Interplanner
Well-known member
Back to salvation, I think I have something that is a good illustration of a typical modern problem, and hope to get this illustration to JerryS, too.
I'm at a regional state fair and a Faith Baptist church has a booth near my building co booth. Their attention-getter is a display panel with three doors titled:
THERE ARE THREE THINGS GOD CANNOT DO
There is an short explanation line inside each of the three doors. Not real creative, but there it is.
#3 says GOD CANNOT LET YOU INTO HEAVEN IF YOU ARE NOT BORN AGAIN.
What I want to focus on here is the weight on the human decision or the human changed life. Like RobertP, I also think "the gospel of the changed life has replaced the Gospel which changes lives." Well, here is the gospel of the changed life. The material dwells on the person's condition, but it does it two ways, neither of which are quite up to muster with Romans. There is no amount of changed life that is acceptable to the infinite Judge of the universe that will allow a person to be granted heaven, so actually the statement is wrong. The actions and accomplishments of Christ are required. We are saved by works. Not ours but His.
The 2nd of the two ways is 'getting a person to heaven.' Of course, we all have a fear about that, but we don't always deal with the real issue about the fear about that. The fear is not getting to heaven, exactly. It is something about which we may have confidence far before that. It is about justification from our sins.
Not everyone wakes up each day worried about getting to heaven. Here I am nearly 60 and only 1 or two untimely deaths among all the friends I have had all through life. But everyone should be concerned about justification from their sins, not only because it has after-life value, but because a person does not want their past to steal happiness from them, and needs a way that generates a love for Christ every moment in a positive way, not just the absence of fear. That way is the Gospel of justification, which RobertP is very good at expressing.
Romans is all about justification. It is about the kind of benefit it is in this life, with a few references to the next as well. But most of all it is beyond just benefits to us. It is about the fact that God must be satisfied or propitiated. That is really what must sink in to our modern time. He is not malleable to us and our needs. We must see that we need to be acceptable to him. Our acceptance of him is much less of a question.
I'm at a regional state fair and a Faith Baptist church has a booth near my building co booth. Their attention-getter is a display panel with three doors titled:
THERE ARE THREE THINGS GOD CANNOT DO
There is an short explanation line inside each of the three doors. Not real creative, but there it is.
#3 says GOD CANNOT LET YOU INTO HEAVEN IF YOU ARE NOT BORN AGAIN.
What I want to focus on here is the weight on the human decision or the human changed life. Like RobertP, I also think "the gospel of the changed life has replaced the Gospel which changes lives." Well, here is the gospel of the changed life. The material dwells on the person's condition, but it does it two ways, neither of which are quite up to muster with Romans. There is no amount of changed life that is acceptable to the infinite Judge of the universe that will allow a person to be granted heaven, so actually the statement is wrong. The actions and accomplishments of Christ are required. We are saved by works. Not ours but His.
The 2nd of the two ways is 'getting a person to heaven.' Of course, we all have a fear about that, but we don't always deal with the real issue about the fear about that. The fear is not getting to heaven, exactly. It is something about which we may have confidence far before that. It is about justification from our sins.
Not everyone wakes up each day worried about getting to heaven. Here I am nearly 60 and only 1 or two untimely deaths among all the friends I have had all through life. But everyone should be concerned about justification from their sins, not only because it has after-life value, but because a person does not want their past to steal happiness from them, and needs a way that generates a love for Christ every moment in a positive way, not just the absence of fear. That way is the Gospel of justification, which RobertP is very good at expressing.
Romans is all about justification. It is about the kind of benefit it is in this life, with a few references to the next as well. But most of all it is beyond just benefits to us. It is about the fact that God must be satisfied or propitiated. That is really what must sink in to our modern time. He is not malleable to us and our needs. We must see that we need to be acceptable to him. Our acceptance of him is much less of a question.