Is salvation by grace alone? Or faith alone? Or grace through faith? or by faith plus repentance?

How are we saved.

  • saved by works, merit, obedience, performance morally speaking, plus faith

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • saved by works of the law, plus faith

    Votes: 0 0.0%

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    29
  • Poll closed .
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createdtoworship

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now recently a christian cult has permeated this thread with works salvation, I have refuted it, but the poster has a lot of time on his hands to post lots of posts, and I can't refute them all, so I don't recommend reading further. If you do want to tackle it go ahead, if you have any questions message me.

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here is the update after my debate with works salvation users:

Salvation issues are the most important doctrine because it is the method in which we are saved. Almost all religions have some aspect of salvation that is true. But even small errors in salvation theology end up being way off course when you follow it ten or twenty years. For instance a boat that is one degree off course, in a thousand mile journey will completely miss the harbor, or possibly even the island the harbor is on. Rat poison is mostly edible food, it only has a small percentage of poison. That high truth to error ratio makes it palatable for rats. That is the sole factor in the success of rat poison. And that is also the sole factor in why christian cults are so attractive. Anyway, I am not adressing Bible highlighter's posts, as I have logically refuted the main premise. There is no evidence that Bible Highlighter is in fact saved, as he believes he is saved by works, which means he has no assurance by definition. So if he is not even saved himself, how can he tell others how to be saved. It reminds me of the pharisees in the bible, they through their legalism shut out people from heaven.


“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."

matthew 23:13

Since Jesus came there was only two places in the new testament that revealed God's anger toward man. Both were toward the religious hypocrite. A religious hypocrite tells others how to be saved, but cannot save himself. See salvation is a free gift as romans four and ephesians 2 states, yes we must repent of our sin and turn to the true God. But that is a free gift too. We get to repent, after Christ forgives us and gives us a new slate, we are allowed to repent. In the Bible it speaks of "granting repentance" See God grants us that gift. Before Christ came into our lives we were bound to sin, we were stuck in addictive behaviour. But after Christ came He did away with the law of sin and death. The law is a school master to bring us to Christ. Yes in Christ we fulfill the law of love, but that is Christ in us. Not of ourselves, it's Christ's work in our lives. Anyway, I won't ramble on. Bible Highlighter believes the error that all religions teach, that we can work ourselves to God. But that would be like jumping to the moon, heaven is a perfect place. So any imperfection is by default rejected. All christian cults believe in grace, but when interviewed about it, it's really just works. They say that God give us the chance to save ourselves by works, by forgiving us. But again, "Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" Galatians 3:3

So again, this debate is going nowhere, and I knew instantly that it would not achieve any success. I have debated christian cults for nearly twenty years. And I have never seen a single person converted to christianity. The reason is this..... works salvation feeds our flesh. It is a work of the flesh according to galatians 3:3. Sanctification is also by faith as I have shown in previous posts. Justified by faith, and sanctified by that same exact faith. That is why it says "are you foolish to believe that that which begun in the spirit can be perfected by the flesh".

Mormons are the most recruited christian cult right now. Jehovah's witnesses are following behind, because they are slightly more legalistic, and in this day and age, that doesn't strive well with people.

They don't celebrate holidays, etc.

But if you simply understand grace, and the new testament, romans, galatians, ephesians. Then the law books of the new testament make sense. One you are saved, you are free to get out of your addictions. Now don't get me wrong, many many Christians think that simply believing in JEsus is enough, it's not. You must repent. See the devils believe in Jesus, the Bible says...so what does it make us if we believe too? So there must be a repentance from sin, and submitting to God. But again this is all a work of the spirit, the spirit of grace. We are granted repentance, we are allowed to step out of bondage. It is never mentioned as a work of salvation. Some verses mention works, but there are many types of works, there are works of the flesh, or sin. There is works of the spirit, which is rightous acts done after salvation. And there are dead works, hebrews six. Or those works that we do in order to save ourselves. So I have repeatedly ad nauseum addressed the same spirit of error in this guys posts, and God has revealed that it would not be a good steward of time to repeatedly answer the same questions over and over. I love that the poster has a good heart. That is good. I love that He loves the scriptures. That is good, and I love that he is polite, that is a bonus. But like I said, we can read the whole Bible but read it in the flesh, and not in the true spirit. Like I said the most dangerous errors are the small errors. The simple error that I can work out my salvation in my flesh, no, no, no. Just because I am saved by grace does not allow me the freedom to go against Christ sacrifice and try to save myself. That is a dangerous heresy, and it is the only theology (legalism), that Christ specifically got angry at. He did not get angry at cross dressers, pedophiles or homosexuals. He did not get angry at prostitutes, or people who traded in child sex trafficking. He could have mentioned any of that stuff, I am sure in pagan rome all of that existed. He didn't get mad at temple prostitution. He got mad at legalism. He got mad at those people who knew enough of the Bible to get themselves a following, and draw away disciples after them. I am available to answer any messages, and I will post this in the bottom of the op, first post. I feel that people flock to the grace gospel most, and then secondly they flock to legalism, the true gospel frees you from condemnation and allows a launching pad for true heartfelt love for God and a true experience with holiness. God bless you guys, Bible highlighter will probably be lurking around the forum. His gospel message is not allowed on this forum. No where are we allowed to say we are saved by works. It is a cultic message. So if you wish me to address his posts, just copy and paste them to me. I will spend more time answering your guys messages than I did in this thread. I have given up debate for the most part, because God revealed to me it was part of my fleshly desire to fight with people. I don't wish to fight with people. I wish to set the free from sin. Legalism is not the appropriate way to do that. So copy any post, or scripture that you are confused over, say if you are confused with james how is says "faith without works is dead." I have written entire articles on that specific verse. So we can talk about that, and explain that in light of all the other verses. I have not posted refutations to most verses, simply because I have not been commanded to fight with people. And debate takes considerable time, and if someone is already convinced of their viewpoint, which most are, I will not spend hours doing bible study to answer them. But if you have a question about a verse that seems to say we are saved by works, let me know in a message, and conversly if you feel we are saved by faith through grace and repentance has no place in the gospel, that is the ancient heresy of antinomianism. Or "anti law." That too is in error. Message me the verses you are struggling with, and I will discuss in messaging form.

Here is a Lordship Index,
LORDSHIP-INDEX-–UPDATE-5.doc.docx

Lets talk about how those verses in the new testament depict salvation, and how we are still saved by grace through faith alone, without the addition of repentance. (which is an error many christians make).
 
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Callusa

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Salvation is by staying in faith and avoiding sin if we sin we need to repent and ask the Lord to cover our sin with his holy blood.

Jesus is our Savior and example into obedience unto the dead, what an example we have read the book of Revelation only he the lamb of God is worthy to open the book.

Some verses to consider,

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.
I Corinthians 3:16‭-‬17

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
I Corinthians 6:9‭-‬11

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Galatians 5:22‭-‬24

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ” Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Hebrews 3:7‭-‬19

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
I John 3:7‭-‬8
 
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Christ is Lord

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We given the opportunity to access salvation (i.e being saved) by the grace of God (him coming in the person of Jesus and dying for our sins). However, you can only be saved by having faith in the finished work of Christ. Good works can never save because if it did then Christ died in vain. Good works can be used as evidence to show that we have genuine faith in God.
 
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Christ is Lord

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However what I have decided is the most simplest gospel message, that is accurate enough is this: We are saved when we repent of our sins and trust in Jesus to save us from our sins by His death on the cross and resurrection of the dead. Now that does not mean that we repent perfectly. What it means is we do a uturn. If we are living in a sexual relationship with the opposite sex outside of marriage, we must repent of that and accept Christ as Lord.

We are still saved before we perform any good work. For example, Abraham was justified not after circumcision but before circumcision. :)
 
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sdowney717

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It is the grace of God that saves you, because your faith is the gift of God given to everyman whom He has made born of God. You can not even believe in the Son unless the Father grants that to you.
John 6
63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. 65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
 
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sdowney717

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As you can read, by GRACE you have been SAVED
The FAITH is an outworking of that GRACE, which is why it says
For by GRACE you have been SAVED through FAITH not of yourselves.
Because the grace and the faith that you have is the work of God that you believe in His Son.

First comes the Grace, then come the faith because of the grace.
There is no faith without first having the grace.

