How is one saved?

[AllTalkNoAction]

I believe Fundi wants to argue more than find God . .. i'm out

 

[MrFreshdew]

Would be interested in hearing your ideas.

hopefully by an outstretched hand willing to clasp hands with yours or if u dont have hands,then at least grab your shirt

 

[tapero]

I've read the Protestant canon 2x.

your question was:

Originally Posted by FundiMentalist
Why priority to a bible over church leaders?

and I said, you'll know the answer when you read the bible.

and your reply is your quote above.

So, please clarify your question if you'd like. Are you saying you don't know the answer and you have read the bible?

 

[Digit]

I believe Fundi wants to argue more than find God . .. i'm out

Oh I don't hold any illusions that he is a genuine seeker, but it's his right to post here and ours to defend our faith.

Cheers!
Digit

 

[visio]

Oh I don't hold any illusions that he is a genuine seeker, but it's his right to post here and ours to defend our faith.

Cheers!
Digit

Me neither but yeah it gives us a chance to brush up on defending our faith and our God....

 

[FundiMentalist]

Would be interested in more responses to the question, why do you believe a bible is the word of God?

Is this not a key cornerstone?

 

[ebia]

Would be interested in more responses to the question, why do you believe a bible is the word of God?

Is this not a key cornerstone?

If I can rephrase the question as "why do you believe a bible is the inspired by God?"

Because it works.
Because the church, from the earliest days, has always said so.

in no particular order.

 

[FundiMentalist]

What about other stuff that "works?"

 

[Digit]

What about other stuff that "works?"

Hi FundiMentalist,

We covered this in your other threads - and I will repeat what I said then: It's not about finding something that 'works', it's about finding something you believe in. I find mankinds history and current state, as explained in the Bible far more convincing than any other, theory, shall we say?

Cheers!
Digit

 

[ebia]

What about other stuff that "works?"

You asked why I believe... not why someone else should. They are very different questions.

My experience of the bible is that it "works" in a way nothing else does.

By "works" I mean:
a) it's transforming (or rather, God is transforming through it), and
b) it deals with the theological issues in a more satisfactory way than anything else.

 

[seashale76]

Would be interested in hearing your ideas.

Salvation happened in the past. Via the incarnation (specifically the hypostatic union), it became possible for us to attain theosis. To one in the Church (a Christian), we are being saved. If we persevere, we will be saved in the future. Those in the Church are part of the body of Christ and have the Holy Trinity living in them. Through the life of the Church, the Holy Mysteries, and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to do good works. Anyone living out their life in the Church will be changed/transfigured. This is only possible through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. We must daily pick up our cross and follow Him.

"No one can take God as his Father unless he takes the Church as his mother" --St. Cyprian of Carthage

 

[seashale76]

Pastors, authors, and church appointed leaders say different things.

Who is one to believe and why them?

They do, which is why one shouldn't take anything they say as the 'gospel truth' without an Ecumencial Council (which only counts if it is with the entire Ecclesia). There hasn't been one of those in quite a long time.

I can only speak for myself and why I believe as I do. I figured that if I was going to seriously consider being a Christian, then I needed to at least believe/find the group that maintained the same beliefs the Early Church did. It wasn't anything Protestant.

Before the New Testament was compiled all nicely for us, there was the faith that had been traditioned. Holy Tradition guided by the Holy Spirit, directed the Early Church Fathers. Holy Tradition is the only way to interpret Holy Scripture. Yeah, it all takes faith to believe (and I can't fabricate that for you), but without Holy Tradition, we wouldn't have the trinity, or the hypostatic union, or the New Testament.

 

[Aibrean]

[SIZE=-1]Eph 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
[/SIZE]

And that is why we Lutheran's don't accept Christ...we receive him. If we had to "accept" then it would be a work. It is a realization of the grace and receiving it through faith.

 

[seashale76]

And that is why we Lutheran's don't accept Christ...we receive him. If we had to "accept" then it would be a work. It is a realization of the grace and receiving it through faith.

Faith and works is the only belief supported by scripture. Don't fall into the faith only or works only trap.

Ephesians 2:10

10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

James 2:14-26
14(A)What use is it, (B)my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
15(C)If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
16and one of you says to them, "(D)Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
17Even so (E)faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
18(F)But someone may well say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your (G)faith without the works, and I will (H)show you my faith (I)by my works."
19You believe that [a](J)God is one (K)You do well; (L)the demons also believe, and shudder.
20But are you willing to recognize, (M)you foolish fellow, that (N)faith without works is useless?
21(O)Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
22You see that (P)faith was working with his works, and as a result of the (Q)works, faith was perfected;
23and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "(R)AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called (S)the friend of God.
24You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25In the same way, was not (T)Rahab the harlot also justified by works (U)when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
26For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also (V)faith without works is dead.

Luke 11:28

28But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are (A)those who hear the word of God and observe it."

Luke 8:21

21But He answered and said to them, "My mother and My brothers are these (A)who hear the word of God and do it."

 

[Aibrean]

Works are a natural result of our faith.

 

[hlaltimus]

Would be interested in hearing your ideas.

Study this all important question for the entire balance of your life because it is really the very most deciding and crucial question that one can possibly ask. You'll get more than one exactly precise answer here at this forum because different people tend to view any one study from different perspectives and this must be considered an advantage resident to a group of opinions. If we may appear to contradict each other slightly at times, always resort to the Holy Bible as having the "Last word" in all arguments.
I would advise you to study very closely the word "Substitute" in being "saved", because whatever salvation will ever mean to you both now and in eternity, it must all be found resident in some kind of a substitute in your place both to absorb the punishment due to you for your sins and render you legally righteous before a just God as well. This search for a substitute leads some to good works, some to church membership, some to ascetic punishment of the body, etc., but when your search leads you to Christ Jesus and Him alone, you need look nowhere else for an eternally precious substitute.

 

[FundiMentalist]

How is it just to punish a substitute?

 

[seashale76]

Orthodox Christians don't believe in penal substitutionary atonement. We take a Christus Victor view instead of a judicial one.

 

[Sketcher]

Believe in Jesus and submit your life to Him.

 

[hlaltimus]

How is it just to punish a substitute?

If Christ, (as the eternal Son of God,) had never taken upon himself flesh and blood as a human, (the Son of David,) he could never have been punished in the place of another human being because God the Creator cannot be hurt as you or I can He being properly infinite and we quite finite. If He though, the Creator, were to become a real and true man, then this would at least allow him to suffer as a man given he wished to do so and fortunately for us that's exactly what He did choose to do. This suffering now would either be "fair" or "unfair" and since Jesus the man was still Jesus the eternal Son of God, it was perfectly within his divine prerogative right to do whatever he so pleased to do with and for any creation of His as He was still their Creator. This federal identity of Christ with humanity in Adam's fall is a glorious and unspeakably gracious plan which resided within the council of the Triune Godhead before there even was a world for us to fall in, and this is an unfathomable mystery that will baffle the very strongest minds to compute. He was united with fallen humanity by eternal design before He even made our world and this allowed Him in time to be punished as a man and for mankind, which death nullifys the sentence and power of death over us given His death is applied to our account. I personally believe that this death of Christ as a man and for men and women is universally and involuntarily applied to all babies and children up to their age of accountability, and specifically and voluntarily applied to all else thereafter conditionally and this condition is faith on our part.
He was the Creator and "all things are possible with God." A view then of Christ which deprives Him of either His proper humanity or divinity is a Christ who would not have been able to redeem a single, solitary soul, much less a whole host which "no man could number."