Can you explain the doctrine of salvation better than the Bible?Bible does?

[amortalman]

In a fairly recent thread, POI posted a new topic and I present it here as a preface to an offshoot topic of my own:

Grace (and/or) Belief/Faith (and/or) Works?
Post #1
Post by POI » Thu May 05, 2022 12:20 pm

Seems there exists an unresolved topic amongst Christians... Seems as though the way to salvation is not unified among the many in which I engage. I'd wager they all have a case to support their position(s).?.?

For debate: How does one get to Heaven?

POI's follow-up post:

Re: Grace (and/or) Belief/Faith (and/or) Works?
Post #2
Post by POI » Tue May 10, 2022 4:48 pm

I find it odd that no Christian wants to chime in here? How does a Christian get to Heaven?

- Grace alone
- Grace by faith/belief alone
- Grace by faith/belief + works
- Other

After POI's second post a number of debaters jumped in with their favorite scripture verse or verses as to how a Christian can get to heaven. However, it didn't settle the issue definitively. And that is indicative of one of the major problems with the Bible. It just isn't that clear. In fact, it can be downright confusing. I think Dan Barker (atheist, speaker, debater, writer, and former evangelical preacher) was right when he said: Can you think of any book more confusing than the Bible?

In my humble opinion, God could have headed off all this confusion on this issue and dozens of others we find in the "holy book" by making them crystal clear. Maybe this would have prevented the splintering of Christ's church into a thousand denominations. It certainly wouldn't have hurt.

So, here is the debate question and challenge: How might the important doctrine of salvation have been presented in the scripture in a clear and coherent way that left little doubt as to the real meaning?
I am not asking for your exegesis of the relevant passages. That has been done in POI's thread. I'm asking for ideas as to how the relevant passages might have been more clearly presented so that each one separately does not confuse the whole.

By simply taking the options POI presented (and I have taken the liberty to slightly modify), How does a Christian get to heaven? Is it by grace alone, faith alone, works alone, grace+faith, grace+works, faith+works, or another way?

I have my own thoughts on this but I will reserve them for later. I want to hear your ideas.

So, if it were up to you, how might you relieve the confusion over this teaching?

[amortalman]

[Replying to amortalman in post #1]

amortalman asked: "By simply taking the options POI presented (and I have taken the liberty to slightly modify), How does a Christian get to heaven? Is it by grace alone, faith alone, works alone, grace+faith, grace+works, faith+works, or another way?"

I posted this question as a means to get the cranial juices flowing and as a quick look at what the NT says about salvation/going to heaven/getting saved or whatever term you might use. For the purposes of this thread it is not intended to be answered

[1213]

...
So, here is the debate question and challenge: How might the important doctrine of salvation have been presented in the scripture in a clear and coherent way that left little doubt as to the real meaning? ...

I think Bible is very clear on this matter.

1. Salvation means sins are forgiven and so person is saved from the judgment that would come because of sin. That is free and requires nothing from the receiver.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

2. Eternal life is a free gift for those who are righteous.

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

3. If person is righteous, it comes visible in his actions. And so it is like in the case of a tree, if it produces good fruit, it is a good tree.

He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever is born of God doesn't commit sin, because his seed remains in him; and he can't sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn't do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn't love his brother.
1 John 3:7-10

I think that could not be any clearer and it is interesting how difficult it seems to be for many to understand so simple matter. Maybe it is because they don't like the idea of what it means to be righteous.

[amortalman]

...
So, here is the debate question and challenge: How might the important doctrine of salvation have been presented in the scripture in a clear and coherent way that left little doubt as to the real meaning? ...

I think Bible is very clear on this matter.

So you wouldn't change a thing. It is clear to you. So I take it that what you have presented here is all a person needs to know and do and we can just ignore all those other verses about confession of sins, repentance,
baptism, faith in Jesus alone (John 14:6 and Act 4:12) but faith without works is dead (James 2:14-16). This is just scratching the surface.

1. Salvation means sins are forgiven and so person is saved from the judgment that would come because of sin. That is free and requires nothing from the receiver.

So here you say that salvation is free and requires nothing more.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

so here eternal life is a free gift, but we have to be in Jesus. OK.

2. Eternal life is a free gift for those who are righteous.

Now we have to do something, it's not completely free. We have to become righteous. How righteous do we have to be?

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

So all we need to do is be righteous. I see. But isn't that what the Jews were doing when Jesus came on the scene? Counting only on their righteousness to be holy? I think Jesus changed that up a little.

He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever is born of God doesn't commit sin, because his seed remains in him; and he can't sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn't do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn't love his brother.
1 John 3:7-10

There's something else we have to do. We have to be born of God. Is that the same as being born again? But you keep adding things to this free gift. I thought it was free and requires nothing from the receiver. That sounded pretty good. But it's not completely free. Then there are those other annoying verses in the NT that we haven't even touched on. Can't ignore those. One of them is Rom. 10:9-10.

I think that could not be any clearer and it is interesting how difficult it seems to be for many to understand so simple matter. Maybe it is because they don't like the idea of what it means to be righteous.

Now you are getting closer to actually answering the question I posed in the OP. Maybe Jesus could have called together a large crowd and said: "Now listen up! I'm going to make something crystal clear to you all because some people don't seem to know what it means to be righteous, so I'm telling you now exactly what it means..." Might not that help a lot of folks understand? And while he's at it he might go ahead and clear up those other issues and teaching in the Bible to come that have confused millions of people for 2000 years. Something like: "Write this down, people! You do not, I repeat - do not have to be water baptized to be saved."
Anyway, I hope you now see what I was shooting for in the OP. Thanks for your input.

