- Mar 10, 2015
- 12,433
- 4,605
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Messianic
- Marital Status
- Single
To use an analogy, Dan is going to get married and his friend George is a marriage counselor who gives him a gift of a book containing instructions for how to have a good marriage. Dan is going have a different marriage experience if he trusts George by following his instructions than if he leans on his own understanding of marriage and does what his right in his own eyes instead. Essentially, if Dan has faith in George, then George is saving Dan from having one experience by giving him the gift of teaching him how to have a different experience, so while Dan's salvation requires him to follow George's instructions in order to have a different experience, Dan does not earn his salvation as the result of following them.
In a similar way, we are going to have a different experience if have faith in God by following His instructions for how to rightly live than if we lean on our own understanding by doing what is right in our own eyes instead. If we have faith in God, then He is saving us from having one experience by giving us the gift of teaching us how to have a different experience, so while our salvation requires us to follow God's instructions in order to have a different experience, we do not earn our salvation as the result of following them. For example, God teaching us to have the experience of honoring our parents is intrinsically part of the concept of him saving us from having the experience of not honoring our parents. Eternal life is the experience of knowing God and Jesus (John 17:3) and God's law is His instructions for how to have that experience (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23), which is saving us from having the experience of living in sin, and which is why Jesus said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments (Matthew 19:17, Luke 10:25-28).
In a similar way, we are going to have a different experience if have faith in God by following His instructions for how to rightly live than if we lean on our own understanding by doing what is right in our own eyes instead. If we have faith in God, then He is saving us from having one experience by giving us the gift of teaching us how to have a different experience, so while our salvation requires us to follow God's instructions in order to have a different experience, we do not earn our salvation as the result of following them. For example, God teaching us to have the experience of honoring our parents is intrinsically part of the concept of him saving us from having the experience of not honoring our parents. Eternal life is the experience of knowing God and Jesus (John 17:3) and God's law is His instructions for how to have that experience (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23), which is saving us from having the experience of living in sin, and which is why Jesus said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments (Matthew 19:17, Luke 10:25-28).
