Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
Scriptures mention "being saved" as a past, a present, or a future act. Thus, in one sense, we are "saved" when we are baptised, being saved during sanctification, and will be saved when we enter heaven. Here is where sometimes we talk past each other. Often times, Protestants refer to the one past event, while Catholics are refering to the future event. Thus, the misunderstandings.
Anyway, as to whether we can be sure, I would just look to God's promises to us for certainty.
The promises that you mention are rules of thumb for the general person. Since I am human, with a warped sense of self, I would be deluding myself to think that I can fully know where I stand with God. We have a tendency to overlook our faults and exaggerate ourselves in God's (and others) eyes.
For example, John 10 - how do I, ME, Joe, know that I am one of the sheep who will hear Jesus' voice five years from now? I know people who seemed to be pretty good Christians - but later - fell away. Thus, we must persevere in Christ. I don't know what will happen in the future. NOW, I can have a pretty good idea (but not certain). But the future? No one can snatch me out of Christ's hand, but I can willingly leave the flock.
On Phillipians, we can be sure God will not abandon us. But will we abandon Him? I don't know for sure. I work out my salvation in fear and trembling, running the race to the end for fear of being disqualified from the prize. To say otherwise is called presumption - which Paul says "those who think they stand securely, beware lest you fall". As long as we abide in Christ, we will be saved. Bottom line.
We are told that no power, not even our own will, can snatch us from His hand.
I don't see that. Christ (and Paul in Romans 8) is refering to an external force that pries us out of God's grasp. If God respects the freedom of man - if God awaits our response to the choice He lays before us, then there must be a possibility that we will fall. Clearly, this means that God knew we would turn away. Does God force us to do good or evil?
regards
Do you deny that a person can be blotted out of the Book of Life? Both the OT and NT make the claim.
Regards
You are confusing knowledge of an event with arranging an event.
If I see my daughter playing with matches, I know what will happen. Did I arrange for her to do that? It doesn't follow that my foreknowledge was the cause of her actions. And thus with Judas. If God sees time as one now, then He knew that Judas would betray the Lord and could see this into His plan of salvation for mankind
Regards
God can do anything he wants. If he wants to write my name in the book of life and blot it out later, there's not a thing I can do about it.
I can trust that he will not do it for the following reason:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (Joh 10:27-28 KJV)
If man is evil by nature, then the Word did not take on our nature.
Regards
So that means that every Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant is going to heaven?
And who was tasked to feed the sheep?
Regards
No I'm not. If I am omniscient and I know that if I put you in a position in which you will certainly commit a grievous sin that will send you to hell forever, and I deliberately put you in that position, then there is an active element involved. In other words by my foreknowledge and my own actions in light of that foreknowledge, I am actually and literally arranging for that particular sin to take place.
I am not a Calvinist, but I do not think there is any way of escaping the fact that Judas was specifically chosen for the purpose of betraying the Lord. It was his eternal destiny.
That is pretty scary stuff. But the truth of it cannot be denied.
Where did you get that?
I will say that every Born Again Christian goes to heaven. The question is who is born again?
The promise is there that those who hear his voice and follow HIM are his sheep and all of his sheep shall have eternal life.
Do you hear his voice? Have you followed him? If so, then you should have the assurance that you NOW have eternal life and no man (not even you) can pluck you from His hand. If you don't have that assurance, are you really trusting in his word? Are you really following him? Do you really hear him? Listen to what he said:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (Joh 10:27-28 KJV)
I'll agree to the spirit of the first two, the third depends on how you look at it, and the fourth is a flat out 'No'. As I said in #456, I believe we are free to choose to sin, which is our nature.
In reverse order, does God make us sin? NO WAY!! God cannot be the author of evil. It is not His nature. But, God does know our nature (sinful). So, does God ever step out of the way and not intercede to allow the commission of a sin that will (ultimately) further His purposes? That idea is not offensive to me.
Now, does God choose our sins? That's tricky because of whether "choose" means "cause". Think of Judas. Prophecy said that the Savior would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, not 29 or 31. God is very interested in prophecy coming true. Street cred. and all. :) So concerning the betrayal by Judas, ask yourself whether God just rolled the dice hoping that it turned out exactly right, or was the fix in? The fix could have been in by God opening certain doors so that a lost Judas would have followed his sinful nature and done what was needed. But, it wasn't God "causing" the betrayal. Omission vs. commission.
Now look folks, it's not fair that you are piling your insults based only on the previous insult. :) First, we had kosta50 accuse me of some "tractor beam" idea in #447 that implies we are just robots. I answered that in #456 and said that we are free to sin.
