Originally posted by jaywillThis is one problem with the interpretation of the Bible and its the main reason why many go wrong. They (not necessarily you) think reading and interpretating and understanding the entire Bible is relevant to salvation. The Bible is full of contradictions if taken at face value since is spans several thousand years and many cultures. There is absolutely no way anyone can think or imagine that they can understand and appreciate all that happened in those thousands of years.
Eternal salvation is the gift of grace. It is not of works.......
This should be obvious with careful consideration of the Bible. .
Hence the reason why Christ warned people over and over to listen to HIM ONLY and to follow HIS commandments. The beauty of the teachings of Christ is its total completeness and AMAZING SIMPLICITY. Understanding it requires no great intelligence, no great reasoning ability. All it requires is the desire to 'come to Him as a child", and to believe, and have faith and do good works. Certainly those with greated ability can become Bible scholars but deeper study should not lead one to overide what Christ said.
Any conclusion you come to that Christ did not specifically make abundantly clear is pure guesswork. You might be right or you might be wrong. You cannot use the writings of Paul or others to contradict what Christ said.
Here are (some) the things which Christ SPELT OUT:
1. He is the Son of God
2. You have to believe in the Gospel and be baptised
3. You have to follow His commandments
4. You have to do good works.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If faith is a necessary condition for good works, then no faithless person has committed good works, correct?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In the portion that I quoted. I hope you got some understanding.
Jesus said to His disciples that apart from abiding in Him they could do nothing.
I think that this is what I want to communicate to you. I can think up clever questions just as easily as the next person. Some matters, to be well balanced and explored from all sides, require more than a easy yes or no answer.
Mainly, I was trying to help you to see that the life which is pleasing to God is Christ. He has become a "Vine" in which the saved may organically be joined. They blend with Him. They are interwoven with Him. They are united with Him.
Then His life flows into and mingles with their lives and they bear fruit unto God. He said without abiding in Him we can do nothing.
Whatever "good works" that are produced apart from abiding in the resurrected and living Jesus will be "nothing" toward God's eternal purpose.
Basically, God only cares about one thing - His Son Christ. We have to get into the realm of Christ and the sphere of Christ to be God's choice.
Christ is enterable. Christ is the righteoues Son of God into whom man may enter. We have to enter into this living Person. Nothing else matters.
Originally posted by checkbaiterAccording to Christ, salvation goes to those who have BOTH faith and do good works. Christ said they are both necessary.
I'm not saying that good works are unimportant. I am saying that good works are a result of faith. They go hand in hand. But to imply that salvation has anything to do with good works alone is contrary to what the bible teaches.
It is the view by some on this site that Faith alone WITHOUT good works gives salvation. There are Christians who say they have faith but dont do any of the works as specified by CHrist.
Nemesio said it this way - "....works are a necessary outward sign of a faithful individual". Put another way if you dont help the poor etc, you dont really believe in Christ and dont have faith.
But CHrist is the judge and I am sure there will be exceptions to His rule. The thief on the cross and the Good Samaritan and people in that category may very well find favour with Christ.
This thread started out on the blessedness of persecution for being a believer in Christ.
The blessing is not the persecution itself. It is only because the persecution drives the believer deeper into the realm of Christ. It forces the believer to depend more upon Christ.
Everybody in the world suffers something. The sheer beauty of the Christian life is that God can transform all of man's suffering into a catalyst to sink him or her deeper and deeper into Christ.
Everybody suffers something in this life, whether persecution or something else.
God alone can cause all things to work together for good to those who are called according to His purpose. The Bible ends with a symbolic picture of a city built up with precious stones. The precious stones represent the transformed human beings. By heat, pressure, and water dirt is transformed into precious stones.
At the end of the Bible we see an eternal city of precious stones. That means that all of the heat and pressure and trials of human life, for the believers in Christ, have been used by God to produce transformed sons of God.
Twelve kinds of precious stones and twelve foundations and twelve gates to the city. These all speak of eternal completion - eternal perfection achieved by God thought His Spirit and the outward troublesome environment.
++++++++++++++++++++++
You cannot use the writings of Paul or others to contradict what Christ said.
++++++++++++++++++++++
I'm not.
There are matters of the milk of the word and other matters of the meat of the word.
It surely takes a lifetime to explore all the wonderful truths of this revelation from God to humans.
But Paul taught what Jesus taught of course. God would not entrust 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament to be written by someone who spoke differently from His Son.
Christ continued to teach from heaven through His apostles - just as He predicted and promised. So Paul taught Christ absolutely. He was most faithful to teach Christ.
