John Zain
Member
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 theLordyour God with all yourheart, 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.
