"Pre-Evident Grace" -- a.k.a. The Real Meaning of Foreknowledge

This was a post I made in the comments on one of Elizabeth Prata's recent posts about Calvinism. I had remarked that the Bible itself was the strongest argument for the doctrines of grace, because after you hear all the preachers make their case, you are left with the undeniable fact that the Bible says God elects people for salvation not based on what they do. In fact, the Bible says faith is a gift, so how can faith be something you give to God to make Him save you? It can't.

I ended my first post by saying that those who don't accept Calvinism, ultimately, then, are not treating the Bible as if it is inerrant or authoritative. Someone replied that non-calvinists can believe the Bible's inerrant. I agree, it's possible, but here is what I had to say:


If you believe the Bible is inerrant in theory, then show that you believe it in practice.

When the Bible says this: "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. " (Romans 8:29-30),

then acknowledge that God decides where someone will spend eternity BEFORE the call (contemporaneous with regeneration and initiation of conversion), and before they become a believer who has faith in God (which is justification). The eternal destiny is set before belief begins. How then can anyone say that God decides to save people based on what they will believe? You can say that God knows the future, that is undoubtedly true -- BUT it misses the point that the logical sequence of God's actions from God's perspective are laid out in these verses, and it shows that God follows a sequence.

Foreknowledge is, (and this is yet another exciting proof of the doctrine of Illumination, because I had reasoned to this before) as John MacArthur recently said in a radio broadcast, not a mere knowledge of the future. In fact, the verse specifically does NOT say that it is the *future* that God knows (He does know it, but it's not the context), it is **those He justifies** that He knows.

This is an article from Grace To You confirming my statement about JMac's view.

What then is foreknowledge? God has an intimate relationship with certain people, others He does not. And as a merciful God, He would never enter into close communion with someone and then cast them off afterward. The point of foreknowledge is to show that God doesn't choose people based on their belief in Him -- He chooses people based on what sort of relationship He is going to have with them. Those whom He will be to as a Father, those He will secure eternally for salvation, and ensure that before earthly death, that He will justify them by faith and give them the right to be called children of God.

When I understood this passage, I understood why I naturally comprehended the qualities of God like omniscience, omnipotence, goodness, Biblical infallibility etc, long before my crisis of faith that led to my conversion whereafter I *consciously* apprehended the Gospel and can claim salvation by grace through faith. I was a nominal believer before, but I can see God's hand in my life keeping me from the kinds of behavior patterns (sexuality and drugs being obvious examples) that beset so many others I've heard stories from. I was morally upright, in a limited human sense, and it was by the grace of God, because I was not spiritually regenerate, just well behaved and with a good brain. I believe that God, knowing that I *would* be brought into a right relationship with Him as His child, extended "pre-evident grace" (if you will humor me making up a new word) to me even during the time of my life that I lived without the full knowledge of salvation.

That is foreknowledge. It is not "knowing that I would choose Him." It is knowing that He would choose ME, and ensuring that as a consequence, He would lead me by His Spirit to come to an eventual understanding of the Gospel that I might be saved through the hearing of the word preached.

If someone insists that Romans 8 implies that God saves men based on knowing that they will believe on their own, then they are not honoring the Word and even if they insist that it is infallible, they are not submitting to what it plainly says and are not in practice treating the Word as if it is true, or authoritative.

That is my lengthier treatment of this matter. I hope I neither seemed too harsh or too soft. It's a serious issue but it doesn't make someone a heretic -- it does require your repentance, though.

Thanks for reading.

~ Rak Chazak

Did God Die For Everyone Who Ever Lived, or Just Some?

If some people are in hell, and you believe that Christ died for everyone,
* then Christ died for those in hell. Then His sacrifice was insufficient to save them.
* then God is unjust, committing double jeopardy, because a person's sins are judged once at the cross, and then again in hell.

If no people are in hell,
* then you reject what the Bible clearly teaches, and have asserted the Universalism heresy.

Your only logical choice is to believe that
* Jesus died for all the sins of some people.
* Those not included in the category of "those He died for" are they who populate hell.

Christianity. The thinking faith.

