Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | John 3:16 ¶ "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 3:16 ¶ "For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life. |
Subject: What does the word"believe"involve |
Bible Note: DD4Truth, You said, "This would indicate that we are saved at belief but would still perish without repentance." Not at all. Repentance is the work of God. This is a very poor understanding of what it means to be saved. It speaks as if salvation includes only our forgiveness. On the contrary, what was purchased for us at the cross is not merely justification, but Christ also purchased for us our sanctification. Ezekial describes the salvation of God quite different. Eze 36:25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. Eze 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Eze 36:27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. God does not merely sprinkle us with clear water, he puts a new heart in us and gives us his spirit such that we will be caused to obey his rules. This involves repentence. Further we see what Christ purchased in the new covenant in Hebews 8 involves not just forgiveness, but that God (not us) will right his words on our hearts. I believe this is referring to the same thing Ezekiel was referring to. Again we see in 1 John. 1Jn 3:9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. So we see obedience flowing from salvation, indeed part of that salvation. Again in Romans in Chapters 6-8 Paul goes through a lengthy discussion why justification by faith alone does not lead to the freedom to sin. And his answer is that we can not go on sinning because of our ongoing union with Jesus Christ through the spirit. And such is the testimony of scripture. We are not saved then to see whether or not we will repent, nor do we repent to earn our salvation. Rather, our new found obedience and repentence is part of the salvation that God has worked upon us and we should never speak as if that salvation will be found seperate from repentence. And so we rightly say that our being united to all the blessing of Christ, both the justification and the spirit led obedience comes from faith alone. Php 3:9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, Gal 2:16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. Rom 4:5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, We are saved by faith alone, but faith is never alone. Repentence is part of the salvation which was worked upon us. If we have no repentence, that salvation a man might claim is not the salvation that scripture describes. In Christ, Beja |