And I would say that Paul (with Peter and John and James and many others) led the way for us to sink deeply into the experience of living by the resurrected Jesus Christ.
- Joined
- 08 Dec 04
- Moves
- 100919
Originally posted by Rajk999Well said...we are in total agreement. What the Christians are saying, I think, is that good works by an unbeliever in Christ have no merit as far as God is concerned. They are noble, but God said in the old testament that those kinds of good works are like filthy rags to Him.
According to Christ, salvation goes to those who have BOTH faith and do good works. Christ said they are both necessary.
It is the view by some on this site that Faith alone WITHOUT good works gives salvation. There are Christians who say they have faith but dont do any of the works as specified by CHrist.
Nemesio said it this way - "....works are a nece ...[text shortened]... ross and the Good Samaritan and people in that category may very well find favour with Christ.
Originally posted by jaywillHave you entered into Christ, so that your good works matter, unlike the good works of those who haven't done so, which don't?
[b]++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If faith is a necessary condition for good works, then no faithless person has committed good works, correct?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In the portion that I quoted. I hope you got some understanding.
Jesus said to His disciples that apart from abiding in Him they could do nothing.
I thi ...[text shortened]... into whom man may enter. We have to enter into this living Person. Nothing else matters.[/b]
Originally posted by epiphinehas
This is also not true. The promised Holy Spirit, the guarantee which God imparts to people the moment they believe in Him, clearly is meant by God to be a comfort and an assurance of their eventual salvation.
But, as we have seen time and time again, those people can then turn from God even after having
that 'moment.' We've seen it in this forum more than a few times, with atheists' testifying that they
'felt' saved and then realized afterwards that it was all an illusion (from their perspective, of course).
There is no test that a person can do -- no place to shove a thermometer, no urine sample that can
be taken, no aura-detection test -- that can definitively demonstrate that a person is saved. They
can always turn from God, curse His name or deny His existence after that moment.
You will, of course, say that they were wrong in having believed that they were ever saved, that the
'feeling' was just indigestion or the massaging of Satan. But they would have sounded just as confident
as you are now, just as sure in God and the Spirit.
This is why one cannot be sure, because one cannot predict whether they will subsequently deny the
faith that they have.
Because if there isn't a moment after which we are saved for certain, which we can reckon back to (i.e. "consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." Rom. 6:11), then we have to ask, "What must I do to make my salvation certain?"
More question begging: why do we have to ask that? You have to show that by not believing in a
discrete moment of salvation that one must do anything. You have not shown this.
I would just like to say a few words about 'works'. That word is bandied about quite a bit, but it is quite vague. It should be made clear that we can have evil works, and good works which aren't God-ordained, and then we can have God-ordained works.
Now we're getting to the meat of the issue. Let's forget about the vagaries of salvation. Let's say,
for the time being, that I agree that a person is saved at a particular moment in time.
Let's look at an example: a person in their mid-twenties, holding an average-paying 40-hour per
week job in America, believes that he is 'saved.' However, the only God-ordained work that he does
is he puts a few bucks in the collection plate each Sunday at worship. He does not feed the poor,
give drink to the thirsty, comfort the afflicted, visit the lonely. Does putting in the 2% of his paycheck
(national average for those who attend services more than once a month) really constitute a faith
that is not dead? Keep in mind that church operating expenses spend roughly 80% on themselves --
paying for the pastor/minister/priest, the church staff, the building's upkeep, and so forth.
So, this guy who earns $40k a year gives $800 a year to his church, of which $160 goes to the specific
works ordained by Jesus Himself.
What do you think? Is this a living faith?
Nemesio
Originally posted by checkbaiterYou can't possibly be saying that God doesn't care about the good works atheists do, right?
Well said...we are in total agreement. What the Christians are saying, I think, is that good works by an unbeliever in Christ have no merit as far as God is concerned. They are noble, but God said in the old testament that those kinds of good works are like filthy rags to Him.
Nemesio
Originally posted by checkbaiterI cannot remember this passage from OT. In fact, I cannot remember any passage about God despising good deeds. I, nevertheless can remember one about not judging others.
Well said...we are in total agreement. What the Christians are saying, I think, is that good works by an unbeliever in Christ have no merit as far as God is concerned. They are noble, but God said in the old testament that those kinds of good works are like filthy rags to Him.
Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole+++++++++++++++++++++
Have you entered into Christ, so that your good works matter, unlike the good works of those who haven't done so, which don't?
