SPEAKER_01 0:18

Maybe the apostles thought differently. They might think like, well, if you go to the New Testament, they would have believed they were going to heaven for sure. After Christ rose from the dead, right? You'd be like, okay, they changed their minds. As soon as Christ rose from the dead, gave his spirit to the apostles, they should have been proclaiming we're going to heaven. But what did Peter say about where David was? We read that in Acts 2.23. This was right after Pentecost. Peter, after denying Christ, right, and being terrified, all of a sudden learns by seeing Christ revealed to him, like, he's alive. He goes right into the temple and starts preaching to these Pharisees and the teachers of the law. Just like shoots right in the temple and starts proclaiming, You killed the Christ! It's crazy. I mean, it's crazy cool. It's a good passage.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

That's where he's at. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosening the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says, concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this, that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

That prophecy wasn't David who was going to ascend to the heavens, it was about Jesus. David was still in the grave, even to this day. That's kind of shocking, I think, when we we've never really thought about it much. Years ago, I would have just assumed everybody just thought they were going right to heaven. But you come to find in the context of scripture that still at the time of the cross and resurrection, they still didn't believe people went right to heaven. David was still awaiting the resurrection at that time. The Jews didn't believe the way we do. So when we apply our thinking to those passages, we enter into a really bad practice where we're practicing seeing scripture from our frame of mind rather than letting scripture shape our minds. So if we're going to let the scripture shape our minds, we've got to see it the way the authors of scripture would have seen it. Well, what is it really saying? What would the ancient Hebrews who wrote it seen this as saying? They didn't believe they were going right to heaven. Hope for the Jews was a future resurrection. And it would have been the resurrection that would have been coming at the return. Christ's resurrection and then the resurrection of the saints would have been two different events. All the saints weren't resurrected at the time that he defeated death. He defeated death and he was going to bring life to the saints at a future time of these writings. That would have been the context that they were seeing things from in those times. If we don't look at it that way, we're going to miss a lot of good truth in Scripture. In John 639, we read, And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he say now I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. So we see in that passage that whoever believes will have eternal life, but in three different places he says, and I will raise them up on the last day. So the last day was something that they had not experienced as of that writing. They were waiting for that day still. But we'll get into all that in the next study, so we don't have to go greatly into eschatology, but we do have to look at original sin, because we talked about that. That would be covering original sin. You guys probably know what that is, right? Happened at Genesis. In Psalm 51, David wrote, Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. So that's what David believed about sin as he was an infant. It's astonishing, and we have to realize that if we deny that truth, we're denying the way that they understood God to be in the scriptures. So how is that really going to help us? You know? We don't want our minds to be different than the Hebrews that wrote the scripture, right? We'd want to try to line up with them. And one example of something that's harmful, I was looking at Grace Teachers one day, and this is a while back, and I don't even know who it was. This particular guy went onto a forum, I think it was maybe some kind of chat forum or maybe it's Facebook years ago that I had looked at. Women loved this guy, okay? Like every mother who is a Christian, he was like a rock star Christian. Because he was telling women that no, your baby's definitely saved, and this is why. Because original sin no longer exists. He said that the only way that we can go to hell, I think he had said the only way that we can be unsaved is if we reject the gospel. Can you see any problem with that view? Everybody's saved unless you say, I reject the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the only way you cannot be saved. It's the unforgivable sin. But he's saying that you're automatically saved unless you deny Christ. In other words, you don't have to believe. All you have to do is not unbelieve. That's universalism with a slight twist. The problem with universalism is that it takes the power of the gospel and makes it absolutely nothing. How would people be saved if we just assumed they were all saved and we didn't even have to preach the gospel to them? If preaching the gospel became completely pointless, where would the power of salvation exist?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

There would be no need for a savior.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

