Jesus is the Guarantor of Eternal Life to the Believer in Him for It
No one who will respond to this message has ever seen Jesus. If Jesus was to dress normally for this culture and walk around the streets of New York City, which one of you could pick Him out? If He were lined up with 100 other Jewish people could you pick Him out? Out of 50? Out of 10? How would you know that you had the correct Jesus?
At least by sight, you could not determine the correct Jesus.
Let us say next that the correct real Jesus was pointed out to you. Then, let us ask the other 99 fellows what they “know” about Jesus, whom they have been standing next to. Out of that you get 99 varying beliefs. How many of those wrong beliefs about Jesus (He is standing right here in front of you) will it take before you are not believing in that Jesus in front of you? Is 1 misconception sufficient to disqualify your belief in the correct Jesus who has been standing in front of you? Does it take the whole 99 wrong beliefs?
If you had all these misconceptions about Jesus, yet the correct one was standing in front of you, and He said, “Most assuredly I say to you, if you have a moment of faith in Me I will then give you eternal life, I will guarantee your eternal well-being.” And you believe in the correct Jesus for it (He is standing there right in front of you and just made this promise and offer to you!), did your misconceptions about everything else about Him disqualify your faith in Him?
Why or why not?
What exactly must be known about Jesus before we believe on the correct Jesus?
What historical facts, what facts of personality, and what geographical or chronological facts need to be believed before we have in view the correct Jesus?
How much information is necessary to know in order to believe in the correct Jesus?
How many misconceptions about Him can one have before he truly is not believing in the correct Jesus?
Both the Mormons and the JW’s will say that Jesus was born of a virgin, was born in Bethlehem, grew in stature, was baptized by John the Baptist, tempted by Satan, ministered in Galilee and Judea, healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, caused the lame to walk, cleared the temple of the moneychangers, had a triumphal entry into Jerusalem a week before His death, was arrested by the Jews and condemned by Pilate, was hung on a cross and died.
What other man but the real true Jesus did these things? How is it that you can say that the Mormons and the JWs believe in a different Jesus? Both groups read the bible and the gospels. How does this information NOT limit their belief to the correct Jesus?
What conditions to “faith alone in Christ alone” must you add in order to make certain that your faith is in the correct Jesus?
Where does the Bible enumerate for us all the facts necessary for us to assent to in order to prevent us from believing on the incorrect Jesus?
I assert that any claim of more knowledge soteriologically necessary is arbitrary and unbiblical.
The crucial issue between us born-again Christians and a JW, or a Mormon, is not that they believe in a different Jesus, but do they trust in Him alone for their eternal well-being, or do their works contribute to it.
There is only ONE Jesus who is the Christ who offers eternal life based solely upon faith alone in Him. If you believe in the name of Jesus for this gift, you have believed in the correct Jesus and you have eternal life, regardless of the blindspots in your theology, or misconceptions about the Person of Christ.
The name of Jesus contains all who He truly is. And when you believe upon Him for eternal life, you are believing upon God in the flesh, the crucified and risen One, the one born of a virgin, tempted by Satan, etc., etc…
At least by sight, you could not determine the correct Jesus.
Let us say next that the correct real Jesus was pointed out to you. Then, let us ask the other 99 fellows what they “know” about Jesus, whom they have been standing next to. Out of that you get 99 varying beliefs. How many of those wrong beliefs about Jesus (He is standing right here in front of you) will it take before you are not believing in that Jesus in front of you? Is 1 misconception sufficient to disqualify your belief in the correct Jesus who has been standing in front of you? Does it take the whole 99 wrong beliefs?
If you had all these misconceptions about Jesus, yet the correct one was standing in front of you, and He said, “Most assuredly I say to you, if you have a moment of faith in Me I will then give you eternal life, I will guarantee your eternal well-being.” And you believe in the correct Jesus for it (He is standing there right in front of you and just made this promise and offer to you!), did your misconceptions about everything else about Him disqualify your faith in Him?
Why or why not?
What exactly must be known about Jesus before we believe on the correct Jesus?
What historical facts, what facts of personality, and what geographical or chronological facts need to be believed before we have in view the correct Jesus?
How much information is necessary to know in order to believe in the correct Jesus?
How many misconceptions about Him can one have before he truly is not believing in the correct Jesus?
