Article 28
What a person believes depends a great deal on their environment, what they grew up believing, and what their parents and close associates believed. If God could wink at the ignorance of pagan intellectuals at Athens (Acts 17:29, 30), surely He can wink a little at some of the differences among Christians today.
However, when confronted with present truth, we cannot expect God to continue to wink at our ignorance but we need to accept the truth as it is revealed to us, even though it is different from that which we have always believed.
Those Jews who did accept Jesus at the First Advent had to give up things they had believed all their lives; things they had learned in Israel, God's true church on earth at the time.
Will there be testing truths at the time of the Second Advent? Things that may seem contrary to that which we have always believed?
Man is not saved by his decision for Christ, neither by his experience nor his new birth and new nature. Salvation is not something that takes place in man, but rather something that HAS taken place in Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.
Salvation is God's work, from beginning to end. Man has no part in it whatsoever. Man cannot come to Christ unless he is drawn by the Holy Spirit. When Jesus is lifted up, He does DRAW ALL MEN TO HIMSELF. All will be drawn to Jesus. Nothing that man does can bring this about.
If man does not resist, he will be saved. It is what man does, resisting, that causes him to be lost.
Note these Scriptures:
"No man can
come to me except the Father which hath sent me
draw him …".
"And I, if I
be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me".
John 6:44; 12:32
Faith and repentance are gifts of God. Romans 12:3; Ephesians 2:8; Acts 5:31; 11:18