It is said by some people that our spiritual salvation is dependent on how we endure in this life after having our past sins forgiven by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. They base this on the statement in Matthew, Chapter 24, verse 13.
In Matthew 24:13 Jesus says,
This is also repeated by another writer Mark in Mark 13:13 It's always good to get the context of any saying though; so what's the context here? Let's go back to verse nine and read through to verse twenty-two. Mat 24:9“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. 15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, 1 8and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 19 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! 20 Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. We see here that the context is 'the great tribulation' of the end time and in this context Jesus says, "But the one who endures to the end will be saved". So, those who endure to the end of the 'great tribulation', the time of 'Jacob's trouble', will be saved. If this means that a guide to those saved spiritually in the future is that they were good enough or strong enough mentally and/or physically to endure through the great tribulation, then one wonders what is the benchmark for those who live/d outside the time-frame of the great tribulation. What constitutes endurance for them? Putting up with 'Windows' crashing every couple of days and not moaning? Spending 2 hours to get to work because of a tube strike without griping? Having to live with only one computer, one tablet and only one mobile phone in this information rich society? If enduring the torture and murderous conditions of the great tribulation, fleeing from death in winter maybe and surviving in faith through the worst persecution of God's people in history only just gets you saved, what hope do we have today of knowing we reach the endurance standard required for salvation? When we look at the context of the passage though, we see that it's not the people's endurance that gets them saved. Rather, it's God cutting short the days that the tribulation lasts; There is nothing here of which we humans can boast!
And, how do we honestly tell people to follow us into the kingdom on the
basis that success depends on being good enough personally to endure
torture and perhaps death at the hands of Satan's forces to be saved. In
other words, spiritual salvation according to your physical works! If one
holds this belief then it's
not the blood of Jesus that saves but rather it's the blood that you spill!
If this were true then what of John's statement under inspiration... 1 John 5:9-13 If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. John in his writing to us says that if we believe in Jesus we have (present tense) Eternal Life! The question has to be asked - " For how long does eternal or everlasting life last?" What about Paul's statement in Romans 4:6-8... Rom 4:6-8 Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
So to the believer God tells us through Paul that He is not imputing our
sin. Paul also tells us in Ephesians that we already have been saved.
The holy scriptures tells us that as believers we are the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
Can it be claimed that God is not being straightforward when he says these things in the Bible? Is salvation by grace, or by works because we endure to the end? I see that salvation is by grace! As a Christian who believes on Jesus and who has accepted Him as your Lord and Saviour you are saved everlastingly!
So what are the verses we quoted at the beginning of this article telling us?
So to sum up this understanding - Those who are of Israel (or others affected)
who endure to the end of the great tribulation will be saved
physically because the days had been cut short; otherwise no human
being would be saved! In other words they are saved from physical
destruction at that time because Jesus comes back and cuts short the days of
wrath!
Now although the whole context of those scriptures is dealing with the physical, some may want to claim that, out of the blue, Jesus inserted a reference to spiritual salvation. The claim would be that your physical endurance through the great tribulation earns you spiritual salvation. Is this coroborated by other scriptures? What does it say in Ephesians Chapter 2 regarding this? Eph 2:4-9 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ ―by grace you have been saved― and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Just as it took Jesus to rescue the world from sin and Satan, it takes Jesus in us, "the saved", to live holy righteous lives. To me, those Christians living at the end who shall be the “saved” of their day, shall thus (accepting the spiritual scenario) endure to the end and meet Jesus in the air at His return! Grace is God's unmerited favour in our lives. We have salvation because of God's grace. We have salvation because of Jesus dying in our place. Jesus is grace to us!
Grace is also God's empowerment to live righteous lives.
As we can see grace empowers us and teaches us to live righteously. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Thus we should see how grace is intertwined with our life in Jesus and Holy Spirit living in us. Grace teaches us and Holy Spirit teaches us and as we know, the Lord is the Spirit! (2 Cor 3:17). That scripture in Ephesians shows salvation comes through grace and the following scripture from Galatians shows that it's not by our might but by Jesus' power that we live lives pleasing to God. Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
If in contrast we are to understand that the passage in Mat 24:13 says one has to
endure the great tribulation to the end to be saved spiritually, then in this
life we cannot know if anyone has been saved! We cannot know anyone's heart.
So any and all who claim to be Christians may not be enduring!
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
It's all done by accepting Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf and declaring that He is
our Lord and Saviour. Of that person we can say with certainty we will see him/her
in the kingdom! Not because of works but because of faith in Jesus. And having put
faith in Jesus we go on in this life drawing close to God and more and more letting
Christ in us be our strength.
He who knows he has been forgiven much, loves much and relies on Jesus! He who thinks he can do it himself boasts in what he believes is his own ability. Like the children of Israel in the wilderness who were continually rebelling against God, yet nevertheless boasted, "Whatever God says, we will do!" This belief in themselves that they could keep God's laws and regulations was fiction and self-righteousness and if we think the same we will be believing in and putting our hope for salvation on fiction also!
As Jesus said in Mark, Chaper 10, verse 18.
As a friend of mine would say, "Only God can do Godly things". In other words,
it takes God to be good and do good all the time! So only 'God in us the hope
of glory' can empower us and enable us to endure and overcome Satan.
The Greek word ( σωθήσεται ) translated 'will be saved' is transliterated as sōthēsetai and according to the lexicons is in the aorist tense. This according to wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aorist does often but not always refer to the past tense. So in this case the Greek can be rendered in line with scripture overall, whether you wish to take the whole passage in it's obvious physical context or have the line about 'enduring to the end' an inserted spiritual statement. So if one wants to put that spiritual twist on this scripture I would argue that in the light of the grace of God, what Mat 24:13 and Mark 13:13 would say to us is this... He who endures to the end shall be (the) saved. In other words, those who endure to the end "are" the saved. And, because they are saved, living in Christ and Christ in them, they are able to endure, pleasing God, to the end. The apostle Paul's life would be a good example of this spiritual life under great trial! As he said in the book of Galatians.... Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
So by this information, it is actually Jesus who endures through us when
we succeed!
The Person Of The holy Spirit - R. A. Torrey. Click
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