My dear readers,

Answers to Remaining Questions from Calvary Pandan Church Camp 2025 (17)

Question 1: When we approached Christ to be saved, you mentioned that we should not approach Him with the intention to go to heaven but with the knowledge that we are sinners in need of a Saviour. However, for the people in Jesus’s time, they approached Jesus with the intention of being healed of their diseases, and they were praised by the Lord for their faith. So why is coming to Christ with the intention of going to heaven wrong but not the intention of being healed of their diseases?

Answer 1: The motive behind our beliefs is as important as the who or what we believe. If the motivation is to go to heaven, then the sinner did not believe because of the sins he has committed against God. The gospel preached will be “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will enter heaven!” Who does not want to enter heaven without repentance? Entering heaven is the final outcome of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it is not the motive for the sinner’s faith. The essence of the gospel is declared by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4: “¹Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; ²By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. ³For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; ⁴And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”

Jesus Christ did His miracles to evidence His claim to be God incarnate! The attribute of God that Christ demonstrated to prove His deity was His omnipotence, for the multitude would not understand or experience His omniscience and His omnipresence, since they are all bound by space and time. To have faith in Christ that He is the Son of God through the demonstration of His omnipotence was very challenging for the multitude because they could see that Christ was a mere mortal like them, because of His human traits like hunger, eating, drinking, tiredness and the need for sleep. How could this man standing before them be the Almighty God who created heaven and the earth? In those passages, the faith they exercised was to see the man Christ Jesus standing there, who is indeed the God Most High! They lived in the time when the gospel that we believed in was in the process of being fulfilled before their eyes. The Old Testament saints, by faith, looked forward to what Christ did through the Levitical sacrificial system that God established. The New Testament saints, with the completed gospel, also by faith, looked back to what God did through the sacrifice of His once-for-all sacrifice by offering His perfect and sinless body to die on the cross for the sins of the world. The saints who lived during the time of Christ believed in His humanity by sight and at the same time His deity by faith through His teaching and miracles. Their faith was genuine and, in some cases, great as Christ testified when these believers could see His deity despite His humanity!

Luke 7:1-10: “¹Now when he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum. ²And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear unto him, was sick, and ready to die. ³And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. ⁴And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly, saying, That he was worthy for whom he should do this: ⁵For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. ⁶Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof: ⁷Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed. ⁸For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. ⁹When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. ¹⁰And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick.”

It was not the healing but the One who healed, whose claim that He is God incarnate, that demonstrated their genuine faith. Today, salvation is through the preaching of the complete gospel that must be according to the Holy Scriptures for sinners to be saved. If they believe in the false gospel, this will be clearly evidenced by the false Christ they manifest through their words and carnal conduct. If they believe in the gospel according to the Holy Scriptures, but not sincerely, they will manifest the false Christ by their words and conduct. By their good works, according to the Holy Scriptures, believers will show forth the reality of their salvation in Christ.

Question 2: Should we judge someone’s salvation based on our experiences with him and how he leads his Christian life? Example: unwilling to worship the Lord on the Sabbath day but claims he is Christian, listening to CCM, not practising biblical separation, etc.

Answer 2: The experiences we need to have to conclude if someone is or is not a believer have to be long-term and intimate, whereby the person's whole life is visibly experienced and known. This includes his family, church, work, recreation, spiritual, and private life with God, such as his prayer and the study of God's Word. A person who is born again, like anyone alive living on earth, lives in the spiritual realm and for spiritual things. Attending church for worship and Christian fellowship, prayer and studying God's Word are heavenly activities on earth that all who are spiritually alive would delight in. There may be lapses due to the struggle against the flesh, where spiritual things may lose their taste, but the Lord promised that He would restore such a one via chastisement as a loving Father would do for his wayward child. Hebrews 12:4-8: “⁴Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. ⁵And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: ⁶For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. ⁷If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? ⁸But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” When there is no chastisement, the problem is far more serious than not attending church!

As described in the question, the above carnal manifestations of behaviour are committed by genuine believers as much as by false ones. However, if these are long-term and absent from any struggle to repent of them because they do not see them as sinful, then perhaps, salvation might be false. A born-again believer cannot bear to be away from spiritual activities like worship with God’s people on Sunday, reading and studying the Bible, which is to hear God’s voice, experiencing Christian fellowship with God’s children, etc. and not feel miserable! The Holy Spirit who dwells in him will convict him of his waywardness, and he experiences no peace within until repentance, and he returns to Christian worship and fellowship.