What Must I Do To Be Saved?

Acts 16:29-31~ “…and the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 

The clear statement on/in most Christian web sites is that: Salvation is a gift from God we can’t earn, we can only receive it from Jesus! This is a correct statement. It is indeed by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). This is so that no man can boast in anything they have done. Nothing you've done gets you salvation. It follows that once salvation is attained, continued work is not necessary to maintain it as it was never attained through work to begin with. The flip side of this as James tells us is that, although we are not saved by our works they are indeed fallout or manifestations from our salvation and an absence of them is a possible indicator that we were never saved to begin with. If we are saved we are suppressing the Holy Spirit with sinful behavior as to make the works of the Spirit unrecognizable or misinterpreted by outside observers (including ourselves). It is because of God’s love for us that we receive this mercy and grace that even allows us a chance at salvation. The grace is unmerited. We did nothing to earn it, God gave it. It is part of the exchange between the Father and the Son. We are literally a gift from the Father to the Son…and from the Son back to the Father. The implication is that it was predetermined since before the foundations of the world or pre-time in eternity past. A sinner (you and I) were kept for this purpose. Surprisingly, we are even extended an undeserved gift in this transaction: Grace. Please note this is predestined for those willing to obey His call, not against but with God’s will to do so. It is a concurrence of wills not a conflict of wills, like two rails on the same railroad track heading in the same direction at the same time-albeit for possibly different reasons...the train will arrive at its intended depot on time as determined. (I refuse to get into the Calvinist/Arminian debate here. I merely mention this because this is what I see in Scripture when I read it)

Having said this I now shift gears to address salvation and conversion in and of itself.

Many will say Romans 10:9-10 is pretty self-explanatory: “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” What must be seen here is that it is not the confession that is the route of salvation in this passage. It is an effect of the salvation that is caused by the “belief in your heart”. We need to interpret this passage correctly and delineate. I have heard many say that you need to believe and confess verbally to be saved. Confession verbally is a work and it is not by works that we gain our salvation it is purely by trust and belief in the Gospel or what Jesus Christ did on the Cross. To attribute any man-centered act as a vehicle for gaining correct standing in God’s eyes for eternal life is a misinterpretation. Any works centered salvation goes against the premises we know to be true in Scripture (Ephesians 2:8).

I believe you can say a sinner prayer and accept God into your life. You can pray a prayer of repentance and ask forgiveness from Jesus. If the Christian life for the sinner stops here I hardly think we can consider these people saved in the strictest sense. If this “convert” shows no fruits of the new life and does not leave habitually sinful ways behind (1 John 3), this person had better take a better look at themselves. They may be flirting with the razor thin edge of damnation. If there is no repentance and no change there is a high probability this convert is no convert at all. The path to salvation is narrow. Just because one thinks they are saved because of a single prayer and then manifests absolutely no outward signs of salvation or presence of the Spirit is bad news. A Godly inward reality should be busting at the seams of a person to get out and should be fairly evident to observers over time in that person's acts/actions. To say a prayer like a magic incantation does not necessarily magically create a Christian (*POOF*)....eh...no...it doesn't work that way. Christianity is a permanent change at the very core of being (we are ontologically changed or created anew, and a new heart is put within us (Ezekiel 36:26). Our “new”evangelical way of converting people is to have them say prayers almost in a ritualistic practice. This is fine but we also need to then follow-up and assure that their roots of faith have taken root in the word. This will become manifest in the behavior of the person (or not).

I often hear people say that we need to confess Jesus and what he has done. We can invite Him into our hearts. This strangely sounds an awful lot like a work. We need to “invite” God to do something, thereby performing an act ourselves to attain salvation. This is where we flirt dangerously with “Evan-jellyfish-isms” and poor word usage that makes our repentance or “attempts” at conversion rather watered down in an attempt to draw numbers rather than true converts. Instead of demanding that converts come to God on his terms, instead we try to get God to come to us on ours. To me this is amusing in a sad way. When we “accept” Christ, who is accepting who here? It’s not as if we can just march right up to God on our own terms. A few people tried that in the Old Testament and they were toast, literally (as in dead, just as Uzzah). We can paint the approach from a human point of view any way we want. If we approach God in a way not prescribed by God we will get no closer than if we had walked away. It’s God’s way or the highway…not our way. God’s way is one-way or no way.

John in his Gospel is clear what Jesus says, “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)” In reality we are accepting nothing. What we are really doing is trusting God’s promise and believing what has done for those that will repent and believe that He did what he said He would do. It is what saved the likes of Abraham and it is what will save us. If we are going to split hairs on terminologies we had better do it right. The confession is not the Salvation, nor the sinner’s prayer. It is the simple act of believing and trusting God. So… go ahead confess Jesus and what He has done and invite others to do so but remember that these acts/works and are not what is saving you. These acts are called evangelism. They are signs of the salvation that has already taken place or at least should be.

In a short sermon essay from Cotton Mather, What Must I Do To Be Saved? The Greatest Concern in the World, Cotton Mather asks: “What must one do to be saved?” I suspect Mather knew he was using a misnomer or misappropriated word to get his point across when he answers the question. When he answers he alludes to the fact that the “do” is not a “do” at all. We “do” nothing. It is what we “know”. I suppose know is the ultimate desire of any Christian. To know what Jesus has done for us. To know Jesus. This “knowing” starts as faith in what He has done or belief that He did what He promised He would. We are to trust Him because ultimately, He is trustworthy and deserves our trust as He has given us no reason to not trust Him, only reasons to trust Him. It is what follows the knowing that becomes the doing. Once we know that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day in accord with Scripture, it is then and only then that the “do’s” come along as they are not the conduit but rather the aftermath. Mather states:

“You must know, that There is a Great Salvation proposed unto the sinful Children of men”

“There must be practice joyn'd [sic] with your knowledge” [in other words, faith without works is dead]

Cotton Mather than goes on to drive the nail home. He unequivocally states:

“A pure gospel, a sound doctrine, must be pursu'd, You are now to be treated with nothing but wholesome Words; nothing but the faithful sayings of God"

Then a sentence later he hits the nail again.

“When the poor man said what must I do to be saved, we read they said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”… "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Only Saviour; This, This must be found in all that will be saved. The faith, which is, a satisfaction of the mind in the way of salvation by a glorious Christ revealed in the Gospel. The Faith by which we deny ourselves, and rely on a glorious Christ, for all salvation. The Faith by which we receive a Glorious Christ, and Rest on Him for Salvation as He is offered unto us.”

