Repentance, Calvinism and Works

I love Wretched Radio. I never miss an episode. Today, Todd took a stand that requires a response. It is a fundamental issue.

Repentance, Misdefined, Is Works

Todd Friel, Ray Comfort, and John MacArthur conflate repentance and reform. In today's podcast, Todd defended including repentance in the gospel. That is fine until they explain repentance as turning away from or ceasing from sins. Todd's reasoned today that repenting is "not works" because not doing something cannot be works. This is a flawed definition and an illogical excuse.

Before continuing, I want to point out that, in the Witness Wednesday episodes, Todd asserts his definition of repentance only a minority of the time, and when he does, he does not camp on it. 

Repentance versus Reform

John the Baptist clearly distinguished between repentance and the fruits of repentance. He challenged people who claimed to have a change of mind and heart toward sin, yet failed to demonstrate that change in their actions. Our word for fruits of repentance is 'reform'. 

The tight causal relationship between repentance and reform makes it easy to conflate them. However, 'metanoia', the change of mind and heart called repentance, is a cause. Reform is an effect and evidence of repentance's sincerity.

Moreover, the natural man cannot reform without God's enabling work of regeneration. So, while repentance is involved in the process of salvation, and genuine repentance motivates reform, reform cannot be part of that process. 

Restraint, an Element of Works

To justify turning from sin as a requirement of the gospel, Todd quoted Ray's explanation that not doing something cannot be a work. Thus, they admit that they define repentance as including reform.

Just as there are sins of commission and sins of omission, there are works of commission and works of restraint. "Not doing something," therefore, is indeed "works."

Ray and Todd frequently make use of the Ten Commandments. Five, and arguably six, of the ten are Thou-shalt-not's. What is obedience to those commandments if not works of restraint? If obeying the Ten Commandments is "works," then refraining from sins as part of "repentance" is an offering of righteousness to God in exchange for salvation.

Arminians say you must refrain from certain sins to maintain salvation. Calvinists say you must refrain from sins to enter salvation. It's like the extremes of both have wrapped around the back and met each other.

Calvinist Repentance

From a Calvinist's perspective, the natural man's spirit is dead, inanimate, nonfunctional, dead-dead. God must regenerate him, that is, must animate his spirit before he can have faith. Therefore, if God has already saved a man, then all of what God commands of Christians becomes presentable in the gospel. Under Calvinism, faith plus works is a result of salvation, not a cause, so commanding good works or restraint from sin is orthodox... under Calvinism. 

But if commanding works is applicable to the convert, who has already been saved so that he can believe, then why would Todd defend preaching repentance-reform? Why must he deny that his definition of repentance is works? His agreement that it would be heretical to preach works refutes his belief in Calvinism. 

A Moderate Calvinist View

A Moderate Calvinist sees problems with the Calvinist definition of spiritual death. How can a dead spirit be accountable for things it was not even conscious of, aware of, and in power over? How can a dead spirit suffer in Hades? How can a dead spirit go to Hades without regeneration that is reserved for Christians? 

A Moderate Calvinist also sees a contradiction between the Calvinist order of salvation processes and the explicit New Testament teaching that God uses faith as the means through which He works the grace of salvation.  

A Moderate Calvinist would define spiritual death as analogous to physical death, which is separation of the spirit from the body. Spiritual death is separation from God with an accompanying cognitive disability with respect to spiritual things, resulting from bondage to sin. The "dead" spirit, then, has awareness and influence over decisions and can be held accountable for sins. The order of salvation would be a bracing or healing of the cognitive disability and a conviction of sin, followed by receiving the gift of faith, followed by salvation by grace through faith. 

In other words, since spiritually dead means separation from God and not dead-dead, God does not need to regenerate the spirit before granting the gift of faith. Commanding the unsaved to perform works, then, mixes grace with wages and faith with works, leaving the "convert" unconverted. 

Copyright 2021, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated us, provided credit is properly given. 

