Hi Enchiridion
Mat 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save4982 his people from their sins
Ro 6:23 For the wages of sin is death,
And given that the rest of the verse talks about eternal life, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the first part is talking about eternity too.
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If it is a gift, which it is, if the gift is not revealed by the Father who needs to draw us then the gift goes unnoticed.
Joh 6:44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who has sent Me draw
(1670) [drags] him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
G1670 ελκύω, έλκω helkuō helkō hel-koo'-o, hel'-ko
Probably akin to G138;
to drag (literally or figuratively): - draw. Compare G1667.
Supporting this is:
Eph 2:8-9 For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God, 9 not of works,
lest anyone should boast.
The faith is also not of ourselves but of God's doing. Our puny faith accomplishes nada.
The wages of sin is death,
not eternal torment. But lets look at that verse again with the preceding verses:
Rom 6:17 But thanks be to our God that you were the slaves of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.
Rom 6:18 Then being made free from sin, you became the slaves of righteousness.
Rom 6:19 I speak in the manner of men because of the weakness of your flesh; for as you have yielded your members as slaves to uncleanness, and to lawless act unto lawless act, even so now
yield your members as slaves to righteousness unto holiness.
Rom 6:20
For when you were the slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.
Rom 6:21 What fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. Rom 6:22 But now,
being made free from sin, and having become slaves to God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end everlasting life.
Rom 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.[/color]
BTW, I am not a context only person. Here we clearly see the preamble of the verse you quoted.
Slaves of sinmade free from sin, slaves to righteousnessthe weakness of your fleshyield.. to righteousness unto holinessbeing made free from sin, and having become slaves to Godetc.
How is a slave set free, by his own choice? by his master?
Here you may imply that we have free-will to choose, we don't. It is a fallacy of the mainstream teachings aka we are not robots.
When you hear the evangelical message, why do all not respond instantly if it is so simple? If it is not your time, the dragging has not taken place and you can sit through 10000 Billy Graham crusades and not come forward to the alter calls. That said, alter calls have become traditional and of little effect. When Peter preached, the Holy Spirit fell upon the people, he did not need an alter call nor did he have to lay hands on them, it just happened, they had no choice in the matter. Would it not be great if today's preachers had that anointing? It's become a numbers/accounting game, a measure of how good was my sermon et al. God gets a distant second place to the preacher.
I even read a book by Billy Graham where he stated that after 6 months, 60% had fallen away and after 12 month, 90%. If the God working bit does not happen, infilling of the Holy Spirit, it is but a sham. It could also be the fallen away could not stomach the falsities of the churches they were referred to.
G4982 σώζω sōzō sode'-zo
From a primary word σως sōs (contraction for the obsolete σάος saos, "safe"); to save, that is, deliver or protect (literally or figuratively): - heal, preserve, save (self), do well, be (make) whole.
"Deliver." "Protect." "Save." "Preserve." From WHAT? Or, if you prefer, TO what?
I think the thing that bugs me most about this whole "It's all good" mentality is that no one seems to understand how deeply God abhorrs sin. One aspect of the definition you shared above is "heal" or "be (make) whole" which leaves us with the idea that we (apart from Christ) are NOT whole, but damaged, stained, sick. Is it your contention that this condition has no consequence? That in the end God will simply shrug and say, "No biggie"? Gosh, if that's the case, He sure wasted a lot of time and energy trying to correct His children.
We do not subscribe to an "all good mentality". I guess that may be your perception of UR.
How can the "sick condition" have eternal consequences in light of what I shared earlier?
It is IMO your observation that all men have, are and will hear the good news now in this temporal life, no? Well that is not happening. Does a Muslim in a radical society growing up with anything other than Islam know about Christianity apart from what they learn of Him as merely a prophet in the Quran. In China, the majority no nothing of Christ likewise in Africa.
The last sentence of your statement above seems to imply that your salvation was in part of your own doing. Be blessed that this truth has been revealed to you in this lifetime and no you did not choose to follow Christ, He chose you. We are now the
instruments God can use to accomplish His will in spite of ourselves.
Dig deeper, truth shall be revealed. A "saved from" mentality is fire insurance, a "saved into" mentality opens you up for God to reveal Himself fully to you.
Since you don't know me, I can see why you'd make assumptions about me, (it's only reasonable given that you probably have had conversations similar to this more than once) but I find this glib dismissal a bit off-putting. Your own definition indicates a potential for peril. I'm just trying to figure out what this peril is. Because if there is no peril, there sure are a lot of missionaries who are wasting their time!
Apologies if this came across the way it did, it was not to put you off.
As I mentioned, we are merely instruments to be used by God if He so chooses. The missionaries are not wasting their time.
Yes we have had conversations many times with those opposing UR. Your mannerism is not offensive but respectful.
To try and convey my beliefs in one post is impossible. I will say I did not convert to UR, I never believed what mainstream taught and only this year found out about Universalism. I always thought I was the 5th wheel as my peers could not see scripture the way I saw it and yes I had a real encounter with Jesus when I became born again. I was glad to find others saw things the way I saw them but there was much unlearning that had to take place.
The God I have come to know is a loving God and not wrathful. I have done the rounds at all the Pentecostal churches in my town and in all never found what I was looking for. Everything I learned came through private study and meditation. I did however take for granted some things that were taught but never really had peace in my spirit with those things.
Believing in UR requires an open mind and a brand new look at scriptures. Resistance to change is natural because if what you have been believing for many years now appears a waste of time, that is not so. If you spend enough time here, you will see that no one here claims to have all the answers. We are as I like to put it all on our own paths of revelation and enlightenment. It is ironic that on certain Christian forums, total opposites to Christianity like professed satanists, wicca, hindus etc. are tolerated yet when we preach the Jesus, the Saviour to ALL mankind it is rejected and opposed by Christians. That should tell you something.
Mainstream has done much to discredit us to a cult yet we follow no single man's teachings or any man, not even Gary. We all follow Jesus. Because we believe that ultimately all men will be saved, it is seen as distasteful, strange?
We can chat more later. I encourage you to explore some of the other threads here too.
Blessings
