I recently watched some mystery videos about serial killers.These videos made me question my mortality.I mean we are here one day the other we are not.Now faith and repentace are must for the kingdom to come.But what if we dont repent?What if we dont get to repent?What if we die on our sins?This really made me fear a little avout my salvation as i havnt repent many times.I just dont feel to do so.No im not prideful i know when im wrong in the eyes of God but i just dont feel to and this scares me.
PS:If you are a universalist then you dont have to engage to this post.
Hi Nick. It’s interesting that you ask universalists not to engage with your post. It makes me wonder why you would want to exclude any theories about God and Heaven that might help you lessen your fear. I know that universalism seems on the surface to threaten traditional Christian orthodoxy, but is the problem really universalism? Or is the problem the reality that many church doctrines encourage us – even require us – not to trust the breadth and depth and wonder of God’s Divine Love?
Have you given any thought to the possibility that God’s understanding of justice and mercy isn’t anything like the church’s teachings on justice and mercy? We’re only human, after all, and we often make mistakes when we try to understand “the big questions” from God’s perspective. God knows how to forgive even when we don’t. Perhaps Heaven can be thought of as the state of pure forgiveness that God offers to all God’s children – even the human ones.
Maybe it’s okay to trust that God knows you’re human?
What? Maybe you didnt read correctly. I said you dont have to meaning if they feel like they get offended of the concept of hell they dont have to engage. I didnt exclude them. I really suggest reading carefully my post
Certain? You can’t.
At most you can make a reasonable guess according to the scriptures. And at worst you’ll have to hope/trust that God will judge you rightly.
I don’t believe we actually go to heaven but instead we wait for the white throne judgement where all are resurrected. Some to eternal life and some to destruction and then the new Jerusalem comes down to earth. Heaven and earth overlaps.
But the way that I know I am saved because God gave us the word so that we can study it. Jesus preached to us about righteousness and the apostles continued to do the same. The gospels lines out the basics of salvation and the epistles are the apostles answering questions and concerns that the churches had.
In acts 2 Peter is preaching the gospel to the lost.
The Jews there who heard the gospel and believed were cut to the heart. They heard it and they believed but there was more. They asked Peter what should they do?
Acts 2:36-42
New American Standard Bible
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”
The Ingathering
37 Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” 40 And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation!” 41 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. 42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
I think the question is closely intertwined with philosophy of mind. For example, If there is no soul then it becomes quite hard to see how there could be an intermediate state. No?
Well I believe that we are souls. But no I don’t believe in a spiritual intermediate state awaiting judgement.
It would make no sense that people die and then some goes to paradise and some goes to the bad side of hades. They then wait there until the white throne judgement and then they get resurrected and some sent to the new earth and heaven and some go into hell and are destroyed.
To me that makes more sense cutting out the middle. We die and then we all face judgement.
Now i’m not very well versed in (Plato’s?) philosophy about the soul. But isn’t their view of the soul quite different than the christian concept? More abstract and idea rather than substance?
For me I can’t see any reason to believe the soul is immortal. After all God says he destroys both the body and soul in hell. Only God is immortal. The rest are all mortal, including angels, that God can destroy at any time. But I do agree the greek philosophy on the soul is very different from the Jewish view on the soul. There entire understanding of the afterlife is very different.
But for salvation as you asked we can see the things taught in scripture able to be traced back throughout examples, metaphors, and so on,
Take the gift of apostles to guide the church.
We can see that throughout the Torah. We see Prophets empowered repeatedly to teach the words of God to his people.
We see these prophets , and apostles, preaching the good news to their people. Those that hear it have a choice. They can accept it or they can reject it. They can choose righteousness or unrighteousness. So they have to choose to believe and repent.
Then there are other things that are tied in. Like circumcision. In order to be added to the Jewish community the males had to be circumcised. Likewise Christianity speaks of a spiritual circumcision and it’s baptism.
Colossians 2:11-12 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
We also see the need for those who accept the truth and accept righteousness and purse them that it must be ongoing. Many times the Jewish nation turned their back on god and was taken captive by others. We also see this in the gospels.
John 14:15
New American Standard Bible
15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
We also see language like those who finish the good race and so on.
I believe that in order to be saved a person has to hear the gospel, study it out and choose to believe it, then repent of their sins , get baptized into Christ, and continue to confess Jesus as lord and living righteously.
Well the repentance we see in the Bible mid normally directed towards turning from pursing sin and false doctrine and instead pursuing righteousness and truth.
God knows we won’t be perfect. It’s not so much individual sins as much as lifestyles where we refuse to reject sin.