Ephesians 2
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
 
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Maria Billingsley

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There are many theological debates about salvation. I have for the most part left all debate. But the salvation issue is critical to well.....salvation for one thing. So are we saved by grace alone? That would be universalism. That is wrong. Are we saved by faith alone? Some call it "easy believism." Are we saved by grace through faith? Some verses do say we are saved by grace through faith. (ephesians 2:8) and others. But what I want to mention is that the Bible is not totally clear on salvation. I know that this may confuse you. If there is one thing that we should know for sure it should be salvation. And the reason why salvation is not a clear cut issue is because it is a life long process (work out your salvation with fear and trembling). I believe in eternal security, don't get me wrong. But I don't believe in OSAS (once saved always saved). but I don't want to talk about that topic (can we lose our salvation), that is for another day. Anyway, how are we saved? We are clearly not saved by works, galatians and romans tackle that issue very succinctly. However what I have decided is the most simplest gospel message, that is accurate enough is this: We are saved when we repent of our sins and trust in Jesus to save us from our sins by His death on the cross and resurrection of the dead. Now that does not mean that we repent perfectly. What it means is we do a uturn. If we are living in a sexual relationship with the opposite sex outside of marriage, we must repent of that and accept Christ as Lord. That does not mean we have to be virgins to be saved, it just means one is not actively living in sin when salvation occurs. Any sin can be forgiven. But the Bible is clear that "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."-1 Corinthians 6:9 nkjv. I think it's interesting that "we can be deceived". It's easy to think that we can believe in Jesus and live any sort of lifestyle that we want. But the Bible is clear that you cannot, and specifically says regarding this "don't be deceived." I love twitter, and the encouraging Christians who put love above all things. But one type of gospel I see, is a gospel of mere intellectual assent. That is someone believes they are saved simply by believing in Jesus. No, no, no. Satan believes and trembles, you must trust Him. Part of that trust means turning from idols, god's of sex, god's of sports, god's of gleaming chromium (cars), and god's of all sorts of makes and models, and turning to the true and living God. An idol is anything we worship more than God. When we talk to our friends, the topics we talk about most often, are our idols. It could be work, it could be a relationship, it could be a thing, like a car, or a tool or a house, etc. God wants that place in our life. Does that mean we cannot have recreation? I heard one pastor say "God won't wreck your recreation." I thought, that was a good sermon. But it is only partly true. It depends on if we idolize our recreation, if we think about it more than God. When I was younger I mountain biked, snowboarded, etc every week. Then I took my mountain bike, my car and my snowboard to bible college to learn about Jesus. It was interesting. I went to Bible college with a mountain bike, a snowboard, a car, and a girlfriend. And slowly over the course of two semesters all of those things were removed from my life. My friends (who were non christian) stole my skateboard, my snowboard jacket and my snowboard. (one of them later became christian). My bike was stolen when I parked it by a rock overlooking a beautiful valley in riverside. My girlfriend broke up with me and started seeing one of my friends while I was at Bible college. My car caught fire, when a gas line broke, while letting a friend borrow it. He was unable to put the fire out and it totalled the car. I didn't have insurance for that. So basically the only thing I left Bible college with was a multipurpose car rack, and Jesus. I ended up giving my rack to our youth pastor, because I didn't have a car like that anymore. I only had Jesus, but Jesus was all I needed. Everything I idolized was removed. I emboldened that phrase because I still have not fully learned it today. But at that time, I still had learning and growing to do. I still had relationships that were unpure, even when I was serving in the local church teaching evangelism. God took those relationships away too. I was engaged three times, all three broke it off. One of them married my best friend at the time. God was molding me slowly, by removing my idols once again, years later. The same process, repeated in my life. I was christian, I believed in Jesus, but I was living in sin. I was saved sure. But that sin (of unpurity) was killing me. I would go to bible college, raise hands in worship, go evangelizing. Come home for Christmas, make out with my girlfriend unpurely, then go back the next day, raise hands, and go evangelizing. Some people even looked up to me as the most spiritual person they knew during that time. But I was living in sin. God was showing me, through decades of life, that salvation was not just eternity in heaven. It started today, and it was salvation from myself and my sin. Once I Repented, the Lord gave me a wonderful job, a wonderful, wife and three wonderful children. But before the happy ending, I wanted to share some more of my experience. God did this a third time, he removed everything I knew was true and real, and cast it down, and revealed only He was God. Let me explain this a little bit....While I was teaching evangelism I took a job at a local newspaper in the maintenance department. I was there three years, then I was laid off as they outsourced the printing department to another larger city. It was because newspapers were going digital. I went through a nervous breakdown. And I had auditory hallucinations, I even experienced about a year of homosexual thoughts. I was married at the time, and my wife was extremely christ like, praying for me during this rough patch. I thought our kids were robots and the government was after me. I though people communicated through morse code, that birds, trains, and house creeks were all communicating with me. I heard auditory voices from people I liked on the internet, they would talk to me personally. It was quite interesting to have famous people in your head all day. But it was distracting at my new job. I was there a year, but eventually they realized I was not "all there." and rightly so, I was fired. After that, was when I mentioned to my wife I believed the kids were robots, and she said "I think you need to see a psychiatrist." So I went and lo and behold I was diagnosed with life long skitsoeffective disorder due to a mental breakdown due to a loss of a job. I was christian during all of this, and was still living my life according to my own idols. Lust, inappropriate contentography, you name it. Through the prayers of family, church and friends, I was completely healed of my illness. It was from help from a medical professional, being a year on disability, counselling, and lots of prayer. God also healed me 100% of my homosexual thought patterns during this time. I believe homosexuality can be caused by a trauma caused by a break in proper family relationships, or in my case a trauma such as a loss of job, and a mental break down. One the trauma was fixed (being on disability, I had less stress), and God allowed this stress to decrease and for me to be healed. I firmly believe without God, I would still be sick and on life long disability. But God had a plan. This was after doing ministry for 4 years at a large church. My theology changed before I was sick and when I was healed of my sickness. See before I was sick I became what is called free grace. That is a soteriology that removes repentance from the gospel message. The best seminaries are free grace, dallas theological etc. Charles ryrie, scofield, lewis chafer, and a lot of scholars from dallas are all free grace. So I was flocking away from Christ and the Bible and into a theological perspective. Then as I was later healed of my mental illness I had an awakening, I started analyzing everything in my life. "is this reality, or a figment of my imagination?" Is this voice, real, or in my mind? Is this situation part of my illness, or part of reality? I started questioning everything in life. And during this time, God said to me. Read the entire new testament, and see if free grace is right. At this point I had a bookmark that I used to convert my theological enemy "lordship salvation" adherers. Those like john macarther, greg laurie, billy graham, billy sunday, jonathan edwards etc, most evangelists were lordship salvationists. That means that they believed in something called "salvic repentance." Meaning, salvation includes repentance. They universally believe repentance is not a work, but that repentance is part of salvation. But I used to debate these guys and say "repentance is a work." But scripture does not call it a work of the law. That was my theology calling it a work of the law. So anyway, I read the Bible, I decided to make an index of every verse that challenged free grace. My free grace bookmark was about 50 verses I think that were faith alone. But during this time I re analyzed these 50 verses, and realized that only about 15 of them were verses that say we are saved by faith, by belief, by grace, etc, and not mention repentance. As I Read the new testament I found over 100 verses that spoke of some aspect of repentance involved with salvation. I did the math. Do I believe 15 verses that mention faith alone? I do I believe the 100 verses that teach salvation by turning from your sin and believing in Jesus? So I said....I believe in the majority of the verses. Then I interpret the 15 based on my understanding of the 100. That type of logic is called theology. Theology is not God's word, it's an interpretation of God's word. It is a fallible understanding. That is why I said that salvation is not a clear and cut issue. I went on to write dozens of journals. I wrote a dozen journals when I was free grace, and I wrote about as many when I Was lordship. I kept all of them, and can post links to whoever wants to read them. But I simply want to post the lordship index. The 100 verses that I could not explain as a free gracer. salvic repentance does not answer all of these 100 verses. some of them are outright salvation by works (as mentioned in the bold writings on the index). But we cannot logically be saved by our works, since we are imperfect....so again I interpret the index fallibly, and I interpret it that repentance is required, in the minimalist sense. Probably more than repentance is required, but I don't honestly know enough to say. Anyway, I thought I would start this thread for some dialogue. I don't use this thread much, but I will answer posts eventually.

before answering debate I will require that you read this document fully....it's the lordship index I was mentioning. It does not incorporate theology, it only takes a word for word interpretation of a passage. So again I don't believe the exact interpretation, I believe a mix of theology, systematic theology etc of the passages to come up with a type of salvic repentance gospel. But I want you to read the passage, and realize that the most literal interpretation of the passage is summarized in the headlines before the passage. And then as a test, I want you to summarize the gospel in light of these passages. Then we can debate your summary. That is the format I wish to use. Thank you. Here is the lordship index link:

LORDSHIP-INDEX-–UPDATE-5.doc.docx
There is a lot of discussion on how we get "saved" but there is little said about what we are saved from. This goes hand in hand. I did not select any of your choices because it may not represent the complete picture of God and the human condition.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth died for the sins of the entire world. That is step one. Step two is to believe. Step three is to receive His Holy Spirit which is the only way to restore the relationship once lost by Adam. This connection is what brings us into the Body of Christ, The Kingdom of God. Thus we are saved from eternal separation. Once we come into Him, we can then clearly understand the "how" and "why". We only need to go back to the parables of Christ, they all have a similar underlying message. The Gift.