~ Rak Chazak

What Was Jesus' Sacrifice? Using Infinity to Contemplate the Gospel

Originally posted in response to a post on an ex-mormon website. The blogger has fallen for the common error of rejecting Christianity after leaving a cultic false religion for very valid reasons. Just because someone lied to you doesn't mean that truth doesn't exist. But on to the subject. The claim is that Jesus didn't really sacrifice anything when He died if He could take it back by coming back to life just a few days later. How do we address this challenge? My answer is below.

*     *     *     *

The mistake here is in thinking that physical death is the focus. That's not what the Bible teaches (Reformed, here, not a Mormon). 

Instead it teaches that death is not the cessation of 'life,' but the unnatural separation of a living being from the source of its life. Man-God, Man's body-Man's soul, God-God.

It was not in dying that Jesus did His miraculous deed. That was just the necessary finishing touch, a bit of a technical requirement.

But what He really sacrificed was His relationship to the Father. For 3 hours, He was spiritually separated from the Father and they were not in communion, as they have/are/will be in all other possible places in time and space from eternity past to eternity future.

Spurgeon on Calvin

I loved the short quote in this, the first time I heard it. It encouraged me, because I had been researching Calvinism and was unsure whether it had been believed through history, or was a recent invention. What had "big-name" pastors and preachers of the past said about it? Spurgeon was a name I'd heard mentioned positively in the theological circles I'd been crossing into. So this served to unify my understanding, and conclude that "these guys are on the same team. We are on the same team."

If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.

The website I chose to use for the source text is Spurgeon.org. Please read the whole sermon, called "In Defense of Calvinism."

~ Rak Chazak

Video Post: Discernment & Duck Dynasty

I used to pray for wisdom, in my mid to late teens. I was inspired by the way that God responded to Solomon's request for wisdom. Clearly the better thing to ask the Giver for is not things, but the correct understanding of how to utilize the things you have. I was amazed, years later, to consider that the end result of all the theological, historical and scientific education I'd gotten with regard to Biblical truth online had been an answer to the prayer I had made a habit of praying on night walks by the road. My mind is bursting with valuable, helpful information about an extremely wide and deep assortment of topics concerning the Christian Faith, and my concern now is how to best use this knowledge now that I have it, so that the last word won't be that all of the facts I knew were simply random trivia.

Discernment is the next step of wisdom. Whereas wisdom is the proper application of knowledge, discernment is the accurate and consistent application of wisdom. Let's say you could wisely conclude that a course of action is appropriate. But if you never took the time to reach that conclusion, and never acted, then your wisdom was in vain, because you didn't use it. Suppose that you know that certain song lyrics are not appropriate for your children to hear, but you don't know that your child is listening to a singer who employs such lyrics. You have the knowledge to determine what the lyrics are. You have the wisdom to determine that your child shouldn't be influenced by such music. But you lacked the discernment to identify the bad lyrics under your nose so as to take action against letting your child listen to them. This 'last step' is what I want to improve on, because my great fear is that I won't successfully identify and separate what's good from what's bad, and everything "in between," and reap the consequences of that inability.

My new prayer is for discernment. And to show an example of what I mean by drawing a distinction between "wisdom" and "discernment," please watch the following video. I have the knowledge of what is orthodox soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). I have the wisdom to know that I shouldn't promote people as Christian brothers whose doctrine is heretical on the topic of soteriology. But I am uncertain that I could identify, on my own, that a certain person is espousing a heretical soteriology, if it wasn't directly and obviously stated.

That's where men like Todd Friel come in. I discovered him first when I investigated whether Roman Catholicism was authentic Christianity or not, and someone had uploaded a video of him comparing Catholic and Christian positions. I liked his style and the information delivery in each of his short video uploads I would find, so I've eventually come to consider him an online, impersonal mentor figure in my Christian walk. Every young person ideally should have an older, more mature Christian of the same gender from whom to receive advice and take cues from as they model the Christian walk for you, so that you can grow in the faith, etc etc. I'm still working on finding such a relationship in person, but thanks to the Internet, I've been able to benefit from Todd's podcasts and video clips from his show, Wretched, and continue to polish up on my theology and practice. He has seemed to me on more than one occasion to serve the purpose of a theological watchdog, on the alert for errors, heresy, and other dumb-but-not-damning silliness that ought to be avoided. Following is a video clip of him helpfully analyzing a segment of Phil Robertson talking about salvation. Phil is one of the "Duck Dynasty" characters, which is the most popular reality show of all time, and their family's faith is bound to be a huge influence in America going forward. So just what do they believe? The nuance is very important, and Todd explains it below. Please check it out.

