Jesus's Name Is God Name

Answering a question on Quora: 

"If Jesus was not the Archangel Michael in heaven, what was his name there?"

The question starts with an assumption that Jesus had a name in heaven. This is called “begging the question,” meaning that the assumption has not been shown to be true. (The term is almost always misused by people who mean “demands the question.”) Before asking what Jesus’s name was, one should first ask whether Jesus had or even needed a name.

This may sound like I start out on a tangent, but if you read patiently, you’ll see that it stays directly on topic.

Our names serve to distinguish us from one another. When a Being is unique in type, He does not need a name to distinguish Him from other, similar beings. So, since there is exactly one God, God does not need a name.

Also consider that having been named implies that a previous being must have created you and, thus, had the right to give you a name. Since no previous god created God, no being had the authority to name Him. So in heaven (more properly, in eternity), God was not given a name.

Instead of a formal name, God has assumed many titular names that tell us about Him. Examples include El (God), Adonai (Lord), YHWH* (I AM or I AM THAT I AM), and most interestingly, Elohim (Gods). Elohim is interesting because, although it is plural, it takes a singular verb. It hints about God’s nature in the very first chapter of the Bible.

(The pronunciation of YHWH was forgotten around 200 BC; Jehovah is an anglicized version of a Spanish version of the Latin version of the Greek version of the vowels from Adonai added to the consonants YHWH.)

Angels are created beings. Jesus / Christ / Messiah is the Creator.

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. John 1:3, NASB 1995

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through Him and for Him. Colossians 1:16, NASB 1995

John clearly states that Christ created the universe. Colossians repeats that and specifically includes all personal beings, which includes angels. If Christ created the angels, then Christ cannot be a mere angel.

There’s a word for the Creator of all things: God.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 ESV

But of the Son [Jesus] He [God] says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. Hebrews 1:8 ESV

Many models of the nature of God exist. Only one such model resolves all the Bible’s claims. Physics and cosmology tell us that when God created the universe, He created even time and space. They’re facets of the universe.

The triune version of the Trinity fits with science. God, being timeless, used His creative power to exist in, experience, and interact with His creation, and with each other, as three temporal Persons. Each Person, or center of consciousness, is fully God, having the same essence in eternity, yet having a separate consciousness in time.

The three Persons voluntarily took on distinct roles: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (People often make a category error, confusing difference due to a hierarchy with difference in nature, but the inference does not hold up logically. Role does not necessitate a difference in nature because three co-equals can assume a hierarchy in order to create order among the roles that they assume, as well as to exemplify messages about love, authority, and obedience to their creatures.)

In the Father-role, God remains unseen in heaven.

Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. John 6:4, NASB 1995

In the Son-role, God represents and explains the Father to us.

No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten* God who is in the bosom** of the Father, He has explained Him. John 1:18, NASB 1995

(* Translators are divided about whether monogenes, “only-begotten,” means literally only-begotten (a male counterpart to only-born) or is an idiom that meant unique, one-and-only as a result of having taken on a human body. Both descriptors lead to the same conclusion.

** “In the bosom” was a word-picture of one person resting his head on another’s chest, indicating platonic or familial trust and intimacy.)

In the Son-role, God added a human nature to HIs divine essence, and we call that earthly representation, Jesus of Nazareth. Yet the Son represents the Father because he has the same nature in every dimension.

Who [Jesus], being the radiance of His [the Father’s] glory and the exact expression of His substance, and upholding all things [Creation] by the power of His word…. Hebrews 1:3, Berean Literal Bible

So Jesus is the Creator who spoke the universe into existence and upholds it; and whose essence is exactly the same as the Father’s essence. In fact, since there exists exactly one God, they have the same essence. The theological word for this is “consubstantiality.” Thus, although there has been, is, and ever will be exactly one God, God chose to enter His creation three simultaneous times as three consciousnesses or personal Spirits.

(I have not addressed the Holy Spirit in this because the question is specifically about the Son. I don’t think He minds.)

