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NASB | Ephesians 3:6 to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Ephesians 3:6 [it is this:] that the Gentiles are now joint heirs [with the Jews] and members of the same body, and joint partakers [sharing] in the [same divine] promise in Christ Jesus through [their faith in] the good news [of salvation]. |
Subject: Lionstrong, this is not universalism. |
Bible Note: Tim: Here we are again! I REALLY tried this time to keep out of the "5 points" discussion, but every time I try to get out, they pull me back in! :) In the Reformed position, there is a certain sense in which we were saved 2000 years ago at Calvary, for that is when the debt was paid for our sins: "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." --Romans 5:8 In addition, regeneration (rebirth) logically precedes faith in the Reformed view, since our spirits must be made alive in order for us to stop rejecting the gospel. Temporally speaking, they are simulatneous; that is, we place our trust in Christ at the same time that we are spitirually regenerated. The question is which is the "domino that knocks the other one over." The Reformed position states that God is the unilateral cause of us placing our faith in His Son: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," --1 Peter 1:3 Now we know Ephesians 2:8-9. In my perspective, this is the expanded, full version of the evangelical idea "justification by faith." We are saved BY God's grace THOUGH faith in Christ alone. All of this is the gift of God. So grace is from God, and faith is a gift from God that we ourselves place in Christ. Therefore, I hold that our justification was planned in eternity past, secured in 1st-century Judea, and applied to us (made manifest) when we were regenrated by the Holy Spirit of God, placing faith in Christ. The tricky thing, Tim, is when we start talking about an aspect of God which you often have brought up: his timelessness. If we ask, "When does God consider us righteous?" we have a hard time answering that. Those who were God's people before Christ's arrival, were they viewed as righteous despite the fact that Christ had not actually atoned for our sins in time and space? (Paul and James seem to indicate that Abraham was.) In our cases, we know that we are "positionally" righteous with God, even though practically speaking we are painfully far away from that as a reality. We also probably agree that while we are justified, God also disciplines us and does indeed see our daily sins against Him. By that I mean that our sinful actions are not "ignored" by God or "invisible" to Him as I hear too many Christians implying; He does indeed care how we live out our Christian lives. So from the perspective of a timeless God, it could be said in a certain sense that outside of time/space, we stand as justified; just as the time/space event of our conversion did not (in an eternal sense) move us out of the unjustified category to the justified one. On the human side of things, justification was made manifest in my life a hanful of years ago. In a historical sense it occurred at Golgotha. From an eternal perspective, God has never counted my sins against me. How is that for an answer? My head is spinning now. I think I need to stop. Happens every time when finite me tries to grasp the infinite. One last point: I do not hold your third option as an alternative, since it still comes to the same conclusion: Christ paid for the sins of those who will be paying for them themselves. And if we are talking about what the most just situation is, we all go to Hell. The Reformed view is not injustice vs. justice; it is mercy vs. justice. The only difference is that we hold that God is not required to show mercy to all (and the Bible clearly shows that He doesn't in the lives of many many individuals and nations). Eagerly awaiting your response! --Joe! |