Pre-Eternal Salvation Belief

In his post on his vision of what the ideal IFB church should be, <member name deleted> IFB Reformer indicated what he feels a true IFB church should hold on to.
In so doing, he set his sights squarely on Primitive Baptists by specifically naming them and what he feels is the heresy of their doctrine that the eternal salvation of God's people had no pre-requisites attached to it, that it was entirely and all OF the Lord.
I am almost done with my own online e-book or web pages outlining why we believe that God requires nothing of His people.
I am posting a full page here, and will post the link to the entire article for anyone who may want to view it, when it is done.
I will post this page in several parts, for easier perusal, and rebuttal, if so desired.

[ September 12, 2004, 08:49 AM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

Believe in order to be saved ?

In his quest for the ideal church, and 'righteous indignation' at the doctrines of others, <member name deleted> trained his sights on Primitive Baptists, and labeled them 'hyper-electionists' for their belief that belief is not necessary for eternal salvation. I affirm this: Belief is not a prerequisite to eternal salvation.

Belief, says Strong, is pistis , word number 4102 from word 3982, peitho, the former signifying assent, assurance, faith, fidelity, reliance upon Christ for salvation, the latter to agree, have confidence, be confident, obey, trust, yield.

Essentially, one has belief because one agrees to the proposition, has inner assurance that something is true.

The secular dictionary defines belief as:
The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another: ex. My belief in you is as strong as ever.

Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something: ex.His explanation of what happened defies belief.

Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.

Whichever one we use, the Bible Dictionary, or the Secular Dictionary, we come up with several facts, (1) that there is an agreement to a proposition; (2) that this proposition is accepted as truth without any doubt, (3) this assent results in a yielding to the object of belief.

Belief then, is contingent upon the individual's ability to assess the information given to him, to accept it as truth, and to cling to the object of truth, in this case, Jesus Christ.

Here is another thing <member name deleted> said, which we shall be examining along with belief as a prerequisite for salvation, and I quote:

[ September 12, 2004, 08:51 AM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

According to this proposition by <IFB Reformer>, the means by which God elects unto salvation is by the action of the sinner in believing.

If you believe and take Him as your God and Savior, God then elects you to be saved in accordance with your belief and action.

Why ?

Is it grace, as in, 'by grace are ye saved' (Eph. 2:5,8)?

Is it mercy as in 'not by works of righteousness which we have done, but, according to his mercy, he saved us' (Titus 3:5)?

No. According to <IFB Reformer>, it is by our believing on the Son of God and taking him as our God and Savior.

I think, if that is the basis for God's electing anyone to salvation, then, it is no more of grace, but, of works.

Furthermore, it bears no difference at all to the Arminian view that, "God, in His foreknowledge, looked down thru time, and saw all who will believe in Jesus Christ, and accept Him as their Lord and Savior, and, on that basis, predestined them to be saved".

[ September 12, 2004, 08:54 AM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

If <IFB Reformer> had instead proposed that God elected us unto salvation in order to glorify God for His mercies and kindnesses to us, and manifest our belief on the Son of God by looking to Him as our God and Savior, I will probably agree with him somewhat, for the Bible says this :

[ September 12, 2004, 08:54 AM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

Now, back to the issue at hand. Is belief a prerequisite to a sinner's being eternally saved ?

We shall call to witness the testimony of Scripture itself, beginning with this one we already have before us, Ephesians 2:4-7.

Notice that verse 5 says, that even when the Ephesians were dead in sins God quickened them, that is, they were born again, raised back to life, regenerated, by the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit who brought Christ's body back to life, and the same Spirit who will bring back to life all who are dead in Christ at His coming again.

How can someone who is dead in sins and trespasses believe first in order to be saved ?

God asks in Jeremiah 13:23, thus: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil".

God further describes the unregenerate heart thus in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?".

Unregenerate man fares no better in the New Testament. The Bible says in Romans 3:10-12 of the unregenerate, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.".

And Paul further states in 1 Corinthians 2:14, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.".

How then can the natural, unregenerate, man believe with the benefit in view being the eternal salvation of his soul ?

