October 29, 2010
What Are the Odds?
Every once in awhile you’ll hear someone say they have a 50-50 chance of either going to heaven or hell. I suppose that thought gives them some sort of comfort in a life or death gamble, but I’d say that the odds are really 100% chance of heaven or hell. Thankfully our salvation is not left up to a flip of the coin. Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16 NIV)
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3 comments:
Gail;
-----Because we believe and are baptized do our odds of entering eternal life really go from a chance to a certainty? Many will say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” (Mat 7:22) And yet, they will be turned away. Will it be that they did not believe? If so, why were they doing what they did in His name? Even the demons believe. So maybe they believed, too, but were not baptized. I think it is safe to assume they both believed and were baptized, for their surprise at being turned away indicates they expect entry for having done what they heard. But neither is assumption certainty.
-----And I think that is just the point. None of us knows completely; for now, we only know in part. If words were numbers and grammar were equations, maybe ‘believe and be baptized’ would reduce to a certainty. But they are not. Words are concepts and grammar is construction. Together they build ideas passing meaning only through the senses in which they can be taken. But that does not mean there is no sense in the Bible, or that the Bible will make any sense one wishes to find. But rather, it means we must find in the Bible the sense it intends.
-----Why were those many claiming to have prophesied and cast out demons and done mighty works turned away? “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Mat 7:21) And it is His will that is the intended sense of the Bible. The demons certainly believe Jesus exists as much as those surprised folks believed Jesus would save them. But believing that Jesus will save you lacks the more complete sense of believing what Jesus says. That is why you were so apt in naming your blog site “Christianear”.
-----”Believe” and “be baptized” together construct a very meaningful concept. In its simplicity, believing is accepting what is heard, and baptism translated (not transliterated) is an immersion. Other imperatives the Bible says are believing in the truth, believing that He rewards those who seek Him, believing in the Gospel, believing and loving one another, hearing His word, and having it abiding in you. And these are just a few. So believing is not just standing at the door and agreeing that it is the right door. It is entering through the door and becoming immersed in what is found inside. So the debate over baptism into Christ, baptism into the body, and baptism in the Holy Spirit reduces to a conclusion that the substance of baptism is a believing immersion in what is heard. Those saying “Lord, Lord” did great works, but was their belief immersed in what they heard? So, one can believe in the door and get all wet by either the sprinkle or the flood. But even though these are a believing and an immersion, they are no more the right ones than were the eventual belief and immersion received by those who failed to enter the ark with Noah.
----There is no certainty in the mathematics of “believe and be baptized”. But in its Biblical sense, as you stated, there is 100% certainty.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Hey Steve,
When you mentioned that even the demons believe, the first thought that struck me was, ‘well, they may have believed, but they weren’t baptized’ :) – which then sent me to Scripture. I love this iron sharpening iron stuff!
I’m wondering if I’ve twisted this verse in my mind. I’ve been under the impression that ‘demons believing’ had to do with Jesus. However, James 2:19 says, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”
Believing that there is one God is not the same as believing when it relates to Jesus.
Gail
Gail;
-----Why James narrowed the sense of his statement to ‘believe there is one God’ is a bit bewildering. Being a premise to his argument that faith without works is dead, he may have narrowed its principle down to the state of simplest non-deniability. But the demons existed with Jesus from the time they were created (albeit, as angels before they fell.) It is not just that they believe there is one God, they have experienced Him. Although I Pet 1:12 and Eph 3:10 indicate that the angels (which the demons once were) are not all knowing about God, the reaction of Legion possessing the man of the Gerasenes’ area indicates demons believe more than just a foggy knowledge about God being one. For when this demon saw Jesus he ran to Him and worshipped Him and called Him the ‘Son of the Most High God‘. The demon the seven sons of Sceva tried casting out professed knowing Jesus, and Mark 1:34 states Jesus would not let the demons He cast out speak because they knew Him. Belief is certainly involved in knowledge; in fact, knowledge is built upon belief. So my presumption about James 2:19 is that the narrow extension of the term is not that it can extend no further, but that it best served his argument. Who Jesus was, what He did, what He taught, His death, resurrection, ascent into heaven was all done in plain sight. And we know by the encounters with demons described in the Bible that they observe what happens in our reality even though we can not observe what happens in theirs. I don’t know how far their belief does extend, but the Scriptures indicate it extends to maybe more knowledge about Jesus than we may even have.
Steve
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