Doubting Thomas
Active Member
I think I may have addressed in passing some of your questions, or rather some assumptions underlying some of your questions. However, I'll try to be more explicit.Originally posted by Briguy:
Hi all, I see that basically none of the depth of my posts have been answered. I asked some very challanging things to you non-OSAS crowd and only the surface of my questions get answered. You have answered a little, kind of like drinking your milk at dinner but leaving the meat on your plate.
Who knows. God's ways are higher than ours. However, that line of questioning seems to also underlie the Calvinist's position in limited atonement: "Why would Christ die for anyone who wasn't eternally elect?". Askers of such rhetorical (to them) questions seem to think they have thereby ended the debate. However, without pretending to probe the depths of God's mind I'll say it has something to do with the mysterious dynamic between God's Love and man's free will.Answer this: If God knows that a person is going to get "saved" but end up losing faith and spending eternity in hell (God knows all), why would he save the person in the first place???? What would the point be.??
I'm not sure if you're referring to me or someone else, but I'll start by saying that 1 John 5:13 is one of the most horribly abused verses used by OSASites in support of their position. (I know, because when I myself was an OSASite, I too horribly abused it) Why? Because they yank it out of context of the rest of the epistle. Let's see what else John has to say about "knowing" one has life or not, etc:Also, only one person tried to answer the verse about KNOWING we have eternal life.
"Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him." (1 John 2:3-5)
"Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in your, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father." (1 John 2:24)
"In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother." (1 John 3:10)
"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death" (1 John 3:14)
"My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him" (1 John 3:18)
Of course, there is a lot more in this one epistle that shows that "knowing" one has eternal life involves much more than a mere recollection of a one time decision in the past to follow Christ. To limit salvation "assurance" to such would be to completely distort John's message that true saving "knowledge" intimately involves what we do.
So once one considers John's expanded criteria for "assurance", then yes, if one meets the criteria listed through out the epistle (ie "these things I have written to you" 1 John 5:13), one can have a present tense assurance of present tense salvation. However, it would be presumptuous to suppose that this would always and automatically continue to be the case. Which leads us to...
Just because one has (ie "possesses", present tense) eternal life now doesn't mean he will continue to have it in the future. Why? Because eternal life is not something that is granted exterior to (and irrespective of) one's relationhip with Christ, but eternal life is in Christ Himself. Christ is eternal and has life in Himself. Those who are in Christ therefore have His life. However, if one doesn't abide in Christ but rather cuts himself off from the Source of Life then he obviously no longer has life (see John 15:1-6; Romans 11:19-23). So eternal life is eternal because Christ is eternal. However, our possession of this life is a different story--it has a beginning in time, and, if we do not abide, and ending in time as well.Let's review, if I KNOW I have eternal life it is forever and ever. I can't lose what is forever or it was not eternal to begin with. Eternal has to be eternal and if I can know it it is forever the instant I know it. Please answer that.
Anyone can take an illustration such as this, absolutize it, and thereby "prove" their soteriological position as if it is a comphrehensive and exhaustive summary of Biblical teaching on salvation. However, this illustration, though revealing some truth, does not encompass all the Bible teaches about the dynamic between God and man and our salvation. Of course, God initiates salvation, but the NT (and OT, for that matter) is replete with conditional instructions for Christians to "abide", "hold fast", "keep", "stand firm", "endure", "overcome" etc. In other words, God works and we are working as well. This is best summed up by Paul's command to the Philippians to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil 2:12-13)." We can either by Grace work with God or against Him. So although God "reached down", and became Incarnate, died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead without us asking, and by His Spirit draws us to Himself without us asking, we must respond to Him--not just once, but continually til the day we die. If we stumble, we must confess and repent. Those who are faithful until death will be saved.Also, your child is sliding toward a pool of acid, do you catch him or let him go? Even if you told him the danger of the slide and not to go down it. What would you do??
Abraham was indeed justified many years before he was obedient with Isaac, but you make the mistake of assuming that justification is just a one time, once-for-all occurance. Yes, in Genesis 15:6 it says that Abraham "believed in the Lord and He accounted it to him for righteousness". However, this was not the point of his initial justification. In Hebrews 11:8 it says: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to out to the place which he would receive and inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going." Chronologically, this took place years before the justification mentioned in Genesis 15. In other words, since Abraham had already demonstrated obedient faith years before, one can accurately say that he was justified in Genesis 12 as well. So rather than being a one time, once-for-all event, justification is seen biblically as a true description of the faithful one's ongoing relationship with God--that the faithful one is truly considered to be righteous on account of his obedient faith. (Which is why one can never separate justification--being reckoned as righteous--from sanctification--being set apart for God.) This is why James too was correct when he said that Abraham was (again) justified because he offered Isaac...and this of course involved the work of obedient faith. And, of course, faith without works is dead and does not avail for salvation.To whoever mentioned Abraham, Abraham was rigtheous by faith, believing faith, many years before he was obedient with Issac. He was justfied by faith not works.
When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, it was just Abraham, Isaac, and God--no one else was around. Did God give the command to Abraham to sacrifice his son and then turn around and say: "But you don't actually need to pack up and go. I see in your faith in your heart". Nope. God does say, after He stays Abraham's hand from slaying his son: "For now I know that you fear God, since you have not witheld your son, your only son, from Me (Gen 22:12)." In other words, God wanted Abraham to prove to Him that he still had faith in Him. This goes with the James 2 passage nicely, and with the passage in Hebrews 11. All of this shows that salvation, and the justification which accompanies it, is a life-long dynamic relationship with God in Christ, and not some "hell insurance" resulting merely from a one time past decision to "accept Christ" in one's heart.The Bible is very clear on that. God does not have to see our works, he knows our hearts. Man has to see our works to have "proof" of our faith, God does not.
(PS: Have fun camping)
[ August 25, 2005, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: Doubting Thomas ]