PRIESTHOOD OF BELIEVERS AND SALVATION

#848                     PRIESTHOOD OF BELIEVERS AND SALVATION

Scripture  Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-6, NIV                                                   Orig. May 14, 1988

Passage:

Ephesians 2:8-9

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Titus 3:5-6

5 He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior….

Purpose:  Continuing a Church Training study on the Priesthood of the Believer, here relating our understanding to salvation.

Keywords:                              Doctrine                     Priesthood

Timeline/Series:         Baptist Beliefs

Introduction

            Display Cel #6 “We are a holy and royal priesthood with the calling to worship and to witness.  Our priesthood had origins in the Old Testament and is rooted in Christ, the Great High Priest.”
            The above is a link to previous study unit.  Briefly refer to the three-part outline:  The Jewish Priesthood; The High Priesthood of Jesus; and The Priesthood of Believers.  See if there are any comments or questions related to this prior study.

            Display Cel #2.  Underline Chapter 3.  We will major this evening on the ways that the Priesthood of the Believer relates to salvation.  Display the three-part outline of this chapter (Cel #7).

                        The Equality of Access to Salvation

                        The Personal Nature of Grace

                        The Voluntary Nature of Faith

Use Cel #7a as a kind of overview of this triumvirate.  “Every person has the privilege of uncoerced personal access to God’s grace through Jesus Christ.” 

            Pass out the seven question cards.  Responses!

1.      How do the four gospels reveal Jesus as being available to all persons?

2.      Who helped you come to trust Christ as your Saviour?

3.      Do all persons have equality of access to God’s grace for salvation?  What about those who’ve never heard?

4.      Explain:  “Salvation is not church by church, community by community, or nation by nation.  It is lonely soul by lonely soul.”

5.      Explain (Martin Luther): “Before God all Christians have the same standing.”

6.      Dr. Shurden1  points out that Jesus’ love was a barrierless love.  Do you have a problem loving certain people?

7.      What are some ways people try to substitute for the gospel?

I.                    The Equality of Access to Salvation.  John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

A.     The gospel thus portrays Jesus.  Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  Heavy laden—referred to animal loads. John 12:32, “I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men unto me.”

All men without exception?

All without distinction?

B.     Mullins “religious axiom.”

1-Equal access

2-The inalienable right of every soul to deal with God for itself.

3-Article in Friday paper (NSW 5-13-1988).  Interview with Marilyn Vos Savant—identified herself as agnostic.  Would be more open to a God defined in terms of one world religion.

4-Equality of access to God’s grace for salvation is not rooted in human capability.  God is sovereign; His sovereignty can accept a wide corridor of human understanding or a narrow one.

C.     A definition of salvation.

1-Greek—soteria—health, wholeness:  Health as to fragmented bodies; wholeness as to fragmented relations; salvation as to fragmented spirits.

2-Salvation is God’s act on behalf of our helplessness.

D.     A longer look at Ephesians 2:11-22

1-A man-made distinction:  circumcised v. uncircumcised.

2-These distinctions are broken down in Christ.  Actually, Hebrews were divided from each other.  Courts of: Gentiles, Women, Israel, Priests; but even they were restricted from inner portion.  But Christ brought deliverance alike to all.  Ephesians 2:17, “And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.   For through him we both have access. . . .”   Access: to bring to.

E.       Examining Jesus breaking down barriers.

Luke 6:15 Zealot—political distinction

Luke 19:5 Zacchaeus—religious distinction

John 4:27 Woman at the Well—sexual distinction

Mark 7:26 Syrophoenician—racial distinction

Matthew 8:10 Centurion—national distinction

Matthew 11:19 Sinners—social distinction

II.        The Personal Nature of Grace.  I John 1:2, “For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.”

A.      Thus, grace is God acting  to make Himself known where otherwise He would not be known.

1.      “Eternal life” is another reference to salvation.

2.      He is making this truth known to those whose it is.

Apocalypsis—is an unveiling

Phaneroo—is personal revelation

B.     God’s intervention in history was: personal, relational, individualistic.  John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  Matthew 1:23, “Emmanuel”—God with us.

C.     Dealing with a persistent heresy—gnosticism.

1.      Its teachings—Matter is evil/spirit is good.  Salvation was through secret knowledge.

2.      Dealing with it—Jesus was a real person with a real body. He sought to touch lives relationally.  Salvation is through faith in a personal Saviour. It can only be accomplished one person at a time.

3.      Proxies have no entrées to grace.

III.       The Voluntary Nature of Faith.  Exodus 19:8, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.”  Luke 15:11-24 story of the prodigal: without reading all recall that shepherd went for sheep/woman searches for lost coin/the father can only wait until the son chooses to return.

A.     What is at stake?

1.      Freedom

2.      Soul competency

3.      Love cannot be forced.

4.      Conversion can only be by conviction, not by compulsion.

B.     What we can therefore conclude:

1.      Mass evangelism is not a true concept.  Billy Graham early went to train counselors, on site, to pair off with people making decision, even in films.

2.      There can be no proxy salvation.  Parents can not baptize an infant and assume that opens the door to faith.

3.      A state church has always fallen into the pattern of coercive action.  Even in early American life it emerged.  Roger Williams, a Puritan himself, was banished from his Massachusetts church for soul competency. Read p.290 (S3).

4.      The primacy of the individual is never to be so magnified as to produce anarchy.

5.      And the opposite is true as well.  The individual must never be treated as without private worth.

6.      Freedom to express one’s own views must be seen to be inviolate.  “No person . . . shall be in any wise molested, . . . for any differences of opinion (that) . . . do not actually disturb the civil peace . . . colony.”

7.      Changes worldwide can only happen one person at a time.

Conclusion

            Avoid truth by substitution: proxy—infant baptism.

            Avoid truth by addition: Judaizers—become Jews to become Christians.

            Avoid truth by subtraction: humanists—would dispense with sin.

            Avoid truth by multiplication: works—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.

Shurden,Walter  https://www.amazon.com/Baptist-Identity-Four-Fragile-Freedoms/dp/188083720X

Lewis, C.S.  Books - Official Site | CSLewis.com

1Shurden, W.B. (1993).  The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms. (14th Edition). Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc.