[Mrs. Don-o]

Oh dear oh dear, ealgeone. All those words and you still don't answer my question.

We all know that Jesus sometimes used parables, similes, Semitic hyperbole and all the rest. There are three ways to tell when He's doing that:

• When the Apostles or one of His listeners asks Him, and He answers. For instance, his disciples ask him about the parable of the sower and the seed, or the parable of the wheat and the tares, or being born again ("Must a man crawl back in his mother's womb??") and he corrects them with the intended, non-literal meaning.

• When His faithful followers in the NT, especially after the Resurrection and the Descent of the Holy Spirit, follow through in a way which shows they knew He was not absolutely literal about something. For instance, Jesus said "Call no man on earth father, teacher, or master" and yet Stephen, Paul and others carry on calling people father, teacher or master dozens of times. This evidence shows that Jesus' faithful followers knew very well that He did not mean that in an absolute, literal way.

• When the prayer, preaching, teaching and way of life of the early Church in the 1st-4th centuries shows what was absolute and literal, and what was not.

  For instance, Jesus said to pluck out your eye or cut off your foot rather than let it lead you into sin. Nobody did that, and the one guy who (his enemies allege) did maim himself, Origen, had always interpreted Jesus' words in that very passage allegorically. Origen wrote vehemently that anyone who would do such a thing would be an idiot.

  You don't once show that these criteria apply to the Lord's realism about His Body being real food, and His blood being real drink, because you can't.

  • He himself does not later privately interpret it as a mere metaphor. On the contrary, when questioned about it, He doubles down: My Body is REAL food. My Blood is REAL drink." That isn't the Semitic way of saying. "Lighten up, it's all a metaphor."
  • His Apostles in the NT do not interpret it as a mere metaphor, and
  • Paul strongly chastises those who do not take the Lord's Body with the utmost seriousness, saying that he who eats and drinks without discerning the Body, eats and drinks judgment on himself; and those who receive unworthily, will have to answer for the Body and Blood of the Lord.
  • In the next 3 centuries --- in fact, I say the next 13 or 14 centuries --- no Church Father and no Christian Church, speaks of or treats the Eucharist as anything other than the Body and Blood of Our Lord.

I have challenged you to disprove this, and you can not.

---

There is a related, but separate question, whether one must receive Holy Communion ("eat and drink the Body and Blood of the Lord") in order to have eternal life.

Examining Scriptures, How Scripture proclaims we are saved:

• By believing in Jesus Christ (Jn 3:16; Acts 16:31)

• By repentance (Acts 2:38; 2 Pet 3:9)

• By baptism (Jn 3:5; 1 Pet 3:21; Titus 3:5)

• By eating His flesh and drinking His blood (Jn 6)

• By the work of the Spirit (Jn 3:5; 2 Cor 3:6)

• By declaring with our mouths (Lk 12:8; Rom 10:9)

• By coming to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4; Heb 10:26)

• By works (Rom 2:6-7; James 2:24)

• By grace (Acts 15:11; Eph 2:8)

• By His blood (Rom 5:9; Heb 9:22)

• By His righteousness (Rom 5:17; 2 Pet 1:1)

• By keeping the commandments (Matt 19:17)

• By our words (Matt 12:37)

• By compassion toward the needy (John 10:25-37; Matthew 25:31-46)

• By enduring to the end (Matt.24:13)

---

All those things comprise the ramifications and consequences, the fully-developed meaning of one single thing: having "faith in Christ." Faith, fully understood, means being incorporated into Christ. It includes all the things I quoted from Scripture, above, and Scripture never lies. The above are the ways in which we have faith, because they are the ways we are faithful. They are the ways we grow in His grace and become more and more incorporated into Christ.

This is a living, working, active and growing faith, not easy-believe-ism or what some call "faith alone," a merely verbal and notional faith.

Faith, yes.

But "Faith alone"?

--- True, that exact phrase is used by the Apostle James, and is found in the Bible just once: I quote it in my tagline.

[ealgeone]

Mrs D....do you have any formal training on how to understand the Bible?

[metmom]

That sure is a lot of requirements for salvation.

So which one of that list saves someone?

All of them? Some of them? One of them?

Or is it different means for different people?

[metmom]

This is a living, working, active and growing faith, not easy-believe-ism or what some call "faith alone," a merely verbal and notional faith.

You are very clearly demonstrating that you have NO clue what salvation by grace through faith in Christ without works means.

You have completely misrepresented what salvation by faith means.

Not intentionally, no doubt but all you've done is resorted to putting out Catholic talking points.

[metmom]

Romans 4:3-8 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

[ealgeone]

Faith, yes. But "Faith alone"?

Yes....if one understands what faith is.

You can't "earn enough points" to get into Heaven.

If you're trying to do it that way you are not saved.

Hence why Christians say Roman Catholics believe work earns salvation.

Ya'll have the cart before the horse....though I'm not sure you have the horse.

It's the other way around. One professes faith in Christ because the person believes in Christ.

If they were to die two seconds after that they gain Heaven as He promised.

If one is blessed to live longer one begins to produce fruit for the kindgom....not to stay in the kingdom....but because you're in the kingdom.

Hear the Word.

Believe the Word.

Serve the Word.

That's the order.

This is a living, working, active and growing faith, not easy-believe-ism or what some call "faith alone," a merely verbal and notional faith.

You're sounding mighty proud of your "works" there. You might be bordering on a mortal sin....though the NT doesn't teach that.

If you read Romans, especially in the Greek, yes....it is faith alone that saves us. No work can gain Heaven for you.

Jesus told the unbelieving Jews this in John 6.

26Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27“Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” 28Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?”

29Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” John 6:26-29 NASB

Roman Catholics however seem to be where the unbelieving Jews were..... 30So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? John 6:30 NASB

[metmom]

There is a related, but separate question, whether one must receive Holy Communion ("eat and drink the Body and Blood of the Lord") in order to have eternal life.

Examining Scriptures, How Scripture proclaims we are saved:

(15 ways listed)

So the question remains, if you don't take communion as Catholicism says must happen, then are you saved?

What about if you do all the rest but communion?

What if you do communion and not the rest?

Do you get to pick and choose which ones you want to do or do you have to do them all?