After this has happened, anything that comes of this...is the Holy Spirit working through us. We then go out and preach/teach the Gospel as commanded by Matthew 28:19-20. Why? Because faith comes by hearing.

Romans 10:17: “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ”

The believer becomes a believer because of the Spirit working through another believer. It takes one that already has faith to proclaim it so that others will hear and come to faith. That way the very vessel that God converts becomes the very vessel to convert others and the Spirit indwells them all. This then causes unity of the Body of  Christ. This method and message based in faith has continued in an unbroken chain since time immemorial.

In A Land Of The Blind, One-Eyed Men Are Kings

Blind Ignorance or Intellectual Arrogance

I view this question as being closely linked to the previous post. The modern Scholars are doing the same as the heretics of old. Taking Scripture or at least poor interpretations of it, passing themselves off as experts and then exposing heresies or false beliefs based on the power or prestige of their elevated “secular” positions. Thereby they lead thousands if not millions astray with a warped unbiblical view that has been twisted by having approached the Scriptures with an improper anthropocentric view rather than the proper theocentric view. I imagine some of these new false teachings are just modern day convolutions or versions of century old Christological heresies. As they are too numerous to mention all I will only hit on a few as points of reference or case-in-point(s).

Heretic...αἱρετικός or airetikos/hairetikos airetikós means "to choose, have a distinctive opinion" – a factious person, specializing in half-truths and misimpressions "to win others over" to their personal opinion". Whether it be through ignorance of purposely educated and deliberate “academic” polemic or dialectic (arrival at truths through debate or dialogue), heresy is still heresy. As noted one internet source the Christ-centered or Christological heresies usually revolve around three premises:

1. The Denial of Christ's Divinity: This has led to errors that include: Ebonism, Arianism (Jehovah's Witnesses), Nestorianism, Socinianism, Liberalism, Humanism, Unitarianism.
2. The Denial of  Christ's Humanity: This has led to errors that include: Docetism, Marcionism, Gnosticism, Apollinarianism, Monarchianism, Patripassianism, Sabellianism, Adoptionism, Dynamic Monarchianism.
3. The Denial of Christ's Two Natures-Fully Human/ Fully Divine. This third premise falls out from the first two and this has led to errors that include: Monophysitism, Eutychianism, Monothelitism. These all confuse the two natures of Christ by either absorbing one of His natures into the other cannibalistically or dividing them out completely in a form of Christological modalism and splits Jesus into distinct radically separate entities.

All of these heresies in some way ended up forcing true believers to formulate statements or creeds defining absolute true positions. Many are often considered by academic "experts" as irrelevant just as they view many things within the Bible. This attitude has in turn allowed the same old Christ-centered heresies to resurface again from dormancy under new names and from new people but sadly, they are the same old errors.

Of particular interest is Gnosticism which plagued the early church and was vehemently defended against by early church fathers and (it appears) even by some of the Apostles.  The proof of this is especially evident even as far back as some of John’s reasoning in his gospel (logos) and Paul’s reasoning in 1 Corinthians against the “wisdom” of the world. Jump ahead 2000 years and we see that this heresy never went away, it went dormant. It resurfaced in the form of New Age mysticism and similar nonsense when it had no resistance or few that will defend against it.  I suspect this is true because people/believers either cannot recognize it as error or chose not to fight it. The first attitude is nearly unbiblical (2 Peter 3:15) in its ignorance as we are called to be prepared to give a ready defense/apologia of our faith. The second is clearly unbiblical as we are called to not only defend our faith but we are to actively proselytize and take it out into the world (Matthew 28:19-20).

These statements mentioned seem to get at the core of why heresies arise. They arise because they run rogue of Scripture. It is the inspired text of the Holy Bible that has been the canon and measuring stick of everything God has chosen to reveal about Himself to man outside of His Son Jesus Christ. When people either fail to understand properly what is in Scripture or refuse to accept what is in it as “Gospel Truth”, we have error creep into the faith. We see this is exactly what happened in the early days of the faith with all the named heresies. We also see it when we observe the cults like Mormonism which add to the Scripture or academic "experts" like Rudolf Bultmann and others of the Quest for the Historical Jesus when they  attempt to take away from what Scripture tell us.

Deuteronomy 4:2 ~ “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.”

Sadly, my experience has been the many just don’t know or understand Scripture. In that case it is a matter of ignorance or not knowing (gnosis). In the case of the “academics” and the “scholars” they chose not to acknowledge what is in Scripture and then attempt to intellectually dissect it until it is only a pile of disparate facts and data taken wholly out of their original context…therefore it becomes nearly meaningless. In these cases it is a matter of intellectual arrogance. Either way, man himself becomes his own worst enemy by becoming his own highest authority when that distinction has clearly been reserved for Almighty God. In the end, heresies often result. It is why we are told to turn towards God. Seek the Lord and live.

Quest For The Historical Jesus

Albert Schweitzer

Godless men and the Holy Scriptures do not mix very well, they're like oil and water. As such, in the 19th century we entered in the Quest for the Historical Jesus. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the philosophies of people like Immanuel Kant, Hegel, and their ilk. We also have the new thoughts on Christianity that plant themselves in Liberal Theology. From things like the Enlightenment, Rationalism and a desire to make society and church anthropomorphically (man) centered and not theocentric (God) centered, we see the corruption of Christianity to the point that it is no longer Christian. Liberal Christian "experts” and Christian "scholars" after the 18th and 19th century (and after the abuses of the Church for centuries) felt the need to adapt to the anti-Christian heterodoxy and the “cult of reason” sentiments that surfaced in things like the French Revolution. In a so-called attempt to save Christianity from itself, scholars tried to rescue Christianity from irrelevance by putting it on a Procrustean bed and proceeded to amputate the Faith until it became invalid theologically. What remained when they were done was no longer Christianity but a syncretistic “Christianized” new age pantheism that mostly relied on reason, rationalism and virtually no metaphysical or supernatural elements. This thereby precluded or removed the true God from the picture-who is Jesus. At least the Jesus we read of in the Bible that is fully man and fully divine. Begotten (μονογενής), not made. You know, the One that died for our sins and was raised again the third day in accordance with Scripture.

