Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea
This from a different thread ... still would like some feedback from the 3 steppers lurking about ...
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Some say the thief on the cross was saved under the old covenant ... what does that mean to you,?
Some insist, that the covenant has no bite until the death of the testator yet the bible tells us Jesus promises the thief salvation before He (Jesus dies).
and ....
not to get too technical ....
the thief dies after Jesus dies ...
...
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heh! You said, "technical"... heh!
It is interesting to argue this from a dispensational or even anti-Dispensational point of view. But what if dispensationalism had never been invented?
My only point in arguing here is to say that anyone who was ever "saved" from anything was saved by the grace of God. Remember, even Noah was "saved" by grace (
Genesis 6:8). "Oh," you say (well not "
you" but "
they"), Noah was "saved" by building the ark! Works!
Not so, at least I don't think so. Where does it say that Noah was "saved" by that boat?
1 Peter 3:20-21 says that it was the "longsuffering of God that waited..." and then attributes Noah's salvation not to the boat, but to the flood. The "eight souls" were "saved by water..."
Ah, ha! Water "saves" us? No, for Peter tortuously goes on to say that the obvious effects of the water are in fact meaningless. What ultimately saves us in Peter's view is the resurrection of Jesus Christ (
1 Peter 3:21).
So after all of that, I would say that the thief was "saved" by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his faith in that event. The thief himself said, "Remember me
when you come into your kingdom..."
The Dispy style arguments, in my view, fail here. What ultimately matters was that the thief had faith in Jesus Christ, and the fact that Jesus Himself was able to prove Himself faithful.