ALittleLightInDarkness said:
. . . And the third peice of biblical proof is that God promises you heaven once you are saved. . . .
If by "saved" the above means receivng the New Birth, their statement is absolutely not true, a mere opinion without any Scriptural basis.
On the contrary, God's promises of eternal Life in the Holy Word always come with a qualifier, it stating who qualifies for the promise. Sometimes these qualifiers are vague, them saying nothing more than perhaps someone must "believe." And of course since many believe many different things, and most disagree, we cannot therefore know exactly what must be believed based solely on these intentionally ambiguous passages.
On the other hand, there are numerous Biblical passages that do tell humankind exactly what must be believed, such as 1 Jn. 2:3-5, Luke 10:25-28, 1 John 4:16-18, Rev. 22:14, and in such a plain way as to require no interpretation (it is in fact when man attempts to intellectually interpret such otherwise clearly stated Scriptures, whereby He hangs himself via his perversions of said Word),
Nowhere in the Holy Bible, not so much as in one place, is eternal Life promised to someone based solely on the fact they were born-again--as great and genuine a first step of Grace as is that New Birth; it's not there, being the product of man's superstitions, conjectures, surmisings, intellectual wranglings, and whatever other humanistic insistences/devices.
The doctrine of eternal salvation cannot be arrived at by just one or two verses. All Scriptures concerning such must be combined and not only harmoniously agree with each other if a true doctrine is to be extracted, but all the Bible and all the attributes and methodologies of God must align.
Eternal Life is only promised by God in His Word to those who have allowed Him by Grace and Spirit only ("so that no man can boast"), to perfect His Love in them, whereby they will eventually be found--if they live long enough--walking in obedience to God's Commandments.
Such requires many steps of Grace be received.
Grace is singular and plural; "by Grace are you saved."
However, that said, if the poster meant to confine her opinion of "heaven" as being actually just paradise, the present/old Heaven where likely all born-again believers await Judgment/Redemption/Resurrection Day, then she/he is correct in my personal opinion--the Word is intentionally not crystal clear but seems to imply such. But we should all be far more concerned whether, after that Day, we will later be allowed entrance into the New Heaven, New Jerusalem, the eternal Holy City, thereby given access to the guarded Tree of Life. Such requires us being committed in the Law of the mind at whatever cost, in this life, to allowing God to further perfect His Love in us, per the above and the Scriptures I referenced.
brotherjim
