There are two issues. First, I have run into Christians who say that you can mow down a crowd with a submachine gun and they would still be saved. This is turning God's grace into a license for immorality in Jude 1:4. George Sodini is a prime example of this. But obviously they don't believe any works are necessary. Second, the issue is about whether or not works (the works of God done through a believer) plays a part in the Sanctification Process as a part of God's plan of salvation for the believer's life. Do these works save? If you believe they don't save, then your teaching can influence others to think they do not have to do anything for God but just to believe on Him for salvation. For not everybody is like you. Remember, there are even atheists who do good works, too. But that does not mean they are saved. We also learn of certain believers who did wonderful works in the Lord's name but Jesus told them to depart from Him because they also worked iniquity, too (Matthew 7:23). He did not know them because they justified sin or a sin and still be saved type of belief that can lead others into turning God's grace into a license for immorality.
I'm not sure if you wrote all that to counter what I wrote or not. I'm in agreement, unless you mean to imply that what I said is wrong. Apparently many who post here do that --assuming that the verses they quote or things they say that are common to Christian Orthodoxy somehow extrapolate to counter what Reformed Theology says, or that what Reformed Theology says extrapolates to counter Scripture et al. Reformed Theologians do by no means deny the necessity of works. (Or the big one- they do NOT deny choice nor the will of the individual.)
Ah! So you are with the other guys, haha. (I laugh, because it often strikes me how close what someone says is to what I say, or even to what I mean, and then on closer inspection I find they don't mean by it what I took them to mean). I am most definitely not of Wesleyan persuasion. Yet what you said sounded curiously close to Reformed.Thank you for your response.
If you are in agreement, all is well. I would say though, that you are more likely of the view of Wesleyan Theology rather than Reformist if you agree with my responses.
Blessings
What if this Christian murdered a poor old lady, and then confessed, and then he got hit by a bus, and died. Is he still saved?
How does "works are a part of eternal life" (did I use those words, or is than an extraplation? Anyway,) contradict works do not cause salvation? I see no problem there. 'Being a part of' does not constitute 'contributes to'. A kid may be on the team, but contributing toward the win is a whole different thing. Yet this is even farther removed from that. One does nothing for God, in and of oneself. Apart from the Spirit, nobody loves God, nobody desires Christ, nobody does good, compliance with the law is not submission to the law --not obedience, repentance by the flesh is still enmity with God.
"Welling doing"? I'm honestly not sure what you are trying to say. "Well in doing"? "Doing by will"? Anyway, Works are a part of eternal life, but do not cause eternal life. Why is that hard to understand? Eternal life is the gift of God, and the work of God. Our involvement does not increase the effect in some way, as though God's was insufficient. Our involvement is IN HIM, TRHOUGH HIM, BY HIM. It is not as though the sum of the activities of both God and Human was greater than God's alone.
Apart from Christ can do nothing. There is no contradiction.
I am sorry to hear from you this affirmation of what I thought you might be saying, to begin with --that works Save. The problem you perceive, with your quote concerning the fruit tree only further shows the difference. The tree must produce fruit. If it does not, it is destroyed. Reformed theology says the same. The fruit demonstrates, identifies, the tree. It does not cause the tree.
God alone chose and created this new creation we are. He did so in order that we would produce good works. We cannot give ourselves new birth.
I hesitate to think you actually believe the doctrine you claim here.
That is what I did, and lo and behold, years later, I find out what I believe almost in every way is Reformed Theology.
You suggest they read the verses like a child, one at a time, and do not consider them together. That they read simplistically, without exegesis, as though it was written in the native tongue of each reader, present day, during a life they each are familiar with, from the point of view of each: AKA Eisegesis.
Paul never taught Salvation is caused by human works. He, as James et al, taught that regeneration CAUSES works (therefore, make every effort). I know they look the same to you, but "accompanied by works" is not the same thing as "accomplished by works".
Perhaps you can show a quote from someone on this site that believes one can sin with abandon, and still have reason to believe they belong to Christ. I for one say such a thing is worse than silly; God is not mocked. But I don't recall ever seeing where anybody else says that.
If what you say is true, then none of the Elect die without having repented. So your scenario is an impossible fiction.
However, you have not answered the point --let me put it another way: We all hold some sins dear to us, and may not even realize we do so. The habit of anger may stay with us til the day we die, though we have done all we know to do to let go of it. Gluttony, etc, you name it --some have no conviction concerning the things others of us see in them. We think to have repented of them, but a broken and contrite heart he will not despise. 'Sins' are the result of sin in us. Have we repented of our sin? Is God not carving it out of us? Does our sinfulness not break our hearts?