Other models of the Trinity, such as

• three Gods (a common false accusation from Muslims)
• an angelic Jesus (Jehovah Witnesses)
• a child-god (“Mormons” or Latter Day Saints)
• a costume-changing God (Modalists or Oneness Pentecostals)
• a human Jesus (Unitarians and “Progressive Christians”)
• God plus little or developing gods (Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Word-Faith Pentecostals)

create numerous contradictions in the Bible. Only the triune model (one timeless God as three temporal Persons) reconciles all the biblical evidence.

Additional reason: If it is logical to ask the heavenly formal name of God the Son, then it is also logical to ask the heavenly formal name of God the Father and of God the Holy Spirit. If asking the heavenly formal name of God the Father or God the Holy Spirit is not logical, then neither is it logical to expect God the Son to have a heavenly formal name.

Although God has, for our sake, distinguished Himself from imaginary gods by taking on various descriptive, titular names, He has no need for a formal name in heaven.

Copyright 2021, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, but please give credit where credit is due.

Judge Jesus: "Full of Himself?

Answering a question on Quora:

Why is Jesus so full of himself that he would condemn good loving peaceful people to an eternity in a burning lake of fire that doesn't worship him as a god?

First off, you’re not really “full of yourself” if you really are “all that.” Jesus is “all that.” If you understood the unimaginable precision of the constants of physics required to keep the universe from collapsing or exploding, you’d be just beginning to understand the greatness of God the Son. If you understood the virtual impossibility of the chain of events beginning with the formation of the right types of amino acids all having the same geometries, forming the right proteins, forming the right components that enable self-replication of RNA and DNA, and the half-gigabyte of quaternary-encoded information that enables the duplication of that environment (as well as itself) in even the simplest hypothetical biological organism, you would be just beginning to grasp how great God the Son is. He is “all that.” He is all that by nature, He is all that by virtue of being your Creator, and He is all that by virtue of the price He paid to secure your potential redemption.

Second, if you grasped the utter perfection and holiness of God the Son, you would never pretend that there’s such a thing as “good” people, This error normally results from judging people relative to ourselves or from judging ourselves relative to other imperfect people, rather than judging relative to God’s standard. What, you think your “good” outweighs your bad? Do you really think you can pay off your debts with what you already owe to your Creator? What, you think you’re perfect? You’ve never done anything wrong? Now who’s full of himself?!

Third, the unholiness of man and the holiness of God’s presence cannot coexist. The unholiness of a human would defile and insult an utterly righteous and holy God, and the glory of God would be unbearable to an unholy, unregenerated human. Neither could stand the other! Hell is not a problem, but rather, a solution.

Fourth, saying that not worshiping Christ as God sends people to hell is like saying one link in a chain suspends the load. It’s a flawed focus on a single symptom. God provided a means of redemption and regeneration. He offers it as a gift. Refusing that gift is the ultimate sin; it is a sin against oneself. But nobody goes to hell for that sin alone; it is merely one among many.

Hell was created for Lucifer and the angels who followed him in rebellion against God. We are born as citizens of Lucifer’s kingdom, and we all ratify that with by breaking God’s commandments. God’s gift can regenerate us so we gain citizenship in God’s kingdom. If we are so full of ourselves that we fail to receive that gift, we have only ourselves to blame.

Fear of hell is not a wrong reason to receive the gift and then worship God. But there is a better reason. God is good. In fact He is the ultimate standard of goodness. He not only gave us life, but also, at His own expense, created the means for our forgiveness, redemption, and regeneration. He balanced justice and love by paying a price that would have destroyed any mere human. In His kindness, He freely offers that to each of us.

When we rebel against physical laws, we pay a price. The price of rebelling against gravity by walking off a cliff is paid when you hit the bottom. You have only yourself to blame. Likewise, there is a moral law. If we fail to receive the gift of redemption, we will hit the bottom in hell. And how much more accountable will be those who actively reject the gift.

You can reframe the consequences to shift the blame to the One who enforces the law. You may rage against Him for all eternity. But in all honesty, you will have only yourself to blame. 

Copyright 2021 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use. Please cite sources when copying.

