Website owner:  James Miller

  THE EVANGELICAL ASKS THE WRONG QUESTION AND CONFUSES HIMSELF     
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   The evangelical (Baptist and many others) asks the wrong 
   question.  They ask, "Is he saved?" or "Is he born again?"  By 
   this question what they really mean is, "Has he at some time in 
   the past performed a certain act (which they term 'being 
   saved') which involves making a profession of faith in Christ?"  
   It is something like a ritual that supposedly gives a 
   guaranteed ticket to heaven. The question they should ask is, 
   "Is he a righteous, God-fearing man; a man who loves God and is 
   faithful to him?"  The criterion they use for deciding if a 
   person is a true Christian or not, a true child of God or not, 
   is wrong.  They may claim that if a person is "truly" born 
   again he automatically loves God and is faithful to him.  But 
   in fact their actual test is an act, a ritual (albeit quite 
   possibly a sincere one at the time).  They are engaging in 
   specious logic and being deceived by their own sophistic 
   arguments.  As often happens with complicated doctrine, 
   difficult logic often leads to conclusions that don't square 
   with practical facts and Reality. 

   Because evangelicals ask the wrong question they see other 
   people wrong and they see themselves wrong --- they see 
   everything wrong.  They are the deceived.  These basic 
   assumptions cause them to make fallacious judgments with regard 
   to others and themselves.  Their basic assumptions distort and 
   warp their vision of others, of themselves, and of spiritual 
   truth in general.  They are children of Error; the Self-
   deceived.  Salvation is a question of spiritual substance not 
   one of having said some magic words, performed some mystical 
   act, had some mystical experience, or complied with some magic 
   formula.  God is not a God of sham or farce, not a God to be 
   fooled.  He looks at substance.  It is not what you say but 
   what you are that counts.  It is important that we judge others 
   and ourselves according to substance and not according to some 
   past act.  This makes making judgments of others more difficult 
   because only God really knows the heart, only God can really 
   judge substance (the evangelical has a very easy time passing 
   judgment on others because his test is very cut and dried and 
   easy to apply --- you just need to get the answer to a simple 
   question).

   All this is not to say that it is not important for a person, 
   at some time in his life, to turn away from sin and the ways of 
   this world and to turn to God.  That is important and 
   constitutes a very important act in your life, but it is not 
   that act that saves you; it is your love of God and 
   faithfulness to him that saves you.  It is of critical 
   importance that one understands that salvation is a question of 
   spiritual substance and not of past actions or past religious 
   commitments (even if sincere).  Being faithful to God is a hard 
   road requiring self-denial, restraint and discipline.  It is 
   doing right and eschewing evil out of faithfulness and loyalty 
   to him because we love him.  It is a road that creates 
   character.  It is a road exemplified by such Biblical 
   characters as Abraham, David and Job in the Old Testament.