Recently, I had a woman tell me the following: “To be a Christian is to be a Trinitarian. To deny the Trinity is to deny Christianity.” I question the validity of this statement when no where in my Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, does it state this.
This is an age old debate – whether God is one God (the Heavenly Father) which is called “Unitarianism” or He is a triple God in one (triune) - a three-person “who” in one “what” Godhead (called the Trinity).
Posted in Doctrine, Salvation on April 5th, 2010 2 Comments »
Part of the hope of the Gospel is that one day the world will be restored to its original state, when Christ rules in God’s Kingdom. Jesus refers to this in Matthew and uses another word from the same root as gennao, the word for born or begotten.
Matthew 19:
28 And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration [paliggenesia] when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
This word paliggenesia is only used twice in the Bible. Once in this reference to the regeneration of the world to come, and one other place in Titus.
Posted in Doctrine, Salvation on March 29th, 2010 1 Comment »
The term “born again” is widely used among Christians, and the verse that says “You must be born again” (John 3:7) is often quoted. But many Christians don’t understand what it means to be born again, often because they begin by looking at what the epistles say, and fail to base their understanding on the words of Jesus. I was taught that when one is born again, it is “incorruptible” which was taken to mean that once you received it you couldn’t lose it. This is based on a misunderstanding of I Peter 1:23, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” But this verse tells us that it is the seed that is incorruptible, not the person who receives it.
In the last post, I mentioned that the following items appear to be true:
- In order for an individual to be saved, God needs to explicitly “call” that individual;
- God is not calling everyone.
Assuming that the above items are true, that leads us to another question:
Question 5: Why is God only calling certain people? In other words, why doesn’t God just call everyone, so that everyone has the opportunity to be saved?
As mentioned above, people cannot be saved, unless God explicitly calls them. Also, God is not calling everyone. As a result, the people who have not been called by God cannot be saved. So, that raises an obvious question – why isn’t God calling everyone? Why doesn’t He just call everyone – so that everyone can be saved?
Many mainstream denominations believe that all human beings have complete control over their salvation. Basically, the belief is as follows: Every single human being can just decide to follow Jesus – and can therefore be saved – without God getting involved at all.
Overall, the belief is that God is not part of the salvation process at all. In other words, the belief is that every single human being can just “decide” to be saved – completely on his own.
Is the above idea true? Is it true that everyone can just decide to follow Jesus – and be saved – without God being involved in the salvation process at all? This post, and the one next week, will explore that topic, with a series of “questions” and “answers”.
Last week I asked a couple of questions to collect a cross section of people’s thoughts on the coming Kingdom of God. While the post has since developed into a discussion of another kind, I wanted to revisit these questions and answers with a few thoughts.
I have been observing lately both in my own life and in things I’ve read and heard that the expectation of the coming Kingdom has a very personal perspective. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Here’s what I mean - Christians are looking forward to the Kingdom of God/return of Jesus because we’re going to get a new body, we’re going to never die again, we’re going to see lost loved ones, we’re going to be able to have a lion as a pet, we’re going to share in a lavish banquet, we’re going to see an end of sickness, we’re going to not have to worry about war anymore - etc, etc, etc.
And at long last (sorry for the delay), here’s the conclusion of Homer D. Baxter’s - The Two Adams.
FYI - Here’s direct links to the other three:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
CHRIST WILL RETURN
While the first Adam died and returned to dust because of his disobedience (Gen 3:19), the second Adam sits on the right hand of God fulfilling his official capacity as High Priest and Mediator. He is the link between a righteous God and sinful mankind; mediating in man’s behalf; settling the differences between man and his Creator. When this priestly reign ends, which is better know as the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus will deliver it up to God (1 Cor. 15:24) and will assume his right to become King of Kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16).
Posted in Messiah Jesus, Obedience to Christ, The Cross of Christ, Holy Spirit, Resurrection, Death is Sleep, Age to Come, truth, Ron's Articles, cross, Salvation on April 11th, 2009 No Comments »
Here’s part THREE of the four part booklet - The Two Adams, by Homer D. Baxter. This is the first half of Part II - with the last half of it (or the final quarter) to come next week. A fitting topic (The SECOND Adam) to present here this weekend where we celebrate the Resurrection of our Messiah!
Posted in Salvation on March 5th, 2009 22 Comments »
I thought this portrayed the divergence between early Christianity and modern evangelism methods. (originally from this blog)
In our dialog on the subject of salvation it is important to recognize that there are three tenses used of salvation in the New Testament. The classic text for salvation in the past tense is Eph. 2.8
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
The context of Eph. 2 begins with a description of humankind as dead in trespasses, who walked according to the prince of the power of the air, who lived in the lusts of the flesh, and who were by nature children of wrath. Salvation in this context surely means being delivered from this predicament. This includes forgiveness as well as a cleansing.