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| Solomon the idolator was also an elect child of God saved by grace. |
It was as though this minister saw the theological difficulty of Solomon's life for Lordship theology and sought to relieve the pressure by implying that Solomon might not have been one of God's elect - which of course would explain his idolatry and turning from God in his later years as a result of his many fornications. Upon further consideration, I found it incredible that a minister would actually suggest such a thing in light of the following observations:
- God Loved Solomon (Nehemiah 13:26) - for those who understand that salvation is by sovereign grace based on a covenant in eternity past wherein God set his love upon a chosen people (Ephesians 1:4-5) this alone is a compelling case for the certainty of Solomon's eternal salvation. For those who believe that God loves every man - including those whom he sends to hell - this would not resolve the matter. We would invite such to examine the bible's teaching regarding God's disposition toward Esau (Romans 9:13) the foolish, the workers of iniquity, and them that loveth violence (Psalm 5:5, 11:5). But there is more evidence...
- Solomon Loved God (I Kings 3:3) - for those who understand that the carnal mind is enmity against God (Romans 8:7) and that the natural man has no thought of God (Psalm 10:4) much less love for him (Galatians 5:22), this is yet another incredibly compelling data point - one that absolutely ensures that Solomon was a born again child of God. But there's more...
- Solomon Wrote Scripture (Proverbs 1:1) - this point was actually brought up to the minister who suggested that Solomon might not be a child of God. If I recall correctly, some appeal to God's sovereignty was made and perhaps to Balaam's ass, but at a minimum it was suggested that God COULD use an unregenerate man to write scripture if he so chose. At first blush, this argument might seem to hold some degree of merit, but it is found to be greatly wanting when one considers that...
- The Writers of Scripture Were "Holy Men of God" (II Peter 1:21) - Peter clearly states this in his second epistle. If this is true then either Solomon was a child of God bound for heaven based on the work of Christ, or what he wrote should not be considered part of the canon of scripture. And yet...
- Solomon was an Idolator (I Kings 11:4-10) - some believe that a child of God simply could not commit such a grievous sin, but the life of Solomon makes it clearly evident that this is NOT the case. John the apostle furthermore affirms that it is entirely possible for a child of God to practice the sin of idolatry (I John 5:21).
So the case for Solomon as a born again child of God is rock solid and there are a number of logical consequences that follow:
- The Eternally Saved are Saved by Grace - which means that they are saved IN SPITE OF what they have done in rebellion to God. This is true not only of Solomon, but of all men. Indeed if we were to be made aware of the idolatry that exists in the hearts of every born again person in this life, we might find our view of Solomon's idolatry a little less severe and marvel all the more regarding the saving love and mercy of God toward an underserving and sinful people.
- Lordship Salvation is False - because Solomon clearly does not conform to the standard of total commitment or perseverance that Lordship theology requires.
- God's People are Eternally Saved by What Christ Did - indeed this is the very gospel message, that what man could NOT do, God has accomplished for his people by the intercessory work of the Lord Jesus Christ on their behalf plus absolutely nothing else.
Solomon was saved by grace in spite of his idolatry,
just as all of God's elect children are.
This article here gives me more encouragement that the grace of God is enough for those who have faith only in Jesus' Christ.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot. I will be sharing this to many others
Thanks for your response. It gave me the thought - Why on earth would we ever believe that God's grace is NOT enough to accomplish the salvation of his people? It is encouraging to me to know that "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him (i.e., "by Christ"), seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Heb 7:25) Indeed if this is not true, we'll all be lost.
DeleteWe should serve Christ with our lives, but we should do that knowing that our salvation is not based on our service, but on the perfect intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. I think if people recognized that Christ did a PERFECT work, they would have less trouble accepting that the efficacy of his work is not in any way diminished by our manifold imperfections.
God bless.
Being a Primitive Baptist, do you deny the Fulton Confession of Faith which had a chapter entitled 'Of The Perseverance Of The Saints'?
ReplyDeleteAnd what of the Kehukee Association in 1977?
"We believe that such as are converted, justified and called by His grace, shall persevere in holiness, and never fall away."
I believe that the salvation of God's people was established in the covenant of election before the foundation of the world wherein God chose a people to be holy and without blame before him in love (Eph 1:4-5), that those chosen are a finite number and not all of humanity (Matt 25:41), that he knows them by name and refers to them as "his people" (John 10:3, Matt 1:21), and that he gives unto them eternal life and they shall never perish (John 10:28), and that the holiness without which no man shall see God (Heb 12:14), in which all of God's people are preserved, is not of their works (II Tim 1:9) but is nothing other than the imputed righteousness of Christ which makes man legally righteous and perfect before the throne of God (Rom 5:19, Heb 10:14).
