Positions on Assurance

[Gunther]

IFB, instead of going back and quoting everything, I am just going to address some of the points you have made. If you feel I have ignored some, let me know, and I will respond. I am trying to go back and look at everything.

"Persevering in godly behavior and sound teaching are necessary to obtain salvation…"
("The Race Set Before Us", page 51)

Whatever the context, that is wrong statement!

You can't explain it, it is just simply wrong.

We both know he is talking about the final aspect of salvation. I pointed out in Rom. 2 that Paul says God will give eternal life at the judgment. That does not deny the present aspect of it, it just reinforces the idea that salvation is not exclusively immediate. There is in fact an already/not yet aspect of salvation.

So, Schreiner is addressing the need of each believer to grow in faith. That would produce sound doctrine and godly living.

Consider Romans 5:21 (ESV)

so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There it is again. Eternal life is the end result of the person who is ruled by grace that leads to righteousness.

Before I go any further, I do find it odd that you advocate the loss-of-rewards view that the old school dispies believed in but are not a dispy. I thought they had copyrighted that position. I am a dispy, just a more of the MacArthur kind.

 

[Gunther]

IFB, you said

They seem to rip the value out of Positional Sanctifaction.

Let me assure you that I wholeheartedly embrace positional sanctification. I believe it only seems that way to you.

The Bible encourages us to overcome our sin nature through the power of God. But we will never truly overcome it until God gives us our glorified bodies.

Just real quick, there is considerable debate as to whether a person still has a sin nature after conversion. Now, that issue is not addressed in Schreiner's book. However, it does not bear any weight upon the outcome of any of the views.

If the righteousness of Christ is credited to my account - what more can I add to it to "obtain salvation" as Schreiner says.

Look again at Romans 5:21.

Lets see if you would apply your "each passage carries with it the same amount of force" belief consistantly to these situations:

Careful here. None of those passages present a problem, even by themselves. If you start determining which passages are more important, then you have entered into historic criticism, which essentially renders Scripture meaningless. If the Scriptures indicate a reason to not follow something else, that is one thing (like the sabbath law). To just blanket decide that some portions are in submission to others (especially N.T. to N.T.), I think you are on dangerous ground.

 

[Gunther]

bump

 

[IfbReformer]

Pete,

Your Statement:
“When I think about persevering, I am not thinking 100% obedience as stated above, but continuing to believe.”

My Response:
I agree 100% with you! That is the perseverance that is needed for salvation. It is perseverance in belief – it is not perseverance in perfect or even a little less than perfect living.


Your Statement:
“And since I believe all belief is actualized in obedience then by definition he is perserving in obedience as well, even for just so short a time.

Let me offer another quote from a book from an Author you will recognize
quote:

"If you love me you will keep my commands"

What should be said. Do we need to keep his commands 50% of the time to love Jesus? What about 80%? What about 10%? I take this statement the same way I would take Schreiner. It is a pretty solid prouncement, Jesus doesn't leave much room for error on the command obedence with reference to love. So I believe when I don't keep his commands I am NOT loving him.”

My Response:
When we disobey God’s commands it is not pleasing to him, and he will discipline us for it one way or the other if we do not repent. Having said that the Scriptures tell us that God “… knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”(Psalm 103:14)

And then what are his “commands”. We see the theme you mentioned repeated throughout I John:

“We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.”
I John 2:3

“21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”
I John 3:21-24

So what are the commands that any true Christian must follow in order to “have confidence before God” about our salvation?

1. Continue trusting and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Love the brethren.

I think this sums it up nicely.


Your Statement:
“I don't exactly see two calls anymore, nor do I seperate sanctificaiton into positional and practical as you do. But as I said a few pages ago, I definitly see a tension in scripture over the "you are holy, so be holy". Part of this is as I have already discussed, for me the call to perserve in belief and to perserve in Godly behavior is one and the same.”

My Response:
Pete you must separate positional and practical sanctification. Even Schreiner does that(sort of- but not really). I see no tension in the scriptures over this concept of “you are holy, so be holy”. It simply means that we are positionally holy, now be practically holy. The difference comes in the reason for practical holiness. I believe it is motivated out of love for Christ and rewards in heaven, others believe it is to maintain or prove our salvation. – That is a major sticking point.

As to your statement “for me the call to perserve in belief and to perserve in Godly behavior is one and the same.” – once again I agree 100% if we are defining obedience the same way. You see in the New Testament obedience is belief and belief is obedience. This is the kind of obedience or belief that we must and will persevere in (because God puts it in us) if we have truly been born again. If we are disobedient in other ways, God will discipline us and we will loose rewards and the joy of our salvation but we will not loose salvation.

Your Statement:
“So I leave you with two questions. The first is my question from the last post, if the obedience that is actualized in faith is not the obedience listed above, then what is it? And number two, how long can a believer not produce any fruit (whether visisble or invisible)?”

My Response:
As I have said – I believe faith is actualized in obedience as you do. But I define that kind of obedience necessary for salvation as belief. I see in scriptures that a true believer will always persevere in belief. I even think that a Christian will not continue to be carnal in all areas of their life – that might shock you! But Charles Ryrie even says that in his book. But can a Christian be carnal in many areas of his life, and spiritual in some others? Absolutely.

