Imputed Righteousness. The True & The False.

fhansen said:

Keep seeking; there’s never a point where we know it all, of course, and from my perspective you’re stalled on a wooden interpretation of a few isolated passages of Scripture that’s plausible enough in its own way but lacking in the full understanding of the truth. Anyway, God and His will are more than concepts but an experience at the end of the day. He’ll be fully known in the next life but that knowledge begins here and can be had in deeper and and clearer manner. Meanwhile my understanding is also compatible with Scripture, especially as it's taken in its full context.

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fhansen said:

In my theology God places demands on man, obligation: again, like a good parent guiding their child into greater maturity/responsibility/character. In yours it's just all easy-peasy. God does it all for those who're lucky enough to be numbered among the elect, as if we could even know perfectly who they are.

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fhansen said:

In my theology God places demands on man, obligation: again, like a good parent guiding their child into greater maturity/responsibility/character. In yours it's just all easy-peasy. God does it all for those who're lucky enough to be numbered among the elect, as if we could even know perfectly who they are.

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Brightfame52 said:

It said He made for Himself !!

Prove 16:4 The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

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Jan001 said:

The Lord "made all things for himself."

God's creation of Adam was "very good", and Adam was righteous until he committed the grievous sin of idolatry. He chose to please Eve instead of obey God.

God permits all people the freedom to accept him or reject him. They choose to either accept God or reject him through what they do. Titus 1:16

God does not force any person to become evil, but God will punish him for the evil he did.

Genesis 1:31
God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. This was the evening and the morning of the sixth day.

1 Timothy 4:4
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided that it is received with thanksgiving,

John 5:28-29
Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

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Brightfame52 said:

Theology is the study of God not men

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fhansen said:

It's the study of God and His knowledge of and will for man- so that we can know our place: how He expects us to live and relate to Himself.

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Brightfame52 said:

More exalting of man over God

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fhansen said:

Well, your repeating the same error won't make it true. And if you don't understand the purpose of theology, a human endeavor, BTW, we're not going to get any further anyway.

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fhansen said:

Actually, the confusion came when it was conceived that a person could be made just, and therefore salvageable, without actually being just as a result. Historically, Christianity had never viewed salvation as a one-time permanent irreversible event, or that one could know with absolute 100% certainty that they were among the number of the saved-and especially if the person was enmeshed in grave sin, producing no good fruit. Passages that speak of salvation to a general audience of followers were never seen as necessarily applying to all who heard and then claimed them as applying to themselves but were generally viewed as exhortations, encouragements, instructions, warnings, etc, sometimes using hyperbole.

Again, salvation was/is viewed as union with God, an ongoing relationship, a union which is to begin and blossom here in this life but will only be fully completed and consummated in the next life when we meet Him “face to face”. Meanwhile, “walking in the Spirit and yielding to His intent within” is necessary in order for us to live according to the bible, and not just for some prizes or rewards in heaven. Jesus will be judging us for how we lived our lives with Matt 25:31-46 forcefully driving home the fact that what we did in this life will be a major determining factor, along with 2 Tim 4:1, Acts 10;42, and 2 Cor 5:10. Either way, salvation is to be worked out, together with He who works in us (Phil 2:12); our calling and election are to be made sure (2 Pet 1:10).

And, yes, it’s been understood for centuries that this is all grace, that God, Himself, empowers our right actions and the love that motivates them. When He crowns man He’s really only crowning His own work. The question is in whether or not that grace can be resisted, just as it, just as He, was initially resisted in Eden. (And, as a sidenote, in His world the dynamics of resistance and struggle can result in overcoming and growth-that’s the world we live in, since Eden, with our choices involved in that struggle, in that process.)

Again, God is still creating, seeking to produce even greater beings than He began with in Eden and not doing all this so just He can end up stocking heaven with a portion of His creation and stocking hell with the rest. But do we even want to be and to grow in His likeness and image? We need His grace in order to elicit a “yes”, but yet He does not override our ability to say “no”, by His wise discretion and for His highest purposes for us.

The difference is in whether we as believers can refuse to yield, can be drawn away from Him and to worldly desires, can turn out to be poor soil in the end, can fail to love as He intends and draws and enables us to. So, rather than putting the cart ahead of the horse we let Him be the final judge.

Having faith is inseparable from producing good fruit, or it’s a dead faith. If we find ourselves producing that fruit we can have a strong assurance that He’s near to us, and that we’ve remained near to Him. If we aren’t doing so, then we’ve strayed regardless of any profession of faith and trust. And we may or may not care enough to repent and return.

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Carl Emerson said:

Accepting the promise of Jer 32:40 for example

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Carl Emerson said:

having the job of preventing believers from unrighteousness and therefore removing the possibility of losing salvation is Key.

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fhansen said:

This is an interesting statement IMO. If salvation is connected to a person's righteousness, do believers still sin at all-and, if so, why do they sin? Or does sin not matter for them?

As far as Jer 32:40 is concerned, we don't even necessarily know just who, individually, specifically, is being referred to there. We do know that God wants all to repent and none to perish, however. Couldn't it be both/and? God's power, His grace, to do right remains in those whoi remain in Him. Those who do remain, those who persevere to the end, are, obviously, the elect.

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Carl Emerson said:

As John said...

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God."

And.... "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord"

That includes me...

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Jan001 said:

"Believe" is an action verb. The person who believes in the name of Jesus Christ obeys his commandments; otherwise, he is a liar who is deceiving himself that he believes. I don't know any person who can be absolutely sure that he cannot or will not fall away from God's grace until his death. If he does think he cannot possibly fall away, he is presumptuous. Matthew 28:20, 1 John 2:4, James 1:22

1 Corinthians 10:11-13
Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

What separates people from the love of God is their grievous sins.

Romans 8:37-39
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Who was Paul addressing in his letter to the Romans? He was addressing the Christians who were being obedient to Jesus Christ's commandments.

Romans 1:1-7
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God 2 which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4 and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. 5 Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, 6 among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ;

7 To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Carl Emerson said:

The fact is that true rebirth involves a full surrender of our will to His will. Many In my view are afraid of this yet it gives Him the right to possess them at a level deeper than the soul. However the human will remains and even then we can resist His voice and miss out on blessing. Because of the indwelling fear of Him however we can never sin to the point of renouncing Him or committing a sin that would disqualify our salvation.

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fhansen said:

I, too, appreciate the civil tone-and the fact that you apparently speak from your own experience rather than from strictly off-the-shelf theology. And, either way, we finite humans can get a bit too sure of ourselves about these things, as I see it.

And yet......from what you're saying, the will of the reborn is not necessarily fully surrendered to His will, in that he may still sin. I like the concept that His indwelling means that we will at least sin less to some sufficient degree. And that understanding, that we must not engage in egregious sin and still expect to enter heaven, aligns with historic teachings. There are those who, per their understanding of the doctrine of Sola Fide, believe that no amount or gravity of sin could ever separate themselves from Him, while you apparently believe that such sin, due to new hearts and spirits, can no longer enslave the reborn-and thus separate us from Him again-to begin with.

The dfference in our understanding is in whether or not this is true, whether or not a believer could ever return to the flesh sigifiicantly enough to destroy his relationship with God, abusing that will of his in proving to be poor soil by the end of the day..

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Jan001 said:

but we must do our part to be approved,

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Carl Emerson said:

Full surrender is needed for rebirth in the moment, but this does not prevent the will from operating against His Word usually unwittingly or under stress yet He puts limits on this failing as He promised... and I believe there is Biblical evidence to support this position.

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