Posted on 09/11/2019 10:52:15 AM PDT by Gamecock
No Christ was teaching Jews as Messiah.
Salvation cannot be earned; it is indeed a pure gift. But it can be lost through sin. Both Jesus and Paul warn of this. This is the true teaching of the Bible.
Augustine’s non inspired fallible writing.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
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It is by God's grace we are saved by faith.
Paul makes it clear it is not from anything we do as he calls it a gift from God.
It is not from works.
We cannot boast.
If it is a gift, if it is not from works, if we cannot boast....this leaves only faith in Christ.
We are to do good works, but these are not what save us.
I pray he always serves Jesus Christ with all his heart, mind, and soul. And may he be joyful in all things.
John 6:40 harkens back to John 3, where Jesus taught Nicodemus the Gospel of Grace. You add ANYTHING to the Gift of God in Christ and you have spit upon God's Grace.
You say you are not looking for an argument yet that is exactly what you are doing, arguing with the CLEAR meaning of God's explanation at several points in the Gospel record.
Do you want to accept eternal Life by Christ's work ALONE/ Or do you want your filthy rags works to be added? Uou are clearly trying to argue God down to a legalism of your choosing, rather than accept the Grace of God ONLY in Christ's finished work.
You have not a clue the difference between being judged for eternal life and being judged for rewards at the Bema Seat of Christ, in Heaven.
You DO want to argue.
From Romans through Philemon, THIS is what Paul taught. THIS was his God-given mission: The Gospel of the GRACE of GOD.
The book of EPHESIANS pretty much sums it all up. And 2 CORINTHIANS tells us we ARE RECONCILED. NOT “going to be or hope to be”, but ARE. We are RECONCILED to GOD the moment we trust the FINISHED WORK of CHRIST for ourselves.tv
Salvation IS a gift but it can be lost thru sin? Soooo...you have to earn it back?
“Do you want to accept eternal Life by Christ’s work ALONE/ Or do you want your filthy rags works to be added? ”
.....
BINGO!
The Catholic mind is prideful of his worldly religion.
He believes his good works make him worthy.
She believes pagan rituals bring grace.
She believes all that is added to Scripture is equal to what God inspired.
And of course, they have a pantheon of lesser gods, like Mary.
All of this is what they demand God accept, instead of the One who gave His life.
It is all worldly paganism.
To follow up on my prior post.
Staying in Ephesians but going back to Ephesians 1:13-14
13In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation— having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,
14who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
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The highlighted words in above are very important in understanding the security of the believer.
The words in red indicate an action by the individual.
It is incumbent upon us to hear the word and then also believe.
These verbs are both aorist, participle, active. The aorist indicates an action that is undefined; it is an action that has occured
These would be described as adjectival participles in that they are modifying a noun..in this case the individual.
The word bolded in black is an aorist, indicative, passive verb.
The aorist has already been explained.
The use of the indicative means the author believes this to be true.
Now here's the key....the tense of this verb is passive.
This means the action of the verb on the subject of the verb is from an outside force....in this case God.
Paul is saying the person who has heard and believed the gospel is sealed with the Spirit of promise.
IT IS GOD WHO DOES THE SEALING.
Paul notes this in two other places in the Bible.
Ephesians 4:30 and 2 Corinthians 1:22.
There are no verses in the New Testament indicating the believer can ever unseal nor unseals what God has sealed.
Welcome brother! Gotta put on the whole armor of God! You’ll see myriads of first darts.
You were running well; who hindered you from following [the] truth? That enticement does not come from the one who called you. A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. I am confident of you in the Lord that you will not take a different view, and that the one who is troubling you will bear the condemnation, whoever he may be. As for me, brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. Would that those who are upsetting you might also castrate themselves! (Galatians 5:7-12)That the keeping of the moral law is necessary Paul makes clear:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)Of course there are also the many parables of our Lord that warn about the judgment of one's works. And as you said: "The Scriptures don't contradict themselves." Therefore the false idea of "faith alone" is disproven by Scripture.
Why? Say the right words and only then be saved?
No. Where did you get such a silly idea? If we have lost our salvation through serious sin, we must repent: acknowledge that are actions were sins, have sorrow for them, have the firm purpose to sin no more, and ask Jesus to graciously forgive our sins through his ministers to whom he gave the power to forgive sins:
[Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” (John 20:21-23)All of this is through the grace of God; it is not something we earn. Repentance from sin after baptism adds no more to Jesus' salvific action than does our act of faith in him in the first place.
Then there are things like what's in this article posted here today:
New Sexual Fetish; Couples Getting Pregnant and Having Multiple Abortion.
The couples in that story actually get enjoyment from the woman getting pregnant and then aborting the baby and don't see anything wrong with what they're doing.
But it should be pretty obvious to a Christian that if you've been born again spiritually, meaning Christ is genuinely alive in you and you've been made alive in Him and you've been sealed by the Holy Spirit, then the Lord's Spirit in you either recoils from sin, seeing it the way He does, or else troubles you to convict you of something where you are still not completely surrendering to Him and/or still need more work from the Lord to conform you to His image.
But it is God's work to bring you into a relationship with Him and keeping you in it by choosing you from the foundation of the world and showing His grace to you by giving you saving faith. It was His decision to draw you to Himself and reveal Himself to you so that you are changed forever by meeting and coming to know Him.
"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:44
"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." 1 Peter 2:9
It is knowing the Lord, BECAUSE HE HAS CHOSEN TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO US (if you talk to atheists, none of them seem to have met Him) which teaches us what is truly righteous, and to embrace that righteousness, versus what's right in the eyes of people who don't know Him.
And so we are to disregard all of the parables of our Lord in which he warns us of our judgment according to our deeds? And of course we have this from Paul:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)
Salvation is never about "saying the right words."
Entrust yourself to Him alone, His sacrifice for your sins, and not of yourself.
I got the silly idea from your post. You’re the one who said salvation can be lost thru sin. Perhaps rephrase your thoughts more clearly next time.
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