04/21/2023
I really appreciated this article that my husband, John, posted a long time ago, “John Calvin On Hell”, because I wondered about the hero of the faith “John Calvin”, who as I understand is heralded as the leader of the Calvinistic thinking of many reformed, baptist and found deep-thought-on-salvation thinkers’ writings.
Article here.
I have remembered from the amount of theology (study of God) or soteriology (study of salvation) that which I understand and hope to communicate here, is that there are different camps of thought about eternal security: that is, if a person gets born again, are they saved forever “No matter what”, or are they conditionally held if they stay in will and obedience to God’s Son. So this is a REALLY big deal in the Christian world, in doctrinal statements and beliefs of church groups and believers everywhere who call on Jesus’ name, so I do feel often that though its not always comfortable to think about, its important for me to learn as much as I can. I have learned words like Armenianism, synergism, “communion with God”, phrases like “Once-Saved-Always-Saved”, predestination, conditional security, soteriology (the study of salvation), and so many of these words need defining and put into a way where the ideas are communicated. The words may seem foreign to you, but if you dug into the ideas behind them, you would surely find that some of the concepts behind these clouds of thought have indeed probably already crossed your mind before. I think that it is of all importance for a believer to feel secure in the work Jesus did on the cross, and though these streams of thought carry new ideas and bigger words to communicate the more in-depth thoughts, this is because in part too some of the words used are archaic, that is they are very eloquent sounding and lofty, (and to a measure they should be!), but we don’t communicate ideas with some of those found words now, because people simply don’t speak as eloquently as Shakespeare, or John Wesley, John Bunyan, or John Calvin, or Martin Luther, or Teresa de Avila, because of the changes in our language from long time ago (some of these ideas come from centuries or a millenia ago, or even further back!).
Please read this article and search the Scriptures for yourself, and search your heart, if you have questions about your security in the salvation of God.
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalms 139:23-24)
Rebekah's Reflections 