Featured Penal Substitution Theology and the faith of those without it

'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved' or 'believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you may be saved if God credits your faith as righteousness'? Which is it?

Is that the only criterion or is there another?

 

Bingo!

Sadly, in humanistic theology, God does not accomplish a thing until man does his/her part, too.

 

When Christ died for all mankind on the cross He (1) ransomed mankind (the just for the unjust), (2) He purchased (bought) mankind with His blood, and (3) He set mankind under the New Covenant, apart from the Old Covenant, thus "sanctified" humanity.

Propitiation = the means of salvation
Redemption = the act of salvation
Reconciliation = the result of salvation

Whoever believes into Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Christ is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him.

 

Just whom did Jesus purchase back though by His blood?

All sinners, or those whom God intended to get saved by Him through the Cross?

And was not God already reconciled in one sense to those intended by him to get/be saved, but that the fulln ess and completeness of that would be when a sinner receives Jesus thru faith in Him and his work on their behalf?

 

When were you reconciled to God, Yeshua1?

Do you consider yourself to have been in Christ prior to that day you were saved? Can one who has not been made alive in Christ be considered saved, forgiven, or reconciled?


God bless.

 

Martin, you can accept Romans 4:4-5/24 or you can ignore it. Your choice.
You can accept 2 Thessalonians 2:13 (chosen for salvation through faith in the truth) or you can ignore it. Your choice.

What part of He purchased mankind with His blood do you not understand.
1 Peter 2:1 says He not only purchased those to be saved, but also those never to be saved, those heading for swift destruction.
To repeat, no verse or passage says mankind, the world, was reconciled when Christ died. He became the means of reconciliation through propitiation through His blood. Those God puts in Christ are saved, those not in Christ are not saved, reconciled or propitiated. But they have been ransomed, purchased, bought, set under the New Covenant in His blood.

This should not be this hard.

 

Would say that God had me already predestined/elected unto eternal life, as he knew that he would save me, but that 'actual reconcilation" to him was when the Holy Spirit indwelt me, and when he made me a new creation in Christ..

To me , the biblcal tension between us already from viewpoint of the father reconciled back to him, and yet needing us to receive jesus thru fact and become reborn again, highlights to me that tensionbewteen Soverignity of God, and how faith works into this ...

So, in real sense of the term, at least as I would experience this, dead to god before the coming of the Holy Spirit into me at time of salvation...being dea

So in a real state of being enemy of God before salvation, and now the beloved in Christ!

 

So those to whom hos atonement was made for are only those whom God intened to get saved by it, correct?

 

Let me restate your question. So those who have received reconciliation are the only ones God intended to saved? The answer is yes.

Does God save everyone He desires to save? No, God desires all mankind to be saved, but only those whose faith He credits as righteousness are saved.

 

Christ's Substitutionary Sacrifice ransomed humanity, but only when God transfers individuals into the kingdom of His Son are they reconciled. This reconciliation, one sinner at a time, defines the phrase, God in Christ is reconciling the world to Himself. No need to conflate the two separate achievements.

 

And I agree with that entirely.


Hebrews 4:3-7

King James Version (KJV)


3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.

5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.

6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:

7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.


The works were finished from the foundation of the world, yet Christ still had to come and offer Himself up.

David foretold this, and there is given the general warning to those in the First Century not to replicate the unbelief of their ancestors, and is a general warning to all (though we specify this in it's context).

Receiving Christ is the Reconciliation, for God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. He is Sovereign, and He accomplished this through Christ.

And that is the simple truth, my friend. You were in a natural condition, that which you were born into at birth, and you have been born again by the washing (cleansing) of New Birth and the...renewing...of the Holy Ghost.

Note Paul writes "God saved us" by these things, which specifies a salvific context which cannot be construed as referring to progressive sanctification (meaning God "renewing us as we go, as opposed to our relationship to God, which was lost in Adam, renewed by His salvation effected in our lives).

Correct. He saved us while we were yet sinners, which makes sense, lol, for if we were not, what need then would there be to be saved?

I think it is a little bit of a given that God knows those who are His, and that the Elect can only be described as those who are/will be saved. We do not discount the fact that God has chosen us, and drawn us, which should further emphasize His Sovereignty. We see the example of Israel set before us, most often called "the Chosen Nation," yet seldom spoken of as the "Created People of God." Israel is the direct result of God's promise to Abraham, and resulting Israel was known well in advance of the first son being born to Abraham (through Sarai).

I think we see this issue debated and extremes gone to when there are some simple truths that greatly impact our understanding of the issue. For one thing, we see that the Ministry of the Comforter is directed at unbelievers, those who do not believe on Christ. In that ministry we see that God is providing that which is necessary for men to repent and believe, and this through enlightening the natural mind that it might understand truth. So I think that while it is a given that the Elect stand apart from the lost, we shouldn't take the extreme that the lost are "destined for Hell," or that God denied them that which would have saved them. Even within the framework of the Law, the Law and the Prophets are said, by Christ, to be enough to keep a man from ending up in Hades and torment. He makes it clear that not even a resurrection from the dead would change the minds of those who have rejected the revelation previously given. I see it as a matter that God gives to all men the opportunity to be saved, and does not restrict that provision from the non elect. He knows they will reject His will, yet that doesn't change the fact that Christ taught, when the Comforter came, He would convict the world, unbelievers, of sin. We do not put this into a context of judgment, in my view, because the Comforter does not impose judgment on unbelievers, just as God did not impose judgment on sinners every time they sinned. Instead, because He is Just and Holy, He has always given men enough to obey His will and subsequently escape eternal judgment. We see in Romans 2 that Gentiles, who did not have the Law (neither the Covenant or Scripture), fulfilled the works of the Law which were written on their hearts. This is but one means of revelation by which, when men stand at the Great White Throne, they will have no defense, and will not be able to say "but...you never told me!"

Again, it is a bit of a given that the Atonement applies only to those who are and will be saved. They are known to God from before the beginning of the world. That does not mean the Elect are born in relationship to God, nor that they will not have to respond to God. The terms are much harder in this Age than they were for Abraham, in my view. Just as James taught that teachers will receive the greater judgment, and the Writer of Hebrews teaches that men who reject Christ and the New Covenant will receive greater punishment than those who rejected Moses' Law, in this Age in which the Mystery of the Gospel has been revealed to men, and revealed to men directly from God Himself (the Comforter), those who reject Christ will be more severely punished.

This is the Blasphemy of of the Holy Ghost, in my view.

Hope you and all here have a blessed day.


God bless.

 

If Christ ransomed all mankind, why is all mankind not saved?
If He was purchased all mankind, why is all mankind not purchased for God?
If God is propitiated towards all men, what does He still have against them?
If all men have been redeemed, why is there no redemption for all men?
If God is reconciled to all men, why is there no reconciliation for all sinners?

You are going to say, only those 'placed in Christ' are saved, but you refuse to say what the criterion is for being so placed. Why are those not so placed not purchased, redeemed, ransomed reconciled since you say that all these things have been obtained by Christ for all men?

 

There is a whole lot more than that to Reconciliation, my friend.