Posted on 05/04/2003 12:10:50 PM PDT by P-Marlowe
Is there anything that you can do to atone for your sins on a spiritual level? Or did Jesus atone for your sins? If you could atone for your sins by feeling guilty and ashamed, then Jesus didn't need to die, all you had to do was feel guilty.
Jesus said his yoke is easy and his burden is light, but all throughout Christendom there is the tendency to place heavy burdens greivous to be borne on those who would follow Jesus. They create a religion where Jesus sacrifice is step one on the ladder and the sinner is then obliged to climb the ladder through self righteousness.
Jesus said it is finished. He did not say, well I guess this is a good start. Yes you must repent and believe. But must a man dwell on his past? Must he focus on his own shrotcomings? Or must he like a lamb, focus on the shepherd?
Belief is just too easy a way for some people. They think they must do something to help Jesus to save them. But what saves them has already been done. Its just too hard to believe.
The bad news is that if you believe it is not enough. The bad news is that unless you fit someone else's definition of a striver for righteousness that your salvation is in question. Hey nobody has to strive for righteousness because nobody can achieve it. We are righteous not because we keep the 10 commandments to the letter, we are righteous because we are covered by the blood of Jesus.
It's a hard thing to realize that there is nothing you can do to assist Jesus in your salvation. But it seems very few are willing to actually concede that fact.
Great post. Satan has inspired many to think that continuing in sin is righteousness. Rom 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?
Rom 6:2 Let it not be! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
Paul makes the case that because we are no longer under the written laws of physical Israel does not mean we are free to violate God's law...to sin. He believed what the old testament, his only scripture, told him about the new convenent:
Jer 31:33 but this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, says Jehovah, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
God's laws, his torah, are written in the hearts and minds of believers. As we grow in faith and understanding the natural result is that we keep the law.
Are you free from sin today? If so, then why? Is it because you don't give into temptation or is it because you are free from the stain of sin and the power of sin because of what Jesus did for you?
When is the last time you sinned? And if you sin tomorrow, what happens to your salvation?
Show me one mainstream or mainline preacher who preaches such a thing or show me one website that isn't a Jim Jones cult where such a thing is taught.
If you can't then maybe you should repent of your false accusation.
Many do not teach that. This is a strawman argument you are making. Now show me that your strawman is more than just fluff.
I saw this at a Youth Group musical Thursday night. Two troubled kids were told to just ask Jesus into their lives, and everything would be better. He becomes the panacea for a troubled-filled life.
Repentance is a necessary component of salvation - an indispensible one, in fact.
Can you point to any passage in the Hebrew scriptures which prophecies a second coming of the messiah?
What bothers me about many people is that they assume that everyone who isn't as sinless as them is not walking with the Lord or is not saved. That in order to be saved a person must be as hard a worker and as sinless a person as they are.
Hey if works and sinless living are essential to maintaining your salvation then we might as well have the law back. Nobody was righteous under the law before Jesus and certainly nobody is righteous under the law after Jesus. Only Jesus met that standard.
Repent yes. Do good works in order that you can assist Jesus in saving yourself... Blasphemy. You do good works because you love Jesus and the Holy Spirit leads you in that direction. You don't do them because you have to in order to be saved.
Wrong. God doesn't want 'human' sacrifices. That's why God, in Genesis 22, replaces Isaac with a Ram! What more 'visual' do you need? God wanted to see if Abraham would 'obey'. When God knew that Abraham meant to follow through and sacrifice his only son, God called out to Abraham, and stoped him. Then God brought forth a Ram, to be sacrificed.
Hosea 6
6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
Leviticus 16
10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
The goat was sent into the wilderness. It was NOT killed. Atonement is about life, NOT death.
Notice that Aaron CONFESSED over the goat, the sins of Israel.
People who ignore the above also ignore James. Many Christians for some reason do not like James. Notice that James clearly adds to the discussion of Abraham's faith being counted as righteousness. He doesn't do that accidentally. He is intentionally providing further perspective to Paul's words; probably so Paul isn't misinterpreted. I believe Acts 15 demonstrates that James and Paul were on good terms.
James 2 - 14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18But someone will say, You have faith; I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. 19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe thatand shudder. 20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[4] ? 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,"[5] and he was called God's friend. 24You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. 25In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Matthew 7:
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
It is the DOING that gives one, a firm foundation.
That is an argument from silence. The scriptures don't say a lot of things. Can I assume from their silence that all these things not mentioned must therefore be true?
And Jesus said He would return. His followers clearly understood Him in this.
He also said, and his followers understood, that "this generation will not pass away till all has taken place".
Prophetic fulfilment is clearer seen by us in hindsight than foresight.
Without doubt.
Great observation. My preacher talks about the "two thieves" of the cross: works and the feeling that my sins are so bad cannot be forgiven.
Folks get so wrapped around one of these that we don't look at the Cross. The bottom line is we need to preach the Gospel to ourselves everyday to overcome the thieves.
The works thing is insidious; we constantly add little rules to our lives and we aren't even aware that we are doing so!
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