Subject: To whom do we belong? |
Bible Note: New Creature: You didn't address anything John said in his previous post at all. Was he wrong about something he said? If so, please point out what the passages he quoted really ARE saying, in your view. One problem that I think that we are having (and by "WE" I mean many of us on the forum not including myself) is a failure to understand the church as a covenantal community. In other words, by our baptism we are brought into the communion of saints, the people of God, whether or not we are truly regenerate at the time. Just as people belonged to the nation of Israel but were not saved, so there are people in the church who are not saved. What the writer of Hebrews is addressing, in my view, are those people who are part of the covenant community by virtue of a PROFESSION of faith. These individuals and their families need to make sure that their profession of faith indeed marks a POSSESSION of faith. The Bible makes it very clear that there are individuals in the church who, rather than being once-saved-then-lost, were never truly saved in the first place. These individuals enjoyed many of the blessings of God by living in God's household, despite the fact that they themselves were never truly God's children. For example, after Paul gets done addressing the condemnation of the majority of the Jews for rejecting the Messiah, he defends his theology against a hypothetical objection: "Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God." --Romans 3:1-2 All members of the Jewish community were entrusted with the oracles of God (the law, the priesthood, the sacrifices, the blessings, etc.). The male Jews became recipients of these blessings by virtue of their circumcision, but having all of these things did not make them saved. Paul goes on to describe his anguish for the unsaved among God's covenant community: "I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel" --Romans 9:1-6 In the same way, we can that they are not all the church (i.e. the truly saved) who are in the [visible] church. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to suggest that the recipients of Hebrews were church members whose justification would be made manifest through their perseverance. Nowhere does the epistle insist that those once truly born again are in danger of losing that regeneration (becoming "un-born"?). What the writer of the epistle is warning is that the mark, the evidence of being God's true children is covenant-keeping, not covenant-breaking. Those in the covenant community who break the covenant were never His in the first place: "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'" --Matthew 7:22-23 Jesus NEVER knew them. --Joe! |