What is God's role in salvation?

[Lamb]

We've seen a lot of threads about what members think is man's role (or none) in salvation. Is God limited in saving you? Does He sit back and wait for you to do something before He can proceed? Is God a distant God then in your salvation and you take the front role?

 

[Josiah]

For those saved, God has EVERYTHING to do with justification (narrow, initial). Jesus is the Savior. Thus, Jesus is the Savior. Not self.

 

[Josiah]

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Answer this: WHO is the Savior?


IF you answer "Jesus" then Jesus is the Savior. Not you - not a bit, not at all, not now, not ever, not in any way or shape or form or manner. Salvation is entirely, wholly wrapped up in Jesus. It's entirely HIS work. HIS heart. HIS love. HIS mercy. HIS gift. HIS blessing. His life, His death, His resurrection. His Cross, His blood, His sacrifice. His righteousness, His obedience, His holiness. Not you. Not yours. You may have some other role in some other matter, but not this. The "job" of Savior belongs to Jesus. Not you.

IF you answer "me" then you are the Savior. Not Jesus. Not a bit, not at all. Not now, not ever. Not in any way, shape or form or manner. Salvation is all wrapped up in YOU. YOUR works. YOUR will. YOUR love. YOUR efforts. YOUR merits. YOUR obedience. YOUR righteousness. YOUR holiness. YOUR sacrifice. Not Jesus. Not Jesus'. Jesus may have some other role in some other matter, just not this one. The Savior is you.

Which is it? Try answering that.




Problem is:

The Devil and our egotistical sinful self WANTS to say "me." The devil will do ANYTHING to get us to make Jesus smaller and self bigger, to get the attention off the Cross and on the mirror....

The Devil will TRY to suggest that Jesus is ANYTHING but The Savior. The Possibility-Maker perhaps ("Jesus opened the door to heaven but you gotta get yourself through it") or a Helper maybe ("You can't do anything in this regard, but you get a lot of help from your friends...."). Or The Imspiror or The Teacher or The Example.... anything (even great things).... anything that's NOT the SAVIOR.

All non-Christian religions teach that no Savior is needed. Self can do it (with sufficient help, inspiration, instruction and above all, effort). It may take you a million reincarnations but YOU can DO it. The central point where Christianity separates from every other religion is that Christianity holds that fallen man CANNOT save himself (no matter how much help or inspiration or instruction he gets).... he needs a divine SAVIOR.... and God provided that. There is no other name under heaven by which any may be saved (including his own). Every other religion tells you to look in the mirror.... Christianity tells you to look to the Cross.

Some play all kinds of GAMES with this - THE most important issue in eternity. They'll say, "Well, it's 99% Jesus and just 1% me." When you ask about that "1%" you quickly find out that "1%" is THE reason they are going to heaven... so we're right back to the Savior of me is me. And BTW, all other religions say it's only "partly" self, too.




My position is simple... and is the foundation and the distinctive characteristic of Christianity... on which all eternity hinges....

JESUS (and NO OTHER including self, there is NO OTHER name under heaven by which any may be saved)
IS (factually, really)
THE (total, 100%, exclusive, effectual)
SAVIOR (not just helper or possibility-maker or door-opener or inspiration or teacher or model)


The devil and our own sinful, fallen self will push away from that as much as we can... try to make it as complicated as possible... but it's pretty simple.



- Josiah




.

 

[Arsenios]

We've seen a lot of threads about what members think is man's role (or none) in salvation. Is God limited in saving you? Does He sit back and wait for you to do something before He can proceed? Is God a distant God then in your salvation and you take the front role?

What is His Role?

What is the Bride-groom's role in a Marriage?

What the Bride's?

How does this relate to the Parable of the 10 Virgins?


Arsenios

 

[Lamb]

What is His Role?

What is the Bride-groom's role in a Marriage?

What the Bride's?

How does this relate to the Parable of the 10 Virgins?


Arsenios

You didn't answer my question.

 

[MennoSota]

You didn't answer my question.

Arsenios can't...or he won't.
God is Sovereign. He looks upon rebellious humanity and He chooses whom He will pardon and restore into covenant. Thus, He also leaves people to die under the curse of sin.
This is God's Sovereign right. I have no say in the matter. I am at the mercy of God, fully dependent upon His grace to save me.

 

[Josiah]

IMO,

THIS is THE most important issue in the universe.... in eternity....

THIS is THE issue on which all Christianity is built, THE "keystone"

Get this wrong and all Christianity crumbles.

