Do all roads actually lead to heaven?

John 3:16 "....whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

John 3:17 "...he who does not believe has been judged already."

Your doctrine of two separate "salvations" is simply wrong. Faith is required for eternal salvation. John 3:16 and 17 clearly links faith with eternal life which is eternal salvation. Unbelief leads to judgement, which is contrasted with "eternal life".

"believe" in John 3:16 is the Greek word "pisteuon" which is a verbal participle, from "pisteuo"

("pisteuo" is the verbal form of the Greek noun 'pistis', which means 'faith')

English does not have a verbal form for the noun "faith", so the translators used the word "believe" or sometimes "believing". The word "believe" should always be seen as "faith in action", or "faithing" in this case "faithing Jesus".

In the first century culture of the Roman Empire, to "know" something or to "believe" something always meant that your external actions changed accordingly.

Faith in Jesus is required for eternal salvation.

peace to youraying:

 

Like I said, I have yet to find one unarguable Scripture that says human faith is an essential or pre-requisite to eternal salvation.

Does "whosoever" imply one who will exercise faith and as a result receive salvation ? Or is it a statement that "whosoever" has faith will not perish because he already has salvation the evidence of which is his "pisteuo".

If it is the first, then I point you back to my question about those who are unable to exercise faith. What are you going to do with them ? Will God be an unreasonable, unrighteous God pretentious of mercy, but yet condemning these to hell because of their inability to exercise faith ?

I agree with your explanation of what "believe" means in the Roman 1st Century, because I think it still applies to this century, but it doesn't prove that faith results in salvation, on the contrary it shows that salvation results in faith.

I believe thus, therefore I act thus.

Incidentally, in the same book of John is found a Scripture that reinforces my point.

John 1:12 says:

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:


And those who would teach that their receiving results in their becoming sons of God, fail, either by intent or ignorance, to quote the next verse:

John 1:13
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

They received Christ as the promised Messiah (faith) because they were already born from above by the will of God.

As for the two salvations, well, you can look at it that way, two salvations, or another way to look at it is two aspects of one salvation.

To deny that there is such a thing as timely salvation, is to say that one does not have to live in accordance with what one believes. It is also to say that God will tolerate sin in the life of His people, and sinning against their God will not result in misery or even physical death for them.

The fact is that God saved His people from His eternal wrath, and in time, He saves them from His timely wrath.
Passages such as "choose life, and not death", and "turn from idols to the living God", and "he who stole, let him steal no more", are but many of the examples we find in the Bible.

Otherwise, we shall be found guilty of teaching antinomianism.

 

That the world through him might be saved!

End of sermon.:thumbs:

 

No it does not. That Scripture says that their faith, manifested by among other things their receiving Christ, was a result of their being born from above, not the other way around which is what you are saying.

Anything you bring up that demands faith in Christ FIRST as a requisite to being saved, in the eternal sense, is arguable.

The elect are saved by grace.

Grace demands nothing from its recipient, not even its recipient's faith.

It is grace because it was given without a requirement from the recipient, and solely of the giver. If anything is added to it, then it is no longer grace.

Salvation is OF the Lord.

 

I disagree with you but rather than debate that point right now, I'd like to ask a question.

If I understand you, you are saying that God may choose a Muslim, Hindu, astrologer, atheist, etc. for salvation by grace, so that's why you believe as you do?

 

Salvation is of God and the "elect" are saved by Grace. Eternal salvation of the "elect" is appropriated by faith in Jesus Christ. That is the plan of God. Although they are "elect" from the foundation of the world, they are not "saved" until they have faith.

You have plainly stated that faith in Jesus Christ is not necessary for eternal salvation. The only reason to have faith in Jesus, is to have a "temporal salvation" from sins in this life. Your position cannot be supported by any serious scholarship.

peace to youraying:

 

God chose His child before the first day of time He created. That was way before any of His chosen became Jew, Muslim, Catholic, SDA, Mormon, or Primitive Baptist, Southern Baptist, Hindu, Buddhist, or any religion.