How can God require something that He fully knows no man is able to meet ?

I am sure even Mr. Harriman will say, why, 'by God regenerating them, giving them the power to believe'.

Isn't that what Calvinists say ?

The problem with that reply, however, is it presupposes g that salvation and regeneration occur at the same time, if not one and the same, and that cannot be.

Salvation first.

And then regeneration.

Christ died on the cross first, and by His death all the past, present, and future sins of all His past, present, and future elect who will be born in time, have been washed away.

His blood justified them.

And then regeneration is next.

Belief, then, is evidence of regenertion. Not the cause of it.

Conversion, which follows regeneration, is proof of a regenerated heart, not its cause.

 

Now, if one cannot believe unless regenerated, and one will not be regenerated unless one is first saved, then we come back full circle. How does one believe in order to be saved ?

The answer is simple. He did not require that His elect believe on Him first before He saved them.

He did not require faith or belief for eternal salvation in the Old Testament, and He did not require it of His people in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament, He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, in the New Testament He was the Lamb of God slain on that cross.

He fully knew they were incapable of it, He has put our incapacity to believe Him in writing so we will better understand who we are and we can get a fuller view of His kindness. Recall the Scripture, ".....that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus". (Ephesians 2:7).

Jesus Christ, the Annointed Savior, sweat as it were drops of blood, agonized in Gethsemane, endured all those mockings, whippings, spittings, cursings, slaps, punches, insults, pain of the Roman flagella, pain of the crown of thorns, pain of the nails that pierced His hands and feet, and the agonizing separation from the Father who loved Him and whom He loved before any angel was ever created, for the sake of the people whom His Father wanted saved, in full obedience to His Father, while they were yet unbelieving, faithless, sinners !".

IF THAT IS NOT LOVE, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS !

IF THAT IS NOT GRACE, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS !

 

He died on that cross and secured the salvation of His people long before there was a Roman church, long before there was an Ephesian church, long before there was a Colossian church, or a Thessalonian church, or a Cretan church, and long before there were the seven churches in Asia.

Here's what the Bible says:

 

Oh, how Satan and his ambassadors have muddied even more the glass by which we look darkly.

They have caused many a saint to fall from grace, that is, to put works above and before grace, for that is what <IFB Reformer> demands, that the sinner must first do the work of belief before he can hope the blood of the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, and spilled in time on the cross on which the Lamb of Glory died, can secure his eternal salvation and wash away every stain of sin in him.

This is the same tactic used by Satan in sending Jews to the Gentiles of Galatia and telling them that they must first be circumcised ! Listen to Paul:

[ September 13, 2004, 12:04 AM: Message edited by: Squire Robertsson ]

 

God saved His people by grace !

Undeservedly. Apart from the Law, which they can never hope to fulfill.

Keep in mind, that what we are discussing is belief before salvation, which is what <IFB Reformer> demands.

The call for belief, and repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, is a call to saved and regenerate , in that order, children of God (Acts 20:21).

Note that Paul's listeners in Acts 20 were all believers , elect children of God who came under the hearing of the gospel.

Belief in the gospel, gospel obedience and joining gospel churches is for already born again children of God, and it is precisely because they are born again that they believe.

[ September 12, 2004, 08:56 AM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

IFB Reformer said:

So, now you are saying that everyone's (without exceptions) household will be saved who believes ?

And you will find no argument from me nor any right thinking Primitive Baptist. Unbelief is indeed one of the sins that the unelect will be judged for. And unbelief is one of the sins the elect are saved from. The Lord Jesus Christ saved His people even while they were unbelievers.

You need only study closely the valley of the bones. There you have dead Israel. No muscles, no sinews, no blood coursing thru their veins. Did they come to life because Ezekiel preached to them ? Or did God tell Ezekiel to proclaim to these the truth , that it is God who will cause them to come to life.

Can a dead sinner believe in order to be saved ? Or does a dead sinner believe because he is saved and already possessing life.

Your arguments and choice of Scriptures do not prove in any way that salvation is because one believed the gospel.