John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life."

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, who am a Samaritan woman?...Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:9-10).


Blessings
 
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createdtoworship

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I see you don't like to paragraph your essay ^_^

In the poll.
Check off the first three
then add Christ Alone.

Born again ones will wish to be obedient.
M-Bob

It is the grace of God that saves you, because your faith is the gift of God given to everyman whom He has made born of God. You can not even believe in the Son unless the Father grants that to you.
John 6
63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. 65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

As you can read, by GRACE you have been SAVED
The FAITH is an outworking of that GRACE, which is why it says
For by GRACE you have been SAVED through FAITH not of yourselves.
Because the grace and the faith that you have is the work of God that you believe in His Son.

First comes the Grace, then come the faith because of the grace.
There is no faith without first having the grace.

Ephesians 2
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

Again the format I wish to use is this: read the essay at bottom of post one (it's a download) read all of it. Then explain salvation in light of those 100 verses. Thank you.
 
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klutedavid

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There are many theological debates about salvation. I have for the most part left all debate. But the salvation issue is critical to well.....salvation for one thing. So are we saved by grace alone? That would be universalism. That is wrong. Are we saved by faith alone? Some call it "easy believism." Are we saved by grace through faith? Some verses do say we are saved by grace through faith. (ephesians 2:8) and others. But what I want to mention is that the Bible is not totally clear on salvation. I know that this may confuse you. If there is one thing that we should know for sure it should be salvation. And the reason why salvation is not a clear cut issue is because it is a life long process (work out your salvation with fear and trembling). I believe in eternal security, don't get me wrong. But I don't believe in OSAS (once saved always saved). but I don't want to talk about that topic (can we lose our salvation), that is for another day. Anyway, how are we saved? We are clearly not saved by works, galatians and romans tackle that issue very succinctly. However what I have decided is the most simplest gospel message, that is accurate enough is this: We are saved when we repent of our sins and trust in Jesus to save us from our sins by His death on the cross and resurrection of the dead. Now that does not mean that we repent perfectly. What it means is we do a uturn. If we are living in a sexual relationship with the opposite sex outside of marriage, we must repent of that and accept Christ as Lord. That does not mean we have to be virgins to be saved, it just means one is not actively living in sin when salvation occurs. Any sin can be forgiven. But the Bible is clear that "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."-1 Corinthians 6:9 nkjv. I think it's interesting that "we can be deceived". It's easy to think that we can believe in Jesus and live any sort of lifestyle that we want. But the Bible is clear that you cannot, and specifically says regarding this "don't be deceived." I love twitter, and the encouraging Christians who put love above all things. But one type of gospel I see, is a gospel of mere intellectual assent. That is someone believes they are saved simply by believing in Jesus. No, no, no. Satan believes and trembles, you must trust Him. Part of that trust means turning from idols, god's of sex, god's of sports, god's of gleaming chromium (cars), and god's of all sorts of makes and models, and turning to the true and living God. An idol is anything we worship more than God. When we talk to our friends, the topics we talk about most often, are our idols. It could be work, it could be a relationship, it could be a thing, like a car, or a tool or a house, etc. God wants that place in our life. Does that mean we cannot have recreation? I heard one pastor say "God won't wreck your recreation." I thought, that was a good sermon. But it is only partly true. It depends on if we idolize our recreation, if we think about it more than God. When I was younger I mountain biked, snowboarded, etc every week. Then I took my mountain bike, my car and my snowboard to bible college to learn about Jesus. It was interesting. I went to Bible college with a mountain bike, a snowboard, a car, and a girlfriend. And slowly over the course of two semesters all of those things were removed from my life. My friends (who were non christian) stole my skateboard, my snowboard jacket and my snowboard. (one of them later became christian). My bike was stolen when I parked it by a rock overlooking a beautiful valley in riverside. My girlfriend broke up with me and started seeing one of my friends while I was at Bible college. My car caught fire, when a gas line broke, while letting a friend borrow it. He was unable to put the fire out and it totalled the car. I didn't have insurance for that. So basically the only thing I left Bible college with was a multipurpose car rack, and Jesus. I ended up giving my rack to our youth pastor, because I didn't have a car like that anymore. I only had Jesus, but Jesus was all I needed. Everything I idolized was removed. I emboldened that phrase because I still have not fully learned it today. But at that time, I still had learning and growing to do. I still had relationships that were unpure, even when I was serving in the local church teaching evangelism. God took those relationships away too. I was engaged three times, all three broke it off. One of them married my best friend at the time. God was molding me slowly, by removing my idols once again, years later. The same process, repeated in my life. I was christian, I believed in Jesus, but I was living in sin. I was saved sure. But that sin (of unpurity) was killing me. I would go to bible college, raise hands in worship, go evangelizing. Come home for Christmas, make out with my girlfriend unpurely, then go back the next day, raise hands, and go evangelizing. Some people even looked up to me as the most spiritual person they knew during that time. But I was living in sin. God was showing me, through decades of life, that salvation was not just eternity in heaven. It started today, and it was salvation from myself and my sin. Once I Repented, the Lord gave me a wonderful job, a wonderful, wife and three wonderful children. But before the happy ending, I wanted to share some more of my experience. God did this a third time, he removed everything I knew was true and real, and cast it down, and revealed only He was God. Let me explain this a little bit....While I was teaching evangelism I took a job at a local newspaper in the maintenance department. I was there three years, then I was laid off as they outsourced the printing department to another larger city. It was because newspapers were going digital. I went through a nervous breakdown. And I had auditory hallucinations, I even experienced about a year of homosexual thoughts. I was married at the time, and my wife was extremely christ like, praying for me during this rough patch. I thought our kids were robots and the government was after me. I though people communicated through morse code, that birds, trains, and house creeks were all communicating with me. I heard auditory voices from people I liked on the internet, they would talk to me personally. It was quite interesting to have famous people in your head all day. But it was distracting at my new job. I was there a year, but eventually they realized I was not "all there." and rightly so, I was fired. After that, was when I mentioned to my wife I believed the kids were robots, and she said "I think you need to see a psychiatrist." So I went and lo and behold I was diagnosed with life long skitsoeffective disorder due to a mental breakdown due to a loss of a job. I was christian during all of this, and was still living my life according to my own idols. Lust, inappropriate contentography, you name it. Through the prayers of family, church and friends, I was completely healed of my illness. It was from help from a medical professional, being a year on disability, counselling, and lots of prayer. God also healed me 100% of my homosexual thought patterns during this time. I believe homosexuality can be caused by a trauma caused by a break in proper family relationships, or in my case a trauma such as a loss of job, and a mental break down. One the trauma was fixed (being on disability, I had less stress), and God allowed this stress to decrease and for me to be healed. I firmly believe without God, I would still be sick and on life long disability. But God had a plan. This was after doing ministry for 4 years at a large church. My theology changed before I was sick and when I was healed of my sickness. See before I was sick I became what is called free grace. That is a soteriology that removes repentance from the gospel message. The best seminaries are free grace, dallas theological etc. Charles ryrie, scofield, lewis chafer, and a lot of scholars from dallas are all free grace. So I was flocking away from Christ and the Bible and into a theological perspective. Then as I was later healed of my mental illness I had an awakening, I started analyzing everything in my life. "is this reality, or a figment of my imagination?" Is this voice, real, or in my mind? Is this situation part of my illness, or part of reality? I started questioning everything in life. And during this time, God said to me. Read the entire new testament, and see if free grace is right. At this point I had a bookmark that I used to convert my theological enemy "lordship salvation" adherers. Those like john macarther, greg laurie, billy graham, billy sunday, jonathan edwards etc, most evangelists were lordship salvationists. That means that they believed in something called "salvic repentance." Meaning, salvation includes repentance. They universally believe repentance is not a work, but that repentance is part of salvation. But I used to debate these guys and say "repentance is a work." But scripture does not call it a work of the law. That was my theology calling it a work of the law. So anyway, I read the Bible, I decided to make an index of every verse that challenged free grace. My free grace bookmark was about 50 verses I think that were faith alone. But during this time I re analyzed these 50 verses, and realized that only about 15 of them were verses that say we are saved by faith, by belief, by grace, etc, and not mention repentance. As I Read the new testament I found over 100 verses that spoke of some aspect of repentance involved with salvation. I did the math. Do I believe 15 verses that mention faith alone? I do I believe the 100 verses that teach salvation by turning from your sin and believing in Jesus? So I said....I believe in the majority of the verses. Then I interpret the 15 based on my understanding of the 100. That type of logic is called theology. Theology is not God's word, it's an interpretation of God's word. It is a fallible understanding. That is why I said that salvation is not a clear and cut issue. I went on to write dozens of journals. I wrote a dozen journals when I was free grace, and I wrote about as many when I Was lordship. I kept all of them, and can post links to whoever wants to read them. But I simply want to post the lordship index. The 100 verses that I could not explain as a free gracer. salvic repentance does not answer all of these 100 verses. some of them are outright salvation by works (as mentioned in the bold writings on the index). But we cannot logically be saved by our works, since we are imperfect....so again I interpret the index fallibly, and I interpret it that repentance is required, in the minimalist sense. Probably more than repentance is required, but I don't honestly know enough to say. Anyway, I thought I would start this thread for some dialogue. I don't use this thread much, but I will answer posts eventually.

before answering debate I will require that you read this document fully....it's the lordship index I was mentioning. It does not incorporate theology, it only takes a word for word interpretation of a passage. So again I don't believe the exact interpretation, I believe a mix of theology, systematic theology etc of the passages to come up with a type of salvic repentance gospel. But I want you to read the passage, and realize that the most literal interpretation of the passage is summarized in the headlines before the passage. And then as a test, I want you to summarize the gospel in light of these passages. Then we can debate your summary. That is the format I wish to use. Thank you. Here is the lordship index link:

LORDSHIP-INDEX-–UPDATE-5.doc.docx
Hello.

Please show some kindness to your audience.

Can you reduce the immense size of this post.

Can you insert paragraphs but not too many paragraphs.

How about specifying what you believe the gospel to be in say a few lines first. Your initial questions also were abbreviated and so the questions you asked, were not an accurate portrayal of each interpretation.
 
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eleos1954

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There are many theological debates about salvation. I have for the most part left all debate. But the salvation issue is critical to well.....salvation for one thing. So are we saved by grace alone? That would be universalism. That is wrong. Are we saved by faith alone? Some call it "easy believism." Are we saved by grace through faith? Some verses do say we are saved by grace through faith. (ephesians 2:8) and others. But what I want to mention is that the Bible is not totally clear on salvation. I know that this may confuse you. If there is one thing that we should know for sure it should be salvation. And the reason why salvation is not a clear cut issue is because it is a life long process (work out your salvation with fear and trembling). I believe in eternal security, don't get me wrong. But I don't believe in OSAS (once saved always saved). but I don't want to talk about that topic (can we lose our salvation), that is for another day. Anyway, how are we saved? We are clearly not saved by works, galatians and romans tackle that issue very succinctly. However what I have decided is the most simplest gospel message, that is accurate enough is this: We are saved when we repent of our sins and trust in Jesus to save us from our sins by His death on the cross and resurrection of the dead. Now that does not mean that we repent perfectly. What it means is we do a uturn. If we are living in a sexual relationship with the opposite sex outside of marriage, we must repent of that and accept Christ as Lord. That does not mean we have to be virgins to be saved, it just means one is not actively living in sin when salvation occurs. Any sin can be forgiven. But the Bible is clear that "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."-1 Corinthians 6:9 nkjv. I think it's interesting that "we can be deceived". It's easy to think that we can believe in Jesus and live any sort of lifestyle that we want. But the Bible is clear that you cannot, and specifically says regarding this "don't be deceived." I love twitter, and the encouraging Christians who put love above all things. But one type of gospel I see, is a gospel of mere intellectual assent. That is someone believes they are saved simply by believing in Jesus. No, no, no. Satan believes and trembles, you must trust Him. Part of that trust means turning from idols, god's of sex, god's of sports, god's of gleaming chromium (cars), and god's of all sorts of makes and models, and turning to the true and living God. An idol is anything we worship more than God. When we talk to our friends, the topics we talk about most often, are our idols. It could be work, it could be a relationship, it could be a thing, like a car, or a tool or a house, etc. God wants that place in our life. Does that mean we cannot have recreation? I heard one pastor say "God won't wreck your recreation." I thought, that was a good sermon. But it is only partly true. It depends on if we idolize our recreation, if we think about it more than God. When I was younger I mountain biked, snowboarded, etc every week. Then I took my mountain bike, my car and my snowboard to bible college to learn about Jesus. It was interesting. I went to Bible college with a mountain bike, a snowboard, a car, and a girlfriend. And slowly over the course of two semesters all of those things were removed from my life. My friends (who were non christian) stole my skateboard, my snowboard jacket and my snowboard. (one of them later became christian). My bike was stolen when I parked it by a rock overlooking a beautiful valley in riverside. My girlfriend broke up with me and started seeing one of my friends while I was at Bible college. My car caught fire, when a gas line broke, while letting a friend borrow it. He was unable to put the fire out and it totalled the car. I didn't have insurance for that. So basically the only thing I left Bible college with was a multipurpose car rack, and Jesus. I ended up giving my rack to our youth pastor, because I didn't have a car like that anymore. I only had Jesus, but Jesus was all I needed. Everything I idolized was removed. I emboldened that phrase because I still have not fully learned it today. But at that time, I still had learning and growing to do. I still had relationships that were unpure, even when I was serving in the local church teaching evangelism. God took those relationships away too. I was engaged three times, all three broke it off. One of them married my best friend at the time. God was molding me slowly, by removing my idols once again, years later. The same process, repeated in my life. I was christian, I believed in Jesus, but I was living in sin. I was saved sure. But that sin (of unpurity) was killing me. I would go to bible college, raise hands in worship, go evangelizing. Come home for Christmas, make out with my girlfriend unpurely, then go back the next day, raise hands, and go evangelizing. Some people even looked up to me as the most spiritual person they knew during that time. But I was living in sin. God was showing me, through decades of life, that salvation was not just eternity in heaven. It started today, and it was salvation from myself and my sin. Once I Repented, the Lord gave me a wonderful job, a wonderful, wife and three wonderful children. But before the happy ending, I wanted to share some more of my experience. God did this a third time, he removed everything I knew was true and real, and cast it down, and revealed only He was God. Let me explain this a little bit....While I was teaching evangelism I took a job at a local newspaper in the maintenance department. I was there three years, then I was laid off as they outsourced the printing department to another larger city. It was because newspapers were going digital. I went through a nervous breakdown. And I had auditory hallucinations, I even experienced about a year of homosexual thoughts. I was married at the time, and my wife was extremely christ like, praying for me during this rough patch. I thought our kids were robots and the government was after me. I though people communicated through morse code, that birds, trains, and house creeks were all communicating with me. I heard auditory voices from people I liked on the internet, they would talk to me personally. It was quite interesting to have famous people in your head all day. But it was distracting at my new job. I was there a year, but eventually they realized I was not "all there." and rightly so, I was fired. After that, was when I mentioned to my wife I believed the kids were robots, and she said "I think you need to see a psychiatrist." So I went and lo and behold I was diagnosed with life long skitsoeffective disorder due to a mental breakdown due to a loss of a job. I was christian during all of this, and was still living my life according to my own idols. Lust, inappropriate contentography, you name it. Through the prayers of family, church and friends, I was completely healed of my illness. It was from help from a medical professional, being a year on disability, counselling, and lots of prayer. God also healed me 100% of my homosexual thought patterns during this time. I believe homosexuality can be caused by a trauma caused by a break in proper family relationships, or in my case a trauma such as a loss of job, and a mental break down. One the trauma was fixed (being on disability, I had less stress), and God allowed this stress to decrease and for me to be healed. I firmly believe without God, I would still be sick and on life long disability. But God had a plan. This was after doing ministry for 4 years at a large church. My theology changed before I was sick and when I was healed of my sickness. See before I was sick I became what is called free grace. That is a soteriology that removes repentance from the gospel message. The best seminaries are free grace, dallas theological etc. Charles ryrie, scofield, lewis chafer, and a lot of scholars from dallas are all free grace. So I was flocking away from Christ and the Bible and into a theological perspective. Then as I was later healed of my mental illness I had an awakening, I started analyzing everything in my life. "is this reality, or a figment of my imagination?" Is this voice, real, or in my mind? Is this situation part of my illness, or part of reality? I started questioning everything in life. And during this time, God said to me. Read the entire new testament, and see if free grace is right. At this point I had a bookmark that I used to convert my theological enemy "lordship salvation" adherers. Those like john macarther, greg laurie, billy graham, billy sunday, jonathan edwards etc, most evangelists were lordship salvationists. That means that they believed in something called "salvic repentance." Meaning, salvation includes repentance. They universally believe repentance is not a work, but that repentance is part of salvation. But I used to debate these guys and say "repentance is a work." But scripture does not call it a work of the law. That was my theology calling it a work of the law. So anyway, I read the Bible, I decided to make an index of every verse that challenged free grace. My free grace bookmark was about 50 verses I think that were faith alone. But during this time I re analyzed these 50 verses, and realized that only about 15 of them were verses that say we are saved by faith, by belief, by grace, etc, and not mention repentance. As I Read the new testament I found over 100 verses that spoke of some aspect of repentance involved with salvation. I did the math. Do I believe 15 verses that mention faith alone? I do I believe the 100 verses that teach salvation by turning from your sin and believing in Jesus? So I said....I believe in the majority of the verses. Then I interpret the 15 based on my understanding of the 100. That type of logic is called theology. Theology is not God's word, it's an interpretation of God's word. It is a fallible understanding. That is why I said that salvation is not a clear and cut issue. I went on to write dozens of journals. I wrote a dozen journals when I was free grace, and I wrote about as many when I Was lordship. I kept all of them, and can post links to whoever wants to read them. But I simply want to post the lordship index. The 100 verses that I could not explain as a free gracer. salvic repentance does not answer all of these 100 verses. some of them are outright salvation by works (as mentioned in the bold writings on the index). But we cannot logically be saved by our works, since we are imperfect....so again I interpret the index fallibly, and I interpret it that repentance is required, in the minimalist sense. Probably more than repentance is required, but I don't honestly know enough to say. Anyway, I thought I would start this thread for some dialogue. I don't use this thread much, but I will answer posts eventually.

