Wouldn’t it be nice to know for certain that you’re saved – that you’ll go to heaven when you die? Of course. Eternity in hell is a long time in a very bad place. We can know for sure where we are going, this is called the Doctrine of Assurance. There are a lot of verses in the Bible showing that once we are saved we can have a solid assurance of going to heaven: Romans 8:15-16 Rom 10:9-10 Heb. 10:22
Ok let’s take it a step further, wouldn’t you like to know exactly how God orchestrates salvation? Do we have a part in it too, so that our will is exercised? Do we even truly have a free will? Are we free to walk away from salvation? Just how sovereign is God, or does He sacrifice some of that so that we can have free will? Did Jesus die for everybody? Did we inherit a sin nature from Adam and Eve? Did we inherit guilt from them too? Will different outlooks on these questions lead to sloppy morality or pride or emotionalism? … These are questions that the ongoing Calvinist/Arminian debate tries to answer. There are actually Bible verses that are used to back both sides. Does that mean the Bible is a mess of contradictions? What we do know by faith is that the Bible is true, and it does not contain verses that are logically contradicting though they may seem so at the surface. We must dig deep to wade through them and find the unifying thread of truth.
Thankfully no essential doctrines for salvation require this level of wading. God has made the critical things very clear in His Word. But I believe the others are knowable if we will humble ourselves and do a full search of Scripture, and are willing to admit that we may have been wrong till now. We often don’t go that deep though so we choose a side in ignorance, fire bombs at the other camp, and do the cross of Christ a disservice by our disunity.
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in…” – A. Lincoln.
Trevor
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