Binding Yourself to Salvation with Jello Cords

Imagine a chain binding you to your salvation. 

The Strong Chain

One gospel  has one link in it: God's grace through faith. This link is infinitely stronger than titanium; it will never fail.

The Weakest Possible Chain

Another gospel, commonly found among "Christian" churches, has two links. The first link is, again, God's grace through faith. Some churches in this group primarily preach about the first link, so, whether or not members later become convinced that there's a second link, they are kept secure by that first, titanium link.

The second link, however, is human merit. This link requires completing the earning of salvation by doing good, avoiding certain evils, or perseverance through character and will-power. In other words, the second link is works and wages. 

This other gospel puts the two links together, the titanium link of God's grace with the mercurious link of human merit. If your conversion depended on the first link alone, you are secure. If your "gospel" required both, your religion has already caused you to stumble, for the second link has no power to save nor to keep. It is time to repent of this false gospel of self-righteousness and trust God alone.

Copyright 2021, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, but please don't plagiarize like an SBC president.

Water Baptism Can Prevent Salvation

Answering a question on Quora:

Why is water baptism required for salvation from the wages of sin...?

Water baptism is not required for salvation. It is a new believer’s first act of obedience to God after having entered into salvation.

“Baptism” has two meanings. When reading about “baptism” in the Bible, always ask yourself which kind is meant.

The “baptism” that saves is done silently by the Holy Spirit. The water ceremony symbolizes part of it, namely, the death to self called “repentance” and our spiritual regeneration (more on this, below). Baptism by the Spirit also makes believers members of the universal church with unique roles and giftedness to aid in the functioning of the body of believers. See 1 Corinthians 12:4–11 and especially verses 12–13. Also see Romans 12.

The obvious meaning is the ceremony of being dunked in water. By going down into the water, we identify with Christ’s death, and it represents that we died to self during the process of conversion. By coming up out of the water, we identify with Christ’s resurrection, and it represents the new, regenerated life of our spirits in Christ. Read the first paragraph of Romans chapter 6. (You will notice that pouring, sprinkling, and dabbing do not fulfill the symbolism. Even the Roman Catholic Church baptized by immersion for over 1,200 years.)

1 Peter 3:21 is often cited as evidence that water baptism saves. However, the verse says baptism is “an appeal to God for a good conscience.” In other words, it is about obeying God to gain assurance that our faith is sincere.

Many churches claim that baptism places people into God’s New Covenant, so it is analogous to the Old Testament ceremony of circumcision. That ignores that the Old Covenant was between God and a nation (not individuals), whereas the New Covenant is directly between God and individuals. The New Testament not only does not support the claim; it actually contradicts the claim. See Ephesians 2:8–9.

Paul’s epistle to the Galatians dealt with an early church heresy that added ceremonies to faith as requirements for salvation. The specific ceremony was circumcision, but I’m sure you can see the principle without having it spelled out. Paul used terms such as “foolish” and “bewitched” (chapter 3) to describe those who fell for the heresy. In fact, the term “fallen from grace” refers not to losing salvation (the pop definition); rather it refers to those who add ceremonies to simple faith as requirements for salvation (chapter 5).

Peter did advise the Jews who had just murdered Christ to repent and be baptized. However, the salvation of gentiles in Acts 10:44–48 shows that salvation and Spiritual baptism precede water baptism.

Baptism to be saved puts the cart before the horse. It tries to makes the result into a cause. It tries to make our meritorious work of going through a ceremony into a way to earn a gift. Can you see the contradiction in “earning a gift?” And if someone has tried to earn a gift that is acquired through faith alone, have they really received the gift?

I was “baptized” (dabbed) in a mainline church as a child. It did me no good. Many others who were “baptized” became atheists, joined heretical churches, or joined cults. What did me good was hearing a corrected, biblical gospel when I was mature enough to grasp it. Then I got baptized God’s way.

