Who did Jesus die for and who can be saved? What do you think the Bible teaches? Part II

Following my first post on this, I thought that it would be helpful to set out in a table more detail on the similarities and differences between the three views. The ticks and crosses indicate whether or not the view taken allows you to affirm the statements in the first column without contradicting what is affirmed in each view.

Feedback I've had since the fist post indicates that there are some views that would sit somewhere in between View 1 and View 2.

A variation on View 1 holds that following Jesus' ascension, the Holy Spirit is working in the heart of every single person in the world to persuade them of the truth of the Gospel, such that everyone who believes believes because of the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, but the Holy Spirit works equally in the heart of every person and it is still possible for everyone to resist the work of the Holy Spirit. Another view is almost identical to this except that the Holy Spirit only does this work in some people. For the purposes of the table I have included these variations with View 1.

	View 1 and the views falling between 1 and 2	View 2	View 3
Salvation comes only through Jesus Christ	✓	✓	✓
What Jesus suffered on the cross is what every sinner deserves to suffer	✓	✓	✓
Everyone who repents and believes will be saved	✓	✓	✓
The call to repent and believe should be preached to all people indiscriminately	✓	✓	✓
No one will be saved unless they repent and believe before death / before Jesus returns (not taking into account debates surrounding the children of believers)	✓	✓	✓
The intensity of what Jesus suffered on the cross does not increase or decrease depending upon the number of people who are saved by his death	✓	✓	✓/X
The cross is proof of the love that God has for every single person and of his desire that every person be saved	✓	✓	X
God loves some people more that others	X	✓	✓
You can truthfully say to everyone you meet, “Jesus died for you.”	✓	✓	X
Once the Gospel has been proclaimed to someone, the only thing preventing that person being saved is their refusal to believe	✓	✓	X
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united in what they want the cross to achieve	✓/X	✓	✓
If you believe the Gospel today, having properly understood it, you can have confidence that you will still believe it tomorrow no matter how much the devil tries to convince you that you no longer believe	X	✓	✓
Your own goodness/wisdom/character makes no contribution at all to your salvation	X	✓	✓

Who did Jesus die for and who can be saved? What do you think the Bible teaches? Part I

To many people the three views described below will look very similar, but they can have quite a significant impact on what people think God is like and on how you share the Gospel with people.

I have held all three views, initially the first, then the second, followed by the third and then back to the second on which I'm now fairly settled, but I recognise that I could have got this wrong. 

I'd love to know what view other people hold on this. My hunch is that most pastors among my friends will hold the third view, but that most church members will hold the first or second view. 

First view

Through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, God has made salvation available to every single person in the world. Everyone who believes in Jesus will be saved. Those who do not believe will not be saved . Every single person who hears the gospel is capable of believing in Jesus. God gives people a new heart as a result of their faith in Christ. The new heart is not the cause of the person first putting their faith in Christ, but the result of the person's faith in Christ.

Second view

Through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, God has made salvation available to every single person in the world. Everyone who believes in Jesus will be saved. Those who do not believe will not be saved. Because of original sin, no one has the capacity to put their faith in Jesus, unless God first works in them to give them a new heart. Everyone, in whom God puts a new heart, will put their faith in Jesus and be saved. The refusal of others to accept the salvation that is freely made available to them through Jesus' death shows the depths of the effects of original sin.

Third view

Through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, God has made salvation available only to the people he has chosen. All those he has chosen will believe the gospel and be saved when God gives them a new heart. There are many people for whom Christ has not died, and so, although all people should be called to repentance and faith and all people should be assured that if they believe in Jesus they will be saved, the evangelist should not tell non-Christians that Jesus has died for them because this may not be true in the case of the particular person to whom the evangelist is speaking.

The mind, the body and mental illness

Rene Descartes is famous for his argument that the mind and the body are distinct and that each can exist without the other. Philosophers continue to debate whether this is correct, but it seems to me that all Christians must accept this distinction. The Bible clearly teaches that our spirits and our bodies were made for each other and yet they are still distinct. The Apostle Paul knew that when he died, his spirit would go be with the Lord, whilst his body would rot in the ground, but that his spirit and body would be reunited at Christ’s second coming. (2 Cor 5:1-6; 1 Cor 15:50-53).

For Paul to be able to use the language of being “at home” with the Lord and “away” from the body (2 Cor 5:1-6) and for John to be able to refer to the souls in heaven crying out (Rev 6:9-10), it must be the case that a person’s mind is part of his spirit rather than his body. When a person’s spirit and body are separated at death, the spirit is not mindless, but is able to think and communicate and enjoy being at home in the presence of Christ.

To affirm that the mind and body are distinct is not to say that the mind and the body have no effect on each other. We all know from experience that our minds affect our bodies and vice versa: we can decide in our minds to move our bodies, and tiredness in our bodies affects the thinking of our minds.

These distinctions are important when considering the causes and treatments for mental illness. Mental illness is illness of the mind, and as the mind is part of the spirit rather than than the body, mental illness is spiritual illness.

To some the phrase “spiritual illness” gives the impression of moral shortcoming and that we are in some way to blame for the illness, but that is a misconception. Saying that “mental illness” is spiritual illness is simply observing that our minds belong to our spirits rather than our bodies.