~ Rak Chazak

What About the Jews?

Should We or Should We Not Pray for God to Come Back Soon?

Poem: "What of the Jews?"

I recently wrote a poem exploring the conundrum I've had regarding whether it's best to ask for God to come back as soon as possible or whether it's best for Him to be as patient as possible, letting history drag out and waiting for more people to be saved before the final 7-year period of Earth history known as the Tribulation.

I think I explain the issue pretty well in the rhyme scheme itself. Without further ado, please enjoy the below poem, and feel free to read the footnotes for background information on the things I make reference to in the poem. It is my favorite poem I've written yet, because of how much complex thought I was able to fit into it without upsetting the scheme. 

Reading note: Lines will have the stress on the second syllable, a la "dut-duu," unless there is an asterisk -- * -- at the beginning of the line, in which case the stress will be on the first syllable, a la "duu." 

What Of the Jews?

A thought about the Rapture’s¹ struck my mind in recent days
It came about as I was contemplating how to pray
Should I petition for the Lord to come to Earth with speed?
Or should I ask that individual Jewish souls be freed?
The Bible says that, in the end, “All Israel shall be saved.”²
But in the years before that, many more go to their graves³
* What, then, ought my focus be in praying for my friends?
* What will give them the best chance to make it in the end?
The way to life is death, as their whole hist’ry goes to show⁴
I yearn for them to sooner meet the Savior that I know
Before the Time of Jacob’s Trouble,⁵ many will refuse
A “partial hardening”⁶ has become the norm among the Jews
I wish it were not so, but it is hard to reach them now*
As a nation, one could say, their heart is far too proud.⁷
Could this be reason, then, to hope for Tribulation⁸ come?
That hardship would ensure all live, instead of only some?
But if the Tribulation came today, what of my friends?
* Would they be unsaved if they should meet untimely ends?
The fear of asking carelessly is keeping me awake
And anxiously considering the lives which are at stake
* What’s a bigger roadblock to a Jew’s accepting Christ?
Is it prosperity or is it deadly human strife?⁹
* War can make a man more urgent, peace can make him slack.
* Should we then hope that the Jews come soon under attack?
* May it not be so! Let me suggest another way:
The many  Jewish tribesmen sealed descend from those today¹⁰
Implicit in that they believe is that they’ve heard it preached—
The Gospel cannot save the men to whom it hasn’t reached¹¹
So whether they believe through trial, or escape before
The answer to my doubt, it seems, is: Preach the Gospel more!
We can’t assume the end will come so soon s’ as to be lazy
Few things in life are truer than [that] the future is quite hazy
* We don’t know when time runs out. We can’t afford to quit
So carry on, and do God’s will—yes, every little bit!
I love the Jews, and want them saved, from great to very small
But best of all for them ‘s to join us at the Trumpet call¹²
“Escaping all these things,”¹³ to spite their stubborn ancestry
Rejoicing at the Wedding Feast¹⁴ about God’s majesty
* Meanwhile, those we left behind will have another shot
To flee their sin, repent and put their faith and hope in God¹⁵
* Stubborn Israel took two thousand years to learn the truth:¹⁶
That God, in choosing men for heaven, cares not what we do
* We can only e’er do any good by His great grace
To try to work our way to Him is, in His eyes, disgrace
* My dear Jewish friends, I hope you’ll come to Faith today
But if you don’t, as we have seen, God still will have His way.
Baruch HaShem¹⁷

Footnotes for those curious:

1. The Rapture is a Biblical concept supported by the theological reasoning behind the purpose of the present Church Age and future Tribulation. Put shortly, in the final 7-year period of human history before the return of Jesus Christ, God punishes the pagan gentile nations and disciplines rebellious Israel. As the Church is neither pagan gentiles nor rebellious Jews, there is no reason for it to be present on earth during this time. Concurrently, the book of Revelation nowhere mentions the Church after the description of the end-times begins, although Israel is mentioned many times. The letter to the Thessalonians explains why the Church is not present by saying that all believers in Christ will be “caught up” (Grk. harpazo, Lat. rapturo, from which we get ‘rapture’) 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 introduces this doctrine, and 1 Thessalonians 5:9 supports it by saying “we are not appointed to suffer wrath.” A subsection of the Tribulation period is known as The Wrath, where God releases His righteous anger on the world. See Revelation 6:16-17. Logically, 5:9 indicates that the Church won’t be on earth during that time period. For clarification, the Church is defined as the sum total of all those who are saved by faith in Christ. It does not refer to a building or religious institution. The Roman Catholic Church is not THE Church, and neither is any other church. There are unsaved people in every religious institution that calls itself “christian,” and there are probably at least some who are saved, in every such institution as well. Do not be mistaken: affiliation with a religion does not save you, only faith in Christ can save you.

2. Romans 11:26

3. This refers to two things: one is that for as long as the Church Age draws on, Jews will continue to live and die natural lives and most of them will remain in unbelief, dying in their sins, and this is a great tragedy. The other thing is that it is quite possible that even though many will come to faith in the Tribulation, many will also die, and it is presently unclear to me whether there is any guarantee in Scripture against the possibility that those who die before the Return of the King will be unsaved. If there is no such guarantee, then the Tribulation will result in the deaths of many unbelieving Jews, and thus for those who do not convert before the end of the 7-year period, and die, the calamity means nothing but damnation for them, and not salvation. Such a possibility urges me strongly against wanting to ask for the end to come soon, lest I inadvertently be praying damnation on someone.

4. The first part of this, “the way to life is death,” refers to Christ dying on the Cross for us. His death made possible our eternal lives, if we repent and receive His sacrifice as a substitute for the punishment we deserve because of our sin. Consequently, Romans 6:11 “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” To live, we must die. The second part of the line is just a clever artistic reference to the fact that it is the very history of the Jewish race that has brought us the message of life as delivered to them by God, through continual national calamities after calamities. Even today, the Jewish story is not yet over, because even though they are still killed throughout the world, and will yet be in the future, those who are alive at the end of the Tribulation will be alive in Christ even as the whole world has died – and those who live now have the opportunity to live by the power of God through dying to their Jewishness and accepting the Gospel of salvation through faith and not nationality.

5. The Time of Jacob’s Trouble is another name for the Tribulation, further lending support to the doctrine of the Rapture of the Church. Jacob is Israel. The primary reference for this is Jeremiah 30:7 “How awful will that day be! No other will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it.”

6. Romans 11:25

7.  That the Jews have stumbled because of a general case of religious-nationalist pride (being the “Chosen Ones,” you know – it can make you arrogant, and it did) is a common theme in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament where the prophets preach continuously against their countrymen’s sins. Here is how Paul—the Jewish Pharisee—puts it in Romans 10:19-21 :

“Again I ask, Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, “I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding,” And Isaiah boldly says, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.” But concerning Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.””

8. The term Tribulation comes from Jesus’ discourse in Matthew 24:21, where the word He uses to describe the future events He’s foretelling about has historically been translated ‘tribulation,’ meaning distress, trouble, etc.

9. Proverbs 30:7-9, the sayings of Agur:

“Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you, and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.”

10. Simple logic. Revelation 7:4-8 describes 144,000 people of Jewish descent, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes, as being “sealed” by a mark on the forehead before the earth was subjected to the Trumpet and Bowl judgments, but after the Seals (read Revelation for more details. The three categories described are telescoping sequences of catastrophes unleashed on the earth during the Tribulation period). Those sealed were supernaturally protected from death and suffering throughout the course of the Tribulation, in the vision John saw. The hope that these could be Jews who turn to Christ very shortly after the Rapture and Seal judgments is a potential motivation to pray for God’s Second Coming to happen soon. Revelation here blatantly guarantees that 144,000 Jewish people who were NOT believers prior to the Rapture WILL be saved. This is very encouraging news. And so the logic that I lay out in the poem above is, if they come to faith, they must have had access to New Testaments and/or the preaching of Christians prior to the Tribulation, so that the events would have provoked them to faith in Christ. The reasoning for this is in the point below.

