Originally posted by bbarr
Good, so sincerely asking for salvation is not a necessary condition for being saved. God employs norms of justice and mercy when determining who gets saved. If so, then it is an open question whether sincere and virtuous people with the conceptual repertoire required to conceive of God can be saved despite failing to sincerely ask. It is an open question, for example, whether Socrates was saved.
What I am about to tell you you probably have never heard from any other evangelical Christian. But I am convinced of it. And here I will only very briefly state the matter and add a caveat.
There will be some people who will live everlastingly who will not be born again.
Again, there will be some people who will have an everlasting life who will not have been born again.
Briely, my basis for this is mainly
Revelation 14:6,7, the preaching of
"an eternal gospel" by an angelic being from the air during the great tribulation:
"And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal gospel to announce to those dwelling on the earth, even to every nation and tribe and tongue and people,
Saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give Him glory because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who has made heaven and earth and the sea and the springs of waters."
1.) This eternal gospel is not preached by man but announced supernaturally by an angelic being.
2.) This eternal gospel does not mention any of the things related to the redemption of Christ and the gift of grace.
3.) This eternal gospel is to fear God the Creator, to worship God the Creator.
4.) This eternal gospel nullifies the threat of the Antichrist to worship him as at that time he will demand to be worshipped as God.
5.) This eternal gospel is accompanied by God's supernatural demonstrations in the universe that could only be attributed to the Creator.
Both in the millennial kingdom and in the eternal age the Bible says that the saints of God will reign. I do not believe that it means that the sons of God who are regenerated will reign over one another. There must be some peoples there in eternity for God's saved sons to reign over as nations.
Those who respond to the eternal gospel of fearing God the Creator are the sheep on the right hand of the Lord Jesus when He comes to judge the nations remaining alive before
"the throne of His glory" (See Matt. 25:32-46). The goats are on the left hand and are condemned to eternal punishment. The sheep on the right hand are blessed to
"inherit the kingdom prepared for [them] from the foundation of the world."
There are therefore three groups of people in that teaching.
1.) The saved
sheep on the right hand of Christ
2.) The condemned
goats on the left hand of Christ
3.)
"[T]hese the least of my brothers," who are also saved.
I believe that the saved sheep come out of the people who respond to the eternal gospel to fear God the Creator. They are restored by God's healing to be in the state that Adam was in before he sinned and caused the fall of man.
These people, I believe, will not be born again as sons of God, but will be as Adam was before his fall. The kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world is the good earth which God created for man's existence and His glory.
That is a brief explanation and with many problems of interpretation no doubt will remain. However here is, I believe, a class of humans who will be healed and maintained to live forever over whom the regenerated sons of God will be priests and kings, reigining over them in eternity. (Rev.22:5)
Now the important CAVEAT. Probably no one reading this post will qualify to be one of these people. If you want to reject Christ the Savior in order to TRY to be "saved" through this manner, it will not work.
Probably no one who is able to discuss the Gospel of Christ and is able to decide for or against receiving Christ as the Savior will ever be included in this special catagory. I would warn anyone who has read this understanding not to try to consider themelves one of these sheep.
Each of us today has to respond to God's command that we believe in His Son and receive the Son as Lord and Savior. I want to respond positively not just because it meets MY need to be saved. But even more that it meets God's need to fulfill His eternal purpose to dispense His life and nature into a group of people for His corporate expression of God mingled with man.