Episcopal Bishop: Individual Salvation is "Great Western Heresy"

Associated Baptist Press ^ | 07/10/2009 | Bob Allen

[grey_whiskers]

For example, he says, “If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you who claims to have saving faith says "depart in peace, be warm and filled.” Just what he needs. Condolence. Hope you feel better, hope you find some food. But [if] you don’t give him the things needful to the body, what kind of faith is that? If you’re really saved, it’s going to be a working kind of salvation that will bear fruit. That’s all he’s saying. So, in verse seventeen, “…so faith, if it doesn't have works, is dead, because it's alone.” So it’s a dead faith not a living faith....

Careful with the blanket statements: you are forgetting the dimension of time here. cf Luke 13:6-9...

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Incidentally, I think the parable of the fig tree and the manure (as well as the impossibility of reading our *own* hearts as God would, let alone someone else's), are one of the reasons we are enjoined "judge not, lest ye be judged."

Cheers!

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Faith and good works are related. Good works are the result of faith, just like good fruit is produced by a good tree.

But as far as our own good works being "efficatious" towards salvation, I think the Bible is clear --

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Not of works, lest any man should boast." -- Ephesians 2:8-9

Unless Paul got it wrong.

All I know is there is no salvation outside of Christ! And that He alone purchased our redemption from eternal damnation by means of His suffering and death on the Cross.

Amen. And as evidence of our justification before God, He gives us faith in Christ and His work on the cross on our behalf.

When we stand before God on Judgment Day, mercifully we will not be judged for our own good works which are as filthy rags to God, but for the good work of Christ. God loves us because He sees Christ within us. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

[betty boop]

"Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His Manhood. Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but One Christ."

Therefore, God does not "reduce" to man in the Person of the Incarnated Son, Jesus Christ. His eternal divinity is not extinguished or diminished by His "mortalization" as true man; He is still true God, the Son being of one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

[Marysecretary]

Amen, dear Dr. E.

[Marysecretary]

It’s called deception. The devil is a master at it. People are searching for something to hang on to. Many are attracted to this kind of ‘spirituality,’ for whatever reasons. They reject the true God for a false one. Deception.

[Marysecretary]

Gasp, you mean that Klingons aren’t real????? Sob.

[Alamo-Girl]

Put another way, we are in His Image, not the other way around (as, e.g., Feuerbach insisted).

Very well said.

Thank you oh so very much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

[j_tull]

Matthew 23 and 24. Christ quotes on this very issue.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for your beautiful testimony, dearest sister in Christ!

All I know is there is no salvation outside of Christ! And that He alone purchased our redemption from eternal damnation by means of His suffering and death on the Cross.

Amen!!!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for that beautiful sermon excerpt and for your testimony, dear sister in Christ!

Most every one of us starts out with a mustard seed of faith.

Indeed! Thank God He is patient with us!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL!

[1000 silverlings]

The bible teaches that a man can be very religious and still be dead, in fact dead in works and even, twice dead. Without the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit he is not quickened unto spiritual life.

[1000 silverlings]

And these "ungodly" can only be saved by accepting your doctrine — which is a heretical notion

I never claimed that any doctrine saves anyone

[1000 silverlings]

I was perceiving that you and greywhiskers were claiming that there are conduits of Grace, ie objects, creatures, men,rituals and doctrines, etc. Christ is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), no other creature, thing, idea, can replace Him.

[1000 silverlings]

the question that needs to be asked is are we saved (even in part) by our own good works or 100% by Christ's work on the cross freely imputed to us

None of man's works are of any benefit whatsoever. What is manifested in a Christian, over time and forms a new man, are the works of the Holy Spirit. Once again, a Christian cannot claim them as his work.

Galatians 5:19

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

5:25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Christ is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), no other creature, thing, idea, can replace Him.

Amen!

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." -- Romans 1:16-17

[1000 silverlings]

Hebrews 13:20

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,

13:21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.