In a men's bible study last week, someone posed the question "Can we earn damnation?" His answer to this question was "No." His rational was that IF grace through faith - THEN salvation, then the negative must also be true, IF not grace through faith - THEN damnation.
My response to his question would be both yes and no. I agree with him in the sense that we are all born fallen. Hypothetically, even if a person were to live a legally perfect life, their nature would still be fallen and they would still need redemption. In other words, because of the fall, no matter how "perfect" you live, you still need Jesus. (RMNS Ch. 5)
I also disagree with him though, because this hypothetical situation, in which a person lives a perfect life but still needs redemption because of his fallen nature, is impossible. Because it is impossible, the philosophical proposition might not be very useful. I believe that we not only CAN earn damnation, but that every single person on the earth DOES earn damnation.
If we abandon this idea, I think that the biblical process of God reconciling us to Himself suffers. For example, in Romans, Paul paints a picture of condemnation preceding justification. "The wage of sin is death." The knowledge that our sins (not just our sin nature) are worthy of God's wrath is necessary for a proper understanding of our need for a savior. To say that we do not "earn" damnation, is to minimize our role in our own condemnation. Understanding that I am responsible for my own condemnation due to my sinfulness, puts the amazing grace of the cross in proper perspective. (RMNS Ch 1-3 among others)
Therefore, while from the perspective of a purely logical function, to answer "Yes" to the question "Can we earn damnation?" might imply that there is an alternative to "earning" damnation (in other words that there is something that we might do or not do in order to avoid earning damnation) - which would be false; from a practical perspective (and a biblical perspective), I believe that we are to think of our damnation (if not for Jesus) as a product of our own sinfulness and disobedience.
If you can present to me a person who has lived a life free of offence to God, and therefore must be condemned only on the basis of his fallen state, then I may re-think the "practicality" of my position. Even Billy Graham and Mother Teresa, if they get what they deserve, get hell.
We are condemned because we deserve it; we are saved by grace through faith.
3 comments:
Good word. when we recognize the depravity of our sinful state and complete inability to save ourselves then we realize just how amazing and undeserved God's grace is. God's grace defies our rationality to completely comprehend.
I am the actor when it comes to my condmenation but i am not actor when it comes to my salvation rather I am the receptor of what Christ has done for me.
If we do not earn out damnation do we then "earn" our salvation? If anything we absolutely earn, or are worthy of being excluded from God's Kingdom. To imply we cannot earn damnations is to say that we must then earn our salvation which then implies that we have put God is a debt to us. Earn is the language of wages and payment. To say we earn our damnation is to say that based on our body of work we are owed a certain result. That result is exclusion from the KOG. But is our action do not earn us damnation, then our action are either irrelevant to our everlasting state or they "earn" us the opposite. But this we know is impossible since it is not even in the heart of man to seek to do right in God's eyes (Romans 3).
However, after one has become a member of the KOG through faith in Christ's sacrifice and his reign as king, then our actions do not earn us anything but only prove what we are and are becoming. We are in a sense to prove ourselves worthy as Paul would put it. But the only wage and demand we can and do place on God is death. So yes we by definition earn our damnation. Good post Mr. Christ
The most famous passage in the Bible (John 3:16) is followed by,
"17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
Adam 'earned' our condemnation. We are also condemned because of our lack of belief. Sort of a double 'you're screwed'. Thankfully the argument ends with belief in Christ.
Post a Comment