Must we "accept Christ as our personal savior" in order to be saved?
If so, why doesn't the Bible just say that?
If not, then why do Christians assert it?
I have no tolerance for Christian jargon being passed off as doctrine.
Arranged Marriage: a daughter's perspective
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6 comments:
I'm laughing because your blog reveals just how intolerant you are! LOL
I don't think it is accepting Christ.
Just like I don't think "asking Jesus into your heart" saves. I really don't like that one. The bible doesn't stay either one.
Belief, confession and repentance are foundational to salvation.
I couldn't resist giving you this link.
The link provides a whole list of sayings that are not found in the bible but that are quoted as gospel truth.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/sayings.cfm
and one more that I hear Gothard followers use a lot. "What the parents allow in moderation, the children will do in excess"
Folky Dots said, "Belief, confession and repentance are foundational to salvation."
Indeed, they are critical. But are they the means or the evidence? Can one believe, confess or repent without the Holy Spirit? How do the dead confess? How does one not yet born cry out? Is salvation a process or an event? Are we not now "being saved"? But the new birth, that is surely an event. We are not "being born" What we see in Scripture is God choosing people. We see that they are chosen at a certain point.(in time, although they were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world) We don't see people confessing and repenting and THEN God comes into the picture. God moves first. God regenerates the heart, then He gives them the gift of faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) so they can believe, confess and repent.
That link was a fun read. I know I've never had an original thought, and that is just more proof!
I do believe that God moves one to seeing the need of salvation.. I would have to think more about it but as a tentative answer I would say that I believe salvation to be a one time event, we are born once physically and once spiritually and afterward the process of santification etc starts.
Referring to Ephesians 2:8-9 I've not believed it was the "faith" in that verse that was the gift. I believe it is the being "saved" in that verse that is the gift that the word "it" refers too.
In English grammar, a pronoun refers to the noun which most immediately preceded it. In the case of the verses in Ephesians, the word "faith" is the closest noun before the word "that". If the "that" referred to "grace" then the sentence would say, "For through faith have you been saved by grace and THAT not of yourselves, IT is the gift of God."
I am assuming that the translators, who knew both Greek and English, translated it so that it would have the same meaning in both languages and not different meanings, whereby the pronoun actually referred to the word "grace" in the Greek but they translated it so that it refers to "faith" in English.
In either case, the word "saved" is a verb there, so it can't possibly be referred to by the pronouns "that" and "it"
I do not dispute whether salvation is a gift, by the way. Romans clearly says that "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." But I would also assert that "eternal life" is not a thing that happens at one point in time but is something that is on-going. To me, salvation is a word that is nearly synonymous with eternal life, it is a condition of being that BEGINS when one is born again. Which is why we are told in Philippians to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling." Not that we work to earn it, but that we give it a work out, much like when we work out our muscles we don't create new muscle, we strengthen what is there, we exercise it.
And Paul clearly used the word "saved" to refer to things that happen to the future in those who have already been redeemed or born again. Romans 5:8-11
" But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."
We were justified, reconciled and have already received the atonement, but in the future we will be saved from wrath and will be "saved by his life".
A more thorough study of the word "saved" and "salvation" from Genesis through Revelation reveals that it is not used to refer to an event. The word is commonly referred to in this manner among Christians, such as, "my salvation occurred on X date." But it isn't used that way in the Scripture as far as I can tell.
Always ready to be corrected, of course.
I wanted to clarify also that I'm not opposed to Christians testifying of Jesus or of preaching the gospel.
My intolerance is specifically directed at jargon. At non-Scriptural phrases being elevated to spiritual high places. To the presupposition that when one uses such terms that we all agree it is holy and that we all mean the same thing by using it. Which should be clear from our discussion here, that we don't. :D
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