SALVATION & JUSTIFICATION Q&A’S

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Q. Why do I need to be “saved,” and from what? Q. What is God angry about and why is that anger toward me? Q. How do I know what is wrong and right? How can I know enough to be judged? Q. How do I know God even exists? Q. How am I supposed to know what God wants from me? Q. I’m not like a murderer or a thief; do I deserve to die and go to hell? Q. Is there anyone who will escape God’s wrath? Q. If I realize that I am guilty and deserve God’s wrath, now what? Q. Ok, so maybe I’ve done some things that are wrong, but I’m still a lot better than many people I know. Doesn’t that count for something? Q. What about people who have never heard of the Bible or Jesus Christ? Q. What about Israel? Haven’t they escaped God’s wrath by obeying the law?...

UNDERSTANDING ISRAEL’S PROGRAM

  Gen 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Gen 1:28  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.   God’s plan and purpose for Israel is to ‘take back’ dominion and rulership over this sin cursed world which was “delivered” unto Satan...

DID JESUS KNOW THE MYSTERY DURING HIS EARTHLY MINISTRY?

It is my understanding that the answer to this particular question, (and other ones that are like it) for the most part lies in the way in which God deals with His creation and interacts with it. So then before I directly respond to the question, bear with me for a bit while I briefly and simply say a few things about my basic understanding of how God interacts with creation. First of all we know that God, being God, is both omniscient and transcendent by nature. Therefore He knows everything by nature, and has infinite perception and awareness of all things, including having foreknowledge. Hence nothing takes Him by surprise, or is outside of, or is beyond, His realm of awareness, perception, and precognition. But now though this is true, God also makes it quite...

PASTOR OR BISHOP?

In view of what Paul says in 1Timothy 3 regarding “the office of a bishop” it is clear that the word “bishop” is the word that describes the “office” of the man who is entrusted with ‘taking care of the church of God’. And since he is in the “office of a bishop” it is perfectly fitting and/or appropriate for him to be called “bishop,” just as Paul does in Philippians 1 when he refers to “the bishops and deacons” of the various churches in Philippi. Howbeit this does not exclude the issue of him just as fittingly or appropriately being called by another term or designation that likewise is used to describe his “office.” Nor does it make it wrong to call the one in “the office of a bishop” by another term or designation that is also appropriate to his “office”...

CAN A JUSTIFIED SAINT LOSE THEIR SALVATION AFTER HEARING ANOTHER GOSPEL?

They are still saved, even though they have been “bewitched” away from the truth of the gospel and have been beguiled into accepting “another gospel.” And they are still saved because as God has Paul teach us in Romans 5, when a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as his all-sufficient Savior as per “the gospel of Christ” and God thereby justifies him in His sight, and saves him from the debt and penalty of his sins, and reconciles him unto Himself, then that person’s justification, salvation, and reconciliation are permanent possessions. (In fact the truth of the matter is that if our justification, salvation, and reconciliation with God are not permanent by nature, then none of us could ever remain justified in God’s...

WHERE DID THE JUSTIFIED ISRAELITES GO AFTER CHRIST’S DEATH?

Since the Lord through His own death, burial, and resurrection from the dead successfully fulfilled the first mandate of the Davidic Covenant, (which mandate involved Him functioning as Israel’s Redeemer to provide redemption, including the issue of ‘ransoming them from the power of death and of the grave’), this made it so that the legal requirement no longer existed which had formerly consigned dead saints to be placed in the holding compartment of hell in the lower parts of the earth to await the outcome of God’s promised redemption. Once the first mandate of the Davidic Covenant had been fulfilled that former legal requirement of remanding saints to the lower parts of the earth became null and void as part of the spoils of Christ’s victory over sin, over...

Biblical Timeline: Lords Day of Wrath

Biblical Timeline: 5 Courses of Punishment

CONFESSION: THE MISUSE OF ROMANS 10:9

Rom 10:6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Rom 10:7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) Rom 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. The word confess means to “acknowledge” someone or something, and the word “confess,...

SUFFERING FOR CHRIST’S SAKE

1Co 4:6 And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. 1Co 4:7 For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? 1Co 4:8 Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. 1Co 4:9 For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. 1Co 4:10 We are fools for...