before answering debate I will require that you read this document fully....it's the lordship index I was mentioning. It does not incorporate theology, it only takes a word for word interpretation of a passage. So again I don't believe the exact interpretation, I believe a mix of theology, systematic theology etc of the passages to come up with a type of salvic repentance gospel. But I want you to read the passage, and realize that the most literal interpretation of the passage is summarized in the headlines before the passage. And then as a test, I want you to summarize the gospel in light of these passages. Then we can debate your summary. That is the format I wish to use. Thank you. Here is the lordship index link:

LORDSHIP-INDEX-–UPDATE-5.doc.docx

The Sola's

Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority.

Sola Fide (“faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Sola Gratia (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone.

Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.

Soli Deo Gloria (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone.

It is all of them and all are found in Jesus. Solus Christus!

We follow the Lamb ... we learn and follow His teachings. He is our example.

John 13:15

14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example so that you should do as I have done for you.

Did He use Gods word as the highest authority? Yes
Did He show faith in the Father? Yes
Did He show grace? Yes
Did He teach that He was Lord Savior and King? Yes ie... all authority has been given to me.
Did He live a life that glorified God? Yes

It's all of them.
 
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fhansen

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There are many theological debates about salvation. I have for the most part left all debate. But the salvation issue is critical to well.....salvation for one thing. So are we saved by grace alone? That would be universalism. That is wrong. Are we saved by faith alone? Some call it "easy believism." Are we saved by grace through faith? Some verses do say we are saved by grace through faith. (ephesians 2:8) and others. But what I want to mention is that the Bible is not totally clear on salvation. I know that this may confuse you. If there is one thing that we should know for sure it should be salvation. And the reason why salvation is not a clear cut issue is because it is a life long process (work out your salvation with fear and trembling). I believe in eternal security, don't get me wrong. But I don't believe in OSAS (once saved always saved). but I don't want to talk about that topic (can we lose our salvation), that is for another day. Anyway, how are we saved? We are clearly not saved by works, galatians and romans tackle that issue very succinctly. However what I have decided is the most simplest gospel message, that is accurate enough is this: We are saved when we repent of our sins and trust in Jesus to save us from our sins by His death on the cross and resurrection of the dead. Now that does not mean that we repent perfectly. What it means is we do a uturn. If we are living in a sexual relationship with the opposite sex outside of marriage, we must repent of that and accept Christ as Lord. That does not mean we have to be virgins to be saved, it just means one is not actively living in sin when salvation occurs. Any sin can be forgiven. But the Bible is clear that "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."-1 Corinthians 6:9 nkjv. I think it's interesting that "we can be deceived". It's easy to think that we can believe in Jesus and live any sort of lifestyle that we want. But the Bible is clear that you cannot, and specifically says regarding this "don't be deceived." I love twitter, and the encouraging Christians who put love above all things. But one type of gospel I see, is a gospel of mere intellectual assent. That is someone believes they are saved simply by believing in Jesus. No, no, no. Satan believes and trembles, you must trust Him. Part of that trust means turning from idols, god's of sex, god's of sports, god's of gleaming chromium (cars), and god's of all sorts of makes and models, and turning to the true and living God. An idol is anything we worship more than God. When we talk to our friends, the topics we talk about most often, are our idols. It could be work, it could be a relationship, it could be a thing, like a car, or a tool or a house, etc. God wants that place in our life. Does that mean we cannot have recreation? I heard one pastor say "God won't wreck your recreation." I thought, that was a good sermon. But it is only partly true. It depends on if we idolize our recreation, if we think about it more than God. When I was younger I mountain biked, snowboarded, etc every week. Then I took my mountain bike, my car and my snowboard to bible college to learn about Jesus. It was interesting. I went to Bible college with a mountain bike, a snowboard, a car, and a girlfriend. And slowly over the course of two semesters all of those things were removed from my life. My friends (who were non christian) stole my skateboard, my snowboard jacket and my snowboard. (one of them later became christian). My bike was stolen when I parked it by a rock overlooking a beautiful valley in riverside. My girlfriend broke up with me and started seeing one of my friends while I was at Bible college. My car caught fire, when a gas line broke, while letting a friend borrow it. He was unable to put the fire out and it totalled the car. I didn't have insurance for that. So basically the only thing I left Bible college with was a multipurpose car rack, and Jesus. I ended up giving my rack to our youth pastor, because I didn't have a car like that anymore. I only had Jesus, but Jesus was all I needed. Everything I idolized was removed. I emboldened that phrase because I still have not fully learned it today. But at that time, I still had learning and growing to do. I still had relationships that were unpure, even when I was serving in the local church teaching evangelism. God took those relationships away too. I was engaged three times, all three broke it off. One of them married my best friend at the time. God was molding me slowly, by removing my idols once again, years later. The same process, repeated in my life. I was christian, I believed in Jesus, but I was living in sin. I was saved sure. But that sin (of unpurity) was killing me. I would go to bible college, raise hands in worship, go evangelizing. Come home for Christmas, make out with my girlfriend unpurely, then go back the next day, raise hands, and go evangelizing. Some people even looked up to me as the most spiritual person they knew during that time. But I was living in sin. God was showing me, through decades of life, that salvation was not just eternity in heaven. It started today, and it was salvation from myself and my sin. Once I Repented, the Lord gave me a wonderful job, a wonderful, wife and three wonderful children. But before the happy ending, I wanted to share some more of my experience. God did this a third time, he removed everything I knew was true and real, and cast it down, and revealed only He was God. Let me explain this a little bit....While I was teaching evangelism I took a job at a local newspaper in the maintenance department. I was there three years, then I was laid off as they outsourced the printing department to another larger city. It was because newspapers were going digital. I went through a nervous breakdown. And I had auditory hallucinations, I even experienced about a year of homosexual thoughts. I was married at the time, and my wife was extremely christ like, praying for me during this rough patch. I thought our kids were robots and the government was after me. I though people communicated through morse code, that birds, trains, and house creeks were all communicating with me. I heard auditory voices from people I liked on the internet, they would talk to me personally. It was quite interesting to have famous people in your head all day. But it was distracting at my new job. I was there a year, but eventually they realized I was not "all there." and rightly so, I was fired. After that, was when I mentioned to my wife I believed the kids were robots, and she said "I think you need to see a psychiatrist." So I went and lo and behold I was diagnosed with life long skitsoeffective disorder due to a mental breakdown due to a loss of a job. I was christian during all of this, and was still living my life according to my own idols. Lust, inappropriate contentography, you name it. Through the prayers of family, church and friends, I was completely healed of my illness. It was from help from a medical professional, being a year on disability, counselling, and lots of prayer. God also healed me 100% of my homosexual thought patterns during this time. I believe homosexuality can be caused by a trauma caused by a break in proper family relationships, or in