How to walk in the Spirit.

MMXX said:

Usually the accusation is simplifying the gospel which is why it's derogatorily called "easy believism".

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It's more like gutting than simplifying. But yes, that is one of the most common ways of convoluting the gospel-and it's been demonstrated here on this thread over and over again.

MMXX said:

It seems abundantly clear that there are many times in the Bible that just faith and belief are all that's needed. But also many times in the Bible that conditions are added. So it seems to me in my flawed human reasoning, that either the Bible is contradictory and misleading, or that the Bible is taking about two different things. Those two things being justification and sanctification.

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Or they're one and the same, with both a carrot and stick in front of and behind them. We're given the grace to be authentically righteous, and yet we're also obligated to be righteous.

fhansen said:

It's more like "gutting" than simplifying. But yes, that is one of the most common ways of convoluting the gospel-and it's been demonstrated here on this thread over and over again.

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It seems to me that gutting, editing, cherry-picking et al seems to take place on both sides of the argument.

MMXX said:

It seems to me that gutting, editing, cherry-picking et al seems to take place on both sides of the argument.

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Maybe, maybe not. And maybe both sides here are wrong, but they cannot both be right even as both certainly contain elements of truth.

fhansen said:

Or they're one and the same, with both a carrot and stick in front of and behind them. We're given the grace to be authentically righteous, and yet we're also obligated to be righteous.

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To me personally that's where it starts getting convoluted.

MMXX said:

To me personally that's where it starts getting convoluted.

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Because we hate obligation? Even the obligation to be righteous, as if that’s a bad thing? Even the obligation to remain in Christ, the essence and source of man’s righteousness? Even the obligation to do those things that the Bible says we must do to inherit eternal life, knowing full well that it cannot be done without the help of grace. Is there some reason we should oppose God requiring our wills to cooperate with Him in His work?

fhansen said:

Maybe, maybe not. And maybe both sides here are wrong, but they cannot both be right even as both certainly contain elements of truth.

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Perhaps as an old mentor once said to me, the truth probably lies somewhere in the muddy middle.

But it seems to me, for a true Christian, it shouldn't be a personal battle. Even if I believe in OSAS salvation by faith alone, I still feel obligated to pursue righteousness and holiness. And the obligation is without grumbling because it's also what I desire. I'm obligated to pursue what I desire to pursue.

fhansen said:

Because we hate obligation?

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No, as you'll see in my post before this one.

fhansen said:

Even the obligation to be righteous, as if that’s a bad thing? Even the obligation to remain in Christ, the essence and source of man’s righteousness? Even the obligation to do those things that the Bible says we must do to inherit eternal life, knowing full well that it cannot be done without the help of grace. Is there some reason we should oppose God requiring our wills to cooperate with Him in His work?

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The phrasing gets confusing for me. A lot of times it sounds to me something like, 'it's not a cheese burger, it's a burger with cheese'. In this case something like 'it's from God, not us, but it's from us'.

That's not just you, I have the same problem no matter who explains it. I think you explain it quite well actually, even though for me the penny hasn't dropped yet.

MMXX said:

Perhaps as an old mentor once said to me, the truth probably lies somewhere in the muddy middle.

But it seems to me, for a true Christian, it shouldn't be a personal battle. Even if I believe in OSAS salvation by faith alone, I still feel obligated to pursue righteousness and holiness. And the obligation is without grumbling because it's also what I desire. I'm obligated to pursue what I desire to pursue.

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But do we necessarily desire and pursue it in reality? Do we really choose good and reject evil? Do we really love God? Or do we just say, ‘I believe, or once believed, and so now those things really don’t matter; they never did, in fact, because God only cares about my faith, not what I do.’ Or sees me as righteous regardless of the truth of the matter.

God is on man’s side, more than we can begin to know. But He has expectations of us-and for us-and for what we do with the gift He’s given. He seeks to draw us increasingly into true, personal, righteousness, and that comes as we draw nearer to Him in response. He initiates, we respond, or not, we can turn back away, or become lukewarm like the church in Laodicea in Rev 3 that He was ready to spit out. Anyway, the more we respond- the more we love Him as He first loved us-the nearer we are to our goal, and, yes, the more we then desire it, desire goodness and righteousness, on our own, willingly as we grow in likeness of Him. We rest in Him, but we also work with Him. And His burden is light.

MMXX said:

The phrasing gets confusing for me. A lot of times it sounds to me something like, 'it's not a cheese burger, it's a burger with cheese'. In this case something like 'it's from God, not us, but it's from us'.

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I don’t think that accurately conveys what I’ve said at all. The truth is that it’s a gift from God, but we can refuse the gift. As we accept, we’re in agreement. To the extent that we accept we’re in agreement, and that’s a process, a living and growing walk and relationship. The difference is only in that we participate with God, at His discretion, through whatever time we have on this earth, for our highest good. It’s only a struggle at all because we’re truly on His side to the extent that we love. Basil bears repeating here:
If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.

God wants that love-born obedience and goodness for us; that’s all He wants. We’re here to grow towards it, but we can also grow away from it. He doesn’t force us to want and accept Him; He draws us to do so, He knocks at our door, and we allow Him in, or not. We pick up our cross daily, or not. Sometimes we fail, and He’s there to pick us back up. It’s a cooperative effort but at the end of the day He simply does not force us to remain in Him. Our holiness, our sanctification, our justice, is greater to the degree that we also will it. To put it another way, again, love is a choice, or it’s not really love at all. And love is real righteousness, not a declared righteousness, and love is the virtue we’ll be judged on.

