I dont know of anyone who believes that we are saved by works.
You should start to read this thread from page 1 then. Because you'll find those that think in order to stay saved you have to work. And that salvation isn't guaranteed through your life. But only when you die do you find that you are saved or not due to how you lived your faith while on earth.
So our will to choose to believe or not, never comes into play?
Yeah, that's what I said. Uh huh.
Nowhere. Nor did I say it.
This is the point about reading the scriptures in full. Not just henpecking from sites that carry the scriptures based on a keyword search of them. The scriptures in writing paint a picture that appears behind them due to other scriptures in both the Old, where Christ also is referred, and the New testaments. The entire Bible is a tapestry of absolute truth. And every single word there is divinely woven from the skein of eternity to form a mural for all time. Carrying a message that is ageless and topical always.
Picking a scripture out and pointing to it and saying, see? It says this! Is easy. False pastors on TV, like Benny Hinn, do that all the time in order to make people believe what they've cut and parroted for their own benefit.
The whole Bible is a story of eternal love. God gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
The works bunch will point to that and claim "believeth" is key. And when, if, we stop believing we're damned again.
Think about what that would be saying.
Everything that was done when we were living dead in our sins , were damned in our sins, can be undone by our choice. We can make a choice and be un-redeemed from our sins. That way the sins God said he forgot and will never hold against us again because he released us from them and the penalty attached, come flying back! And attach to us again. And damn us again and God remembers them again. When before the scripture said after we repent and are redeemed in his son God remembers those sins no more. But certainly there then must be a scripture that says, oh, but he'll recall them and hold them against you if you choose to undo what you did do to cleanse yourself from them. And then of course you move forward and collect new sins atop those old ones. Because to say we can choose to leave Christ means we choose to leave all that Christ did for us on the cross first. Which means we revert what was done to that which by our choice then can be undone.
Then of course there's the reversal that occurs after we were reborn as a new creation in Christ when we were redeemed and baptized. Should we stop believing in Christ. That means we're no longer a new creation but revert to being un-reborn and un-redeemed.
There's scripture to back that up too I'm sure.
See how absurd it all is? Because that which professes we have to labor to keep the free gift God gave us is whack! That teaching completely ignores two terms that its teachers have no conscious understanding of. First, "free". And secondly, "gift". And who's the gifter? Steve! Down the lane. No, George the butcher! No. Oh, that's right! GOD! The all knowing, eternally alive, creator of this whole shebang.All of it.
That one that said in his words to us, he knew us before the womb. Before he created the world. He knew who would come to his son. See, that's why those sheep Jesus refers to are spoken of in such ways.
"My sheep know my voice....."
How do we, who are dead in our sins and separated from God as sinners living in a sin filled word, hear the voice of cleansing and redemption unto a new life?
How?
Because God made it so. That's why the sheep are called the elect. No, God doesn't pick and choose who goes to Heaven or Hell. God is eternally knowledgeable. We can do nothing that God doesn't see coming. We exist to act out in this world as humans because God made us all that we are. And we are made in his image and likeness.
Salvation and eternal life, which is eternal salvation, is a gift of God's grace. God's gifts and calling are irrevocable. Irrevocable! Romans 11:29
God's gifts and calling are irrevocable.
Now put that together with what Jesus said of us.
John 10:27 My sheep respond to my voice, and I know who they are. They follow me.
He calls and his call is irrevocable. The mistake works salvation types make is thinking we have something to do with keeping ourselves in God's grace. Nothing of that is true. It isn't scriptural. We had not a thing to do with any of it except we heeded the calling to find Christ. And even if we depart, God knew that would happen too. How can anything not be known by that which eternally knows all things? And yet, the words of God tell us that he knew us before the world began. He knew us by name in fact. And he wrote our name down in the lamb's , Jesus' was that lamb, book of life that we would be raised up on the last day.
He didn't say, but he'll erase it if we ask. If we stop holding faith. If we.... It's not conditional salvation. It is eternal salvation. We believe! Because God believed in us first. And that's where his grace is. And that's why his crucified taking the sins of the world, my sins, your sins, upon himself on that cross , is.
Put it in an analogy a parent, being God is the Father, can understand.
You love your child. Your child grows up under your teaching and then decides to set off on their own and do their own thing. They turn atheist, they are gay, they do drugs, and they put chance to the wind.
Do they stop being the child you love? Are you no longer their mother? Their father?
And you don't know it all. You're mortal with a mortal framework of consciousness.
God does know it all. And he calls himself Father of and to us all. God is love. Love doesn't throw those loved away. Even when they run in the other direction.
The parable of the prodigal son is a great example.
The son wanted his inheritance early to live life his way. He squandered it all and lived contrary to how his father raised him. He was afraid but he made his way back home thinking dad wouldn't want anything to do with him.
He was wrong. The father cheered and was overjoyed to see his son returned. He wrapped his arms around his son and kissed him and welcomed him and told him he was loved. The father ordered a feast , a celebration, to commemorate the son's return. All was forgiven and forgotten.
While that son's brother was not overjoyed! He's stayed loyal to the family and labored to keep himself in his father's graces. And here he was awaiting the time his dad would die so he could inherit what his brother had received early while dad was alive. And now that brother squandered it all, plunged to the depths of personal shame, and came home with his tail between his legs. And there he was embraced, kissed, loved still by dad.
That prodigal returned son? Is the metaphor for the eternal life afforded those in Christ.
That angry brother? Is the works salvation teachers out there.
See? God even saw them coming. That's why he inspired the parable of the prodigal to forewarn us in case we doubt.
Isn't God AWESOME!!!!!!! Eternal love! Eternal life! Eternal salvation. Because he knew you by name before you knew yourself. Bumps and all. He knows you. He loves you. Even if you pull a silly and leave home and go the way of the world, he forgives. And he welcomes you home. Because God knew more than you did from before he created the world you live in now. He called you by name because he knew you were his. Even if , when, you didn't.
We are everywhere!
Praise God. HALLELUJAH!
Who argues against that? Eternal life. Eternal love.
Nobody!
I wonder why straightforward things of the Word are beung ignored due to the mighty fear of condemnation. So desperately are many clinging to the hope of eternal salvation at all costs
:amen