An acquaintance of mine posted on Facebook recently a message, the substance of which is this:
”Every person in the world is forgiven by God on the cross, however if a person refuses to accept Jesus, that sends the person to hell. They are condemned because of their non acceptance of Jesus Christ, not because of their sins”
There are two parts to this statement which need to be addressed: first the subtle undertone of universalism inherent in the statement. Because I don’t think that this was the intention of the statement, I didn’t address it much, although I did a bit at the end.
The main issue here is that our salvation is now dependant purely on our choice, our acceptance. This is both unreasonable and works righteous.
Its unreasonable because, what of the person who never heard of Jesus Christ? The biblical answer to that question is that they (like the rest of humanity) are condemned because of their sins and only the sovereign grace of God saves some of them (us). However if their contention is true, they are basically good to go, if only they new enough to ‘accept’ Jesus. It is also works righteous, in that salvation (in their contention) is based on a work (the sinner accepting Jesus) rather than grace given to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
With all that being said, This was my response to him (and the large group of people agreeing with him in the comments section). I submit it because in it I took the time to make the biblical (referenced) case:
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (the brackets are mine)
Or do you not know that the unrighteous (i.e. sinners) will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral (sin), nor idolaters(sin), nor adulterers(sin), nor men who practice homosexuality(sin), nor thieves(sin), nor the greedy(sin), nor drunkards(sin), nor revilers(sin), nor swindlers(sin) will inherit the kingdom of God.
How unreasonable to say that a person is required to accept Jesus in order to access the forgiveness already bought for them. What if they have not heard of Jesus or even the Father, no the bible says the opposite, we are all dead in our trespasses (Eph 2:5, Col 2:13) and unless a person is born again they cannot see the Kingdom (Jn 3:3)
Now Christ offers us a chance to be born again and we are required to respond to His call to repentance (Jn 3:16,18) But if we reject His offer of grace, then we are condemned and are judged according to our sins (you could argue the chief of which is unbelief).
Oh yes, and the bible DOES NOT say that every single person who lives is covered by Jesus's death on the cross. Romans 8:30 is but one of several passages that contradict that
Ok so maybe not so brief, but this could still do with some flushing out, so stand by for it
Grace & Peace
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