Both the Mormons and the JW’s will say that Jesus was born of a virgin, was born in Bethlehem, grew in stature, was baptized by John the Baptist, tempted by Satan, ministered in Galilee and Judea, healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, caused the lame to walk, cleared the temple of the moneychangers, had a triumphal entry into Jerusalem a week before His death, was arrested by the Jews and condemned by Pilate, was hung on a cross and died.
What other man but the real true Jesus did these things? How is it that you can say that the Mormons and the JWs believe in a different Jesus? Both groups read the bible and the gospels. How does this information NOT limit their belief to the correct Jesus?
What conditions to “faith alone in Christ alone” must you add in order to make certain that your faith is in the correct Jesus?
Where does the Bible enumerate for us all the facts necessary for us to assent to in order to prevent us from believing on the incorrect Jesus?
I assert that any claim of more knowledge soteriologically necessary is arbitrary and unbiblical.
The crucial issue between us born-again Christians and a JW, or a Mormon, is not that they believe in a different Jesus, but do they trust in Him alone for their eternal well-being, or do their works contribute to it.
There is only ONE Jesus who is the Christ who offers eternal life based solely upon faith alone in Him. If you believe in the name of Jesus for this gift, you have believed in the correct Jesus and you have eternal life, regardless of the blindspots in your theology, or misconceptions about the Person of Christ.
The name of Jesus contains all who He truly is. And when you believe upon Him for eternal life, you are believing upon God in the flesh, the crucified and risen One, the one born of a virgin, tempted by Satan, etc., etc…
posted by Antonio at 6:53 PM
27 Comments:
Antonio, let me be the first to welcome you back from your hiatus.
Have you changed your views, this seems like a softened stance on the various doctrines. Just kidding.
How would you know that you had the correct Jesus?
I would check for the scars on his hands. :)
Again, it's great to hear from you again.
God bless bro,
Jim
Lets just hope the Jesus presented to a particular individual is the Jesus of the Bible, and not the Jesus of the JW's Morm's Arians, etc. There isn't just one Jesus, there's just one true Jesus, Jesus himself said there would be false Christs (Mt 24)--as did Paul (II Cor 11). I suppose the verification process would be to find out if the Jesus I believe in was the one who was the Man of Nazareth, and was the one spoken of in Gen 3:15, Gen 49:10; Deut 18:15; Is 53; etc.
Glad to see you back!
Antonio, can I believe my eyes? A new post?
This is a really excellent one.
I totally agree.
The concept of a 'different Jesus' is very problematic and not really helpful.
I decided recently that I will stick to soteriology when evangelizing with cult followers, rather than to waste time debating their Christology.
Every Blessing in Christ
Matthew
Welcome back...
In my opinion, the only thing you must know about Jesus in order to have faith in Him, is that He paid for your sins. You can't just believe that He IS Jesus, or that He is God's Son. Your faith must be in the fact that He is your only way to heaven because He made the complete payment for you.
Here, my friends, is the exact reason you should not just pull a verse out of the Bible. You can make it prove anything you want it to. My Jesus wrote the entire Bible, not just a verse.
Pardon my Snarkyness but let's not forget that pastor Jim has a blog called What is the Truth, and that neither is he a pastor nor is his name really Jim, which to me is sort of an odd take on the 'truth' from the get-go. Greetings Antonio.
Antonio!
You have challenged my thinking here. I have, at times, tried to convict those in false religions of believing in the "wrong Jesus." I think Matthew's comment brought a lot of clarity to the ideas you've shared as well. (You two should get on a team blog or something).
I share the enthusiasm at seeing you posting again! Don't stay away too long this time.
I'm going to forgo my normal arguments in lieu of my joy at seeing you post again. Welcome back you wonderful hard head! ;-)
Antonio,
This is a very intrigueing and helpful post.
I had never thought of this as you and Matthew see it.
I agree with you. I think that the different Christs of Matthew are different Saviors. There are new age Jesus Christs, the Christ Consciousness, who offer salvation for learning enlightenment and total acceptance that dismisses sin as a missunderstanding, ie he isn't a saviour from sin, there is no Hell etc.
But what you seem to be saying is the Jesus of John's Gospel presented himself as the Providor/Guarantor of eternal life.