I find it odd that so many reject this, while most who reject this truth, are quick to say that the saved is eternally secure in Christ if he is truly saved, regardless of the sins he has committed, because God knew about these sins before they were committed.

Bear in mind that the religions of this world are separated by theologies and creeds not by God's decrees but because these confusions were by and large a work of the devil.

He knew where His chosen were and when and where and how they will be born, live, and die. These truths are evident in the way Jesus Christ taught about the Fatherhood of God, and God's awareness of what is happening to His children everywhere. "Even the very hairs of your head are numbered" He said.

Paul writes in Ephesians 1:3-6 about the saints of God:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved".

And then of course, you have the Book of Life. Revelation 17:8, for example, tells us:

"The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is."

While the verse is primarily speaking of the beast of Revelation, it gives us a clue as to why they that dwell on the earth wonder after the beast and the reason is: their names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.

They are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit, they have not been sealed by the Holy Spirit, and so they are open to, susceptible, and in fact, fall to, the deception of Satan.

Now, understand that while a child of God may be born and grow up in a different religion, perhaps even an atheist, I am not saying that there will be no changes in the way he regards the true God in the totality of his life.

At the point when the Spirit regenerates his/her soul, he/she will turn to the true and living God. When is this ? I do not know. I only know that God asks, "Is my hand shortened that it cannot save ?", and that you yourself believe that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, therefore He is able to quicken His child even at the last fraction of a second before death.

Which is why I am never judgmental of anyone's salvation based on his conduct, his religion, his creed, or whatever, and I find it very preposterous when people on this board claim that such and such is not saved, or is probably in hell, because such and such is Catholic, or Muslim, or atheist.

None of us were present when the LORD God wrote down His people's name in His book, and yet we were given the privilege of knowing Him and His great works here in time, and our job is to worship Him and let Him worry about His own.

 

And therein lies the rub, we depend on "scholarship", instead of looking at what the Bible says in its totality.
The Bible tells us to compare spiritual with spiritual, here a little, there a little, and there is absolutely nothing in Scripture that says one must have faith in order for the work of Christ to be truly effective for him.
These are man made teachings.
The same as that the hearing of the gospel and obedience to the gospel makes salvation of the soul possible.
Man made teaching that have pretenses to grace, but actually negates grace.

Faith is a gift of God to those whom He loved before the foundation of the world.
It is a gift given along with the quickening of the spirit.
All, including the elect, are born at enmity with God, but the elect at some point will be quickened by the Spirit, no thanks to any preacher, no thanks to any Bible, no thanks to any scholar.

Salvation is wholly OF the Lord.
Glory is absolutely the Lord's, and His alone, man's faith does not share this glory.

 

Men think they are wise because they can ask so many questions. Men think they are wise because they can come up with so many answers.

Truly wise men understand that all things are not currently answerable.

But we do know:

Mt 5:20
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Mt 7:21
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Mt 10:32
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven

Mt 10:33
But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.


So we know beyond human reasoning that no one can deny Christ as the Son of God and be saved.

 

Agreed.

All roads do not lead to heaven.

Some Catholics are on the road that leads to heaven just as some Baptists are on the road that leads to heaven.

I would also posit that there is much more to Christianity than getting to heaven.

 

But Romans 1 and 2 make it crystal clear that no man is without excuse! We are born separated from God - we may have been chosen but we are born damned.

I'm still not clear. You seemed to be saying at one point that Muslims, Hindus, etc. can go to heaven, but you are not making it clear whether when they go to heaven they are still believing in Islam, Hinduism, etc. Can you clarify?

 

It is a false notion that we are not to make a judgement as to wether or not someone is saved.

This fallacy is why we allow so many goats into the church. Anyone who denies Christ is not saved.

 

Incidentally, that last verse you quoted should read John 3:18.

There are two ways one can look at these verses, canadyjd. The way Arminians do, and the way that many of us in the Primitive Baptist faith do. While Calvinists say they adhere to the Doctrine of Grace, there are also differences between what they understand and what we in the Primitive Baptist faith understand of the Doctrine of Grace, and so, if they wish to, they may speak for themselves.

