So how do you know you're saved?

[HansMustermann]

It may seem like a very simple answer there, basically, "duh, just accept Jesus and that's it", but few people realize that what their religion actually peddles is actually the exact contrary: the uncertainty and fear. In fact that it even offers a test to falsify that proposition, and most people fail it every day.

The first Epistle of John -- which, by the way, is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John, so it seems to me like anyone who grants him divine inspiration for the gospel should kinda take him seriously -- states in chapter 3, verses 8 to 10:

8. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
9. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
10. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.​

"Born of God" basically meaning what was mis-translated as "born again" in the gospel of John at 3:3. Or I guess "saved", since that verse states, "In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.""

At any rate, if you fail to qualify for "born from above" or "born of God", you ain't even seeing the kingdom of God. Jesus himself says so. So it's kinda important to know if you qualify or not.

And lucky us, effectively John there offers a criterion to falsify if some person, let's call him Jack, ever was "born of God" to start with. If he was, he cannot sin any more. In fact, if he continues to, he was of the devil all along. That's how you know he was the devil's child the whole time.

The implication isn't just that you can later fall from grace, or revert to unsaved, or just need to ask for forgiveness for the new set of sins from last time, but that you were never one of God's chosen to begin with.

And I'm not just talking about only really bad stuff. If you were one of God's in the first place, you wouldn't even look after someone with lust, because Jesus said that's adultery, i.e., a sin too.

So what we have here is a sorta Jesus vaccine. If it worked, *bam*, you're free of sinning, baby. If you're not, well, then that's how you know that the vaccine didn't work. It's a falsifiable proposition, really.

And it seems to me like for the VAST majority of people, the vaccine doesn't work. They do it again and again and again, and it never works.

And again, that means you won't even see Heavens, according to John 3:3.

So how would you know that although it didn't work dozens of times before, it will work the next time? Isn't it at the very least a statistically improbable thing?

Or let's say grandma is dying, you bring a priest or minister real quick, she accepts Jesus one more time, and *bam* she's in Heaven. Or so you think. But again that rests on the proposition that it actually works this time. But, as I was saying, it's relying on that Jesus vaccine that statistically almost never works and didn't work before. And in fact that effectively you don't think it worked before, or, if you believe what John says, you wouldn't need to bring a priest to give her another shot at the last moment. So what makes you believe it will work that time?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

It's when the goalie prevents you from crossing the line and you find yourself in someone's bank account.

 

[Donn]

The Jesus vaccine is homeopathic. It might work, but only if you reaaaalllly believe!

 

[tsig]

The Jesus vaccine is homeopathic. It might work, but only if you reaaaalllly believe!

Of course it works, you just have to hit it with your bible.

 

[Darat]

All I know is that it was much easier in the good old days - the church even gave you a document!

 

[tsig]

All I know is that it was much easier in the good old days - the church even gave you a document!

You mean indulgences?

 

[Bikewer]

I imagine it's one of the attractions of the various Protestant sects; the general feeling that once one has that " born again" experience, or gets "washed in the blood" (baptized), that largely nothing else is required.
You're saved, regardless of how much you screw up subsequently.

Contrast that with the Catholic view, where you can "fall" all the time and have to constantly be on your guard against further sinning even if you've been a wonderful person for many years.
The idea that you had to have something special to be saved by Jesus was common to the Gnostics as well; they felt that only those few individuals with the "divine spark" could possibly understand the hidden truths of Jesus and thus be re-united with the real gods....

 

[slingblade]

I
And it seems to me like for the VAST majority of people, the vaccine doesn't work. They do it again and again and again, and it never works.

It's like that, yeah. Really messes up a little kid's head, I can tell you.

 

[Cainkane1]

If you're talking about Christian salvation there is no way to know for sure. There are many churches out there who say their way is the only way to heaven and if you didn't get saved through them then its off to hell you go.

 

[slingblade]

I imagine it's one of the attractions of the various Protestant sects; the general feeling that once one has that " born again" experience, or gets "washed in the blood" (baptized), that largely nothing else is required.
You're saved, regardless of how much you screw up subsequently.

Nope. Not when these churches are teaching that being saved makes you a "new creation," makes you "born again," and removes from you your sinful nature and desire to sin again.

So when you're nine and still committing your petty child sins, and sobbing over knowing it must not have worked, it pretty much tastes like damnation.