my case a trauma such as a loss of job, and a mental break down. One the trauma was fixed (being on disability, I had less stress), and God allowed this stress to decrease and for me to be healed. I firmly believe without God, I would still be sick and on life long disability. But God had a plan. This was after doing ministry for 4 years at a large church. My theology changed before I was sick and when I was healed of my sickness. See before I was sick I became what is called free grace. That is a soteriology that removes repentance from the gospel message. The best seminaries are free grace, dallas theological etc. Charles ryrie, scofield, lewis chafer, and a lot of scholars from dallas are all free grace. So I was flocking away from Christ and the Bible and into a theological perspective. Then as I was later healed of my mental illness I had an awakening, I started analyzing everything in my life. "is this reality, or a figment of my imagination?" Is this voice, real, or in my mind? Is this situation part of my illness, or part of reality? I started questioning everything in life. And during this time, God said to me. Read the entire new testament, and see if free grace is right. At this point I had a bookmark that I used to convert my theological enemy "lordship salvation" adherers. Those like john macarther, greg laurie, billy graham, billy sunday, jonathan edwards etc, most evangelists were lordship salvationists. That means that they believed in something called "salvic repentance." Meaning, salvation includes repentance. They universally believe repentance is not a work, but that repentance is part of salvation. But I used to debate these guys and say "repentance is a work." But scripture does not call it a work of the law. That was my theology calling it a work of the law. So anyway, I read the Bible, I decided to make an index of every verse that challenged free grace. My free grace bookmark was about 50 verses I think that were faith alone. But during this time I re analyzed these 50 verses, and realized that only about 15 of them were verses that say we are saved by faith, by belief, by grace, etc, and not mention repentance. As I Read the new testament I found over 100 verses that spoke of some aspect of repentance involved with salvation. I did the math. Do I believe 15 verses that mention faith alone? I do I believe the 100 verses that teach salvation by turning from your sin and believing in Jesus? So I said....I believe in the majority of the verses. Then I interpret the 15 based on my understanding of the 100. That type of logic is called theology. Theology is not God's word, it's an interpretation of God's word. It is a fallible understanding. That is why I said that salvation is not a clear and cut issue. I went on to write dozens of journals. I wrote a dozen journals when I was free grace, and I wrote about as many when I Was lordship. I kept all of them, and can post links to whoever wants to read them. But I simply want to post the lordship index. The 100 verses that I could not explain as a free gracer. salvic repentance does not answer all of these 100 verses. some of them are outright salvation by works (as mentioned in the bold writings on the index). But we cannot logically be saved by our works, since we are imperfect....so again I interpret the index fallibly, and I interpret it that repentance is required, in the minimalist sense. Probably more than repentance is required, but I don't honestly know enough to say. Anyway, I thought I would start this thread for some dialogue. I don't use this thread much, but I will answer posts eventually.

before answering debate I will require that you read this document fully....it's the lordship index I was mentioning. It does not incorporate theology, it only takes a word for word interpretation of a passage. So again I don't believe the exact interpretation, I believe a mix of theology, systematic theology etc of the passages to come up with a type of salvic repentance gospel. But I want you to read the passage, and realize that the most literal interpretation of the passage is summarized in the headlines before the passage. And then as a test, I want you to summarize the gospel in light of these passages. Then we can debate your summary. That is the format I wish to use. Thank you. Here is the lordship index link:

LORDSHIP-INDEX-–UPDATE-5.doc.docx
We're saved by grace alone. But grace can still be resisted. So while faith is a gift (of grace), we can nonetheless reject that gift by refusing to accept or exercise it. God initiates while man must consent and cooperate. We're obligated to do so because faith is the first step in our justification. Faith, IOW, is the right thing to have/do. Man exists in a disordered or unjust state when he doesn't believe.

At any rate faith establishes a communion between man and God that man was made for. Now we live by the Spirit, under grace, to the extent that we remain in Him and He in us. And throughout our lives for whatever time we have we're expected to continue to follow and walk with God, doing His will as He gives us the grace to do it. This is how salvation is worked out.
 
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Hello.

Please show some kindness to your audience.

Can you reduce the immense size of this post.

Can you insert paragraphs but not too many paragraphs.

How about specifying what you believe the gospel to be in say a few lines first. Your initial questions also were abbreviated and so the questions you asked, were not an accurate portrayal of each interpretation.
I am being very kind. It's not my fault that I had to give some background, please show some christian understanding and grace toward me. I have mentioned what I believe the Gospel is closest to. Again I don't think we fully understand what salvation is. It's not just heaven, but it's salvation from the power and presence of sin itself. It's not just eternal life, but abundant life here and now. It's not a specific time in our past where we were saved, but we are continually saved every day.
 
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The Sola's

Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority.

Sola Fide (“faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Sola Gratia (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone.

Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.

Soli Deo Gloria (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone.

It is all of them and all are found in Jesus. Solus Christus!

We follow the Lamb ... we learn and follow His teachings. He is our example.

John 13:15

14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example so that you should do as I have done for you.

Did He use Gods word as the highest authority? Yes
Did He show faith in the Father? Yes
Did He show grace? Yes
Did He teach that He was Lord Savior and King? Yes ie... all authority has been given to me.
Did He live a life that glorified God? Yes

It's all of them.
I agree with all of it, but each sola by itself is missing. There is no sola by itself that is sufficient to explain the gospel message. For example the cry of the reformation, sola fide, is flawed for example, and for reasons I explained in post one. Salvic repentance is the closest gospel message that I can see that is reflected in the Bible, but it is not perfect in my oppinion. I think the verses are perfect, the verses set out in the lordship index. For my gospel message, by all means read those verses and then verbalize the gospel message with those verses in mind.

Thank you for all those who posted in this thread. I really just wanted to verbalize my walk with the Lord in some aspect, thanks for your patience. I don't really want to debate it. I don't think debate is actually healthy for Christians, and this is why I left CF awhile back to use twitter instead. On there you have people walking in holiness instead of just debating. Christianity is not debate. Debate is unhealthy because those debating typically only consider questionable passages and not the entire purpose of the scriptures, lived out in our lives. Take care, I will monitor this thread slightly, but I simply wanted to post this because I think many gospel messages are lacking.

take care and Godbless.
 
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In the poll.
Check off the first three
then add Christ Alone.

Born again ones will wish to be obedient.
M-Bob
this is good in theory, the calvinistic take is that if someone is in sin, they were never saved to begin with. That does not always work, it's best to toss out most theological books and just read what the Bible says, the lordship index at the end of the post indicates problematic verses to the faith alone message. We are saved when we repent of sin, and trust in Christ's sacrifice. Not of works, but of grace.
 
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the calvinistic take is that if someone is in sin, they were never saved to begin with.

