Jan51
Well-Known Member
I am not good at finding old threads on a particular subject, so I did not find the thread that discusses salvation, the Old Testament, and OSAS. I wanted to look and see if there was any discussion of Job and Psalms in that thread.
Until I began reading Rapture Ready and then Rapture Forums, I had thought OSAS was for all believers of all time. I slowly began changing my thinking over the years and now feel pretty sure it was not for the OT saints. I have recently been reading Psalms, and with my current mindset, I am seeing things I didn't see before. I'm noticing how David is constantly speaking to God of his integrity and his righteous living, which to us in the church age seems kind of prideful or even unrealistic.
Living a life of righteousness and integrity was what was required of the one who believed in God in the Old Testament. In our prayers today we might tell God of our faith in Him and His promises, that we are trusting Him not Self: our focus is to be on believing. But their focus was on living a righteous life, which God promised to bless with physical blessings.
That thinking about David caused me to take another look at the book of Job, so I glanced through that, and saw it with new eyes. Before I had seen Job as full of pride, and his friends as totally not getting it, but now I think they did have it pretty right. But they also made the mistake of seeing God's way as a formula: if we do this, He must do that, and they did not understand God's sovereignty or His inscrutable ways. They all set themselves up as judges of God.
Of course, we also see in that story that the danger in living a righteous life can certainly be pride. This is why we can never be saved by living a sin-free life (if that were possible); if we did, we would be proud of our righteousness, which is a sin, so there goes the sin-free life! But I do feel that understanding OSAS correctly leads to a better understanding of the whole Bible, and to the blessings given to the church.
Until I began reading Rapture Ready and then Rapture Forums, I had thought OSAS was for all believers of all time. I slowly began changing my thinking over the years and now feel pretty sure it was not for the OT saints. I have recently been reading Psalms, and with my current mindset, I am seeing things I didn't see before. I'm noticing how David is constantly speaking to God of his integrity and his righteous living, which to us in the church age seems kind of prideful or even unrealistic.
Living a life of righteousness and integrity was what was required of the one who believed in God in the Old Testament. In our prayers today we might tell God of our faith in Him and His promises, that we are trusting Him not Self: our focus is to be on believing. But their focus was on living a righteous life, which God promised to bless with physical blessings.
That thinking about David caused me to take another look at the book of Job, so I glanced through that, and saw it with new eyes. Before I had seen Job as full of pride, and his friends as totally not getting it, but now I think they did have it pretty right. But they also made the mistake of seeing God's way as a formula: if we do this, He must do that, and they did not understand God's sovereignty or His inscrutable ways. They all set themselves up as judges of God.
Of course, we also see in that story that the danger in living a righteous life can certainly be pride. This is why we can never be saved by living a sin-free life (if that were possible); if we did, we would be proud of our righteousness, which is a sin, so there goes the sin-free life! But I do feel that understanding OSAS correctly leads to a better understanding of the whole Bible, and to the blessings given to the church.
