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Instead of ignoring supposedly conflicting Scriptures re: how man is given eternal life,
I have attempted to reconcile the situation and explain how I see it.
God definitely had His reasons for somewhat concealing the real truth about this.
There is clear Scriptural support for everything stated below, except where I have marked IMO.
I hope you consider these ideas carefully, and I look forward to your comments.
• God created angels and humans to have free will … He had no desire to be worshipped by robots.
Let us skip down to where man is in need of some kind of miraculous invention to be saved from
his hopeless inherited sin nature, which separates him from God’s acceptance and from heaven.
God designed a plan of salvation, which is utter “foolishness” to the normal human being.
He decided that His justice would be satisfied, if a sinless man died for the sins of ALL of mankind.
His Messiah-Redeemer-Savior, Jesus Christ, would be fully God and fully man, i.e. the God-man.
• God had His reasons for who He would choose to embrace His “foolish” gospel message.
He sees no time ... He sees everything … all the way from the beginning of history to the very end.
IMO, He would elect some people from ALL of the world’s tribes, ethnic groups, nations, countries.
Salvation is through God’s grace and is not through any of man’s good works. Because of his sin
nature, man has always been spiritually blind and deaf and totally incapable of accepting God’s truth.
God gives some people a spiritual revelation, which is His free gift of grace-faith-salvation.
IMO, man has the free-will choice to accept or reject this revelation (this is called “prevenient grace”).
• Those who do believe-trust in Jesus and His gospel are given the Holy Spirit to be inside of them.
These are BACs, but it is never promised that this grace-faith-salvation will remain forever until the
end of their lives. IMO, only the faithful “elect” of God are given NT verses of “guaranteed salvation”.
IMO, the famous “easy-believism” verses are simply to help gospel acceptance, but one who truly
believes (unto obedience and full sanctification) is part of God’s “elect” and will gain eternal life.
• BACs are sanctified (set apart) for further refinement (they still have their sin nature to deal with).
They embark on a sanctification process where the Holy Spirit tries to sanctify them unto holiness.
Those who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. To gain salvation, a BAC must
be willing to co-operate with the Holy Spirit in removing sin. He and the Holy Spirit together can
combine to bring him through as an overcomer! After all, why is God's Spirit inside of him anyway?
He is there to convict him when he is sinning. BACs can be victorious over sin and be overcomers.
Jesus said BACs need to overcome “as I also overcame” (not by believing that He is the Son of God).
BACs have the free-will choice to co-operate (or not) with the Holy Spirit’s attempts to sanctify them.
• Some of the warnings/threats to the churches are about BACs falling away from grace and faith,
losing eternal life, gaining perdition, etc. Thus, these are not just to get God’s elect to be obedient,
or else they would be out-and-out lies. Due to all of the many warning/threats and testimonials …
IMO, some BACs actually do fall away from the faith, therefore not all BACs are part of God’s elect.
• The BAC who is righteous in God’s eyes proves it by being one who “practices righteousness”,
which means that the BAC who is not practicing righteousness is not righteous, i.e. he is not saved.
The BAC maintains his righteousness by repenting of his sins, which are cleansed by Jesus’ blood.
And this must continue and endure until the end of his life, if he is to ultimately be given eternal life.
There are a couple of rather weak promises to keep him, but how much co-operation is required?
Throughout the whole Bible ... sinners are unrighteous! ... obedient believers are righteous!
• This all ties in with being obedient to Christ. If you love the LORD your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, His commandments are not burdensome.
“If you love Me, keep My commandments”. This and faith are on-going requirements until one dies.
And this is called real faith … really "believing" in Jesus and the gospel unto salvation. Practicing
righteousness and being obedient to Christ agrees with James’ “works proves saving faith” verses.
Jesus became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. Does anyone really believe that
to “obey Him” means to just accept God’s free gift of grace-faith?
• Any person who has a habitual sin (e.g. unforgiveness, lying, etc.) at death is shut out of heaven.
But, one may still repent and believe and trust in Jesus and His gospel … even on his death-bed.
Regarding some of the ideas above which may be new to you:
• Throughout Scripture, God desires that man co-operate with Him in all of His plans for man.
• Satan is “the god/ruler of this world/age” and the greatest liar and deceiver in history.
• Satan and the church had different objectives, but have really damaged the church with OSAS.
How much do I have to do to maintain my salvation? Can you tell me?
It's okay, and even expected, that you will sin occasionally.
And you can take care of the situation, i.e. maintain your righteousness ...
"But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess (repent of) our sins, He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." (1 John 1:7-10)
Throughout the whole Bible ... sinners are unrighteous! ... obedient believers are righteous!
The BAC who is righteous in God’s eyes proves it by being one who “practices righteousness”,
which means that the BAC who is not practicing righteousness is not righteous, i.e. he is not saved.
