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NASB | Philippians 1:6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Philippians 1:6 I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return]. [Rom 14:10] |
Subject: Am I saved until Christ returns? |
Bible Note: Casey, I've been reading this thread this evening with a great deal of interest. I feel inclined to congratulate you on your good fortune to have Brad and Joe as your "sparring partners" in your first venture on the forum. Whatever the variances of points of view you have with them, they are both of them fine and sensible Christian gentlemen and, believe me, you could have done a lot worse :-) Since you in your most recent post have committed yourself to making no further posts on this subject, I will show respect for your decision by being careful to ask only rhetorical questions, the kind that elicit no answer..... In reading through the thread a recurring idea seemed to pop up in your responsive posts to Joe and Brad. The idea I'm talking about is the idea expressed by such words as experience and feeling. So I would ask you to ruminate on a few questions. And please remember, they are rhetorical and do not require an answer from you to me, but I ask that you please consider answering them for yourself. Are feelings always reliable? Or is there a standard, a measuring rod, such as the Bible, by which to test the reliability of one's feelings? And is this measuring rod more reliable than one's personal, subjective feelings about matters of faith and practice? Are religious experiences as reliable and as didactic (instructive) as Scripture? Does feeling a thing to be true (or false) make it so? Which do you deem more reliable: one's experiences and feelings or Scripture? Casey, my aim in all this is to try to point out that the Christian faith is not built upon man's experiences, feelings, or personal opinions, hunches, inclinations or bias. It is built upon the objective truth of God's word. How I feel about Christ and His finished work on the cross, for example, has absolutely nothing to do with the objective truth of Christ and the cross. How I feel about what I must do to be saved does in no way alter the truth of what God says I must do to be saved. Christianity is not based on man's feelings but on God's truth. I've written these lines off the cuff and hastily, but it is my hope that something I've said may act as a catalyst to spur you to think about the relationship between man's highly unreliable feelings and experiences and God's truth that He reveals in His Word; and to distrust the former, embrace the latter and to rely solely upon it. --Hank |