As a way to refine (or redefine) Jesus and contort belief in Jesus for what amounts to a new generation of non-believers or Christians in name only (CINO's) we run smack into the idea of a Quest for the Historical Jesus (visualize a theological Titanic and a secular iceberg). Enter people like D. F. Strauss, Albert Schweitzer, Rudolf Bultmann and their ilk played a paramount role in this derailing of Christianity. Regardless of how highly touted these men were for their intelligence and insight I view them primarily as an un-Christian lot. To me, theirs was an inane godless pursuit that made Jesus nothing more than an ordinary man or myth with a knack for teaching…and he was really nice too (usually). A radical Rabbi that was in the wrong place at the wrong time that was “removed” before he really had a chance to affect a political change in the Roman Empire (or at least create a Social Gospel-type change that would usher in a kingdom of goodness). Too bad He got crucified first. From a modernist demythologized view we see a trivialized and nearly pointless death of a dissident from a Roman backwater called Jerusalem. All of this nonsense is an attempt by mostly non-believers to secularize the church and attach it to the most prevalent and prevailing ideas of the society or culture in the last century or two.

The problem with this is that people (mostly godless), don’t like the Gospel of the Bible because it offends their sensibilities (a la 1 Corinthians 1:23). So the quest for the historical Jesus was an attempt by people that really don’t understand their Bibles to water down the Gospel and Bible itself to its rudimentary parts that had been demythologized and had removed the supernatural from Christianity. This is to say it wasn’t even Christian anymore because to remove the supernatural from the Faith is to remove God. They were trying to (and still are) to remove Jesus’ deity. Plenary inspiration of the Scripture is ditched and the Bible became nothing more than idle ramblings of regular men about their thoughts on God. In centuries of advance and “wisdom” (mostly worldly) we had advanced to the fact that the Bible was nothing more than a book of myths that needed to be demythologized to find truth. It was then clearly viewed as fallible and errant. It was to be viewed as nothing more than literature, therefore the characters within are nothing more than vehicles to convey the purpose of the story. People like Abraham, David and Jesus then become nothing more than characters like Macbeth and Odysseus.

The modern (and poorly named) higher criticism enters the picture and essentially eviscerates the text by dealing too heavily with a false presupposition (the Bible is not the inerrant word of God) and dwells too much on the rhetoric, semantics and historical-critical concepts that led to what these new “experts” viewed as an error prone text that had been heavily edited or redacted. Although some new valid truths could’ve come from these methods it is highly improbable that most would be of any value (in my conservative and fundamentalist view). This is especially true considering the absolute antithetical and anti-supernatural bias many go in with wishing to “gut” the Scriptures. This is no different than sending a white supremacist in to document the truth about a Jeremiah Wright sermon. There might be some truth in what the person will write but it will be so heavily tainted with bias and prejudices, it will be hard to pick out the truth, if not impossible.

The most current incarnation of this blasphemous nonsense has culminated in the Jesus Seminar that only allows for Jesus to have said a fraction of what has been attributed to Him by Scripture (about 18%). The word “experts” is a dubious term for these heretics unless it is used to describe them as unorthodox apostates. Many of the self-proclaimed Historical Jesus seekers including some of the sources I’ve read claim there is nothing heretical about wanting to find the Historical Jesus. I beg to differ. If the heart is inclined to darkness, their intents might very well be heretical and it is foolish to assume otherwise. So instead of simply accepting the Scriptures are supernaturally and divinely inspired, they take semantics, lexicography and grammar into a fool’s paradise by dismantling it and turning it into a language minefield. As accurately as I believe people like N.T. Wright may try to be in his assessment of the Historical Jesus, I will reserve comment until I see a review of all his findings. He is an adherent (however loosely) of Schweitzer who was essentially a non-believer that arrived at his conclusion based on what appears to be pure rationalism and historicism. Schweitzer is considered a theologian by history books, I consider him nothing of the sort. If he went to his grave believing what he espoused, he died as an apostate regardless of how many humanitarian deeds he did. Considering we need to approach God and Jesus with fideism, his approach was self-defeating from a Christian point of view.

Trying to interpret the Scripture with the intent to try and understand its truth better is fine. Trying to read into the text and then interpret the Scripture so to impose intent of the person trying to interpret it is demonic and is not even Christian (or the utmost in stupidity, naivety or ignorance). It’s bad enough when people do it blindly following the “wisdom of the world” and think they are pursuing what they view is truth. It is sadder still when they are chasing a twisted version of it that is tainted with influence of the culture around them. A culture that says there are things like contradictions and intentional mistruths to manipulate people in the Bible. This of course is an approach to the Scripture that either believes there is no inspiration or assumes God is doing the deception and manipulation. What is worse are so-called Christians in Seminaries and institutes of “higher learning” that utilize “higher criticism” with malevolent intent to do no different than the Devil did with Jesus on the roof of the Temple when he tempts Jesus with a deliberate and premeditated misquote of Psalms 91:11-12 in Luke 4:10-11. Just as Satan in a premeditated manner leaves out “in all your ways”, he therefore changes the intent and context of the passage.

This is no different than a person that enters the Scripture intent on mangling it with a presupposition to produce a non-supernatural output. I see these two things as the same. Both are issues of motives and what comes from the heart…a heart that is either for God or against Him. Obedient or Disobedient. A heart is either mutilated and desensitized by sin,therefore reprobate or a heart is softened and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Ezekiel 36:26~ “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

Used properly the Scriptures are capable of giving us a clear historical picture without the need for “scholarly” accompaniments. Accompaniments are for those that are not comfortable with plain truth as it is revealed in Scripture. This discomfort whether people will admit it or not - is a lack of faith.

“Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrew 4:12.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17”

Scripture when used improperly, misquoted, or read into…becomes the tool of the Devil himself.

Apocalypse Prophecy LXII: The End Is The Beginning of Forever

This will be the last post in the Apocalypse Prophecy as we have reached the end...and it is just the beginning...

Everlasting Kings and Priests Praising God's Glory

In Revelation 22:1–5 we see the conclusion to all of chapter 21.  The opening verse of chapter 22 combines the prophetic pictures of a spring or river of “living water”  flowing out of Jerusalem and its temple, which appeared respectively in Ezekiel 47:1–9 and Zechariah 14:8. Zechariah reads “in that day living water will come forth out of Jerusalem” when the city has been finally reestablished. This is also in Joel 3:18: “a spring will go out from the house of the Lord”.

