Finney a man with a passion to see mankind saved.
The call to salvation is an appeal and Finney was among the great soul winners of his day, with a heart and passion kin to that of Paul the apostle. These three Utube videos are in defense of Finney against sloppy so called scholarship, miss quotes and miss representation of this Godly man.
Finney Part 1:
YouTube - Charles Finney and Decisional Regeneration part 1
Finney Part 2:
YouTube - Charles Finney and Decisional Regeneration part 2
Finney Part 3:
YouTube - Charles Finney and Decisional Regeneration part 3
Lets see here, there are some here, in this thread, who hold Charles G. Finney in "high esteem".
Charles G. Finney had no formal education. He claimed to have a calling to preach the gospel, yet
lied in order to obtain his ministerial licesense:
Unexpectedly to myself they asked me if I received the Confession of faith of the Presbyterian church. I had not examined it;—that is, the large work, containing the Catechisms and Presbyterian Confession. This had made no part of my study. I replied that I received it for substance of doctrine, so far as I understood it. But I spoke in a way that plainly implied, I think, that I did not pretend to know much about it. However, I answered honestly, as I understood it at the time [Charles Finney, The Memoirs of Charles Finney: The Complete Restored Text (Grand Rapids: Academie, 1989), 53-54].
Of course, we have Finney to thank for what is now known as the "altar call" or as it was known during his time the "anxious bench".
Charles G. Finney taught that when a Christian, even after salvation commits sin, he has lost his salvation. From his "Systematic Theology":
[FONT=Arial, Verdana, Helvetica]"Whenever he sins, he must, for the time being, cease to be holy. This is self-evident. Whenever he sins, he must be condemned; he must incur the penalty of the law of God ... If it be said that the precept is still binding upon him, but that with respect to the Christian, the penalty is forever set aside, or abrogated, I reply, that to abrogate the penalty is to repeal the precept, for a precept without penalty is no law. It is only counsel or advice. The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys or Antinomianism is true ... In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground "[/FONT]
(p. 46).
Finney believed that God demanded absolute perfection, but instead of that leading him to seek his perfect righteousness in Christ, he concluded that "... full present obedience is a condition of justification. But again, to the question, can man be justified while sin remains in him? Surely he cannot, either upon legal or gospel principles, unless the law be repealed ... But can he be pardoned and accepted, and justified, in the gospel sense, while sin, any degree of sin, remains in him? Certainly not" (p. 57).
Another fact that these Finney lovers do not recognize is the Charles G. Finney denied that Christ could and did die for sinners, all sinners:
"If he [Christ] had obeyed the Law as our substitute, then why should our own return to personal obedience be insisted upon as a sine qua non of our salvation"
Ibid, p. 206
In other words, Finney says, is that Christ could not have died for anyone else’s sins than his own. His obedience to the law and his perfect righteousness were sufficient to save him, but could not legally be accepted on behalf of others.
But for the sake of arguement, lets be fair, of course, because Finney did believe that Christ died for something—not for someone, but for something. In other words, he died for a purpose, but not for people. The purpose of that death was to reassert God’s moral government and to lead us to eternal life by example, as Adam’s example excited us to sin. Why did Christ die? God knew that:
The atonement would present to creatures the highest possible motives to virtue. Example is the highest moral influence that can be exerted ... If the benevolence manifested in the atonement does not subdue the selfishness of sinners, their case is hopeless
Ibid, p. 209
Therefore, we are not helpless sinners who need to,’ be redeemed, but wayward sinners who need a demonstration of selflessness so moving that we will be excited to leave off selfishness. Not only did Finney believe that the "moral influence" theory of the atonement was the chief way of understanding the cross;
he explicitly denied the substitutionary atonement, which:
assumes that the atonement was a literal payment of a debt, which we have seen does not consist with the nature of the atonement ... It is true, that the atonement, of itself, does not secure the salvation of any one
Ibid, p. 217
Charles Finney even went so far as to deny that the new birth was a divine gift, insisting:
"regeneration consists in the sinner changing his ultimate choice, intention, preference; or in changing from selfishness to love or benevolence," as moved by the moral influence of Christ’s moving example..."Original sin, physical regeneration, and all their kindred and resulting dogmas, are alike subversive of the gospel, and repulsive to the human intelligence".
Ibid, p. 224, 236
Charles G. Finney also denies "imputed righteousness":
But for sinners to be forensically pronounced just, is impossible and absurd... As we shall see, there are many conditions, while there is but one ground, of the justification of sinners ... As has already been said, there can be no justification in a legal or forensic sense, but upon the ground of universal, perfect, and uninterrupted obedience to law. This is of course denied by those who hold that gospel justification, or the justification of penitent sinners, is of the nature of a forensic or judicial justification. They hold to the legal maxim that what a man does by another he does by himself, and therefore the law regards Christ’s obedience as ours, on the ground that he obeyed for us...The doctrine of imputed righteousness, or that Christ’s obedience to the law was accounted as our obedience, is founded on a most false and nonsensical assumption. (After all, Christ’s righteousness) "could do no more than justify himself. It can never be imputed to us ... it was naturally impossible, then, for him to obey in our behalf "
Ibid, p. 320-322
Now you can hold Finney up and make him bigger than what the man really was, but anybody who denies that Christ did not die for my sin, your sin, everybodies sin, and could only die to save Himself, is a heretic. Anybody who teaches an absolute obedience to the Law even after salvation teaches "legalism". The very thing the Apostle Paul fought against, Finney teaches!
Anybody who denies that Christ's death could not atone for a mans sin debt, is out of his mind, an idiot!
Anybody who teaches "regeneration" is not a divine gift, that regeneration consists only the sinner changing his ultimate choice, is teaching falsely!
Hold the man in high esteem if you wish, but to me, the man was a heretic and a false teacher spreading false gospels who started his ministry based upon lies.
And these are the facts of one Charles G. Finney as shown from his Lectures on Systematic Theology.
God Bless
Till all are one.
