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The Salvation Sermon Series
Number I


Link to the other sermon mss for the Salvation Series:

1. "Predestined for Salvation?"
2. "Saved By Law or Faith?"
3.
"No Salvation without Justice"
4. "Hell and God’s Deliverance!"
5. "How Far is Heaven?"

 


Predestined for Salvation?

Ephesians 1:3-5:11-12; John 3:16
by Rev. Frank Schaefer


Ephesians 1:3-5:11-12:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.

John 3:16:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Introduction:

The topic of Salvation lies at the root of most every religion.  Are there other important issues? Certainly! But none are as basic and primary as the question of how I can be accepted by God—all else follows from the assurance of my salvation. The way we live, love, serve, and give is defined by our theology of salvation.

At one point in their lifetime most human beings are going to ask about eternal life insurance. There comes a time in our lives, especially as we get older, when we realize materialistic things, respect, influence, and entertainment are not the most important things in life; pretty soon, we realize that if you don’t have your health, you really don’t have anything.
Or people start to realize that all the things they accumulated in the world, really doesn’t mean anything if they cannot share it with someone they love and someone that loves them.

But where do we even begin on a subject so big and so cosmic?  There are so many questions we have and it seems that Christians from different denominations have a different understanding on what it means to be saved.
I still vividly remember an incident I had while serving a church as a student pastor.  Following a baptism service, the father of the child just baptized asked me: “are you born again?”

At first I was flabbergasted; I wanted to ask him back: “how can you ask me this? You know I’m a minister in training; I just assisted in your son’s baptism, how can you ask me this question?” But then it occurred to me that this was not a show of disrespect, but rather a demonstration of how different churches view salvation very differently.
And the thing that’s so confusing is that we’re all looking at the same Scripture passages to support our view and experience of salvation.

And to show how confusing this subject is, even within our very church family.
Some of us have been raised in the faith and cannot even remember a day in their life that they didn’t know in they’re heart that they were saved.  Others, had an experience of salvation though communion, or adult baptism or confirmation.
Still others can trace their conversion to a single moment, where they made a decision for Christ. Others say that it wasn’t the decisions they made but rather a supernatural experience of God which they identify as the moment of their spiritual birth.

In contrast, a pastor friend told me about a man who started to attend his services and became a believer just by starting to go to church with his wife listening to sermons and learning to sing the songs of the church. After a couple of months he realized that he had adopted totally different beliefs and values; he had found faith in God without ever responding to an altar call; the Holy Spirit did a quiet work of salvation in him.

As I have listened to the testimonies of countless Christians, I have come to the conclusion that there are three pairs of poles between which the dialectic of Soteriology (teaching of salvation) happens:

Three Pairs of Poles in Salvation:


God’s sovereignty – Free Will (Human)
God’s act of grace – Human response/decision


Faith / Confession – Deeds / Behavior
“saved by faith through grace” “faith without works is dead”


Continued Salvation:

Justification / security – Discipleship / Holiness
“once saved always saved“ – “and lead us not into temptation”


Today’s Bible readings bring into focus the first two poles I want to talk about: the tension between God’s sovereignty and a human free will response.

Not surprisingly, our two passages represent the two guardrails, and, of course, they have been used by Christians of different denominations to substantiate their beliefs.

On the one hand there are Reformed Protestants whose founder was John Calvin who lived in the 16th century. He was a French reformer who, being persecuted in France, fled to French-speaking Switzerland where he ministered and built his church.
I know a little something about Calvin because I had to study his Institutes during my studies since I attended a Presbyterian seminary.

John Calvin had the mind of a lawyer; in fact he had been a lawyer before he became a minister. To him the emphasis of salvation lay in the sovereign act of God. He was so overwhelmed by the grace, the love, and the power of God, that he tended to overemphasize it in the act of salvation.

One of the basic doctrines of Calvinism is the predestination or pre-ordination of individuals to reward and punishment. The idea is that God, before the earth was formed, with no regard to the will of the human person, predestinated certain people to eternal life and others to eternal damnation.


The basic tenets of Calvinism can be summed up with the acronym: TULIP which stands for:
 

T otal depravity  Human beings are fallen from grace and are at a point where they cannot save themselves.
U nconditional Election  God chose those to be saved, not based on merit, but solely on God’s grace.
L imited Atonement Jesus’ atoning death cannot have been in vain, he only died for those that will actually be saved.
I rresistible Grace Human beings, when offered the gift of salvation, cannot resist God’s grace, they have to say yes to it.
P erseverance of the
    Saints
Once you’re saved, you’re always saved.



The Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius lived about a sixty years after Calvin, and he thought that Calvin’s doctrine had some adverse effect on the believer’s zeal.  He thought that Calvin’s teaching made believers too relaxed, too content, and in some cases, even arrogant.

After all, if people believe they are God’s chosen ones and are predestined to be saved, why should they do anything?  He relied on John 3:16 and especially emphasized one phrase to make his point: whosoever believes!

Arminius, however, went to too far to the other side of the argument, I think; he put the emphasis on the human response, saying that we need to exercise our free will in the salvation process and choose God’s grace and forgiveness. Thereby really saying that we humans can obtain (or even earn) salvation by choices we make.

I believe with all my heart that these poles that we often see in Christian teaching, are there for a purpose; I believe that God intentionally created these poles and that we are supposed to live in the tension of these poles, i.e we’re supposed to be right in the middle and avoid getting too close to one or the other side.

I compare my approach to theology to driving on a road in a mountainous or otherwise treacherous countryside. There are guard-rails on either side of the road. They are there for your protection.  Now, you’re not supposed to get too close to either one of them, but rather stay somewhere in the middle between them.

It is important for us to acknowledge that God is sovereign and that salvation always originates with God. But God also created human beings with a choice-making ability.

I believe that, while the origin of salvation comes solely through the grace of God, the reception of salvation comes through meeting God’s conditions on the part of the human person.

I believe, the predestination we read about in Ephesians 1 deals not with specific individuals, but with a particular group of individuals, i.e. those "in Christ" in other words: the church.

As a good Methodist, I have to agree with Arminius, that anyone can be part of that group, that’s where the “whosoever” comes in.  But the soteriology of Arminius was wrong, as Calvin would have surely pointed out, in that we cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps—we human beings are indeed that depraved.

John Wesley, familiar with the argument, amended Arminius’ theology a little, by introducing the concept of “prevenient grace.”  Prevenient grace is the working of the Holy Spirit all around the future and potential believers, gently helping him or her to not only see and understand the salvation of God, but also to accept it. In the end, God gets all the glory, and the human response, even though it is truly free-willed, is still gently encouraged and aided by God through the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God for God’s unfathomable grace and his mighty power to save!  Let us pray…


________________________________________________________

Additional Material :
The conditions for receiving the benefits of God's grace according to some Scripture references:
· Hearing of the good news (Rom. 10:17),
· Belief in Jesus (Heb. 11:6)
· Repentance from one’s wrong life style and choices (Acts 2:38)
· Confession of ones sin to God (Rom. 10:9)
· Baptism (1 Pet. 3:21), and
· Endurance in one’s faith to the end (Matt. 24:12-13)

 

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