We don’t get baptized to acquire salvation; we get baptized to assure ourselves and tell the world that God has already saved us. 

Copyright 2021 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, provided credit is given where credit is due.

The Fairness of Hearing the Gospel

Answering a question on Quora:

If only [by] believing in Jesus can someone go to heaven, what about people who died before Jesus's birth, who have not heard about Jesus at their time? If they can all go to heaven, is that not fair for us as we have to choose which god is the right one[?]

This question requires some untangling because it makes several assumptions and implies several questions. 

The question assumes that people have been accountable for fulfilling the same requirements at all times. That is, people living before Jesus’s birth could only go to heaven if they believed in Jesus.

Actually, accountability has always been proportional. That means that a child who has no ability to grasp the requirements has no accountability. It also means that people living in ancient times were not required to know something that had not happened yet.

The question asks, If [Since] only [by] believing in Jesus can someone go to heaven…. That is terribly over-simplified. “Believing in Jesus” is a mere title or summary. When you add the details, you find that five out of six (83%) of the requirements now and in ancient times overlap.

In ancient times, the required knowledge and belief were:

• God exists; and He is just and holy.
• My thoughts and actions have made me unholy, so I cannot defile the presence of a holy God.
• My actions require a just God to punish my unholy thoughts and actions.
• God is also merciful, gracious, and loving, so He will provide a way for me to enter His presence.
• I, therefore, trust God rather than myself.

In 33 AD, God added one more detail:

• The way is Jesus’s death and resurrection. (This is enough detail for this context, although another layer of details appears when you ask questions such as, Whom and What was Jesus? and What do you mean by resurrection?)

People living before 33 AD could not know how God would create the way to enter God’s presence, so they were not accountable for knowing the how. They knew — or at least they could know — through the Old Testament commands, that they were guilty before God. Then knew through the prescribed Old Testament sacrifices that it would require lifeblood and a substitution, and that it would be a price they could not pay without themselves being destroyed. So, instead of trusting themselves, they had to trust God.

Jesus lived, died, and rose again to create the way to enter God’s presence. The exact how was not something ancient people could know, but it is something we know. Since we know the how, we are accountable for following it.

Imagine being on a sinking ship in the middle of the ocean. Someone tells you that a helicopter is hovering overhead, rescuing passengers.

• If you do not believe the ship is sinking, you will drown.
• If you decide to swim 2,000 miles to the nearest shore, you will drown.
• If you look at the helicopter and then return to your room, you will drown.
• If you believe them intellectually but do not let them hoist you up into the helicopter, you will drown.
• If you believe in the helicopter but insist on getting to it your own way, you will drown.

The question focuses on the way of escape, which is trusting that God paid our penalty. In a sense, failing to use that way of escape can be blamed for going to hell. But that is simplistic. The sinking ship represents our unholy thoughts and actions. Drowning represents going to hell. Failing to put faith in Christ’s actions is just one more unholy failure. A sinner does not go to hell for any single moral crime (although one is enough), but for a lifetime of moral crimes.

God sends people to hell for their sins. People send themselves to hell by failing to follow the way of escape that God created.

As for having to choose the right God, all men, always,  have "had to choose the right God." Only one God deals honestly with the problem of sin and justice. For example, when Islam's god forgives, he does so at the expense of satisfying justice. Only the Judeo-Christian God satisfies both justice and love.

The question ends by asking about fairness. Fairness is a relative concept. It is a question that children ask when they don’t get what they greedily desire. “Johnny got a gift he didn’t earn, so it’s unfair if I don’t get a gift.” If there is unfairness, it is created by us. We are the ones making the choice to repent and trust Christ or to reject God’s way.

From God’s perspective, “fairness” would have been making Jesus the political ruler over all earth 2,000 years ago instead of letting the Innocent One take the wrath the guilty deserve. Fairness would be letting all humans go to hell.

