Is Billy Graham a “false teacher?” Some think he is. He was 79 1/2 yrs old (May 31, 1997) at the time of this interview. He openly confessed something about God’s mercy that many found shocking and heretical, and brought condemnation on him from many quarters. One internet preacher said “Billy Graham… is the chief deceiver in the world today.” Our dear brother paid a price for his candidness, but I am so glad he unveiled his heart.
It has been said that no one in the history of the world has shared Jesus Christ with more people than Billy Graham. I have a deep respect for him. At 88 yrs of age (August 2006), Billy Graham admitted, “As time went on, I began to realize the love of God for everybody, all over the world…the love of God is absolute.” (1)
Here was the greatest Evangelist of all time admitting that while He had preached the Gospel to millions of people across the globe, he had lacked something in his understanding of God’s love. And also, as we saw in the above video, He came to believe that God was truly present and active in all the cultures of the world. Was he saying that all roads lead to Heaven? No! He was simply acknowledging that Jesus was not beyond the reach of anyone! He saw that Jesus was revealing Himself to people even before they knew His name. Is that so hard to believe? He was simply agreeing with John 1:9 that says Jesus is “the true light that lightens every man coming into the world.”
“…God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him (Acts 10:34-35).” What does it mean to be “accepted” by Him? Maybe if Billy Graham had had more time, He would have given us His take on this. I admire him for his courage to speak His heart knowing full well how many would react.
Isn’t it interesting how so many of God’s servants come to understand His unlimited love for all people only in their twilight years of life or after they have been Christians for decades? I have seen this many times. It makes perfect sense. After all, does not the Holy Spirit lead us into more and more truth over time?
So then, was Billy Graham a false teacher?* Are those who believe that God will reconcile all humanity to Himself false teachers? If you want to know what makes a teacher a “false” teacher, I highly recommend this excellent and short article by George Sarris:
Also, I refer you to an article I wrote some time ago:
http://www.hopebeyondhell.net/heresy-and-a-call-to-unity-2/
* The purpose of quoting Billy Graham is to show that this great icon of the faith, even in his retirement was still growing in His knowledge of God’s love. It was not to say that I agree that people are automatically saved because they respond to the moral light of their conscience. Salvation comes only through accepting Christ, who is the only way and truth and life, though this will also happen in the life beyond this world after the resurrection of all people.
(1) Ref: Meacham, Jon. Newsweek Magazine. 14 August 2006. Excerpt from interview with Billy Graham. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14204483/.
March 28, 2012
Gerry, the first time I saw this clip was on a DVD called the “The Shocker” – LOL And I agreed that Billy Graham had gone off the deep end. Then the Lord saw fit to finally open my eyes to His goodness and mercy, through your book among others. Now I can see in my spirit where Graham was coming from. I have to wonder if he and Franklin no longer see eye to eye, though. 🙂
March 28, 2012
There is a GREAT difference between universal salvation and being a member of the Body of Christ.
March 29, 2012
Over the years, from time to time, I have written to the Billy Graham people encouraging them to go more deeply into the Bible and to use their concordance to see what is really there. Maybe others have too, no doubt, and Billy is getting more light from God’s Word. So nice to know we will see them all one day.
March 30, 2012
I appreciate this though he is still coming from the heaven OR hell paradigm – and is he saying also that CERTAIN ones are chosen and those live according to the light they have, as in Calvinism? Actually, could it not be that everyone lives according to the light they have even though with some it appears to be pretty dark? Ahh – more things to think about. Thank you for the link!!
April 9, 2012
I respect greatly all that Billy Graham has done in the past. The writer of this article is saying that Billy Graham is saying that he (Billy) has had a late-in-life revelation that the Gospel is available to everyone. Do you see how ridiculous that is? OF COURSE the Gospel is available to everyone. Billy Graham has believed that his whole life. And we should all believe that. It is not our Father’s wish that anyone perish. As Christians we all know that.
But Billy Graham has said in this video something different:
QUOTE:
“everybody that loves Christ or knows Christ, whether they are conscience of it or not, they’re members of the body of Christ”
How can you know and love someone and not be consciously aware of it?
How can you be a “member of the body of Christ” and not be aware of it?
He said they are going to be with us in heaven – with no mention of them accepting Jesus as Lord he said they follow what light they have !!!!!!!!!!
The devil comes as an angel of light !!!!!!!!
What does the Bible say?
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
How is it logical to believe that a seasoned man of God is just now realizing that the Gospel is for everyone. Of course he knows that but he (recently) has tragically been deceived with so many others that somehow you do not have to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.
I love Billy Graham. I love everyone.
Please listen carefully to what people say and check it out with the Word.
There is deep deception today.
April 27, 2012
Dear Cindy,
I wouldn’t be too quick to judge Billy Graham. I don’t think He negates “calling” on the Lord. It’s simply that he is flexible in how that “calling” is carried out. Anyway, your comment is well taken and thank you. And Cindy, there has always been deep deception, and the greatest deception is to defame God’s Holy Character in attributing to Him the act of torturing His Creation whom He loves, and for whom Christ died, in an infinite hell of torment and pain.
BTW, this is not a discussion forum per se, though comments are welcome. Thanks – Gerry Beauchemin
July 14, 2012
Jesus told his disciples, in the gospel according to John , ‘And other sheep I have which are not of this fold and I must go unto them and there will be one fold’ .
Notice how in the text Jesus states , ‘other sheep I *have* , which are not of this fold’, NOT and other sheep I will have .
Some have tried to claim that the other sheep only exclusively refers to later gentile converts who will be converted later at the preaching of the gospels , but what warrant is there for interpreting the verse to claim that the other sheep is only them .
The ultrafundamentalists who are disparaging Billy Graham for affirming that there are other people that might not have full conscious awareness that they are serving Jesus or saved by the name of Jesus , and claim that somehow that what Billy Graham states allegedly goes contrary to ‘the verse in Acts that states that there is no other name under heaven where men might be saved ‘ , or allegedly goes contrary to John 14:6 , ought to consider how in Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep and goats , the people of the nations told by the Son of Man to ‘come inherit the kingdom prepared by the Father from the beginning ‘ were people who asked the question , ‘when were you hungry and did we feed you ? , when Lord were you thirsty and did we give you something to drink?, when were you a stranger and did we take you in ? when were you sick and in prison and did we visit you? , and Jesus (The Son of Man ) will answer them and state , ‘inasmuch as you did it unto the least of my bretheren , ye did it unto me ‘.
Is the question that the people who will ask , When , Lord , were you hungry , thirsty, and stranger , ill ect ect ? a RHETORICAL question OR instead is it an EARNEST question —wherein the people did not know that by serving the poor people who Jesus calls his bretheren they were serving Jesus .?
IF the question is an earnest question , and , hence, the people did not realize that by serving the least of the bretheren they were serving Jesus , then that indicates the possibility that people who do not explictly call themselves Christians could be led by God to serve Jesus and have a relationship with him *without* having full conscious awareness of it . The only way to reconcile the notion that only those who explictly call the phonetic name of Jesus prior to physical death , can be saved through the name of Jesus , that the name of Jesus and his redemptive sacrifice , that there is no possibility that some people outside what we could officially call Christianity could be saved through Jesus , would be to either (1) . propose that the judgement in the parable of the sheep and the goats found in Matthew 25 refers to some future group of people , involves the salvation of people who for some unusual purpose or circumstance have never read Matthew 25 , or (2) are a different group of people at some future date where God makes an exception and waves the requirement to make an explicit Christian confession , that He does not wave now , or (3). that the people of the nations that are called sheep , who are told to inherit the Kingdom are people that when they ask the questions : Lord, when were you hungry and did we feed you? , when were you thirsty and did we give you something to drink ? , when were you a stranger and did we take you in? and so on , ARE ALL GOING TO ASK A RHETORICAL QUESTION THAT THEY ALREADY KNEW THE ANSWER TO AHEAD OF TIME and were NOT earnestly seeking information from asking when did they do all those things to the Lord .
Unless , the question the Sheep are depicted as asking in Matthew 25 is a rhetorical question , or that the people told to inherit the Kingdom are some special group that God appoints for an alternative means of salvation during some future period …different from the present requirement for salvation , THEN the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25 , indicates that Billy Graham does indeed have support from the scriptures, when he indicates that there will be people who serve and will be saved via the name of Jesus , influenced spiritually by him without having explict realization that such as happening .
There are a number of scriptures that indicate that Jesus had some sort of relationship of some sort of spirtual influence on people, even those who were at least not at the time Christians . Take , for example, the wife of Pontus Pilate , that according to Matthew 27:19 had a dream where she experienced some insights about Jesus .
Matthew 27:19 has the wife of Pontus Pilate send the following message to her husband Pontus Pilate before Jesus was crucified ,
‘Have nothing to do with that just man , for I have sufferred many things in a dream because of him ‘ .
The wife of Pilate apparently had some sort of spiritual connection with Jesus even while she was a pagan Roman official . The Roman centurion in Luke 23:47 upon witnessing the statements and ordeal of Jesus on the cross , glorified God even prior to any conversion to Christianity and had a realization of the righteousness of Jesus .
‘Now when the centurion saw what was done , he glorified God, saying certainly this was a righteous man ‘ .
The era of evangelizing Gentiles had not yet happened when the crucifixion of Jesus took place , yet are we to imagine that the Roman Centurion who saw Jesus during the time Jesus was on the cross , somehow glorified God , without the Holy Spirit and Jesus influencing him spiritually to glorify God ? How could the centurion standing by the cross have glorified God and proclaimed Jesus to be a righteous man , if Jesus did not already– even previous to the man officially converting to Christianity—have some sort of relationship with him that was leading him to salvation? . How could the non-Christian Roman Centurion have realized that Jesus was a righteous man and glorified God , if the Holy Spirit was not presented to that man somehow ?
Also , if one maintains that young children who due to unfortunate circumstances die prior to reaching what some Arminian evangelicals call “the age of accountability” , (a phrase which is nowhere found in the Bible , incidentally …though it is certainly more congenial then the doctrine of *some* Calvinists who claims that children who die due to unfortunate accidents are dammed) …that those children who die while still to young to speak whole sentences or even words , can be saved through Jesus , then why would it be impossible for Jesus to save a person who is an adult who dies without making an explicit confession of Christian faith ?
Please understand that the following arguments and inquiries are NOT presented to claim that we should adopt wholesale religious pluralism and avoid witnessing explictly for Jesus or doing missionary work , however, they do indicate that Jesus may have more ways of getting people to have fellowship with him than are found in institutional Christianity . We still have as much urgency to fulfil the great commission found in Matthew to ‘go and teach all nations , baptising them in the name of the Father , the Son, and The Holy Spirit ‘ .
However, the typical fundamentalist interpretation of John 14: 6 , that ‘no man cometh unto the father but by me ‘, does not necessarily mean that only those who explicitly call themselves Christians are saved .
Jesus said , ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by me ‘. He did NOT state that “only those who explictly call themselves Christians can come unto the Father by me ” , in John 14:6 .
It is worthwhile noting that though Jesus says
‘strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth into life , and there be few that find it ‘ , the text states few that find it , however, it does not state that there are few that *ever * find it .
The prophet Isaiah indicates that God may hide his face for a moment , yet he can still (after that) extend everlasting kindness . God’s judgement can be used to purge and reform , not necessarily to desert and forsake the wrongdoer .
Notice how judgement according to Isaiah 4 verse 4 can be used by God to purge and reform and perhaps the path that leads to destruction might not have the final victory . Isaiah chapter 4 verse 4 states, that the Lord shall
‘purge the blood of Jerusalem by the spirit of judgement and the spirit of burning ‘ .
Let me state that yours truly is not 100 percent convinced that there will be a universal salvation . The possibilty that some souls might be permanently lost and there might be a measure of permanent dissapointment for God remains a possibility as well . Perhaps some souls might become so tainted by repeated habits of a very bad sort , that they might have to be destroyed (though if there is an individual spirit separate from the soul of the individual …which St.Paul indicates in Thessalonians , and that individual spirit of a person is separate from the individual soul of a person, then it is possible that perhaps the persons spirit might be remediated even if their individual soul is allowed to waste away into oblivion ).
The position that might be called Christian quasi-universalism (where the individual spirit is rescued by Jesus and some souls might be irrevocably lost) …where full scale universal salvation may not necessarily be inevitable , but some sort of universal remediation that is not quite as optimistic as universalism , yet not as dire as the whole components of a person being sent to endless anguish ,( be that anguish solely mental and spiritual , or involving some sort of physical torture ) has lately been what the pessimism in me leans towards tenatively . Granted the more optimal scenario of full restoration of lost persons at a later date would be a better scenario….provided , say, there were some caveats in place such as say, Anne Franck would NOT have to share the same section of Glory or Heaven as , say, Hitler (provided Hitler were somehow brought to repentance and transformation via Jesus eventually , to give one example) .
Nonetheless, the hostility that a number of fundamentalists have been showing to Christian Universalists , and even sometimes people like Rob Bell , who suggest that universal salvation is even a possibility….the tendency of some ultrafundamentalists to call Christian Universalists “heretics” , “false teachers”, claiming that they are working for the devil , is quite frankly downright weird and blockheaded .
Christian Universalism is NOT some modern or contemporary new development : a number of early church fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa , possibly Athanasius , and others , as well as apparently a number of Protestant evangelists in the Christian past have endorsed some sort of Christian universalism .
Mr.Sarris , and others have rightly explained that the references to ‘heresy’ and ‘false teachers’ in the epistles to Timothy , 2 Peter , Jude do NOT have the broad application that fundamentalists tend to ascribe those terms .
