Two states
You either learn and accept the mechanics of salvation, the plan of God from eternity, and you rest in it; or you continue in blithe, shallow, asleep distraction (what people call life, comedy or tragedy) looking forward to continuing to live in such a state.
By "continuing to live in such a state" what is meant is asleep in a wheel of revolving living time. Or dead in sin, take your pick. Revolving only in a metaphorical sense, the only way our minds can perceive higher aspects of time. Not reincarnation (all you shallow, man-pleasing heretic hunters), but recurrence (no, not anything to do with Nietzsche, all you shallow academic philosopher types).
Recurrence. Don't try to figure it out. Just ponder this: some dogs seem to want to move on when they are dying. Like up the great chain of being. Other dogs seem to still want to be dogs.
Recurrence doesn't survive the end of the great age though. The harvest. The end of time. Recurrence is a little wheel inside the big wheel. Once the big wheel makes one revolution the wheat is separated from the chaff. This is why you don't rely on recurrence.
And once you learn the truth your time is counted. Graduate or fail. Failing means hell. And to understand that in the context of monergistic regeneration failure means committing the unforgivable sin. Denying the work of the Holy Spirit.
Calvinists get too clever with God's sovereignty in grace. I.e. monergistic regeneration. If you are there you are there. If awake to it then awake to it. And if the unforgivable sin means anything it means you can commit it. If you have the work of the Spirit and you deny the work of the Spirit you get hammered. And good riddance. One thing I hate more than anything, as a regenerated Christian, is the double hearted.
"Oh, my God, America got attacked by terrorists in New York. I am in support of America!" - 36 hours later - "Um, no, I hate America still. Sorry!" (As much as I don't care about those people, or what they support or hate, God doesn't care about the doubled hearted towards Him. Once the period where His long-suffering is over.)
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1Ch 12:33 Of Zebulun, such as went forth to battle, expert in war, with all instruments of war, fifty thousand, which could keep rank: they were not of double heart.
Psa 12:2 They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
Did Solomon have a double heart?
Good question. I didn't make his defense, Keil and Delitzsch did.
If you're asking me how I'd explain Solomon's behaviour I'd have to say he was a fallen being who fell away from truth in those instances, and regarding the books of the Bible he wrote, chalk their truth up to the Holy Spirit. We don't assume Isaiah, for instance, was not a fallen being either, or any of the authors of the books of the Bible. I guess I'd say it that way.
Really, it's Solomon's reputation for *unique* wisdom that should come under scrutiny here. He had wisdom, he had the Holy Spirit, he was capable of writing books of the Bible under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but in the end he was just a notch above the kings that followed regarding wisdom, and I don't think his actions can be defended against that.
If you, anonymous, are by chance an atheist, I would add that that history of the nation of Israel happened in part to teach us, once it became written down as special revelation, that fallen man can't do anything other than sin. Fallen man - all born after the fall of Adam - can't save himself with his own works either. Fallen man can only rest in the works and death of Christ by faith.
It's a long object lesson in man's fallen nature and in man's idol worship. Solomon was no different. He did ask God for wisdom, and God gave it to him, so he did have unusual wisdom, yet it wasn't an eschatological act of glorification God did, Solomon was still a fallen human being very capable of not acting on what he knew to be true and right behavior.
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