Sure an inheritance is earned...try being a nasty nephew and see what the rich uncle leaves you.
But does God offer us a spiritual inheritance in Christ on this basis? Did He send His Son to die for us because we were "good nieces and nephews"? Does He offer us the gift of salvation in Christ because we have earned it? Scripture is very clear that God acted in love toward us while we were wicked sinners (
Romans 5:8) and "alienated and enemies in our minds toward Him by our wicked works." (
Colossians 1:21). It is in this condition of alienation and enmity that God holds out to us a spiritual inheritance in His Son. And when a sinner takes hold of the eternal gift God offers in Jesus, he does so unable to claim that he has done anything to earn it - just like the man in my analogy.
He won't leave you much, but will leave a lot to the nephew he loves. God is the same. Those that go to God following God's conditions will be loved by God. And even though God loves ALL His creation, those that do not meet His conditions will be lost. He is a just God.
You say God loves "all of Creation" but did Christ die for all of Creation? No, he atoned only for the sins of wicked humanity. God has a unique interest in, and love for, people - even when they are not obeying Him.
The man in my inheritance analogy must meet certain conditions to benefit from what his rich uncle has left him. As I explained, he must know and believe that he has an inheritance and then he must receive it. None of these things, though, do anything to earn the inheritance. The inheritance, in my analogy, is given as God's is to us, totally apart from the inheritor having done anything to deserve it.
Titus 3:5-7
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
As to Romans 12:3
God offers His grace to all, it is our responsibility to answer to it. We are saved BY GRACE, THROUGH FAITH.
The grace is God's, the faith is ours.
No, as
Romans 12:3 indicates, the faith is not ours, but is given to us by God. We exercise the faith God has dealt to us in measure.
Ephesians says our salvation is not by our WORKS, verse 9, but it must necessarily be by our faith since it is faith that saves us.
But as
Romans 12:9 says, even our faith is imparted to us by God. And it is not
our faith that saves us but the
object of our faith: Jesus Christ. As Paul stated in his letter to Titus, "He (God) saved us."
Ephesians 1:13 AFTER listening to the message of truth and having believed...we were sealed with Him.
Yes. I don't take the Calvinist view that God forces us into his kingdom. But it is only because God has first acted positively toward us, and enabled us to respond to the Gospel in kind (
2 Timothy 2:25), that we may do so.
As to John 6:44
God has revealed Himself to all the world.
He revealed Himself to ALL of Israel, not just some persons.
The verse does not speak of
revealing, but of
drawing. God draws men to salvation. If He does not, as Jesus says, no man can come to him.
Stop taking your medicine and the pneumonia will kill you.
This entirely misses (or ignores) my point which was that, whether or not one believes the medicine is helpful, it is
still one's own medicine.
No sir. This is not correct.
Romans 9 to 11 is speaking about the nation of Israel and the Jews. Do not confuse this with the rest of the book which also speaks about INDIVIDUAL salvation.
Yes, it is correct. I have not confused what Paul wrote about concerning the Jews (and you have not shown that I have).
God never abandons us, but WE abandon HIM. If we drift from Him we are most definitely in danger of losing our salvation.
If a person drifts from God, there's a good chance they were never saved. But if they were truly saved and have drifted, doing so no more dissolves their membership in God's family than the profligacy of the Prodigal dissolved his membership in his father's family (which it didn't). Our adoption into God's family is entirely contingent upon Christ, not us. God accepts us because of His beloved Son, period. The redemptive work of Jesus at Calvary was perfect, fully satisfying God's justice, and cannot be added to or improved by anything we might or might not do.
And since the foundation of our salvation and acceptance by God is the perfect and unchanging Saviour, our acceptance with God never changes.
If we DENY HIM, He will DENY us.
Mathew 10:33
2 Timothy 2:12
( and I sure hope you know what it means that God is faithful to HIMSELF in verse 13)
Is
Matthew 10:33 speaking of people who are saved and then deny their Saviour? I don't think so. It is the lost who have denied and will deny Christ, not the saved.
2 Timothy 2:12-13
12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:
13 If we believe not, yet he abides faithful: he cannot deny himself.
Again, it is the lost who reject, refuse, disavow (all legitimate synonyms for "deny") the Saviour, not those who have been truly born-again. (
1 John 2:19)
The above verses are absolutely right.
As long as we remain in Christ and ALLOW him to work, the above will be accomplished.
