May 8, 2013
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Answers
@soccerdadforlife ‘s page, he asked a few questions on his latest blog. I think they are very important questions, so I would rather answer tham in my own blog than a comment under his. You can read it on his blog here. But I copied it word for word so you wouldn’t have to. This is what it says:
Let’s assume that sin is real, all men sin, and that the punishment for sin is eternal death. I have a series of questions related to this.
1. How are people saved, in your view?
2. Why do you think this? (I’m asking for your evidence to support your view.)
3. What is the gospel, in your view?
4. What is your evidence to support this?
5. What is the connection between how people are saved and the gospel, in your view?
6. What is your evidence to support this?
7. What is the most important question in the New Testament?
8. How does this relate to questions 3 & 5?
Please let me know if you do not want to dialogue about your answers.
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Here are my answers:
1. How are people saved, in your view?
It’s interesting you should ask this, because lately I’ve been thinking a lot about “Being Chosen” vs. “Free Will”. And I have concluded that It is sort of a combination. Because God couldn’t be God and not have known the end from the beginning. So He always knew “from the foundation of the world” which ones would choose Him. And everything I know about God says He is extremely efficient. So He only calls the ones He knows will answer. Yet, because He is just, He took the sins of all on Himself when He was on the cross, so all would have that choice and their rejection of it real and true. Whosoever believes in Him…..If we confess our sins to Him….believe that He was raised from the dead, we shall be saved.
2. Why do you think this? (I’m asking for your evidence to support your view.)
What I’ve read in the Bible. There are MANY MANY verses about these things, but I will put a few of them here.
Being chosen:
Mat 20:16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
Joh 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Free Will:
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Act 16:30 – 31 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
He took on the sins of the whole world:
1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
3. What is the gospel, in your view?
The Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ – that we have a way to heaven.
4. What is your evidence to support this?
Again, the Bible.
5. What is the connection between how people are saved and the gospel, in your view?
Joh 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
6. What is your evidence to support this?
The Bible.
7. What is the most important question in the New Testament?
Act 16:30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
8. How does this relate to questions 3 & 5?
I think I already answered that. But,
Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
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Feel free to write your own blog with your own answers. I learned a long time ago that there is this huge debate going on between predestination and free will. So I predict that there might arise just such an argument in the comments. But, as I showed here, in order to believe only one or the other means to omit certain verses to the contrary. I can’t do that.
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"Government is not reason, nor eloquence. It is force. And like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master." -- George Washington
Comments (7)
Thank you so very very much for giving your answers.
Your layout is cutting out half your blog. I can’t see it.
@soccerdadforlife - You’re welcome very much.
Fore-knowing does not diminish the freedom of the person to choose. God wants everyone to be saved, but, because it depends on our freedom, not all are saved. The Church must preach…Paul does not say read a book…he says hear/preach. Therefore the Church is the means of spreading the salvation of Jesus…and the Bible is the sacred literature of the Church, and so there is an historical timeline to salvation. Jesus came in the “fullness of time.” But many nations have not yet encountered the Church yet. Which Church? The Church of the Apostles, the cup bearers: the Catholic Church. St. Jerome collected the Hebrew texts, and the letters of the Apostles and translated them and bound them into The Book, aka, the Bible. The Bible is an instrument of the Church for spreading the Good News of Jesus. Smuggling Bibles into China is very important.
I agree with all your answers. My question is what do you give as evidence to unbelievers who don’t believe the Bible. That’s a little more complicated.
I believe in both the sovereignty of God and the free will of man, and no, I can’t explain it, but the Bible teaches both and so I believe both. Maybe God being outside of time has something to do with it. Anyway, if we could understand God, He wouldn’t be God.
@ata_grandma - If they don’t want to believe the Bible, then they have to figure all that out. There is plenty of evidence showing that the Bible is reliable, but in my experience, it usually has nothing to do with any of that anyway. When people choose not to believe it is about them being angry with God for one reason or another, and not really evidence, no matter what they claim.
@mortimerZilch - Thank you for your comment.