- All people are basically good, but there might be a few exceptions.
- All good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell.
- The most important teaching of the Bible is to live your life as an example to others.
- Jesus summarizes the gospel as Love God and Love your neighbor.
- God understands that we are not perfect, but he just wants us to do our best. He will do the rest.
- God helps those who help themselves.
- The blood of Jesus gives me healing and blessings.
- The Holy Spirit gives me healing and blessings.
- You must make a decision to follow Christ to be saved.
- Jesus saves us from ourselves and our sins.
- If you make Jesus your savior, you become a carnal Christian. You can then obtain one of the spiritual gifts and receive your full inheritance, jewels in your crown.
- Free will is a gift of God. We must factor in our free will when discussing salvation.
These questions have been asked in many ways over the years and the answers have been changing, usually in a cycle from orthodoxy to liberal drift to reformation to liberal drift. I have heard 12 yes’s or agrees on these questions recently. Most people seem to be splitting the difference and averaging about a 6. Now, I will tell you my own score. Zero. Nada. Zilch. And now, I will go through each of these and explain why I do not agree.
(1) According to the Bible, all people are evil, corrupted by sin. In this present evil age, only two people have entered this world uncorrupted by sin, Adam and Jesus, and only one successfully exited this world without sin. The condition of sin was not understood by the Pharisees, nor the whole Jewish nation with the exception of the remnant elect, all through the Old Testament. This is what the prophets kept complaining about. Remember how Ezekiel laments that he is the last person who believes in the promise of a messiah and God tells him, no, there are 7000 others that He has held back for Himself. Read Romans 3:1-20 from a good word-for-word translation; ESV, NKJV, NASV all do justice to the passage. All men are under the law. All men have evil hearts. All men will be convicted of sin on the last day if left to the works of Law.
(2) Christ came into the world, lived, died and was resurrected to save sinners. He did not come here to save the righteous (or self righteous, as none is truly righteous,) for the righteous do not need saving. Based upon the answer to comment 1, no one is righteous, no one is good, and no one is going to heaven by the works of Law. So, actually, since my heart is evil, and I believe that I AM going to heaven, evil people WILL go to heaven. Of course, there is far more to this than God overlooking my sin. Of course, He will never overlook my sin. That would violate His Holiness and Infinite Righteousness. There has to be another way. Luckily for us, there is.
(3) Most nominal Christians, you would think, would recognize the folly in this statement. Alas, this is not the case. So many people believe that their best testimony is to live pious lives as an example to the world. Hello, people! I’m not putting my life up against the average Mormon, and they are not Christian. Change that to Hindu if you like, and the answer is the same. Piety and righteousness before men is not an exclusive province of Christianity. If you put all of your marbles on your righteousness before men, you will be judged based upon your own righteousness. Before God, as we are developing in these questions, your own righteousness is, well…. Paul says that his own righteousness that he thought he had was dung. Surely, there is more to the message of the Bible than living piously before man. Maybe the real story in the Bible is His rescue of His people for eternity.
(4) Jesus summarizes the Law as Love God and Love your neighbor. Love is a verb in this sentence and it is in the imperative tense. Imperative means command. Command means Law. This is not the Gospel. Jesus was trying to explain to the Jews that their righteousness that they claimed under the law was woefully insufficient. He takes the Law and raises it to the fourth power. Sure, I can avoid murdering my neighbor and stealing his wife and his boat. But can I avoid thinking bad thoughts about him? Paul says that his heart and mind sin before his body ever gets around to it. No, this summary is not the Gospel; this summary is the Law. Jesus came to fulfill the Law because we can’t.
(5) God does understand that we are not perfect, and frankly, He’s not very happy about it. In fact, He banished us from Eden and convicted us all to death. He doesn’t just want us to do our best; He expects us to be perfect! Since we can’t be perfect, in fact, there is absolutely nothing that we can contribute at all to our own salvation, God, in His infinite Mercy, sent His Son into the world to save us all, all of those to whom He would give the free gift of Grace and Belief.
(6) Amazingly, most people these days think this is a Bible verse. It is, of course, from Benjamin Franklin. God judges those who help themselves; He judges them under the Law. The verdict is guilty, and the penalty is eternal separation from our God.
(7) (8) These two are the same. The blood of Jesus is not some magic talisman, nor is the Holy Spirit a cosmic butler. The blood of Jesus is not an object to be wielded. Jesus’ Blood was spilled in sacrifice of atonement to propitiate believers to God. When we speak of the Blood of Jesus, we need to keep in mind why it HAD to be spilled, for whom it was spilled, and what it purchased for us. The Blood of Jesus is a shorthand for the reconciliatory and atoning work of Jesus on the Cross; nothing more and nothing less. The Holy Spirit came into the world to give the gift of faith to His people. He testifies about Jesus; nothing more and nothing less. Without the work of the Holy Spirit, we are all lost.
(9) This one will get a resounding yes from most Americans, unfortunately. If you follow the logical arguments above, there is no possibility of agreeing with this proposition. The only decision of which I am capable on my own is to deny the Truth of Scripture and to choose that which I perceive is the best available option. The problem is that my perception is tainted by sin, thus I cannot ever choose God. The Holy Spirit is the solution of God to this problem. The Holy Spirit is sent to testify about the Truth of the work of Jesus, in His life, death and resurrection, and to give the gift of faith to those whom He would choose. The Pelagian heresy is anathamized even by Rome.
(10) It is amazing to me that people don’t get this one right. Sin is the problem, the consequence of sin is the Wrath of an Angry God. The Wrath of God for sin is the main issue. We have gravely offended the Holy, Almighty and Just God. Justice will be served. We are saved FROM the Wrath of God.
(11) This is the standard Pentecostal formula. They assert that there are two levels of believer: the carnal Christian verbalizes belief while the fully vested Christian manifests some “spiritual gift” and conforms to some man imposed ethical standard. The brute damage that this theology does to the Gospel, to the Crucifixion of Christ, is beyond all limits. This is truly that “other gospel” to which Paul associated the super apostles in Corinth. As C.S. Lewis says in the Screwtape Letters, just get them to believe the Gospel and…. And anything, it doesn’t matter. Just add anything on to the Gospel and it is no longer the Gospel.
(12) Free will is of man. Free will is nothing more than our mind choosing between the best options available as we perceive things. The gospel is alien to us, outside of us. We cannot perceive the Gospel without the gift of Grace from the Holy Spirit. We are free to choose whatever we like from the options available to us. But as Paul says in Romans 3:1-20, we are completely incapable of choosing God; we don’t want to choose God; we would not have made a different choice than Adam. Free will does not help us in the least with our salvation.
I’m sure I’ve been treading on some toes with heavy steel tipped work boots. I might respond to comments on this thread, or I might respond by email, depending on the tone of the comment and my view of the comment as a teaching point. I have presented the reformed position. If you are not Roman Catholic, this is your Christian heritage. Why are you giving back the farm? There was a time when Protestants held these positions, believed these Biblical doctrines. This alien righteousness that Christ provides to His flock by the free gift of faith in Him through the power of the Holy Spirit is the thesis of the Bible. This is the purpose of that rescue mission. This is the Gospel.
--Troll--
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