It would be great for those who believe very strongly and those who believe but have questions, like myself, to get a Q and A going without fear of being booted for sounding like one is questioning the existence of God.
I don’t.
There are many questions. As many know here and it’s almost like a running joke because I mention it so much :), I had a head injury about 12 years ago.
Thing is, some sinful things that I really enjoyed doing before the injury, I didn’t afterwards.
It seems like a loophole to have gotten out of some bad sinning.
I think some don’t understand how changes to the brain affect the soul.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far :)
And I KNOW some things we just WONT KNOW until we die.
And why do we have to die to see Heaven?
I agree concerning the absolute necessity of perseverence and sanctification, but eternal life is not really eternal if it can be forfeited is it?
John 10:26 “but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me,[a] is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand”.
Those who are Christ’s sheep have eternal life and shall never perish. We are born again or incorruptible or imperishable seed. That means the life that is in us will not die. We will persevere because He is able to keep us from falling. We have been given the Holy Spirit as a seal which guarantees our inheritance. If something is guaranteed, then I’d say it’s a sure thing. Does this mean we can sin to our hearts content? Of course not! And we won’t if we are truly born of God. We will desire to please God because He gave us a new nature.
John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
1)All those given to Jesus by the Father will come to believe in Him.
2)Those who believe will never be cast out.
3)Jesus came to earth to do or accomplish the Fathers will, not to try to do it.
4)The Father’s will is that of all those given, none will be lost, but they shall all be kept safe until the resurrection.
This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
Those who Father gives to the Son, comes to the Son and Christ will not cast them out once given to Him. (John 6:37) They are own by the Son and Christ keeps them. They practice the truth (believe in His name) and the results are that they bears good works so that God may be glorified.
Believers are a testimony to a world who wants nothing to do with Christ.
“Whoever Goes On Believing, Goes On Having Eternal Life”
Sooo, even God’s love is not unconditional?
thanks pastor, excellent study including the Greek tenses.
God’s leaving us all a continuous road of unfettered moral choice and responsibility is as apparent to me in my life (and others) as in the stories and teaching shot through the new and old Testament Scripture from Adam onwards. for me, that’s the essence of “race” that Paul talks about having finished after having “kept the Faith.” it’s also the essence of the growth i experience everyday as a christian under trial and training in this world.
i sometimes have concern for christians who profess “one and done, unconditional salvation” especially when i see how they continue to live their lives as if God isn’t looking, but i hope that as Bob Cooke’s dad once said to him after a disagreement about God, “Boy, we’ll both find out in heaven who was right.”
Thank God that He is always ready and waiting to forgive.
“John 3:14–17 (WUESTNT): For in such a manner did God love the world, insomuch that His Son, the uniquely-begotten One, He gave, in order that everyone who places his trust in Him may not perish but may be having life eternal. For God did not send off His Son into the world in order that He might be judging the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
"Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us; ( 2 Corinthians 1: 9-10)
Paul speaks, in one sentence, of a past, a present and a future. It reminds me of what St. Joan of Arc reportedly said to her cruel ecclesiastical persecutors. Asked if she were saved, she said "Jesus has saved me; Jesus is saving me; in the end--- I have the hope ---in His mercy may Jesus save me."
Ancient Greek has a present tense whose aktionsart is indeterminant. See Wallaces' The Basics of New Testament Syntax: An Intermediate Greek Grammar.
It is wrong to twist Greek in this way. I can find aorist tense counter example which can be used to say just the opposite. When the jailor asks Paul and Silas in Acts 16, "Sirs, What must I do to be saved?", here is how they respond:
..., Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31)Πίστευσον -- "believe", this 2nd person imperative is aorist, a "one time action" (punctiliar), as arm chair Greek scholars will often echo.