test
What is Soteriology?
Soteriology is the study of the doctrine of salvation.
Soteriology discusses how Christ’s death secures the salvation of those who believe.
Titus 3:5-8 is a tremendous summary of Soteriology - “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
What is Salvation?
The word “salvation” is the translation of the Greek word soteria which is derived from the word soter meaning “savior.”
The word “salvation” communicates the thought of deliverance, safety, preservation, soundness, restoration, victory, and healing.
Salvation means being rescued and redeemed by God, the Savior, from the consequences and punishment for Man’s sin.
Is Salvation something God chooses or Man chooses?
Two Main Positions:
1. Unconditional Election
Calvinism
Libertarian free will: No
Definition of freedom: People are free to act according to their ability. People do not, however, have the ability on their own to choose God.
What is Unconditional Election? The belief that God predestined people for salvation before the beginning of time. God’s election is not conditioned by anything in man, good or evil, foreseen or present, but upon God’s sovereign choice.
Defense of Unconditional Election:
Election must be unconditional and individual, because man is totally depraved. If election were conditioned upon the choice of man, no one would ever be elect, since man does not have the inclination or ability to choose God on his own. The only thing that man contributes to his salvation is sin. Therefore, God must unconditionally predestine people to salvation.
Supporting Verses: Ephesians 1:4-5, Romans 8:28-30, Romans 3:10–18, Romans 9:10–13, Jeremiah 13:23, Titus 3:3, John 6:37, John 6:44, John 6:65, John 15:16
Key Terms: The words “predestine,” “choose,” “appoint,” and “foreknow” are all in the active voice, which speaks of the initiative of the actor behind the action (God). One would have to have a preconceived bias against the doctrine of election in order to interpret these words in a conditional sense.
2. Conditional Election
Arminianism
Libertarian free will: Yes
Definition of freedom: People are free to choose God by grace through faith. All people have equal opportunity to be saved.
What is Conditional Election? God’s election is conditional, being based on His foreknowledge. God looks ahead into the future, sees who will make a free-will decision to place their faith in Him, and then elects to save them. Or as contemporary Arminians would put it, God elects Christ and all who are found in Him.
Defense of Conditional Election:
Unconditional election is not fair. Why would God choose some and not others?
The Bible clearly says that God loves all people and wants all people to believe and inherit eternal life. If unconditional election were true, why didn’t He choose everyone if He wanted all to be saved so bad?
Unconditional election nullifies man’s free-will.
Supporting Verses: 1 Timothy 2:4, Ezra 18:23, 2 Peter 3:9, Psalm 78:21–22, John 3:18
Which one is Biblical? Both!
This is called Compatiblism.
The belief that God’s unconditional sovereign election and human responsibility are both realities taught in Scripture that finite minds cannot comprehend and must be held in tension.
Passages that teach compatiblism, holding in tension divine sovereignty and human responsibility: Luke 22:22, John 6:37, Acts 2:23, Philippians 2:12–13, Romans 9:16, 18 and 30–32
“God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are taught us side by side in the same Bible; sometimes, indeed, in the same text… Both are thus guaranteed to us by the same divine authority; both, therefore, are true. It follows that they must be held together, and not played off against each other: 1. Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled. 2. Man is divinely controlled, though he is also a responsible moral agent. God's sovereignty is a reality, and man's responsibility is a reality too.” -J.I. Packer, 1961
The temptation is to undercut and maim the one truth by the way in which we stress the other to assert man’s responsibility in a way that excludes God from being sovereign, or
to affirm God’s sovereignty in a way that destroys the responsibility of man.
We like to tie up everything into neat intellectual parcels, with all appearance of mystery dispelled and no loose ends hanging out. Hence we are tempted to get rid of paradoxes from our minds by illegitimate means: to suppress, or jettison, one truth in the supposed interests of the other, and for the sake of a tidier theology.
We ought not in any case to be surprised when we find mysteries of this sort in God’s Word⎯for the Creator is incomprehensible to His creatures. A God whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of Himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a God in man’s image, and therefore an imaginary God, not the God of the Bible at all. For what the God of the Bible says is this: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways… As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” - Isaiah 55:8
God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are BOTH true.
God was before all things.
The Preeminence of Christ. Jesus Christ is God.
Colossians 1:15-17 - “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”
Jesus Christ, the source of life- everything in the universe came about by and through Him.
Jesus Christ is sovereign and supreme.
Jesus is first in everything.
Jesus Christ has always existed.
The problem with denying Christ’s preeminence or supremacy is that it negates His sufficiency as LORD and SAVIOR.