Since Jesus created a way to be saved from hell, fairness is allowing us to choose our own fates. Fairness to ourselves would be responding according to our knowledge of the way, living accordingly, and passing that knowledge along.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Assuming credit is given where credit is due, permission granted for non-remunerated use.

Procrastinated Salvation Due to a Fallen Gospel

Answering a post on Reddit

Prayer for an end to procrastination

Hi all, lately I've been learning about what it means to actually be a Christian. It's not just a feeling, but rather a love relationship with God. Recently I've been struggling with 3 major things and I was wondering if you would be willing to pray that God helps me overcome them (preferably quickly too):

1. Procrastination (this is probably my biggest one, because I fear that I take steps back when trying to take steps towards God because I end up feeling like I'm willing to do what God wants, but after I do this, this, and this. The thing I assume that God wants me to do is call upon His name to be saved, but I sometimes can tell that I hold out on calling His name due to the procrastination and the genuineness of my heart [4]).
2. Lust (I'm having trouble realizing that my lust has had destructive effects on me and need help realizing this in a way that will result in my salvation).
3. Going "in and out of reality" (basically zoning out or going into a sort of autopilot mode. It's like listening and watching a conversation and enjoying watching more than being a part of it).
4. The genuineness of my heart (I struggle with genuinely praying, wanting God's help, and wanting Him at times, and how this relates to the procrastination of potentially holding out on Him when it comes to calling upon His name. Sometimes I think that I hear about a problem and then assume I have it or let myself slip into that problem, so that's another thing I would appreciate prayers for: running from problems that God doesnt want me in, not to them. Thank you all so much, happy new year and merry late Christmas :). God bless you ❤

Answer

I struggle with many of the same things and do not count myself worthy to preach. And yet, we are responsible to share what we have been blessed with, so I'll offer what I have learned. It will revolutionize the way you look at the problems for which you've requested prayer.

All religions except one have, as their ultimate goal for individuals, achievement through personal merit of some form of "salvation." Many mistaken variants of Christianity, veering onto that same path, have become counterfeit "Christian" churches, denominations, or movements.

To debunk that concept, the Law given to ancient Israel through Moses proved that nobody could achieve that level of righteousness. The Mosaic Law was one Law with many points. It had several layers.

The Law is like fractals. Every time you look closer, you see more details. Each layer adds details about how to fulfill the previous layer:

1. Love God
2. Love God's creation; specifically, fellow humans
3. The Ten Commandments
4. Another 600 commandments; some being ceremonial or civil and only for ancient Israel, but many being moral.

Here's one example:

1. Love God.
2. Love God by loving your fellow humans.
3. Do not commit adultery or covet (desiring what's not yours).
4. Do not lust after someone other than your spouse because lust is adultery of the mind and covetousness. God is Spirit, so what we "do" in our spirits is just as real to Him as what we do in the material world.

Although the Law served to maintain peace between neighbors and between us and God, it served two main purpose:

• Many ceremonial elements conveyed spiritual or prophetic truths. For example, the sacrifices symbolized how Christ would bear our sins on the cross.
  
  
• The strictness of the Law showed us that we could not self-righteously justify ourselves. "Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law [specifically, ancient Israel; generally, self-righteous people], so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:19-20).

Both purposes drove a third: Instead of relying on self-righteousness, we must trust entirely the undeserved favor of God. "Now to the one who works [people who try to achieve salvation through self-righteousness], his wage [salvation] is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness" (Romans 4:4-5). So if you think you will get salvation by controlling your lust, you will never achieve it. But when you grasp how futile your efforts are and instead trust God 100%, He gives you the gift!

In other words, if you insult the Giver by trying to deserve the gift, you get neither the Giver nor the gift. But if you receive the gift as a free gift, you receive both. "For by grace you [people who have already found salvation] have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

This does not mean you can maintain sinful habits. The next verse says, "we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). It makes no sense that a person would repent from sins and then embrace them.

