h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved."

I hope what I posted in the convo makes some sense, but I thought I'd still take you up here.

This is the verse you mean?

Aye. That's the one. It does seem to imply that vigilance is always required. We can never afford to rest on our laurels.

I don't have time to discuss this now. This is only an acknowledgement that I've noticed your post.

TRiG.

That's ok. We can discuss this or any other topic when you're free and wish to do so.

Well, NPY. I have *some* free time, at least.

How are you?

Do you get my point? You seem to say that some people are assurred salvation, the 'once-saved-always-saved' theology, as I called it. I don't see this in the Bible. Do you? If so, where?

TRiG.

I think this is a complicated issue.

It's not as if you can say a quick prayer or whatever and then go about your life as you like and still get into heaven.

Mark 16v16: He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

Acts 16:30-31: He said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household."

Equally, you can't earn your way into heaven. You can do good stuff, but out of selfish motivations, if you get me.

Matthew 7:21-23: Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. 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.'

2 Timothy 2:12: If we endure, we shall also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us.

Do these other verses make any sense in this issue?

You said: "It's not as if you can say a quick prayer or whatever and then go about your life as you like and still get into heaven."

Good. We're not entierly in disagreement, so.


Let's look at Acts 16. Paul and Silas had been thrown into prison on charge of "disturbing our city very much" and "publishing customs that it is not lawful for us to take up or practice". What they had in fact done was to cast a "demon of divination" out of a servant girl. "She used to furnish her masters with much gain by practicing the art of prediction." And now thay were angry because "their hope of gain had left". (vss 16-21)

"Suddenly a great earthquake occurred, so that the foundations of the jail were shaken. Moreover, all the doors were instantly opened, and the bonds of all were loosened. The jailer, being awakened out of sleep and seeing the prison doors were open, drew his sword and was about to do away with himself, imagining that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul called out with a loud voice, saying: “Do not hurt yourself, for we are all here!” So he asked for lights and leaped in and, seized with trembling, he fell down before Paul and Silas. And he brought them outside and said: “Sirs, what must I do to get saved?” They said: “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will get saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of Jehovah to him together with all those in his house. And he took them along in that hour of the night and bathed their stripes; and, one and all, he and his were baptized without delay. And he brought them into his house and set a table before them, and he rejoiced greatly with all his household now that he had believed God." (vss 26-34)

The jailer had an experience which was to him clear evidence of God's power and a clear demonstration that these men were chosen by God to speak for him. So he had reason to "believe on the Lord Jesus". The jailer also listened to "the word of Jehovah" and was baptised. There is no reason for supposing that, had he stopped believing on the Lord Jesus he would continue to be approved by God. (I believe that the phrase some people use is "in a state of grace", but I may have that wrong.)

Awake! magazine, 22nd May 1990, p. 14 says: "Belief in Jesus as our Ransomer is essential. But it is also necessary to believe what Jesus taught and commanded, to acquire a full understanding of Bible truths. This is shown by the fact that Paul and Silas subsequently “spoke the word of Jehovah to [the jailer] together with all those in his house.” (Acts 16:32) Salvation also involves obedience. Paul later showed this when he wrote that Jesus “became responsible for everlasting salvation to all those obeying him.” (Hebrews 5:9)"



Jude wrote in verse 5 of his letter: "I desire to remind you ... that Jehovah, although he saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those not showing faith." In other words, though salvation of the group was assured, salvation of individuals depends on their continuing faith and obedience - they must remain part of the group.

Jude also said, in verse 3: "Beloved ones, though I was making every effort to write you about the salvation we hold in common, I found it necessary to write you to exhort you to put up a hard fight for the faith that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones." Jude was here addressing baptised Christians, but felt the need to remind them that they had to continue to "put up a hard fight".



You said: "Equally, you can't earn your way into heaven. You can do good stuff, but out of selfish motivations, if you get me."

I agree. The book of James is particularly interesting here. (In the faith/works debate, I mean.)

"However, become doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with false reasoning." (1:22)


"Of what benefit is it, my brothers, if a certain one says he has faith but he does not have works? That faith cannot save him, can it? If a brother or a sister is in a naked state and lacking the food sufficient for the day, yet a certain one of you says to them: “Go in peace, keep warm and well fed,” but you do not give them the necessities for their body, of what benefit is it? Thus, too, faith, if it does not have works, is dead in itself." (2:14-17)

It gets complicated, doesn't it? I agreed with you that it is impossible to eartn salvation. It's a free gift, an expression of God's "undeserved kindness" (an expression which occurs many times in the NWT. I believe the KJV renders it as "free grace", or something like that). Salvation is granted on the basis of faith. But faith isn't just a matter of believing something. It is a motivating force. If we have true faith, works will follow as a matter of course. The works demonstrate the reality of the faith.

