Another look at John 10.

[mailmandan]

You pretty well messed up that first post. Will be hard to respond to.

Re: your first emoji, what's type 2 works salvation? Did you make this label up?

You will need to click to expand. I don't know what the problem was. All the quotes seemed to be in order but for some reason whenever I hit post reply, the post would not expand on it's own.

 

[studier]

If what we heard from the beginning abides in us (which means it was firmly rooted and established in us) then we will abide in the Son and in the Father.

Commands are typically volitional. Some try to make them otherwise as if they are just describing. It seemed to me you were potentially taking this latter track when you said the verses I posted were a "mark of abiding" (as I recall). I see commands as volitional and obedience as mandatory thereby creating responsibility on our part. I also see faith and obedience as essentially parallel, so any disobedience is a lack of faith - unbelief. To head off any accusations, I see our having been provided with everything we need to both will to do and to do what we're commanded to do. But I don't see God repealing human volition. In fact, I see Him providing it, protecting it, educating and training it and ultimately honoring it whatever it ultimately chooses.

1John2:24:

• Begins with a command. Making this command clearer, it more literally says, you [all] are commanded to have remaining in you [all] what you heard from the beginning.
  • If commands are volitional then we can choose not to obey this or to obey it. Even if we are deceived or otherwise led to disobey this, the responsibility to do it was ours under grace. We are elsewhere commanded to not be deceived, so even being deceived can be disobedience which is to have a lack of belief.
• The abiding in the Son and the Father are conditional and based upon our above stated volitional obedience.
• So, if you're going to make what we heard from the beginning abiding in us = it being firmly rooted in us, then it seems you're making the rooted concept one of volitional obedience. Either this or you're working around the command and the obedience.

Please clarify and explain.

 

[studier]

You will need to click to expand. I don't know what the problem was. All the quotes seemed to be in order but for some reason whenever I hit post reply, the post would not expand on it's own.

A lot of work, so we'll see. It's usually just one or more of the quote codes being off which it seems like you checked.

 

[studier]

Which is the mark of children of God. (1 John 3:7-10) in contrast with children of the devil. Whenever you read letters addressed to Christians in the NT, don't forget it's not hard to find "nominal" Christians mixed in.

NKJ 1John2:26 These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.

• There are deceitful teachers among them
• As you've picked up, Christians are commanded in 1John3:7 not to be deceived, so being deceived is actually disobedience

27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

• I see the anointing as the Spirit who is abiding in and ultimately teaching these so-far faithful Christians (though they are also being taught by gifted teachers).
• There is some confusion re: the last "abide" I've highlighted. It could be a command. Since there is a command to abide in the next verse many do not see it as a command. I tend to agree.
  • Assuming it's making an indicative statement, then it's saying "just as it's taught you, you are abiding in Him"
  • So, again, what we're reading about here is John writing to and talking about currently abiding, thus currently obedient Christians who are living according to what they've been taught.

28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

• But now comes another command to abide/remain in Him with the implication that the abiding must continue until Christ returns.
• The language is clear. John in essence has said they're doing well, but there is deceiving danger about, so do not be deceived, and do not cease abiding according to what you were taught.
  • These commands are either volitional and meaningful and require obedience and thus faith or they are not commands.

29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.

• We have another bit of similar confusion here re: the highlighted word. It to could be a command.
• If you Christians know the Jesus Christ is righteous
  • Then you Christians know (or are commanded to know) that all [men] who are doing the righteousness have been born from Him.
• Men who are truly born from God are [continually] doing righteousness like their righteous first-born brother and Lord Jesus Christ.
• The implication being to protect against deceitful teaching and
  • Continue living righteously [or you're not born from Him]
  • Continue abiding in Him
  • Continue obeying Him

Do you see failure to obey and abide as only true because they were "nominal" Christians? As I've asked before, does "nominal" mean in name only, thus meaning they are unbelievers?

So, your theology boils down to all believers will obey until the end? Thus, isn't it perseverance of the saints?

 

[mailmandan]

NKJ 1John2:26 These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.

• There are deceitful teachers among them
• As you've picked up, Christians are commanded in 1John3:7 not to be deceived, so being deceived is actually disobedience

27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

• I see the anointing as the Spirit who is abiding in and ultimately teaching these so-far faithful Christians (though they are also being taught by gifted teachers).
• There is some confusion re: the last "abide" I've highlighted. It could be a command. Since there is a command to abide in the next verse many do not see it as a command. I tend to agree.
  • Assuming it's making an indicative statement, then it's saying "just as it's taught you, you are abiding in Him"
  • So, again, what we're reading about here is John writing to and talking about currently abiding, thus currently obedient Christians who are living according to what they've been taught.