11. Romans 10:13-14 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved  (ref: Joel 2:32). How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”  The following verses go on to say, “How can anyone preach unless they are sent?...Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” The conclusion, then, is to preach the Gospel so that the Jews may hear and believe.

12. The ‘trumpet call’ phrase is inspired by the line in the song “Days of Elijah” by Twilah Paris, that goes, “behold He comes, riding on the clouds, shining like the sun, at the Trumpet call.” In comparing Matthew 24:30-31 with 1 Thessalonians 4:16, these passages identify a trumpet of some sort with the Rapture, as well as informing that God Himself will make a “Second Appearing,” coming down but not touching down on earth, before the Tribulation, but not to be confused with the Second Coming.

13. Luke 21:36 (Luke 21 is the parallel passage to Matthew 24 in Luke’s Gospel).

14. Revelation 19:6-9. The Wedding Feast of the Lamb is a celebration that takes place in heaven during the Tribulation, where all those who belong to God participate in glorifying Him. It is called a Wedding because the Church is symbolically represented as a bride, such as in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her…”

15. Romans 9:31-32. “But the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.”

16. I don’t mean anything concrete by this. It simply indicates that if the end of history is within the next century, then it took roughly 2,000 years after the Messiah came for the Jews to finally believe in Him, one and all. It doesn’t mean that no Jews ever have. Remember, it was a partial hardening. Romans 11:23 says, “And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.”

17. This is a common Hebrew phrase meaning "praise God," "thank God," or literally, "blessed be the name of the Lord."

Further reading about Israel: Romans 9-12.

Note: the verse quotations were taken from my NIV Bible. I have a KJV and NIV, so the way I phrase something may appear to look different from the actual quote I put up, but this is simply a matter of translation. For that matter, the verse pop-up feature uses the ESV version. Variety is the spice of life!

~ Rak Chazak

Journal Treatise: Why I'm Not Baptized

Treatise: Why I’m Not Baptized

                        My earliest memory of any encounter with Young Earth Creation is not even a memory of the thing itself, but of my mother reminding me about it some years later. It was that long ago, and apparently didn’t make enough of an impression on me to result in a lasting recollection. Apparently I was calling a lady from the church we then attended, and apparently I had mentioned something about human evolution—what the context was, I don’t know (remember that I was well-indoctrinated in the orthodox evolutionary dogma through my dinosaur books [and after 3^rd grade, an increasing interest in astronomy as well]). Apparently she had gotten upset and said (yelled?) that she wasn’t descended from no ape, or whatever. My mom probably remembers it better, it seems to have surprised her. My reaction to being told this was perplexity. What was so insulting about what I said? There was nothing I could see that would be offensive about it. Humans were descended from apes, what was the big deal? Perhaps this is why I’d quickly forgot the exchange. I, like many people today, had simply believed both sides of what I’d been told—evolutionary history and the Hebrew Scriptures—without thinking about it closely enough to realize that the two are in contradiction and can’t be simultaneously believed with any consistency.

                        The first time I actually became aware of the views of Young Earthers was between 10^th and 11^th grade, when I had visited the second church we attended and seen an interesting-looking book in the pastor’s office. That book was entitled “15 Reasons to Accept Genesis as History,” produced by Creation Ministries International, an organization I later discovered in 2010/11. The back inside cover had an advertisement for “Refuting Evolution,” another book, with a picture of Ken Ham holding it up. Later when I discovered Answers in Genesis in 2010, my mind flashed back to this image. I took the book (the former mentioned) and utilized it for bathroom reading. I distinctly remember the section about skin color genetics, and one part where Neanderthals were hypothesized to have had rickets (a Vitamin D deficiency that affects the bones), rather than being bow-legged creatures intermediary between a human and ape. The book was fascinating, and I found it very educational. I brought up some of the things I learned from it in conversations (the kind where you say “guess what?” and share a random fact as a matter of trivia). But strangely (in hindsight, that is), I didn’t change my views on evolution at that time. Apparently I just found it interesting, but it didn’t lead to a paradigm shift. If it had anything to do with my eventual change of mind, it took over 4 years for that seed to germinate.

