- Mar 18, 2014
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So your theory is based on the failure of the Christian?We are saved due to God's (the Father's and Son's) actions, but God does not stop us from dying due to our own actions, as free moral agents. People are here to learn that. Because God wants the saved to fully understand, and appreciate fully, why everyone is not saved, especially since every Christian has relatives who are not. Professing to be a Christians does not make one part of Christ's church; and if that cannot make one part of his church neither can it keep one a part of his church. No one is justified unless they follow Christ. And since we are free moral agents all Christians have the privilege, according to God's will, to start and then stop, if they choose.
Yes some people know they will not stop. Some Christians were shown that by God. But all Christians do not know that, and God has not contacted all Christians. All the weeds didn't start out deciding to be weeds and claiming Christianity only as a pretense. Christ's invitation opened the door to all people who are living to be justified before God, not just present Christians. Yet all people aren't. Why? If it was as easy as only claiming Christianity, why wouldn't everyone do it, even non believers, as a backup plan since it is literally impossible to prove God nonexistent? The reason all people do not do that is because teachings in the Bible make people aware God requires much more than just claiming to believe in Christ.
All that to say, Christ opened the door for us to be justified before God. But if we don't continue to follow him we are not. Just like he does not come into the lives of those who don't invite him, he doesn't stay with those who choose not to follow him. It is Christ , the judge, that makes the determination of who can walk with him, and under what circumstances they can. Even the Father lays no restriction on his decisions about that. The book of John presents Christ's primary message as, "Follow me" (Christ). No one is justifies, sanctified, or set apart, without doing that.
From Romans 6:
1What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? 3Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.
5For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. 6We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. 7For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. 10The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. 11So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Therefore do not let sin control your mortal body so that you obey its desires. 13Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not! 16Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were committed. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to escalating wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
20For when you were slaves to sin, you were free of obligation to righteousness. 21What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death. 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Since the will of God is our sanctification then how do we thwart God’s will for us?
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