As part of salvation, God becomes no longer your Judge, but rather, becomes a Father who cares about your maturity. Therefore, like any good human father, He chastises His children. In some cases, He even will call His children home to heaven prematurely, if they are stubborn enough about destructive sins. (See the first twelve verses of Hebrews 12. https://biblehub.com/nasb/hebrews/12.htm)

(Hint: Don't listen to people who promise prosperity or "your best life now." Once God starts training you, life can seem a lot harder; and if you don't receive such correction, you need to re-examine whether your faith was genuine.)

Receiving the gift is like changing directions. It means turning away from sins and from self-righteousness and turning to faith in God. You already feel the weight of your sins, so I don't need to tell you to repent. When you receive the gift as a free gift, God gives you a spiritual rebirth and sends His Holy Spirit to help you get the victory over your sins that you could not achieve on your own.

Victory over sins is a result of salvation, not a cause of it. If you wait to make yourself worthy, you will wait forever. The world's religions say you must achieve that victory in order to receive salvation. They make the result into a cause. This is one of the heresies that the Bible talks about in the letter to the Galatians. 

Pop culture has misdefined the term "fallen from grace." The term does not mean losing God's favor. It means that a false gospel is followed that teaches people to do things to earn salvation (Galatians 5:4 https://biblehub.com/nasb_/galatians/5.htm). 

2,000 years ago, new Christians from the Jewish culture said you had to be circumcised or eat only kosher foods. Today, people say you have to avoid certain sins or persevere by your own strength, or else you lose salvation. Their message is "fallen from grace" into self-righteousness.

When you understand that salvation is a gift, you will no longer have any reason to procrastinate about receiving it. 

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, providing that credit is given where credit is due.

The Righteous Will Be Judged

Answering a question on Quora:

Why will the righteous be judged?

The short answer is that, whereas the unrighteous are judged for punishment, the righteous are judged for reward.

The long answer requires starting by defining “the righteous.” The righteous are not people who never sin.

Now we know that whatever the Law [the Ten Commandments and associated commands] says, it speaks to those who are under the Law [ancient Israelites], so that every mouth may be closed and call the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh [no human] will be justified in His [God’s] sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God… — Romans 3:19–20, 23

The purpose of passages such as the Ten Commandments is not to show us how we can earn heaven. It is to show us that we cannot earn heaven. It drives us to seek a different way to have positive relationship with God.

Rather, the righteous are people who let go of self-righteousness and instead trust that God paid their penalty through Jesus’s sacrifice and then proved it by raising Jesus from the dead. Scriptures use accounting language to say that God credits their penalty to Jesus and imputes their faith to their account for righteousness. They become, not perfect or sinless, but declared righteous.

Being declared righteous does not automatically make their thoughts and actions righteous; that takes growth over the rest of their lives. Becoming a Christian doesn’t make you perfect, it makes you a student.

Here’s an important distinction: Being declared righteous does not mean you can do whatever you want. There are many reasons for this. First, believers do what they believe, so if they really believe God, then they’ll start learning to do God’s will.

Second, God takes steps to help them grow more holy in what they do. So their belief will produce evidence, that is, good behaviors. Good behavior is not a cause of God’s gift of forgiveness, it is a result. Every false system will reverse that by making good works into requirements for receiving the gift. But when you try to earn a gift, you insult the Giver and miss out on getting the gift.

Third, God tests and chastises His children to instill good behaviors. In extreme cases, chastisement can even lead to taking a severely disobedient believer home to heaven. So it’s laughable to say that being secure in God’s love and not having to persevere in good works means you can get away with anything. A “believer” who does whatever he wants and gets away with it demonstrates that he is a counterfeit Christian.

The judgment of the righteous is different from the judgment of those who reject or fail to accept God’s gift (let’s call them “the lost”). When the lost are judged, their moral crimes determine their degree of punishment. Since we sin against infinite God, even a “small” sin earns a very serious punishment.