To others, saying that mental illness is spiritual illness sounds like mental illness is being made out to be less serious than physical illness, but that is also a misconception. The person who survives a heart attack may well be plunged into suicidal depression from a broken heart.

Given that our minds and our bodies affect each other whilst they are connected to each other, affirming that mental illness is spiritual illness rather than bodily illness is not to say that all the causes of all mental illnesses arise in the spirit/mind rather than the body. A problem in our bodies may well be the cause of a mental/spiritual problem. However, the affirmation of the distinction between the spirit and the body, does help us to remember that the cause of a particular mental illness may well be in the mind rather than in the body, or that there may be both bodily and metal/spiritual causes.

The application of this in treating a particular mental illness is that a person suffering from mental illness may need medical help only, spiritual help only or a combination of medical help and spiritual help, depending on whether the cause(s) of the illness lies in the mind, the body or both. When it comes to treating Christians with mental illnesses, in some cases the treatment may best be delivered by a secular counsellor whom God has gifted in particular ways to understand how the mind works and to help people better understand their own minds, in other cases the treatment may best be delivered by a pastor to whom God has given a particular gift of being able to show people how the message of the Gospel applies to the particular issue that the Christian is facing, and in many cases, the Christian will be helped through a combination of advice from the pastor and the secular counsellor.

Some Christians may object to saying that spiritual and mental illness are synonymous. They argue that non-Christians can be in good mental health, but they cannot be in good spiritual health because the Bible is clear that everyone who is outside of Christ is spiritually dead, and so mental and spiritual health must be different. However, this is to misunderstand what the Bible means by spiritual death. Death in the Bible has to do with separation. Physical death occurs when a person's spirit is separated from their body. Spiritual death occurs when the a person's spirit is separated from God. If we are spiritually dead (as all people are before being born again – Eph 2:1), this means that our spirit is separated from and hostile to God, but it does not mean that our spirit is inactive. The fact that a person who is spiritually dead still has an active spirit is clear from 1 Cor 2:11:

“For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”

Paul does not limit what he says here to be true only for Christians. The spirit of every person, Christian or non-Christian, knows that person's thoughts. Therefore, it must be the case that spiritual death does not mean spiritual inactivity, but rather spiritual hostility to God. 

I expect that many people may find it hard to grasp that spiritual death means spiritual hostility to God rather than spiritual inactivity due to the way that some people seek to prove that God has to work specifically in a person's heart before they can become a Christian. They present their argument as follows: Ephesians 2:1 says that non-Christians are spiritually dead; dead people don't do anything; therefore the spirits of non-Christians can't do anything and so God must make our spirits alive and then we will choose Christ. This argument is incorrect because it assumes that if physical death means the inactivity of the body, then spiritual death must mean inactivity of the spirit, whereas the Bible teaches that physical death is about the separation of the body from the spirit and spiritual death is about the separation of the spirit from God. The argument is also unnecessary because it is clear from 2 Cor 4:3-6 that God has to work in a person's heart before a person will accept the Gospel.

Some Christians may also deny that Christians can receive any spiritual help from non-Christians. However, this also follows from the failure to understand that spiritual death does not mean spiritual inactivity. The spirits/minds of non-Christians are active, and in God's common grace, some people understand the human spirit/mind very well and they are able to help both Christians and non-Christians with many mental/spiritual issues. A clear example of this is the development of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT, which is all about helping people to identify how undesirable behaviour arises from false beliefs and helping them to replace the false beliefs with true beliefs. However, from the observation that mental illness and spiritual illness are synonymous, it does follow that, although it may often be appropriate for churches to refer Christians to secular counsellors and to take seriously the gifts God has given to secular counsellors, it is never appropriate for churches to defer totally to the advice of secular counsellors because many of the issues that are covered by secular counsellors are issues that are addressed directly by the Gospel and the advice that is given by secular counsellors may well be in direct opposition to the Gospel. 

New Blog

I'm thankful that there are many things in life that I'm certain about. 

By faith I am certain that:

• Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who reveals to us God the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts.
• Jesus Christ died for me to take the punishment that we all deserve for turning away from God, and that all of my sins, past present and future are forgiven on the basis of what Jesus did on the cross. 
• Jesus was raised from the dead, seen by many people and then went up into heaven where he now sits at God's right hand ruling over all things. 
• He will return to judge the world with complete justice and fairness and we will only be safe on that day if we have come to Jesus as our Lord and Saviour now before we meet him as our judge then. 
• Jesus has commanded his followers to tell all people that he is the judge of everyone and that everyone who turns to Jesus in repentance and trust will be forgiven their sin and will be adopted as a son by God the Father. 
• God the Holy Spirit lives in everyone who has come to Jesus in repentance and trust and he enables us to know God's love for us. 
• God works all things together for the good of those who love him, and this good involves being made more and more like Jesus Christ. 

So I am thankful for the things over which God has given me certainty. However, there are still many things in the Bible that I am not certain about and anyone who knows anything about Christianity will know that there are many "secondary issues" in the Bible that Christians who genuinely love God and who genuinely believe that the Bible is the word of God disagree over. 

This blog is to designed to help me and others think out loud about these secondary issues in the hope that by prayerfully considering these things together we can get greater certainty concerning what the God has said to us through the Bible. A lot of what I write will seem like I'm certain of what I'm saying, but nearly all of it is work in progress rather than my settled position. So please feel free to offer alternative points of view.