Why the Universe Couldn't Always Have Existed

 Answering a question on Quora:

If God always existed and did not need to be created, why is not possible that the universe always existed and did not need to be created?

The question needs a two-part answer. First, I want to clarify: For many, establishing the existence of God must precede establishing that God has revealed Himself. A debates over Big Bang cosmology versus various versions of Creationism is a subsequent issue. It can wait. One step at a time.

...why is [it] not possible that the universe always existed and did not need to be created?

Theoretical physicists don’t believe the universe is eternal. They believe it began 13.787±0.020 billion years ago. According to General Relativity, “universe” includes not only mass and energy, but also space-time.

1. Obviously, if the universe began to exist a finite time ago, it could not have always existed.
2. “Always existed” implies an infinite past. If space-time began during the inflationary period as physicists believe it did, then there was no earlier past in which the universe could have existed.
3. Due to increasing entropy, an infinitely old universe would have experienced heat death, long ago. Even if the universe were cyclical or a child universe, entropy would have been preserved through the rebirths or births, so an infinitely old series of cycles would still have produced a dead universe long ago.
4. If the universe began in the infinite past, it would be impossible to traverse an infinite time to get to “now.”
5. It would be impossible to traverse an infinite series of real things or events such as birth-rebirth cycles.

At the minimum, the universe had to begin to exist. This leads to a tangent: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. From the characteristics of the universe and of life, we can infer a number of attributes such as unimaginable power, creative power over space-time that enables spatial and temporal omnipresence, unimaginable levels of intelligence and craftsmanship — attributes of a Creator-God.

If God always existed and did not need to be created….

Again, “always existed” implies an infinite past. That has already been refuted. Theist apologists familiar with cosmology do not say God always existed. They say God had to exist “before” the universe. Since time is an attribute of the universe itself, and the universe had a beginning a finite time ago, God existed outside of time (not “always”).

While God existed outside of time, He also can enter into time. If God created the universe, and time is an attribute of the universe, then God has creative power over time. With such a creative power, God can enter into time, experience it, and interact with His creatures.

In fact, with such creative power, God can enter into space-time as multiple Persons or centers of consciousness. Being Spirit and not matter, the impossibility of two masses existing at the same time and location do not apply. And being timeless and spaceless combines with creative power so that coexisting as three Persons having the same essence (spiritual “substance”) does not create any paradoxes. But the fact of a triune God must be revealed; it cannot be deduced, sensed, or detected.

As with an infinite universe or cycle of universes, an infinite regression of gods creating gods is impossible. If there were a chain of gods creating gods, one of them must be the First Cause. This might make sense causally, but remember, you lack time during which sequences such as need and creation could occur. The idea of God being created is nonsensical in a condition that lacks the dimension of time.

One link in the chain of gods is as far as the evidence and logic permit us to go, and One is enough. 

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use; and remember to give credit where credit is due.

Another Silly Question about God's Origin

From answering a question on Quora:

Does God know where he came from?

The question assumes that God “came from” somewhere. According to Christian scriptures, theology, and philosophers, God created the universe. Without a universe, no “then,” “there,” “source,” or “cause” existed from which God could come. So the question is broken.

Perhaps the asker meant, “What was the source or origin of God?” Again, without time, sequences such as going from non-existence to cause, to creation, to existence are nonsensical. Nevertheless, many Atheists ask the same question differently, asking, “Who created God?”

If God had a creator, who created him? And who created the Creator’s creator? And who created the Creator’s creator’s creator? Once you insist that the Creator had to have a creator, you create an infinite regression. It doesn’t work. If you started at a time infinitely in the past, and then pass through time, you could never get to our “now” because that would take an infinite length of time. In an infinite length of time, no matter how much time passes, there’s still more time that needs to pass before you can get to our “now.” Similarly, if you start with an infinitely precedent creator, you could never get to the current Creator. The assumption that God had a creator creates a mathematical impossibility.