The righteous, on the other hand, are not judged for punishment because their sins were already punished. (Remember, they were transferred to Christ.) Instead, their works are judged for reward. Many of their “good” works will be disqualified because they were mixed with error, bad methods, or wrong motives. Those works that survive the test will be rewarded. 1 Corinthians 3:12-13

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Repetitive Sin and Losing Salvation

Answering a question on Quora:

Have I lost my salvation? I keep falling back into the same sin for 6 years deliberately after I repent but after the last time I feel as though I cant be forgiven. and if its not to late how can I get back to the lord and make him happy and proud?

First question: No, you have not lost your salvation. There are two possibilities. Your concern over your sin is good, in either case.

• Jesus spoke about people who received the message of God and fell away because of trouble, persecution, worries, or desires. The message bore no fruit in their lives. He spoke even more about people who heard the message and seemed to understand it intellectually, but never grasped it with humbled, needy hearts. Many of them fooled the world and even did mighty works in Jesus name. The message seemed to bear fruit, in their lives, but it was a false fruit. On Judgment Day, Jesus won’t say, “I knew you and then you fell away so I forgot you.” Jesus will say, “I never knew you.”
  
  In other words, you cannot lose what you never had. But if you decide that this is the case, your concern has placed you on the right path to correcting the situation.
  
  The application for you is to make sure you heard the message not just with your head, not just with your heart, and not a deficient version. Your concern may have brought you to the point where you are ready to correct a bad understanding of the gospel or some deficiency in the way you received it.
  
  
• God’s salvation brings many benefits. If you are saved, “regeneration” means that God has made your dead spirit alive. He has made you one of His sheep and put it in your heart to follow Him and no other. The Father holds you in His hand, the Son also holds you in His hand, and the Spirit indwells you. The Spirit, in fact, closes the lid and seals you with a seal that only Jesus can break. God even predestines you to be transformed into the (figurative) image of Christ, and the judgment of the Second Death, when the lost are cast into the Lake of Fire, has no power over you. He has birthed you into His family and adopted you as an heir with full adult privileges of the family business.
  
  In other words, you cannot “lose” what God has declared done or as good as done.
  
  There are many reasons why God does not give instant victory over sins. For example, He doesn’t want us to grow self-righteous or independent. He wants us to struggle to develop strength or to be able to have the wisdom or empathy to help others. Some other sins are a higher priority as He shapes you for the tasks He has ahead. I cannot read God’s mind, so I cannot tell you which of the hundreds of possibilities apply to you.

Second question: There are two possible reasons you feel as though you cannot be forgiven. You are receiving the Father’s chastisement or you don’t understand forgiveness.

• If you have been saved, then God’s relationship with you changed. Before, He was your Judge, but now, He is your Father. Before, your fate was wrath, but now, you are predestined to reward. In the meantime, we are stuck in these sinful bodies. Our natural hearts are deceitful and incurable until that day. God accepts us as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way. He works in us “to will and to do according to His good pleasure.”
  
  God also chastises His children. That feeling of an unforgivable state reflects the interruption in fellowship that happens. This could be a second-level chastisement; you don’t want to find out what the third level is like. There’s even a chastisement to the point of calling us home to heaven for the most severe sins — and yet, the purpose of such extreme measures is preserving the soul.
  
  God presents us with a carrot and a stick. The carrot, the blessings of a restored relationship with God, and the stick, the knowledge that returning to sins will have increasingly severe consequences, should give you something to meditate on and to motivate you.
  
  
• Judicially, Jesus bore the sentence for our sins 1,967 years ago. All of our sins were “future” to Him. God does not forgive our sins just up to that point of our conversion or confession. All the sins of God’s children — past, present, and future — were nailed to the cross.
  
  Jesus Himself commanded the disciples to forgive a repentant brother an unlimited number of times; and Jesus would not issue such a command if the God did not do the same. Whether God already forgave, or God forgives every time does not matter. The result is the same.
  
  Parentally, God does not condemn His children, although He chastises them. Sin does break fellowship with God. It also alienates the Holy Spirit, depriving us of His comfort and power. But what Good Father would not receive a repentant child with open arms?
  
  So the weakness here is failing to trust that God, as Judge, has already forgiven; and as Father has already received you. The problem may be that you are usurping God’s parental privilege and chastising yourself.

Our feelings are not the source of our faith. The scriptures are. It’s tempting to give in to feelings, but we must understand first and then decide to act accordingly. The mind is powerful, and we can control our feelings better than we think.

Third question: You can can “get back to the lord and make him happy and proud” with three steps.

• Make sure you’ve understood the gospel. Technically, this might not be “getting back” to the Lord; it might be getting to Him for the first time.
  
  You feared having lost your salvation. That means that you believed that your salvation was conditional or incomplete. You may have believed that God saves, but salvation ultimately depends on ceremonies (such as baptism) or on your behaviors. The gospel you believe is like a chain with two links. One link represents God’s work, and the other represents your righteousness. Guess which link breaks every time? The biblical gospel has only one link in its chain.
  
  Scroll up to that paragraph that starts out, God’s salvation brings many benefits. Now read each benefit and explain how you can undo that benefit in order to lose your salvation. For example, are you stronger than the Holy Spirit who seals you? Predestination means that God will make something happen. Are you stronger than God? Moreover, if God has forgiven your sins by washing them away and casting them as far away as East is from West, can you filter your sins out of the blood or fetch them back from infinity? If God has erased your sins from the Books of Works, can you write them back in?
  
  Other common misunderstandings regards the meaning of repentance. Many churches ignore it. “Just ask Jesus into your heart,” they say. “Jesus wants to be your friend and make life wonderful for you.” But salvation starts with forgiveness of sins, and conversion starts with an awareness, not that there’s a hole in your life, but that our sins have condemned us.
  
  The other extreme about repentance requires cleaning up our lives in order to be saved. This is tied to the error of thinking you can lose salvation. Trying to earn the gift insults the Giver. Repentance is an attitude, not actions. It means seeing our sins the way God sees them. It does not include reforming yourself; and it cannot, because we cannot achieve the degree of righteousness that God would require. In fact, making reform a requirement for salvation is a form of self-righteousness, one of the sins we must repent from!
  
  Salvation does not result from reform; reform results from salvation. It is not a test for salvation; it tests whether salvation is genuine. Reform gives evidence of salvation; it is a product of salvation; it does not cause it.
  
  
• Assuming you had salvation, then, if you fear having lost it, then you are not trusting in God’s forgiveness. You are fearing that God has changed from Father back into Judge. This is an area where you can please God by expanding your trust in Him.
  
  
• Trust Him to keep you saved.
• Trust that He has already forgiven all your sins.
• Trust that God is now your Father instead of your Judge.
• Trust that your Father will never disown you.
• Thank Jesus, Son of God, for bearing your punishment.
• Thank your Father for His chastisement.
• Thank Him for the promise that one day, He will complete your transformation and free you from sin.
  
  
• Don’t stop repenting. Jesus commanded disciples to forgive every time a brother came in repentance. Trust that what God commands of us, He does.
  
  Bear this in mind: You are focused on one sin. If you think this sin is the only one, you have a problem of self-righteousness. Ironic, isn’t it? We can feel so guilty about one sin that we forget all the other sins we commit. We all commit so many sins, we don’t even recognize all of them. What makes this one sin so special that it costs your salvation while all the others don’t?
  
  Don’t get me wrong. Some sins are more detestable, and different sins cause different levels of damage or chastisement. But sin is sin, and the sacrifice of infinite God the Son was sufficient to cleanse us from any guilt.

I’ll conclude with some practical hints. Make sure you understand the gospel. You can only “get saved” once, but you can make sure of it as many times as you need. Copy Romans 3:28, Ephesians 2:8–9, Titus 3:5, and Romans 8:38–39 onto 3x5 note cards; then read and re-read them until you can recite them from memory. Repent from not trusting God. Increase your trust and make it a habit to thank God for securing you in His love — and even thank Him for His chastisement.

