John 17:20  And I do not pray for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on Me through their word, MKJV

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                                                               COMMENTARY

This encompasses all future Christians.

Gill is completely  baffling!  What in the world does it mean to have "a spiritual sight of him"?  A vision? A bright light at the end of a dark tunnel? What?  Where is that in the Bible?   What in the world does it mean to "lay hold" on Him? How does one do that? What does that look like? Where is that in the Bible? How does one do these things apart from an intellectual comprehension of propositional truth?  [Ah you found 1Tim 6:12 & 19 & Heb 6:18. If you examine those vss you will see they are couched within statements referring to propositional truth and/or one's life.]  The context is clearly speaking of propositional truth; Christ's ~Words~!  Sanctify them in the ~Truth~! So Gill goes against the very context of the passage when he says;... "faith is not a mere assent of the mind to any  ~truth~  concerning Christ, as that he is the Son of God, the Messiah and Saviour of the world;".  Gill never read the last verse, or verse 17!

Folks... Mark this down; The word "mere" is of Satan! It destroys the presentation of the Mind of God by way of  "mere"  propositional statements. And there is only one single solitary way a propositional statement can be processed and that is by way of the Intellect; the Mind. And the Bible is nothing more than a collection of propositional statements. That's ~All~ it is. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" is a propositional statement. You either believe it or you do not believe it. You don't get no "spiritual sight" of the creation. Neither do you "lay hold" on the creation!?¿ That's pure nonsense! You either believe or you do not believe the statement that God created the Heavens and the earth! That's ~IT~!!!  There's nothing more to it. And the exact same thing is true of the Gospel. All the Gospel is is a collection of propositional statements that one either believes or he does not believe. And Messiah said.... "He that believes [the Gospel] and is baptized shall be saved but he that believes not shall be damned! Mar_16:16. So what's all this flotsam Gill, and countless legions are talking about that Faith, which is the activity of believing, is more than just a "mere" intellectual assent to truth? All Jesus Christ and His Apostles ever preached was Believe! Nothing more, nothing less. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

If, as Gill says, "faith is not a mere assent of the mind to any truth concerning Christ," then that would mean that a person can have "faith" while he clings to false doctrine and a false gospel! He can believe anything he wants to about Christ and still have saving faith because faith according to John  Q  Gill is "not a mere assent of the mind to any truth concerning Christ, as that he is the Son of God, the Messiah and Saviour of the world;"  And that's exactly what all these so-called professing religionists out there believe. Mention the word "doctrine" & it's waving the red flag at a bull! "We're not saved by doctrine" they say... "we're saved by a person". Yet when you ask these heretics who that person is... ask them to describe him, they cannot do so without making a doctrinal statement! And they do not realize what they are doing because they are still blind as bats!

John

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