The “living waters” are a portrayal of eternal life (John 4:10) found in Christ. If the waters symbolize the Spirit, as in the similar portrayal in John 7:37–39, then Rev. 22:1 is an early picture of the later Christian confession that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Just like in Ezekiel 47, the living water flows from the temple, though now God and the Lamb are the temple Revelation 21:22. Though the Holy Spirit may be in mind, the water metaphor primarily represents the life of eternal fellowship with God and Christ, which is borne out of salvation. This fellowship is reserved in Revelation for those who have maintained their faith in the Lamb’s atoning death and their testimony to his redemptive work. The water purifies away people’s sins so that they may enter into the intimate presence of God. Hence the symbolism in Baptism. “The river of the water of life” is located “in the middle of” the city’s main “street” because the imparting of eternal fellowship with God is an essential characteristic of the city itself.

This analysis of the trees in the next few verse seems to confirm that the tree was “yielding its fruit each month,” a time period that can only be understood according to a literal calender reckoning based on solar days and lunar months, whereas in the figurative depiction of the new cosmos in Revelation 21 there will be no sun or moon. Peculiar. A later total of twelve months of fruit bearing together with “twelve kinds" of “crops” or "fruits” in 22:2 reinforces the repeats the idea of normal sowing and reaping cycles and the multiples of twelve already used in the vision to highlight fullness of redemptive provision. My guess is that the best conclusion is that the healing effect of the fruit is figurative for the redemption accomplished by Christ, which will be consummated at his final parousia.

Additionally, the curse of physical and spiritual death set on the human race by Adam in the first garden is permanently removed by the Lamb in the last garden at the time of the new creation. Everything has come full circle. There will be no form of curse in the new Jerusalem because God’s consummate, ruling presence will fill the city: “the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it.” Therefore there will be no room for it. All who enter the city have access to the presence of God and the Lamb.

We see a prophetic vision of the perfected people of God in unending fellowship with him is intended to comfort and motivate God’s people to persevere through temptations to compromise.

The prospect of final victory should impel us all to run the race with endurance because it is race being run to win.

Apocalyptic Outro  (Revelation 22:6-21 )

We now enter the formal conclusion to the whole book  of Revelation and to the Bible as a whole. We now enter into the outro of the entire symphony of Scripture 

The introduction of Revelation pronounced a blessing on all who obey the revelation, whereas the conclusion now issues an emphatic curse on all who disobey the Revelation or adds to Scripture. Unlike the formal introduction, the concluding  portion stresses final judgment for disobedience and the final coming of Christ, the latter perhaps hinted at in Revelation 1:7. The last judgment occurs at the climactic coming of  Jesus Christ. The epilogue now shows clearly that the purpose of the book is to induce holy obedience among God’s people so that they may receive the reward of salvation (which is also part of the entire point of Scripture)

There doesn’t appear to be any explicit flow of thought in 22:6–21 but  merely a series of repeated exhortations based on prior portions of the Apocalypse, each of which is concluded with an interjection concerning Christ’s coming. There are repeated exhortations to holiness in the end and they are the main point of the epilogue, since they are supported by the exclamations about Christ’s coming.

The first exhortation to holiness is in Revelation 22:6–7. The speaker could very well be Jesus, since v7 continues the statement and it is clear Jesus is the speaker there. Revelation 22:6 echoes Daniel 2:45. Given that “the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets” is bracketed by allusions to Daniel 2, it is probable that “prophets” is restricted to a special class of officeholders or of persons that God specially commissioned to reveal his word to the Old Testament and New Testament covenant communities. We know that “slaves” refers to all saints means that the visions in the book have been “shown” not only to John but in some sense also to all in the churches, who are “slaves” along with John.

The things “that must come to pass quickly” appears to be Christ’s own coming. This refers to his final appearance but includes his earlier comings throughout the church’s existence, all of which are imminent for every generation of the church. Those who “keep the words of the prophecy of this book” will receive a “blessing,” a promised repeated from Revelation 1:3. The goal of the book is that God’s true people would obey its revelation and be blessed with salvation.

The second exhortation to holiness is in Revelation 22:8–10. John is in a long line of prophets who witnessed to Israel and God’s true people about God’s covenantal stipulations, Israel’s disobedience to those stipulations, and the consequent impending judgment. The notion of “seeing and hearing” is the basis for a legal witness, as in 1 John 1:1–2: “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes …we testify.” Just as with the OT prophets, so now John’s witness is also directed to the covenant community. The believing remnant will be blessed for their obedience, but the rest will be judged for their disobedience.

Just as in Revelation 19:10, so again John begins to worship the angel, again the angel responds by forbidding John to worship him because he also is, like John, the prophets, and the rest of those who obey God. With the angel as a messenger of God’s word means that…to believe and obey the words of John’s prophecy is equivalent to holding the testimony of Jesus. The angel commands John not to “seal up the words of the prophecy” so that God will be worshiped. If the revelation is sealed, the churches will not know its contents and will not be able to respond to its contents in obedience and worship…duhhhh. Therefore, John is to write down the revelation and send it to be read to the churches in Asia Minor. This is the mirror image of the prohibition of sealing “the words of the prophecy” is linked to the command to Daniel at the conclusion of his prophecy: “close the words and seal up the book until the time of the end.” Daniel prophesied about a final tribulation for God’s people, the consummate defeat of wicked kingdoms and the eternal establishment of God’s kingdom. The sealing of Daniel’s book meant that its prophecies would be neither fully understood nor fulfilled until the end.

The third exhortation to holiness is in Revelation 22:11–12. Both passages make two declarations about the destiny of the unrighteous and two about the destiny of the righteous. Both the righteous and unrighteous will continue in their present condition.

The fourth exhortation to holiness is in Revelation 22:13–17. The Revelation has already called God “the Alpha and the Omega” and “the Beginning and the End”, and Christ has been called “the First and the Last”. Now all these titles, which are used in the OT of God, are combined and applied to Christ to highlight his deity. The titles figuratively connote the totality of polarity: Christ’s presence at and sovereignty over the beginning of creation and over the end of creation are boldly stated in order to indicate that he is also present at and sovereign over all events in between. The emphasis of the bipolar names here at the end of the book is to underscore Christ’s divine ability to conclude history at his coming. For the second time in the conclusion Jesus identifies himself. And, as in Revelation 22:13, the self-ascription combines names attributed to him earlier in the book: “I am the root and offspring of David-Revelation5:5, the bright morning star Revelation 2:28”. These titles combine two Old Testament prophecies (Numbers 24:17 and Isaiah 11:1, 10) concerning the messianic king’s triumph over his enemies at the end of time. Do we sense a culmination now? We should…Jesus now applies these names to himself in the present shows that he has already begun to fulfill these prophecies.

