Wise and Foolish Virgins

[gekko]

Five will be positively rewarded and five will suffer loss.

but they're still gonna be in the presence of the Lord?
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so let me get this straight. if all the foolish virgins are getting is suffering loss...

then millions and millions of people are saved. just alot of them are gonna lose their rewards...

am i getting this so far J.Jump? is this what you're talking about?

i wish to better understand where you're coming from...

 

[Hope of Glory]

Once again, it really makes no difference. What matters is whether they had enough oil to last until the bridegroom arrives, which stands for the second coming of Christ. The wise will be ready. The foolish will not. If they had oil in their lamps but not enough to last until the bridgegroom's arrival that is anagous to having been prepared at one point (saved) and not at the critical point, when Christ returns. In short, they lost their salvation.

Now, this is a reasonable argument on this passage!

I think you are incorrect about them being able to lose their salvation, but you are correct that the importance in this passage is whether they had enough oil to last until the bridegroom arrives.

The wise will be ready and the foolish will not.

So, the discussion would then center around whether spiritual salvation can be lost or whether this is concerning rewards and chastizing or something else.

 

[gekko]

another question. who gets indwelled by the holy spirit? saved or unsaved?
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lets look at the scripture here about the ten virgins.

"they that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them"
the wise took oil with them. but the foolish did not.

"and the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out."

wait. if they had no oil in their lamps. if the foolish virgins lamps were empty of oil. how would their lamps "go out" ?

so the foolish virgins had oil in their lamps. but they took no extra oil. the oil in the foolish virgin lamps had to have been used up fairly quickly it seems. because when they trimmed their lamps - they then asked the wise for more oil.

BUT... here's the thing. the foolish virgins did not notice they were low on oil and that their lamps were about to go out.

that to me sounds like they were distracted by other things. (i'll call it that they were distracted by the world)

interpretation (what i think anyways): the foolish virgins are those who claim to have the holy spirit. but live in the world. they dont focus on what is important. (keeping the lamps lit and having extra oil.)

now look at what the foolish virgins say "Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us."

a profession of faith right there. just like it says earlier "not everyone that comes to me and says Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven" (i dont know if that's exact wording...)

a profession of faith is worth nothing... if legs are not put to that profession.

the foolish virgins never thought about how much oil they had. cause they didnt take any extra. thought they could last with what they had.

the foolish virgins profession of faith - were worth nothing.
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im just throwing out some points here. im not picking sides here cause im still searching the scriptures.

 

[Hope of Glory]

Seems they had it at one time but let it run out.

Now, two people have seen this, which means we could move on to discussing what it means that they had oil and let it run out.

A lamp cannot be going out, unless it's currently lit; which means it has oil in it currently.

 

[gekko]

Now, two people have seen this, which means we could move on to discussing what it means that they had oil and let it run out.

three now.
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another point.

a profession of faith does not make you saved.
if it did. my whole town would be saved.

"few there be that find it"
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[J. Jump]

Before I lost my sight, I was caught in the dark many times with no matches to light a lantern. I have been guilty of carrying a flashlight with no batteries to the shed before, only to have to return to the house to get fresh batteries.

Even a mechanic will tell you he does not have every tool at his reach all the time even though he is doing a certain job.

Face it, the foolish virgins had no oil.

That's a nice story SFIC, unfortunately it is a man-made story, not a God-ordained full of the Truth story. So the two can not be compared.

You need to face that you are reading into Scripture what is simply not there, but that is your choice.

If Christ told someone that was indwelt, regenerated, and sealed by the Holy Spirit; purchased by His blood, and loved by God that He never knew them, then Christ would be a liar.

Yeah if He was speaking to them of eternal salvation, but He says He does not know them in relation to works or right living, not eternal salvation.

Christ is not a liar.

Amen!

You sir, need to rethink your position in this matter.

The same could be said of you sir.

Nowhere in scripture does Christ say to one saved that He never knew them, nor does He tell the saved, 'I know you not.

Yes actually it does in the Scripture at hand and then previously in Matthew He says the same thing to some saved folks that cried Lord, Lord, but were "working" iniquity.