                        It wasn’t until a year later that I actually had a significant shift in my beliefs about evolution, when I took Advanced Placement (AP) Biology in high school. As an interesting aside, it was to my great surprise, considering how many of the ‘smart kids’ were in my class, that I actually had the highest grade of them all. I was exempt from the final exam, and as for the AP exam, I got a 5 (on a scale of 0 to 5, for the uninitiated). So lest anyone get the idea, I understood what I was learning, and didn’t get “confused.” That’s all I mean to prove by this. It’s funny, our textbook had an interview with Richard Dawkins placed before one of the chapters; I didn’t remember who it was, but upon encountering Dawkins through my personal research in Spring 2010, I looked it up again and had another déjà vu flashback. I’d been lightly interacting with this stuff all along, skimming the surface, but barely getting affected until much later. Maybe the time wasn’t right. As Ecclesiastes says, “God makes everything perfect in its time.” It was in AP Biology, with one of the best teachers I ever had at answering random curious questions, as I’m inclined to have, that I discovered that natural selection can’t plan ahead. It may very well have been courtesy of Dawkins’s interview—otherwise it was something the teacher said, and I questioned her further. I hadn’t thought of it in depth before, but at the moment when I realized that natural selection can only deal with what’s already there, I did a quick and simple calculation: the human genome is 3 billion base pairs of DNA long. Life on earth has existed for about 3 billion years. Therefore, one base pair addition per year, on average, would have to be locked in to the genome in order to go from an original number of 0, to the 3,000,000,000+ that now exist. And that’s just the good ones that amount to something, not all the others that get weeded out from the population. And on top of that, all the other forms of life in the world would have to be accounted for as well. It was plainly obvious to me that this couldn’t happen randomly, in the time available. And here’s the silly part, in retrospect: I simply decided that since it couldn’t happen by itself, that obviously meant that God was guiding evolution! Because the thought would not have entered my mind at that point that evolution wasn’t true—that’s a ridiculous thing to accept at face value, when you’ve believed it all your life. I became a theistic evolutionist at that point, though I didn’t know that name until years later.

                        Then I went to college. I didn’t attend church during the first four years, but made it to a handful of services in the last one, because I was within walking/biking distance. I had neither bike nor car on campus the other years, and so I was stranded on campus due to lack of transportation. But for all this, I didn’t lack theological instruction for most of that time. I found much more vast knowledge through the Internet than I could have hoped to absorb through once-weekly, hour-long church services during that whole time. Sermons included. I found that Church is not a building, it is the sum total of all living believers on earth. All the commands in the Bible to be in fellowship with others and support the Church are telling us to interact with other believers, not to go to a building on such and such a day. This is not to say that “going to church” is contrary to Church, because it can be a great way to do that, but far too many people go to the building without being a part of the edifice.  Knowing this, I was encouraged despite not being able to go to sermon services regularly in person, because I wasn’t shunning the things of God in the meantime—and I was in fact consuming multiple sermon equivalents in online video and audio clips, as well as articles, throughout that whole time period. I decided it was worth it to wait until I could consistently attend church before attempting to become more involved in one. Doesn’t that make sense? I think so.

                        The reason why I’m not yet baptized is twofold, and the justification is based on practicality. One: I wasn’t as passionate about theology as I am now until 3 years ago, so the impulse to be baptized wasn’t there. Two: I was excused from needing to attend church while I was at college, because I had access to teaching online and access to people who would keep me accountable on campus, friends I met through my university’s discussion board and whom I’d made an attempt to build relationships with “In Real Life.” Because of this, I didn’t attend church, and consequently didn’t develop a connection to any church body, so as to find getting baptized therein purposeful. Because what is the purpose of baptism? An outward public display of an inward condition. It’s thus most pertinent to get baptized in a place where people know, or will know, you, for their benefit. They’ll be encouraged when they see your baptism, and they’ll also recognize you as a believer and not wonder about you. Getting “shotgun baptized” somewhere and then disappearing because you move somewhere else seems pretty pointless, accomplishing little or nothing. Hence, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity, and I know it’s not here yet. When I know where I’m going to live for a period of some years, then I’ll have the security to know to look for a church in that region and to become a member there. Baptism isn’t what saves you, so I’m not afraid. Baptism is what proclaims to everyone who sees and hears about it that you are saved. So I’m merely selecting the right audience. And that’s why I’m not yet baptized.