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

Will God Forgive Bitterness?

From a question on Quora:

Will God still forgive those who hold bitterness in their hearts towards others?

Bitterness is wrong. It hurts others and it hurts you. It means that you have not seen yourself through God’s eyes because you see yourself as superior to the other person. You must know this, so I’ll keep the focus on God’s forgiveness.

There are two routes to heaven. If you depend on the first route, then, along with obeying numerous other commandments, you must forgive everyone who offends you in order to earn God’s forgiveness. If you have depended on the second route, God has already forgiven you as Judge, although He may chastise you as a loving Father.

The Jews of Jesus’s day, most people around the world, and many “Christian” denominations and offshoots pursue the first route. This route depends on human merit.

• The Jewish leaders, being descendants of Abraham, believed their heritage earned heaven for them. You will hear similar claims today, such as “My mother was a saint!” or “Grandpa was a Baptist preacher.”
• Many believed that the sacrifices made by their parents or ceremonies such as circumcision that their parents put them through brought them into a special relationship with God. When I was 18, I thought that because I was born an American and my parents had me “baptized” when I was little, I would see heaven.
• Others believed that if they kept the Ten Commandments, related commandments, traditions, and ceremonies; did acts of love and generosity; and kept themselves separate from things that would defile them (such as eating pork of shrimp), God would forgive them. Much of that continues today. The standard may be as simple as “Love one another” or may include performing sacraments, works of charity, refraining from offenses, or forgiving others.

Jesus often preached against depending on the first, heritage. He also preached that the second, what others do for you, was worthless unless you embrace the third in your heart. He did often preach the third, personal righteousness. But there’s a catch.

If you depend on personal righteousness, then the standard is perfection. The test is Pass/Fail, and any score less than 100% is Fail. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours (Matthew 6:15). Jesus implied that the personal righteousness standard was so high that, instead of saving people, it condemned them. All (except Jesus) have fallen short of God’s standard. Because of this, God cannot allow us to defile His presence. Even if we could, we could not bear to be in His presence.

Not everybody reaches sufficient humiliation to admit in frustration and self-condemnation, “I can’t.” For those who do give up on the futile self-merit route, God has created the second route.

The word grace means gift or unmerited favor. If something is a gift, you don’t insult the Giver by trying to earn it either before or after the fact. You don’t mix faith and works or mix grace and merit the way many churches do.

God’s grace is an attitude, not a money-like stuff that comes bit-by-bit. Someone made up an acronym to explain g-r-a-c-e: God Redeems At Christ’s Expense. Jesus, Son of God, like a Big Brother taking his little brother’s punishment, took God’s punishment for our sins. Jesus’s sacrifice was sufficient for all sins of all people; and God demonstrated His satisfaction by physically raising Jesus from the dead.

God applies that payment to those who trust God instead of themselves. That includes several points of faith such as our guilt and its consequences, Christ being God, Christ dying on a cross and rising from the dead, and God’s promise to save trusting people from being judged for their offenses.

When you have that kind of repentance and faith, God grants total forgiveness. That means you will never face God as Judge because He has changed your relationship. He births you into His family and adopts you as His heir. So now He’s your Father who will never leave or abandon you, even if you have not yet overcome bitterness in your heart.

Does that mean you can do anything you want — such as failing to forgive — without consequences? Absolutely not! God chastises His children when they will not turn from offensive ways. Sometimes, chastisement can be as severe as sickness or death. But your sin cannot change what you are.

So if you want to earn your way to heaven, go ahead: Hold yourself to an impossibly high standard. And when you fall flat on your face, go to God in humility. As Judge, God will forgive all your sins — and by all I mean all, including bitterness. And as Father, he will train you, using internal influence over your spirit, positive reinforcement, and chastisement. 

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