28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

• But now comes another command to abide/remain in Him with the implication that the abiding must continue until Christ returns.
• The language is clear. John in essence has said they're doing well, but there is deceiving danger about, so do not be deceived, and do not cease abiding according to what you were taught.
  • These commands are either volitional and meaningful and require obedience and thus faith or they are not commands.

29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.

• We have another bit of similar confusion here re: the highlighted word. It to could be a command.
• If you Christians know the Jesus Christ is righteous
  • Then you Christians know (or are commanded to know) that all [men] who are doing the righteousness have been born from Him.
• Men who are truly born from God are [continually] doing righteousness like their righteous first-born brother and Lord Jesus Christ.
• The implication being to protect against deceitful teaching and
  • Continue living righteously [or you're not born from Him]
  • Continue abiding in Him
  • Continue obeying Him

Do you see failure to obey and abide as only true because they were "nominal" Christians? As I've asked before, does "nominal" mean in name only, thus meaning they are unbelievers?

So, your theology boils down to all believers will obey until the end? Thus, isn't it perseverance of the saints?

I believe that all genuine believers will abide and those who fail to abide expose themselves as "nominal" Christians which does mean "in name only" and there are many. So, my beliefs fall in line with perseverance or preservation of the saints.

 

[studier]

Apparently, we are not in agreement here. You seem to have a lot of faith in self-preservation but I have more faith in God's preservation. (Psalm 37:29; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:1) Again, we are not passive in regard to abiding, but the power is not found in us. It is God who works in us. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13) God is actively involved in the lives of believers and enables them desire and perform actions which align with His will. God finishes what He starts. (Philippians 1:6)

This is the problem. Self-preservation is a misnomer and Jesus made that vitally clear at minimum in John15 where we started - "Apart/separate from Me you can do nothing." I fully believe this, and it is part of my foundation. It is also a fixed part of the foundation of others who think similarly to me. I for one have grown tired of others alleging we're inappropriately involved in works and self-preservation.

As you know, Phil2:12 contains the command to Christians to "work out" (I'll stick with this for now to try to minimize the controversy over the actual language) our salvation with fear and trembling. The explanatory language in Phil2:13 speaks of God providing capacity to us, and it does not speak of Him doing the work for us.

In working with you in 1John, I've sensed where we must end up if we continue. Where does God's work flow into ours because we are doing works? How do we work in union with Him where the flow of His capacity is seamlessly exercised in our willful obedience?

When we look at the new covenant and new birth language, God gives men a new heart and His Spirit and causes men to walk in His statutes and do His judgments. His laws are placed in the mind and written on hearts. At some point thinking and living according to Him becomes natural (our new and trained nature) and everything not of Him unnatural.

None of this takes place in a man apart from God doing what only He can do. But once entered into union with Him (as commanded BTW) He's commanding our volition to willfully do our part and He's providing capacities to us to do so.

We have a responsibility which to some degree we both seem to agree about. Some of us who have played with this over the years at times have walked away having the concept that our existence in Him is actively passive (not just passive) - we willfully do His commands by His provided capacities with the new man faculties He has given us. Apart from Him we can do nothing. Together with God all things are possible. We're ultimately touching upon how God sovereignly works together with His creatures' God-given will, which I don't think anyone has ultimately resolved.

I was talking about this face-to-face with someone this morning before reading your posts. Interestingly I was asked a question related to where I said above that your and my discussion was headed if it continues. In essence the question boiled down to how we know we're living spiritually. Answering from my current perspective, I said that my thoughts and my living experience has become more and more seamless to the point where it just seems natural to be thinking and doing more and more of what He says is right. Alternatively, I'm ever more aware of how much we're surrounded by ungodliness, chaos, and ultimately bounded by limited capacities to do things at levels we're meant to be doing only in vital union with Him and ultimately in spiritual bodies physically walking with Him in the Garden with us in a land where righteousness dwells.

Somehow, IMO, we're searching in Scripture for a very circular concept that just continually feeds back upon itself. You posit that men can't walk away from this. At the moment I disagree with you. At one time I didn't. The dangers and the warnings and the commands are real.

 

[studier]

I believe that all genuine believers will abide and those who fail to abide expose themselves as "nominal" Christians which does mean "in name only" and there are many. So, my beliefs fall in line with perseverance or preservation of the saints.

Are you Reformed - Calvinist?