And for that very reason, THIS is the issue Satan and our sinful flesh will work hardest to mess up, to make complicated, to make hard to understand. The enemies of God will work OVERTIME to make Jesus as small as possible and self as big as possible; to make sin as small as possible and salvation as irrelevant as possible, to get us to look to the mirror rather than to the Cross., to lift up self rather than Christ. They will work HARD to make Jesus only a helper or possibility-maker or inspiration or teacher or model... and they often succeed.


THE most important issue there is. There is NO OTHER issue about which Christians should be more clear, more bold, more certain.



- Josiah




.

 

[TurtleHare]

God's role in salvation is all of it that is active and man's role is all of it that is receiving passively only because of God's grace and that's the fact Jack. :bishop1:

 

[Josiah]

God's role in salvation is all of it that is active and man's role is all of it that is receiving passively only because of God's grace and that's the fact Jack.

Amen!


Problem is: Some will say "SURE, but you gotta ____________, you gotta __________, you gotta _____________" which of course creates an oxymoron, a contradiction that just effectively eliminates the "sure." Many will even convey something like "Jesus does 99% of it, and we only do 1%" but as they express that, that 1% turns out to be THE part that actually determines where they will spend eternity... and means that Jesus isn't the Savior at all.


Nothing more important .... in all the universe.... in all eternity....



- Josiah

 

[Wilhemena]

The approach toward salvation can be viewed through cause and effect whereby God causes the effect of salvation for men and not the other way around.

 

[Arsenios]

Amen!


Problem is: Some will say "SURE, but you gotta ____________, you gotta __________, you gotta _____________"
Nothing more important .... in all the universe.... in all eternity....
- Josiah

You answer to the "You gotta repent" is "You don't gotta do nuthin'!"

I got-ya!

So if ya ain't already Saved, ain't nuttin' you can do about it...

Ya gotta wait and do nuttin' until you are saved...

If'n ya ain't been saved yet, fergittabout it!

Got it!


Arsenios

 

[Andrew]

You answer to the "You gotta repent" is "You don't gotta do nuthin'!"

I got-ya!

So if ya ain't already Saved, ain't nuttin' you can do about it...

Ya gotta wait and do nuttin' until you are saved...

If'n ya ain't been saved yet, fergittabout it!

Got it!


Arsenios

The believer will repent in their hearts because being a believer means that you no longer walk with the rulers of this world but you walk in newness in Christ. The believer hates sin, though we will sin again it doesn't go unnoticed because you will feel conviction in your heart and well, we learn and we grow, God will not leave your side and he will raise you up... it's part of the regeneration and transformation.. The New Adam.

 

[Arsenios]

The believer will repent in their hearts because being a believer means that you no longer walk with the rulers of this world but you walk in newness in Christ. The believer hates sin, though we will sin again it doesn't go unnoticed because you will feel conviction in your heart and well, we learn and we grow, God will not leave your side and he will raise you up... it's part of the regeneration and transformation.. The New Adam.

So what can a non-believer do to be saved?

Josiah says absolutely nothing whatsoever ever...

What say you?


Arsenios

 

[Lamb]

So what can a non-believer do to be saved?

Josiah says absolutely nothing whatsoever ever...

What say you?


Arsenios

The non-believer can do nothing apart from God acting first. God brings believers into the lives of the non-believer whether it's by mailing out Law and Gospel in a tract, personal contact and giving them His word or inviting them to church to hear about Jesus.

God is very active in our lives. Please stop making him appear so distant as if he's waiting up in heaven for man to make the first move. That's not biblical.

 

[Lamb]

You answer to the "You gotta repent" is "You don't gotta do nuthin'!"

I got-ya!

So if ya ain't already Saved, ain't nuttin' you can do about it...

Ya gotta wait and do nuttin' until you are saved...

If'n ya ain't been saved yet, fergittabout it!

Got it!


Arsenios

The unbeliever does not want to be saved because he doesn't believe in God.

 

[Andrew]

So what can a non-believer do to be saved?

Josiah says absolutely nothing whatsoever ever...

What say you?


Arsenios

Lamm took the words right out of my mouth she has your answer

 

[Arsenios]

The non-believer can do nothing apart from God acting first.

So the non-believer cannot sin unless God causes him to sin?

I mean, I think you are remembering Christ telling us that we love God because God first loved us...

And I fear that you have turned that message into a philosophical principle of existence...

Your assertion falls on its face when you apply it to Herod murdering all the children trying to kill Christ...

"The non-believer can do nothing apart from God acting first."

