Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Once Saved Always Saved Message-ID: Date: 11 Dec 89 09:27:55 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 186 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article crf%basil@princeton.edu (Charles Ferenbaugh) writes: >First: many non-Christians will say something like this: if God created >some people who would be saved and thus given eternal life, and He also >created other people who would not be saved and thus receive eternal >punishment, why didn't He just create the saved people only? It seems >that a loving God COULD NOT create beings who were doomed from the >start to damnation. This is indeed q euestion which many unsaved people ask. It is even asked by many saved people. I used to ask similar questions myself. No one will ever come up with an acceptable answer to it, however, because, like many questions which we sin infested people ask, it is extremely ill-posed. The problem with questions like this one is that they are trying to fault God. we have a tendancy to read what God has told us and then assess it in terms of our own outlook on life. We do this because we believe ourselves to be fully rational at all times and more open-minded and omniscient than others including even God Himself. We must constantly force ourselves to remember that our flesh, thoughts, emotions, etc. have been severely infected by sin. As such, we should be constantly forcing ourselves to remember that we ought to humbly admit that there are some things which we just cannot understand because we cannot see them from God's perspective. Our sole means of seeking truth should be the sincere and prayerful study of God's Word. When we encounter something which requires analysis (which is almost always as we dare never assume that something in the Scriptures does not require analysis) then we should keep that point in mind and constantly reanalyze it with other Scriptures as we read them until we finally arrive at a conclusion that is consistent with all of them. This way we give ourselves the oportunity to see things from His perspective and avoid the ever present temptation to mar our understanding of not only God but also His motives by measuring them by our sinful frames of reference. Rather than putting our perfect God on trial, we should put our imperfect selves on trial. Rather than asking God why He would create people whom He does not intend to save, we should be asking ourselves why we, whom God has created, do not want to be saved. This question is very Scriptural, yet most people avoid it as its answer is too painful. I would suggest both careful and repeated reading of passages like Psalm 14:2-3, Psalm 53:2-3, and Romans 3:10-18, in which God emphatically and unambiguously declares that absolutely no one single person, on his own, wants his Creator to be the Lord of his life. For example, Psalm 14:2-3 says "The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, {and} seek God. They are all gone aside, they are {all} together become filthy: {there is} none that doeth good, no, not one.". The more I read the Scriptures the more I begin to realize three critical things. The first is that God is doing things with eternity in view, i.e. the way that things are today is merely the means by which He is preparing for the eternity within which He wishes us, as His wife, to be the recipients of the overflowing of His exceedingly abundantly selfless and all-encompassing divine love. The second is that He is giving us concrete, tangible evidence that every single thing He says is true by doing things in such a way that there can be no possible doubt that each and every one of His assessments is absolutely correct, that each and every one of His promises is kept, and that He Himself has faultlessly and unhypocritically adheared to each and every requirement of His own law. The third is that He is giving us concrete, tangible evidence of the perfection of all of His attributes, e.g. love, patience, mercy, honesty, justness, righteousness, omnipresence, omniscience, wisdom, by having created a forum in which He can put all of them on full display. The last two turn out to be a necessary outcome of the first because God does not want to spend the rest of eternity proving that He is one who can be implicitly and completely trusted. Another thing that is becoming more and more clear to me is that He, with eternity in view, is only concerned that all of these things be fully understood by those with whom He intends to share eternity when they get there. It is not essential that we understand everything right now. For the time being we would do well to just learn to trust that He always does exactly what is best whether or not we understand it. This necessarily includes even those things which appear to us for the moment to be unpleasant like the fact that He clearly knows exactly whom He does not intend to save and who, therefore, will end up in hell. Let us never forget that God is not condemning anyone just because He feels like being mean. We all deserve to suffer eternal damnation because we are such abominable sinners. The fact that He chooses to save any one of us is an evidence of His grace and never to be interpreted as an indication that He ought to be under any obligation whatsoever to save anyone else. Those who remain unsaved because God has not chosen to save them have no one to blame but themselves. Those who have been saved have no one to thank but God. I, personally, would never dare claim that I made any contribution whatsoever, including the claim that I remain saved because of choices that I am making within my sin infested mind. Let us never forget that God is not condemning those whom He does not intend to save to a worse punishment than that which He took upon Himself so that, without compromising His perfect Justice, He would be able to save us from it. He, in fact, took upon Himself a far, far worse punishment than any unsaved person will ever suffer because He took upon Himself all the sins of millions of people and compressed the infinite durations of all of those punishments into only three days. This, in fact, is how He demonstrates the truly infinite nature of His love. The fact that He has chosen to limit salvation to only some subset of the entire human race, which is finite in size, is of little consequence. If He had only chosen to save one person, He would still have gone infinitely beyond the call of duty. He is the one who voluntarily inflicted His own worst punishment upon Himself and He, therefore, is the only one who has the right to decide whom He suffered for. He owes us nothing and we owe Him everything. We would do well to ask ourselves why He bothered saving anyone at all. Some how, from an eternal and perfect perspective, it must all be worth it to Him. Hebrews 12:2 says "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of {our} faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.". While it is true that we ought to just always implicitly believe everything He says and trust everything He does, God is using this period of time to tangibly demonstrate His integrity to us. Anyone who doubts that this proof is necessary need only sincerely look in the mirror for a while. How many times to we, who have been saved and ought to know better, fail to trust God just because His perfect sense of timing in order to achieve the best possible long term solution exceeds our willingness to remain patient? How many times do we fail to believe that God's approach to the resolution of a problem is best just because it causes us more short term grief than we wish to bear? Anyone who is truly honest with himself will admit that in the majority of cases he does not fully trust in either the presence or the ways of the one whom he claims is the Lord of his life. Now back to the question you raised. I would not like to leave it unanswered as you have raised what really is a very important point. The Scriptures do, after all, command us to have ready answers for the questions which others ask us. The question was how do we answer those who ask us why a loving God would create those whom He does not intend to save and, therefore, knows will end up in hell. With all the fore-going in mind, I would like to present to you what I believe to be at least part of the answer. I would suggest that at least one of the reasons that God has not decided to save everyone is that He wishes to tangibly demonstrate that His declaration that we will not choose to do everything His way on our own is correct. If He were to save everyone then He would be, as it were, throwing away the tangible evidence that we aparently need. He would also be failing to demonstrate a crucial element of true justice and discipline which every good parent, school teacher, and judge knows, i.e. the preannounced punishment for a deliberate act of disobedience must be dispensed. >Second: I quote 2 Peter 3:9 (RSV), "The Lord is not slow about his >promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not >wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." >Admittedly there is some question here as to whom the "all" refers to. >Nevertheless, if it were ONLY God's wish that were necessary to bring >about repentance, surely He would not need to be forbearing toward >us? This seems to imply that some element of our own cooperation >is necessary for the repentance to come about... While that would be one way of interpreting this passage, it does not mesh with the rest of the Bible. Please permit me to give an alternate interpretation which does. It is obvious that the words "any" and "all" do not refer to the entire human race. This is true not only because lots and lots of people perish without ever becoming repentant but also because the Scriptures clearly declare that hell will be extremely heavily populated. The terms "any" and "all" can only refer to those whom God has elected to salvation. This does, as you so clearly put it, cause us to wonder why God has to be so patient. The answer turns out to be rather simple. Before God even began to physically create this universe He made His selection hregarding whom He intended to save. This list of names is what the Scriptures refer to as the Lamb's book of life from the foundation of the world. These people would eventually be born throughout the thousands of years that would follow. God also hates sin. HIs hatred of sin is so great that He is constantly confronted with a desire to just destroy this whole place now, i.e. without waiting for its predetermined end. If He were to do this, however, all those whom He had previously elected to salvation would not become born. God is tangibly demonstrating His perfect patience by putting up with the intolerable abomination that sin is to Him until the last person whom He plans to save is born and subsequently saved before He starts the final phase of this era which will culminate in judgement day. It is, therefore, not our cooperation but His own commitments which He refuses to break which cause Him to remain so unbelievably patient. Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3