The former look at these verses in connection with human action. That is, that these "believers" acted on their own, without any divine help, or if there were any, such help as would require also their participation. In other words, salvation of the soul, while they maintain to be by grace and entirely done by Christ, is in reality a cooperative venture, which without the sinner's cooperation, thru obedience to the gospel call and repentance of sin and all those other trimmings prior to "salvation", cannot really happen.

Which is why many times I have said that to preachers like these, Jesus Christ is Savior, but not yet.

I, on the other hand, as a Primitive Baptist and former Arminian, look at it in a very different way.

First, that the term "God so loved the world", emphasizes the manner, and not the intensity, of how God loved the world, the manner being, "that He gave His only begotten Son". His love is intense, not for the world, but for His Son, and to give One which One so intensely loves, is a manner which is beyond human understanding, especially when God is giving His Son for the benefit of sinful, fallen, sinners. The innocent for the guilty, the eternal and immortal for the finite and mortal.

The next verse, "that whosoever believeth on Him", to the modern Arminians mean that any individual who acts on what he hears of and about Christ, upon conviction of the Spirit, so they say, and believes on the spot and at that time of hearing and obeys the Spirit's wooing, "should not perish".

However, taking into consideration a prior verse in Scripture in the same book, which I quoted to you, John 1:12-13, which indicates that those who received Christ, received Him, because they were born from above by the will of God, and therefore believers already before they knew His Name, or saw Him in person (remember the wise men from the East ? Or old Simeon in the temple at the presentation of Christ by His human family?), I take this verse, John 3:18 to mean that whosoever believes in Him, not because of an innate belief, or because they chose to believe, but because of the Spirit of God quickening them prior to their belief, should not perish, these last three words denoting an urgency of the result of their being believers, they should not perish.

That is God's will for those who believe, and who believe as a result of His work on them, not as a result of any man's preaching to them.

I am sorry, but, this is an elitist statement (and you accuse me of being elitist).

You can hardly call Isaiah, or Amos, or Joel, or Jeremiah, or Malachi, or John, or James, or Mark, or Peter, or Timothy scholars by your standards and by today's standards yet they more often than not clashed with the scribes and priests of their days, who were the scholars.

Many, precisely, in those numbers who lay claim to scholarship, are the ones who muddy up what is supposed to be simple statements of God as to who He is, His sovereignty, His being high above us in thoughts and ways.

Funny, but I seem to recall that the Jews crucified Christ and persecuted His church because His and their theology were sooooo out there in their time, as well.

That is good, and that should be the right thing to do.

True, and that is why the gospel is to be preached, and instruction to those who are brought into the church must be made. That they may be led into the right path, and their beliefs and zeal directed to the true God who saved them.

But, tell me, do you think that God elected His people in accordance with His timetable, or in accordance with the preacher's timetable.

In effect, what you are saying is that if there were ten million souls living in a remote island, and 100,000 died every month, to be replaced by 100,000 new births, all these who are born and die every month can only be saved when the preacher gets there, and so in that nation and in the ages when that nation existed, God had no people, and the reason is because He knows the first gospel preacher will get there, say, in 1946, and only then can He start being the Savior, because the true religion will then be planted, and now He has space to move in, which is the true religion.

In the meantime, assuming that there were 300 million souls who have died before the preacher got there, then those 300 million souls are damned to hell, and God has been absolutely without mercy to any of those souls, because there was no channel by which He can exercise mercy, that channel being the gospel and the preacher and the body of faith, whatever it is, that that preacher preaches ?

And you accuse me of being elitist ? Oh, my.

 

And nowhere did I excuse anyone. But, think about it, Marcia. Is God limited by time as we are ? Think about terms like "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world". What does this mean ? To me it means that as far as God's purposes are concerned for His own, whoever they are and wherever they are, everything is a done deal.

Who can stay His hand ? Time ? He created time.

Therefore, he who is God's own is eternally secure because God's purposes for him is not to be thwarted by anyone, and these purposes are rooted in His sovereign mercy and not on the knowledge that that sinner possessed about Him, and not in any action on that sinner's part.