So Herod could not have murdered all those infants apart from God acting first???

We have to be careful in our thinking about these matters...

God brings believers into the lives of the non-believer whether it's by mailing out Law and Gospel in a tract, personal contact and giving them His word or inviting them to church to hear about Jesus.

Often this is, or has been, the case...

God is not limited to these means, however...

Indeed, Paul Himself had very direct intervention by Christ on the Road to Damascus...

God is very active in our lives.

I agree, which is my whole point, and beyond that, God is very active in every human life...

And this is true whether one knows it or not...

Whether one is a believer or not...

He is constantly ever-seeking the conversion of the sinner...

And when the time is right, God issues forth His Call to repentance to the non-believer...

And when that Call comes forth from God,
the sinner will see his whole life
as God's preparation of him
for the sake of that Holy Call to repentance...

Please stop making him appear so distant as if he's waiting up in heaven for man to make the first move. That's not biblical.

That is Josiah's argument, not mine... He is arguing that until God saves you, what Josiah calls limited justification, you are nothing but a dead corpse who can do nothing for the sake of its salvation... For the one not knowing God, there is nothing for that one to DO except continue offending God is unrighteousness until God acts, and only THEN can and will one BEGIN to repent from one's sins... So for Josiah, God is utterly remote from man until God saves man, and then "God is very active among us"... And with this I utterly disagree - God is not merely the God of the Jews, but of the Gentiles too... And His Call for them only took place AFTER the Jews rejected Christ without repentance for many years after crucifying Him...

I am saying that one can live a life in repentance from sin as an unbeliever - There have always been righteous unbelievers who knew not God... The Roman Army relied on them, especially the Centurions, to honorably fight their wars... They existed in Homeric times, and indeed in all ages... The pre-Christian Jews knew many of these who were men of God by Faith, yet "who, apart from us, were not made perfect..." (Hebrews) Each and every person who ever existed will be judged at the great and dread Last Judgement according to the lives they lived... By their deeds...

Enough for now...


Arsenios

 

[Lamb]

So the non-believer cannot sin unless God causes him to sin?

Sinning is not the path to salvation. God does not cause people to sin. They do that because of the Fall. I'm not sure why you would try to make such an argument. I think it's a ridiculous one.

Non believers do not repent because they do not turn to God. That's what Christian repentance is. Your definition is worldly man's and doesn't apply to salvation.

 

[Arsenios]

The unbeliever does not want to be saved because he doesn't believe in God.

The unbeliever in my case certainly wanted nothing to do with so-called Christians who were perceived to be little more than judgmental hypocrites...

Now granted, I am not a normal example, but AFTER I knew God, He let me think He was not the Christian God for 14 years...

In fact, I knew for a fact that the God I knew had nothing to do with the God of those "Christians"...

When He finally told me I am a Christian, I was utterly scandalized at the very idea...

I had been walking with God and talking with Him for 14 years, living only because of Him...

So I know first hand that Salvation can be found by unbelievers...

I still question my faith, but not Whom I KNOW...

I seriously think I am a faithless wretch...

But God is NOT in question in THIS wretched soul...

Maybe someday He will be in question...

Perhaps as old age progresses...

Or disease perchance arises...

But "If ever I forget Thee O Jerusalem..."

I do not want to live...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

God does not cause people to sin.

Then why do you argue: "The non-believer can do nothing apart from God acting first."???

Because you argue that non-believers can only sin, and "can do nothing apart from God acting first."

I agree it is a silly argument, but it is you, and not I, who is making it...

Non believers do not repent because they do not turn to God. That's what Christian repentance is. Your definition is worldly man's and doesn't apply to salvation.

Sin is the result of being born in the Fall of Adam into death, which is the ad-mixture of knowing Good and evil... Only God can know both and remain pure, which is another reason why we are baptized into Christ... Sinning has always been a matter of degree among all people, according to the person, which is why the Judgement is according to each person and what deeds they have done in their lives... Repentance is turning from sin, and we are Called by God TO repentance from sin... But God is always acting in us even prior to this Call - And this you seem to deny... That God is only the God of the already Saved, when the fact is He is working in the lives of all sinners unto their conversion when Called by Him...

Sinning man knows he is sinning, even when he is an unbeliever... Some engage their sin to overcome it, and others embrace it, and most are mixtures, and God is active among them all, and He is active in the lives of believers who also are struggling with sin, or not, who are embracing it...

The embracing of sin in the world does not lead to one's Salvation, but struggling against sin does, especially now after Christ's Incarnation...


Arsenios