God determines justice; people do not! (Ezek 18:25). It does not seem fair that the hand who works only part of the day gets the same reward as those who work all the day or most of the day (Mat 20:1-16). God sets the hours and the pay. There are no unions for fairness in spiritual wages. What the Squire pays is the prevailing wages for the workers. In our eyes, that seems unfair!
What seems even less fair is that the worker who endures the work most of the day may get no reward but punishment. Of course, the pay for the willing worker, whether for all the day or just the latter portion of it, is eternal life. On the other hand, the worker who is faithful most of the day but tires and quits the labor, his pay is less than nothing; the pay for sinning is amazingly unfair in our eyes:
But now being
made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto
holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 6:22-23)
To us, that does not seem fair, but it is equal justice in the Court of God. In order to be paid a day’s wages, the worker must still be in the vineyard when the pay is meted out. Those who have left the vineyard early, get no pay from the Landlord, but suffers death because he has no means of nourishment. Of course, that is a parable, but is applicable to the pay-scale offered by God who is the owner of the Vine. (Note that Jesus is often symbolized by the main Branch or the Vine, even as the Branch from Jesse, David’s father (Isa 11:1-3).
KEY VERSE: If they shall fall away, to renew them
again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh,
and put him to an open shame. (Heb 6:10)
Five-point Calvinists rationalize that since Paul wrote that to the Hebrews, then it only applies to the Hebrew people. That would be akin to saying, The letter to the Galatians was written to the Galatians, so it can’t be applied to any others. Obviously, since salvation is for all (John 3:16), and the criteria is the same (by Jesus’s propitiation of his blood; Rom 3:25), that any letter written to any peoples applies to all people. There are not multiple ways to be saved, lost, nor turning away.
However, those same Calvinists could find rationale in the Book of Ezekiel; to wit:
21 If
the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my
statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall
not die. 22 All his transgressions that he hath
committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he
hath done he shall live… 24 When the righteous turneth away
from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the
abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness
that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath
trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die… 30
Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his
ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your
transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin… 31 Cast
away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make
you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
(Ezek 18)
Obviously, those passages were written to Israel whose members had been faithful, but turned away from God. The entire Old Testament seems to be about the trials, tribulations, and salvation of Israel. If that is the case, then the entire Old Testament can be discarded. Some New Testament churches do that, but they are wrong: “If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life” (Rev 22:19).
The entire Old Testament is a book of prophecy directed toward the revelations of which John wrote. The entire Old Testament is about Jesus, his purpose, birth, ministry, miracles, death, resurrection, and plans for the future for himself and Christians. If Christians throw away the Book of Hebrews as not pertaining to Gentiles, the entire Old Testament would need to be destroyed!
Paul’s “mystery of God” is the revelation that the Law is about God’s grace and Jesus Christ (Ephes 3:9) which reveals that the Old Testament is all about Jesus; NOT Israel. I submit that Ezekiel was warning everyone not to fall away for to do so, there is a great penalty; the ones who fall away have the same wages as the one’s who never worked. The eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel destroys point five of Calvinism; that a true Christian cannot fall away.
They use the rationale, that if they can fall away, they were never there in the beginning. Scripture does not say that; it says “fall away” and to fall means that one must have been up there to begin with!
Ezekiel first refers to the wicked who have turned from their wicked ways. Those are the sinners who have been regenerated, and to whom God “forgot” their past sins (Rom 3:23 and Ezek 18:22).
Turning away from sin is work on the part of those who God transformed. God’s grace is supplemented by our works. Calvinism is based on sola gratia (grace alone). That is true in that Jesus is the one who died as a gift to us, but our part is taking the gift and magnifying the Giver of the gift. That is done by the hard work of not sinning, and is in essence voluntarily refusing the reward!
Then Ezekiel went on to write: “The righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth.” That means the one who God made righteous (sola gratia) decided to choose continual sin, becoming the natural abominable creature again. Then Ezekiel adds, “In his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.” He is making reference to those who were righteous, not claiming to be, turn away from righteousness. “Righteousness” is living the right Way of the Lord, as the Lord lived, and that was without sinning.
Turning-away is not measured by the quantity nor magnitude of the sins, but if the righteous man is willing to serve and obey God or not. Sinning is doing what one wants to do in spite of God’s Will, which are things offensive to God. Just as God can easily transform sinners into righteous creatures, Satan can revert them into offensive creatures. Regeneration is the decision to serve the Almighty Master, and once that decision is made, Satan steps-up his endeavors to proof that he is truly the master.
The worker who leaves the Vine before the reward is welcomed by the poacher standing nearby with his own promise of great pay: Why work and eat the grapes, when the fruit can be had for free! That was original sin in a nutshell, and is also the doctrine of Karl Marx. Socialists want the fruit without working for it; although it may be for only part of the day! The “colossal lie” of socialism is, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” which is the slogan of socialism. Better said is, From each according to their hard work, to each according to his wants.
I hesitate to write of political topics, but Marx made politics a spiritual issue when he endeavored to kill off God by promising a Utopia when God already provides a place like that in Paradise. However, this commentary is a warning, as Ezekiel warned Israel, that Christians cannot depend on eternal security unless they work hard against principalities to obtain the reward at the end of the work day (Mat 10:22). In case you did not understand that, Matthew repeated it (Mat 24:13) for the Calvinists, perhaps!
If you remain an unrepentant sinner, you belong to your father the Devil who treats you with all types of pleasure. On the other hand, once you are “adopted” by God, the Devil is jealous because your master and father has changed, and he steps-up his temptation to lure you back. “Sealed” in Christ does not mean that the seal can’t be unbroken, but the owner of the document can unseal the covenant himself!
“Sealed” from the Greek, is authenticated as belonging to God, and secure from Satan. We learn from the story of Job, that the “hedge” that God put around him protected him from death but not peril. Satan and his demons cannot kill the living soul of the faithful, but he can, by chicanery, deceive the righteous into turning away. As a faithful servant to Jesus, indeed you are kept safe, but are only saved at the end of the "day." By the way, the parable of the vineyard workers pertains not just to individuals, but to the Gentiles as well who came late to the "work" day of salvation!
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