(This, incidentally, gives the lie to an assertion I have often seen on h2g2: that athiests are more moral than religious people because they do good for the sake of it - because it's the right thing to do - while religious people do good because God tells them to. If an athiest, answerable to no one, nonetheless does what is right, the argument goes, it can only be because he is fundamentally a good person. True enough, perhaps. But a Christian also does what is right because he is a good person. It may be that his faith has made him a good person when he otherwise would not be.)


"Nevertheless, a certain one will say: “You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith apart from the works, and I shall show you my faith by my works.” You believe there is one God, do you? You are doing quite well. And yet the demons believe and shudder. But do you care to know, O empty man, that faith apart from works is inactive? Was not Abraham our father declared righteous by works after he had offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? You behold that his faith worked along with his works and by his works his faith was perfected, and the scripture was fulfilled which says: “Abraham put faith in Jehovah, and it was counted to him as righteousness,” and he came to be called “Jehovah’s friend.”" (2:15-23)

Belief is not enough. The demons believe. They know. It's what you do about the belief that matters.

The line "I shall show you my faith by my works," does rather sum up what I've been saying, doesn't it?

His faith gave Abraham the strength and willpower to go through with his test.

(I'll ask your opinion first. What do you think? Why was Abraham given this dreadful test, to kill his son and sacrifice him to God? And then told not to go through with it but to sacrifice a ram instead? This is not really a relavent point, but I thought I'd throw it in.)


"You see that a man is to be declared righteous by works, and not by faith alone. In the same manner was not also Rahab the harlot declared righteous by works, after she had received the messengers hospitably and sent them out by another way? Indeed, as the body without spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." (2:24-26)



I like your use of 2 Tim. 2:12, and thought I'd give it to you from the NWT: "If we go on enduring, we shall also rule together as kings; if we deny, he also will deny us." This translation brings out the continuous state of the Greek verb.



The Bible translation I've used is the New World Translation (1984), because I have it on the computer and can copy and paste. I have a CD which is meant to have loads of translations on it, but I can't get it to work. (It's an ancient shareware CD designed for MS-DOS.) The NWT is also available on CD, along with other publications. That's where I got the Awake! article from, too.


TRiG.

Wow!! I'm really impressed by how much you've researched this and how much you've thought about it all. To be honest, I saw how long your post was and I got scared as I've got so used to some of the unpleasentness in other threads. So thank you and I'm sorry for my initial reaction.

I think you've got it really well - it's not just believing or having some faith - it's what you do with it that's important.

You asked: "What do you think? Why was Abraham given this dreadful test, to kill his son and sacrifice him to God? And then told not to go through with it but to sacrifice a ram instead?"

Wasn't this a test of faith? God had promised Abraham that the whole world would be blessed through Abraham's decendants. He asked him to sacrifice his son, effectively ending his family - no son means no decendants.

Genesis 17 v 4-6: As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, And you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. And I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you.

I don't think God would have made such an agreement with Abraham if his faith and obedience weren't up to it. To use a modern idea, if you'll let me. Would your boss allow you to be promoted to a postion of greater responsibility if you couldn't be trusted with the stuff you're doing now? Maybe not the best illustration, but I hope you get what I'm meaning.

What do you think of why God asked this of Abraham?

I must admit that research isn't that difficult when with a few keystrokes you can get hold of Watchtower articles back to 1950 and Awake! articles to 1970 along with many other publications and the complete Bible text, but I'll accept your praise anyway. Thanks. (Computers are wonderful things, no?)

It is something I've thought about before, because the once-saved-always-saved theology which some espouse (and which I thought you were suggesting) has always annoyed me. It's a personal bugbear of mine. On that note, see the page "Is Salvation by faith alone?" from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/faithalone.html. It would be an interesting mental exercise to write a refutation of that page, showing that the two columns are not in disagreement. Perhaps we could both try it? It would be interesting to see what we each come up with. Or maybe not. I certainly won't have the time to do it any time soon.



Ah yes, back to Abraham. This is derailing the thread a little from its starting point, but never mind. It was certainly, as you said, a test of faith.

"By faith Abraham, when he was tested, as good as offered up Isaac, and the man that had gladly received the promises attempted to offer up his only-begotten son, although it had been said to him: “What will be called ‘your seed’ will be through Isaac.” But he reckoned that God was able to raise him up even from the dead; and from there he did receive him also in an illustrative way." (Heb. 11:17-19)

Abraham had faith even in the hope of resurrection. Which did happen "in an illustrative way".

