Dear Pastor Martinez, I was thrilled that the Lord led me, quite randomly, to your YouTube BibleLine Ministries channel earlier this evening, where I listened to several videos including the December 29th Sunday evening service with the question & answer. I have been perplexed, frustrated, and praying for satisfactory answers to several things in recent months, and I believe the Holy Spirit wanted me to hear you and write to you because I believe you touched briefly, on Sunday, on the very thing I’m wanting someone to help me with. I don’t honestly know all the ins and outs of your soteriology, but based on what I heard, I think you’re a good person to ask. You talked about what are sometimes called apparent contradictions in scripture (regarding salvation) and how many pastors just call that the sovereignty of God. You said you couldn’t recall what they call it - maybe you were thinking of the term “antinomy?” That’s the term I had been given when I asked questions about that. Anyway, that’s precisely what has so frustrated me when it comes to soteriology. A pastor will say that both free will and election (election as found in Eph. 1:4-11, which they understand/define as unconditional election of individuals unto salvation from before the foundation of the world) are equally true at the same time, which defies all logic and makes no sense. But they just say, ‘Well the Bible says it, so I believe it.’ That just does not sit well with me. I really don’t believe it’s God’s character to be completely contradictory about something as important as how eternal salvation works. If there appears to be a contradiction, I think it’s a problem with interpretation of one or more passages, not an ‘antinomy’ where we should just throw our hands up and declare that God’s ways are just so sovereign and mysterious that we can’t make sense of it or understand it. So that being said, what do you believe and teach about election in Ephesians 1:4-11? Do you believe in the Calvinist idea of unconditional election? I have run into so many teachers and pastors who on the one hand will call out the errors of Calvinism, but then in the next breath they bring a Calvinist understanding of election to the text (namely unconditional election of individuals unto salvation from before the foundation of the world) and rely upon antinomy/mystery/sovereignty to gel that with the clear teachings on free will and free grace elsewhere. Even the well known ___ and ___. And many others... but those two overtly say they aren’t Calvinist, yet unconditional election is sort of the lynch pin of Calvinism, is it not? Does it seem strange to you that people deny Calvinism yet affirm unconditional election, or am I missing something? A related follow up question - What exactly do you believe and teach about soteriology? Would you say that your soteriology is more or less in line with Provisionism? A second (third* haha) question if I may: A young person (14 yrs in this case) expressed faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life (positional righteousness and salvation) and also got baptized, but later rejected even a belief in the one true God and not longer professes Christ (now in his 50s) Is it possible that this person has just badly back-slidden for decades? Can a person cease to profess faith at all and still be truly saved? Or, does this more likely indicate that they didn’t truly believe in the first place? - Kari HOW TO HAVE ETERNAL LIFE : https://youtu.be/t_6L7E_mfIw SUBSCRIBE https://www.youtube.com/c/bibleline Send your question to questions@biblelineministries.org! Support Bibleline - https://www.calvaryoftampa.org/donate/ Bibleline is a ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida and is hosted by Pastor Jesse Martinez. #salvation #unconditionalelection #calvinism #provisionism #leightonflowers #tulip #election #soteriology #faith #believe #bibeline #qna #questions #answers #bible #christian #freegift #apostasy
