The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum All Mixed Up

AJC,

Let me limit my answer to adults and not address infants or children. If one has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, then of necessity that person will express true evangelical repentance and exercise a true living in Christ. The result of doing so is "justification", i.e., God pronounces/declares that person to be "not guilty" based upon the vicarious substitutionary atonement of the Lord Christ. Simply put, that person has been delivered from judgment at that very moment. (cf. Rom 5:1, 2; 8:1ff) Therefore the matter of "sanctification" is a non issue since justification includes all that is necessary unto salvation. Sanctification is simply the outworking of one's justification... i.e., justification declares one holy and sanctification is the process whereby one begins to be transformed into being holy. (cf. 2Cor 5:17; Eph 1:4; 2:10; James 2:26)

It is utterly impossible that a believer could add to the righteousness of Christ which is imputed to him. Salvation is ALL of grace and nothing of works. (Rom 4:16; 11:6; Eph 2:5, 8, 9) Not even the tiniest of "good deeds" can add to the perfect cleansing blood of the Lord Christ. A believer is clothed with Christ's perfect righteousness, so what more could one possibly be in need of? (cf. Isa 53; Zech 3:1-7; Matt 1:21)

Thus Paul speaks of the death of the believer as going to be in the presence of the Lord, i.e., there is no "intermediate state or place":

2Cor 5:4-9 (ASV) "For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life. Now he that wrought us for this very thing is God, who gave unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight); we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. Wherefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing unto him."

As to 1Cor 3, one would have to perform some miraculous textual gymnastics to find anything that even hints of purgatory in that text. The very notion of the Roman State Church's doctrine of purgatory is antithetical to the biblical doctrine of salvation, i.e., Sola Gratia, Sola Fide and Solus Christus. Again, it is ALL of grace and nothing of works.

In that marvelous grace,