Verse 17’s “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’” here as a reference to Christ, and others equate it with the speech of prophets, but it is best to see it as simply the Holy Spirit. The “bride” most likely represents the true people of God who say through the power of the Holy Spirit,

“Come.”

The fifth and final exhortation to holiness resides in Revelation 22:18–20. They are better seen as a warning. The “adding and taking away” are not general disobedience to the divine word, but adherence to false teaching about the Word as it is in the Bible. Belief in the abiding truth of God’s word is the presupposition for positive obedience to it (Deuteronomy 4:2). The Deuteronomy background is suitable here since the descriptions in the vice lists in 21:8, 27 and 22:15 have all concluded with emphasis on the deceptiveness of the ungodly in connection with idolatry.

The whole range of plagues recorded in the book will come on the apostate, in agreement with the allusion to Deuteronomy29:20: “every curse that is written in this book will rest on him”. As one would guess, the punishment for disobedience is severe, since they are the very words of God. John’s words are not his own but God’s just as the rest of the Bible.

Jesus reaffirms that “Yes, I am coming quickly,” serves to confirm the validity of his glorious testimony.

John then says the only thing that makes sense at this point “Amen, Come Lord Jesus”

Repentance, Forgiveness and Issues of Accountability

Unless those in society are of a Christian inclination already, trying to have them understand the concept of God’s forgiveness is pretty much pointless like wings on a penguin. The importance of other people forgiving and God forgiving someone serve different functions. God’s forgiveness is base in repentance and acceptance of what Christ has done on our behalf on the cross. We empty ourselves in humbleness to approach the cross in a contrite spirit. In the face of an awesome God there is no other manner proper. When we forgive wrongs others have done to us we need to not necessarily forget the wrong but not be willing to act on it. In this we emulate God in his forgiveness. God is omniscient, he forgets nothing. When the Bible says the God no longer “remembers” or sin what it is really saying is that He is no longer holding it against us a debt against our account. We have been purchased with the blood of Christ. God’s forgiveness if we’ve met the criteria cleans the slate for us to start from “0” and work back towards holiness with the help of the Holy Spirit. In my experience, most if not all non-Christians view this as a totally alien or unacceptable concept. The world may view moral crimes just immoral but for the secular world that does not even believe in God I find it hard to stomach that they still hold to a “moral high ground” when they do not even believe in an ultimate moral law giver. They don’t believe in any more absolute. Most view man as the highest moral good. That’s like considering a computer made by a man as the highest form of intelligence.

Although men can forgive other men this should never ever be confused with the forgiveness of God who actually has the ability to forgive the sin or wrong in a way that releases the offender from punishment due him on the eternal scale. It is Salvation that is being dealt with here. Sadly, even when religious people speak of God forgiving nowadays, even in religious articles, the idea of the forgiveness is not matched up with Salvation often (such is the case here). It is important to realize that when we sin against others in a situation that requires them to forgive us it is not just them we are wronging. When we are wronging someone whether by omission or commission, we are sinning. By sinning we are first and foremost committing an offense against God. One because we have disobeyed but also because we have committed the infraction against another that is made in the image of the Creator. This is especially true in the case of murder. If we do not reconcile ourselves through repentance and forgiveness to God we alienate ourselves from him. If we stay in this state until death we are condemned.

Conversely, if another person does not forgive us for our trespass it is more an issue of the other person’s heart than ours. We realized we were wrong and sought the forgiveness. If the one wronged knows this and remains unmoved by the plea for forgiveness it presents the issue of a hardened heart. How is this different from God? God would’ve forgiven a truly repentant person in this situation because this is His nature. A perfectly just God would forgive a truly repentant person that has accepted His Son. Whereas a person that not forgiven a truly repentant person is not perfectly just.

When we enter the realm of seeing sin at the holistic level we begin to see a synergism of powers bigger than individuals that rise to the level of nations, nation states and leaders. Instead of cells we see what amounts to multi-cellular organisms that are an amalgamation of the smaller constituent components. We begin to see that the sins of the individual begin to multiply as the consensus of a majority of these types of sinful people pick “like” minded people at an ideological level. It’s like cancer that spreads on cell at a time.  When there is enough of the disease the system eventually fails but the failure is the cause of a million little accumulations of failure (sin). Therefore based on the aforementioned states, I do not believe the Social Gospel that says social sins are a collective whole or collective nature, an aspect of our society as a whole itself which doesn't resemble the Kingdom of God.  I believe that it is just the opposite. It is the individuals that are all individually responsible to God for their own sin.  Jesus didn’t change entire towns or convert entire towns. He converted individuals. Salvation is not a group thing, sanctification can be communal and eventually glorification will be. Salvation? No! When we die, we all pass through that turnstile of judgment one at a time. Entire communities do not pass through as a herd, based on the merit of the collective whole. This is where the Social Gospel gets it totally wrong (that along with the fact that it advocates salvation by works). The sin of society is a million little accumulations of cancer cells acting as a parasite on the entire system that eventually kills the host. Change starts one person at a time. It’s called discipleship. We are not going to save society as a whole if we do not act individually to turn towards God first. It doesn’t say to love you neighbor with all your heart, soul and mind and love the Lord God as yourself, it says to love God first. If our hearts are not in the right place first, our actions are nothing but works that do not gain us favor in God’s eyes.

A Spirited Flame

A newly kindled flame needs to be fortified to be turned into a raging unquenchable fire

Likewise, a newly kindled faith needs to be fortified to be turned into a raging flame also

Coals will burn with fervent flame when they are with other coals because of the cooperative and communal effect of being with those of its same kind. They will even burn zealously on their own for a while. In the case of Christians, we all burn with a divinely kindled fire and the power of Christ drives us. If we remove lone coals (Christians) from the furnace or from others like it and fail to feed them fuel (Scripture. prayer), they quickly burn out and go cold. Things from the outside batter the loan coals like wind and rain (persecution). If they are not moved back into the larger group they really do not stand a chance. On the other hand, if they are kept together, invigorated, stirred in a “spirited” manner, not only will they burn brighter, they will actually throw sparks out that will light other things on fire. They will throw off life and create more life. Thereby they spread holy fire. This is the principle repeatedly called for in Scripture (Hebrews 10:25).

