The author of the Letter to the Hebrews was writing to Jewish Christians who were getting persecuted from all sides, from the Jews because they converted, from pagans because they were Christian, and possibly from other Christians because of anti-Semitism. They were considering converting back to Judaism because the government was not persecuting Jews and they might be reconciled with their families…
The answer the author of Hebrews gave them was not that they could not reconvert to Judaism, but they would lose too much if they did so. God does give us the ability to choose. If we decide we really do not want eternal life with God, we can say no thank you.
God’s gifts are unconditional, but we must accept them… God does not need us. We need God. He does not force to do anything, esp.to love God.
You know that is judging me for my statement, don’t you? Don’t worry, because judging is not forbidden. Only hypocritical judgment. 1 Corinthians 6:1-7, John 7:1-5
Example #367 of forcing an completely unnatural and woodenly literalistic interpretation onto obvious hyperbole in a text in order to establish a difficulty that otherwise simply isn’t there…?
John 7:1-5 (NIV2011)
1 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him.
2 But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near,
3 Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do.
4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”
5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.
1 Corinthians 6:1-6 (NIV2011)
1 If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people?
2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?
3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!
4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church?
5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?
6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!
The problem is not judging issues in a dispute. The problem is judging the salvation of Christians because they do not agree with a political position like Right to Life.
Here you go again, putting a false spin on words of Scripture in order to accommodate your erroneous OSAS doctrine. Nowhere in the Bible the word “believe/belief” split into “intellectual assent and accepting certain ideas” – that is purely a false, unbiblical, man-made invention.
In other words, you’re admitting that your theology relies on twisting the meaning of words of Scripture.
I take your point and I agree with you. Thanks for pointing those verses out to me.
Nevertheless, a hope that is “sure” is still ahope – it is not a certainty, which is what you’re trying to argue. If you understood the Scriptures properly, you wouldn’t need to resort to twisting words of Scripture to mean something they’re not.
When those verses refer to the “hope” that is “sure”, they are referring to the promise of eternal life, which is sure. But the promise is conditional, which is the first reason the promise is repeatedly described in the NT as a “hope” and not as a certainty - the promise will surely be fulfilled, but only IF the believer meets the conditions. We can have confidence in our hope of eternal life, but we don’t know for certain if we will be granted eternal life until we die and are judged worthy of it by Christ – this the second reason the promise of eternal life is repeatedly described as a “hope” ad not as a certainty.
Now all you have to do is figure out what those conditions are, which shouldn’t be hard – all you have to do read your Bible (as opposed to reading false teachings invented by false teachers). You could start with James 2:24 – “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” – the “works” are keeping the commandments of God.
Really? Pray tell, how did they manage to prophesy, cast out demons and perform miracles (Matt 7:22) if they were “self-deceived”. They could perform those supernatural feats only through the power of Jesus – in other words, at some point they were in Christ and Christ was in them. But they fell way and became “evildoers” (v.23), which is why Jesus ultimately disowned them (“I never knew you, depart from me”).
The moral of the story is, a believer doesn’t gain eternal life until they are judged worthy by Christ, which occurs post-mortem.
Elect, chosen, predestined and given to Jesus by the Father are not conditional words.
He Knows My Name ~ Francesca Battistelli
Spent today in a conversation
In the mirror face to face with
Somebody less than perfect
I wouldn’t choose me first if
I was looking for a champion
In fact I’d understand if
You picked everyone before me
But that’s just not my story
True to who You are
You saw my heart
And made something out of nothing, so
CHORUS
I don’t need my name in lights
I’m famous in my Father’s eyes
Make no mistake
He knows my name
I’m not living for applause
I’m already so adored
It’s all His stage
He knows my name
He knows my name
I’m not meant to just stay quiet
I’m meant to be a lion
I’ll roar beyond a song
With every moment that I’ve got
True to who You are
You saw my heart
And made something out of nothing
CHORUS
He calls me chosen
Free, forgiven
Wanted, child of the King
His forever
Held and treasured
I am loved
I don’t need my name in lights
I’m famous in my Father’s eyes
Yes, fair enough; I was wrong about that. But a hope that is described as “certain” or “sure” or “assured” or “unskakeable” in the NT is still a hope - it is not a certainty. The “hope” refers to the promise of eternal life, a promise that is conditional - which is why it is referred to a “hope” in more than twenty NT verses.