 

[HansMustermann]

I imagine it's one of the attractions of the various Protestant sects; the general feeling that once one has that " born again" experience, or gets "washed in the blood" (baptized), that largely nothing else is required.
You're saved, regardless of how much you screw up subsequently.

Yes, but most of those Protestant sects insist on taking the bible literally. ESPECIALLY John, who's their most popular gospel writer. Seems to me like especially the major denominations in the USA are absolutely in love with John, as THE divinely inspired guy who wrote EXACTLY what Jesus said and believed.

Not that it's much easier for the Catholics, although I'll get into their even weirder problems later, since John is in church tradition a major link between early Christianity and late 2nd century guys like Irenaeus and whatnot. In fact, he's pretty much the main link, when those want to claim a chain of information that gives them any claim to know what really happened. If you knock him down to status of just a guy talking BS -- and actually they effectively did -- then you just lost the only documented (ok, "documented" in pious BS fabrications, rather than historically documented) chain of information. Without that, they might as well admit that the sect later known as catholicism was making crap up without any solid foundation for it.

But anyway, if someone takes John seriously and literally, that's exactly what he denies. If you can sin, then you weren't born again in the first place. You may have thought you went through with the rituals, and made up some testimonies about how bad you were before, and spoke in tongues, and all that, and therefore you ARE born again, but John says effectively, "no. If you really were born again, you'd be unable to sin. If you could sin, then you're not really born again, you're one of Satan's guys." Really, you went through the ritual and all, but the criterion for falsifying it says, nah, you weren't born again. I guess it was an abortion again, or something The ritual obviously fizzled and didn't produce the result you thought it did.

Contrast that with the Catholic view, where you can "fall" all the time and have to constantly be on your guard against further sinning even if you've been a wonderful person for many years.

The Catholics, however, took milking the flock to such extremes as to make it basically impossible to not sin, if you have any even remotely normal brain functions. Even going through a day of your life without being in a coma or maybe lobotomized, can get you to break one of the 7 deadly thought-crimes, i.e., deadly sins.

E.g., "pride" is the most grievous of the deadly sins, and STILL defined as basically claiming any merit in any of your accomplishments, instead of crediting God with giving that gift to unworthy little old you. And those last words in that sentence aren't just hyperbole. Even crediting God but claiming or even thinking that you had some personal merit that made God choose you, even praying more or stuff like that, is still landing you in hot water with God. Well, in hot burning brimstone.

And those are deadly sins by virtue of being, you know, impossible for God to forgive unless a priest intervenes on your behalf.

So effectively, the only way to be sure you're saved would be to be killed the exact instant you finished your confession or in the old days bought your indulgence. Because it doesn't take more than a funny random thought to make you unforgivable right back again before you even exit the church.

The idea that you had to have something special to be saved by Jesus was common to the Gnostics as well; they felt that only those few individuals with the "divine spark" could possibly understand the hidden truths of Jesus and thus be re-united with the real gods....

I think it depends on what gnostic sect you're talking about. The term had been applied to a variety of beliefs ranging from proper mystery cults to just fairly mainstream stuff that the dominant sect didn't agree with.

I don't think any sect will tell its members that some of them just can't be saved, though. It's bad for business, you know?

They can however make other exceptions for the truly gifted. And some did. Those really gifted could figure it out faster, or even theoretically be even able to figure out on their own.

 

[Moon-Spinner]

All I know is that it was much easier in the good old days - the church even gave you a document!

What if you lose your document? Will you be denied access through the Pearly Gates? Is it akin to trying to get into a country without your passport?

 

[HansMustermann]

Nope. Not when these churches are teaching that being saved makes you a "new creation," makes you "born again," and removes from you your sinful nature and desire to sin again.

So when you're nine and still committing your petty child sins, and sobbing over knowing it must not have worked, it pretty much tastes like damnation.

Hmm.... I didn't know that churches actually do that to children too. Seems pretty unforgivable to me.

 

[Polaris]

When the Man of Steel deposits you securely on terra firma again.

Hmm.... I didn't know that churches actually do that to children too. Seems pretty unforgivable to me.

Where I come from this is fairly common among high school students - which as you can guess causes all kinds of confusion among people with that amount of hormones and peer pressure.

