Eternal Salvation Is Free; Ruling With Christ Is Earned

[ThankfulForever777]

Originally Posted by bearbear

Here is a video which goes into more detail on the warning passages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQZZuJgMGs

Thank you for sharing this link. After watching it, I believe it offers valuable insights that challenge many preconceptions I have acquired from WL teachings.

[bearbear]

Originally Posted by ThankfulForever777

Thank you for sharing this link. After watching it, I believe it offers valuable insights that challenge many preconceptions I have acquired from WL teachings.

Glad you enjoyed it ThankfulForever777, here's another interesting video from Sam Shamoun who the famous apologist David Wood calls the "Assyrian Encyclopedia" and arguably the best Christian debater of our lifetime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYaTEv5DZVE ("Sam Shamoun On "FAITH ALONE" & What Jesus Taught About Justification")

I often refer to this blog post for a Greek word study on "faith" actually meaning "trust within a vow to a faithful relationship": https://thelogosofagape.wordpress.co...ek-word-study/

And Sam in the video actually proves this definition using scripture.

Paul quotes Habbukuk 2:4 three times in the NT: "The righteous shall live by faith" in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38 (assuming he is the author of Hebrews which he may not be).

If you do a Hebrew word study on Habbukuk 2:4, the Hebrew word for faith "emunah" used in the verse actually means much more than "faith" in English according to Strong's:
https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/...brew/0530.html
"firmness, fidelity, steadfastness, steadiness"

So the verse Paul is quoting should be translated as "The righteous shall live by trusting faithfulness"

So faith is more like "trusting faithfulness" or "allegiance". Abraham "believed" in God but he demonstrated his faith by obeying God when he wanted him to sacrifice Isaac. Balaam had the correct "mental agreement" concerning God and was used by God to prophesy and speak truth, however his faith & obedience was directed at himself and money so he ended up in hell according to 2 Peter 2:1-15.

Matthew Bates also writes about this in his book "Salvation by Allegiance Alone": https://www.amazon.com/Salvation-All.../dp/0801097975

Mental agreement is not enough for salvation. Obedience is required. Also obedience comes from the heart and many Christians have confused obedience with works. God desires "obedience" (trusting faithfulness) and not sacrifice (works) (1 Samuel 15:22, Hosea 6:6, Micah 6:6–8). Ananias and Sapphira "sacrificed" but they were not obedient.

John 3:36 (ESV)
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him."

Romans 1:5 (ESV)
through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

Acts 5:32 (ESV)
And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

[bearbear]

I also just watched this documentary on the early church by David Bercot who also spoke in the previous video on "Once Saved Always Saved":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqDV91AFPo

He shows that the early church's practice and beliefs on salvation were different from most of the mainstream denominations today including Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox. His conclusion is that the early Christians believed that they were saved by a loving-faith relationship with Jesus (and not a mechanical one which is practiced by many Catholics) and that believers had to maintain this relationship born out of love until death in order to be saved.

[Raptor]

"....Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Matthew 6:10

What kingdom is the Lord praying for and teaching believers to pray it would come? Didn´t God already have His Kingdom, doesn´t the Kingdom of God already exist? Of course it does. The Lord is praying for the Kingdom to be manifested, to come to the earth with it´s fullest expession: the Millenial Kingdom in the coming age, where Christ will rule as King on the earth with all His faithful and victorious believers.

[bearbear]

Originally Posted by Raptor

[B]The Lord is praying for the Kingdom to be manifested, to come to the earth with it´s fullest expession: the Millenial Kingdom in the coming age, where Christ will rule as King on the earth with all His faithful and victorious believers.

We both agree there will be a millennial kingdom where Christ will come to reign. This argument doesn't build any evidence for why the warnings about not inheriting the kingdom given by Paul are limited to the 1000 year kingdom and not the eternal kingdom.

Also your assertion that the millennial kingdom is the fullest expression doesn't seem to be biblical. During this period people still sin and die:

Isaiah 65:20
... the young man shall die a hundred years old,
and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

There is a huge rebellion at the end where Satan tempts a sea of people to fight against Jesus and the saints.

Revelation 20:7-9
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them

The millennial kingdom is finite, takes place during the "old creation" where sin and death are still present and falls short of the glory of the new heavens and new earth so it is a shadow of the eternal kingdom of Christ where God's will is done perfectly as described in the hope of the Lord's prayer.

Revelation 21:1-2
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

[bearbear]

These are basically the same warnings:

1 John 3:8
"Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil."

Galatians 5:19-21
"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."

[Raptor]

"If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He will also deny us;" 2 Tim. 2:11-12

1: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him. This refers to having believed in the Lord. It is in past tense; we have died with Christ, not literally, but when we believed, we died in Him. To live with Him refers to the resurrection. All believers will be resurrected, it is part of the gift of eternal salvation.

2. if we endure, we will also reign with Him; This refers to living a faithful life all the way to the end. It is in the future; it is conditional, IF you endure you will reign. The opposite is true: if you DO NOT endure, you will NOT REIGN.

3: if we deny Him, He will also deny us This refers to the worst condition when a believer denies the Lord. The Lord will deny that believer, not for loss of eternal salvation, but for discipline during the Kingdom age.