Ephesians 2:1-10. What Does Paul Say?

It is good to dialog with each otrger, jusy do not gte into the ole "you are noted saved, teach heresy: nonsense that comes across at times out on the internet!

 

we need to try to stop sliding into anger rants and labeling the saved as heretics or teaching heresy,,,, I as a Calvinist must see non cals saved in Christ as my brethren, same way other side!

 

I share your view that sinners are able (and therefore accountable) to respond to God's provision of salvation through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ through faith and faith alone. That fact is made clear in many passages of scripture, but Luke 13:24 is not one of them. If ἀγωνίζομαι represents effort, eternal salvation cannot be predicated upon it. Nobody here believes in salvation by works, and ἀγωνίζομαι is clearly human effort.

Matthew 7 and Luke 13 are instructions to believers for living by faith, the reward for which is entrance into and possession of the millennial kingdom (the audience here being OT saints); in neither chapter is Jesus making an evangelistic appeal through a presentation of Himself as the one and only object of faith for eternal salvation. Context, context, context.

 

And yet you kept quoting repentance from the classic reformed viewpoint as being the correct way to see it?

 

No, just that if Reformed theology is so bad, why quote us at all?

 

I did read your post, and I agree that the relationship between repentance and faith is an interesting and important question. I don't see how that issue bears on the meaning of ἀγωνίζομαι in Luke 13:24, unless you are somehow associating the verb with repentance. If so, and you are saying that repentance requires human effort, I commend to your attention 1 Timothy 6:12 where the same imperative form is used, translated "fight." "Fighting" or "striving" to repent and believe for eternal salvation is salvation by works, and since I am sure that is not your view I don't see how Pink helps to resolve the question.

 

"Try really hard to enter" into eternal salvation? Sorry, I personally really don't see how that helps.

Anytime people start importing ideas into a passage that are neither in the verse nor its surrounding context I begin to suspect that theological persuasion is driving interpretation instead of the other way around. For me such an approach isn't acceptable.

 

Might be your understanding of the passage that he is rejecting!

 

I am fighting against misuse of the Word of God. If you interpret a passage to make Jesus say we must expend personal effort to enter into eternal life, "doing our best" to obtain it, I am certainly going to object. Would you seriously consider changing your handle to "Saved by doing my best"? ;-)

 

"My theology" is that the Bible does not teach salvation by works. That is the theology I have defended in this verse, it is what the Bible actually does say, and I am puzzled that you think I am saying anything else.

I have dealt exclusively with what Jesus plainly says in this context, which is "Strive/struggle/endeavor/fight" to enter the kingdom. If personal effort is being commanded, then the kingdom cannot represent eternal salvation; that interpretation would put Jesus' words in conflict with any number of other clear passages of Scripture that salvation is "not of works." Every other imperative expressed by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 7 and Luke 13 is a command to believers to pursue godly living, (look 'em up); not one constitutes an evangelistic appeal to lay hold of eternal salvation by faith in Himself, and certainly not by "striving to enter."