 

[studier]

Abiding requires the Holy Spirit. (1 John 4:13) Without the Holy Spirit, we are not children of God and end up only abiding in a false gospel. You are still flirting with "type 2 works salvation." Why do we have love for God? (Romans 5:5; 1 John 4:19) Why would we never be obedient and make no effort at all to walk as Jesus did or not love the things of the world as new creations in Christ? (2 Corinthians 5:17) We have been changed. Praise God! Believers have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. Never underestimate the power of God or overestimate self.

Again, please define "type 2 works salvation". I'm fairly certain you're embedding explanations of it herein, but I'd like you to explain it clearly. It's likely what I used to refer to as back-end loaded (vs. the investments language of front-end loaded fees - i.e. works).

Never underestimate or explain away the legitimacy of God's warnings and commands and God's honoring human volition.

 

[studier]

A Christian is not characterized by disobedience. The sons of disobedience in scripture refers to unbelievers. (Ephesians 2:2) These instructions and commands are not just for show and a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked will fall by calamity. (Psalm 37:28) Children of God are not teflon and are certainly capable of stumbling, yet Jesus' sheep will not be snatched from His hand. (John 10:27-28) Those whom God predestined, called and justified; He also glorified. (Romans 8:30) Notice how Paul uses the past tense for a future event to stress its certainty. Those who believe the gospel and are sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise are sealed until the redemption of the purchased possession/unto the day of redemption. (Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30)

I don't recall AT Robertson Christ will do His part if we do ours, as if Christ merely "initially" saves us through faith and then it's up to us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and keep ourselves saved by works. I do recall Robertson saying that grace is God's part and faith ours in his commentary on Ephesians 2:8. Robertson was a southern Baptist.

Interpretations:

• If a professing Christian is characterized by disobedience, then he is an unbeliever - aka CINO (nominal Christian).
• God's commands are real, and a righteous man may fall innumerable times but never be characterized by disobedience and thus never be a CINO.
• Jesus' sheep will never be stolen from Him - circling back and contrary to the OP this also includes that they cannot choose to walk away from Him and be unrepentant.
• Rom8:30 (aorist tenses BTW are timeless and tense is derived from context and other such factors) says everything said above including sheep cannot choose to walk away and be unrepentant. If they do, then they are CINO sheep.
• The sealing is also inviolable, so it affirms the above.

Summation: The doctrine of the Perseverance (Preservation) of the saints. No believer can lose salvation. Anyone that walks away never believed.

Quoted again from earlier post re: Robertson's comments re: John15:6 accessed by the link you provided:

He is cast forth (εβληθη εξω). Timeless or gnomic use of the first aorist passive indicative of βαλλω as the conclusion of a third-class condition (see also verses John 15:4; John 15:7 for the same condition, only constative aorist subjunctive μεινητε and μεινη in verse John 15:7). The apostles are thus vividly warned against presumption. Jesus as the vine will fulfil his part of the relation as long as the branches keep in vital union with him.​

Before, when using Robertson, he was a Greek Scholar. Now he's a Southern Baptist. I'm not sure what to make of this.

Pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps and keeping ourselves saved by works (type 2 as I understand) is once again a simplistic misrepresentation of alternative interpretations.

​

Yes, the Christian is willingly, cooperatively, obediently, abidingly involved with God in Salvation until the end 1John2:28, et.al., but this hardly means he is doing it on his own or saving himself.​

​

As I understand you, you agree with what the Christian is doing but just disagree that he can choose to walk away.​

​

So, anyone who thinks a believer can walk away, has to be in works salvation?​

​

If one is in works salvation, then is he a CINO?​

​

If not a CINO, then just out of fellowship and will lose rewards?​

​

Or???​

Some simply disagree that a Christian cannot choose to walk away after tasting the powers...

Have you ever discussed all the verses posted by participants like @GWH that are posited as saying a Christian can walk away?

BTW, did you acknowledge that all the menō verses I posted were not just indicating the "mark of abiding" as it seemed you said they did?

 

[mailmandan]

Are you Reformed - Calvinist?

No.

 

[studier]

No.

Thanks.

 

[PaulThomson]

There is no such thing as an unrepentant Child of God.

It's an oxymoron. There are His kids that wander away, and HE, ACTIVELY disciplines them, draws them back, and goes and finds them.

This is what Jesus says:
"What parent of you would not leave your other 99 children, and go seek your lost child, UNTIL YOU FIND HIM/HER?"

Why would you think Jesus is UNABLE, or IMCOMPEMETENT to find His kids?

God does WHATEVER is necessary to make sure EVERY Child He gives to the Son will NEVER be lost. Scripture EXPRESSLY says this.

This is reassuring and FANTASTIC news! Embrace it. It's Truth.