The above analysis brings us to another problem. If God created the universe, then He created all the attributes and artifacts of the universe, including time, which cosmology and physics tell us had a beginning in the Inflationary period that became the Big Bang. If God created time, then He has an existence outside of time. And if God exists outside of time, then saying that He must have had a beginning and a creator is like saying that the number seven must have a color and a temperature. “Beginning” is meaningless without time, so, again, the assumption that God had a beginning creates a practical impossibility.

The question is in the class of questions such as “Why did God do this?” and “Why didn’t God to that?” It requires knowing the mind of God. Such questions require either God revealing His knowledge or reasoning to us, speculating, or reading god’s mind. I’m not a god, and I don’t believe anybody else who uses Quora is a god, either, so reading the memories in God’s mind is out of the question. That leaves us with either revelation or speculation. According to revelation through the Christian scriptures, God is self-existent and created the universe. From that, we can say that God does not "know" the incorrect assumption that He had an origin. If you reject revelation, then giving an authoritative answer is impossible. And the impossibility of giving an answer can only prove, at best, human limitations.

There’s a common practice of posing rhetorical questions as a substitute for actual arguments. Rhetorical questions can be used to hide false assumptions and faulty logic. The person answering the question has to restate the question as a claim and then detect the assumptions and logic and their flaws. So, if the intent is to discourage belief in God, the question is more specious than logical. (I don’t assume that the asker had that intent. I’m just pointing it out because others do use such flawed rhetoric.)

To sum up, the question is a non sequitur, meaning that it assumes facts not in evidence. And the concise answer is, no, God would not “know” something that is impossible and meaningless.

For further background:

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3gdeV4Rk9EfL-NyraEGXXwSjDNeMaRoX

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use for non-remunerated purposes, but please give credit where credit is due.

Could God Be a Monad?

Can God the Father be God without Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

(From a question on Quora)

The question is asked in present tense, and it is a bit ambiguous. I take it to mean, Is God the Father able to remain God if God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were split off, eliminated, or retracted from the universe?

Your question could also be taken to mean, Could God the Father have chosen to be a unitary God without having also existed as Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

Based on the relationship between God and the universe, I would say yes with respect to His substance but no with respect to His character. The same answer applies to either interpretation of the question.

One of the arguments for the existence of God is known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It states:

• Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
  
• The universe began to exist (around 13.8 billion years ago)
  
• Therefore, the universe has a Cause. 

From the nature of the universe and related arguments, one can derive (without turning to revealed information such as the Bible) that the Cause is timeless, spaceless, non-contingent, unimaginably powerful, volitional, and unfathomably intelligent. In other words, God.

According to General Relativity, time, space, matter, and energy are so intertwined that if God created the universe, He created time and space, as well. Creative power over time and space allows their Creator to be omnipresent and omnitemporal — which explains omniscience with respect to both every location and every time.

Creative power over time and space also allows God to enter and experience time and space as one Person (or center of consciousness) or as a billion Persons, yet remain One God outside of the Universe. As it happens, He chose to exist in time and space as three Persons. Those three Persons, while remaining in every way equal, voluntarily took on different roles and titles: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Due to the feat of entering time and space, all three Persons have the same substance (spirit). If God were a creature of the universe, this would be counter intuitive. However, with God having His “home” or “natural” existence outside of time and space, all three Persons can consist of the same spiritual substance.

We would be bothered by the physical law that two things can simultaneously occupy the same space at the same time. However, God’s substance is Spirit, not physical; so He is not subject to the same limits as we are.

Since all three Persons consist of the same substance, eliminating one or two of the Persons would not affect the existence of the third Person. Neither would it affect the existence of God outside of time and space.

So, with respect to God’s substance, one Person of the Trinity could exist without the other two.
But is this consistent with God’s character? God is relational and loving, and He has no needs. To exist as a unitary Person (a “monad”) would leave a relational God without any source or object of love until He created intelligent life. If God has no needs, then this makes it probable that God existed as three Persons even “before” creation. As Genesis 1:1 says, In the beginning, Gods (Elohim, “gods”) created (singular) the heavens and the earth.….

If the Son and the Holy Spirit ceased to exist in the universe, God the Father would still be God. However, He would cease to be “the Father” because you can’t be a father without at least one person in the role of “the Child” (or “the Son”).

