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Thread: Saved or Unsaved?

  1. #71
    Senior Member Colonel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Smitty View Post
    Mercy is always voluntary with God. He is never obligated to be merciful. He reserves the right to exercise His grace according to the good pleasure of His will. For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion" (Rm 9:15). Some complain that because God does not bestow His grace or mercy equally on all people, He is unfair. Others have said that if God pardons one person He is therefore obligated to pardon everybody. Scripture makes it clear that God does not treat everyone equally. Just look at Jacob and Esau or Paul and Judas. Or even the cities of Sodom and Nineveh. Of these three accounts, one received mercy and the other judgment. If grace is required from God, if God is obligated to be gracious, then we are no longer speaking of grace, but justice. Biblically, justice is defined in terms of righteousness. When God is just, He is doing what is right. Therefore, when it comes to pagan or heathen unreached people groups that have never heard the gospel, we have to trust God in His wisdom when He's dealing with these types of people. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right"(Gen 18:25)? Likewise the apostle Paul raised a similar rhetorical question: "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! (Rm 9:14). So it would seem to me that mercy is outside the category of justice but is not a violation of justice. "The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works (Psm 145:17).
    That's a very Calvinistic way of seeing things, that our actions or lack of actions have little to do with the results.

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  3. #72
    Senior Member Smitty's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Colonel View Post
    That's a very Calvinistic way of seeing things, that our actions or lack of actions have little to do with the results.
    Dear Colonel, Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is not a human enterprise (religious denominational works or decrees). Human beings cannot save themselves. Salvation is a divine work; it is accomplished and applied by God. Salvation is both of the Lord and from the Lord. What I was trying to point out in my last post had nothing to do with Calvinistic teaching. I was merely attempting to show God's mercy and justice according to His divine sovereign will in somehow saving people who have never had an opportunity to hear about Jesus.

    Let me be clear! Salvation in a specific sense refers to our ultimate redemption from sin and reconciliation to God. In a sense, salvation is the ultimate rescue from calamity---the judgment of God. This ultimate salvation is accomplished by Christ who "delivers us from the wrath to come", which is His "divine retribution" and ultimately experiencing the "second death" which will result in being cast into the "lake of fire" forever and ever (1 Thess 1:10, 2 Thess 1:8-9, Rev 20:14-15). All human beings will be held accountable before the tribunal of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor 5:10).

    The Bible uses the term salvation not only in many senses, but in many tenses. The verb to save appears in virtually every possible tense of the Greek language. There is a sense in which we were saved (from the foundation of the world); we were being saved (by the work of God in history); we are saved (by being in a justified state); we are being saved (by being sanctified or made holy); and we will be saved (experience the glorification of our redemption at the resurrection of the just). Let me conclude this by saying that salvation speaks in terms of the past, present, and future. Our actions do determine where we will spend eternity. "For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned (Mt 12:37).
    If you put God First, you have Him at Last.

  4. #73
    Senior Member Colonel's Avatar
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    Okay but the reason why people in the Americas didn't hear the gospel was that noone travelled there and they would have if more of them had served God faithfully. God didn't make them fail to serve him faithfully.

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  6. #74
    Super Moderator Quest's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Colonel View Post
    But no accounts involving no previous contact and then simply a heavenly visitation.
    I have no problem doubting God making a visitation to someone who has not 'heard the gospel'. As the passage says, His Spirit goes to and fro searching....

    Guess we will know when we get to Heaven..

  7. #75
    Senior Member Cardinal TT's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Quest View Post
    I have no problem doubting God making a visitation to someone who has not 'heard the gospel'. As the passage says, His Spirit goes to and fro searching....

    Guess we will know when we get to Heaven..

    That is not the same as Jesus appearing to pagan tribes in 1000 AD and saving someone because they supposedly sought for God yet nothing eventuated - no record of salvation, no spreading of the gospel, no communities remain when missionaries arrive

    Jesus said go and make disciples yet not one record of a disciple - Where is the FRUIT???


    Jesus appearing to Muslims in the last few decades is in context with other things taking place like the availability of christians to get to that person and discipleship to occur. That is why I had the experience with my Muslim friend who Jesus appeared to - there is context and meaning to the encounter.
    Islam was birthed in the Middle East where there were christians for centuries

    This is no context or scriptural sense to Jesus appearing to all these supposed pagan seekers yet not one disciple or fruit


    Strangely Mormons believe the same thing that their 'Jesus' appeared to pagan Indians - yet there is no evidence of Mormon Indians

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