Thread: Redefining Salvation By Use of Romans 10: 13
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Redefining Salvation By Use of Romans 10: 13
Posted : 25 Aug, 2013 07:36 AM
Redefining Salvation By Use of Romans 10: 13
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10: 13
This statement does not include many of the other teachings of Christ and Paul about salvation, many of which deal with the spiritual condition of the unsaved person, and of the changes which come about when the person takes on the mind of Christ.. Paul emphasizes in I Corinthians 2: 14 that the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit.
But - because Romans 10: 13 does not include all the other doctrines of the NT on salvation does not mean is opposes these other doctrines.
Then in II Corinthians 5: 17 Paul teaches that "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Philippians 2: 5
"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." II Corinthians 3: 18
"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Romans 12: 2
"Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:" Colossians 1: 13
"I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God....Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." John 3: 3, 5-7
There are scriptures which add understanding to the salvation process beyond it being a big change in a person, which can occur at one time, or go on over a period of time.
"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Philippians 2: 12-13
Philippians 2: 12-13 would strongly imply that salvation involves more than following the Charles Finney Alter call. Nineteenth century revivalist Charles Finney began using the Alter Call, and later many evangelical preachers like Billy Graham popularized it after the period of about 1945 to 1950.
Romans 10: 13 can be more easily made into a doctrine of easy salvation than can John 3: 1-7, on being born again. Being born again has to be redefined to make it conform to easy salvation. Its called the New Birth in contemporary Christianity. The alter call and Romans 10: 13, without many of the other texts on salvation, can be made into a doctrine of salvation almost as by a procedure, a ritual.
Salvation can be something, as Paul implies in Philippians 2: 12-13, that goes on over time and is not just a one time emotional experience in the group dynamic setting of large congregation and evangelical preacher.
Then II Corinthians 13: 5 says "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" How do you know that you are in faith and that Christ is in you? If you are a new person, as II Corinthians 5: 17 talks about, a new creature, you can get some indication that you have undergone a real transformation in Christ.
In addition, Paul explains in II Thessalonians 2: 10-12 that "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
Having a new love for the truth of the Word of God and a new understanding of it can be two indications that one is in faith and in Christ and is not a reprobate, not still in the spiritual state of the natural man.
Scripture does not contradict itself, though some verses in the newer English versions have verse wordings so different from the older versions - the Tyndale, Geneva and King James - that the doctrines taught by these verses are changed in the new versions..
The basis of faith is that scripture is truth. II Timothy 2: 15 writes about "rightly dividing the word of truth." James 1: 18 says "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth..." John 17: 17 says " Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1: 1 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14: 6
Sanctification and salvation have been separated into two different concepts in man made theology, but they are not as completely separated in scripture - if salvation is understood to be the same thing as entering the Kingdom of God in John 3: 3 by being born again, or transformed.. Entering the Kingdom of God may have been redefined as being somehow different from salvation by man made theologies.
The word of God is absolute truth and fact. But the dialectic mind wants to compromise the truth of scripture, to make scripture seem to contradict itself, to compromise the absolute nature of scripture, to have it say yea and nay, for it to be ambiguous, to have loop holes, so man-made theologies can more easily be used to deceive people. Those who have the dialectic mind, which is an expression of the natural man, will argue against the absolute truth of the Word.
So Romans 10: 13 cannot be used to argue against many other texts on salvation because scripture does not oppose itself. If it appears to do so, it is the understanding of the one claiming it wars against itself that is lacking.
Paul says in II Corinthians 12: 20 "For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults:"
Those who are still in the condition of the natural man and ague against the absolute truth of scripture cause divisions in the ekklesia, and the result of this is what Paul is talking about in saying he fears he might find the ekklesia at Corinth in debate, strife, backbiting, pride, anger, and tumults.
Paul in Romans 1: 28-30 lists eris, which is translated in the Tyndale, Geneva and King James as debate, as an expression of the reprorbate mind. But following the Westcott-Hort led committee which produced the 1881 British Revised Version, eris was translated as strife, making a change in doctrine from the earlier English Bibles about Christians getting into debate or having quarrels. Almost all more recent English versions have stride instead of debate.
Paul in I Timothy 6: 3-5 says "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself." Strifes of words is from logomachia, word fights. Those who teach contrary to the words of Christ are more likely to initiate word fights.
"Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;" Philippians 1: 27
If a preacher who sows the seed, the Word of God, is teaching man made theologies which do not agree with some scriptures, then is he not responsible for those who he is preaching to not coming to the truth?
The church today does does not like the call of Christ to be born again, transformed, and it does not believe that being in the truth is important for salvation, and having a love for the truth.