Let me correct you a little, Marcia. The elect are not born damned. They are born at enmity with God, short of God's glory like everyone else, but they are not born damned. The elect are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. They were chosen in Christ, and Christ bought them with His own blood, whether they know it or not, whether the believe it or not, is of no consequence to their eternal salvation. It is of consequence only to their timely understanding of their salvation, and of their knowledge about their Savior.

But at some point in his lifetime, the elect will be brought back into union with Christ here in time, because that is the Father's will for him. And that takes place by operation of the Holy Spirit alone. It is never dependent on any human being's effort, wisdom, or knowledge.

This question is very much in line with the OP's contention that knowledge that the blood of Christ is what washes away the sin of the individual and assent to that truth, and faith in the blood of Christ, is essential to salvation. Not verbatim, but I hope I caught the gist. If not, then the OP or you can correct me.

It is in line in the sense that it demands that an individual not be a Muslim, not be a Hindu, not be a gnostic, or agnostic, not be Roman Catholic, not be anything else but Christian.

But who is a Christian ? The Episcopal calls himself a Christian, the Catholic calls himself a Christian, the Methodist calls himself a Christian, the Baptists call themselves Christians, the Presbyterian calls himself Christian, the Mormon call himself Christian, the Adventist calls himself Christian.

Yet, each of these will debate the other on what constitutes a true Christian, and if you listen and chew on what they are saying, basically it is Jesus Christ plus.

The Baptist says Jesus Christ alone and Him alone, but, you know, you have to accept Him first, and/or you have to know and believe and hold to the essential truths first, and/or this and/or that. The Roman Catholic says, no, no, you have to be part of the true church, and observe good works, and the sacraments, and this, and that.

The Adventist says balderdash, the Law is still in, because the Law is holy, and unless one observes the Law, one's Christianity is suspect.

And so on down the line.

And so, the tendency is to add membership into one of the churches of Christendom as an adjunct to God's grace, and to think it impossible, that God should have people in every geographical, credal, and theological part of the world. The fact is that He does.

He elected His people based not on their theology, creed, race, politics, but based on His sovereign will and unfathomable grace and mercy alone. Nothing else.

An elect may be Muslim until the day he dies, but that is because of circumstances, not because of God's design for him. Circumstances include the fact that he was born and raised in a strictly Muslim country, where the Bible is forbidden, and where no rarin' to go, testifyin', praisin', chest beating, Bible thumping "missionary" went to preach the truth. These are circumstances that are not God's doing, but circumstances that come out of a fallen world, where creeds and religions are tools of the devil to drive a wedge, among other things, between God's people.

But is the God of eternity stumped in His purposes for His people by earthly circumstances ? No, He is not.

When Christ died on the cross, His blood was shed for all that the Father gave Him, for all His people, in all nations, tongues, and kindred, and all means exactly what it says: all.

He did not miss, or lose any of them. All who would be redeemed have already been redeemed because Christ already entered the Holies of holies, bearing His own blood for their redemption.

He is already seated in Heaven, mediating for His people. And the Holy Spirit is at work among His people, wherever they are, and they are not found only in what we call Christendom.

He will quicken those whom He will quicken, based on His timetable, and not ours, based on His plans and purposes, not our circumstances.

 

First of all, I did not accuse you of being an elitist.
Second of all, the last three quotes that you attributed to me are not mine.

Thirdly and most importantly, you did not address the fact that John 3 clearly and forever links faith with eternal salvation, and a lack of faith with judgment.

Everything else you said was an attempt to rationalize the clear teaching of scripture with your own understanding of what is fair or not fair.

peace to you

 

You seem to be saying that someone can be a Christian and believe whatever you want and worship whatever god you want? In fact you could be a Christian and worship Satan? That's not Biblical. I suppose it's easy to continue in your life of sin and feel comfortable because nothing matters. God has either saved you or not. You don't know. That's called fatalism not Christianity.

 

Yea it is hard to follow just exactly what PB is saying.