He didn't even insist on His divinity to the Samaritan woman even though Samaritans apparently didn't beleive the Messiah was God. Although he invoked that more later when He was dealing with hardened people.
Great post.
God bless, brother !
Let me be the 11th on to welcome you back from your hiatus.
It is not even necessary to read your post. Just knowing you're back is enough.
But I read it anyway.
We trust in His adequacy to effect our salvation, not our works or anything we can do.
As always...good post!
Antonio writes, “The crucial issue between us born-again Christians and a JW, or a Mormon, is not that they believe in a different Jesus, but do they trust in Him alone for their eternal well-being, or do their works contribute to it . . . If you believe in the name of Jesus for this gift, you have believed in the correct Jesus and you have eternal life, regardless of the blindspots in your theology, or misconceptions about the Person of Christ.”
Leave it to me to be downright disagreeable here. Antonio, I have to say that this distinctively “free grace” post has dangerous implications. Although I have a lot of questions about this, and I don’t want to read too much into what you are saying, I will limit myself to two questions:
(1) How do you witness to a Mormon or JW? Do you allow them their concept of Jesus and move them to believe in “(h)im [heretical Jesus] alone for their eternal well-being”? You seem to have it backwards – which seems to be your point.
Matthew wrote, “I decided recently that I will stick to soteriology when evangelizing with cult followers, rather than to waste time debating their Christology.” How can you possibly discuss soteriology without Christology?
(2) Don’t you have to have an orthodox understanding of Jesus before you believe in Him? You attempt to cover yourself by saying, “If you believe in the name of Jesus for this gift, you have believed in the correct Jesus,” but this is a non sequitur. According to your evangelistic model, I can reject the Trinity (Jesus onlyism), believe in Jesus alone for eternal life, and be saved. Am I correct?
I think Jonathan brings up good points here!
To all:
For sake or argument, let us try to answer some of my poignant questions.
What EXACTLY must be known about Jesus before you can believe in the true one?
Give me the objective orthodox doctrinal breakdown.
Also
what misconceptions are fatal and which are not? Do you all have a perfect knowledge of Christology?
If you have a wrong understanding about Jesus, how is it you are NOT believing in ANOTHER and FALSE Jesus?
The Taylorite Exclusive Brethren beleive that they are justified by the merits of Christ's death and resurrection. They are confident that they have eternal life through Christ and not throught their own works. They also believe that God has chosen the elect
in Christ before the foundation of the world.
However, they deny that Christ has a human soul.
Do they believe in a different Jesus?
They also deny the eternal sonship of Christ. J.F. MacArthur also denied this for some time.
Did J.F. MacArthur believe in a different Jesus?
Every Blessing in Christ
Matthew
Antonio:
What do you make of the statement by the apostle James, "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe--and shudder"?
In what way would you say saving faith is different than what james is proposing here that demons possess?
To answer your question about the "content" of saving faith, I think you have inadvertantly overturned your own apple cart.
If saving faith has any content at all -- for example, the idea that Jesus existed or exists -- which someone may or may not know, and then may or may not reject after consideration, you are proposing that it is their knowledge which saves them at the starting point of their life with (as opposed to life in) Christ rather than Grace alone.
It would be significantly more consistent to say that God saves men in spite of their knowledge by a free act of grace, and some of them eventually "get it" by some secondary means, but even if they never "get it" the ones God saves are saved. To say that faith (consisting of knowledge set "X") warrants God's grace is a denial of the freeness of grace.
However, the problem with that more philosophically-consistent position is that it the wildly sub-biblical. Faith and Grace are unequivocally tied together by the Bible. Someone with faith that saves has grace; someone with grace expressly has faith. The question is only if faith comes by grace or if faith warrants grace.
As I understand the Free Grace position, faith warrants grace -- and there you get strung up by the fact that it has to be a faith with a certain typology to warrant grace. The classic reformed position is that grace precedes faith and precipitates faith -- all who receive grace receive faith -- and that this faith reforms the person from the inside out resulting in works.
I'd be interested to find out in what way faith does not warrant grace in the FG view. And since you're back, Antonio, you would be the guy to explain it to me.
:)
Hi Antonio,
Are you really back from hiatus? It doesn't seem like it.
Bill,
I find the reformed perspective that Centuri0n presents a little befuddling as well when you consider those 100 or so passages that you precisely cite. ;~)
I think the fact that faith may be a work according to their system is one of their weaker arguments and a secondary one.