There would be no need for a savior, nor would there be any need for the gospel to be preached. So you can see there's some harm there in trying to go to a certain level to justify something that we see as good. It starts to become harmful sometimes. See what I mean? Universalists are the masters at that. They preach the what would seem on the surface to be the greatest gospel ever. Everybody's saved. All the people that I love are saved. They're fine. Because God died for all of them. But if we believe that, again, we're denying the power of God. The gospel was the power of God for salvation. So we're literally those those belief systems, they call them a heresy for a reason because you're actually turning to God and being like, no, we know better than you. We're better than you. You know, and we just uh we can't do that. So we gotta defend God when we when we can, but then if we don't really have a leg of stand on, we might just have to accept that we just don't know, right? But we do know from scripture that truth in scripture tells us that God is good, God is loving, and he's just. So we always have that as our foundation. Another thing that was quoted, I think this, I'm trying to remember where I found this quote, it says, I think it was gotquestions.org actually, again, that said this. It says, Christ's death is presented as sufficient for all of mankind. 1 John 2 2 says, Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sin, and not only ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. This verse is clear that Jesus' death was sufficient payment for all sins. Not only the sins of those who come to him in faith. He goes on, the fact that Christ's death was sufficient for all sin will allow at least the possibility of God's applying that payment to those who were never capable of believing. Okay. So he's not really saying that we're saved automatically. He's not proclaiming this site isn't proclaiming universalism, but they are proclaiming that Christ's sacrifice was payment for the sins of the whole world. How do you feel about that? How do you guys feel about that? Do you think that Christ died for the sins of people that don't even believe? Have you ever thought about that? Do you think that he wiped out sin at the cross for everybody? Now I'm not saying he gave salvation to everybody. I'm saying that if you separate dying for sins from belief in life, do you think it's possible that his death on the cross actually took care of all sin for every human being?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yes, and no. He gave everybody the opportunity and basically removed all their sins. But from there on it's up to you to believe.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yes. What if believing is now the requirement? This is an interesting topic, because when I first heard this presented by a grace teacher, I thought they were crazy. But then I started realizing that I wasn't seeing it quite correctly. But look at this passage. This was this is where my mind shifted. John 16, 8. And this is talking about the Holy Spirit. This is Jesus talking. He said, and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me. Because they do not believe in me. Right. So the Holy Spirit came after the law to convict the world of sin because they don't believe in Christ. When you look at that, you come to realize that there's a new kid in town. The law was the law, but then the law says that a time will come where I'll send you a prophet, and I will expect you to obey everything he says. That was given with the law of Moses. Moses announced that. There's a prophetic view of the Christ that would be to come. So Christ was essentially the law from the beginning. But when Christ came, it became belief.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Now sin is unbelief.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

I've come to believe that the sins of the entire world were taken care of at the cross, but that didn't give everybody salvation. Salvation only comes through belief. Right. Because as you said earlier, unbelief is the unforgivable sin. And it's only unforgivable if you never do it. You only have to do it once to have eternal life, because if you were given eternal life, there's no expiration date on it and there's no expectation that goes with it. If you received it one time, it doesn't matter how you behave the rest of your life, it's yours to keep. You do not lose eternal life. There is no like, oh, they weren't a true believer because they stopped believing. That doesn't work that way. Spiritually, every single believer that ever believes is going to hold fast and stand firm till the end spiritually, even if we don't always act like it physically. Our spirit was born again. We were born again. And that's what Christ says. What is it that we have to do to enter the kingdom? We have to be born again. Christ said, Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. How are we born again? Belief. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Eternal life does not expire. And we have to understand that because that's where we get our hope from. We take away our own hope if we judge people like that and start going into that mode where we say, like, oh, well, they're not behaving how I expect. And we all have our own system of justice and our own system of righteousness, and you can't help it. You know, we shouldn't be doing those things. Why is this person doing that? But if we start condemning, we become condemned. And that's where that passage came from. You're going to be judged by the same standard you judge, Christ said. And he was knocking down that way of thinking when he said that. This passage tells us how we get salvation. Paul writes in Romans 10 13, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they're sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. So that's how we're saved. How are we to believe if nobody's ever preached to us? We hear the gospel and we're saved. It would seem impossible, right, for an infant to be saved. I'm not saying it is, I don't think it is, but it seems that way, doesn't it? We're just like we're starting to it starts to get creepy. Like, how could they be saved? And as the the gotquestions.org was saying, well, we applied this also to disabled people. If we have to make a conscious decision, how is a baby going to be saved? You start to think, too, like, what about just people that are stupid? Like that guy's not very intelligent, you know, but you find some of the most intelligent people in the world will reject Christ. So it has nothing to do with it. It couldn't have anything to do with that. Paul places the control in the hand of God in Ephesians 1, he says, and we were talking about this passage earlier in the week. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons, through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace in which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in him. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. We've been adopted. Very powerful. And so when we put things in that perspective, to me this passage gives me a lot of peace. If he chose his children from the beginning of time, then nothing is going to happen that is outside of his good and loving will. So whatever happens, we know that he's always gonna do the right thing, and that no baby that is predestined to be part of the kingdom will be unsaved. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because God is in control. That's where I get peace on all this. Because if if I make salvation, even if I make even my own salvation about an intellectual decision that I made, then in my opinion, that starts to drift away from grace. Because the belief that God saved me from myself and that I needed his salvation in order to be able to make the right decision means a lot to me. The doctrine of predestination helps me to settle passages like infants being saved and like disabled people being saved because it must be in God's control. Otherwise, if it's up to a free will view, the main principle of free will that I disagree with it states that God does not intervene with the will of man. He will not intervene. He leaves it completely up to you to decide if you're gonna be saved. And if that's true, how could an infant or a disabled person ever be saved? And further, how does anybody who was born dead give themselves life? I think that we have to just give that one to the creator. That's just that's my opinion. I know everybody's got their views, but that's where I think that theology falls flat on its face, and I just gotta say I I just can't believe that. And it's no longer so much about our effort any longer. All we can really do, all that's left is trust, like an infant, which makes you strongly think that like the passage, having faith like a child, God seems to really favor children and infants. I mean, you read this passage, the context may not be exactly that, but when Jesus says to the disciples, then children were brought to him, that he might lay his hands on them and pray. Disciples rebuked the people. Disciples were like, Get these babies out of here. It makes them sound bad, but um, but Jesus said, Let the children come, let them come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them and went away. So he showed great compassion for these children who couldn't choose him at that time. He laid his hands on them, that's a big deal. So we see compassion there, and you can't deny that, you know? So there's no doubt in my mind that God has compassion. I don't know on all of them, I don't know how many of them, I have no idea. But God has compassion and his love. And what more do we really need to know? You know? Like if you had a baby and you were worried about it, like I don't think there's any reason to worry. Even though we don't have an answer, there's just no reason to worry. To me, when I looked up this topic, it was a trust topic. We don't have the answer, so we can only trust. And I think that is faith building. I think that builds our faith better than anything. What do you guys think? I guess there's just like a negative side to everything if we make one. The biggest problem people have with the doctrine of predestination is like you're saying that God chooses some people to perish or go to hell or whatever your beliefs are. And well, did you know that God chooses people for life too? You know, and to the same effect, you could argue with people's free will decisions. Like, why would you create disabled people and make them not allowed to make that conscious decision?