It's amazing to me how so many people say that salvation is not by works, but then cram works into the picture every chance they get. It's beyond me, but such is the state of Christendom today.

 

[J. Jump]

The unfaithful "in the church" will indeed be at the Judgement but they will be on Christ's left side. There's no such thing as a faithful and an unfaithful Christian. There are Christians (eternally saved) and the unsaved (eternally damned).

As you have stated the lost and the saved will be judged together and the Bible says they will not, so your interpretation is flawed. There is such thing as a faithful and unfaithful Christian. You can see evidence of that throughout the NT and in type form in the OT. You can deny to the sun doesn't shine, but it doesn't change the fact that it is clearly there!

 

[J. Jump]

i wish to better understand where you're coming from...

I appreciate your desire to understand.

but they're still gonna be in the presence of the Lord?

Not for a 1,000 years. Now as to the details of that I'm not sure. I don't know exactly what that looks like as we are not given the details.

Again we are just to know that it is bad enough that you don't want to experience it, and that should turn our attention to being faithful, obedient, overcomers so that it won't happen to us.

so let me get this straight. if all the foolish virgins are getting is suffering loss...

then millions and millions of people are saved. just alot of them are gonna lose their rewards...

am i getting this so far J.Jump? is this what you're talking about?

I'm not sure how many people are saved. I think far more people are saved than people want to think, because most of Christendom says if you are not doing good works then you are not saved, so they are probably discrediting the salvation of a lot of people.

The bottom line is only God knows who is saved and who is not. If someone tells me they have trusted in the substitutionary death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God as the payment for their sin debt, then I trust they are a Christian and will treat them as such.

 

[J. Jump]

a profession of faith does not make you saved.

It depends on what you mean by profession of faith. Are they saying I believe that God exists? Are they saying I believe there was a literal man named Jesus that walked the earth and taught some good things and was murdered?

Or are they saying that they trust in the substitutionary death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who paid my sin debt. Now granted it doesn't have to be in those exact words, but are they getting that point across?

If they are saying the first two examples I would say they don't have an accurate understanding of saving faith. If they are professing the latter than their profession of faith is the real deal at least as far as we humans can see.

As to our passage again if you see and understand that the virigins at least had oil in their lamps then you know they are saved. The question becomes can a child of God lose his/her salvation and will the Holy Spirit leave that child and return them back to their unsaved state.

I believe the Bible clearly teaches that the very moment you believe your eternal destiny is set and can not be changed, because the only way that it could be changed is if God/Christ/Holy Spirit changed, because their works were the only ones involved in the situation. They are never chaning and always the same so it is impossible to lose your salvation.

Therefore there is only one correct way to interpret this passage of Scripture. All 10 were saved.

Let's look at the significance of the numbers. Ten is a number of oridnal completion. The group was not separate but were 10 together. The same type of people. They were all saved virgins.

Isn't it interesting that they were split into two groups of five which is the number for grace.

Wonder why the Holy Spirit didn't split them into 7 and 3 or 8-2 or 6-4, but rather 5-5. Because they are all saved and all had experienced God's grace.

If we will just allow Scripture to interpret Itself, It will NEVER make a mistake. The problem we all face is we allow ourselves to muddy up the picture.

God's Word is ABOSLUTELY AMAZING!!!

 

[tinytim]

This passage is coming on the heels of Jesus confronting the Pharisees in Chapter 23. Where He calls them fools. And then makes this comment:
Matthew 23:37-39 KJV
(37) O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under [her] wings, and ye would not!
(38) Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
(39) For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed [is] he that cometh in the name of the Lord.


I believe the foolish virgins were the Jews that rejected Christ.
They once had the truth, but strayed from it...
The Pharisees expected to get in by the works they did.
But noone can be good enough to get in.
No one can be good enough to get saved, nor stay saved.


Therefore, he came to the Gentiles.
And to the Jews that would accept Him.
The saved has the oil (spirit)

Isreal once had it, but now don't. True Christians do.
The foolish virgins, at one time had oil, but now don't, the wise do.

 

[J. Jump]

I believe the foolish virgins were the Jews that rejected Christ.
They once had the truth, but strayed from it...
The Pharisees expected to get in by the works they did.
But noone can be good enough to get in.
No one can be good enough to get saved, nor stay saved.