When we get a person to convert to Christ this passion or flame for Christ must be nurtured and cultivate by adding more fuel to the fire: Scripture and Prayer. The relationship with Christ does not create a strong bond unless two (or more) choose to work together to strengthen the bonds. Otherwise…the once intense desire flames-out and turns into a burnt cinder with no light and no heat. It is effectively dead or worse-the flame never really caught on, did it?

The Human Stain & Face Plants

Original Sin

By entering into Genesis 3 directly we jump over the awesomeness of Creation in Genesis 1, the uniqueness of humanity made in the image of God in Genesis 2 and then…we face-plant into the cesspool of human iniquity and our distance from the Holy God. It is startlingly early in the Bible narrative and remarkably depressing in its finality and completeness for all of us. Falling down...The Fall. The Devil tempts Eve, most likely with Adam right there abdicating his duty as spiritual leader. He then acquiesces with absolutely no resistance. We as humanity then suffer the echoing effects of this “original sin”. Nice going Adam and Eve. Upon closer review we realize (if we’re honest) we would’ve done the same thing. The death they would suffer we will also, not only for their sin, but also for ours. These sin(s) and these deaths are the very thing Jesus came to atone for and remove the teeth (or stinger) from.

Romans 5:12~ “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned”

Romans 5:19 elaborates further on humanities plight but also its escape, “…through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

It is not only our own sins that condemn us but also Adam’s-Imputed Sin. All are guilty before God unless redeemed by the Atonement of Jesus Christ in the Cross. As it is stated nicely in the Catholic Encyclopedia, original sin is the deprivation of sanctifying grace in consequence of the sin of Adam. One man has transmitted to sin to the entirety of humanity and along with it, that stinker death which are the wages of sin. What is worse is he even conveyed sin itself, which is the death of the soul. Sin kills sanctification and “flips off” God’s grace even though He continues to extend it to sinning humanity. If this is the case there is nothing within us capable of lifting us from this face-plant of spiritual and cosmic proportions. It could only come from outside of us. Enter: “The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” John 1:29

Humanity turns away or deviates from God in disobedience and face-plants into their own sin. Humanity turns to God, and they recover part of what they lost in Genesis 3 in an exchange of repentance, grace, mercy and atonement. When we veer off course and deviate from the correct path, we must exchange our map of human origin for the correct map of divine origin. The original map from God was discarded by Adam with the Original Sin but regained in Christ. Even if we now correct our path and try to get back on course we are still plagued with the after-effects of having left the correct road and the damage it has already done to our vehicle. Meanwhile we have lost time, lost precious valuable life and turfed up and did burnouts all over God’s “good” plan. We can essentially save the true occupant (our soul) of the vehicle but the vehicle itself (our body)…is trashed because of the errant path we’ve taken both in Adam and ourselves. We are all Adam because sin is universal. Not in some mystic sense but literally just as Romans 3:23 tells us, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

So why did God allow it to happen? If we had no way out of this and were doomed I would say we were on more solid ground to complain but there is a way out. This needs to temper our immediate “sinful” nature or reaction and need to complain about the “unfairness” of it all when we are talking about the plans of a perfectly just God. God offered us the salvation in grace and mercy if we would repent and believe in The Lamb that will take away our sins that we and Adam earned by our transgression or deviations.

Within this damning doctrine of man we see a particular heresy from Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's grace, lead a morally good life. Having read the above statements especially the one from Romans 3 and 5 we can see this is just not true. Adam, contrary to Pelagius’ claim was more than just a bad example, we actually fell in him as a race whether it was Adam as the (head) of man in Federalism or through actual “soul stuff” past on through the idea of Realism. Sin radically perverted humanity.

People and their human nature is debilitated and prone to sin; subject to ignorance and rarely even realizes they’re ignorant, subject to suffering, and consigned to certain physical death.

If we look to the early church fathers we see a distinguished line of men from the time of the 2nd Century onward that have sayings or writings attributed to them about affirmation of this doctrine or statements thereof that can be interpreted as such. They may not be canonical but they are awful strong evidence of early church tradition being passed down from the very earliest days of Christianity. Irenaeus (c. 180 AD), Tertullian (c. 200 AD), Origen (c. 244 AD), Cyprian Of Carthage (c. 250 AD), Methodius Of Philippi (c. 300 AD), Aphraates The Persian Sage (c. 340 AD), Ephraim Of Syria (c. 306 - 373 AD), Athanasius (c. 360 AD), Cyril Of Jerusalem (c. 350 AD), Basil The Great (c. 379 AD), Didymus The Blind (c. 313 - 398 AD), John Chrysostom (c. 344 - 407 AD), Pacian Of Barcelona (c. 392 AD), Ambrose Of Milan (c. 383 AD), Ambrosiaster [Pseudo-Ambrose] (c. 366 - 384 AD), St. Augustine (c. 354 - 430 AD).

Pelagius thought he knew better but appears he was the odd-man out on this one. I suppose this isn’t much different than Adam? It is interesting that, just like sin entering through one man, often times so do heresies. It just seems as though it is man’s nature to pick up errors and run with them. Before we absolve the other early Church Fathers of any wrong doing we should note that they introduced and backed some real losers too. Such as Augustine who is last on the list above. He was known for having promulgated or at least was accepting of the idea of purgatory. Depending on your exact view of the afterlife and how it makes you make decisions now, Augustine’s belief in purgatory could be just as damning as Pelagianism.

Apocalypse Prophecy LXI: The New Heaven & New Earth

The New Creation(s) Revelation 21:1- 22:5

The community of faith is now perfected in glory. The theme of the new creation dominates chapter 21, though the preceding idea of judgment is not altogether forgotten. The prior five segments beginning with chapter 4), have focused on aspects of the past, the present, and the  future. The purpose of this last major segment is to highlight the  contrast between the church imperfect and the church perfected.  Chapters 1–3 focused on the churches’ weaknesses throughout the old age, here John foresees the church (the community of faith) in its perfected eternal state. The vision here also contrasts the new Jerusalem with ungodly Babylon. The purpose of the contrasts with the sins of the church and with Babylon, and the ultimate purpose of the entire segment, is to exhort believers in the present (at the time of reading) to persevere through temptations to compromise, so that they may participate in the consummated glory of the church.

