God is no respector of persons…he doesn’t pick certain individuals to set free and leave others in darkness…that is absurd. Reponding by faith to the gospel is not a self-righteous act… but a requirement to be saved. Isaiah 45:22 “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” This gospel is open to all and the whosoever’s who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. God is an equal opportunity creator!
Agreed that God is not a respecter of persons. However, He chose to use the Jewish nation for a special purpose. I don’t think that necessarily means that He “loves” them more than any other people.
There are people today who claim to have “chosen” Christ. The scriptures state that no one seeks after God. I believe this is true; God uses people for His glory. In the end, we’ll all get there, it’s just that the “means and ways” are His.
Everybody wants to go to heaven, and I believe that we will. I just believe that God has a “plan” as to how it will all work out. It must be big, because we’re sure in a mess at the moment! Some would even think that God has failed to save the world! But God doesn’t fail.
Totally agree. Those who don’t believe aren’t lesser human beings, they just haven’t fully had the opportunity to grasp the higher truth of who Jesus is.
I agree here. Grace is activated by our or rather through our faith: *“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” - Eph. 2:9. * The above verse you quoted, Aaron, refers back to Hebrew 3, where it talks about how the first gen Israelites did not enter into rest (i.e. The Promised Land) because they didn’t believe God to that He would take care of the giants in the land. It was inaction on their part that caused them to wander the desert for forty more years until that gen died off and the next gen took to the task (and the whole reason the book of Deuteronomy was written, BTW).
Many people are confused because of the apparent descrepancy of faith alone vs faith + works. But grace (that is favor with God toward salvation) is granted by the faith you have in God as demonstrated by your actions. Let’s look at the two classic examples, Galatians 3 and James 2. BOTH passages refer to the SAME OT scripture:
"Even as* Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. **
Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham,
saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." Galatians 3:6-9 *
*"But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." - James 2:20-24 *
To get the gist of Paul’s argument, one must go to the occurance in which God told Abraham, ‘and it was imputed unto him for righteousness’, which was in Genesis 15, when God tells him that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky. That’s a promise of God, before Isaac was even born.
But you also have to understand that Abraham has already seen God in action through his obedience in getting out of Ur and into Canaan (promised to his seed in making a great nation), defeating the five kings (and rescuing Lot in the process), and being blessed by the king of Sodom and Melchizedek, the king of Salem.
So by the time we get to the ‘imputed righteousness’ statement, Abraham’s belief is based, in part, on what occurred during the previous three chapters. Now God is promising Abraham that the number of his seed will be great in number, and Abraham believed God for imputed righteousness, quite unlike the first gen Israelites who didn’t believe, even after the dramatic escape from Egypt. Abraham is looking forward to the future and believes God because of the past.
Receiving the Spirit, so tells Paul to the Galatians (whom I’m assuming in context are Jewish believers since they are intent on keeping the Law), comes not from the works of the Law, but by the hearing of faith. Thus when God spoke to Abraham, he believed him, based in no small part on historical precedence.
James’ argument is about justification, rather than receiving the Spirit. But his reference to Abraham on ‘imputed righteousness’ speaks of the offering of Isaac in Genesis 22, well after the promise of a great nation through Abraham’s seed back in Genesis 15. This sets the dilemma on Abraham on how his seed will continue, and make a great nation, if Isaac is dead. The belief promised back in Genesis 15 is now put to the test. Action must be taken in order for that belief to fully bear out. The test is commissioned by God, but tasked to Abraham to complete.
You will notice that the beginning of James 2 deals with hypocrisy in the treatment of people, whether rich or poor. James presses the point that if we observe the Law (in this case called the Royal Law of loving thy neighbor as thyself), it must be done without respect of persons. And that Royal Law must in respect to all points of the Law, and not selectively observed.
If one is in need of something, we aren’t just to give lip service in saying 'God bless you" when we aren’t willing to give the very thing that the person needs. We must be willing to do something about it. Thus faith must be demonstated by works to show the love that the Law is intrinsically teaching.
Hence both arguments are two sides of the same coin.