It is a parable. Not a 100% overlay. The fact that someone seeks the lost in cases 1 and 2, does not mean that the seeker always finds, even if it is God, because being found is equated in the parable to the person repenting. If the person repents, they are found. If they don't repent, they are not found. If God is seeking, but the person sought will not repent, that does not reflect badly on God, but on the one running from God who os calling him.

In fact in the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd seeks the sheep, In the parable of the coin the woman (church) seeks the coin, In the case of the wayward son, no one is seeking the son, but the Father is waiting eagerly for the son to repent and come home. And yet in all cases the person found is said to be found because they repented. Not because they was forcefully captured and retrieved by an irresistible force.

 

[PaulThomson]

Congratulations!

You win!

God will toss you into hell for all eternity if you wander away! He won't discipline you. He won't search for you. He won't draw you back. You can just rely on yourself.

The rest of us will believe Him, his Word, and trust HIM to save us in any and every situation.

We'll miss ya!

Good work.

You are pouting and whining but you are not reasoning. No one has denied that God comes seeking for the lost. No one has said He will not try to draw you back. No one says a Christian must rely only on themselves. YOu are ascribing such assertions to people as moralistic rhetoric to cast your opponents in a falsely negative light.

 

[bluto]

This is the problem. Self-preservation is a misnomer and Jesus made that vitally clear at minimum in John15 where we started - "Apart/separate from Me you can do nothing." I fully believe this, and it is part of my foundation. It is also a fixed part of the foundation of others who think similarly to me. I for one have grown tired of others alleging we're inappropriately involved in works and self-preservation.

As you know, Phil2:12 contains the command to Christians to "work out" (I'll stick with this for now to try to minimize the controversy over the actual language) our salvation with fear and trembling. The explanatory language in Phil2:13 speaks of God providing capacity to us, and it does not speak of Him doing the work for us.

In working with you in 1John, I've sensed where we must end up if we continue. Where does God's work flow into ours because we are doing works? How do we work in union with Him where the flow of His capacity is seamlessly exercised in our willful obedience?

When we look at the new covenant and new birth language, God gives men a new heart and His Spirit and causes men to walk in His statutes and do His judgments. His laws are placed in the mind and written on hearts. At some point thinking and living according to Him becomes natural (our new and trained nature) and everything not of Him unnatural.

None of this takes place in a man apart from God doing what only He can do. But once entered into union with Him (as commanded BTW) He's commanding our volition to willfully do our part and He's providing capacities to us to do so.

We have a responsibility which to some degree we both seem to agree about. Some of us who have played with this over the years at times have walked away having the concept that our existence in Him is actively passive (not just passive) - we willfully do His commands by His provided capacities with the new man faculties He has given us. Apart from Him we can do nothing. Together with God all things are possible. We're ultimately touching upon how God sovereignly works together with His creatures' God-given will, which I don't think anyone has ultimately resolved.

I was talking about this face-to-face with someone this morning before reading your posts. Interestingly I was asked a question related to where I said above that your and my discussion was headed if it continues. In essence the question boiled down to how we know we're living spiritually. Answering from my current perspective, I said that my thoughts and my living experience has become more and more seamless to the point where it just seems natural to be thinking and doing more and more of what He says is right. Alternatively, I'm ever more aware of how much we're surrounded by ungodliness, chaos, and ultimately bounded by limited capacities to do things at levels we're meant to be doing only in vital union with Him and ultimately in spiritual bodies physically walking with Him in the Garden with us in a land where righteousness dwells.

Somehow, IMO, we're searching in Scripture for a very circular concept that just continually feeds back upon itself. You posit that men can't walk away from this. At the moment I disagree with you. At one time I didn't. The dangers and the warnings and the commands are real.

If I may interject here and say that Philippians 2:12 is not teaching to work out your salvation to get saved or even stay saved. These are already believers and at vs2 the Apostle Paul states, "make my joy complete (how?) by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose."

Vs3, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself." Vs4, "do not merely look for your own personal interests, but also for the interest of others."

At vs 5 Paul uses Jesus as an example of how we are to behave and act. "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, vs6, who, although, He exited in the form of God etc." The word "although" means, "in spite of the fact He was God. Or without the word, "was God" and took the form of a servant.

Now for vs12, "So then my beloved or "in view of the above" work out your salvation etc. What Paul is really saying is to "work out the deliverance of your problems. Why? Vs13, for (or because) it is God who is at work in you, both to will and work for His good pleasure." As a Christian over 63 years I don't spend anytime worrying or not worrying about perseverance. In closing I would like to say the following. As Christians do you know what your calling is? It's other people!

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto