There is of course, but one gospel, we should all know that, but you wouldn’t think that when reading what people who are believers actually do believe about salvation and the gospel. And today within some Dispensationalist teaching there are actually two gospels presented. One gospel of the kingdom for Israel, and one gospel of grace for Gentiles.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16 KJV).
This is a very clear statement with only one requirement. That requirement is belief in Jesus as the Son of God. So, yes there is a limitation. It is belief. It is not — are you Jew or are you Gentile. It is not — are you chosen or are you not. The issue then becomes — who is the gospel actually for?
But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Matthew 9:12-13 KJV
There are those among us who struggle with this as it is stated. There are those who add to what Jesus said here, and believe that God created some sinners for another purpose — to serve Him as sinners, resulting in their remaining sick. So, did He come to save sinners?
In Romans chapters 8-10 there is teaching seemingly in opposition to what Jesus stated above. How can that be? Either there is a misunderstanding in the one or in the other, but which?
If we analyze what Jesus said, perhaps we can understand better what is meant.
“But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them,” — what did He hear? Jesus was accused of eating with tax collectors and sinners. Do you think that Jesus did not know that all men are sinners? So if He did, why did He say:
“They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” What is He saying if He knows that all are sick? There really are none that are whole. He continues: “But go ye and learn what that meaneth,” So, He does want us to think about, pray about and learn its meaning. What then does He mean?
He knows that all men are sinners, as do we if we study the scripture. There however, are those who do not think themselves to be sinners. Is this what He is saying: I cannot help these people? And then, if this is the case, then these according to Romans would be predestined to His wrath, not because He was not going to die for them (they are sinners), but because they refuse to admit their sin. They can not see it, they cannot hear it even when they are told. He even said of these same types when He was suffering on the cross: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”. He goes on to say in our verse:
“I will have mercy, and not sacrifice:” What does this mean?
Scripturally for Jesus to have mercy there must be an acknowledgement by the sinner of his sinful condition. Then He says that He will not have sacrifice? What does that mean. Obviously the entire Law is predicated on sacrifice. He came to offer Himself a sacrifice. So what is He saying? He will not accept mans own sacrifice (ones own works performed outside of faith) He will only have mercy on those who acknowledge their sin sickness.
“for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
If their is a gospel formula for receiving salvation it has its foundation contained herein.
We must first acknowledge our sin, and believe in the mercy that Christ has offered us, through His coming to die on our behalf in order to make us well. Not having a righteousness of our own, but His righteousness imparted to us.
Jesus has then as God in this sense predestined those to hell, who cannot and will not acknowledge their sin.
So, is He here taking responsibility for their sinful condition?— these who will not acknowledge their condition? Or is He merely stating the fact that all who refuse to acknowledge their sin and refuse to believe in His payment for their sin are therefore predestined to God’s wrath.
18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3:18.
Your comments are welcome here.
Amen-Amein Brother in Christ-Messiah Jesus-Yeshua Jerry!!
Love Always and Shalom ( Peace ), YSIC \o/
Kristi Ann
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Jerry, I hope you and Ellen had a lovely trip out East. Eastern Pennsylvania is where I grew up – suburban Philadelphia.
Jerry, I won’t be interacting and commenting on your posts about the doctrines of grace. Lord bless you, brother.
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Maria I’m sorry to hear that. I did want to hear your perspective on the integration of these verses with a predestined chosen understanding. I believe that Grace that you mention here, from your standpoint, means that Grace is given by God in a limited fashion. This I can also integrate into other scripture.
And I do not believe that I can ignore that God does choose certain individuals to carry out His plan. Abraham, Jacob, Gideon, Paul, His disciples, etc were all given a dispensation or an administration from God for His purpose as the sovereign God. Esau and Pharaoh were also used for God’s purpose, as apparently are all that He puts in Leadership within Nations. We also believe that He chooses pastors for given churches. But I believe, that scripture will support that whither or not a good leader is chosen by Him is largely determined by the condition of the people under them at the time of their choosing.
Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.
Ecclesiastes 11:9 NASB
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
Psalm 37:4-5 NASB
Israel was given Evil Kings when they were living an evil lifestyle, this Nation in which we live is going after evil and our leaders have been anything but righteous. Our laws are being liberalized as the people cry out for the legalization of sin. I do not believe that that is God’s perfect will, but I do believe that it is within His permissive will and thus He as the omnipotent God has incorporated and prophesied that these things will happen. And as the people of the world grow more and more vile He tells us that His Spirit will not always strive with them.
Then the Lord said, “ My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
Genesis 6:3 NASB
But according to what He tells us here, even evil man will be given the opportunity in years to live under His grace.
But as their evil continues to grow worse in the latter days God will finally give them over to a reprobate mind.
and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 NASB
This is a thumbnail of how I see God’s grace and Sovereignty at work in this world. This is I think the world view of a believer who also believes in free will. And I will also probably post it under that heading.
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Amen! Very true! This was a great post! May God continue to use you! Blessings!
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Thank you Tammy for the encouragement. And I know that our Lord and I appreciate what you are doing for Him.
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You’re very welcome!
Amen, yes!
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Jerry, this is both a thoughtful and an accurate article as I understand what you wrote.
Mind you, I don’t have all of the answers to everything, but
here’s my perspective, and I believe that it coincides with what you wrote…
Yes, Jesus came to save sinners. 🤠
And everyone is a sinner who isn’t saved. (I’m talking about identity, not behavior…”sinner”/ “saint”). Because we all sin throughout our whole life, (thats not a big shock to anyone) whether saved or not.
But one’s identity changes from sinner to saint upon salvation.
It’s the sinners who will admit that they need salvation and believe on Jesus who get saved.
And salvation is equally offered to all. You just gotta humble up, owning that you’re a guilty sinner and receive salvation like a little child accepts a gift that’s offered to them. That’s all.
I can’t remember off the top of my head where it is, but there’s a verse I believe in Acts that says something like …ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, (in reference to some Israelites).
So definitely yes, man has the freewill to receive or reject the offer that God puts on the table.
In fact, that pretty much summarizes the whole old testament doesn’t it?
God putting an option on the table, and giving man the choice to go left or go right. He even prods man (in many ways) to choose correctly, but ultimately He let’s man choose, (that’s how I see it all).
I’m sorry for rambling, I’m just in a fun mood and felt like gabbing.
Lord bless everyone. 🤠
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Lee, I love what you wrote here. Especially reminding all who visit about how those chosen by God in the O.T. did one of two things they believed and tried to obey, but failed so often; or they either didn’t believe, or didn’t think that they needed this awesome God. And Paul says that we need to learn this lesson from them. James says that we had better be acting on this faith that God has given us. Thanks so much for your contribution.
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Jerry, the Bible teaches that the new birth is spiritual and spiritually understood. It can’t be understood using human reason or brought about by the human will. All the passages on the new birth and the imperishable seed of God’s Word teach this. We are earthly, Jesus is from above, heavenly.
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Maria, Spiritual, absolutely— you must be born again. Born of the Spirit. Spiritually understood, absolutely— Jesus tells us that — “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me.” Let me say this, I agree with you on those points. I believed in Jesus ever since I can remember. I wanted to be saved, walked the isle at age 9, prayed the sinners prayer, but nothing happened between myself and my Lord until I was in my mid twenties. Even before I was born again, I knew that a changed life was part of this spiritual rebirth. Then He drew me and called me by name. I know what being born again means. I also know that during those intermediate years the possibility of my not being one of the chosen haunted me. Whether or not my constant belief had anything to do with the Lords calling me when He did I do not know. But this I do know had I never believed I would not be saved. Beyond that I know that should I ever deny Him before men that He would being obedient to His word deny me before His Father. I know this because His word tells me so, and I believe it. Furthermore based on His word there is Coming and it may be already happening a falling away from the faith. Jesus said it. Paul said it. Jesus and John warn of it in the Revelation. Reasoning from the word of God is not human reasoning, is it? Is this not why we study so that we can properly teach and not be guilty of false teaching. Until the last couple of years I have given no further thought about why I was chosen, yes I know that I’m chosen, everything in scripture told me that I was chosen because I believed. I had never thought that God made me apart from my own will to believe. So yes I have considered it more recently. I have asked the Lord about it. Why does there seem to be this collision of scripture? This is my greatest reason for not accepting that God has chosen all who are going to be lost in the end to be lost by reason of His not allowing them to believe. Here it is. If that is the case then I Have no reason to pray for my lost neighbor, because my input means nothing. I do not know why I am told to pray, because all would have to be from God and I would not or could not contribute anything to my belief or to anyone else’s. To pray in God’s will would be impossible because I would not know how God has chosen for that particular one. In fact much of the Bible comes to have no real meaning. I am to pray for the leaders of the Land, but God already has everything planned for them. I have no reason to blog, because no one who reads my blog will be any different tomorrow than the way God had planned for him/her to be. If God in fact is in total charge of my every thought and action, then I am doing right now exactly what He is directing me to do, and I have no ability to change one word or (.) or thought as I prepare this response to you. Every miss spelling every miss punctuation is His.
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Jerry, I didn’t mean that we do not use our reason to glorify the Lord and rightly divide His Word. We are to love the Lord with our our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
You’ve taken what I said, and what others say about the doctrine of Solvereign Grace to the extreme. If those with whom you disagree are less than gracious, please don’t be like them. This kind of argument is an attempt to make someone else’s argument appear foolish and can sometimes be a logical fallacy:
“In formal logic, the reductio ad absurdum is actually a legitimate argument, but it is often applied fallaciously. The fallacy follows the idea that if the premises of someone’s argument are taken as true, then it necessarily will lead to absurd conclusions.”
One important word in the definition is ‘necessarily.’
Also, repeatedly you have undermined the doctrine of Biblical assurance by quoting the Lord’s many many warnings. I don’t know why you do this except that some “Christians” live like the world, worldlings who were baptized or have church membership or once walked an aisle or raised a hand. The Lord wants us to have assurance. He warns His children as He keeps them – His rod and staff, so to speak.
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Sorry you are correct. I have taken the extreme view. Of, course you know that I believe that there is a middle view. It’s just that I don’t know where on the continuum you reside. I do know that you present yourself very well as a fellow believer. But so far on this subject you have only shown in your responses an acceptance of the extreme view of predetermined Grace or wrath without any concern coming from God toward those predetermined for wrath.
I certainly apologize if I have read into your own view what is not present in your thinking. Obviously the conclusions that I stated are absurd because they are not Scriptural. So what I am really asking is to have the scriptures made compatible or given equal weight in the development of our Christian doctrine.
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Jerry, I understand.
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Jerry, like you I believe that God’s will is perfect and that who am I to question Him? Should I add to the sufferings of my soul all the big questions and sadness, worrying about all of the lost, those whom He has not ordained to life? I can’t. Only the Lord can handle the big things like this. I’m like a weaned child who has quieted herself. And the Lord God will be vindicated in everything.
If you want to know what I believe about election, grace and the freedom of the will, the Westminster and London Baptist confessions are the place to go. How can we as individuals formulate in our own words all that is doctrinally sound to believe from God’s Holy Word? In the early days the questions about Christ’s Deity were settled and creeds were formulated. During and right after the Reformation questions about the nature of salvation were settled and confessions were formulated. Praise God!
Please forgive the sharpness of my words at times.
Lord bless you, brother!
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And I know that He will also bless you, sister Maria.
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Jerry, this quote and the article it came from reminded me me of our discussion. Will send link separately.
“When we think about those around the world who have yet to hear the Gospel, our reaction should be two-fold. We should remind ourselves about the perfect holiness and justice of God, who will be perfectly righteous to cast every unregenerate human being into Hell. And at the very same time, our hearts should break in compassion over these souls, and we should pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers(Matt. 9:38), and we should strategize on how to reach them, support missionaries, and even go ourselves to tell them about the only Advocate (1 John 2:1) who qualifies to represent them one day when they stand at the judgment.”
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Good word
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Jerry, I sent a link to the article – probably ended up in your spam folder. The title of the article is “Where Do People Who Never Hear of Jesus Go When They Die?” It is at The Cripplegate website.
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Thanks Maria
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