Journal Treatise: When Was I Saved?

Treatise: When Was I Saved?

Was it when I properly understood sound theology, or was it before that, when I acknowledged God as my Lord, if not yet understanding (though thinking I did) what it meant for Him to be my Savior? This is something that my mind comes around to thinking about every once in a while. It’s not a troubling thought, but it’s a difficult one to resolve. I may never be able to. But thankfully, it doesn’t matter if I do. And there may be a way around this question, which I’ll develop here in a little bit.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God – The Christian God. One of the earliest memories I have from Sweden was, I think, a television show where the young girl lead character was sitting with her mom/aunt/grand-mother, and maybe her little brother, and looking in a picture book. A page flips, and someone points at a figure in the middle of the image and says ‘this is God,’ (or else Jesus), and it’s possible ‘Jesus’ was a separate figure somewhere in the picture that was also pointed to. It was a dark image. It could have been set in outer space. I don’t know. For some reason, the middle character appeared to have a sort of “elf” get-up in which he was dressed. Green tights, hat, pointy shoes and frills around the neck..so from whenever that was, to about 8 years of age, maybe a little after, if I imagined “god” in my head, it would be that “Link to the Past”-esque character. No eyes, that area was dark. Reddish, medium-length hair. It’s a weird thing to remember but it’s the earliest memory I have that I know is an actual memory and not just knowledge which I can’t determine when I received. The simple point of this is, I was from an early age exposed to the concept of the Trinitarian God. There are a couple of children’s books in our house to this day, and one of them is where I have the image of a fish spewing out Jonah onto a beach implanted in my brain from.

I only have one other memory of my own thoughts, (have you noticed that memory is of two sorts? One of things you experienced, and the other of thoughts you had?) and that is of trying to explain to my brother how history was supposed to work. When I was little, I loved dinosaurs, and had memorized the geological layers in the beginning of one of my dinosaur books into a little song. I knew the ‘scientific’ timeline of the earth, and it put humans at the very tippy-top of the “Nutid” segment. So I said to my brother, time is like a “Y.” One branch represents the Bible’s history and the other represents ‘prehistory.’ It’s much longer than the other one. They’re different, that’s why they’re separate, but “at some point, they come together, and then they continue together from that point on.” Because both of the histories, though different, were both supposed to be the past end of a timeline ending in today’s reality, of which there was clearly only one of. Looking back c. 15-17 years later, it was intriguing to consider that I had invented “Gap Theory” all by myself as a kid. Apparently that was a satisfying conclusion to my young mind, because I don’t remember ever thinking about it again. The only other memory about religion I have from before we moved is seeing a video of me running around the pews at my brother’s baby-baptism (Sweden is mostly a Lutheran country, insofar as denominations are concerned).

I don’t remember when I learned that “Jesus=God,” but I must have understood it from the first moment, because I don’t ever recall having a misconception about Jesus’ identity, at least officially speaking. I do remember something dawning on me when I read an article on Answers in Genesis entitled something like “Christ the Creator?” which pointed out that Jesus, as God, was actively involved in creating the universe. It was not something that the Father did while the Son sat passively aside and did nothing. But while no one ever really “gets” the Trinity in full, the way He Himself understands Himself, I remember being aware of the concept since I was little. I don’t, however, remember when I was aware of Christ dying for us on the Cross. Maybe I always knew that, too, since I don’t remember ever learning it. But here’s the rub: it wasn’t until roughly winter 2010-2011 when I understood HOW the Cross accomplished salvation—through a substitutionary atonement, where He took our punishment and we undeservedly receive His reward for living the perfect life. My question is, if I didn’t understand salvation completely, was it then possible for me to have faith in it? The object of my faith never changed (unless my conception of God was an idol throughout my youth?), but my understanding changed over time. So the question is, would I have been saved when I believed in Jesus and my conscience had quickened me to obey the Law and ask for forgiveness for sins, even if my knowledge of substitutionary atonement and a complete understanding of Biblical repentance and a faith-based soteriology (not works) was lacking?

