“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. - Matthew 5:27-30 (NLT)
How do you reconcile this passage of Scripture with salvation by grace through faith alone?
If salvation and right standing with God is a gift, how then does hell still hang in the balance simply over a lustful look?
Assumption Theology - reading a verse or verses and then assuming what they mean, not based on what the verses are actually saying, but what you interpret them as meaning.
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Not quite. When you die, your body dies. It is not "healed". It "dies". Your spirit lives on for eternity, but your body is not "ultimately healed". It is dead.
Absolutely. Truth applies to everyone. Not only that, born-again Christians are even more responsible to walk in it than those who haven't received the Spirit. "And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes."
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. - Matthew 5:27-30 (NLT)
How do you reconcile this passage of Scripture with salvation by grace through faith alone?
If salvation and right standing with God is a gift, how then does hell still hang in the balance simply over a lustful look?
Jesus is definately taking it from the physical to the intellectual to make a spiritual conclusion.
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Hypocracy:
to conform outwardly
to traditions set by 'elders'
for which there isn't
an inward respect
of the tradition.
I'm going to try and be careful just how I say this.
Let's examine Ephesians 2:8-10 (NASB).
8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
This, among many other verses, state that salvation is by faith alone, in conjunction with other verses such as Romans 3:28, 5:1, and Galatians 3:24. If you look at the verse, even the faith didn't come from you. Faith is the gift of God. When God saves a man, he has no boasting rights whatsoever.
Though at the same time, the very next verse gets skipped over. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
The truth is, as Christians, we are to do good works. Looking at this verse, we are described as being a "workmanship" of God. Imagine taking a marble block and making a statue out of it; that is what God does with us. Our intent in the end is a statue, and God's intent, in part and according to this verse, is to do good works. The end idea is that we look how God wants us to look, and he does this throughout our lives. That includes weeding out sin and pressing on towards good works; you are not doing these to get saved, but you are doing it because you are saved.
But what about those passages you mentioned? Well, Jesus is in fact exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. That's really the point of the Sermon on the Mount. You notice how many times he says, "It is said... but I say to you..."? He'd name what the Pharisees would do, then he would name God's moral law. For example with the adultery, the Pharisees believed that they could divorce for any reason so long as they gave her a certificate of divorce, and because of that certificate they were justified, but Jesus said, "No you are not. According to the law of God, you are only committing adultery." The Pharisees had no problem holding onto secret sins so long as everyone in the public perceived them as being righteous and perfectly observant of all their manmade rules, but Christ saw they had many secret sins. That is why Jesus said to everyone (because all the people looked at the Pharisees as being models of righteousness), "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." That's a shock!! The Pharisees can't make it?? Well, Lord know I can't make it then!
The problem was not that they weren't following all the rules; the problem was that what God meant by the law never got into their hearts. For example, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." That was not meant to mean, "If someone injures you, you are fully justified in injuring them back for the same amount." No, the intention was, "If someone wrongs you, don't seek compensation any higher than the state of the injury, but be gracious and only take what you need." Two completely different attitudes, and usually in our courts, we go way beyond this.
Cut off your hand? Don't spare your sins. You may think that your secret sin over here is safe, but don't lie to yourself; cut it out. Don't mess with it! The Pharisees had many secret sins that the public wasn't aware of, but Jesus knew them, and their external appearances meant nothing to Him. He knew the bones that laid in the whitewashed sarcophagus.
Notice that in the middle of all these, "You have heard... but I say..."? He throws in these words in Matthew 5:48: "You shall be perfect, as I am perfect." Perfect?? Are you kidding?? The word there is the Greek work teleios, and it does not mean perfectly sinless. It can all mean mature (in physique or moral development), complete, and sometimes it is translated as holy. In context, Jesus is telling the listeners not to do as the Pharisees do, finding the loopholes in the law to justify themselves, but to understand that what God wants is for them to mature in their understanding of right and wrong, getting rid of sin, growing in maturity in respect to others, and becoming that workmanship that God had intended all along. So Jesus is taking away all credibility from the external, and bringing it all into the heart; in public or behind closed doors, it doesn't matter. Be mature and complete in understanding of such things.
__________________ "If Jesus had preached the way many pastors preach today, He wouldn't have ended up being crucified." - Leonard Ravenhill
"If you are unsaved, get saved; if you are saved, reach the unsaved." -Purpose-Driven Statement
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On today's discernment:
Jeremiah 6:29 (NIV) - "The bellows blow fiercely to burn away the lead with fire, but the refining goes on in vain; the wicked are not purged out."
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. - Matthew 5:27-30 (NLT)
How do you reconcile this passage of Scripture with salvation by grace through faith alone?
If salvation and right standing with God is a gift, how then does hell still hang in the balance simply over a lustful look?
If we have God's Holy Spirit in us, God is Love, love is indwelling us.
Love is fulfilling that part of Jesus command "love your neighbor as yourself"
Lust is selfish, Love cares.
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. - Matthew 5:27-30 (NLT)
How do you reconcile this passage of Scripture with salvation by grace through faith alone?
If salvation and right standing with God is a gift, how then does hell still hang in the balance simply over a lustful look?
He talking about Adam and Eve. they didn't do that and look at what that gave birth to.
__________________ I speak as to wise men; you judge what I say. 1 Tim. 4-10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the SAVIOR OF ALL MEN, ESPECIALLY OF BELIEVERS. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
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I stand on the rock R-reconciled O-of C- christ K-kingdom
It's a reminder that we should always fix our eyes on Christ as our saviour and to lean on his grace through faith and because of who we are, we will heed these warnings, if not then God will discipline us.
Don't we warn our children about the dangers of crossing a road without looking? But do we allow them to cross the road by themselves before they are ready? No! We hold their hand, we guide them and teach them and if they go to step out without looking then we pull them back and warn them again and again about the dangers.
The grace of God will never allow us to fail so much that we lose our salvation.
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Philippians 2.13 ...
For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Ezekiel 36:27
I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do [them].
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. - Matthew 5:27-30 (NLT)
How do you reconcile this passage of Scripture with salvation by grace through faith alone?
If salvation and right standing with God is a gift, how then does hell still hang in the balance simply over a lustful look?
I think Jesus is saying that sin starts in the heart. It does no good just stop doing bad things when the beginnings of the actions are already present in our hearts. It does no good to say, "I'm never going to murder, lie, or commit adultery" because those things are already in you. They were in you from birth. You can't say, "I'm not going to do these things" without having first thought of ever doing them. That's why we need Jesus.
And if our heart causes us to sin, maybe we should get rid of it? Maybe what's he saying in the second part if more of an analogy? If one part of your body is making you sick (like gangrene), wouldn't you cut it off before it spreads to your whole body?
Then again, isn't it interesting, in light of this verse, that we're supposed to get new bodies when Jesus comes back?
__________________ Four beliefs that help me sleep at night:
1. Young Earth Creationism (Genesis 1-3) To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
2. Jesus is the only way to Heaven. (John 14:6, I Timothy 2:5) To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
3. Eternal Security (John 10:28-29) To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
4. Pre-tribulation Rapture (I Thess. 4:13-18, Rev. 3:10) To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
"I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety."
- Psalm 4:8
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