Actually it is if caught up in sin.
Repent.
M-Bob
 
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We given the opportunity to access salvation (i.e being saved) by the grace of God (him coming in the person of Jesus and dying for our sins). However, you can only be saved by having faith in the finished work of Christ. Good works can never save because if it did then Christ died in vain. Good works can be used as evidence to show that we have genuine faith in God.

While we are initially and ultimately saved by God's grace through faith in Christ, we also need works of faith to be saved because the unprofitable servant was cast into outer darkness (Matthew 25:30), and Paul says you can deny God by a lack of works (Titus 1:16). Besides, 1 John 1:7 gives us the true imputation of Christ's sacrifice. It says if we walk in the light as He (GOD) is in the light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

God's grace cleanses us of our past sin, and walking in the light (loving your brother - see 1 John 2:9-11), is the Sanctification process whereby the blood of Jesus continually cleanses us of all sin. Meaning, we put to death the deeds of the body (sin) out of our lives by the Spirit, and we will live eternally (Romans 8:13). For God's grace teaches us to deny ungodliness, and that we should live righteously and godly in this present world (Titus 2:11-12). God's grace is not a license for immorality (Which is what believing in the finished work of Christ suggests) (See: Jude 1:4).
 
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There are many theological debates about salvation. I have for the most part left all debate. But the salvation issue is critical to well.....salvation for one thing. So are we saved by grace alone? That would be universalism. That is wrong. Are we saved by faith alone? Some call it "easy believism." Are we saved by grace through faith? Some verses do say we are saved by grace through faith. (ephesians 2:8) and others. But what I want to mention is that the Bible is not totally clear on salvation. I know that this may confuse you. If there is one thing that we should know for sure it should be salvation. And the reason why salvation is not a clear cut issue is because it is a life long process (work out your salvation with fear and trembling). I believe in eternal security, don't get me wrong. But I don't believe in OSAS (once saved always saved). but I don't want to talk about that topic (can we lose our salvation), that is for another day. Anyway, how are we saved? We are clearly not saved by works, galatians and romans tackle that issue very succinctly. However what I have decided is the most simplest gospel message, that is accurate enough is this: We are saved when we repent of our sins and trust in Jesus to save us from our sins by His death on the cross and resurrection of the dead. Now that does not mean that we repent perfectly. What it means is we do a uturn. If we are living in a sexual relationship with the opposite sex outside of marriage, we must repent of that and accept Christ as Lord. That does not mean we have to be virgins to be saved, it just means one is not actively living in sin when salvation occurs. Any sin can be forgiven. But the Bible is clear that "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."-1 Corinthians 6:9 nkjv. I think it's interesting that "we can be deceived". It's easy to think that we can believe in Jesus and live any sort of lifestyle that we want. But the Bible is clear that you cannot, and specifically says regarding this "don't be deceived." I love twitter, and the encouraging Christians who put love above all things. But one type of gospel I see, is a gospel of mere intellectual assent. That is someone believes they are saved simply by believing in Jesus. No, no, no. Satan believes and trembles, you must trust Him. Part of that trust means turning from idols, god's of sex, god's of sports, god's of gleaming chromium (cars), and god's of all sorts of makes and models, and turning to the true and living God. An idol is anything we worship more than God. When we talk to our friends, the topics we talk about most often, are our idols. It could be work, it could be a relationship, it could be a thing, like a car, or a tool or a house, etc. God wants that place in our life. Does that mean we cannot have recreation? I heard one pastor say "God won't wreck your recreation." I thought, that was a good sermon. But it is only partly true. It depends on if we idolize our recreation, if we think about it more than God. When I was younger I mountain biked, snowboarded, etc every week. Then I took my mountain bike, my car and my snowboard to bible college to learn about Jesus. It was interesting. I went to Bible college with a mountain bike, a snowboard, a car, and a girlfriend. And slowly over the course of two semesters all of those things were removed from my life. My friends (who were non christian) stole my skateboard, my snowboard jacket and my snowboard. (one of them later became christian). My bike was stolen when I parked it by a rock overlooking a beautiful valley in riverside. My girlfriend broke up with me and started seeing one of my friends while I was at Bible college. My car caught fire, when a gas line broke, while letting a friend borrow it. He was unable to put the fire out and it totalled the car. I didn't have insurance for that. So basically the only thing I left Bible college with was a multipurpose car rack, and Jesus. I ended up giving my rack to our youth pastor, because I didn't have a car like that anymore. I only had Jesus, but Jesus was all I needed. Everything I idolized was removed. I emboldened that phrase because I still have not fully learned it today. But at that time, I still had learning and growing to do. I still had relationships that were unpure, even when I was serving in the local church teaching evangelism. God took those relationships away too. I was engaged three times, all three broke it off. One of them married my best friend at the time. God was molding me slowly, by removing my idols once again, years later. The same process, repeated in my life. I was christian, I believed in Jesus, but I was living in sin. I was saved sure. But that sin (of unpurity) was killing me. I would go to bible college, raise hands in worship, go evangelizing. Come home for Christmas, make out with my girlfriend unpurely, then go back the next day, raise hands, and go evangelizing. Some people even looked up to me as the most spiritual person they knew during that time. But I was living in sin. God was showing me, through decades of life, that salvation was not just eternity in heaven. It started today, and it was salvation from myself and my sin. Once I Repented, the Lord gave me a wonderful job, a wonderful, wife and three wonderful children. But before the happy ending, I wanted to share some more of my experience. God did this a third time, he removed everything I knew was true and real, and cast it down, and revealed only He was God. Let me explain this a little bit....While I was teaching evangelism I took a job at a local newspaper in the maintenance department. I was there three years, then I was laid off as they outsourced the printing department to another larger city. It was because newspapers were going digital. I went through a nervous breakdown. And I had auditory hallucinations, I even experienced about a year of homosexual thoughts. I was married at the time, and my wife was extremely christ like, praying for me during this rough patch. I thought our kids were robots and the government was after me. I though people communicated through morse code, that birds, trains, and house creeks were all communicating with me. I heard auditory voices from people I liked on the internet, they would talk to me personally. It was quite interesting to have famous people in your head all day. But it was distracting at my new job. I was there a year, but eventually they realized I was not "all there." and rightly so, I was fired. After that, was when I mentioned to my wife I believed the kids were robots, and she said "I think you need to see a psychiatrist." So I went and lo and behold I was diagnosed with life long skitsoeffective disorder due to a mental breakdown due to a loss of a job. I was christian during all of this, and was still living my life according to my own idols. Lust, inappropriate contentography, you name it. Through the prayers of family, church and friends, I was completely healed of my illness. It was from help from a medical professional, being a year on disability, counselling, and lots of prayer. God also healed me 100% of my homosexual thought patterns during this time. I believe homosexuality can be caused by a trauma caused by a break in proper family relationships, or in my case a trauma such as a loss of job, and a mental break down. One the trauma was fixed (being on disability, I had less stress), and God allowed this stress to decrease and for me to be healed. I firmly believe without God, I would still be sick and on life long disability. But God had a plan. This was after doing ministry for 4 years at a large church. My theology changed before I was sick and when I was healed of my sickness. See before I was sick I became what is called free grace. That is a soteriology that removes repentance from the gospel message. The best seminaries are free grace, dallas theological etc. Charles ryrie, scofield, lewis chafer, and a lot of scholars from dallas are all free grace. So I was flocking away from Christ and the Bible and into a theological perspective. Then as I was later healed of my mental illness I had an awakening, I started analyzing everything in my life. "is this reality, or a figment of my imagination?" Is this voice, real, or in my mind? Is this situation part of my illness, or part of reality? I started questioning everything in life. And during this time, God said to me. Read the entire new testament, and see if free grace is right. At this point I had a bookmark that I used to convert my theological enemy "lordship salvation" adherers. Those like john macarther, greg laurie, billy graham, billy sunday, jonathan edwards etc, most evangelists were lordship salvationists. That means that they believed in something called "salvic repentance." Meaning, salvation includes repentance. They universally believe repentance is not a work, but that repentance is part of salvation. But I used to debate these guys and say "repentance is a work." But scripture does not call it a work of the law. That was my theology calling it a work of the law. So anyway, I read the Bible, I decided to make an index of every verse that challenged free grace. My free grace bookmark was about 50 verses I think that were faith alone. But during this time I re analyzed these 50 verses, and realized that only about 15 of them were verses that say we are saved by faith, by belief, by grace, etc, and not mention repentance. As I Read the new testament I found over 100 verses that spoke of some aspect of repentance involved with salvation. I did the math. Do I believe 15 verses that mention faith alone? I do I believe the 100 verses that teach salvation by turning from your sin and believing in Jesus? So I said....I believe in the majority of the verses. Then I interpret the 15 based on my understanding of the 100. That type of logic is called theology. Theology is not God's word, it's an interpretation of God's word. It is a fallible understanding. That is why I said that salvation is not a clear and cut issue. I went on to write dozens of journals. I wrote a dozen journals when I was free grace, and I wrote about as many when I Was lordship. I kept all of them, and can post links to whoever wants to read them. But I simply want to post the lordship index. The 100 verses that I could not explain as a free gracer. salvic repentance does not answer all of these 100 verses. some of them are outright salvation by works (as mentioned in the bold writings on the index). But we cannot logically be saved by our works, since we are imperfect....so again I interpret the index fallibly, and I interpret it that repentance is required, in the minimalist sense. Probably more than repentance is required, but I don't honestly know enough to say. Anyway, I thought I would start this thread for some dialogue. I don't use this thread much, but I will answer posts eventually.