This isn't what the verses say, however. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, God (not us) begins a work in each of His children and He (not us) will bring that work to completion. (
Philippians 1:6) This is repeated by Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians. The God who wants to sanctify completely His children and make every part of them blameless, Paul writes, is faithful to do so. Our salvation is God's work and our practical sanctification is His work. And this work God has promised to fulfill and complete.
He does this whether or not I want Him to. Imagine if God had waited for rebellious sinners, alienated from and at enmity with Him, as Scripture says, to turn of their own accord, and humble themselves, and receive His love, grace and forgiveness.
He'd still be waiting! God is always taking the initiative with us, moving us in directions we often don't want to go. I see in this just how little my desire and ability to please God has to do with my relationship with Him. In fact, without God, I would have neither the desire nor the ability to do His will. (
Philippians 2:13)
How can He work, however, if we LEAVE HIM??
How did He save us when we were totally separated from Him by our sin, at enmity with Him in our minds and hearts and so completely alienated from Him? Despite our terrible condition, He still manages to save us. You see, w
e aren't what is important,
He is.
Have we lost our free will? Will He force us to be saved and go to heaven even if we don't want to?
No, we have free will. But He makes us able to exercise that will positively toward the Gospel.
Only those who WANT to be in heaven will be there.
And we only want heaven if God has persuaded us to want it. Again, God is the crucial factor, not us.
Biblically knowledge means in the heart, but I know what you mean.
No, it doesn't
always mean this. Where did you get this idea from?
You're referring to Mathew 5:13
JESUS says:
New American Standard Bible
"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men."
I believe the above really needs no explanation...
YOU refers to those who are the salt of the earth... US
IF we lose our taste it means we are no longer the saved.
We become GOOD FOR NOTHING and are THROWN OUT and TRAMPLED underfoot.
Doesn't sound like heaven to me!
Well, hang on, now. To whom was Jesus speaking and when? He was speaking to unsaved Jews, primarily. and he said what he did in
Matthew 5:13 before he had died on the cross and made it possible for people to be born-again. So, no, he wasn't speaking to "US," that is, saved people when he spoke of the "salt of the earth." There were no saved people at the time.
Which deflects my question.
You could "claim" to be a son of the Father all you want to...
But if you gain nothing from it, what good does it do??
But as the parable of the Prodigal makes clear, the Prodigal's sonship was very beneficial to him. He gained an inheritance, and when he had used it all up, he was able to return to the loving, fully-accepting arms of his father.
As to
1 Corinthians 3:14, I'm willing to discuss it...
but does it really mean THE SINNER??
Or does it mean the teachers who are building on a foundaiton??
See verse 9
How does
verse 14 start? "If
any man's (or anyone's)...
Verse 11: "No man"...
Verse 15: "If
any man"...
Verse 12: "Now if
any man's..." Seems pretty clear to me that Paul was speaking in a very general sense and not specifically about teachers.
However, dead biblically speaking, means death spiritually.
No, it doesn't. I already pointed this out to BobRyan in this thread:
I see the term "dead" used in a number of ways in the New Testament:
It is used figuratively.
Matthew 28:3-4
3 His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.
4 And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
It is used literally.
John 11:14
14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead."
It is even used in connection with non-biological things.
Hebrews 6:1
1 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
I don't see, then, that there is the reason you suggest for thinking that, when the father in the Prodigal parable says that his son was "dead," that he meant "dead in trespasses and sins."
As to works-salvation...
There is no such concept that we are saved by works.
I do not believe in works salvation.
I'm afraid you do - though, you do so one step removed from conversion. You don't say one can be saved by works, but you do say that salvation can only be maintained or preserved by good works. This is, to quote BobRyan, "a distinction without a difference." If your works are necessary to the retention of your salvation, then your salvation is works-dependent. This is works-salvation which Scripture flatly denies.
To analogize: Imagine a judge who casts a serial murderer into prison with the declaration, "I am keeping you in jail for the rest of your life!" The murderer is jailed and is never released. Who has actually kept the murderer in jail? The judge? Or the staff at the prison? The prison staff, of course. Whatever the judge has claimed about his role in the convict's fate, the practical reality is different. You seem to be thinking in a similar way. God says, "I save sinners!" but you think that, really, you are kept in God's kingdom - you are saved - by dint of your own efforts. You give lip service to
Ephesians 2:8-9 but think and live practically in contradiction to these verses. At least, that's how it looks to me. Am I mischaracterizing your position?