If we raise the wrong questions, we probably will get
the wrong answers. We need to be discriminating in the questions we
raise, and
the answers we get or give. For example, the question, “Does
God promise
salvation to those who have failed to obey His will?” and the
question, “Will
God save any person who has failed to obey His will?” are two
different
questions, regardless of the fact that many brethren think they are the
same.
Even those persons who think the questions are perfectly clear and the
answers
should be just as clear and dogmatic may want to proceed a little
further. Have
you ever failed to obey His will? The Bible says that all have sinned
and fall
short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and 1 John 1:10 says,
“If we say we have not sinned, we make him a
liar.” Therefore, regardless of how you answer the question,
you have failed to
obey His will. Most who read this would perhaps say, “We all
know that, but we
still have to obey His will that relates to forgiveness of sins in
order to be
saved.” Many would now teach that it does not really matter,
for God’s grace
will save everyone (or practically everyone) regardless of what he
does. I am
sorry for that group, but am not particularly addressing their false
doctrine today.
Today, I am simply trying to make one point: God
promises to grant remission of sins only to those who accept the
promise on the
terms offered. Whether He will choose to grant it in the Final Judgment
in a
case where it appears to us that one has not accepted the terms offered
is a
different question, and should receive a different answer. Let me
illustrate
that you may know that I am not trying to loose where God bound, but at
the
same time, I am simply saying that I must leave the final application
of God’s
rules to His judgment.
God promised (in effect) that Naaman would be cured of
his leprosy if he went and dipped seven times in the River Jordan.
Suppose Naaman
had, in faithful obedience, gone to the river, and dipped 6 times, and
as he started
to dip the seventh a water moccasin had bitten him and he had not gone
completely under. Would God have cured him anyway? There are wise ones
among us
who can speak dogmatically about the answer. I cannot. I do not know.
My
opinion is worthless, and even raising the question would probably fall
under
the category condemned by Paul in 2
Timothy 2:23,
“Foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do
gender strife.”
Suppose God would have cured him, what does that have to do with our
responsibility
to teach and do what God says? Anyone who bases his theology or his
practice on
what he supposes God might or might not do in some hypothetical
situation is
already on dangerous ground.
Suppose Naaman had started to do what God had
commanded, and had felt so much better that he assumed he was already
cured
before he got to the river, but decided to go ahead and dip anyway,
would God
have cured him? That is very similar to the scoffing question that was
raised
some years ago about gopher wood in the ark. Suppose Noah had run out
of gopher
wood, or had a piece of wood he thought was gopher, which really was
not, and
had put one plank of oak or hickory in its place, would the ark have
sunk?
Whatever you may suppose about that not only will not change what God
would
have done, but has no practical bearing on what we are supposed to
teach and do
about God’s promise to us. If God goes beyond his promise,
and grants a
blessing as a result of some other factor, that is His business.
Why anyone would even raise those questions who is
interested in trying to get all men to accept the grace of God on the
terms by
which it is offered, instead of trying to find some way to give a
person hope
who rejected God’s way, I do not know. Instead of raising
those hypothetical
questions, giving your guess as an answer, and then basing your
teaching on
your guess, why not simply raise and answer the question,
“What does God want
and promise as a result of obeying his commandments?”
Questions
and Answers