Two Salvations?

I trust in Jesus Christ as my LORD and SAVIOR. If you chose not to do so it will be at your peril. What do you think Christianity is all abouit? (BTW, the statement about being born again was made to Nicodemas who was not yet saved. If you think he was what was the basis of his salvation?)

 

Exactly! If someone chooses not to accept Jesus as Savior or then Christ as Lord it is at their peril. You are absolutely right. And no one has said anything to the contrary.

I just disagree with you and the Bible disagrees with you that one accepts Jesus as Savior and Christ as Lord at the same time.

Great question. I think we have touched on this before, but if not I apologize and for the sake of those that are just reading the thread there are a number of ways one can know that Nicodemus was in fact a saved individual.

The most apparent is the rebuke he received from Christ in that he did not understand what Christ had been teaching, but should have. There is no way Nicodemus could have even come close to understanding what Christ was talking about if he was unsaved, but Christ said he should have known, and therefore the only possible way Christ could have had those expectations was for Nicodemus to be a alive spiritually which would have allowed him to be in a condition to understand spiritual matters. He wasn't spiritually dead, he was spiritually blind. And there is a HUGE difference between the two.

 

In John 3, when Nicodemus went to Jesus Christ by night, Nicodemus was not saved. If he were saved, he would not have needed Jesus to explain to him how to be born again.

I do believe he became a believer sometime after that and before Christ's death on the cross.

When Jesus said, 'Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?', I believe He was actually opening the eyes of Nicodemus to the blindness of his heart concerning the need to be born again.

 

You seem to be arguing that those who are saved are on the broad road to destruction. That's a bit backwards don't you think?

 

I find myself having to explain how to get saved an awful lot to people who I think are saved already. Why would you assume that a baby Christian would automatically understand the doctrine of the second birth? When you were born the first time, did you know it happened and why?

 

The natural birth has nothing to do with the spiritual. John records that we will know we are saved, Nicodemus went to Jesus at night inquiring how he might inherit eternal life. That is clear evidence Nicodemus was not saved.

If he were already saved, he would know it according to 1 John 5, and he would not have asked, 'What must I do...?'

 

SAN,
The only way they can make their kingdom exclusion doctrine sound at all feasible is to put the saved on the road to destruction.

 

Not at all, because that's the way the Scripture lays it out. We can either believe it or we can say that it applies to someone other than who Scripture says it applies to and most of Christendom has unfortunately chosen the later

And it is not "we" that put them on the road. Again it is just the way Scripture lays the matter out.

 

Diggin' this ought to show you right here by your own statement that Nicodemus was a saved individual. Inheritance is a family matter only! He wouldn't have even been in a place to seek inheritance of eternal life if he was not saved.

And the Bible tells us that eternal salvation is not an inheritance, but a gift. Two totally different subjects.

 

Nicodemus did not even know what born again was. Nicodemus did not have eternal life. If he did, he would not have had to ask Jesus how to obtain these things. As a matter of fact, all he saw Jesus as at that time was a Rabbi sent from God.

There is no indication in Scripture that Nicodemus was saved before his meeting with Jesus that night.

 

Well I disagree with you and I think Scripture disagrees with you.

So if your stance is in fact correct the question begs then why didn't Jesus preach His coming substitutionary death and shed blood?

And let me just address the answer to which I think you will give which is He told Nicodemus that He was going to be lifted up as the serpent in the wilderness was lifted up. But might I remind us that the serpent lifted up in the wilderness was something that was done on behalf of "saved" folks that had already experienced death and shed blood before the exodus out of Egypt, so that is not talking about the substitutionary death and shed blood of Christ, but Him being lifted up for something else.

The Bible gives no indication whatsoever that Nicodemus was unsaved. Just because you don't have an understanding of how someone needed to have something taught to them because of spiritual blindness doesn't mean that the person is unsaved.

Nicodemus was saved. He knew He was come from God because of the signs that He was performing. He had an understanding of what signs were, which is another indication that he was in fact saved.

 

You have to do some serious reading into the text to come to this conclusion.

 

From what I've seen you have to do a lot of serious reading into the text to come to any of the conclusions ME (Millennial Exclusion) proponants come up with.... It is like a whole different way of looking at the Bible.

If you put on your ME glasses you can see how they can do this.
but you have to look through those glasses. I for one am not going to keep the ME glasses on. I have tried to read the scriptures through these glasses, but when I do, I feel like I am distorting doctrine and making things fit that don't otherwise...

But I guess when you redefine words, decide that a saved person can go to Hell, start believing that you not only have to be saved for eternity, but also saved another time for the kingdom, anything is possible.

This doctrine is just too extreme, and non orthodox for me.

I will still stand firm and preach the Word of God, and Preach Jesus and Him crucified...... If that is not enough to be rewarded in the Kingdom, then I don't care....