How long can a believer no produce fruit? I don’t honestly know the answer to that - I guess we will have to ask God that question when we get to heaven. I think it might be the same answer to the question of how much sin will cost me my salvation and or how righteous must I be to “obtain salvation”.

IFBReformer

 

[IfbReformer]

Originally posted by Gunther:
bump

Gunther and Pete,

Sorry it took me so long to respond, my wife had to be admitted to the hospital on Tuesday and I have been with her most of that time.

She is 29 weeks preganant and was having pre-term labor. They stopped it - thank the Lord. But she also has an infection. Please pray that they will release her tommorow.

Thanks for you patience.

IFBReformer

 

[IfbReformer]

Your Statement:
“We both know he is talking about the final aspect of salvation. I pointed out in Rom. 2 that Paul says God will give eternal life at the judgment. That does not deny the present aspect of it, it just reinforces the idea that salvation is not exclusively immediate. There is in fact an already/not yet aspect of salvation.”

My Response:
Whether you call it final salvation, intial salvation, present salvation or not-yet salvation, our salvation is never dependent on our “"Persevering in godly behavior and sound teaching…" as Schreiner says it is.

Really what I am saying is that our final salvation, intial salvation, present salvation or not-yet salvation is not dependent on our positional sanctification + our practical sanctification – it is dependant on our positional sanctification alone.

“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”
1 Corinthians 1:30

Your Statement:
“Consider Romans 5:21 (ESV)

so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There it is again. Eternal life is the end result of the person who is ruled by grace that leads to righteousness.”

My Response:
Lets look at verse 18 and then see 21 in light of 18:

“18Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men…
21so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 5:18 & 21(NIV)

The “righteousness” in verse 21 is not speaking of our practical sanctification, but of our positional sanctification in Christ. That “righteousness” (positional righteousness) was purchased for us by one act of righteousness (Christ’s death on the Cross).

Eternal life is the gift of God – not “the end result of the person who is ruled by grace that leads to righteousness.”

“4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior,”
Titus 3:4-6
Your Statement:
“Before I go any further, I do find it odd that you advocate the loss-of-rewards view that the old school dispies believed in but are not a dispy. I thought they had copyrighted that position. I am a dispy, just a more of the MacArthur kind.”

My Response:
Well I guess that proves that anything is possible - ah? But I do not believe 100% the way he does. If I had to class myself, I would say that I agree with Ryrie and the Loss of Rewards view 80% of the time, the Lordship view 10% of the time, and then 10% is my own unique positions that neither of those camps hold.

For instance, I do not believe as Ryrie does that a true believer can totally and fully stop believing and trusting in Christ for his salvation. There are some other finer points where I disagree with him as well.

 

[IfbReformer]

Gunther,

My Previous Statement with your response:
"If the righteousness of Christ is credited to my account - what more can I add to it to "obtain salvation" as Schreiner says.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look again at Romans 5:21."


My Response:
I explained in the previous post that the "rightousness" in Romans 5:21 does not
refer to our practical righteousness(sanctifacation) but our positional righteousness in Christ.

So the question again is - what more can I add to my account if the righteousness of Christ has been placed there? It makes perfect sense scripturally that positional righteousness is for salvation(present and final for you) and practical righteousness(sanctifacation) is for rewards above and unrelated to our salvation.

Otherwise you have this scenario - positional righteousness(the perfect righteousness of Christ) and our imperfect practical righteousness are both need for our salvation. But Christ's righteousness fills up my account, so do I have to open a second account and when I get to heaven God checks to make sure my positional righteousness and practical righteousness accounts are both full(then how full does the practical righteousness account have to be)?

Your Statement:
"Careful here. None of those passages present a problem, even by themselves. If you start determining which passages are more important, then you have entered into historic criticism, which essentially renders Scripture meaningless. If the Scriptures indicate a reason to not follow something else, that is one thing (like the sabbath law). To just blanket decide that some portions are in submission to others (especially N.T. to N.T.), I think you are on dangerous ground."

My Response:
Scripture interprets scripture - we must practice this concept every day. We do it matters of prophecy, and we do it even in the most important doctrine - that of our eternal salvation.

You say that those who do not hold the means view "decide that some portions are in submission to others". But as much as Schreiner says he does not do that - he still does the same thing.

Right now I am running short on time, but I am in the process of reading his book for the third time and I am evaluting how he interprets certain passages in light of others. I will provide you with examples then.

Bottom line...

I am either saved or I am not. It does not depende at all upon my own righteousness by that of Christ's.

It is either the totally free gift of God or it is a gift that costs - it cannot be both.

It is either a gift(something not earned), or a reward something earned - it cannot be both.
Romans 4:3-6
"3What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."
4Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 6David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:"

If my practical sanctifaction has any part in my obtaining my eternal salvation as Schreiner says, then according to Romans 4:4, it is not a gift, but an obligation(something that is earned and owed) sort of like a reward.

IFBReformer

 

[Gunther]

IFB, I hope all is well with your wife. Please let us know.

I am trying to get back with this.

This discussion does take a bit more thought than most.