Tag: Salvation

Repentance from Dead Works

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, … and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance

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These are some of the most terrifying words in the New Testament:

“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” (Hebrews 6:4-6)

For anyone but the hardest core Calvinist, these words are enough to make one shudder. No one wants to fall away. But we often do what we know we shouldn’t. The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak. Though we may be born again, the old man lurks incessantly beneath the service and around every corner. The struggle is real.

Most people, however, (me included) tend to read these words out of context. As an isolated statement, we might be strongly tempted to believe these words speak to sin, especially those nagging, habitual, ingrained sins that we have a hard time overcoming. We feel as if, one day, we will sin one too many times and will have fallen away – completely lost and irredeemable!

But the context speaks to something different than the direction our mind is prone to go.

The statement in Hebrews 6 quoted above is prefaced with the following introduction:

“Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God ….” (Hebrews 6:1)

What is the “elementary doctrine of Christ”? What are these “dead works” from which we must repent? This is the key to keep from “falling away”.

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Accepting God’s Invitation: The Narrow Door

We need to pay attention to the terms and conditions of God’s invitation to us.

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In previous articles I have explored the idea that God Does Not Send People to Hell and that God’s Invitation is made to everyone to open the door at which He knocks. Not everyone, however, will enter in. God gives us a real choice, and our fate rests on that choice.

God desires that we all enter in, but whether we do enter in is up to us. We can chose to reject the invitation, or simply fail to respond, and God will let us go.

Because God is love, He doesn’t force us in against our will. Love does not coerce, and it doesn’t impose itself on another person who is unwilling, so (Who is Love) will let us go our own way if we are unwilling to accept His invitation.

God’s invitation is compared to the parable told by Jesus of the great banquet. In that parable, a man sent out invitations, but the people he invited were too busy to come. So he sent invitations out to the people in the streets and alleys and country roads and filled up the banquet table with all who were willing to come.

The story may seem puzzling on the surface. Why didn’t people just accept the invitation? If you knew God was inviting you to a banquet, wouldn’t you go? It’s a fair question, but life isn’t so simple. We instinctively know that there is a catch. The door into which we are invited to enter is a narrow one.

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God’s Invitation

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

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The question, “How can a loving God send people to hell?” reveals a misunderstanding of at least three things: 1) what love is, 2) what hell is and 3) how people end up in hell. What we are talking about are the words Jesus spoke to these points, to which this question is directed. The question packs assumptions that load the question in the wrong way.

Let me explain.

I previously wrote a piece making the point that God Doesn’t Send People to Hell. In that piece, I addressed the question, but I addressed it primarily from a philosophical view. Below we will examine where these philosophical points come from.

The philosophical view is pretty simple, and flows from the proposition that God is Love.[1] Love doesn’t coerce people against their wills. Therefore, God will not compel anyone to be with Him who chooses not to be with Him because love doesn’t coerce people against their wills.

If heaven is eternal life with God, hell is eternal life without God. If God doesn’t coerce us, He leaves the determination up to us. God doesn’t send people to hell; people choose to go there because they don’t want to be with God.

God invites us to choose Him, but he doesn’t require, coerce or compel us to choose him against our wills.

This proof holds together well philosophically, but does it line up with the teachings of Jesus?

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The David Cries Out for the Judas in Me

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

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Judas Iscariot is a tragic figure in the Gospels. He was responsible for betraying our Lord Jesus. John wrote this of Judas many years after the events unfolded in the garden of Gethsemane: “he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”[1]

Because Judas betrayed Jesus and John says he was a thief, I think we tend to write Judas off, but Judas spent years in the company of Jesus. Judas knew Him intimately and was part of the very inner circle of followers of Jesus.

Jesus certainly knew Judas as well. He knew well that Judas would be the one who would betray Him. Jesus “called it” at the Last Supper.[2]

Why did Jesus allow Judas so close to him all that time, knowing what Judas would do?[3] John’s comment about Judas many years later, describing Judas as a “thief” who helped himself to the funds that Judas oversaw for the group of disciples, suggests that John knew the character of Judas as well.  What are the implications of that?

The betrayal of Jesus, of course, was part of God’s plan.[4] It had it happen. Jesus came to offer himself as a sacrifice for the sins of men, but Jesus added, “But woe to that man who betrays him!”[5]

Judas stands as a dire warning for us. What sort of man betrays Jesus?

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A Pride Offering

Salvation is the gift of God. No one can earn it lest any man boast.

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I recently had a conversation with someone who is not a believer in Jesus Christ as I am. He charged Christians with being smug, implying that all Christians are the same. They have this confidence which he described as smugness. At that stage in our conversation, I became offended and repulsed.

I was offended because he seemed to be lumping me in with “those smug Christians”. He was making the conversation personal instead of sticking with the merits of the arguments. I was repulsed because pride is the root of all sin, and I was horrified that I might be characterized as prideful.

Of course, I am prideful. That is the condition of the human heart. We naturally trust ourselves above all others, and even above God. We don’t seem to have a lot of it when we are infants and young children, but it creeps in, and it grows as we get older. We learn to keep it under wraps if we value friendship and relationships, because the pride in me conflicts with the pride in you. Sometimes we learn a false humility, but pride lurks there beneath the surface in all of us.

When I first read the Bible in college in a world religion class it was this theme of pride in people, among other things, that jumped off the pages at me. It was like looking in a mirror and acknowledging, as difficult as it was, the pridefulness of people and the pridefulness in me. If God was God, and I believed that there was a God, that we did not create ourselves, then pride in people is an ugly thing.

These things resonated in me because I saw the pride in people, and I saw the pride in myself, and it repulsed me, just as I was repulsed in my recent conversation to think that I might be considered prideful. I have been thinking about those things for several days, and these are the thoughts I have today as I reflect on these things.

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