Also, the roles of the three Persons teach us about relationships and solve problems that I won’t go into now. (For example, how can God remain untouched by corruption and at the same time experience incarnation? Or how can God simultaneously express His wrath and be the subject of that wrath in our place?) God would have to either fulfill the functions of all three Persons or eliminate some of those functions.

If God is God, then He is maximally great. If God is maximally great, then any other form in which He existed in the universe would be less than maximally great. By definition, a less-than-maximally great god would not be God.

To Modalists such as Oneness Pentecostals and to sects such as the Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses), Oneness is not a problem. Modalists believe God is a quick-change artist, switching between three hats in order to deceive people into thinking He is three Persons. But that makes God a deceiver. The Watchtower teaches that only the Father is God because the Son is just an exalted archangel and the Holy Spirit is just an impersonal force of God.

But we are approaching this from the view that all three Persons are God, so a lonely, God is an unsolvable problem for Modalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, and Muslims.

So my final answer is that, if two Persons ceased to be, the third Person could continue to be God. However, as a monad, God would have had or might still have unfulfilled needs and would be less than maximally great, so without the Son and the Holy Spirit, He would not be God.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Since I originally posted this answer on Quora, I probably lost the right to claim copyright. However, I ask that if you use this material, please give credit where credit is due.

From a question on Quora:

Is the separation of "the entirety", the one god, into multiple gods or aspects due to our inability to comprehend "the entirety" as the singular aspect of all of creation?

In Hinduism, a multiplicity of minor gods make up components of a unified cosmic stew. The answer for Hinduism could be yes. I won't speak for them. My answer comes from a Christian perspective.

From a Christian perspective, the answer is no. The question reveals a lack of understanding of Christian theology. It comprises major non sequiturs which the following statements answer:

1. In Christian theology, one God is not separated into multiple gods or aspects. I’ll explain this below.
2. The “members” of the Trinity did not evolve from human imagination, but rather, are discerned from divine revelation.
3. The definition of the Christian God is not a convenience for the sake of comprehension, but rather, is a hindrance to the comprehension of many people such as Jews, Jehovah Witnesses, Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarians, and Muslims. The majority of trinitarians still accept it by faith despite the difficulty of comprehending it, and you may find the following explanation to be unique even among top Christian apologists and philosophers.
4. God is separate from His creation and not an aspect of creation. The way the question is worded is like asking whether an egg is an aspect of a hen or a painting is an aspect of an artist.

According to current cosmology, the Inflationary period and the Big Bang mean that the universe had a beginning. Matter, energy, space, and time are so intertwined that if the universe had a beginning, then even time and space had a beginning.

According to the Cosmological argument, everything that begins to exist has a cause, so the universe had a cause that was immensely powerful, timeless, spaceless, and volitional. Skipping other arguments that fill in attributes… according to Christian theology, that cause was a singular God.

Some people, thinking themselves clever, ask, “Then what caused God? And what caused the cause? [This is actually compatible with Gnosticism.] You end up with an infinite regression of causes of causes, but an infinite regression is impossible because if you start at the other end, you can never get to this time.” The argument creates two logical absurdities.

• If God had a Cause, then that Cause had to be greater than God. But if the Cause was greater than God, then God is not God. (Reference the Ontological Argument and St. Anselm’s definition of God.)
• Multiple causes and effects requires sequence, and sequence is meaningless outside of time. Thus, it is nonsensical to assume that, outside of time, God began to exist due to a preceding Cause.

Existing outside of time and space and having creative power over the universe, God can enter or “reach into” His creation, reveal Himself to us, and experience it as one, three, or any number of apparent (apparent to us, that is) entities.

The Scriptures pose problems that the Jewish faith never dealt with. The clues are scattered throughout the Old Testament and are made more clear in the New Testament. The Father is clearly God, Christ is clearly God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and each of these has a distinct consciousness in time. Yet the scriptures explicitly teach that there is exactly one God.

