Daniel,
What you said about folks believing "about" Jesus, thinking that saves them is SO true. My parents are loving, giving people, just wonderful parents but that is where they are, they know about Him but don't know Him. They read their bible and a devotional we gave thm every morning, they pray every day but I still do not have the assurance they know HIm personally, they KNOW about Him.

Cristina

 

Scripture presents the bible believer with a conundrum: apostasy. People who profess faith can and do stop fall away from that profession.

What do we do with that?

John the apostle gives us the clearest understanding of this when he says that they went out from us because they weren't of us. That is, They became apostate because they were not genuine in the first place. We understand then, that salvation is eternal, and cannot be undone - God's gifts, such as eternal life, cannot be repented of.

But some twist that. They correctly believe that once you are saved you eternally secure, but they use that the wrong way. Scripture tells believers to make their call and our election sure, in other words, to make sure that they really are believers, to make sure that their faith really is genuine.

Those who twist the doctrine of eternal security tell people that once they regard themselves as saved it is sin for them to ever doubt that salvation. So these people, when they do doubt their salvation, are coached to remember their profession of faith as a means of assurance - which is (IMO) not only ridiculous, but possibly deadly, for if someone is not genuine this teaching (which is contrary to the plain instructions of scripture) may keep a congregant in the assembly, but will bar them from genuine salvation - since who desires what he believes he already has?

Yet there are those who say that people who fall away are no less genuine than those who remain - and they believe this because they reject what the bible says about eternal security. They believe you can have eternal life, then poof, you lose it, then tada, you have it again - and the best you can hope for is to die when riding the right wave. These (essentially) believe that you are saved whenever you feel saved. That is, when they feel like their saved, their "faith" is full, but when they feel like the sin in their life disqualifies them, they don't feel saved anymore, and they regard this feeling as being without faith - and so they are not saved in that moment.

Again there are some who read "only believe" as it were, and say, the gospel is not repent and believe, it is just believe - and they imagine themselves to be champions of the one true faith, when in fact they are corrupting the same.

We are saved by grace through faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone - meaning it isn't the works that accompany salvation that save us - but that salvation by grace through faith is always accompanied by works. In other words, we are saved by a faith that comes bundled in repentance.

Can a faith that lacks repentance save you? James, the brother of our Lord didn't think so, and neither do I. Can a person be united to Christ in the moment of salvation if he refuses to come to Christ in that same moment? The idea is preposterous. If I believe all the facts the facts themselves bring me to the cross where I either surrender, or reject Christ. If I reject Christ, but accept the facts, and tell myself that Jesus is going to save me because I accept these facts - I am sorely confused, and lost because of it.

Notwithstanding, I don't know the hearts of others. Perhaps there are some who believe the facts but never repent - consider themselves Christians, but are not saved, but later on come to a place of genuine surrender and are saved. I expect that happens often enough for people to believe they were saved all along, but when from being disobedient to obedient - carnal to spiritual. In fact, I wonder if that isn't more common than my experience?

Either way, no one can open their heart but Christ - and fervant prayer is far more effective - even more effective I think than instruction in the matter, since without the Lord, all the instruction in the world won't matter, and with the Lord all things are possible.

Thanks for your thoughts Cristina

 

Daniel, posts like this are why you shouldn't quit blogging. Your thoughts on repentance are right on. Thank you.

 

Daniel,

When I think of the Gospel, I think of it as something that is past and completed. The good news is that Christ died for our sins according to the Bible, that Christ was buried and that Christ rose again on the third exactly as the Bible states. That is the Gospel in all its glory and simplicity. The true Gospel is the good news of something that happened in the past and is completed, we can add nothing to it nor would it be right for us to do anything other than to proclaim it.

To me you are conflating a fruit of the gospel with the Gospel; the fruit (in this case repentance) is not the Gospel. We should not confuse the Gospel with the effects that result from the Gospel.

Grace & Peace