Yes.
No.
Maybe.
What do I mean by the word saved? Delivered. Redeemed. Set free. Bought by the blood. Justified.(looked at by God just as if I never sinned)
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.For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.(Romans 10:9, 10)
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8.9)
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3,4)
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Timothy 1:9)
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. Mark 16:16
oops. Scratch that last one. Don’t want to start a war between the Baptists and the Campbellites. (Church of Christ)
Let me set aside, for a moment, the fact that these verses teach several different salvations. Most Christians interpret these verses, and others, in a very basic, generic way.
I am a sinner. Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. Three days later he resurrected from the dead. Believing this message I admit I am a sinner, I repent of my sins and by faith I trust Jesus to forgive me of my sins and save me. I am trusting Jesus to save me and keep me until I die. By putting my faith and trust in Jesus I know I will go to heaven when I die. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)
There are three basic schools of thought when it comes to salvation. (and yes I know there are shades of all of these. Please, spare me the emails and comments that I didn’t properly describe YOUR tribe)
There is the “once saved, always saved” school. According to this school of thought once a person is saved they can never be un-saved. No matter what the person does, no matter how the person lives, they are saved forever. A person can stop attending Church, stop doing ANYTHING that remotely suggests that they are saved, yet “once saved, always saved.” One noted writer even said that a person could go to the altar and be saved and then leave the Church, curse God, and live like a heathen the remainder of their life…it matters not, “once saved, always saved.”
This is the belief of most Baptists and many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Salvation becomes a form of “fire insurance.” People don’t want to go to hell, so they get saved. Whew, that’s over. Next!
Coupled with this belief is the notion that the believer will be rewarded some day for doing the right things in this life. 2 Corinthians 5:10 says For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. So, a person might be “once saved always saved” but if they don’t live right they will lose their rewards in heaven. What this loss of rewards is is never clearly defined. Maybe their mansion won’t have indoor plumbing? (John 14:1-6)
Some “once saved always saved” believers realize that their version of salvation really looks bad. They know their brand of salvation looks like it is preaching a “live like hell, still go to heaven” message.
To counter this they teach that Christians who live carnally will be chastised (corrected) by God in this life. If a carnal Christian is not chastised it is proof that they were never “really” saved. After all the Bible says in Hebrews 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Arminian groups hold to a conditional salvation. They believe a person is saved by grace but kept by works. (works they do by the power of God so it is really all of grace) In this school of thought a person can only know they are saved in the present moment. Their future salvation is conditioned on them doing the right things. This is the belief of groups like the Free-Will Baptists, Methodists, Wesleyans, etc.(groups who trace back their heritage to John and Charles Wesley and Jacobus Arminius)
A believer can do certain things that will result in the loss of salvation. Some Arminian groups believe you can only lose your salvation one time. In other word, “once saved, one lost, always lost.” The Bible says in Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Other Arminian groups believe a person can repeatedly saved, lost, saved, lost, saved. They often talk about a line that is crossed, when a person goes from a state of grace to being lost again. I have asked repeatedly over the years exactly where that line is and no one can tell me. I have been told by more than one Arminian preacher, “You just KNOW when you have crossed the line.”
The final school of thought is the Calvinistic school. Calvinist groups, like the Presbyterians, some Baptists, Episcopalians,etc adhere to what is commonly called the five points of Calvinism. (which were actually articulated as a reply to the Arminians) Point number five is the Perseverance of the saints or the Preservation of the saints.
Perseverance of the saints is “once saved, always saved” with a twist. Calvinists believe that salvation is a work done totally by God. From start to finish it is God who does it all. A person can not believe, exercise faith, or anything apart from God giving them the power to do so. Those whom God saves, God keeps. Now, God only saves a certain number of people. God knows exactly how many he will save. They are the elect. They have been predestined to salvation.
The God who saves is the God who causes the believer to persevere to the end. If a person doesn’t persevere to the end then that is proof that they were never saved to start with. For this reason the Calvinistic commenters on this blog consider me unsaved, never having been saved. I didn’t persevere. I have received common grace but not God’s special, saving grace. In other words, God toyed with me and then said fuck you.