Centuri0n says:
The question is only if faith comes by grace or if faith warrants grace.
I think he really gets to the heart of the matter, although "warrants" is a carefully chosen word, I think. Non-Calvinists would say that faith is the hand that receives the gift that grace offers (is it the non-cal or the Scripture?) Let me restate Centuri0n's question:
Is "believe and receive" something that we "do" or is it something that is "done for us"? (or "to" us)
The reason I put the word "do" in quotation marks, is because faith is a non-doing kinda thing in that faith and works are contrasted throughout the epistles of Paul, contrasted and linked, but contrasted nonetheless. Faith is the "non-work".
Interesting that you bring up Ephesians 2:8-9, I just
posted on that.
The crux of the matter is, to be saved we must believe in the Gospel of Jeus Christ.
That is, we must have Faith in the Gospel.
What is the gospel though?
This is found succinctly in
1 Corinthians 15:2-4
"By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,"
They key here is not only that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again, but that it is all in accordance with the scriptures.
The whole world knows that Jesus existed, the difference is if you know He is God or just think he was some Jewish guy who was executed a while back. If you believe In Jesus but not in all of the scripture, you may think he was a prophet, you mat think he was a teacher, you may not believe in the trinity, you may think he got married and had some kids who went on to rule France etc. then you are in the troublesome situation of being one of the people described in Matthew 7:22-23.
"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
MDM
MDM, why is believing that Jesus is God essential to believing in His name for eternal life?
If I believe that Jesus was a prophet or an angel, have I believed in a different Jesus? I would believe in the Jesus in the pages of the Bible, depsite having a grossly distorted understanding of His person.
If you happened to believe by mistake that I was Antonio's son, would you believe in a different Matthew?
I do not think so. You would believe in the same Matthew that you have communicated to, you would simply have made a big error about who I was.
'A different Jesus' is a very abstract notion and very difficult to define.
It is the name of Jesus that we believe on for eternal life through His work, not His deity.
Every Blessing in Christ
Matthew
Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday!
You might find my new Resurrection Day post to be of some interest to you. Rose, the only Scripture that supports faith allowing grace is well... none, and I mean this with aldo respect. 2 Timothy 2:25, among others, clearly teaches this. How can a dead man believe in "faith" when all he does is hate God and all his ways (Rom. 8)? He can't; that's the answer. Regeneration, repentance, salvation, it's all given by God to His elect. We should be praising Him for this instead of complaining.
By the way, MacArthur, back when he denied eternal sonship (see his Hebrews commentary), was only trying to defend the divinity of Christ... just as he does today. That is the issue here. He wasn't holding to some off-base, heretical doctrine; it was a minor detail on which he has now simply changed his mind. To compare that with Mormons or anyone else is utterly ridiculous! God bless...
Can the unregenerate man be aware that he hates God, Adam?
Hi Antonio!
Where ARE you?!
Adam,
What is "aldo" respect? I don't think I have ever been given such respect beofre. ;~)
Doesn't by grace, through faith imply that faith has something to do with this?
Romans 5:2
... through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Tell me how the grace of regeneration preceding faith lens views that one.
With all due respect, I didn't just pull my thoughts out of thin air. I respect that you don't either? BTW - your hat is on backwards. :~)
>It would be significantly more consistent to say that God saves men in spite of their knowledge by a free act of grace, and some of them eventually "get it" by some secondary means, but even if they never "get it" the ones God saves are saved<
Ummm....Why did Paul bother making the unknown God known on Mars Hill. Why didn't he just cut to the chase and sprinkle or babtising them or pray Covanental rites to pass on regeneration:-)
Just a little caracature for you to meditate on. I know I took it far but where indeed do you stop with this kind of logic. This is one reason I believe in regeneration bringing about faith,but also believe that man is accountable to have faith, but clearly am convinced that I do not wish to go anywhere near Calvins philosopies anymore.
"Jesus said, If you do not believe that I Am, You will perish in Your sin."
Really Antonio and Centurion,
You guys seem to be close in agreement, but coming from differant angles.
This is a bit troubling to me.
Do you hear that sound, Antonio? It is the sound of all your frinedly readers sitting at a long table banging their silverware on the tabletop demanding some post or comments from you.
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