This is an open question. If you’re reading this, I want you to think about it. I don’t have the definitive answer to my question, yet. I do have some answers that I’ve reasoned my way to, but they may very well not be the final word on the situation. Therefore, think deeply about this and don’t let me tell you what’s right and true – think, and decide for yourself.

Here’s my resolution of the question: looking back through my life thus far, I can see the ‘hand of God,’ as it were, operating, guiding, and influencing my life at key moments and important ways. Now, being able to see the working of Providence is not the same as being saved, because God is omnipresent and does not only involve Himself in the affairs of the Saints. But it is nonetheless encouraging, because at the very least it means that at no point in my life was I completely alone, without God watching over me. Also, the important thing is ultimately not at what point I was saved, but whether I am saved now. It’s not where I was, but where I’m going that matters. It sounds cliché, but that’s just because it’s said so often. And it’s said often because it happens to be true – it’s more of a proverb than a cliché, then. And considering the verses that say “He chose you from before the foundation of the world…”, it would be fair to say that even in my youth, before my “awakening,” I was still destined to be saved. Salvation, being a one-time event, is something that doesn’t apply to parts of a person’s life, it’s something that applies to their whole life (you’re either saved or not saved), it’s just realized at a particular point in that life. (the italicization here is done just the way I would stress the words if I was speaking). And so, in a manner of speaking, it has always been the case that I would be saved, and so it’s really only my current saved state that matters. “When” it ‘officially’ happened is nearly totally irrelevant. The question is almost completely meaningless. Here’s the thing: if you’re unsure of whether you were saved before and just became more theologically passionate, or whether you were a nominal/false convert before and have now truly repented and become a true convert, then what do you do? Do you act as if you were saved, or do you act as if you weren’t? It’s not that hard, when you think about it. Here’s what I did: Martin Luther once said “all of a Christian’s life is one of repentance.” Repentance is something that you do initially in order to accept the free gift of grace that God offers you, but you don’t ever stop repenting. Do you ever stop sinning? No. So repentance is not something that, if you do it, it would somehow imply that your prior repentance wasn’t genuine. Repentance is a continual activity of shunning sin, asking forgiveness for your missteps, and pursuing righteousness. What I did one night was to go up on a hill, as I liked to do at night, and prayed simply for the sake of my conscience. If you ask for God to save you from your sins and you’re already saved, it’s not as if you can risk “undoing” it. I made the decision to ‘rededicate’ my life to pursuing Him. I probably will do so again in the future. I already have again since then. Like married couples rededicating themselves to their vows, you don’t reject the past by emphasizing it. And that’s why it doesn’t hurt to pray again “just to make sure,” and to get your heart and mind right. You do it for your own psychological benefit, so that you have no reason to doubt your salvation, and thus you deny Satan an opportunity to attack your faith and attempt to discourage you. I didn’t have a huge change in my morality from ‘before’ and ‘after’ my “reawakening.” (And that statement is worth explaining, at another time.) That contributed to second-guessing myself. Whatever the past circumstances, I’m now confident of my status before the Throne, and am at peace with that. Now I put the question to you: what would you have done if you were in my position? And even more importantly: what will you do now?

The Gospel in 60 Seconds

Self-explanatory.

This is what separates Christianity from all other beliefs. If you don't know this, you don't know anything that matters. Make sure you know this. Reject it or accept it, that is your choice. But if you don't know it, you can't freely choose it.

Therefore listen. Transcript posted below the video.

The Greatest Gospel verse in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5:21:

"He made Him, Who knew no sin, sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

Lemme unpack those 15 Greek words.
He, God, made Jesus sin.
'Whattya mean He made Jesus sin?' Only in one sense:

He treated Him as if He had committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe, 
though in fact He committed none of them.
Hanging on the Cross He was holy, harmless, undefiled,
Hanging on the Cross He was a spotless lamb.
He was never for a split second a sinner.
He is Holy God on the Cross.

But God is treating Him -- I'll put it more practically -- as if He lived my life.
God punished Jesus for my sin, turns right around and treats me as if I lived His life.
That's the great Doctrine of Substitution, and on that doctrine turned the whole Reformation of the Church; that is the heart of the Gospel.

And what you get is complete forgiveness, covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. 
When He looks at the Cross He sees you, when He looks at you He sees Christ.


~ Rak Chazak