Let's suppose when I'm age 33 1/3 I am born again. I no longer drink 2 bottles of Jim Beam every night and no longer beat my wife and kids. I backslide at age 45 and start drinking 3 bottles of Jack Daniels and beating the wife more than ever. The kids are long gone taken by social services. At age 78 I come back to God. I die at age 79. Heaven or Hell? Let's say I die at age 59. Heaven or Hell?
Years ago, there was this old man who grew a vineyard and made some wine. He got stinking drunk and fell asleep naked. To top it off, when one of his kids saw him naked the old man put a curse on the son's family. If he had died in the middle of this, would it have been Heaven or Hell?
I once read about this man who acted all holy. He seduced another man's wife. If that isn't enough, he had the woman's husband killed. If he'd died in the middle of this, would it have been Heaven or Hell?
It's okay, and even expected, that you will sin occasionally.
And you can take care of the situation, i.e. maintain your righteousness ...
"But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess (repent of) our sins, He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." (1 John 1:7-10)
Throughout the whole Bible ... sinners are unrighteous! ... obedient believers are righteous!
Our eternal salvation is not based upon our righteousness or lack thereof. Our salvation is based entirely on the fact that at the moment of faith in Christ God imputes His own perfect righteousness to us and pronounces us justified which qualifies us to live in the presence of God forever. And the reason that God can impute His righteousness to those who place their faith in Christ is because of His FINISHED work on the Cross where He paid the judicial penalty for every sin that will ever be committed in the human race.
No amount of unrighteousness on the believer's part can nullify the perfect righteousness of God which has been credited to his account and by which he has been justified and eternally saved. And no amount of human righteousness can make anyone acceptable to God. That is why He credits His own perfect righteousness to those who have believed on Christ.
No matter how much the believer sins, it is handled as a family matter and the believer's eternal salvation is not at risk.
Sanctification involves both a positional aspect and an experiential aspect. The experiential aspect of sanctification is the process of spiritual growth of the believer. But in a positional sense every believer is sanctified at the moment he first believes on Christ and he is positionally sanctified forever. He can never lose that positional sanctification. And here is the Scripture which states that.
Hebrews 10:10 By this will we have been sanctified (Perfect tense) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Hebrews 10:10 is speaking of the positional aspect of the believer's sanctification and is in the perfect tense. The Greek perfect tense has the following meaning;
Perfect Tense
The basic thought of the perfect tense is that the progress of an action has been completed and the results of the action are continuing on, in full effect. In other words, the progress of the action has reached its culmination and the finished results are now in existence. Unlike the English perfect, which indicates a completed past action, the Greek perfect tense indicates the continuation and present state of a completed past action. Greek Verbs (Shorter Definitions)
The perfect tense means that the believer has been positionally sanctified and that that sanctification continues on, no matter how the believer lives experientially.
Hebrews 10:14 goes on to say,
Heb. 10:14 For by one offering He has perfected (teleioó - Perfect tense) for all time those who are being sanctified.
teleióō has the following meaning.
HELP'S Word-studies
Cognate: 5048 teleióō – to consummate, reaching the end-stage, i.e. working through the entire process (stages) to reach the final phase (conclusion). See 5056 (telos).
Regardless of his experiential status, the believer has in a positional sense been perfected for all time by virtue of being in union with Jesus Christ. Positionally the believer has been brought into perfect relation with God the Father by reason of being permanently in Christ. The believer has been seated with Christ in the heavenlies at the right hand of the Father (Ephesians 2:5-6) and cannot lose his position.
It should be mentioned that while in Hebrews 10:10 sanctification is in the Perfect tense, in Hebrews 10:14 it is in the present tense. But the present tense of Hebrews 10:14 does not nullify the force of Hebrews 10:10 which views the believer's positional sanctification as being brought about by the death of Christ. The believer is identified with Christ in His death on the Cross and with His resurrection. And so again, by virtue of being in Christ and identified with Christ, the believer is positionally sanctified. Regarding the difference between the perfect tense of verse 10 and the present tense of verse 14, F. F. Bruce writes,
In v. 10 the statement that ''we have been sanctified'' is made in the perfect tense; here, as in 2:11, the present passive participle is used. In v. 10 the emphasis lay on the unrepeatable nature of the death of Christ as the sacrifice by which his people have been set apart for the worship and service of God; here their character as the people thus set apart is simply indicated in timeless terms, because emphasis is being laid on the fact that by that same sacrifice those who have been cleansed and ''perfected'' are now eternally constituted God's holy people. [The Epistle to the Hebrews, F. F. Bruce, p. 247]
If you do not learn to distinguish between the believer's experiential status and his positional status, you will never understand that the believer is eternally secure based on his position in Christ which is permanent and cannot be lost. The believer's position in Christ which is permanent is not the same as his abiding in Christ which refers to his experiential status.
And no, Scripture does not somewhat conceal the truth about mans' salvation. The truth is stated plainly.
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If you find it effortless to be like Jesus, I'm really jealous!
