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To: paladinan; CynicalBear; St_Thomas_Aquinas

Can you square away Eph 1:13-14 with your statements?


1,068 posted on 05/04/2015 2:43:40 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: ealgeone
Can you square away Eph 1:13-14 with your statements?

You may have to be a bit more specific, if I'm to address that question... but I'll make a guess at what you meant, for now:
In Him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Now: you didn't tell me your specific objection, nor did you tell me the specific point you wanted to highlight in Ephesians 1:13-14, so (as I sad) I'll have to guess. Are you looking at the idea of the "guarantee of our inheritance", with an eye to the Protestant idea of "one-time event of salvation" and/or "once-saved-always-saved"? If, so, I'm not sure how you could say that... nor do I see how this conflicts at all with what I wrote.

I wrote: We "have been saved" in the sense that Christ has conquered sin and death, and the gates of Heaven lie open to all who walk the narrow way and persevere (with His Grace). That squares perfectly with the idea that Christ has opened the gates of Heaven to us, and that the "openness" is irrevocable for all who are still alive; only at the end of time will those gates be closed, for good. Bud did you notice, in the quote from Ephesians, that "acquiring POSSESSION" of our inheritance is a thing distinct from the guarantee of its existence? Acquiring possession of an inheritance is within our free will to choose: we can accept it or reject it. We can embrace it, or we can leave it forever unclaimed. God is not about to FORCE an inheritance on someone who doesn't want it, or who can't be bothered to claim it.

So... how did this gibe with what you had in mind, again?
1,099 posted on 05/05/2015 5:48:12 AM PDT by paladinan (Rule #1: There is a God. Rule #2: It isn't you.)
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