Thanks Shawn for some good 'salvation' questions to discuss. Let me begin with Apostle Paul's upgrade to his (holy kiss) greeting you used; For then Peace is 3rd of 3 (not 2/3=0.666 when only Grace & peace), and it's "our" Lord JC
Grace, Mercy, and Peace, from
God, our Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord.
Indeed: the idea of 'personal salvation' needs to be addressed & dressed down; For there is no respect of persons (a.k.a. no partiality) with God, nor with true Christ = Saviour of the world. It's a common theme in both OT & NT that having respect of persons (partiality) is not good (a.k.a. not God).
So yes, 'all must be saved', else not you either if still having partiality. Such all-ness (reverse being none-ness) applies in both Law & Grace modes:
- By the Law: conclusion is "none righteous, no, not one" *
- By Grace: conclusion is all righteous, yes, every one
* Problem with Law mode is: God is one, God & Son are one, we all are one.
Yet every good mystery has lots of twists, and when it comes to saved, it seems even law can save, but also destroys after. Eg: Exodus folk got saved, but all originals saved also got destroyed and/or died on route. Question is, did it even happen, or is it just an allegory story to teach us something?
As for reincarnation, it's a reap what you sowed scenario, so not merciful. Hence Luke 6:36 says be merciful, for your Father is merciful.
Even resurrection has it's flaws, especially if 2 like in John 5:29's resurrection of life(zoe) + resurrection of damnation(krisis): ends badly, with uprising of krISIS, like a current event crISIS of an ISIS Caliphate, again, as if the first wasn't destructive enough.
Even the resurrection of Jesus didn't go well, for he still "upbraided" the eleaven (punn intended) after his resurrection. Seems resurrection of Son of man='anthropos'="liar" in Romans 3:4, could result in one like Son of man coming again, with clouds, and as Revelation 1:7 notes the result of such would be ww "wail" (not rejoice).
So it's a mystery to solve; And in Revelation it's kinda like navigating through the best of spam... until TheEnd told to ENDure unto; Yet we now also have a problem with TheEnd to ENDure unto in modern Bible versions, since they even remove "Christ" from their end verse. So I use KJV.
Here's seven hints for solving the mystery, so that none perish:
- Mt 22:32; Mk 12:21; Lk 20:38 say he is not God of the dead, but God of the living; Which is like allegory saying he is not Law God, but Grace God.
- John 1:17 & 17:3,4 says the only true God sent JC (not CJ), by whom came grace and truth (not law and lie), and he somehow "finished" the work given him to do before the cross.
- 1Timothy 2:3,4 says God our Saviour will have all men saved AND come unto the 'epignosis' knowledge of the truth (as if a higher truth).
- Hebrews 6 says go on unto perfection involves leaving six things, including resurrection of the dead.
- Hebrews 7:26 says Christ went "higher than the heavens" on high to become the harmless us.
- James 1:5 says if any of you lack wisdom to ask God, but also clarifies which God: the God who "upbraideth not".
- 2Peter 3:9 says the Lord is not willing any perish, so is longsuffering to us-ward (perhaps a higher ↑us-ward↑ than us-ward→ of them/us).
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ [be/is] WITH you all. Amen.