DeleteMoreover, I believe that God's people are admonished to walk a manner worthy of their calling (II Thes 1:11) in obedience to the commandments of Christ (John 14:15) and in accordance with the thanksgiving that attends the understanding that their salvation is the result of God's sovereign mercy (Tit 3:5) upon an utterly undeserving and incapable people (Ps 14:1, Rom 5:6), and that such obedience is instrumental to the salvation of God's people from this untoward generation (Acts 2:40) by removing them from the temporal consequences of practicing sin in this life, but that this obedience has precisely NOTHING to do with how one either obtains or maintains eternal salvation, which was the result of the obedience of one (Rom 5:19) in a perfect work (Deut 32:4) performed entirely by the Lord Jesus Christ ALONE (Is 63:3) on behalf of his people as their substitute. (Is 53:5)
I'm interested in knowing if you believe that Solomon was a child of God and if there are issues with my line of reasoning.
Thanks for taking the time to inquire. May God bless our studies and understanding.
Sorry, that should have been 1777 on the Kehukee Association Articles.
ReplyDeleteSir, I agree with about 90% of your comment, but you did not answer my question. I asked a question based on your argument against perseverance in light of what your very own forefathers had to say on the subject, but instead you choose to give me with a brief summary basically of your view of the entirety of salvation.
Yes I believe that Solomon was regenerate, though I disagree that he can be used to argue against perseverance. I agree with those men who think he did repent of his backsliding. Admittedly, though, one can argue for or against this evidence. But here's the important point. There are very clear passages in the Bible which teach that the regenerate will persevere.
"The righteous shall hold on his way" (Job 17:9), yet you're trying to say that Solomon was saved into heaven though he didn't hold on his way. If Solomon was regenerate then he "held on his way", despite what we may gather from looking at the incomplete record of his life. We learn as well that Christ achieved reconciliation for those who "continue in the faith" (Col. 1:20-23), and that we are the house of Christ "if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end" (Heb. 3:6).
Case studies such as Solomon should not be relied upon as proof texts when there are passages in God's Word which address the matter clearly. This is what I would really like for you to consider Brother.
The saints persevere because they are preserved:
"And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me" (Jeremiah 32:40)
If the Word of God states that the regenerate "will not depart" then it is fruitless to try to find a case in scripture of one saint who did depart, but was saved to heaven anyway.
Some in your order are coming to see the truth on these matters.
"...perseverance and preservation are two sides of the same coin." (Zack Guess)
I hope you will consider these thoughts.
A fundamental tenet of Old Baptist theology is that the bible is the sole rule of faith and practice established by passages such as Matt 4:4 and II Tim 3:16-17. Strange times are these when a Baptist is accused of evading a question because he uses only scripture to substantiate his position rather than the Confession du Jour. The idea that one must conform to a light revision of Presbyterianism in order to be considered an old Baptist is novel to say the least. This idea is obliterated when one considers that there were old Baptists prior to the confessions and thus their becoming an old Baptist was not the result of ever having signed a confession. I would admonish you to read my blog post entitled “Calvinism is a Red Herring” in this regard. While it is specifically speaking of Calvinism, the same precept could be applied to “Formal Creedalism.” Indeed, proving that someone is in lock-step with some earlier creed does PRECISELY NOTHING to prove that one’s position is in keeping with the teachings of scripture. It is therefore an exercise that does nothing to substantiate the truth of one’s position and thus is an abysmal waste of time.
DeleteThat said, you make a number of statements that I would like to examine:
KEVIN FRALICK: "The righteous shall hold on his way" (Job 17:9), yet you're trying to say that Solomon was saved into heaven though he didn't hold on his way.”
TETH: I’m saying that Solomon was eternally saved based ENTIRELY upon the imputed righteousness of Christ and that his eternal salvation was not in any way, shape, or fashion, dependent upon works of righteousness which he has done. (Tit 3:5) Indeed, how can anything else be considered salvation by sovereign grace? Are you suggesting that if Solomon did not “hold on his way” that he would not be eternally saved? To do so is to place an obligation upon Solomon that the bible says was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. (Is 53:5) It is to require the obedience of two for righteousness, when the bible teaches that the righteousness of God’s children is based entirely on the obedience of “one.” (Rom 5:19)
KEVIN FRALICK: We learn as well that Christ achieved reconciliation for those who "continue in the faith" (Col. 1:20-23)
TETH: So Christ reconciled those who meet the condition of “continuing in the faith?” That’s a very popular concept in Christendom and you will no doubt have little difficulty finding fellowship among the professing masses who would affirm such, but it is most certainly not the teaching of salvation that is “not according to our works.” (II Tim 1:9) Indeed if our “continuing in the faith” is a condition of eternal salvation, then Christ did not meet all of the conditions and salvation is not by sovereign grace. To believe this is nothing short of affirming that something in “life” could, in fact, separate us from the love of God – a notion entirely foreign to Paul’s argument. (Rom 8:31-39) The doctrine you are promoting is what I call “both/and-ism” or “antinomy-Calvinism.” It is the self-contradictory teaching that salvation is “all of God” yet “man is responsible.”
KEVIN FRALICK: we are the house of Christ "if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end" (Heb. 3:6).”
DeleteTETH: So to populate heaven Christ had to do His perfect work and you had to “hold fast… unto the end?” I thought Christ’s perfect work fulfilled the demands of the law on behalf of his people? While I can understand why some people come to this conclusion, I cannot understand how they can call such an arrangement salvation by sovereign grace based on the work of Christ alone.
TETH: The sense in which these things are intended is in the here and now. Peter was no less an eternally saved man after denying Christ as he was beforehand. But he most definitely lost the joy of his salvation through this horrible act of betrayal. It is in this sense, the temporal sense, that he could be said to have “lost his salvation” at that time, because through disobedience he stepped out of fellowship with the Lord and suffered great consequences in his own life and conscience as a result. It is certain that all of this was very grievous to him, but it had absolutely NO bearing on his eternal salvation whatsoever, neither indeed could it, because Christ’s work on behalf of his people was a perfect work that was not dependent upon the acts of men whatsoever.
KEVIN FRALICK: Case studies such as Solomon should not be relied upon as proof texts when there are passages in God's Word which address the matter clearly. This is what I would really like for you to consider Brother.
TETH: What the bible states VERY plainly is that the salvation of God’s people is the result of a covenant and that it is based ENTIRELY upon the intercessory work of the Lord Jesus Christ on their behalf (Rom 5:19, Heb 10:14, 9:12) and that our eternal salvation has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with works of righteousness done by us. (Tit 3:5) That is VERY plain and it presents a great difficulty for your position, which insists upon man’s works of perseverance in order to get the job done. That is completely contrary to preaching the finished work of Christ. You should ask yourself the question – did Christ accomplish the salvation of his people? Is anything else required? More to the point perhaps, you should ask, is there a man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity? (Ps 32:2) A sober answer to THAT question pours a bucket of cold water on any system that claims to be “all of grace” yet also insists upon man’s acts of righteous perseverance.
KEVIN FRALICK: “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me" (Jeremiah 32:40) If the Word of God states that the regenerate "will not depart" then it is fruitless to try to find a case in scripture of one saint who did depart, but was saved to heaven anyway.
TETH: Is sin a turning away from God? Undeniably, yes. Do believers sin? Absolutely. (I John 1:8) It follows then, that any valid definition of “shall not depart” in Jeremiah 32 must be one that accommodates the undeniable reality of remaining sin in the lives of believers. To deny this is to logically posit that God’s people walk in sinless perfection. To accommodate the reality of remaining sin is to undermine what you imply is meant by “shall not depart.” So we see that this passage is in reference to the certainty of their standing before God as a result of the intercessory work of Christ, who most certainly DID NOT DEPART and whose righteousness is THEIR righteousness through imputation.
KEVIN FRALICK: Some in your order are coming to see the truth on these matters. "...perseverance and preservation are two sides of the same coin." (Zack Guess)
DeleteTETH: If by “coming to see the truth on these matters” you mean that people are embracing that salvation is both “all of God” and yet “man is also responsible” then they most certainly are NOT moving toward the truth – but toward the self-contradictory errors of antinomy-Calvinism and Lordship Salvation. I would not affirm the statement that you attribute to brother Guess, neither do I know for certain what he meant by that, without further context. What I would say is that preservation is the work of Christ’s perfect obedience (Jude 1, Deut 32:4, Rom 5:19); where perseverance is a work of obedience to which God’s people are exhorted and admonished (Col 1:20-23) and if our eternal salvation is in any sense contingent upon our obedience to those admonitions, then salvation is not by sovereign grace, but by works. To suggest such is nothing short of an insistence upon the obedience of two and a denial of the efficacy of the obedience of one.
1 or 2 Corinthians GOD states to King David that Solomon shall be my son and I shall be his FATHER
Delete"And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts: for I have chosen him TO BE MY SON, AND I WILL BE HIS FATHER." (I Chronicles 28:6)
DeleteAmen brother Dan, thanks for sharing the truth of the scriptures! ❤️
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind encouragement. God bless and keep the faith.
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