And if there’s any kind of struggle or personal battle going on, it’s only within ourselves, and it’s a good battle. Here’s a teaching I’m familiar with that accurately reflects man’s situation IMO:

409 This dramatic situation of "the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one"makes man's life a battle:

The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God's grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.

MMXX said:

And the obligation is without grumbling because it's also what I desire. I'm obligated to pursue what I desire to pursue.

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I think that's true. And we can also change our desires. It's very easy to think of our desires as something that's fixed, as though we have nothing to do with them but the parable of the Prodigal Son shows that's not so. He initially desired to taste all the pleasures of life but when he ended up living in a pig sty he realised that he didn't want that anymore and his desires changed and he wanted to go home. Desiring and wanting mean the same thing but it's probably easier to see that we can change what we want by thinking about it. The Prodigal Son realised that the decadent life he had been following would not make him as happy as the life he had before. His preferences changed from thinking it through and presumably it would have felt very easy and natural, although somewhat embarrassing, for him to give his current lifestyle up and return home.

fhansen said:

But do we necessarily desire and pursue it in reality? Do we really choose good and reject evil? Do we really love God? Or do we just say, ‘I believe, or once believed, and so now those things really don’t matter; they never did, in fact, because God only cares about my faith, not what I do.’ Or sees me as righteous regardless of the truth of the matter.

God is on man’s side, more than we can begin to know. But He has expectations of us-and for us-and for what we do with the gift He’s given. He seeks to draw us increasingly into true, personal, righteousness, and that comes as we draw nearer to Him in response. He initiates, we respond, or not, we can turn back away, or become lukewarm like the church in Laodicea in Rev 3 that He was ready to spit out. Anyway, the more we respond- the more we love Him as He first loved us-the nearer we are to our goal, and, yes, the more we then desire it, desire goodness and righteousness, on our own, willingly as we grow in likeness of Him. We rest in Him, but we also work with Him. And His burden is light.

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That depends on the person I suppose. As for myself and those I've known well, it's about sanctification, glorification, deification, christification, theosis et al etc - spiritual growth, becoming closer to God.

fhansen said:

I don’t think that accurately conveys what I’ve said at all. The truth is that it’s a gift from God, but we can refuse the gift. As we accept, we’re in agreement. To the extent that we accept we’re in agreement, and that’s a process, a living and growing walk and relationship. The difference is only in that we participate with God, at His discretion, through whatever time we have on this earth, for our highest good. It’s only a struggle at all because we’re truly on His side to the extent that we love. Basil bears repeating here:
If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.

God wants that love-born obedience and goodness for us; that’s all He wants. We’re here to grow towards it, but we can also grow away from it. He doesn’t force us to want and accept Him; He draws us to do so, He knocks at our door, and we allow Him in, or not. We pick up our cross daily, or not. Sometimes we fail, and He’s there to pick us back up. It’s a cooperative effort but at the end of the day He simply does not force us to remain in Him. Our holiness, our sanctification, our justice, is greater to the degree that we also will it. To put it another way, again, love is a choice, or it’s not really love at all. And love is real righteousness, not a declared righteousness, and love is the virtue we’ll be judged on.

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When I slipped into a hole of compliancy, my greatest concern was that I felt like I had lost that loving feeling. Even if I felt 100% fully completely assured that I was still saved and going to heaven and would get a crown and wonderful rewards for what I had accomplished previously, that wouldn't have changed how I felt about wanting to get back to where I belonged and then seeking continued growth.

MMXX said:

When I slipped into a hole of compliancy, my greatest concern was that I felt like I had lost that loving feeling. Even if I felt 100% fully completely assured that I was still saved and going to heaven and would get a crown and wonderful rewards for what I had accomplished previously, that wouldn't have changed how I felt about wanting to get back to where I belonged and then seeking continued growth.

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Well I’m sure that’s a positive sign for you at least.

fhansen said:

Well I’m sure that’s a positive sign for you at least.

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For some reason it seems like there's a "but..." attached to that.

Some folks seem to think that faith is some kind of get-off-the-hook-card, from our obligation to be righteous, rather than being the means to actually, finally, obtain that personal righteousness.

Also, this seemingly obsessive fear or rejection of the law that I’m hearing shouldn’t be part of a believer’s position. We’re freed from being under the law, but the law, itself, is only a reflection, written on tablets of stone, of righteousness or holiness. The law isn’t the problem, we are. Righteousness or holiness include sinlessness/lawfulness by their nature, and a Christian must believe that God can and wants to achieve holiness in us. God can do what the law cannot which is a central reason why the new covenant is first of all about entering fellowship with God, by faith. To the extent that this union is strong, the law has no purpose, no use; we fulfill our obligation to be righteous without regard to law.

To put it another way, love fulfills the law, our obligation to be righteous, and love is the antithesis of legalism. If we insist that any form of obligation to be righteous, to love, is still legalism then we really don’t understand the concept at all, or the purpose of the new covenant.

MMXX said:

For some reason it seems like there's a "but..." attached to that.

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Not really. As I’ve said, we have to want it too, and it sounds like you did.

Sidon said:

Holiness and perseverance to remain "in Christ" as "abiding" are not related to your obedience.
Why?
Because you can't by perseverance make or keep yourself holy.
Only the Blood of God can make you or keep you holy.
Also, you can't put yourself "in Christ" so, you can't control that by "obedience" or "perseverance".

You are teaching works in place of Grace.
See, anytime you put the end result of Salvation on yourself, you are working to do what only God can do for you.

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What did Jesus do? He obeyed the Father. He prayed. He knew Scripture. He resisted temptation. He performed works. He persevered. Did He do any of that to become saved or to stay saved?

fhansen said:

Not really. As I’ve said, we have to want it too, and it sounds like you did.

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My flesh doesn't want it, but my spirit craves it.