His Kingdom is not about me anyway..... It is about Him.

 

Are you kidding me. There is NO reading into the text. If one wants to accept the idea that the serpent being raised up in the wilderness is talking about eternal salvation that is reading into the text, becuase that is taking the story mentioned out of its context and applying it to something totally unrelated to the original story.

There is no reading the text in saying that the serpent was raised up for folks that were already saved.

I know of few people that would disagree that Exodus 12 is an OT picture/type of man's salvation. It is the death and shed blood of the lamb. That is salvation. Everything that happened after that is in regard to the Israelites calling not their salvation. They were saved in Exodus 12.

I call it checking church tradition with Scripture. If church tradition holds up against Scripture then it's okay. If it doesn't then change to what Scripture says.

See it's statements like this that just really crack me up. The same exact thing could be thrown right back at those that don't see Scripture this way. You can call it church tradition glasses, you can call it Calvinism glasses, Arminianism glasses, Forknowledge glasses, dispensational glasses, preterist glasses whatever it is that you believe.

Why is is that only people that disagree with you are looking at Scripture through ill-colored glasses, but you are looking at Scripture without any kind of blinders on. Talking about a straw man statement.

Again no words have been redefined. Please show me one that has. And if the Bible says so then it is our responsibility to believe it. The Bible says so, so I beleive it.

That's fine and dandy. It breaks my heart to hear you say that, but if that is your take on it that is fine, but saying that someone is looking at Scripture and trying to make it say what they want it to say is a strawman. If you want to dispute the belief then do it with Scripture, not with statements that you can't back up and can be said of anyone on this planet that is a believer.

Unfortunately Esau didn't care either and took the same attitude. Hopefully we can learn from Esau to understand that we better care and we better care a lot!

Actually it's both, because He is giving us a chance to be a part of it. So if He cares enough to do that I should care enough to do what He asks of me in order to get there!

 

Christ was lifted for the salvation of His people. To say He shed His blood for any other reason than salvation is heresy and blaspheming the Word of God.

Moses lifted the serpent for the physical salvation, the saving of the flesh. Christ was put on the cross for the spiritual salvation, the saving of the soul.

Yes, the blood was necessary. The crucifixion was an integral part in the payment for man's sin.

 

Those who are excluded from the kingdom as these ME proponents thumbsup: tim) claim, will certainly be ashamed.

I am so glad the Word of God says 'whosoever believeth on Christ shall not be ashamed.'

 

I don't have a lot of time right now... gotta get to the nursing home for an afternoon service, but I will respond to this.... You have a point about the different glasses.... we all have them. I grew up an IFB. I look at scripture with fundamental glasses. And those fundamental glasses does not agree with ME doctrine. I will admit, I interpret scripture with glasses... everyone does. You do with ME glasses.

Try reading your Bible without using the doctrine of ME. You can't. For you believe it is true. Therefore it will color anything you read...

I believe it is false and therefore my belief colors everything I read.

And furthermore, it is not reading into the scripture to compare the serpent in the wilderness with Christ... unless Jesus read into the scripture.....

John 3:14
(14) And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

 

It does now yes, but I wasn't a Word fo the Kingdom believer until about nine or 10 months ago, so to say that I was reading through kingdom glasses is inaccurate.

Today I do because as you say I believe it to be Truth!

And again as someone said to me the other day this doctrine clears up so much Scripture that just doesn't make a lot of sense otherwise.

Depends on the comparison you are making. If you are making the comparison to eternal salvation then yes it is reading into Scripture that which is not there fundamentally, becuase that is not the OT picture. The OT picture of eternal salvaiton as far as the children of Israel is concerned is in Exodus 12 not the serpent in the wilderness, becuase they had already experienced death and shed blood. They didn't need to experience it again.

So if we take the serpent as the picture of Christ's work in regard to eternal salvation then what we are saying is that He needs to die twice, which doesn't make a lick of sense.

The picture of the serpent in the wilderness as compared to Christ being lifted up is a totally different picture. But if you don't want to see that or don't want to agree with it that's okay.

Exactly. But what does salvation mean. You are assigning eternal salvation as the meaning and I don't think Scripture agrees with that for a variety of different reasons. Just becuase the word salvation is present in a text doesn't mean it's automatically talking about eternal salvation. Context is king as they say and context must tell us what a word means not us telling Scripture what it means.

Again that is true, but salvation in regard to what? You say salvation in regard to missing eternal punishment in hell and that is not the only reason Christ died and shed His blood and that is far from heresy!

Now you are talking about two different things in this one statement. Is is spiritual salvation or is it the salvation of the soul? They are not the same thing. And yes I would agree that the story is talking about the salvation the soul, which happens after the point of eternal salvation and does not end until we die or Christ returns.

 

J. Jump, why don't you quit playing games and tell us what you believe eternal salvation is and give scripture to back it.