If the conditions are not met by the believer, then the promise is withdrawn and not fulfilled. Rev 12:14 and 14:17 tells us what those conditions are: Keeping God’s commandments and faith in Jesus.
Precisely. The false doctrine of OSAS requires its victims to twist the meaning of certain words and passages of Scripture and to ignore other Scriptures that contradict it.
There’s no getting away from the plain word of Jesus in that passage: “If you would enter life, keep the commandments” (Matt 19:17). In other words, Jesus is saying the promise of eternal salvation has conditions ¬– ie, keeping the commandments.
This conditional promise is what is preached in the Epistles and also in the book or Revelation – for example,
in Gal 5 and 1Cor 6, Paul warns believers that their sins can result in them not inheriting the kingdom of God;
“He who says ‘I know him’ but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1John 2:3-6);
”a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” … “faith without works is dead” (James 2:24, 26);
the book of Revelation describes God’s people as those who keep the commandments of God and have faith in Jesus (Rev 12:17, 14:12);
In Rev 2 and 3, Jesus judges believers according to their works, by which believers are deemed “worthy” (Rev 3:4) of eternal life.
If you are merely going with the common, contemporary and conventional understanding of the word. But that does not sound at all like what Paul is saying, nor the author of Hebrews. Please read those passages again, not forgetting the other unconditional words I noted.
Jesus’ criticism of the rich man was that he put his “trust in riches” (Mark 10:24) and presumably, not in God. So it would seem that God played no part in the rich man’s life – his god was money - which is why Jesus advised him to give all his money away and then place his trust in God (“come, follow me”).
So Jesus was clearly preaching salvation through faith and works – the rich man kept the commandments, so he was doing the “works” part, but he lacked by the “faith” part.
Jesus is not saying keeping the commandments is irrelevant to gaining eternal life – on the contrary, Jesus said “If you would enter life, keep the commandments ” (Matt 19:17).
What do mean “if”? That is the message of Christianity. That’s why Rev 12:17 and 14:12 describe Christians as those people as those who keep the commandments of God AND have faith in Jesus .
Simple - because Jesus is the Messiah that the Jews had been waiting for for thousands of years. So if a Jew recognized Jesus as the Messiah, why wouldn’t he became a Christian?
What? The rich young man asked Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life and Jesus told him … and you say Jesus was not preaching? If telling someone how to gain eternal life doesn’t qualify as preaching, what on earth does?!
No, I don’t think so. When Jesus says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone”, I think he is hinting at his divinity. Jesus is saying, “Only God is good, so unless you believe I am God, you have no reason to call me good”.
His words are especially poignant, because Jesus knew the rich man worshipped money and that God played little or no part in his life, and it was putting God first that was the “one thing” that was lacking in the rich man’s life.
Jesus then offers to provide what is lacking in the rich man’s when he says, “follow me”, for he is effectively saying, “Follow me, because I am God and following God what you are lacking and what you need in order to gain eternal life.”
The New Covenant doesn’t mean Christians are not subject to God’s law – the difference is, Christians no longer have to follow all 613 laws of Moses. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus rendered many of those laws obsolete, but that still leaves many laws that Christians are bound to follow – the Ten Commandments, for example.
This is obvious from NT Scriptures – for example:
“He who says ‘I know him’ but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1John 2:3-6);
In Gal 5 and 1Cor 6, Paul warns believers that their sinsofthe flesh (ie, not keeping God’s commandments) can result in them ***not inheriting the kingdom of God;
*** Rev 12:17 and 14:12 describe Christians as those people as those who keep the commandments of God AND have faith in Jesus;
”a man is justified by works and not by faith alone”… “faith without works is dead” (James 2:24, 26);
In Rev 2 and 3, Jesus judges believers according to their works, by which believers are deemed “worthy” (Rev 3:4) of eternal life.
I agree, but entering the NT covenant and God’s kingdom is only the first step on the road to eternal life. After entering, a believer must strive for holiness (ie, keep the faith and the commandments) in order to remain in the NT covenant.
If a believer “receives Eternal Life with God”, why is that “not a one way ticket to heaven”?
What do you mean by “faith produces works” and where does Paul preach it?
I’m not arguing that works produce faith. And faith does not turn believers into robots that automatically do only good works. The grace that comes with faith makes the believer more aware of sin and also offers the believer the potential to overcome the temptation to sin, but grace requires the cooperation a believer’s free will in order to be effective – a believer can still choose to sin if he so desires.
That’s why Paul warns believers in Gal 5 and 1Cor 6 that their sins can result in them not inheriting the kingdom of Heaven – it was not their lack of faith that was the problem, but their behaviour (aka “works”) .
Wrong - that’s not what it means at all. James 2:14, 24 and 1John 2:3-6 all contradict your false interpretation:
James 2:14 says, “What does it profit … if a man says he has faith but not works?” – which clearly implies a man can have faith, but not works.
James 2:24 says, “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” – which also clearly implies that a man can have faith, but not works.
1John 2:3-6 says, “He who says ‘I know him’ but disobeys his commandments is a liar , and the truth is not in him .” Again, one can have faith, but not works.
So when James 2:26 says, “Faith without works is dead”, it means that one can have faith, but without keeping the commandments (“works”) as well, faith alone is useless and won’t save anyone.
Sure it is … but only if you cherry-pick the Scriptures and ignore the many verses that say otherwise.
We don’t have eternal life right now – we only have the conditional promise and the hope of eternal life – that promise is fulfilled and that hope realized only after you die and are judged worthy by Christ.
The “seal” of the Holy Spirit is dependent of fulfilling theconditions of the promise , so the seal can be broken. You are sealed by the HS only if you remain in Christ through faith and obedience (works).
Hebrews 6 clearly implies a believer can lose the seal of the HS: 4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 [c] if they fall away , to renew them again to repentance
If you already have your ticket to Heaven, why is eternal life described as a “hope” more than twenty times in the NT? You are claiming certainty, which contradicts every one of those “hope” verses.
How can you possibly have eternal life before you are judged worthy of it by Christ?
If you cherry-pick and cut-and-paste the Scriptures, you can make them say just about anything you like. But that approach doesn’t appeal to me coz it’s dishonest and unintelligent.
The problem is that works are necessary to reflect the heart, not that works themselves are necessary for salvation. The thief on the cross had no chance to work for his newly discovered Lord, but he was saved at that instant, not on Judgement Day.
You can have works without faith and be self-deceived, but you cannot have faith without works. If someone thinks they have faith, and are not being whom they should be, then they should examine themselves using the tests that both Jesus and Paul elucidated and mandated. And that includes me (and I have not done particularly well by some of the responses I’ve made today, returning insult for insult and snark). It really is all about the heart and its desires. Our external behaviors and behaviors of the mind are things that we need to be examining continuously.
Please reflect on all the divinely ordained metaphors that are unconditional and irreversible, being born again being a good one to start with. That is not something that happens on Judgement Day, nor are any on the list. Here it is again…
Yes works without faith will get you nowhere. But the difference is entitlement not the belief in a set of dogmas or calling yourself a Christian. The distortion we are seeing in Gnostic versions of Christianity is the transformation of “faith” into some kind of mental works of knowing or believing certain things with all the entitlement of a gospel of salvation by works. It employs this rhetoric using words in the Bible about confidence and assurance meant for comfort into a justification for changing hope into certainty and faith into entitlement, so they can treat salvation as one of their accomplishments in life complete with talk about getting it done and taken care of. But salvation is never something you can own and as long as you have sin, it remains a work of God in progress, and the Bible makes it crystal clear that this requires our own endurance and perseverance to the end with fear and trembling not entitlement as this work of God in us continues.
Do you not own your sonship with respect to your biological father? Is it something you can lose? It is sad that the weaker siblings in our Father’s family have to be concerned, even worried, about losing their salvation. Please meditate on what it means to be born again and adopted.
It is not a change in God. He did not abandon us. It is a change in us which made the relationship untentable creating a separation between us.
That is the reality of relationships which cannot be changed just as God could not prevent this with Adam and Eve. What happened with them wasn’t any lack in what He did. This is the other side of the coin. To say that God can prevent it now means God could have prevented it then. And to imagine that God went through all of that just to put you in a position of privilege is preposterous.
Adam and Eve had all of that and more. Not only adopted and born of God, but also without sin. The work of God for our salvation is to give us more freedom not less.