SPEAKER_02 20:35

I never even thought about disabled people, do you?

SPEAKER_01 20:39

It breaks my heart to think that they don't have an opportunity to be saved. I I never thought of that. But my my hope is that God can do that because God doesn't just wait for our will, there's something greater. And we can't explain it all. And I know for a fact that we're not supposed to try. Martin Luther had said God's not asking us to understand his hidden will. But that would kind of go to the infant thing, too. He's not asking us to know what he knows, he's asking us to trust. And if we start trying to hammer it down, I'm gonna find out infants have to be saved or else, like, or else what? Or do we just trust? And we sit there and analyze like what we're in charge of and what God's in charge of. When we have a sovereign lord, it becomes kind of an arguing point. Like, well, God's got to change their mind. Well, what about our human will? We do have one. You know, if we just count that out completely, what good are we? We're not even part of a relationship if we don't have any kind of will, right? God obviously gave us a will. It's just how far and deep does his will intervene with ours? We we can't really fully answer that. He has this amazing balance where he's in control and yet we still have choices and they affect us, they matter, and we're actually accountable for those things. And he teaches us through them, through our good things and our failings. He's glorified. That's probably what matters the most. Anyone have anything else to say on the topic?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

So if he chooses all of his children beforehand, it doesn't really matter if they're a baby, a toddler, if they're disabled, if they're an adult. If you were his, if if he chose you and then he adopted you before the beginning of time, you will be with him. So to me, we have an answer then.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

It's up to God, is the easiest way to answer it. It's up to God. We don't know that they don't all go to heaven because we have no indication one way or the other. All we know is he chooses and he gives life. If you weigh out all the options of how you come to belief, it's impossible for an infant to believe the gospel, and that's that's our formula for salvation, right? All we know from scripture is how we're saved. It's through belief. Infants and disabled people can't believe, so what do we say about them? You could say, well, well, they just can't be saved because you have to believe the gospel, right? There's there's a whole bunch of things you can say, but we don't know, and we can't say one way or the other, but sort of more of an assumption that they could be saved at all, but I believe they can. You know? Well, isn't it like I believe being that God controls salvation, that's a positive thing. It's not something we look at as always just picking and choosing. No, I I see it as we've been adopted. I mean, you you picture being a kid in an orphanage, the fact that you got adopted, if you were in an orphanage, should bring joy. Oh my goodness. He picked me, why me? What did I do? They just thought you were a beautiful kid. They wanted to adopt you, and that's what God thinks about you. He thought, you know what, this creation is beautiful. This is gonna be one of mine. That's a beautiful thing. When you went into an orphanage to adopt a kid, do you would you expect them to say, well, why aren't you taking the rest of them? And then they get mad at you. I mean, how many people would want to go to that orphanage? That'd be a negative view. They just took something beautiful and made it bad. Like, why didn't you come home with all the kids? You only took one? You know? Why don't you have 10 or 20? Why don't we adopt all the kids? God makes the decisions at his orphanage and he chose you. I believe he chose whatever infants he wants, whatever he wants. And I trust his will. And that's okay. It's okay if it's not all up to me. I believe if you're a Christian and you have those situations, it doesn't work.