Belief of the gospel, when preached to them, is proof and not the cause of salvation.

You read yesterday's news on today's paper, did those events happen because you believed what you read, or did you believe they happened because they were printed in the news.

If at all, your arguments highlight what I have been saying, that the elect are saved apart from their believing the gospel, and become believers because they have a regenerated heart.

I snipped off the rest because there seems to be an agreement between us on those points. And yes, interesting. God is the one who appoints to eternal life, and those He appoints will believe, but what you have to prove is that their eternal life stems from their belief of the gospel or whether their belief is proof of their possession of eternal life.

Your ignorance and underhandedness is becoming amusing.

I never said God does not always bring all his elect to belief. Read my post about your supposed Muslim friend.

I said, belief is not a factor in their salvation which is what you demand of those who will make up your envisioned ideal IFB church.

God did not save them because they believe, neither did God require that they believe first before He saves them.

The salvation of all God's elect, wherever they are geographically, politically, culturally, socially, racially, and theologically, was effected in time at the cross.

Christ shouted it is finished. No saving has to be done anymore.

What we are in now is what Jesus called 'The Regeneration' (Matthew 19:28) which started at Pentecost, first with the 3,000 and then the 5.000 who believed and were baptized.

What God is doing now is what He illustrated in the valley of the bones. Every one of His people [b} HE [/b] will bring back to life, no thanks to you, or to any gospel preacher.


Lest I be accused of being KJVO, which I am not,
I am using Young's LITERAL Translation Bible to show to you that those who accept Him, those who are NOT condemned, accept Him, and are not condemned, precisely because they are ALREADY believers. Saved already. Regenerated already.

John 3:14-19 -

Now, how are they going to believe ? Through the preacher's voice ?

For all your protestations you have not shown any strong rebuttal of my position:

That the elect believes because they are saved in contrast to your demand that the elect believe first before the atonement can be applied to them.


Young's Literal Translation -

The elect will be brought to belief at some point of their life because they will be effectually called by the Spirit and they will respond because they already have life in them.

When ? How ? Where ? God knows, and only God can make it happen, in His own time.

But you or anybody else , Primitive Baptists included, do not have the right to judge them unworthy of eternal life because they do not believe your preaching or your doctrine, and because they died without making a profession of faith in your presence and hearing.

And by the way, in Acts, the Jews were the ones who judged themselves unworthy of eternal life. Paul did not say God judged them unworthy of eternal life. Stay within context, IFB Reformer.

 

DD, anytime one insists on workless salvation, one is always out of today's Christianity. To insist that one believe first before the atoning work of Christ can actually be effective in saving a sinner is today's Christianity. It is the little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump.

It takes away Christ's glory, which is what Paul said in Galatians: Christ is become of none effect to you...you are fallen from grace.

And what makes it more laughable coming from IFB Reformer is that he says he believes in Sovereign Grace, which is, in layman's terms, the sole privilege of the Creator to bestow grace on whomever He wishes to, however He wishes to.

In His elect's case, He chose to save them thru His Son based on His mercy and not on any precondition of faith or belief on their part, or a foreseen inherent faith or belief in their part, which prior to regeneration, they do not possess.

And, by the way, you have yet to produce one Catholic, at least on this board, who will tell you that faith in Christ is not necessary to save you.

 

He elected his elect to make them believers. Okay, is that what you are saying ? Now, how do you propose to make them believers. That has always been my question.

How do you propose to make them believers, so they can be saved. Your proposition is that they must first believe, and that certainly makes them worthy of eternal life, because they believed, not because God had mercy on them despite their unbelief, and Christ redeemed them to God despite their unbelief.

You see, you are placing faith in man, even if you credit that faith's being there to God.

Let me give you back Galatians 2:16 according to Young's Literal Translation:

Now, why did they believe in Christ ?

It is by race (of God), thru faith (of Christ) that one is saved eternally. It is not one's faith that counts him righteous before God, it is his faith in Christ whose faith pleased God, anymore than one's act of practical holiness makes him right with God, but, rather, Christ's holiness that is imputed in Him.