[1213]

...So I take it that what you have presented here is all a person needs to know and do and we can just ignore all those other verses about confession of sins, repentance, baptism, faith in Jesus alone (John 14:6 and Act 4:12) but faith without works is dead (James 2:14-16). ...

No, you should not ignore anything. You should understand them correctly. For example now it seems you think eternal life is same as salvation, which it is not. It would be helpful, if you would not mix up things that are not the same.

[bjs1]

“Can you explain the doctrine of salvation better than the Bible does?”

Honestly, no.

Read chapters 1 through 8 of Romans. Read with the goal of understanding instead of poking holes. Devote the necessary time to understand the topic. If you don’t get it at that point, I have no explanation that will make it clearer.

I will also not that the vast majority of splintering within the Christian church has nothing to do with salvation. Almost all denomination agree that members of other denominations are saved.

[amortalman]

...So I take it that what you have presented here is all a person needs to know and do and we can just ignore all those other verses about confession of sins, repentance, baptism, faith in Jesus alone (John 14:6 and Act 4:12) but faith without works is dead (James 2:14-16). ...

No, you should not ignore anything. You should understand them correctly.

Exactly! Understanding and misunderstanding are central to the OP. And I'm not talking about a misunderstanding of Biblical passages between two people or even between several people. I'm talking about the misunderstanding between whole denominationsand sometimes between different congregations within the same denomination. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention (which in 2020) had 47,530 churches and 14,525,579 members) you have liberal Calvinists, conservative or hard-line Calvinists, and non-Calvinists, most are literalists but some are non-literalists. They exist on friendly terms but the different Calvinistic beliefs led to a split in one large church in my city. The problem is that even sincere, God-loving, people will come away with different understandings of some very important doctrinal issues. How could this have been prevented?

For example now it seems you think eternal life is same as salvation, which it is not. It would be helpful, if you would not mix up things that are not the same.

No, they are different, but... according to my understanding and what the churches I attended taught is that salvation and eternal life are imparted at the same time by God. When one is "saved" (salvation) they receive eternal life at that moment. But here is the main point I want to make: your post and my reply above, taken together, is a good example of the confusion in the Bible. As you know, this is just the doctrine of salvation we're talking about There are dozens more in the NT that have resulted in people who understand the scriptures differently. Could not all the scriptures concerning salvation have been gathered together in one place like the 10 commandments are in the OT? God, who was in charge of writing his holy book could have done it, right?

[amortalman]

“Can you explain the doctrine of salvation better than the Bible does?”

Honestly, no.

Read chapters 1 through 8 of Romans. Read with the goal of understanding instead of poking holes. Devote the necessary time to understand the topic. If you don’t get it at that point, I have no explanation that will make it clearer.

As a matter of fact, I have read the book of Romans dozens of times and the rest of the NT almost as often. I taught a Bible Study class for several years and I certainly wasn't trying to poke holes in it. But Romans isn't the only book in the NT. All scripture has to be included when formulating any specific doctrine. To insinuate that I and many others who came away with different views because they didn't study with the goal of understanding is rediculous.

Almost all denomination agree that members of other denominations are saved.

Almost. Wow. I guess that'll have to do.

[theophile]

Can you think of any book more confusing than the Bible?

That's the point. The confusion of the bible is something we are meant to work our way through like the vale between us and God in the tabernacle. Which is to say, as literature the bible is didactic in form. It is written to teach us, which means challenging us with cryptic and ambiguous verses and stories.

To get wisdom (as we are called to do) we must practice wisdom. Hence the bible is infused with questions of right and wrong and throws a whole bunch of stumbling blocks our way to challenge our discernment. This includes literary devices, like ambiguous terms and forms (song/psalms for example, or proverbs and parables...)

Take the serpent of Genesis 3 for example. Is it the most crafty or most sensible of wild creatures? The original Hebrew includes that wide of a semantic range, which means it is intentionally / written to confuse us, and force us to think about the question and its many implications...

As to salvation, I've always looked at it this way: we are saved in two essential ways.

1) We are saved by Christ's redeeming us of sin (his giving of his body on the cross).

When Christ redeems us, we need to think of this in the way that Job redeems us. When Satan comes to challenge our existence, as some cosmic being like a Thanos might, we are saved by the goodness of a one like Job (or Jesus) who justifies the continued life of the rest of us. We are literally saved by these redeeming examples.

2) But this is completely different to how Christ saves us through communion (by giving us his body in bread and wine).

When Christ communes with us, we need to think of this in the way that water saves us from thirst. Or a coat from cold. Christ (and Christianhood) is literally giving ourselves (our bodies and blood) to the sustainment (food) and even enjoyment (wine) of others. To literally by saved, and granted continued life (per before).

These are distinct salvific acts and, IMO, get to the heart of salvation theory in the bible. They need to be disambiguated to cut through the confusion and get deeper in wisdom.

[1213]

....according to my understanding and what the churches I attended taught is that salvation and eternal life are imparted at the same time by God. When one is "saved" (salvation) they receive eternal life at that moment. But here is the main point I want to make: your post and my reply above, taken together, is a good example of the confusion in the Bible. As you know, this is just the doctrine of salvation we're talking about There are dozens more in the NT that have resulted in people who understand the scriptures differently. Could not all the scriptures concerning salvation have been gathered together in one place like the 10 commandments are in the OT? God, who was in charge of writing his holy book could have done it, right?

I think the problem is only when people are not loyal to God and Jesus and don't remain in truth. For example in this case, Bible doesn't connect that way salvation and eternal life. The problem comes only when person rejects part of the whole thing, or adds own teachings to it.