I've been reading through many of the threads here and found more than those three views of the Gospel.
Some have said, you need to obey Gods laws before He saves you.
Some have said , you must believe in the finished work of Christ before He saves you.
Some have said, you don't do anything. God chooses whom He will save and He does it all from the start to the end.
Some have said, you must believe and obey before God saves you.
Some have said, you must stop sinning, have faith and believe before He saves you.
It's interesting how many different views there are, they all seem to have some merit to them so it can be confusing trying to work out which one is the most Biblical.
I have found that GOD left special clues to eliminate the CONFUSION:
1 Corinthians 14:33 (ESV)
33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,
Proverbs 30:6 (ESV)
6 Do not add to His words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
1 Corinthians 2:4-16 (ESV)
4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5
so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
7
But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
13 And
we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
John 3:5-7 (ESV)
5 Jesus answered,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7
Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
That actually happens when you mourn over your sinful lifestyle, and repent, and LOVINGLY receive HIM as LORD meaning MASTER.
What many do not realize is SALVATION and SANCTIFICATION are to different things that happen to a CHRISTIAN at Different TIMES. Some are not yet Born Again, and others, are in their spiritual infancy, being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
Ephesians 4:13-15 (ESV)
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
14 so that we may no longer be
children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
So the secret is to MAKE SURE YOU ARE BORN AGAIN. One of the surest ways is to LOVE THE LORD BECAUSE YOU WANT TO,
NOT TO GET SOMETHING FROM HIM, THEREFORE THAT LOVE FOR HIM, WILL BE MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE, EVEN A SPOUSE, AND SELF DEAD LAST. So you WILL LOVE your Brethren, MORE than you do yourself.
1 John 3:14-19 (ESV)
14
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does
not love abides in death.
15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him,
how does God’s love abide in him?
18 Little children,
let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
19
By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him;
Now you are ready to discern the TRUTH. NOTICE in verse 17 above, IT says GOD's LOVE abides in US. HOW DID IT GET THERE?
Romans 5:5 (ESV)
5 and hope does not put us to shame,
because GOD's LOVE has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
That is the MOMENT that the Holy Spirit entered your HEART, Birthed the once dead Human Spirit into Eternal Life, and poured GOD's LOVE into that heart. THAT MOMENT IN TIME IS
SALVATION the
FREE GIFT OF GOD.
Ephesians 2:8-10 (ESV)
8
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And
this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God,
[ 🖞 SAVED AND SURE OF IT, solely by the BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST.]
9
not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Romans 5:15-16 (ESV)
15 But
the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and
the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
16 And
the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but
the free gift following many trespasses
brought justification.
IF YOU ADD ANYTHING TO THAT, YOU HAVE ADDED TO THE WORD OF GOD, and created a FALSE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION. Some of the common man made ADDITIONS are GOOD WORKS, BAPTISM IN WATER, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP, ETC. YES those are the kind of things that your born again human spirit WILL WANT TO DO,
AFTER YOU ARE SAVED, but
they are NOT part of SALVATION.
So what is
SANCTIFICATION? That is the LIFELONG Process of becoming more and more like Christ. Our Bodies will want to CATCH UP With Our Human Spirit, which is sinless and ETERNAL. Like Dr. John MacArthur puts it, "A Christian is not Sinless, however, as he MATURES SPIRITUALLY, he or she will SIN LESS, and SIN LESS, and SIN LESS." The Addiction to a Sinful Lifestyle, is BROKEN, but the Sin Nature is IN OUR BODIES until we die. So it is a process where we feed on the WORD, Maturing our HUMAN SPIRIT, to Walk like CHRIST. Yes, the Human Spirit matures as we FEED on HIS word, and the level of Spiritual Maturity is Directly proportional to our SPIRITUAL DIET. SO How Long until our bodies are LIKE CHRIST? AT THE RESURRECTION:
1 John 3:2-3 (ESV)
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but
we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
3 And
everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
1 Corinthians 15:42-49 (ESV)
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.
43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust,
we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
In that GLORIFIED BODY, we will not even be able to THINK a SIN.
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