And, lest you say that this is only one verse I am basing my statements on:

From Young's Literal Translation:

Every one of these Scriptures speaks of the faith of Christ, or the faith that is in Christ.

It is Christ that fulfilled everything , including the faith and belief in God that the natural man in time, and this includes all elect, do not inherently have in them.

 

IFB Reformer said:

 

IFB REFORMER:

This will have to be another thread.

He chose to reveal Himself to the Jews out of whom came Moses who wrote down the beginning of all mankind, but, does that mean He is God and Savior only of those to whom He revealed Himself ?

Was the world at the time composed only of the Middle East ? Again you run head on against God's word. He said He created the earth, and all things in it. He did not say He created only the middle east and all things in it. He said, 'look unto me, all ye ends of the earth'.
You know where in the Bible that is ?

Your problem is that you not only limit the ability of God to save whom He will, how He will, where He will, and without regard to the faith or ability of the person He saved to believe.

You also want to limit God's presence and authority to only the Middle East.

First: your time frame, "in the end", is not in the Book of Revelation. Here's what it says in Revelation 5:9 -

"And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

Where is the time limitation you propose ?

That is what you say, not what God says.

And while you accuse us of inventing time salvation, which is Scriptural, and to which all Primitive Baptists are agreed, including the Absoluters among us except that they protest the words "Conditional Time Salvation", here you are creating a theology which runs counter to God's stated purpose of judging this wicked earth and of his hatred of sin.

You want God to come down and rule an earth He will eventually destroy and whom He had determined He will destroy for 1,000 years, and you propose an earth where both saved and condemned live together harmoniously while Jesus Christ who is Holiness Himself rules from Jerusalem.

Now, that is absurd.

 

And where did I deny any of these ? Just because someone doesn't believe this, does his unbelief make all these untrue ? Say somebody believes that Jesus Christ is A door because that is what he was taught from childhood, does that make false Jesus' statement, "I am the door" ?

No. We look to the Son because He has eternal life, nobody else does, not so we can receive eternal life.

Remember that these Israelites were already Israelites. I believe they represent children of God born in time who are born in enmity with God because of their fallen nature.

God is simply once more illustrating that salvation is His way, not ours. The fiery serpents of sin that besets His people are negated by sin on the cross, which is Christ, made sin who knew no sin, that we may be made the righteousness of God in Christ.

They can look all they want on the serpent, but, without the power of God beforehand they cannot be saved.

Darn right, I reject that. If our belief is the final arbiter on whether the atonement takes effect for us or not, then you might as well go the Investigative Judgment way of the Seventh Day adventists. Go all the way and include loyalty and adherence to law. Like Paul said, if you go by the law, you are obliged to go all the way.

I believe what the Bible says: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And if I believe to my saving, then how am I a sinner ?

On the other hand, if Christ died for me while I am yet a sinner, that means even before I believed on Him, He died for me, and if He died for me, then I am saved, because He paid for all my sins, even my sin of unbelief. Like I said, if that is not grace, I don't know what it is.

I did not say He does not cause all His elect to believe. I have repeatedly stressed: The Holy Spirit will regenerate His own independent of any human agency.

What I have rejected is your doctrine that they must believe the gospel first before the atonement can be effective for them.

That is unscriptural.

Orthodox Christian belief which is grace + works (any kind, any amount) is outside of Scripture. If that is where I exclude myself, I do so gladly.

[/b]</font>[/QUOTE]On the contrary, what I believe is entirely in line with what the Scriptures teach.

That salvation, eternal salvation, is all of God , none of man. God authored it, God executed it, God perfected it, and God finished it. Man has no participation whatsoever, not in faith, not in belief.

Faith comes after God regenerates, not before, and salvation comes before regeneration. Salvation was at the cross, the work of Christ, to glorify His Father.

After the cross, all the elect have been atoned for, and redeemeed, though they will be born in enmity with God in time.

However, they will be regenerated, and God will draw them to Christ, with, or without a gospel preacher.