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To: imardmd1
====== Two statements from Simon Peter ===========

"And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt. 16:16 AV).

"Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee" (Mt. 16:22 AV).

===================================================

Your analogy is false. In Acts the Lord Jesus appeared to Ananias and Saul, telling Saul that he would be told all those things he should do in Damascus, which the scripture clearly shows Ananias did, and which you reject. In Matthew, on the other hand, the Lord Jesus praises and rebukes Peter in the respective passages so that it is clear to the reader which sayings of Peter were approved and which were rejected. Neither Messiah Jesus, nor the Apostle Paul, nor Saint Luke, nor the Holy Spirit rebuke, correct, or object to a word Ananias said through the testimony of Paul.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

Matthew, Catholic chapter sixteen, Protestant verses fifteen to twenty seven,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James
bold emphasis and color selection my own

271 posted on 10/08/2015 8:52:04 PM PDT by af_vet_1981 (The bus came by and I got on, That's when it all began.)
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To: af_vet_1981; Mark17; redleghunter
You're trying to push things a bit too far, and I am supposing you want to find grounds that not only is my interpretive method not acceptable, but hence also neither am I as a truth-teller. I'm not going to let your methods take you or any other reader there.

====== The Summary ======

It is beyond supposition that when Jesus knocked down Saul and confirmed directly to Saul Who this Presence of Glory was, immediately Saul recognized that He was The Lord, called Him by title, clearly observed that He had been raised from the dead, and believed in Jesus as Messiah and Lord Jehovah so much as to immediately yield himself in obedience to Jesus, calling Him "Lord" and asking what he should do as a repentant totally committed brand-new believer, saved by faith alone in Jesus alone, and still seeking to serve Jehovah, but no longer in dark and religious blindness.

By these signs Saul had--according to Scripture--at that moment, his conscience pricked, acknowledged his sins of persecuting Christ through harming His followers, was forgiven, cleansed of sin-guilt by the blood of Christ, and from that moment did never turn back to the old life (unlike Peter who after his calling did time after time after time drop away from following Jesus, despite being rebuked).

In this passage of Acts 9, Jesus did not command Saul to be baptized. What Jesus did was to give the commandments to:

(1) get up;
(2) finish his journey; and
(3) wait until he was told (no messenger or method explained) what (no task mentioned) to do.

This Saul did, and after proceeding to his lodgings (with Judas, probably a fellow unsaved Pharisee), and in utter faith waited there without asking "How long?" and with great precision, did not do anything, refraining from any action outside The Lord's orders--not even eating nor drinking nor finding an emergency room, obeying to the minutest detail just as a slave alert for the next order from the Lord as to how to meet his needs for food or water.

For these three days (the Lord had not indicated how long), but long enough for him to know what the Lord knew about Saul, that he would sit and wait, continually praying, till the Lord issued futher instructions, waiting in anticipation even to death if need be, trusting (like the saved-by-faith-without-baptism sufferer (Job 12:15 and 23:12) that he probably was meditating on) that he was in the arms of Jesus.

As a trained Pharisee, there obviously was never a doubt that if he died while yet waiting, his grace-filled soul would be transported at least to Abraham's Bosom/Paradise through trusting in his salvation that he certainly now knew he possessed.

Even in his old life, Saul could not have been considering slaying the people of the Way, without knowing exactly what their doctrine was as compared to his false, tradition-poisoned doctrine obtained from the religious "scholars" of his day, and of the Christian tapologetic for the doctrine of salvation by faith apart from works of any kind.

But how glad he must have been when the Lord gave him a vision of someone coming to restore his sight, the act accomplished by the signs of laying his hand on Saul, a man called "Ananias." This Damascan disciple (all genuinely saved Christ-imitators are αγιοι, hagioi, saints) came, bearing the Word of prophecy, and announced what the Lord told him to tell Saul regarding the ministry that Saul would be embarking on. Here is what the Lord told Ananias about Saul:

"Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake" (Acts 9:15b,c,d-16).

Note here that the Lord said "he is a chosen vessel ," not "he will be." The Holy Ghost is always very precise describing the event by Luke's report by eye-witnesses. The "is" here gives us every reason to assume that Paul has repented, been saved, and given a new assignment by God in view of that assent to do the Lord's bidding.

Furthermore, God has given Ananias only the instructions as to what he himself was to do: go, find Saul, and place your hand upon Saul for restoring his sight). Going on, God limited the information that Ananias might prophetically announce concerning Saul's office and occupation: that he was a chosen instrument, this making him a Disciple-Apostle (unlike Matthias, who was not chosen by the Lord, in the forty days after His resurrection while He was walking with them, Acts 1:26), to carry His reputation to all cultural tribes (παντα τα εθνη, Mt. 28:19, both Jews and Gentiles, Rom. 1:15-16). And that is it. The Lord did not Ananias any further instruction for Ananias to tell Saul to get up and get baptized.

However, we know, as Ananias did, that the general overall parting instruction of the Risen Messiah Jesus was that His disciples were, as they were journeying, to make more disciples from all the tribes tey would meet (the fruit of a disciple is more disciples, Jn. 15:5, 16), and to baptize these recruited learners, and only these learners when they became qualified by their considered profession of loyalty to Jesus.

Therefore, under that general condition of following whatsoever Jesus had commanded, Ananias implicitly knew that this new repentant, faithful, redeemed, obedient, selected disciple-apostle ought to be urged to immediately and publicly exhibit and confirm his new eternal commitment to Christ by baptism; the mode showing that he had been ritually "cleansed" of sins by immersion in living water in the name and by the authority of the Elohim, the Godhead, as by the same method that all observant Jews to this day execute, even now being ritually purified in the mikvah.

So in restoring Saul's sight and delivering God's information, Ananias was performing a prophet's duties, the words being inspired: "Thus saith the Lord." But in offering the general counsel that all baptized believers would give to the new Spirit-regenerated believer-disciple, that person ought to demonstate the rite of induction into the Company of The Committed by the rite of public oral statement belief (the old Roman symbol of The Faith (click here)), followed by the immersion as described in Romans 6:3-4), Ananias was performing the disciple-teacher's duties.

As you can see, this baptism is completely outside the way we ought to treat infants, and its correct nbderstanding directs us as to the way we should discipleize children as they grow into personal accountability, into The Faith. Neither babies nor Saul are saved by applying what was intended to be the induction rite for believing disciples.

It further shows that the passage Acts 22:13-16 identifies Saul as a redeemed soul counted as a Christian brother by Ananias in his accurate acceptance of the Lord's proclamation of a servant chosen by Him, but his greeting is in uninspired words, just ordinary conversation, as he prepared Saul to receive the spiritual blessing by the act of laying on of the prophet's hands, through which Saul's sight was restored.

Going on to verses 14 and 15, we there see the exercise of the prophetic duty to announce to Saul what God desired of him--an extraordinary function.

Then in verse 16 Ananias reverts to the ordinary form of communication, using entirely justified urging but in uninspired words, for Saul to get right up and get baptized, and announce his new status with the Lord by public profession by testimony and submitting to the commonly accepted and usual ritual of disciples' (water) baptism in his first act of obedience to following the Lord's command as His bondslave.

======= The Conclusions ======

Now, none of this demeans, denigrates, nor impeaches The Lord, The Holy Spirit, Luke, Ananias, Paul, or the Scripture. If there is any impeachment, it is toward the complete dullness in your decoding of the Scripture's meaning and in describing the plan of salvation, as well as in applying the rules of logic and discernment to this saga.

What you have done is to camp on the verse Acts 22:16, with your interpretation assuming that it means that Sauls sins were not forgiven until during/after being immersed, being closed-minded as to its validity, and not comparing the rest of Scripture with that verse to discern what exactly was meant by Ananias. Then you take this proposition, go back to Saul arising from his epiphany and going on to Damascus, and apparently in your scenario, unforgiven whether or not abased, confessed, repentant, and/or believing. Then you take us on to Acts 22, tell us, "See! Ha! Saul had to be baptized to have his sins washed away and thus get his sins washed, and thus saved!"

This is simply circular reasoning, leading to erroneous imaginations and a false gospel.

My FRiend, it won't wash, and I will not accept the gospel you subscribe to, nor recommend it to anyone else.

282 posted on 10/10/2015 2:40:40 AM PDT by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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