Here is what Peter teaches about the work of false prophets:
"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." II Peter 2: 1-3
Matthew 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
The false prophets who will rise and deceive many are not all operating from an obviously false theology like dispensationalism which contradicts several scriptures like John 10: 16, Romans 9: 6-8 and Matthew 23: 38 in saying that God now has two peoples, physical Israel and the church.
God turned physical Israel upside down (II Kings 21:13, Isaiah 29: 16, Jeremiah 18: 1-6). But the followers of John Darby, C.I. Scofield, Lewis S. Chafer and many others have tried hard to turn physical Israel back the way it was before God turned it upside down.
The false prophets who deceive many have been at it for decades and have built re-definitions of scripture upon old re-definitions.
The fact that it is the false prophets that will deceive many. shows that this deception is affecting a huge number of those who claim to be Christians. And this more subtle deception is that which causes people to believe they are safe and saved - once saved always saved - when there are indications they are not born again in Christ.
One of the most successful tools in this deception as been to rewrite, and redefine the Scriptures.
In II Timothy 3: 7 those in the last days when perilous times shall come are said to "be "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Coming to the knowledge of the truth is part of the process of becoming saved.
In I Timothy 2: 4 Paul says God "...will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." God would have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, but not all will do so.
Christ in Luke 13: 25-27 says "I know you not whence ye are....I tell you,I know you not whence ye are; depart from me,all ye workers of iniquity."
The old English word whence may cause some to fail to have any understanding of this text. Whence is from Strong's number 4159, pothen, "from which or what place, state, source or cause."
He is saying he does not know these people as his own because of where they have positioned themselves, or what spiritual state they are in. Where they have positioned themselves refers to their doctrines.
"Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
10. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
11. For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." II John 1: 9-11
Many preachers focus only on Romans 10: 13, John 3: 16, Romans 10: 9-10 and Romans 5: 12, and do not quote scriptures like II Corinthians 13: 5, Philippians 2: 12-13, John 3:1-7,II Corinthians 3: 18, Romans 12: 2, II Corinthians 5: 17, Luke 13: 25-27 and II John 1: 9-11. Or they spin the meanings of these other scriptures to make them fit with easy salvation, so that the person thinking he is saved does not think he has to be changed to become saved, and stay changed.
"...but he that endureth to the end shall be saved." Matthew 10: 22
"And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." II Peter 2: 3 KJV
The many false prophets work by making up man made theologies that obviously contradict some scripture, by redefining key Biblical concepts in more subtle ways, and by re-writing scripture.
I had never looked in more recent English translations to see what they do with making merchandise of you in II Peter 2: 3.
First look at the Greek, because for some verses the Westcott-Hort, which was used for almost all recent versions, is not the same as the Textus Receptus..
The Westcott-Hort Greeek for II Peter 2: 3 is identical to that of the Textus Receptus.
And look first at the British 1881 Revised Version: "And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not. "
The New Revised Standard Version says "And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep."
The New American Standard Bible says "and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep."
Here is one that departs more from the Greek, the New International Version: "In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping."
The Greek for II Peter 2: 3 literally, or word for word translated into English in the George Ricker Berry Greek-English Interlinear says "and through covetousness with well-turned words they will make gain of you for whom judgment of old is not idle and their destruction slumbers not."
But the George Ricker Berry Interlinear does not translate the Greek word emporeusontai as does the Fritz Rienecker, A Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, Volume Two, page 428. Rienecker says that emporeusontai is in the Future Tense, Middle Voice, and Indicative Mode. The Indicative Mode presents certainty, and the tense is future. He says the word means "to carry on business, to trade in, to cheat, to make a gain, exploit.
But in II Peter 2: 3 emporeusontai, from emporos, a tradesman, or merchant, Strong's number 1713, is used as a metaphor. So the translation of emporeusontai should have the same meaning as the Greek word, not the metaphoric meaning. This is what is done most of the time in the earlier English translations, the Tyndale, Geneva and King James Version.
There can be power in the use of a metaphor like making merchandise of you, a power which can be diminished by trying to interpret what the metaphor means. This means the Greek word used as a metaphor should be translated by the English word which is most close in meaning to it. The Holy Spirit uses metaphors like merchandising you and expects the reader to figure out the metaphoric meaning by the Spirit of Christ in him, those who have been given ears to hear.
