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Tychicus -> RE: Salvation and Eternal Security - One Stop Thread (7/12/2008 6:40:30 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Tychicus
And you are saying that the reason Eternal Security is not being taught more directly in context could be that God wanted to "make it necessary to consult all of Scripture to come to [the truth of this teaching]." In other words, God obscured things just a little, in order to make us study harder.
Now you know I believe God taught eternal security clearly enough in various passages; but, He also included much language that would "appear" to differ. I really do think God obscured quite a bit in Scripture. This is apparent by all the various beliefs, although, much of the differences is simply due to hard-headedness or the desire to maintain power and authority.
Hi kelman,
And another reason for all the differences is as you say below:
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And who are those who will be interested in studying harder to come to truth?....not those so tightly locked and invested in particular denominational doctrines.
I would expand the "tightly locked and invested" to include not only those who strenuously argue for their denominational doctrine, but also those who are just ignorant of other views or who are generally weak on Bible knowledge. Their theological knowledge may come mostly from what they hear in church, or on popular "Christian radio".
But I do not think Scripture is really that obscure. Of course, there are the parables, where you need "ears to hear"; but mostly the Scripture is meant for our instruction. As the famous passage, 2 Tim 3:16-17, says: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
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so yes, I think God obscures some truths so that we will study harder.
Even with clear teaching there is still plenty to study, trying to absorb all 66 books. And we also have to deal with a different original language, and different cultural understanding. And some concepts are not totally easy to grasp. For example most would agree that Romans is quite complex. Now you can boil it all down to the "Romans Road" gospel presentation (5 verses); but really, Paul was saying a whole lot more than that. There are lots of questions, like why does Paul write it in the order he does? What does chap 3 have to do with chap 2, etc., as you read it all in context. Why is it that some of the phraseology of chaps 2-3 reoccur in chaps 9-10. What did the 1st century readers really understand as they read these passages, given the theological understanding they would have had at that time.
So I do not think there is any reason for God to purposely obscure some truths. Even the most zealous of Bible students have a hard time understanding Scripture as is. But I would say that, if you concentrate on the context, you'll be much closer to the truth as God inspired it to be written, than if you just study a bunch of verses that are laid out to you from your favorite Bible teacher.
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For that matter, God could have written Scripture specifically by telling us, for example : "now, don't get the wrong impression that your sins will be washed away in water baptism, it is simply a command I give to identify yourself as a Christian, similar to circumcision of the OT."
Yes, I guess on that topic God really meant to confuse us. On top of all you said he even threw in verses like Acts 22:16: "Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name." [8|]
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And even though in your view John 'did an excellent job of [teaching Eternal Security]', in fact this teaching never made it to the early church. I'll accept your view that you find some traces in the later writings of Augustine, although it never caught on very well in the Roman church, nor anywhere until Calvin in the 16th century. But no matter, that is still 400 years and tens of thousands of pages of documents with nary a mention of Eternal Security.
I don't look at it as a negative that it didn't "catch on" in RC. Afterall, just look at some of what did catch on.
Yes, the RC church has a lot of doctrines that apparently originated with Augustine, some good and some bad (IMO). But the point about Eternal Security is that it didn't catch on anywhere, and there is no evidence it existed before Augustine.
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Here's another interesting word: gate (John 10:1). There are two fundamentally different uses for a gate: 1) to keep the bad guys out; 2) to lock the citizens in (kind of like the Berlin wall). So, how is the word "gate" being used in John 10?
The Greek word is translated door 37 times and gate twice. The various uses in Scripture for door are: used to enclose a room or tomb; something close at hand(at the very door); opportunity; the entrance to a room or sheepfold or eternal life(Christ as The Door); and, of course prison doors.
So, in John 6 the door spoken of is Christ. Only through this Door may one come safely into the sheepfold others that come another way are thieves and robbers, iow, unsaved(vs 1,9). And, obviously it is the responsibility of the Shepherd to safely keep the sheep in the sheepfold; and, in fact, the Shepherd gave His life to do so(vs 11).
Thanks for the complete analysis of the word "gate/door". It's another great example of a word having several shades of meaning.
And of course in John 10 it is being used figuratively, and I would not suggest making a big theological point over it. But I will note that in 10:1-3, 9, you see that the door is meant to keep out the bad guys, and let in the good guys. (Oh, I'm sure gals could come in too.) But really, the imagery changes after awhile, and Jesus becomes the shepherd. The good shepherd protects his sheep from the wolf; whereas the hired hand runs away.
Now, you say, "obviously it is the responsibility of the Shepherd to safely keep the sheep in the sheepfold; and, in fact, the Shepherd gave His life to do so(vs 11)." Well, perhaps it is "obvious" that Shepherds keep the sheep in the sheepfold, but that is not a point that Scripture makes. It is also the case that Shepherds sometimes butcher a sheep (especially a rebellious sheep). The Scripture does not bring up that point either.
The Scripture says that the Shepherd lays down his life to protect the sheep from the wolf, or from the thief and robber. This is the clear lesson from Scripture. It does not talk about locking sheep up, or rebellious sheep, or lamb chops. So anyone is free to make up theological speculations about these topics. And anyone else is free to agree or disagree with them.
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