I recently wrote a blog post titled “Are Mainstream Christians Saved?”
Please check it out, if that sounds like an interesting topic.
That blog post has a comment that was left by someone.
It simply stated: Romans 10:9-13.
I’m always willing to consider the thoughts of others and to test them in scripture. I’m always willing to learn…
So, let’s check out Romans 10:9-13
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Ok, case closed. My blog post is debunked.
I am wrong.
Right?
Well, not so fast.
Verse 13 above says: “ For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
But wait a minute, what about this?
Matthew 7:21-23
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Well, now we have a big problem, don’t we?
CONTRADICTION!!!
In Romans 13, we are told that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But in Matthew 7, the Lord Himself rejects people who are calling on His name. How can this be?
What do we do now?
Obviously, we scrap the whole thing, right?
The bible claims to be infallible…
The bible claims to be the inerrant word of God…
and yet, we’ve discovered a problem.
That means the whole thing is unreliable, right?
No, I don’t think so, and here is why:
I believe the entire bible is one whole truth.
I don’t think we are supposed to take bits and pieces of it and build doctrine with just bits and pieces.
We are supposed to understand the whole truth of the whole bible, not build false ideas by isolating bits and pieces of it.
We have to understand Romans 13 and Matthew 7 together, along with the rest of the scriptures.
For example, consider these two verses:
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:36
He who trusts in the Son has eternal life. He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Well, here we go again…
Verse 16 says that all we have to do is believe in Him and we’ll be given everlasting life.
Verse 36, just moments later, tells us that we must obey Him as well.
If we don’t obey Him then the wrath of God remains upon us, and we will not see life!!!
What the heck?
Why would two verses in the same chapter contradict one another?
They don’t contradict one another. Instead, the two verses, along with many others, build one whole truth.
We have to understand verse 16 within the context of verse 36.
Here’s an analogy.
We can tell our young children that if they behave today, they will get cookies after dinner.
One child might behave all afternoon, eat dinner, and get cookies!!
Another child might be a total mess, acting up left and right, eat dinner, and NOT get cookies.
But this second child will still want cookies…
They might even demand cookies.
They will say, “But you said we’d get cookies after dinner!!”
And they would be right. That WAS said…
Except, this misbehaving child has chosen to ignore the warning that was given!!
They might throw a fit…
But a just parent will not give in.
And there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And all we are talking about here are a few cookies, not eternal life!!
How much more so will there be weeping and gnashing of teeth when eternal life is up in the air??
We serve a just God.
Yehova keeps His word. He does not lie, and He does not change His mind.
Numbers 23:19
God is not a man who lies,
or a son of man who changes his mind!
Yehova does not change who He is, and does not change His character:
Malachi 3:6
“…“For I am Yehova. I do not change,”
If you are more into Jesus than you are God, we have this:
Hebrews 13:8
Yeshua the Messiah [Jesus] is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Here is the gist of this lesson:
We cannot take a simple group of several verses and quote them, and build doctrine with them.
We can’t isolate them, and create a false belief.
We have to read and study and learn and pray about the whole of scripture.
We can’t bank on the promise of Romans 13 while ignoring the warning given by Messiah Himself in Matthew 7.
We cannot bank on the promise of John 3:16 while ignoring the warning given in John 3:36.
We have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
We can’t throw away the pieces we don’t like, because we’ll end up with an incomplete picture.
We have to discover the whole truth, not just bits and pieces of it.
So, yes, I love the promises given in Romans 13 and in John 3.
There are many other wonderful promises in scripture, from beginning to end.
But we must embrace the warnings also, and we must conduct ourselves within the boundaries of ALL scripture.
The whole truth.
Not just the promises we like…