False teachers do make money out of giving people what they want to hear, to satisfy their itching ears (II Timothy 4: 3), because the people will not accept sound doctrine. But making money out of deceiving people is literal, not really metaphoric. The preacher who peaches false doctrines or more subtle redefinitions of key doctrines may also gain self-esteem or pride from having a bigger congregation who accept his teaching. This is partly why emporeusontai must be translated as making merchandise of you. There is also a metaphoric meaning here, which is spiritual. And this spiritual outcome is not good for those who have accepted the teachings of the false prophet.
I agree with you that their are many false teachers and one of the greatest violations to Gods word is the promotion of divorce in the church. This violates the very foundation of reconcilliation and forgiveness.
What i was simply pointing out that their is the possibility of many becoming saved at one gathering like when Jesus preached and thousands were added in.
When Jesus preached, the Holy Spirit had not yet been given in the power he has in Acts 2 when Peter preached and three thousand received his word and were baptized.
We do not want to use this one example of the power of the Holy Spirit in the beginning of Israel reborn in Christ at Pentecost to argue that now in 2013 salvation happens for many from one hearing of the Word. The reason we do not want to do this is because there is no evidence that many are suddenly, at one time, born again in Christ. And one of the main reasons many are not born again in Christ from one hearing of the Word is because of the present day redefinition of salvation and other key doctrines in the NT. The Holy Spirit does not operate with power, or operate at all, when there is false doctrine being preached. There may be strong emotion, but this is not being born again.
Being changed so that one is now led by the Spirit and is in Christ, having Christ's mind in one's inner life, is one way of looking at the transformation of being born again. It is a transformation, not a procedure, and people are not saved to stay in their sins nor to remain in their false doctrines. They are so changed that their will is not to sin and they want to come fully to an understanding of the truth and have a love for it, which they have in some degree that they and close others can see.
This is not an easy thing to do in a society and church operating in the flesh, in the natural man, and in the dialectic mind, which argues against that which is absolute truth in God's word. As Dean Gotcher says, God does not speak into the dialectic mind. The dialectic mind can be changed, however, to a mind of faith in the absolute truth of God, so that God can then speak doctrine into it.
And these changes often come gradually - and usually to a small number of people. The church opposes the remnant because it is convinced that because it has millions of people that truth lies in numbers of believers and not in the testimony of Jesus Christ given by a remnant.
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15. And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
16. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
17. So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Romans 10: 13-17
"And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call." Joel 2: 32
"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2.And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3.And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
4.And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance......But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: 15. For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.
16.But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
17. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
18.And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
19.And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
20.The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:" Acts 2: 1-4, 15-20
There is a lot more involved in the quote in Romans 10: 13 of Joel 2: 32, as is found in that verse and in Acts 2 where Peter quotes Joel.
Joel 2: 32 mentions the remnant that God will call. God calls a remnant to have the will to want faith and truth and ask him for this and salvation. But the church does not understand the remnant ; it is all for the huge numbers of its members, the millions.
There has to be understood in Romans 10: 13-17 that transformation Paul talks about in Romans 12: 2, becoming a new creature in II Corinthians 5: 17, having the mind of Christ in Philippins 2: 5, being translated into the kingdom of his dear Son of Colossians 1: 13, changed by the Spirit of the Lord in II Corinthians 3: 18 and especially being born again in John 3: 1-7. The Holy Spirit does not function in our time, but in a timelessness, so that when he gives a scripture he knows the related scriptures he has inspired in the past and the scriptures on that topic he will inspire in the future. Not to believe this is not being in faith.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." II Peter 1: 21
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. II Timothy 3: 16
Those who do not obey the Gospel and are not in faith, as Romans 10: 16-17 says, and remain in the flesh as two part man, body and mind, without the spirit of man created by the Holy Spirit, and who are in the state of the natural man of I Corinthians 2: 14 want a means to salvation which does not really change them. Romans 10: 13 cannot mean that the act of calling on the name of the Lord, merely as a procedure, or act, brings on salvation and all that means in the many scriptures in the NT.
But false teachers in trying to build large congregations have redefined the process of salvation to make it seem easy. Thinking you are saved when you are not born again in Christ is worse than doubting that you are saved.
"Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." Luke 9: 60 The physically dead cannot bury the dead. What Christ means here is to let those who are spiritually dead bury the physically dead.
Man was created in the image of God in Genesis 1: 27 as a three part being, body, mind and spirit. Man as only body and mind is spiritually dead without his spirit created by the Holy Spirit in Christ. James 2: 26 says "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."
Man's spirit is not created by the Spirit in Christ by a re-defined means to salvation that is almost a procedure, without being changed, but can be an emotional experience, in a man made theology which offers a very easy salvation to those who want to be saved in their flesh.