before answering debate I will require that you read this document fully....it's the lordship index I was mentioning. It does not incorporate theology, it only takes a word for word interpretation of a passage. So again I don't believe the exact interpretation, I believe a mix of theology, systematic theology etc of the passages to come up with a type of salvic repentance gospel. But I want you to read the passage, and realize that the most literal interpretation of the passage is summarized in the headlines before the passage. And then as a test, I want you to summarize the gospel in light of these passages. Then we can debate your summary. That is the format I wish to use. Thank you. Here is the lordship index link:

LORDSHIP-INDEX-–UPDATE-5.doc.docx

There was no option in the poll for: "Salvation = God's grace through faith + Works faith (and or holy living)." So I did not vote in the poll, my friend.

In any event, I used to believe in a similar way. I used to believe that sin can separate you from GOD but works in no way saved. But I realized in time that this was a contradictory belief (not only logically but also Scripturally). You cannot live holy without there being some kind of work on your end. There are not only passive commands that we must obey in the New Testament (or New Covenant) (so as not to sin), but there are also proactive commands that we must obey as a part of eternal life, as well (so as not to sin, too). For example: Jesus agreed with the lawyer on the truth that we must love God and love our neighbor as a part of eternal life (Luke 10:25-28). Jesus did not correct the lawyer and tell him to just believe in the finished work of Christ alone and not worry about sin (or in loving God, and others). On the contrary, Jesus said, "Do this and you will live." (Luke 10:28). Loving your neighbor is helping the poor or the beat up looking poor guy on the side of the road (See the Parable of the Good Samaritan - Luke 10:29-37). This is why we read in Matthew 25:31-46 that those who did not help the poor were told to go away into everlasting punishment. Luke 9:62 implies that we must preach the gospel, otherwise we are not worthy for the Kingdom of God. Again, it would come back to love. Do we love our neighbor enough to tell them the good news of Jesus Christ? If we really cared about them, we would do so. Please take note that I am even preaching to myself here. For I am not above what God's Word says. We can also do more in loving others around us. Truly loving them and not just yelling at them in anger to get right with GOD. We must truly love them (Which is only possible by the power of GOD).

So then, what was Paul talking about in regards to works or the Law?

Paul was fighting against "Circumcision Salvationism" (Which is Law Alone Salvationism involving the 613 laws within the Law of Moses without God's grace); A certain sect of Jews were trying to deceive some Christians into thinking they had to first be circumcised in order to be saved. This was a heresy that was clearly addressed at the Jerusalem council (See Acts of the Apostles 15:1, Acts of the Apostles 15:5, Acts of the Apostles 15:24). Paul also addressed this problem; Paul said to the Galatians that if you seek to be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (Galatians 5:2), and then Paul mentions how if you seek to be justified by the Law, you have fallen from grace (Galatians 5:4). This "law" is the Torah because circumcision is not a part of the commands given to us by Jesus and His followers. Paul was NOT speaking against how we must obey the commands of Jesus and His followers under the New Covenant or New Testament. For Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:3-4 that if any man does not agree with the words of Jesus, and the doctrine according to godliness, he is proud and he knows nothing. James 4:6 says God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
 
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There was no option in the poll for: "Salvation = God's grace through faith + Works faith (and or holy living)." So I did not vote in the poll, my friend.

In any event, I used to believe in a similar way. I used to believe that sin can separate you from GOD but works in no way saved. But I realized in time that this was a contradictory belief (not only logically but also Scripturally). You cannot live holy without there being some kind of work on your end. There are not only passive commands that we must obey in the New Testament (or New Covenant) (so as not to sin), but there are also proactive commands that we must obey as a part of eternal life, as well (so as not to sin, too). For example: Jesus agreed with the lawyer on the truth that we must love God and love our neighbor as a part of eternal life (Luke 10:25-28). Jesus did not correct the lawyer and tell him to just believe in the finished work of Christ alone and not worry about sin (or in loving God, and others). On the contrary, Jesus said, "Do this and you will live." (Luke 10:28). Loving your neighbor is helping the poor or the beat up looking poor guy on the side of the road (See the Parable of the Good Samaritan - Luke 10:29-37). This is why we read in Matthew 25:31-46 that those who did not help the poor were told to go away into everlasting punishment. Luke 9:62 implies that we must preach the gospel, otherwise we are not worthy for the Kingdom of God. Again, it would come back to love. Do we love our neighbor enough to tell them the good news of Jesus Christ? If we really cared about them, we would do so. Please take note that I am even preaching to myself here. For I am not above what God's Word says. We can also do more in loving others around us. Truly loving them and not just yelling at them in anger to get right with GOD. We must truly love them (Which is only possible by the power of GOD).

So then, what was Paul talking about in regards to works or the Law?

Paul was fighting against "Circumcision Salvationism" (Which is Law Alone Salvationism involving the 613 laws within the Law of Moses without God's grace); A certain sect of Jews were trying to deceive some Christians into thinking they had to first be circumcised in order to be saved. This was a heresy that was clearly addressed at the Jerusalem council (See Acts of the Apostles 15:1, Acts of the Apostles 15:5, Acts of the Apostles 15:24). Paul also addressed this problem; Paul said to the Galatians that if you seek to be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (Galatians 5:2), and then Paul mentions how if you seek to be justified by the Law, you have fallen from grace (Galatians 5:4). This "law" is the Torah because circumcision is not a part of the commands given to us by Jesus and His followers. Paul was NOT speaking against how we must obey the commands of Jesus and His followers under the New Covenant or New Testament. For Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:3-4 that if any man does not agree with the words of Jesus, and the doctrine according to godliness, he is proud and he knows nothing. James 4:6 says God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
yes it appears to be works, I admit. However it is not works on God's end. We must do works to get blessing. Not eternal life. If there was a law that could save, certainly we would be saved by that law, and not the Cross.

"For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law." Galatians 3:21b

there is no law, loving your enemy, following God with all your heart, etc....no law at all that can save. If there was such a law, salvation would be by that law, and not the cross. God would rather allow a law that saved, than to torture His beloved son in our stead.

And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work."
Romans 11:6 nkjv

So the Bible itself does not interpret repentance as a work of righteousness. As it says above if repentance was a work, then it would cancel out grace as a means of salvation entirely. They are opposites, according to the law of non contradiction, both cannot be correct.


Again we must repent to be saved, but that repentance does not have eternal merit, thus according to scripture it is not a work. If we are living with our girlfriend before marriage, we must repent of that sin of adultery. If we are homosexual we must repent of homosexuality and accept God's sexuality for our lives if we wish to be Christian. But that repentance is not a work, here is why...We must interpret theological words according to the Bible. I interpret salvic repentance as part of trusting in Christ alone. If we worship god's of sex, god's of sports or gods of gleaming chromium (cars), we are not worshiping God. We must put down those false gods and give God our life. We can have recreation yes, any recreation that does not morally compromise our faith. However we must not idolize that recreation. Ecclesiastes says "there is a time for everything" My interpretation is this..."there is a time to play, and a time to rest, and a time for church, and a time to spend with family" If your recreation takes up all of your existing time and you don't have time for family or God, then you have to re-prioritize your life.
 
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