Maybe the context of the labels are wrong. I understand the purpose of the labels, it saves time, but I wouldn't be boxed in by them either. If the context of scripture leaves a few unanswered questions, I'm content to hold to that and continue searching. Sometimes the answers are simply not there.
That's a good attitude, and a useful way of dealing with any information. Jumping to conclusions can be impressive and garner one a following, for a while, but it is not accuracy nor trustworthy.
I was just saying that some of the difference between their lack of understanding in the OT and understanding in the NT cannot all be attributed to OT vs. NT relationship with the Holy Spirit. Some of it was the filling given so the Apostles could fulfill their ministries.
Agreed
Judicially, nobody could be saved before the cross. It's impossible. That's why we had Sheol, translated Hades in the NT. It kept them until the the conditions were met to make peace between them and God.
I disagree, if by "before" you are referring to time passage (as over against a cause-and-effect "before"), and I have to conclude that you are referring to the cross's placement in time, since you depend on Bible statements concerning Sheol/Hades as time-relevant. The Cross is the event that accomplished it --agreed-- and Jesus was made sin for us "at just the right time" --agreed-- but that it makes ANY difference whether one is born before or after the cross, I disagree vehemently. (But, more below along these lines.)
makesends said:
To me, the gift of salvific faith is not just an ability granted, but is, rather, so completely dependent on the continuing work of the Spirit that one is not wrong to say that the indwelling of the Spirit IS the salvific faith, (or maybe I should say it the other way around). They are inseparable, in my book. He does not reside in the lost. He does, however very much work through and in the lost as demonstrated time and again in the OT. "Is Saul also among the prophets?"
!he difference. Positional sanctification vs. practical or progressive sanctification. Your statement makes me think that you might be Catholic. Are you Catholic?
I'm not following you here. "The Bible separates" who? Wouldn't [what] be evidence vs. merit? Evidence as to what? The difference between what? Can you rewrite that paragraph?
And LololoLOL! NOOOO! I'm not even nearly Catholic! You're not likely to find someone more opposed to the RCC than me. I'm a monergist, and most people seem to identify me with the Reformed or Calvinism. I came to what is very close to the Reformed or Calvinist tenets, but not by any training nor by hearing/reading Reformed nor Calvinist proponents/ teachers.
The OT saints were not lost, they just had to wait for what was owed to them. That being the Promise of the Father. That's how I separate them.
Not sure what you are referring to that they had to wait for. That some never saw occupation of the Promised Land? I agree. But they did receive the promise of Heaven, and that, upon death. In my view, Sheol and Hades don't hold anyone but corpses. It may be provable to me that the reprobate souls are there throughout time until the end, but not the Redeemed. More on why I think this, below, (if I remember to get to it).
Try this. It's worth your time. I promise you.
The article, like your thinking, is entirely time-dependent, which I find irrelevant as to God's ways, outside of this temporal frame.
From our point of view, we can say they left us when they died, and so must be somewhere until the resurrection, which to us is necessarily in the future. But from God's point of view, and, I think, from our point of view upon our resurrection and glorification, we will go "immediately" (for lack of a better, time-irrelevant, word) to resurrection and glorification. To put it in a graphic way, though not necessarily accurate, we may well see Adam, Abraham, David, Elisha, Mary and Joseph, Peter, John Owen, and every other redeemed believer rising from the grave as we do. Yet none of us experiencing time-passage from the moment we left our temporal bodies to our resurrection, and no awareness of any "gloomy dark place" called Hades/ Sheol/ The Grave or anywhere else. (Jesus told the thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise", and while I think the logic is valid that speculates that he meant that by his death that day, the thief would be saved, (and though that too is true), I don't think it is what he was talking about, as God does not operate bound by time. When the thief died, he went to Paradise, and did not have to wait until Jesus himself was raised 3 days later, to be with Jesus in Paradise.)
To put this into more rigid form, God 'invented' time --it depends on him and he is not subject to it, though he can operate within it (and does). I have had atheists, supposing to prove it is irrational to believe in GOD, since, if he was omnipotent God, and had in mind to take people to Heaven, ask, why didn't He just do it and be done, instead of making us go through all this mess, and have to wait til the resurrection before we can be there with Him in Heaven. I tell them, "Maybe he did just that. Spoke the end result into being and it is done, as far as He is concerned. The fact it has taken these 6000 years, (or 14 billion, if you wish), to accomplish it, is irrelevant to the fact that God need not wait, nor need anyone else wait, whose soul/spirit exists outside of time. I believe that from the perspective of our Heavenly existence, the temporal isn't even a blink in the eternal frame. Eternity is not infinite time. It is outside of time.
Now, granted, I could be wrong, and often am, but if so, I think, it is because my conception of this order of things falls short of the facts, rather than contradicting the facts.
The Bible likens this temporal existence to a vapor, compared to the solid reality of God's economy. Time has a beginning and will have an end, and it does not govern anything but this temporal 'envelope'.