No Calvinist can know for sure they are saved. They can HOPE they are. They can constantly examine their lives to see if they are availing themselves to the means of grace, but until they die they can not know for sure they are saved. They MUST persevere to the end to be sure. They are hoping God comes through for them but they won’t know for sure until the end. After all they TOO could be deluded. They TOO could be following a false Christ.
Imagine a person going Church to Church trying to find out the true Christian message of salvation. You would think Christians could agree on the most basic of truths…salvation.
But they don’t.
I am convinced that Christians better hope that God is a universalist. If not…hell is going to be filled with Christians.
The bible seems conflicted about this very important aspect of a Christian’s life. Did anyone stop to ask why something so basic as salvation wouldn’t be clearly described (without conflict) in the scriptures? Instead we have well-meaning groups adhering to very different variations of salvation. It’s because the underlying scriptures that describe salvation seem to be incomplete and disharmonious.
Ah, the dreaded Doctrine of Salvation. Yup. I’ve been battered by this too.
So, is it by faith or by works? Paul says its by faith and not by works. James says its by works because faith without works is dead.
So which is it?
Personally, this is how I see the whole thing works: its a matter of “genuineness”.
Normally, our actions and words are a result of what we truly feel inside.A tree bears its corresponding fruit, says the Messiah.
Here’s the rub: a lot of us have this habit of pretending to be somebody else on the outside, especially if there are potential benefits to doing so. Don’t believe me? Then why do we have such a big issue with piracy, intellectual property rights, and fake products?
I don’t think anyone here would disagree with me when I conclude that there are “fake” humans as well. People who pretend to be someone they are not. We call such people “plastic”, or to use the religious term “hypocrites”.
These are the people who go to church simply to avoid being chastised. These are the people who do works of charity to earn brownie points with their constituents. These are the people who make a big show of their “religiousness” so that people will conclude that they are “good” people. And I can tell you for a fact that a lot of people get away with being labeled “good” just by doing these things.
Problem is, according to the Bible, God is not easily fooled. He looks beyond appearances and checks what truly lies in your heart.
Like a veteran Intellectual Property Policeman, God can spot a fake product from a mile away.
“Nope, this one ain’t mine.” He’ll supposedly say on the last day to those who only pretended to be His followers.
So the issue really is “how do you REALLY feel inside?” Do you REALLY believe in what you’re doing? Or given a chance, would you be rather doing something else?
How would any of us feel if someone only pretended to love us? According to scripture, real love is not about obligation, its about commitment. Being committed to another means that you will stay by that person no matter what happens. Its the kind of relationship a parent has with his/her child. Its the kind or relationship a healthy married couple should have. Even though our spouses and children do things that REALLY tick us off, we should bear with it and stick by them “’til death do us part.” After all, “love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
I will be the first to admit that this is easier said than done. We all believe we deserve to pursue our own happiness. But our pursuit ends, when another’s sorrow begins. Anyone who continues to pursue his/her own happiness at this point is in serious danger of being treated as an outcast by society. For who can stand to be around a completely selfish person?
Faith = salvation + good works. You are saved because you believe, and you do corresponding good works because these are the logical outworkings of your faith. You do them because you genuinely believe in them. A person who says he/she believes and not put his/her money where his/her mouth is is just kidding him/herself.
At least, this is what I believe.
“A person who says he/she believes and not put his/her money where his/her mouth is is just kidding him/herself.”
So if you are truly saved, it would mean that you jump at each and every chance to say and do whatever is consistent with your beliefs, no matter what the cost, right? Do I have questions for you!
I have to hope there’s a universalist god also, as Bruce says, because I can make even less sense out of any other kind.
Hello ismellarat!
Thank you for your questions! Before I answer them, I want you to know that I really appreciate people who ask me serious questions about my faith. That’s one of the reasons why I visit Bruce’s blog: so that I can hear honest questions and criticisms from those who do not believe in what I believe. The more hard questions I get asked, the more I dig deeper into my faith to see if it is genuine, or if I’m just fooling myself.