Have you entered into Christ,
++++++++++++++++++++++
Yes. I have entered into Christ.
+++++++++++++++++++++
so that your good works matter, unlike the good works of those who haven't done so, which don't?
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yes. when I am abiding in Christ as He taught "Abide in Me and I in you."
I am in the process of learning to abide in Christ and live Christ.
This is a life long learning experience.
Originally posted by ChoreantI think that the passage someone is refering to is Isaiah 64:6.
I cannot remember this passage from OT. In fact, I cannot remember any passage about God despising good deeds. I, nevertheless can remember one about not judging others.
In the Recovery Version it reads this way:
"For all of us became like him who is unclean, and all our righteousness are like a soiled garment;
And we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, carry us away. "
The King James Version probably reads "filthy rags" where the RcV reads "a soiled garment".
Originally posted by jaywillHow do you know you have entered into Christ, and are now manifesting Godly as opposed to manly virtues?
[b]+++++++++++++++++++++
Have you entered into Christ,
++++++++++++++++++++++
Yes. I have entered into Christ.
+++++++++++++++++++++
so that your good works matter, unlike the good works of those who haven't done so, which don't?
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yes. when I am abiding in Christ as He taught "Abide in ...[text shortened]... ning to abide in Christ and live Christ.
This is a life long learning experience. .[/b]
Originally posted by NemesioThis is why one cannot be sure, because one cannot predict whether they will subsequently deny the
Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]This is also not true. The promised Holy Spirit, the guarantee which God imparts to people the moment they believe in Him, clearly is meant by God to be a comfort and an assurance of their eventual salvation.
But, as we have seen time and time again, those people can then turn from God even after having
th ...[text shortened]... Jesus Himself.
What do you think? Is this a living faith?
Nemesio[/b]
faith that they have.
Still, you are making an inference based on the weakness of men, and not on the faithfulness of God.
Those who are truly born-again will never be judged or condemned for their sins (John 5:24). Period. However, all, whether born-again or not, must stand before Jesus at the throne of judgment. Sinners will be condemned for their sins if they are without Christ's blood atonement, and those who have been 'born-again' will be judged according to how they appropriated God's grace. "If the work that anyone has built on the foundation [of Christ] survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:14-15).
You have to show that by not believing in a
discrete moment of salvation that one must do anything. You have not shown this.
The moment of promised salvation in the past which one reckons back to is predicated by a continuing faith. That is, God may have declared one righteous, but the present appropriation of that fact is dependent upon faith. Either we fail to appropriate God's declaration, or we hearken back to it and consequently thank and praise God for his mercy. If a person doesn't believe in a discrete moment of promised salvation, though, that doesn't mean he or she must ask that question, you're right. Although, in my mind, the only reason he or she might not would be due to either apathy or ignorance.
What do you think? Is this a living faith?
I don't think we can ever really know from the outside looking in, where exactly a person is on the road to sanctification. It could be that this guy isn't ready to be used of the Lord, for whatever reason. He may be paralyzed physically or socially, he may be a new believer, or ignorant to the fact that he is called to be Christ's disciple - a fact which he may discover in a year's time. Or perhaps he has a wife and three kids and serves the Lord full time raising his kids to be godly people, or perhaps the Lord has called him to a life of contemplation, etc. Who knows?
The most important aspect I would look at is, is this guy denying himself every morning, taking up his cross and following the Lord? The author of The Cloud of Unknowing once wrote, "God is ingenious in making us crosses." A person's 'cross' can take any form imaginable. "He may make them of iron and of lead which are heavy of themselves. He makes some of straw which seem to weigh nothing, but one discovers that they are no less difficult to carry. A cross that appears to be of straw so that others think it amounts to nothing may be crucifying you through and through. He makes some with gold and precious stones which dazzle the spectators and excite the envy of the public but which crucify no less than the crosses which are more despised."
A living faith begins with denying oneself and taking up one's cross. This is truly what it means to be obedient unto the Lord. I think the analogy of 'fruit' works well here, because fruit doesn't appear on the branch immediately. As the branch abides in Christ it receives the life necessary to bear fruit. Denying oneself brings to fruition the will of the Father within the life of a believer. Separated from the vine the branch can do nothing. Separated from Christ the believer cannot please the Lord. So even if a believer tithes and feeds the poor, etc., if he doesn't abide in Christ then his works amount to nothing.
It's difficult to say whether or not a person's faith is dead, unless you can see into the heart and see whether or not there is a cross there doing its work of crucifixion.
"Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful" (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).