Then, in response to #447, annalex said in #462:
The notion that only the "saved" are admitted to the church is pure donatism.
Where is this coming from? Is this from when I said that a person must be saved to become a member of a Baptist church? That isn't donatism. Not only do we welcome the unsaved into our pews and Sunday schools every Sunday, we hold several special events every year for the specific purpose of drawing in the unchurched to expose them to the Gospel message. We SEEK the seekers.
Finally, kosta50 builds on the previous insult in #469, which I have now refuted in this post. We can play fair, right?
I rather read Judas' betrayal as a display of God's omniscience, not his pre-determination of our sins. God knew that Judas was going to sin, perhaps He sees all the myriad possibilities, I don't know, He is GOD.
You know that's not fair. You brought up the issue of tense in #376 and I specifically responded to it in #423. I said that tense didn't matter for the point we were then discussing because Baptists believe salvation is a single event. I understood how tense fitted your view, and that was fine. I was just explaining my view, I didn't dodge the issue.
I have no idea what you're talking about in the next paragraphs.
You said: "Jesus said that He came to save many (not all), not because God would not will all men saved, but because some shall not find the path..."
I said: "So, God does not get what He wants. God is thwarted."
You said: "How naive! God gets what He wants but not in the way you see Him. ... And the way you seem to see God, He does whatever He wants, just the way some powerful people act. How wrong you are!
I was commenting on your statement that God wills that all men should be saved, but yet your admission that God doesn't get what He wants. I disagree and say that God gets everything He wants. Yes, He also does whatever He wants, but in no way like "some powerful people act".
Man's nature is not opposed to God; man's nature thinks we are God.
Perhaps the quote of the thread. :)
What did the High Priest say to Jesus on the Cross? He said if you are the Son of God, then take yourself down from that Cross. For no one could imagine a God being humiliated, tortured and killed. No one would respect such a god in Israel -- and, based on what I have read from your side, I see that the Protestant idea of God is more akin to that of the Jewish High Priest than of Jesus.
I still don't understand this assertion, and you are by no means the first to make it. Your side says that our side thinks of God as a God with human weaknesses (like the Greek gods). None of "us" has said this. God has no weaknesses, human or otherwise.
For one of countless examples, we say that God showed "anger" because the Bible said so, and did not use any other word for it. The meaning was clear. The trick is that when God shows anger, it is not a weakness because it is justified according to God. It is a righteous anger. Of course, when we act out on our own anger there are often sinful results, but that cannot happen with God. God is sinless, blameless, and perfect by definition. The High Priest certainly had no understanding of that.
Where do you find in Scripture that men's ability to choose "pleases God more than anything?"
Now wait a minute. :) Many moons ago, Kolo told me that I was, ...um... shall we say "mistaken" for suggesting that God could experience something like "pleasure". OK, what's the deal on this one?
Is God the author of evil?
NO, God is not the author of evil. I would say that God is the author of some things that become evil, and yes, He knows in advance. We also have to distinguish between an evil nature and evil acts. When we are created, we have an evil nature even though we have not yet done any evil.
I appreciate your point, but I would hasten to add that there remain strong differences as to the method of salvation.
The promises that you mention are rules of thumb for the general person.
God's promises are rules of thumb to you? Rules of thumb can be bent or broken depending on the circumstances. Do you really see a promise from God as less than a sure thing?
No one can snatch me out of Christ's hand, but I can willingly leave the flock.
Presumably, you mean "and lose your salvation". You just said that you have the power to snatch yourself out of God's hand. I would say that if your salvation was true, God would not let you do that.
Christ (and Paul in Romans 8) is referring to an external force that pries us out of God's grasp. If God respects the freedom of man - if God awaits our response to the choice He lays before us, then there must be a possibility that we will fall. Clearly, this means that God knew we would turn away. Does God force us to do good or evil?
First, by external force, do you mean "yourself", as in above?
I say that God knows the freedom of man, and it is to choose evil. It is our born nature. Therefore, out of His love for us He does not defer to it, but rather saves the elect in spite of it.
If God awaits a response from us, when He already knows the (sometimes, bad) answer, how is this any less horrible than the God I have been describing throughout this whole thread? You seem to (correctly) admit that no chance is involved. Why does God "await"?
As to whether God "forces" us to do good, it depends on what you mean by force. (God never forces us to do evil. That's not His nature.) As for good, imagine you have just returned to your car from a long walk in the grocery store parking lot. You then discover the cashier mistakenly gave you $5 change you were not owed. The Spirit moves your conscience to compel you to walk all the way back to return the money. Assume you never would have done this before your faith. Were you "forced"? I would say that if you did it, then yes.
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