John wrote “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely<\/em>” (Revelation 22:17). Many of the creeds of men limit, in scope, the salvation from sin which Christ offers through the gospel. This erroneous position is assumed because of a misunderstanding of the nature of man and the nature of God’s dealings with man. In spite of what the creeds say, however, the Lord makes the same offer to all without any respect for persons. God’s love for man manifested at Calvary included the whole world – “he tasted death for every man<\/em>” (Hebrews 2:9). His death was not only for the people who live under the New Testament, but it was “for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament<\/em>” (Hebrews 9:15). This is why John could write “whosoever” in our text. Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest<\/em>” (Matthew 11:28). All were in sin, but all by the Lord are invited to come to Him. Anyone who wants to be saved can be. The Lord is not in the business of saving some while refusing to save others the same way.<\/p>\n As surely as salvation is offered to all in the great commission, (Mark 16; Matthew 28), it is offered conditionally. As John wrote the will of Christ in Revelation 22, he included, “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city<\/em>” (Revelation 22:14). The blessed city of God is entered when the gospel of Jesus Christ is obeyed. The “doing” of His commandments to enter the city makes the entering conditional! Men constantly tell us there is not anything we can do “to take the water of life”, but the Lord says there is something that must be done, Men tell us it was the Lord’s doing and dying that saves us from sin, that there is not anything we can do. His death, His blood, makes possible our salvation, but its benefits are not received and enjoyed by man until man appropriates the benefits of Jesus’ death in gospel obedience. Jesus said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven<\/em>” (Matthew 7:21). “He that doeth” is conditional!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Earl Robertson via “The Instructor”, October 1982, Volume 19, Number 10 John wrote “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). Many of the creeds of men…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[54,47],"class_list":["post-59399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-obedience","tag-salvation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":68824,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/according-to-the-pattern\/","url_meta":{"origin":59399,"position":0},"title":"According to the Pattern","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 15, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jefferson David Tant An interesting passage in Hebrews 8 contains a statement that has an important message for us today, even as it did when it was written thousands of years ago. It mentions the fact that God has a \"pattern\" that is to be respected and followed. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19148,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-does-the-bible-say-about-salvation\/","url_meta":{"origin":59399,"position":1},"title":"What Does the Bible Say About Salvation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Frank Richey via The Elgin Hills Examiner, Vol. 4, Nos. 4-6, April -- June 2009. Notice we do not ask the question, \"What does a particular church teach about salvation?\" The reason for this is that no church has the divine right to teach anything about salvation other than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/Bible-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11890,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-the-bible-sufficient\/","url_meta":{"origin":59399,"position":2},"title":"Is the Bible Sufficient?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne Chamberlain The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said, \"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work\" (II Timothy 3:16-17). In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Old-Bible-233x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2147,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-believing-that-jesus-was-god-has-much-to-do-with-salvation\/","url_meta":{"origin":59399,"position":3},"title":"Does believing that Jesus was God has much to do with salvation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I browsed through The Deity of Christ While on Earth and noticed that you mention that Jesus did not use the power to create while on earth. However, in John 9 we have the blind man from birth who received sight. Notice especially verse 32; Jesus\u00a0created\u00a0sight in this man.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9153,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/isnt-it-better-to-embrace-the-salvation-army-as-part-of-gods-gift-to-humanity\/","url_meta":{"origin":59399,"position":4},"title":"Isn’t it better to embrace the Salvation Army as part of God’s gift to humanity?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: God has given the Salvation Army a charitable nature and blessed it with members who similarly want to be 'like Jesus' who himself went against the conventions of the day to become involved with people who were poor, sick and rejected by society. Rather than narrowly home in on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":511,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-about-the-thief-on-the-cross\/","url_meta":{"origin":59399,"position":5},"title":"What about the thief on the cross?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 14, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am still a little confused about what I need to actually do. I heard about baptism, but they say that the thief on the cross wasn\u2019t baptized. Isn\u2019t he in heaven? Answer: I appreciate the time taken to ask questions concerning your salvation. Personally, I don\u2019t believe the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}