Objection 36

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

Mark 16:17-18, "these signs shall follow them that believe... they shall speak with new tongues... they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

The list continues: "they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." No such congregation makes serpent-handling and poison-drinking the evidence of belief, yet they sit in the same sentence with the same grammar. The signs were the credentials of the apostolic witness in the founding era, "God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders" (Hebrews 2:3-4), "the signs of an apostle" (2 Corinthians 12:12), and the verse's own fulfillment is recorded at the chapter's end: "the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following" (Mark 16:20), past tense by the time Mark wrote. Selective literalism, tongues yes but serpents no, is not a method; it is a conclusion in search of one. The reader who feels the force of verse 17 is invited to read one verse further and ask on what principle the sentence was divided.