In the new creation the faithful will experience the salvation blessing of intimate communion with god, but the unfaithful will be excluded from this blessing (21:1–8). The first thing John sees is “a new heaven and a new earth.” The reason is that he sees a new cosmos is because “the first heaven and the first earth passed away.” Because the first creation has passed away or literally dissolved, the second has been established to replace it. The “first” was impermanent and temporary, whereas the “second” is to be permanent and enduring.  No second law of thermodynamics (entropy), no  heat death...forever. In the light of the qualitative nature of the contrast between “new” creation and “first” creation and regardless of your view point, this portrayal connotes a radically changed cosmos, involving not merely ethical and moral renovation but transformation of the fundamental cosmic structure (including physical elements).

“There will be no more night” (Revelation 22:5; 21:25), and no more sea. This is an especially unique contrast to Genesis 8:22: “While the earth remains … day and night will not cease.”  Regardless it will  be identifiable to the old cosmos just as there appears to be a renewal of  our resurrection body that will be raised without losing its former identity. Similar, yet radically different. How so the Bible just does not make clear.

This "renewal" does not mean that there will be no literal destruction of the old cosmos, just as the renewed resurrection body does not exclude a similar destruction of the old. This idea is all throughout the Bible (Isaiah 65:16, 2 Corinthians 5:14-17). Paul also makes similar statements in Romans 8:18-23

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:24

When the new creation comes there will no longer be any threat from Satan because he will have been permanently judged and excluded from the new creation. Nor will there be any threat from rebellious nations, since they will have suffered the same fate as Satan. There will there be no death ever again in the new world. Funeral directors and morticians will be out of a job. For believers there will be no more suffering and no more tears. This cannot be said for unbelievers or those that did not repent and seek God through the Gospel. Conversely, there will be a “lake” of fiery punishment (Revelation 20:10, 14–15), but it will be located enigmatically outside the perimeters of the new heavens and earth (Revelation 21:27; 22:15).

John’s addition of “new” to “holy city, Jerusalem” is also derived from Isaiah. Isaiah 62:1–2 refers to “Jerusalem” as that which “will be called by a new name” at the time of its end-time glorification. This new name is then explained in Isaiah 62:3–5 as signifying a new, intimate marriage relationship that Israel (the true Church) will have with God. The commencement of the replacement of the temporary cosmos with the permanent is expressed in the visionary words “I saw "the city descending from heaven from God".

In Revelation 21:3 we see that the divine presence is not limited by the physical boundaries of an Israelite temple, since not only all believing Israelites but even all “peoples” experience God’s intimate tabernacling presence. Since a physical temple was a particularistic, nationalistic institution, a sign of God’s and Israel’s separation from the unclean nations, it had no room in John’s new Jerusalem, not only because believing Jew and Gentile are now united in Christ in the new Jerusalem but also because they have all gained the status of priests serving before God’s presence Revelation 20:6; 22:3–4.

To me this is the first hint that there is no literal temple in the new Jerusalem, which will be explicitly stated in Revelation 21:22, where the ultimate redemptive-historical reason for the absence of a physical temple is that God and Christ are the final, enduring form of the temple, to which the physical Old Testament temple always pointed.

The final permanent coming of God’s presence in fullness results in absolute peace and security from any form of the suffering that characterized the old creation. Not surprisingly, the forms of affliction to be done away with are those mentioned in Isaiah’s prophecy. First, God’s people will receive eternal respite from their former trials that they have persevered through, since God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” This will be a fulfillment of Isaiah 25:8: “the Lord God has taken away every tear from every face” Revelation 7:17. This is kind and merciful reassurance to those now that are going through helacious struggles in this life and are encouraged to endure through them to attain the reward of eternal life. Therefore, John continues here the line of thought that the bliss of the eternal state is a fulfillment of prophecy.

The absolute sovereignty and control of the theme of the new creation coming in its finality is continued in, v.5 “the one sitting on the throne” . God Himself says, “Behold, I am making all things new,” which repeats for a third time the Isaiah prophecies of the coming new creation. The trustworthiness of God and his promise in Isaiah and Revelation are based on the absolute irrevocability of the coming new creation, so God’s promise of a new creation in Revelation is “trustworthy and true” because God is the one who will, without a doubt, carry it out and He is sovereign, omnipotent and immutable in His promises.

We have seen that the titles “Alpha and Omega” and “first and last” in Revelation 1:8, 17 are synonymous with the similar expressions “the beginning and the end, the first and the last”. All these titles express God’s sovereignty over history, especially by bringing it to an end in salvation and judgment. Here in verses 5 and 6 are only the second time in the Apocalypse where God is explicitly quoted. The first was in Revelation 1:8. Both there and here the title “the Alpha and the Omega” occurs. That this title appears at the beginning and end of the book is fitting and cannot be coincidence. The point of the title is that the God who transcends time or is timeless and He guides the entire course of history because he stands as sovereign over its beginning and end.

Verse 7 shows God’s people and each one of God’s people is an “overcomer”. Overcomers as we have seen earlier in the Bible are those whose lives are characterized by refusal to compromise their faith (Philadelphia) despite the threat of persecution or even death. They ironically conquer when they maintain their faith even though they may appear defeated in the world’s eyes because of persecution.

We see that the genuine people of God “have a part in the first resurrection,” which guarantees their eternal kingship with Christ, so that they become immune to “the second death”.  In contrast, the wicked have “their part in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” Revelation 21:8b.

We see the collapsing temple, city, and land into one end time picture of the one reality of God’s communion with his people. That John “saw no temple” in the new Jerusalem “because the Lord … and the Lamb are its temple” (21:22) is partial but clear evidence of his method of interpretative refinement as mentioned earlier.

