Salvation and the Church

[Soulfyre]

What does it mean to be "saved", and what does this have to do with the "church"? Is salvation the result of baptism or belief? Do we choose God or does God choose us? Do we have free will, or does God's foreknowledge actually predestine our choice? Did Jesus die for all, or a particular "all"? Let's explore some of these hard, and often divisive, topics. What an opportunity to learn more about the grace of God!

God bless you and yours,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[melinky]

Good questions Matthew!

I was "saved" at the age of 12, not because I loved God, but because I had been told that God would send me to burn in Hell if I didn't do it. I think this is also part of the reason I strayed from church, I didn't like the idea of a mean God.

Now, 34 years later, I know I'm saved. Not because of words I've said or things I've done, but because I believe, no, I know that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. I also know that God loves me as a father loves his daughter.

Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Ephesians 2:7-9 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9not by works, so that no one can boast.

[Juan]

I never prayed a prayer, never thought a thought which led to my salvation. God pursued through my life, through the time I was Hindu, through the time I was atheist, agnostic, Catholic... Until I finally came to know Him, His Mercy, and His Grace.
If I could have done something, it wouldn't have been grace.

[Soulfyre]

Juan said:

I never prayed a prayer, never thought a thought which led to my salvation. God pursued through my life, through the time I was Hindu, through the time I was atheist, agnostic, Catholic... Until I finally came to know Him, His Mercy, and His Grace.
If I could have done something, it wouldn't have been grace.

I'm often reminded of the poem by Francis Thompson, the English Roman Catholic mystic, entitled The Hound of Heaven. I have posted it in its entirety on my Soulfyre's Brown Study. I found the final stanza profoundly moving:

      Now of that long pursuit
    Comes on at hand the bruit;
  That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
    'And is thy earth so marred,
    Shattered in shard on shard?
  Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
  Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said),
  'And human love needs human meriting:
  How hast thou merited--
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
  Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
  Save Me, save only Me
All which I took from thee I did but take,
  Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
  All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
  Rise, clasp My hand, and come!--
  Halts by me that footfall:
  Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
  'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
  I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.'

[rgrove]

Soulfyre said:

What does it mean to be "saved", and what does this have to do with the "church"? Is salvation the result of baptism or belief? Do we choose God or does God choose us? Do we have free will, or does God's foreknowledge actually predestine our choice? Did Jesus die for all, or a particular "all"? Let's explore some of these hard, and often divisive, topics. What an opportunity to learn more about the grace of God!

I'll let the confession of my church (The 1689 London Baptist Confession) answer these questions for anyone desiring to read it:

www.art-brand.com/glencullen/confession.html

I subscribe almost completely to the wording of the confession. The most notable disagreement I would have is the wording in Chapter 26 Section 4 that identifies the Pope as "that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God; whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." This was, of course, common Protestant belief at the time but smacks of dispensational-like newspaper exegesis in eschatology to me. Otherwise the confession generally speaks properly for my positions.

Thank you,
Ron

[fairbank]

In Baptist circles it is common to be asked "When did you get saved?" Folks can mean many things with that question.

Some mean, "When did you walk the aisle and publicly profess faith in Christ?"

Others mean, "When did you get Baptized?"

Those who are more specific mean "When did the Holy Spirit change your heart of stone to a heart of flesh, and you realized that you were a sinner in need of a sinless Savior?"

Perhaps it is best the answer the question with a comment from Ephesians 1:4-8 which will cause the one asking the question to see things from God's perspective:

Question: "When did you get saved?"
Answer: "Before the foundation of the world."

[worthily]

Amen, brother. those verses overwhelmed my mental faculties when i first came across them

[melinky]

fairbank said:

In Baptist circles it is common to be asked "When did you get saved?" Folks can mean many things with that question.

Some mean, "When did you walk the aisle and publicly profess faith in Christ?"

Others mean, "When did you get Baptized?"

Those who are more specific mean "When did the Holy Spirit change your heart of stone to a heart of flesh, and you realized that you were a sinner in need of a sinless Savior?"

Perhaps it is best the answer the question with a comment from Ephesians 1:4-8 which will cause the one asking the question to see things from God's perspective:

Question: "When did you get saved?"
Answer: "Before the foundation of the world."

I think I have to agree with Worthily on this one,

AMEN!

Melinda