It took several hundred years before Christianity hammered out that definition - AFTER the Risen Christ. The Pharisees' problem was that they didn't believe that Christ was the True Messenger of the Father - giving a teaching that excelled Moses. They were blind to the teaching of Love and of self-giving. The Synoptic Gospels do not clearly show Jesus teaching that He was God to the Pharisees.
Those of faith in the OT looked forward to the Messiah, whereas we look backward. The OT prophecies of the coming of Jesus were clear and those who had faith believed in them. Moses and David both wrote about Jesus, so how could they not have faith in Him?
All of those righteous people believed in Jesus? Or did they believe and trust in God, practicing what Jesus was teaching to the Jews in Matthew 5-7?
You are saying that man deserves some credit for his own salvation. That's all I need to know.
So who do you think is being "judged" after OUR deaths? Christ? Have you read the Gospels? Doesn't Christ over and over teach that we must love and have faith and trust in God? WE? WE must be in Christ.
THAT interferes with an all-powerful God's sovereignty.
You keep saying this, not realizing that God condescends to mankind to GIVE man freedom, or ANY gift. It is God's will that He give man free will. When you give someone a gift, does it impose on your "sovereignty"?
That is why God does love His elect.
To me, you are saying God "loves" a random group of people for no particular reason, condemning the rest to hell for no particular reason. I don't think you understand the concept of love. Love is a giving of SELF! It is wishing the best for another for that person's sake. Not for one's own "glory". Any sort of action that is done for one's own benefit is self-love. I don't get that from the Scriptures. I don't see this as a Christian concept.
What does that tell you? He is showing us that we are helpless on our own and need a Good Shepherd to lead us. Sheep do not use their free will to belong to the flock, the Shepherd chooses them.
I never said we do anything without God. I have no problem with your reply. I am not saying we earn anything when we do things. We do the things we do out of love, not for a reward. We are under the system of grace, not the law.
You place a duty on God that does not exist. You would have the potter having to justify to His creations why He made them as he did.
So God is just and judges people based on the fact that they cannot do something? Doesn't that sound a bit sadistic? But yet, God is love? I don't agree with your concept of love.
God credits people with righteousness, most notably Abraham
Why? Random choice? God just chose some dumb and helpless sheep to overwhelm with His grace? That's your idea of love?
True faith is true faith "plus love" at the beginning. My original love was relatively blind and ignorant, but it was real.
So true faith = true faith plus something else? Mathematically, that doesn't add up. You are going to have to explain this better. And your original "love" was ignorant but real? How so? These sound like mere words to me - the "Lord, Lord" and Jesus responds with "I never knew you". Now, it sounds like you are doubling back to make the claim that the Sinner's Prayer is your point of salvation.
I don't think the Bible is meant for the benefit of the non-elect, it is meant for believers, and future believers. God tells us Himself that His word is nonsense to those who do not believe.
How can you be a believer until you have heard the word proclaimed to you? To become a believer, there is some point where you hear the word while not yet believing - perhaps being open to it, maybe agnostic. The Scriptures will make sense only to people whom the Spirit moves and who opens the door of their heart to Christ.
Regards
Spot on, jo. If you are "saved," as they believe, when you say the Sinner's Prayer, and are now the (s)"elect" -- why is there a need for your judgment?!
[FK to jo kus] There is one Godhead composed of three distinct persons. The Pharisees did not believe in this God, and pro-actively REJECTED this God
[jo kus to FK] The Pharisees' problem was that they didn't believe that Christ was the True Messenger of the Father - giving a teaching that excelled Moses. They were blind to the teaching of Love and of self-giving.
First, the concept of Trinity is alien to Judaism or, for that matter, to any other religion as far as I know. I would say that the God of the Pharisees is much closer to Calvinists' idea of a God than to the knowledge of Him held by the Church from the beginning.
What the Pharisees rejected was the idea that man can become God (and to this they refuse to consider that God can become man). The Jews of today consider Trinity "polytheism," again refusing to consider that God is Wisdom and that such Wisdom cannot be without a Word or Spirit.
However, paradoxically, their idea of a God is very-much man-like (anger, favoritism, vengefulness, etc. as portrayed in the OT), and in that sense quite pagan in my opinion. They take the idea that man was created in His image and likeness literally -- like Me and minny-Me, with all characteristics there and disproportionate power. Jesus Christ simply did not fit that idea of a God. Besides, He was reinterpreting the Scriptures, performing "work" (of saving a man's life!) on a Sabbath, and calling them the sons of the devil.
[jo kus to FK] is a giving of SELF! It is wishing the best for another for that person's sake. Not for one's own "glory". Any sort of action that is done for one's own benefit is self-love.
That is a very important distinction between the Church and Calvinists. The whole idea of Trinity is a supernatural revelation to mankind that God is one but not alone, and that He is a perfect Loving Community of Persons, which we are to emulate -- in love, out of love and because of love for others.
God did not create man so He can dominate him. Nor did He make man because he was "bored" or "lonely" in His singularity. Nor did He make man so He can destroy some and save others, for God is the Creator and not a destroyer.
God gives all His love to mankind because self-love is no love. He did not have to make man so He can proclaim His own glory. Only man makes things for his own illusion of glory.
God's glory is manifested in His Creation, as our sinfulness is in its destruction.