New Jerusalem and a Bride

Appearance of the city: god’s glorious presence establishes the sacred community of the redeemed (21:9–14). John hears that he will see the Lamb’s bride and then sees “the holy city Jerusalem,” which is thus the interpretation of what he heard. The “husband” of the bride (v2) is now clearly identified as “the Lamb.” It is the theme of God’s intimate presence dwelling fully and permanently with his people. The first part of the city structure that John sees is a “wall” and “gates” which is an allusion to Ezekiel 40:5–6. The multiple gates of Ezekiel’s temple (ch40) and the twelve gates of the city listed in Ezek. 48:31–34 are merged into one group of twelve gates arranged around the one city-temple of John’s vision. One angel is stationed at each gate, a feature not found in Ezekiel. In addition to the twelve gates of the wall, there are also twelve “foundation stones” (v.14), on each of which the name of one of the twelve Apostles is written.

It is noteworthy to observe in Revelation 21:14 that the apostles are part of the foundation, whereas the tribes are part of the gates in the wall built on the foundation. One might have expected the opposite portrayal since Israel preceded the church in redemptive history. But the reversal figuratively highlights the fact that fulfillment of Israel’s promises has finally come in Christ, who, together with the Apostolic witnesses to his fulfilling work, forms the foundation of the new temple, the church (Eph. 2:20–22). When we compare Revelation 21:14 side-by-side with Eph. 2:20 it reveals a arresting similarity. In Ephesians also the apostles are pictured as forming part of the “foundation” of the “holy temple,” which is the church. Together with the apostolic foundation are “prophets,” along with Christ, the “cornerstone.” Since the cornerstone in a wall was the stone that all the other stones were aligned to, this draws particular interest. Therefore when measurements of the city are taken the measurement or "judgment" of the city is a combination of both Christ and His disciples are one unit all based off of Jesus.

The measurements of the city and God’s permanent presence secures and guarantees the perfected holiness of the redeemed church (21:15–17). The image of an angelic figure measuring parts of the city-temple with a measuring rod is a continued allusion to Ezekiel 40:3–5. The angel measures “the city and its gates and its wall.” The measuring of the city and its parts pictures the security of its inhabitants against the harm and contamination of unclean and deceptive people. This cordoning off of the city guarantees protection for God’s end-time community and especially guarantees that its walls will provide eternal protection, in contrast to old Jerusalem’s walls, which were broken through by God’s enemies quite often. That the wall equals 144 cubits echoes the 144,000 as the complete number of God’s people.

There is a list of twelve jewels adorning the foundation stones of the wall is based on the list in Exodus 28:17–20 and Exodus 39:8–14 of the twelve stones on the high priest’s “breast piece  of judgment,” which was a pouch containing the Urim and Thummim. Eight of the stones in Exodus are repeated here, and the differently named stones in Revelation are semantic equivalents of the ones in Exodus. Written on each stone of the breast piece was one of the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (Exodus 28:21; 39:14). The priest was to “carry the names of the sons of Israel in the breast piece of judgment … when he enters the holy place, for a memorial before the Lord continually.” Therefore, these stones symbolized all Israel, so that the priest in all his cultic actions represented all Israel before the presence of God in the temple. SO this new vision applies to the foundation stones of the new city-temple the jewels representing the tribes of Israel in Exodus or the true Israel. This also equates the apostles, the foundation of the new city-temple, with the tribes of Israel from Exodus 28, God’s preeminent people in the Old Testament...thereby securely knotting these imageries together into one. This would then make the identification of the apostles in Revelation 21:14 as the paramount witnesses and representatives of true end-time Israel, the church as those recognizing their Messiah as Christ.

We see parallels of this allusion in 1 Peter 2:5 that believers simultaneously are building stones, a temple, and priests: “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood.”

Inhabitants will be in the glorious presence of God and the Lamb will elicit the response of praise from true believers, but false believers will be excluded forever from god’s presence (21:22–27). In verse 23 there may or may not be a literal sun and moon in the new cosmos (we just don't know and its not the point), but the point here is that God’s glory is incomparable in relation to any source of light of either the old or the new creation. God’s glory is sufficient to make the city (or the saints) resplendent.  The wording of the entire verse is based directly on Isaiah 60:19. The light from God and the Lamb will fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 60:19, which underscores the deity of the Lamb together with the Lord. Verses 24–26 continue the allusion to Isaiah 60.  John sees the pilgrimage of the nations to latter-day Jerusalem of Isaiah’s prophesy taking place in the future new Jerusalem, which lies in view before his own eyes. Verse 25's “there will not be night there” underscores the fact that the redeemed will have unhindered access to God’s glorious 

presence. Figuratively, there will be no darkness to dim God’s luminous glory before the faces of the saints as they “walk by its light” Revelation 21:24.

There is no basis for seeing the entrance of the nations and kings into the city as suggesting a kind of universalism wherein non-elect peoples not “written in the book of the Lamb” will enter the new Jerusalem. Sorry Rob Bell! Only the elect will come into the city, which is indicated by Revelation 21:27, where “those written in the book of life” clearly has its antecedent in the nations and kings who enter the city in verses 24–26. Neither can the portrayal refer to a universal election and salvation from the “lake of fire,” since the Apocalypse elsewhere views some people suffering that punishment for eternity and not temporarily as in Revelation14:10–11 and 20:10.

In every case in the Bible, as here, the "Lambs Book of Life" is a metaphor for elect saints, whose salvation has been predetermined: their names were entered into the census book of the eternal new Jerusalem before history began. As it has been in the past, he book is a vivid picture of security in God’s eternal city. The elect were written in the book of the Lamb before the creation, which means that they were identified at that time as ones who would benefit from the Lamb’s redemptive death. Therefore, they have been given the protection of eternal life, which comes as a result of the Lamb’s death.

There are theological tensions between divine sovereignty and human accountability in connection with the “book of life.” Some scholars see a concept of predestination as incompatible with human accountability and with the need to exhort Christians against compromise; other scholars acknowledge the tension but, sometimes to varying degrees, maintain both sides equally. In the end the whole question revolves around how one solves the relationship of the indicative to the imperative in biblical literature.  I believe that the tension solely resides within the finite but within the infinite mind of God it works – the sovereignty of God and the free will of man are co-existing realities. At least this is how the Bible reads. God is sovereign in predestining his elect; the Spirit works in their heart to bring about regeneration (the indicative); then God gives instructions (imperatives) and warnings through his prophets on how to they are to live as his people.

In the hearts of the true saints, admonitions convict the heart, and God’s grace empowers them to respond in characteristic obedience (effectual call). The exhortations in particular both reveal who the genuine elect are and provide the context in which the elect grow in their sanctification. One must participate in the reality of God’s grace in order to respond positively to his commands.