- Aug 14, 2024
- 1,470
- 495
someone said:
Impossible to receive eternal life before we die.... or we wouldn’t
I said:
I suppose we won't really possess Eternal Life until we are made immortal. But we're told we already have a down payment on the inheritance, and this means we already posses Eternal Life *legally.* We don't actually experience it in its fulness yet, but we are entitled to it, which is what a depost literally means.
2 Cor 1.21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Eph 1.13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
But it is equally clear that even after receiving this "deposit," or down payment, we have to "guard" it. That means we can be unfaithful to it. Some have received it on the surface, and backslide from it, perhaps indicating that never really possessed it in anything more than a half-hearted proposition, or as a tepid, double-minded agreement.
2 Tim 1.13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
someone said:
In other words Jesus opened the door to the Kingdom and our admittance is dependant on what He said in His commandments along with repentance of our self serving ways
I said:
Rather, I would say that we come to Salvation, with its promise of Eternal Life, via repentance. We repent of going on our own, and choose to go God's way, which is in covenant with Jesus. Once we've truly done that we experience the "deposit," which is a "guarantee" that we have Eternal Life in the future.
In my view, many display a half-hearted repentance, and God honors them with a spiritual experience of sorts. But in my view, though this spiritual experience is a genuine contact with God, it lacks something more substantive. This is not lacking something from God's willingness, but rather, it lacks something on the part of the worshiper.
It just isn't the deposit leading to Eternal Life when it begins as a half-hearted commitment. The full deposit comes, I believe, when we make a complete commitment, to acknowledge that our own way is wrong, and that God's way is the way we choose to live.
The difference between a "spiritual experience" with a half-hearted commitment and the "deposit" that comes with a full commitment is the difference between gnostic experience and a reborn experience. We are not just to become perfunctory, performance-oriented slaves--rather, we are to become natural children of God who are genuinely drawn to the character and spirituality of God..
Impossible to receive eternal life before we die.... or we wouldn’t
I said:
I suppose we won't really possess Eternal Life until we are made immortal. But we're told we already have a down payment on the inheritance, and this means we already posses Eternal Life *legally.* We don't actually experience it in its fulness yet, but we are entitled to it, which is what a depost literally means.
2 Cor 1.21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Eph 1.13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
But it is equally clear that even after receiving this "deposit," or down payment, we have to "guard" it. That means we can be unfaithful to it. Some have received it on the surface, and backslide from it, perhaps indicating that never really possessed it in anything more than a half-hearted proposition, or as a tepid, double-minded agreement.
2 Tim 1.13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
someone said:
In other words Jesus opened the door to the Kingdom and our admittance is dependant on what He said in His commandments along with repentance of our self serving ways
I said:
Rather, I would say that we come to Salvation, with its promise of Eternal Life, via repentance. We repent of going on our own, and choose to go God's way, which is in covenant with Jesus. Once we've truly done that we experience the "deposit," which is a "guarantee" that we have Eternal Life in the future.
In my view, many display a half-hearted repentance, and God honors them with a spiritual experience of sorts. But in my view, though this spiritual experience is a genuine contact with God, it lacks something more substantive. This is not lacking something from God's willingness, but rather, it lacks something on the part of the worshiper.
It just isn't the deposit leading to Eternal Life when it begins as a half-hearted commitment. The full deposit comes, I believe, when we make a complete commitment, to acknowledge that our own way is wrong, and that God's way is the way we choose to live.
The difference between a "spiritual experience" with a half-hearted commitment and the "deposit" that comes with a full commitment is the difference between gnostic experience and a reborn experience. We are not just to become perfunctory, performance-oriented slaves--rather, we are to become natural children of God who are genuinely drawn to the character and spirituality of God..
