What does salvation mean? Is the salvation predetermined, i.e the question of predestination? Where do you go if you are saved? Who is going to be saved? Is salvation easy or difficult to achieve? Who are not saved? What is it that resolves? Faith or good deeds? What is characteristic of the last times? Where do those who are not saved go, to Hell?
In this article, I ask myself, for example, the above-mentioned questions.
2 The 2:8: Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nothing by the brightness of his coming;
9 even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie.
12 Then all who have not believed the truth but have taken pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.
The above verses are important. Life starts with the truth. The truth requires love to find it. Once it has been found, it must be believed. Satan will do everything that people do not find the truth of the Bible.
No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. (Jhn 3:13)
Act 17:31 for he has set a day when he is going to judge the world with justice through a man he has appointed, and he has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
God has ordained the Supreme Judge to be a man: Christ and his saints condemn all mankind in a righteous way. In the Bible, judgment is based on the deeds of each person. There are various deeds and therefore various judgments, but it is certain that judgments are righteous. Many sinners are cleansed of their actions and receive life. However, I find it hard to believe in universalism that says all people will ultimately be saved. In the second section of this chapter, the LAST JUDGMENT I deal with the cleansing fire of God revealed in the Letter to the Corinthians, which examines the fire which purifies human sin. Many sinners can thus be saved, but there seems to be a prerequisite; you must have “built your house” on Christ.
1 Cor 3:11-15 For no one is able to lay any other foundation besides the One having been laid, who is Jesus Christ. Whether a person builds on this foundation with gold, silver, expensive stones, wood, hay, or straw, the workmanship of each person will become evident, for the day of judgment will show what it is, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test [δοκιμάζω dokimázō: to test, examine, prove, scrutinize, to see whether a thing is genuine or not, as metals] the quality of each person’s work. If what a person has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If his work is burned up, he will suffer loss. However, he himself will be saved, but it will be like going through fire.
God’s cleansing fire, which we read at 1 Cor 3, is proving, testing, investigating, but not consuming.
Consuming καταναλίσκω katanalísko consume utterly, completely, entirely, to the fullest extent.
Heb 12:29 for also our God is a consuming fire. – The fire of our God may be cleansing, but it may also be consuming. It is, therefore, necessary to distinguish between investigating and purifying, as well as consuming and punishing fire. A cleansing fire is to be experienced by one who has built his faith in Christ. If a sinner has not done so, and has not even repented of his deeds, he is subject to God’s consuming fire.
If a man has not “built his house” on the foundation of Christ, not even of grass or straw, then fire is not investigating, testing and cleansing but consuming. This is how I interpret the difference between the two fires.
For by grace you are saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; (Efe 2:8 )
who [God] desires [wants] all men to be saved and to come to a full knowledge of truth. (1 Tim 2:4)
Isa 46:10 declaring the end from the beginning, and from the past those things which were not done, saying, my purpose shall rise; and, I will do all my desire;
Gen 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. – God has in his word created the world. Whenever God says something he desires, it always happens: Isa 55:11 so shall my word be that goes out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall do that which I please, and it shall accomplish that for which I send it.
2 Pet 3:9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some people understand slowness, but is being patient with you. He does not want anyone to perish, but wants everyone to come to repentance.
Isa 45:7 forming light, and creating darkness; making peace, and creating evil. I, Jehovah, do all these things. (evil, calamity, disaster; heb. רַע ra`)
Luk 6:37 Stop judging, and you will never be judged. Stop condemning, and you will never be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
1 Jhn 4:14 We have seen for ourselves and can testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
1 Tim 4:10 To this end we work hard and struggle, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, that is, of those who believe.
Is There Any Other Bedrock but Christ?
Jhn 1:42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “And looking at him, Jesus said, you are Simon the son of Jonah; you shall be called Cephas (which translated is Peter). KJV: And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone.
– Cephas [Keefas] means a stone according to the KJV translation. The Greek word for stone is petros, meaning a single stone but not a bedrock, Petra, on which Christ is building His church, as in Luke 6:48: He is like a person building a house, who dug a deep hole to lay the foundation on rock [πέτρα petra]. When a flood came, the floodwaters pushed against that house but couldn’t shake it, because it had been founded on the rock.
The church of God is therefore built on Christ, not Apostle Peter, as the Catholics believe, and hold the Pope as the successor of St. Peter and the representative of Christ on earth.
