomplished as opposed to simply what

Tony Evans mentions in this clip? God doesn't just bring us to a neutral position and leave salvation ultimately in our hands.

He doesn't make salvation merely possible. The good news isn't simply that Jesus died to make us savable or to make us neutral before him.

The good news is that on the cross, Jesus successfully, effectively, and definitely accomplished and secured the salvation of his people.

He has removed all of their sin, and he has given them his righteousness so that we stand completely accepted, justified in the courtroom of God by virtue of the merit of Christ applied to us by faith alone.

And that is good news. So pray for Tony Evans, that he repents of this form of Pelagianism, and that the

Lord would guide him and keep him. Thank you for listening. I've been the Holy Nope. David Levy has been the