To the Jewish and others who believe in a monolithic God, the idea of one God entering time and space as three Persons — the Trinity — is a problem. The evidence does not fit their understanding of God. However, to those who build their understanding around the evidence, the Trinity is a solution. It fits the scriptural evidence, and now we know it fits with science, as well.

In Christian theology, the three Persons are fully God, share the same spiritual substance, and share all the same attributes. The apparent (from our perspective) differences stem from the three cooperating by voluntarily accepting differing roles. Differences such as hierarchy of authority derive from the roles, not from the natures of the participant.

Another difference results from Christ joining with a human body so that, as the Son, He became fully man while retaining the nature of being fully God. Through this incarnation, He could experience the temptations, trials, and pains of life as a human, becoming a fitting proxy for us when God poured out judgment. At the same time, as God, He could live a sinless life, thus not needing to be judged for His own sins; and He could bear and recover from a judgment that would have destroyed us.

Thus, God is both eternal and temporal, transcendent and condescending, just and loving, responsible for creating a universe in which evil would happen and responsible for providing a way to offer redemption at His own expense. This is the maximally great God, far greater than any of the monolithic, “entirety” gods.

So God is creator of the universe, not an aspect of it. This one God is not separated into multiple gods or aspects. Rather, He exists as a continuing Unity. If we could see God from a perspective outside of time, we would see one God, whereas seeing God from within time, we see three co-equal Persons voluntarily fulfilling separate roles. Rather than man developing the Trinity as a convenience for our comprehension, the concept was discerned from divine revelation in spite of its challenge to our comprehension.


Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use for personal, non-profit use, provided you give credit where credit is due.

A Partial Case for the Trinity

God is Jesus, God is the Father, but Jesus Is Not the Father

I wrote this for someone on Quora who seemed unsure about whether Jesus is God, but not the Father.

Science tells us that, when God made the universe, it had to involve creating energy, matter, space, and time. Having creative power over space and time, God entered time to experience it in three roles. From our perspective, God is three Persons, yet one God.

It is, as we used to say, mind-blowing! Here is just a sample of of the biblical evidence:

• Jesus called Himself “I Am” (John 8:58).  God called Himself I AM (Exodus 3:14) 
  
  (Note: Through translation from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, YHWH turned into “Jehovah,” which has little resemblance to the original word. For this reason, sects that make a big deal out of knowing the name “Jehovah” are founded on a myth.)
  
  
• Jesus claimed to have existed before Abraham, who lived about 1900 years earlier. (John 8:58)
  
  
• John wrote that God the Son (“the Word”) made all things that have come into being. (John 1:3)
  
  
• Paul wrote that God the Son created all things, and He is what holds all things together. (Colossians 1:16-17)
  
  (Note 1: In verse 16, one very bad translation inserts the word “other” so it reads, “created all other things.” They insert the word because they deny that the Son of God was created and not the Creator.
  
  Note 2: Some will say, “But look at verse 15! It says he was the first one born, so He was created. However, the Greek word translated “firstborn” in verse 15 does not mean “first one born.” It means Preeminent One. If you search the scriptures, you will find men who were called firstborn but were not the first ones among their siblings to be born. They were “firstborns” despite not being first ones born.)
  
  
• Jesus existed with the Father before creation, sharing in God’s glory. (John 1:1-2, John 17:5, John 17:24)
  
  
• If you read the last reference in context (John 17), you will notice that Jesus talks to the Father as separate Persons. The Father sends, glorifies, give authority to, gives followers to, gives a mission to, and shares glory with the Son. The Son prays to, glorifies, receives glory from, accomplishes work assigned by, shared and will share the glory of, conveys the words of, goes forth from and returns to, the Father. And that’s just the evidence from one chapter that, although the Father is God and the Son is God, the Father and the Son are two distinct persons.
  

As I said, this is just a sample of the evidence. Many scoff at the Trinity, but they have to twist hard to get the scriptures to indicate that the Son and Holy Spirit are not Persons of God, or that God just switches identities to trick us into thinking a single Person doesn’t pray to Himself, delegate to Himself, send Himself, go forth from Himself, and obey Himself.

Here’s why this is very important: If you were saved by the wrong God, you still need to be saved.