The references to false teachers in the letters to Timothy refer NOT to people who have different or unusual theological doctrines as many fundamentalists tend to weirdly presume , but instead refer to those that seek financial gain , and/or to use religion to seduce people into sexual promiscuity . Hence the references to those who “think Godliness is a means to gain ” , and those false teachers who seek “filthy lucre” , and to those who creep into houses leading women astray that are laden with lusts ….
The letters of Timothy , which refer to false teachers / the ones “that will not endure sound doctrine ” and have “itching ears” and “heap to themselves teachers” and so on , make NO reference to Christian universalism / they make NO mention of any liberal theology , or doctrines that many fundamentalists find unusual in terms of theological doctrines at all , but instead refer to people who use religion as a cover for unethical behavior —such as using the appearance of Christianity for financial prosperity / wealth building , or to promote sexual promiscuity. The sort of false doctrines that are warned against in the letters of Timothy are not such purely theological matters such as Christian universalism , open theism , liberal theology and so on , despite the ever so weird tendency of fundamentalists to presume so , but are concerned INSTEAD with the sort of unethical behavior that is manifested by such junk as the get rich through religion “prosperity gospel” and/or sex positive debauchery being conducted in the name of Christian liberty .
Likewise with the scripture of 2 Peter verse 1, (that I have seen some fundamentalists weirdly misinterpret claiming it is somehow about universalists) , a careful reading of the text , indicates that the author had a far more narrow application of the term heresies than many fundamentalists today have . Many fundamentalists have broad interpretation of the term ‘heresies’ found in in 2 Peter 1 , yet the application of the term in 2 Peter 1 is far more narrow .
The text of 2 Peter 1 specifically refers to heresies as those who deny the Lord , it does NOT apply the term ‘heresies’ to each and every theological doctrine that the ultrafundamentalists find unusual .
The text reads , ‘But just as there were false prophets among the people , even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies , even denying the Lord that bought them , and bring upon themselves swift destruction ‘ .
Notice that this present text shown above is about the only text in the New Testament which gives anything close to a definition for the term ‘heresies ‘ and indicates that the term is narrowly applied specifically to those who deny the Lord , NOT to every theological doctrine that is unusual , or even every doctrine that is unusal. Note that the text of 2 Peter 1 indicates that denying the Lord is what is meant by the term ‘heresies’ . It does NOT indicate that each and every different or unusual doctrine , or even every mistaken doctrine , is tantamount to denying the Lord .
It is worthwhile to consider that the tendency of many fundamentalists to claim that the warnings of Paul in Galatians to those who teach another Jesus , or another gospel , when studied carefully, *without* projecting hasty fundamentalist presuppositions into the text , one finds that there is no warrant in the text (NOT without resorting to the “it’s implied” routine that fundamentalists sometimes resort to when they cannot find any clear indications in a text for the conclusions they draw when they “read between the lines”) for the intepretation which alleges that when Paul warns about another Jesus , or another gospel , that he is in any way referring to the teachings of universalists , or any liberal theology ect . A far more plausible intepretation for the warnings of Paul about those that preach another Jesus , or another gospel was that Paul was warning about someone claiming that another man who happened to have the same first name Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew ) (after all there were a number of men who had the first name Jesus or Yeshua in Israel at that time period , who were not Jesus of Nazareth ) or warning about someone claiming that some other historical person other than Jesus (such as Mithras) was supposedly the Messiah . <—That interpretation , which interprets the warnings of Paul against those who preach another gospel or another Jesus , would be more plausibly interpreted as referring to people claiming some other person who *claimed* to be the Messiah was the Messiah . That interpretation is far more plausible than the claim of many fundamentalists that some person who has a different theological doctrine about the scope of who Jesus saves , or who has different theological doctrines is somehow allegedly tantamount to preaching another Jesus ,when the latter has a hasty presumption .
It is indeed odd that those who interpret the warnings by Paul against those who preach another gospel and another Jesus are somehow allegedly applicable to Christian Universalists , or others that promotes a theological position that is greatly different from fundamentalism , do not go all the way with the presumption that any theological difference is somehow the same as serving another Jesus . A fundamentalist who , say, supports adult baptism would NOT likely be given to call a Presbyterian fundamentalist who supports infant baptism , someone who is serving a "another Jesus " or "another gospel" , however they might accuse a universalist of serving another Jesus or serving a different gospel . Someone ought to ask them : why aren't the various Christians who support infant baptism , or who insist on adult baptism to be accused of "preaching another Jesus" ? Why is that a permitted variation in doctrine , whereas someone who happens to support Christian Universalism to be subjected to weird , melodromatic accusations of heresy and preaching another gospel ?