Receiving the gift that's offered

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blhowes

Puritan Board Professor
Have you ever had one of those moments when you wondered why you use to believe something, and why you didn't question that belief at the time?

Recently, I've been thinking about a verse that's very common to most evangelical Christians:
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.​
The verse is used when people are brought down 'Roman's Road'. We were always taught, when you get to the part about the gift, that its important that the person you're talking to understands that there's something they need to do - they need to receive the gift. God offers the gift of eternal life to them, but just like at Christmas time, when somebody receives a gift, it doesn't become theirs until they reach out and take the gift. Its a choice they need to make, nobody can make it for them.

It dawned on me how strange it is to talk about a gift in that way. Its rarely (never) been my experience that somebody would give a gift to 'whoever will receive it'. Not once did my parents grab a gift from under the tree and tell us its for any of us, whoever will receive the gift. No, a gift was always given by a somebody to a specific person.
 
Have you ever had one of those moments when you wondered why you use to believe something, and why you didn't question that belief at the time?

Recently, I've been thinking about a verse that's very common to most evangelical Christians:
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.​
The verse is used when people are brought down 'Roman's Road'. We were always taught, when you get to the part about the gift, that its important that the person you're talking to understands that there's something they need to do - they need to receive the gift. God offers the gift of eternal life to them, but just like at Christmas time, when somebody receives a gift, it doesn't become theirs until they reach out and take the gift. Its a choice they need to make, nobody can make it for them.

It dawned on me how strange it is to talk about a gift in that way. Its rarely (never) been my experience that somebody would give a gift to 'whoever will receive it'. Not once did my parents grab a gift from under the tree and tell us its for any of us, whoever will receive the gift. No, a gift was always given by a somebody to a specific person.

While I agree that the theology is poor, I understand what they are trying to say. Mostly because I used to say it too! When proclaiming the gospel, they are trying to describe faith as a response. Now, I know we can look at things now and say faith is a gift from God as well, but you don't hear the Apostles preaching the gospel that way. They say repent and believe. Today's bad theological representation of that is "take the gift." I'm not sure it's so ridiculous to phrase it like that, though.
 
While I agree that the theology is poor, I understand what they are trying to say. Mostly because I used to say it too! When proclaiming the gospel, they are trying to describe faith as a response. Now, I know we can look at things now and say faith is a gift from God as well, but you don't hear the Apostles preaching the gospel that way. They say repent and believe. Today's bad theological representation of that is "take the gift." I'm not sure it's so ridiculous to phrase it like that, though.
I would probably agree that using the phrase that way isn't ridiculous (though I have problems with so much emphasis being put on the person's decision). Perhaps what's most ridiculous is that I had never questioned it before.
 
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