Monday, May 18, 2020

Is Alzheimer's Proof of Time Salvation?



Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain." - 1 Cor. 15:1-2

When the Apostle Paul originally penned down these words to the Corinthians was he aware that sometimes folks have memory lapses, or lose it altogether?

One of the more fanciful interpretations of scripture that I ever heard while still belonging to the Primitive Baptist denomination was a certain elder’s take on this passage.  It was at a bible study, which was a rare thing, at least in my neck of the woods.  He argued that this passage could not possibly be talking about eternal salvation as some people suffer from Alzheimer’s and, consequently, memory loss. And since we believed that God’s people could not lose their eternal salvation, then the only alternative was that a different salvation was under consideration.  Sadly, this made sense to me at the time. But the days of my strange approach to scripture are over, thankfully.

Utterly amazing is the fact that no one else in Christendom makes such an argument. 

Such an argumentation reveals much about the Hardshells and their beloved doctrine of gospel time salvation.  Apparently, they are okay with the failure of gospel time salvation!  If they were not, they would resort to the same philosophizing, simplistic reasoning, and strange argumentations in order to preserve the integrity of time salvation with which they do in regards to eternal salvation.  The fact they do not is an implicit admission that their beloved, novel doctrine is of man, both accomplished and preserved by libertarian free-will. 

We said it, and we will say it again.  If Hardshells believed that gospel time salvation was "of the Lord", then they would be jumping up and down, screaming that an even different salvation than this one must be under consideration! They would be striving with all might, fighting tooth and nail, to preserve its integrity with the same vigor as they do that of eternal salvation!

Why is the existence of Alzheimer’s not also proof that 1 Cor. 15:1-2 can’t be treating of gospel time salvation? Because of what I just wrote above.  Primitive Baptists are okay with gospel time salvation failing in those “few” elect they feel even come to know and believe the gospel in the first place.  It’s up to the born-again child of God to rely upon his own ability to continue in the faith, for in this system, preservation does not include perseverance.

P-E-L-A-G-I-A-N-I-S-M.

No comments: