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Results from: Answers On or After: Thu 12/31/70 Author: respectHim Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | when is someone saved? | Rom 10:9 | respectHim | 58805 | ||
According to the Bible, repentance and baptism mark the beginning of the salvation process, the time of a Christian's commitment to continue to serve God. The completion of our salvation, as long as we remain in this physical life, is yet in the future. As Jesus said, "He who endures to the end shall be saved" (Matthew 24:13). Paul wrote, ". . . Having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Romans 5:9-10). Notice that Paul wrote in the future tense: We will be saved. Our salvation is not complete. We must endure faithfully to the end of our lives. If a Christian at some time during his life, after committing to serve God, turns away and renounces Jesus and God's way in word or action, he will lose his salvation, unless he repents of his error. Jesus described such a situation. ". . . If that evil servant says in his heart, 'My master is delaying his coming,' and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites" (Matthew 24:48-51). "Carousing with drunkards" can describe the literal behavior of an errant Christian, or it can be a metaphor for evil habits in general. Drunkenness is sometimes used in the Bible to symbolize those who are immersed in the sinful attitudes and practices of the world. Paul made it plain that a Christian can fall away and even lose salvation. He wrote that in his own life he found it necessary to practice firm self-discipline, guarding against the encroachment of sin, "lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27). Once we commit our lives to obeying God, the process of being saved has begun in us, although it is still possible for us to fall away (Luke 8:13). Paul said we will be saved if we continue to the end while holding fast the truth preached to us (1 Corinthians 15:2). Our salvation is assured if we do. Salvation, assuring eternal life, will then go to those in the faith who have endured and overcome. Those who are engaged in this spiritual battle need not harbor fears that they will fail to receive eternal life. As we ask God for help, He will keep us from stumbling (Jude 24). "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). Indeed, we can be "confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). Hope this helps. |
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2 | 4th commandment has been done away? | Ps 111:7 | respectHim | 57721 | ||
A passage from Paul's writings, Colossians 2:16, 17, is often used to support the claim that observance of the Sabbath is no longer necessary. "Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ," he wrote. Paul said only to "let no one judge you," which is quite different from saying these practices are unnecessary or obsolete. A more basic question to ask is whether Old Testament practices were even at the core of what Paul was addressing here. Many people assume that the "handwriting of requirements...nailed...to the cross" (verse 14) was God's law and the requirements He gave in the Old Testament. But this is not what Paul meant. The Greek word translated "handwriting" is cheirographon, and this is the only place the term is used in the Bible. It meant a handwritten record of debt, or what we would today call an iou. In contemporary apocalyptic literature, this word was used to designate a "record book of sin," meaning a written account of our sins. Paul was not saying that God's law was nailed to the cross. What was nailed there, he said, was all record of our sins. Because God's law required the death penalty for sin (Romans 6:23), this record is what "was against us, which was contrary to us" (Colossians 2:14), not the law itself. The New Testament in Modern English, by J.B. Phillips, makes this plain, translating verses 13 and 14 as: "He has forgiven you all our sins: Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over His own head on the cross." It is the evidence against us, not the law itself, that was nailed to the cross, enabling us to be forgiven. This becomes clear when we read the rest of this chapter. It is apparent that other issues were involved that had nothing to do with God's laws given in the Old Testament. Among these were "principalities and powers" (verse 15), "false humility and worship of angels" (verse 18), forbidding to touch, taste and handle (verse 21) and "neglect of the body" (verse 23). Further, Paul referred to the false teachings in Colosse as rooted in "persuasive words" (verse 4), "philosophy and empty deceit" and "the tradition of men" (verse 8). He also referred to submitting to "regulations" of this world (verse 20) and "the commandments and doctrines of men" (verse 22). Could Paul, who in Romans 7:12 said the law is "holy and just and good," possibly be referring to the same law here, or is he addressing an entirely different issue? Taking into account the historical context, the answer becomes clear. As the Church grew and developed in the first century, it had to deal with the progressive infiltration of gnosticism. The influence of this thought and practice is particularly noticeable in the New Testament writings of Paul, Peter and John. However that is another subject. Keep in mind that Paul, earlier had said: "The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good" (Romans 7:12); "The doers of the law will be justified" (Romans 2:13), and "I delight in the law of God" (Romans 7:22). If he were saying that Sabbath observance is irrelevant, such an assertion would be completely inconsistent with his other statements. |
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