God Jehovah sent his only-begotten Son to die at Calvary. What did he go through? Can we imagine the pain of God? No. Not really. It's beyond us. We cannot empathise with deity: we have no power to do so. But we can certainly empathise with Abraham. What was he feeling as he climbed that mountain with his son, his only son, for Ishmael had been sent away, beside him? He must have been weeping inside. The patriarch, leader of what was essentially a nomadic nation (he was able to raise an army of 318 from his household servants), with his son and heir, a fine young man, climbing with the fire pot and the timber for sacrifice, alone together. What were their thoughts? What did they talk about, for what was to be their last hours? Oh yes, we can certainly empathise. And God put himself through the same and worse, watching his only son suffer and die, for our sakes. There's power in that thought. It was a prophetic drama. (Gen. 14:14; compare Gal. 4:22-24)

TRiG.

Yeah, that list of verses for salvation with works, or simply by faith is definately an interesting read. You're right - it would be interesting to try and show how they're linked.

Think it would take time to get an argument written out ore whateve, but think they can be tied together. But maybe, like you said, this is sonething for when there's more time.

It is interesting to think of the situation from Abraham or Isaac's point of view. Abraham must have been cracking up. Isaac must have got seriously scared when he realised what his father was about to do. Just thought - maybe it was test, not only for Abraham, but for Isacc as well.

I mean, if you were Isaac, I think you'd start to worry about your father's sanity. And even afterwards, there might still be a few doubts. If something like that happened today, Isaac would be taken into care and Abraham would be taken to the nearest psychiatric hospital. but presumeably, Isaac stayed living with his parents until he grew up and the inheritance God promised Abraham came through Isaac.

Does that make any sense?

Hi NPY.

It's occurred to me that anyone else chancing across this thread would find the first few posts rather obscure. So, just in case anyone's wondering, this thread arose out of a seperate debate elsewhere on h2g2:

F27390?thread=1456717&skip=67&show=3

TRiG.

Good point. Hello to any visitors! Please feel free to join in. We don't want to confuse anyone.

It i9s a bit strange the way language can cause so much confusion. Think of the variations in accents and regional slag and the general various meanings of so many words.

A few days ago I was thinking of how in English, we just have the one word "love", but in Greek, they have so many for whatrever type of love they're talking about. They have different words for the love between husband and wife, the love you have for your friends, when you say "I love chocolate", etc, etc.

Makes English seem a bit inadequate.

Though English does have a fair variety: what about friendship, passion, affection, and many other words we have? The borders between meanings can be fuzzy, especially when translating. It might be more accurate to say that Koine Greek has five words, some meanings of each overlap with some meanings of the English word /love/.

Have you ever heard of Vine's New Testament Words? It's a good book, which I haven't looked at nearly as much as I should have.

TRiG.

Yeah, I think I have heard of the book, though don't think I've ever had my hands on a copy.

I know what you mean about passion, affection etc. I suppose it's probably when translating from the Greek/Latin/Hebrew things don't neccessarily translate well. Like in all the different senses that we're told in the Bible to love each other we just use the same word in a standard English Bible, where the original used the different words. I've heard it said that the comand to love each other is as much (or more) action than feeling. Think that causes confusion as people often think of love as the feeling like in friendship or romance than in treating people well etc.

Does that make sense?

You make sense, yes, I think, but it's late so I might be wrong. Maybe you're talking absolute drivel and I'm too tired to notice.

Get yourself a Bible with footnotes. Not theological footnotes, technical linguistic footnotes. There are some around. Try this, for example: << http://ebible.org/ >>. It's free. (The World English Bible.)

TRiG.

That looks good. Thanks! I've saved in my favourites for a good look when I get a few minutes.

Think it is important with something like the Bible to know where it came from in translation and culture as well. Think it helps us understand it all so much better. Taking a wild guess, I'd say that 2000 years ago in Irael, society was *slightly* different to modern day Israel and especially different to any western country.

80?thread=8035418" >F135418?thread=3473890&skip=264&show=1

Interesting. There definately has to be a motivation somewhere for good/moral behaviour and acts. In any perspective, Christian or otherwise, there's more than being *told* to do something good. Something in you has to *want* to as well.

Aye. Doing what you're told won't last long. It's too difficult.

TRiG.

Exactly. The "because I say so" reason's so hard to cope with. It helps to know why you're supposed to do or not to do something.

You may possibly have noticed that my friends list has been expanding quite a lot recently. And that you're on it now.

TRiG.