I fully expect my loved ones, the believers, that is, most of them Arminian-leaning as are you, to be in Heaven, just as do they expect me, though many of them find my Reformed Theology detestable, as I find their notion that God must bow to 'free will', detestable. To my mind concerning them, and to their mind concerning me, the opposing point of view demonstrates a heart that still clings to sin, perhaps the love of self-determination, or the laziness toward duty. Yet we none of us believe the other is lost. They, as you, no doubt, do not consider that they love self-determination. I do not consider God's choice of the Elect to be an excuse to be lazy. You see a murderer hit by a bus. What does God, who looks on the heart, see?
But we will all be measured by the standard with which we judge others.
Hebrews 6 seems to counter that notion. "It is impossible"
We really only care what Jesus taught. Paul wasn't there.
Ah! So you are with the other guys, haha. (I laugh, because it often strikes me how close what someone says is to what I say, or even to what I mean, and then on closer inspection I find they don't mean by it what I took them to mean). I am most definitely not of Wesleyan persuasion. Yet what you said sounded curiously close to Reformed.
It seems Bible Highlighter is saying that according to the Bible each time you sin you have to become born again.
You said:I guess that means you should get baptized again each time as well.
I was brought up semi-Wesleyan, (that is, Arminian leaning --I never heard of such things as 'a second work of grace' or 'I never sin anymore' like I have heard from some Wesleyans, until after I was grown). I didn't convert, as such, to 'the Reformed Faith'. To me, our faith is all one and the same, if indeed we are of the Elect. But my frustration with my own inability to measure up was resolved, not by Reformed Doctrine, but realizing that God is doing whatever he does for his own sake, and that this life is not about this life. I had been busy, but I didn't know what God was doing.Interesting that my responses to you sound curiously close to reformed. All other reformists hearing my similar responses attempt to attack my position. So, whether you know it or not, I think you are more in line with Wesleyan Theology than you think.
Blessings.
Well, what'ya know! You and I agree on something!Hebrews 6:4-6 is dealing with apostasy in rejecting Jesus as one's Savior and it is not referring to going prodigal like in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or like in the situation involving James 5:19-20.
Oh my goodness! So Paul speaking of cleansing ourselves of spiritual filthiness counters what I say, that we have spiritual filthiness? As Biden would say, "C'mon, man!"Paul says let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Corinthians 7:1). This does not sound like Paul's words align with your words here.
So, you can't quote someone on this site saying that one can sin with abandon, and still have reason to believe they belong to Christ.It only takes one grievous unconfessed sin to separate a believer from GOD.
#1. Numbers 35:16-18 says it only takes one act of murder to be a murderer; And Leviticus 20:10 says it only takes one act of adultery to be an adulterer.
#2. Jesus Himself regarded just looking at a woman once as an act of adultery (Matthew 5:28).
#3. John says, "No murderer has eternal life abiding in them." (1 John 3:15).
#4. Proverbs 6:32 says "Whosoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding: he that does it destroys his own soul."
#5. Jesus Himself says that just looking at a woman in lust (Which is adultery) is potential for a person to be cast bodily in hell fire (See Matthew 5:28-30).
#6. David needed to confess of his sin in order to be forgiven (See Psalms 51).
#7. 1 John 1:9 says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
#8. Revelation 21:8 says, "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." Murderers and whoremongers will be cast into the lake of fire. All liars will be cast into the lake of fire. ALL liars, and not just some. NO murderer has eternal life abiding in them (1 John 3:15).
Here we go again.You are not really dealing with what the text says in Galatians 6:7-10, though.
Nowhere did I say you must be born again every time you sin. I said I honestly do not know what happens when a believer dies spiritually and they are converted back again to the saving of their soul. We look through a glass darkly. So again, I am saying I do not know what happens when a believer goes from “spiritual death” to “spiritual life again” according to the Parable of the Prodigal Son (See: Luke 15:24, Luke 15:32), and according to James 5:19-20. I do regard being born again as definitely the time of when we first come to Christ and we were changed spiritually. But beyond that, the Scriptures do not say.
I believe the one and only baptism in Ephesians 4:5 is in reference to 1 Corinthians 12:13. It is a believer being baptized into the Spirit and made to drink of the Spirit when they first accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. It is a baptism of the Spirit that all true believers have partaken in automatically as a part of receiving Jesus. It is the receiving of the Holy Spirit, and not John's baptism in water that the Jewish apostles kept doing without understanding what Jesus meant about being baptized into the Spirit.
Wrong. Dead wrong. You are fighting a strawman. And wearing yourself out doing so.Paul is writing to Galatian believers and he tells them to.... BE NOT DECEIVED in verse 7. Deceived about what? Whatever a man sows that shall he reap (verse 7). But in Calvinism one does not need to worry about this if they are elected to God for salvation because they are just going to automatically do what God wants in time, right?
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