Soteriology discusses how Christ’s death secures the salvation of those who believe.
Titus 3:5-8 is a tremendous summary of Soteriology - “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
What is Salvation?
The word “salvation” is the translation of the Greek word soteria which is derived from the word soter meaning “savior.”
The word “salvation” communicates the thought of deliverance, safety, preservation, soundness, restoration, victory, and healing.
Salvation means being rescued and redeemed by God, the Savior, from the consequences and punishment for Man’s sin.
Is Salvation something God chooses or Man chooses?
Two Main Positions:
- Unconditional Election
- Conditional Election
1. Unconditional Election
Calvinism
Libertarian free will: No
Definition of freedom: People are free to act according to their ability. People do not, however, have the ability on their own to choose God.
What is Unconditional Election? The belief that God predestined people for salvation before the beginning of time. God’s election is not conditioned by anything in man, good or evil, foreseen or present, but upon God’s sovereign choice.
Defense of Unconditional Election:
Election must be unconditional and individual, because man is totally depraved. If election were conditioned upon the choice of man, no one would ever be elect, since man does not have the inclination or ability to choose God on his own. The only thing that man contributes to his salvation is sin. Therefore, God must unconditionally predestine people to salvation.
Supporting Verses: Ephesians 1:4-5, Romans 8:28-30, Romans 3:10–18, Romans 9:10–13, Jeremiah 13:23, Titus 3:3, John 6:37, John 6:44, John 6:65, John 15:16
Key Terms: The words “predestine,” “choose,” “appoint,” and “foreknow” are all in the active voice, which speaks of the initiative of the actor behind the action (God). One would have to have a preconceived bias against the doctrine of election in order to interpret these words in a conditional sense.
2. Conditional Election
Arminianism
Libertarian free will: Yes
Definition of freedom: People are free to choose God by grace through faith. All people have equal opportunity to be saved.
What is Conditional Election? God’s election is conditional, being based on His foreknowledge. God looks ahead into the future, sees who will make a free-will decision to place their faith in Him, and then elects to save them. Or as contemporary Arminians would put it, God elects Christ and all who are found in Him.
Defense of Conditional Election:
Unconditional election is not fair. Why would God choose some and not others?
The Bible clearly says that God loves all people and wants all people to believe and inherit eternal life. If unconditional election were true, why didn’t He choose everyone if He wanted all to be saved so bad?
Unconditional election nullifies man’s free-will.
Supporting Verses: 1 Timothy 2:4, Ezra 18:23, 2 Peter 3:9, Psalm 78:21–22, John 3:18
Which one is Biblical? Both!
This is called Compatiblism.
The belief that God’s unconditional sovereign election and human responsibility are both realities taught in Scripture that finite minds cannot comprehend and must be held in tension.
Passages that teach compatiblism, holding in tension divine sovereignty and human responsibility: Luke 22:22, John 6:37, Acts 2:23, Philippians 2:12–13, Romans 9:16, 18 and 30–32
“God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are taught us side by side in the same Bible; sometimes, indeed, in the same text… Both are thus guaranteed to us by the same divine authority; both, therefore, are true. It follows that they must be held together, and not played off against each other: 1. Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled. 2. Man is divinely controlled, though he is also a responsible moral agent. God's sovereignty is a reality, and man's responsibility is a reality too.” -J.I. Packer, 1961
The temptation is to undercut and maim the one truth by the way in which we stress the other to assert man’s responsibility in a way that excludes God from being sovereign, or
to affirm God’s sovereignty in a way that destroys the responsibility of man.
We like to tie up everything into neat intellectual parcels, with all appearance of mystery dispelled and no loose ends hanging out. Hence we are tempted to get rid of paradoxes from our minds by illegitimate means: to suppress, or jettison, one truth in the supposed interests of the other, and for the sake of a tidier theology.
We ought not in any case to be surprised when we find mysteries of this sort in God’s Word⎯for the Creator is incomprehensible to His creatures. A God whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of Himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a God in man’s image, and therefore an imaginary God, not the God of the Bible at all. For what the God of the Bible says is this: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways… As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” - Isaiah 55:8
God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are BOTH true.
God was before all things.
The Preeminence of Christ. Jesus Christ is God.
Colossians 1:15-17 - “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”
Jesus Christ, the source of life- everything in the universe came about by and through Him.
Jesus Christ is sovereign and supreme.
Jesus is first in everything.
Jesus Christ has always existed.
The problem with denying Christ’s preeminence or supremacy is that it negates His sufficiency as LORD and SAVIOR.
No Comments