Then they hurry up and get married so they can have horribly awkward sex once and spend the next few years bitterly hating each other until they (maybe) get a divorce. Just like in the Good Old Days.

 

[I Ratant]

I imagine it's one of the attractions of the various Protestant sects; the general feeling that once one has that " born again" experience, or gets "washed in the blood" (baptized), that largely nothing else is required.
You're saved, regardless of how much you screw up subsequently.

Contrast that with the Catholic view, where you can "fall" all the time and have to constantly be on your guard against further sinning even if you've been a wonderful person for many years.
The idea that you had to have something special to be saved by Jesus was common to the Gnostics as well; they felt that only those few individuals with the "divine spark" could possibly understand the hidden truths of Jesus and thus be re-united with the real gods....

.
The Catholic method is more to my liking.. ya gotta work at redemption ALL the time!
Especially watching the unethical behavior of some of my noisier "born-again" acquaintances. Thieves, libelers, liars... but they've been "saved" way back when, so any forgiveness is paid forward from that event.

 

[slingblade]

Hmm.... I didn't know that churches actually do that to children too. Seems pretty unforgivable to me.

Of course, I can't say it's done today, not having attended a church in 22 years, but it was certainly done when I was coming up, in the '60s.

I was saved nine times that I recall, before I finally gave up and decided I was irredeemable and was probably going to hell no matter what. And yeah, this all happened at nine years old. I even went to my best friend's Baptist church and tried there, hoping that changing "flavors" might help. Nope.

 

[bookitty]

Not to distract from some very lovely arguments but it doesn't work that way. Back when I was Christian and full of faith, I just knew. If you had asked me that question, I would have looked inward and found a definitive affirmative answer.

I probably would have ended up arguing about what I do or how I should act in order to show gratitude for having been saved. Being saved was a done deal.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, yeah, that's just the kind of experience that seems fairly common to hear about, namely that someone got born again half a dozen to a dozen times before even finishing high school. That's what made me ask exactly how do people rationalize that a ritual that failed nine times before, would work like a charm the tenth time. I mean, you obviously were saner than that, but other people seem to never figure out that, meh, their own religion says it won't work for them and they're burning in hell whether they go to church or not, so why bother?

What didn't quite sink in for me was that they actually use that to scare the crap out of kids. Which adds some unforgivable cruelty to the stupidity.

 

[slingblade]

Well, yeah, that's just the kind of experience that seems fairly common to hear about, namely that someone got born again half a dozen to a dozen times before even finishing high school. That's what made me ask exactly how do people rationalize that a ritual that failed nine times before, would work like a charm the tenth time. I mean, you obviously were saner than that, but other people seem to never figure out that, meh, their own religion says it won't work for them and they're burning in hell whether they go to church or not, so why bother?

Easy: they aren't doing it right. That's about all there is to it. If getting saved does not remove your sinful nature, and if you still want to sin, then it's your fault, somehow. You are listening to the devil whisper in your ear; you don't truly have faith; you want the pass to heaven, but you don't want to give up your carnal fun...you aren't sincere enough for it to take.

So, you keep working on that, and keep trying. Maybe it does eventually take, or maybe you decide you're hopeless and hellbound.

What didn't quite sink in for me was that they actually use that to scare the crap out of kids. Which adds some unforgivable cruelty to the stupidity.

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he may be too damned scared to change...."

 

[TimCallahan]

Back in the late 1980s and early 90s, when I was monitoring the local L.A. fundamentalist radio station, KKLA, and listening to, among other shows, "The Bible Answer-man Show," people were always calling in worrying about their salvation. What struck me most about this was that conversion to Christianity was supposed to give one the "peace that passeth all understanding," since one was now absolved of their burden of sin. Yet, so many of these converts obviously had no peace whatsoever, since they weren't sure they were saved, after all.

This worry about one's salvation, and the constant checking on one's "walk with God," seem to be part of a televangelist bait-and-switch scheme, the other part being the whole spiritual warfare scheme, where the new convert is told that, now that they are among the saved, Satan, who had left them alone before, since they were already in his camp, would now be attacking them. They were now locked in spiritual conflict with the forces of evil and must act as soldiers for Christ. So, once converted, the new believer must be constantly vigilant for attacks from the devil and would find themselves constantly checking and rechecking to see if their salvation was valid. So much for the "peace that passeth all understanding."