Therefore, he came to the Gentiles.
And to the Jews that would accept Him.
The saved has the oil (spirit)

Isreal once had it, but now don't. True Christians do.
The foolish virgins, at one time had oil, but now don't, the wise do.

Without having studied that out it seems to me that is probably a decent secondary application, but I don't think the passage supports it being the primary interpretation.

And it would be Israel's reject of eternal salvation, but Israel's rejection of the kingdom and how that message is come to the Gentiles.

Israel didn't reject the message of eternal salvation, they rejected the King that was going to establish the heavenly aspect of the kingdom, which would have established the physical kingdom by default, but Israel didn't want to have anything to do with this aspect of the kingdom.

This is the message that is now open to the Gentiles. The message of the kingdom. But in order for a Gentile to be able to even begin to understand the kingdom message (which is a spiritual message) they must have their dead spirits made alive (eternal salvation). Then and only then are they able to even comprehend the offer that was made to Israel and now made to them to be in a place to either accept it or reject it.

Thanks for sharing TinyTim I will look into more of what you have said.

 

[Diggin in da Word]

Matthew 25:3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:

The Bible does not say, 'they took no extra oil with them,' it says 'took no oil with them.'

To say they took no extra oil is reading into the text what is just not there.

Matthew 25:4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

The Bible does not say, 'they took extra oil with them,' nor does it say, 'they took oil in their vessels and in their lamps,' it says the wise 'took oil in their vessels with their lamps.'

To say they took extra oil is reading into the text what is just not there.

 

[gekko]

still. the foolish virgins had oil in their lamps. according to scripture. i pointed that out in a previous post.

 

[J. Jump]

Diggin then how do you explain their lamps were going out?

 

[Diggin in da Word]

Matthew 25:8 And the foolish said to the wise, Giue vs of your oyle, for our lampes are out Geneva Version.

Looks to be more accurate.

Diggin then how do you explain their lamps were going out?

Funny, my KJB does not say the lamps were going out, but 'are gone out.' And the Geneva does not even use the word gone in that verse. It is the modern versions that use the phrase 'going out.'

I, like sfiC pointed out, believe the foolish were lying. They were trying to get into the wedding party on someone else's righteousness. Just as many think they will be accepted because their grandparents, or parents were faithful christians.

 

[J. Jump]

I, like sfiC pointed out, believe the foolish were lying.

And you like SFIC are placing your opinions on the text. Nowhere are we given indication that they are lying. And even if you want to go with gone out. How does a lamp go out without being first lit and then running out of the oil that was initially in there.

The text just simply doesn't bear out what you are placing onto it. It doesn't grammatically. It doesn't numerically. It doesn't in any shape or form.

 

[gekko]

how can the lamps have gone out if there was no oil in the first place?

foolish virgins are like stony ground hearers no? sprung up immediately once they heard the word. but when tribulation came they withered.

the foolish virgins would not have trimmed their lamps if they had no oil in their lamps.

 

[Diggin in da Word]

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And you like SFIC are placing your opinions on the text. Nowhere are we given indication that they are lying. And even if you want to go with gone out. How does a lamp go out without being first lit and then running out of the oil that was initially in there.

The text just simply doesn't bear out what you are placing onto it. It doesn't grammatically. It doesn't numerically. It doesn't in any shape or form.

Nor does it say the wise virgins took extra oil, yet you keep saying they did.

 

[Diggin in da Word]

how can the lamps have gone out if there was no oil in the first place?

foolish virgins are like stony ground hearers no? sprung up immediately once they heard the word. but when tribulation came they withered.

the foolish virgins would not have trimmed their lamps if they had no oil in their lamps.

The foolish would have trimmed the lamps if they thought that they could get oil from the wise.

They were lying about the lamps even being lit at all. They took no oil.

 

[gekko]

3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:
the foolish took no oil WITH THEM. does not say they had no oil in their lamps.

4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
there's your extra oil. no? they took oil in their vessels WITH their lamps.
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7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.

so. they ALL trimmed their lamps. AND THEN the foolish asked the wise for more oil.