Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. ASV
Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. KJV
Mar 16:16 The one believing and being baptized will be saved. And the one not believing will be condemned. LITV
Mar 16:16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. MKJV
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COMMENTARY
Logic;
From this verse we may conclude;
. All who believe the Gospel are saved. Now the question is, is this
conclusion based on sound Biblical logic? To answer, we construct the
following syllogism with reference to
Luke 8:13 ;... And those on the rock [Rocky] are they who, when
they have heard, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who
for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
. All who believe the Gospel are saved
. Rocky believed the Gospel tf..
. Rocky was saved.
But we know that Rocky both believed the Gospel and was not saved. So
what’s wrong with our logic? The same thing that is wrong with
the logic based on
Acts 16:31 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Our syllogism might look like this;...
. All who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are saved;
. RCs, JWs, Arminians and Mormons believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; tf..
. RCs, JWs, Arminians and Mormons are saved.
In both syllogisms the premises are true but the conclusions are false.
The form of the argument is -valid- but because the conclusion is false
the argument is unsound. Why? Because the word "All" lacks a category
of universe and is easily mistaken for an absolute universal. In
other words the verse is taken out of context from the rest of the
Bible. And unless we place it in the universe of discourse within the
bounds of the rest of the Bible we end up in error. In the case of Acts
16:31 the "universe of discourse" is the proper identity of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You don't just tell people to "believe in Jesus" without
telling them who He is & what He has done. Otherwise they may very
easily end up believing in a "Jesus" that is not identified by the
Scriptures. This is exactly what RCs,
JWs, Arminians and Mormons are doing and is why they are not saved.
They are believing in some other "Jesus" than the one described in the
Bible.
To further the example we observe... since God
uses the truth of the Gospel to save His people no one can be saved if
he believes a false gospel. So we may now conclude;...
. All who believe a false gospel are lost.
Is this proposition true? To answer we compose another syllogism;
. All who believe a false gospel are lost.
. Peter and the Galatians believed a false gospel. tf..
. Peter and the Galatians were all lost.
But again we know that that is false; Peter was saved, even when he
gave credence to the false gospel of the Judaizers. Again the premises
are true but the conclusion is false. Therefore the argument is
unsound. Again because the "All" is not qualified by a universe of
discourse within the bounds of the rest of Scripture. Scripture clearly
demonstrates that a saved person can succumb to the sin of giving ear
to a false gospel, otherwise the entire book of Galatians makes no
sense.
Many examples could be given of an improper use of logic which isolates
a verse while ignoring the rest of Scripture. For example, according to
Romans 3 we may say that all men are unrighteous for "There is none
righteous no not one." Our argument looks like this;
. All men are unrighteous;
. Moses is a man; tf
. Moses is unrighteous.
But Moses is in the presence of God and Scripture teaches that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. Moses cannot be
unrighteous if he is in heaven.
Now after all that we may observe that the verse says no such thing as
"All who believe the Gospel are saved"! It says "He that believes -and
is baptized- SHALL BE saved" which is to say the future tense. Moreover
the verb for believe is in the AORIST tense which is to say; Past
tense. Therefore, a strict literal rendering might look like; "The one
having believed [in the past] shall be saved [in the future]". And in
fact Young’s Literal Translation does well here with;
"he who hath believed, and hath been baptized, shall be saved; and he who hath not believed, shall be condemned."
The verbs "hath believed" "been baptized" and "hath not believed" are
all properly rendered in the past, as well as "shall be saved" and "shall be condemned" which is in the future.
This language is a far cry from saying "All who believe are now, at
this present time, saved". To be sure the Bible does teach that folks
are presently saved and are known by the fact that they have come to
know and believe the Gospel. But that is not what the language of the
Greek grammar conveys in this verse.
We have the statement; he that believeth not shall be damned.
This means that all unbelievers are under condemnation. This is
supported by such verses as John 3:17,18. This is important
because there are some hereticks who claim that the elect are
"saved" before they hear & believe the Gospel. Some define "saved"
as "justified before, or in the sight of God". This happened,
they claim, at the cross. That is to say all the elect were justified
when Christ died & before that none were justified. And Yes! They
are consistent. They say all the OT saints were not
Justified until Calvary! How they can claim that such people
were still saved I don’t know. Be that as it may these
people say all the elect were justified before God long before
they hear & believe the Gospel. In that sense they say they are
"saved". This resolves into -Justified- unbelievers walking
around dead in their sin, which is Biblically absurd. The Scriptures
plainly declare both here in this passage & others that all who do
not believe the Gospel are under condemnation. So in order to maintain
their heresy they now must say that a person can be saved while he
is still under condemnation at the same time. But that only forces a
definition of salvation that is foreign to the Bible.
If you get nothing else from this passage get this. Anybody who does
not believe the Christian Gospel is not a Christian. And anybody who
says -unbelievers- are saved is a liar. The Apostle John said;
Everyone transgressing and not abiding in the doctrine of Christ does
not have God. The one abiding in the doctrine of Christ, this one has
the Father and the Son. 2 John 9.
Unbelievers for sure are not abiding in the doctrine of Jesus Christ
and John says such people do not have God. That means they are unsaved;
unregenerate; still dead in their sin and they will stay that way until
God regenerates and saves them. And how does God regenerate and save
His people? Right back to this verse in Mark... He uses the preaching
of the Gospel. All who believe the Gospel shall be saved and by further
examination may be regarded as presently saved if they meet the
Biblical definition of a Christian. And all who do not believe the
Gospel are ipso facto unsaved; unregenerate because they are under the
damnation of God according to this verse and people who are under
damnation are no Christians.
Mark
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