To answer your first question, I can’t say that I “jump” at every opportunity. God knows that I should be more enthusiastic with my faith. I’m working on it though. If I see an opportunity to share my faith, then I try to do so. This does not necessarily mean that I preach the Gospel outright. Sometimes, its through our quiet acts of charity that the Gospel is preached. I’m working on that too. Does that count as waffling?
I believe that as a general rule, our thoughts, words and actions should be consistent with what we truly believe, and regardless of what others around us believe. I believe we call that “integrity”. A pretty prized value even in our own culture here in the Philippines.
As to your second question, the simplest answer I can give you is that I don’t really know. I’m not like God who can see through people’s hearts and know what they truly believe inside. The best we can do is to make an educated guess based on careful observation of how a person is living his/her life. As the Messiah said: “By their fruit you shall know them.” And even then, as a Christian, I am not supposed to judge. I can only hope and pray for another’s salvation.
Would you mind if I ask you a question in return?
If a law were passed saying that one shouldn’t steal, and a judge came along and said “in the interest of fairness, we will not penalize those who stole any more than those who took the effort not to break this law.” Would you say that that was a good judge or a bad one?
Thanks for responding. That would be a bad judge, and also an unbiblical one, right?
Now, as long as you can’t even hazard a guess as to how much commitment is enough in your own case, or have any idea about the rough percentages of other people who are committed enough to be Christians, you can’t really be said to have any idea of what would constitute a fake, now would you? But God will be judging us all by this standard that he apparently communicates to us so vaguely that we can never know if we meet it. So I’m not sure what else I could ask of you. You seem to believe you have definite standards, and then say “I don’t know,” when it comes to specifics.
My guess would have been that, just as people should have never have a problem doing what is right with respect to other people, a real believer should also never have one with doing what is commanded by God.
Unfortunately I have found that the two don’t always coincide, hence my “backsliding.”
Maybe the secret I’ve been missing is to not think about what I say. Then I might more easily come to believe that I really mean it.
Thanks for your reply!
By your answer to my question, I take it that you agree that a criminal should NOT be treated the same as any other law-abiding citizen, correct? Unless the criminal is given a special pardon, he/she deserves to be meted a penalty for breaking the law. But does this give the law-abider the right to implement judgment? Or is judgment reserved for the author of the law?
Similarly, I cannot go around accusing people of not being saved because I am NOT the author of salvation, and hence have no authority to judge. There is one “accuser” mentioned in the Bible and he happens to be the bad guy.
Furthermore, I don’t think answering “I don’t know” necessarily means uncertainty. If one is certain that he/she does NOT know the answer, then shouldn’t he/she be allowed to say so?
Please don’t take that last statement as a rebuke. I understand why you would consider people who answer “I don’t know” as “waffling”. But there is a differenct between answering “I don’t know” because you didn’t do your homework and answering “I don’t know” because it is truly impossible to know. Like I said, it is impossible to try and look into another person’s heart and know for certain what he/she truly believes in. So I definitely believe that it is not for a human being to judge another on the issue of salvation. As a Christian, I believe that that is for God alone to decide.
I’m curious as to why you came to the conclusion that doing what is right with respect to other people and doing what is commanded by God does not always coincide. Are you perhaps referring to the infamous Old Testament verses on “completely consecrating to God” everything and anyone that the Hebrews conquered when they went into the Promised Land?
I knew what you were getting at with your example, but it doesn’t give me any insight into what I was originally asking about.
I’m always trying to construct a demonstrably good god from people’s claims to have figured out how it “really” works. And I really want someone to be right, because I don’t like the idea of being dead and forgotten.
Not just one who says he makes the rules, and that’s that. Like a hurricane, that kind of god needs no explanation. He just does what he does.
I keep hearing how “good” he is, and when it gets to specifics, it seems we don’t know what the word means after all. What, if he were to do it, would make him bad? Nothing, or not much.
I can’t see how a god who throws people into an eternal hell can be perfectly good – in a way that WE can understand it, unless it’s really true that some people beg for such a place. (But then it would be a simple matter of asking people if they want to go. I don’t, and nobody here does. So we must all be saved. Whee!)
I can hope for a universalist god who would in some way compensate for all the evils happening in this world, to the point where everyone (and probably everything with any kind of consciousness) could look back and say “it was worth it.” It’s a stretch, but it’s something to hold onto. It makes deathbed conversations a lot easier.
You seemed to have taken a meaningful position on what constitutes salvation, so it’s definitely a problem if you can’t determine what the real thing is.
It’s not so much about judging other people, as it is about giving an answer when they ask what they need to be doing and believing. Would a preacher say he doesn’t really know either?
“I’m curious as to why you came to the conclusion that doing what is right with respect to other people and doing what is commanded by God does not always coincide.”
I think there are plenty of examples, and I really wish there weren’t. Let’s start with a person who you believed to be unsaved, but who also told you the idea of an eternal hell didn’t appeal to him (if this needed to be made explicit to you.) Where would you like him to go, and where would God send him? Is there a difference between the two? (For bonus points, where would your pastor say he’s going, if he were asked at the funeral?)
Imagine it’s this person:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank
Come to think of it, isn’t the idea that “you send yourself” to hell, “nobody goes to hell who doesn’t want to be there,” or “hell is locked from the inside by the human heart” a universalist teaching in disguise? It seems that anyone who decides that the place just isn’t fun anymore would have to be getting his wish. I have made a doctrinal breakthrough. Yay!
I’m so sorry ismellarat, I completely forgot about our exchange! I had been so caught up in discussions with Formerchristianatheist that I’ve missed this.
I appreciate you telling me that you really want to find out how it all works. I can tell you for a fact that I myself wish it were crystal clear all the time. Life would be so much easier for humanity if the issue of salvation didn’t leave room for doubt.
But the reality is that salvation (at least the Christian version of it) is by faith.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” – (Hebrews 11:1, NIV)
I think God meant it to be this way so that there can be a distinction between those who truly believe, and those who only say they believe. Again, He is the only one who can determine which is which. That is not for us humans to decide.
What we should be primarily concerned about is what WE OURSELVES truly believe in, because we CAN see what lies in our own hearts.
“No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.” – (1 Corinthians 2:11, NLT)Certainty is not something that is given, it is something that we decide and work out for ourselves.”…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling…” – (Philippians 2:12, NIV)”…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling…” – (Philippians 2:12, NIV)And even then, we are told that it is the Spirit of God which allows us to be certain in the end.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” – (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV)So what then is left for humankind to do? We are left to CHOOSE what to believe in. God has always given us that freedom. But while we can choose what to believe in, we cannot choose the consequences of our beliefs. God cannot prevent you from believing that genocide is right. But you cannot expect to practice genocide without God stepping in the picture to deliver its appropriate consequences.However, that works the other way around as well. If you DO practice what the Bible teaches about proper human behavior, then it should logically follow that God will deliver its corresponding consequences as well. A good place to look is the passages on “Blessings and Curses” in Chapter 28 of the book of Deuteronomy.As Joshua said: “Choose today whom you will serve.” Because we ultimately serve that which we truly believe in.Again, this is how I believe it works. Please take it with a grain of salt. I am not a pastor, nor am I a licensed theologian. By all means confirm what I’ve told you with your own reading and research. Ultimately, only you yourself can decide what to believe and what not to believe.
1 John teaches that if we continue to do good works we are probably OK.
1 John 5:13These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
“Maybe their mansion won’t have indoor plumbing?” ROTFLMFAO!!!!
What an Apostate!!! I LOVE this man! (In the words of Eric Bischoff!)
Bruce wrote: “You would think Christians could agree on the most basic of truths…salvation.”
Mormons have this one covered. Join their one and only true church, so you don’t need to agree with any other Christians, you just need to “follow the prophet,” and if he (always a he) leads you astray, you can still sleep like a baby, secure that you will make it to the Celestial Kingdom.
It was the disharmony and cognitive disonance over what exactly constitutes “salvation” and “worshipping God in spirit and it truth” that started me on my merry way of becoming an unbeliever – after a lifetime of believing the god of the bible, heaven and hell were real.