Q: My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I would like you all to answer four bible questions. 1. Explain conditional salvation. 2. Who was once saved but later lost? 3. Name four great blessings a person receives when they're baptized. 4. Who should be baptized? So would you all help me? Also, so you know of any site that offers free advance bible study by mail? I thank you all for all your help and may God bless and keep you in His care always.
A: Conditional Salvation - There is no such thing as conditional salvation. The only condition for being saved is "if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9)." Once a person has accepted Jesus Christ as their savior they have met the only requirement for salvation. It has been my experience that those who believe that salvation is conditional do not know what salvation is. Normally, they believe that salvation is conditional on the individuals ability to keep themselves from sinning. Therefore, in order to try and reach this goal, they submit themselves to a life of repentance and obedience to rules designed to modify their behavior. And in order to modify your behavior you must define what is good and what is evil and live accordingly.
This is just repeating the same lie that the devil deceived Adam and Eve with back in the Garden of Eden. Was it not Satan who said to Eve, "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:5)"? Here we are thousands of years later still believing the lie and trying to be like God through the knowledge of good and evil. Salvation is not conditional on our ability to be like God, but it is the recognition that we can't be like God so that we will accept His offer of eternal life, made available to us as a free gift, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And because of the forgiveness we have in Christ there is now no sin that can cause His life to leave us. That is why what we have is described as an eternal life. Salvation is not conditional on what we do, but is guaranteed because of what Jesus has already done.
Who was once saved, but later lost? - Nobody was once saved and later lost. This is a question that comes from the assumption that we can lose our salvation if we commit a sin after we are saved. God is not judging mankind on the basis of sin and death, but on the basis of a new life in Christ Jesus. Ask yourself this, "How many of your sins were forgiven when Jesus died on the cross?" The only answer is that all of them were forgiven. Someone might say "Well, Jesus only died for the sins we committed prior to being saved, but we have to keep ourselves forgiven after we are saved." The answer to that is "How many of your sins were in the future when Jesus died on the cross?" Unless you are two thousand years old, the answer is all of them. The Bible says "that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them (2 Corinthians 5:19)." If God is not counting our sins against us then there are no sins we commit that He can hold against us. The problem between man and God is not that we are sinners in need of forgiveness. The problem is that we are spiritually dead to God and in need of His life. If our sins were to cause us to lose eternal life then we couldn't call it eternal life. In fact, it would have to be temporal life because we would only have it until we sinned again. Furthermore, the wages of sin is death according to Romans 6:23.
Therefore, when we sin we deserve to die. But, because people don't take sin seriously enough, they invent sacrifices like confession booths, altar calls, short accounts and more, which are not accepted by God or required by Him. The Bible says, "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more."And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:17-18)." There is no sacrifice for sin because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). Our bloodless sacrifices don't even meet God's requirement for forgiveness and only tell Jesus that His sacrifice was not enough. If there were more forgiveness to be obtained then Jesus would not have cried out "it is finished (John 19:30)" from the cross and the author of Hebrews would not have told us that "Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him (Hebrews 9:28)." As long as a person believes their sins are still an issue between them and God they will never rest, never know their God and never receive His love.
Name four great blessings a person receives when they are baptized? - There are only four? "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 (Ephesians 1:3)." According to the Bible we have received every spiritual blessing, not just four. However, if you want four, here are four blessings we have received. We have received unconditional love, total acceptance, meaning to life and purpose to life. God created mankind to receive all of these things, but they can only be received in Him. Apart from having these desires of our heart met through a relationship with our God, we are forced to try and obtain them from the world through some form of sin. And even within the confines of religion do we continue to sin as we spare no amount of energy trying to gain these things through self-effort when they only are achieved through faith.
The moment we accept Christ all of these things are given to us as an inheritance of our faith. We have unconditional love. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39)." We are totally accepted. "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God (Romans 15:7)." We have meaning to life. "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace (Acts 20:24)." We have purpose to life. "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent (John 17:3)." There are more than four blessings, but these four are tremendous.
Who should be baptized? - There is only "one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Ephesians 4:5)" according to scripture. All believers are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ at the moment of salvation. That is the only baptism. If you are speaking of water baptism, it would stand to reason that only those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior should do so. But, again, let me be clear that water baptism is neither required for salvation nor is it the "first act of obedience" after salvation as so many teach. While it can be a beautiful picture of what salvation is, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is simply a symbolic gesture at best and a religious rite at worst. It is a fact that water baptism was practiced by the early church.
However, this was not because it was a part of the Gospel. The early church, made up mostly of Jews, believed that in order for a Gentile to be saved they first had to be converted to Judaism. Therefore, the practice of baptism was carried over from their Jewish tradition into the early church. However, once believers started realizing that all that was required was faith you don't read much more about it. When Peter was explaining what happened at the house of Cornelius to the saints in Jerusalem, he left out the fact that the household of Cornelius had been water baptized. Why? Because he "remembered what the Lord had said: 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. 'So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God (Acts 11:16-17)?" Peter realized, as did those hearing his story that "God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life (Acts 11:18)." It isn't a question of who should get water baptized, it is an acknowledgment that all believers are baptized by the Holy Spirit.
My prayer is that I have shed some light on these subjects and encouraged you to delve further into the Word of God and ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and plant His truths in your heart. For help with Bible Studies I would suggest searching the GotQuestions (www.GotQuestions.org) website as well as www.realanswers.net and www.livinggodministries.net. There is material available out there for you to continue your adventure into the Bible. May God continue to reveal to you the blessings you already have in Christ.
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