You are inserting a motive here for the giving of the motor. I could just as easily say that the giving of the motor was to ensure that it would take me all the way to Heaven, infallibly. If the car carrying it crashed, God would simply install it into another chassis, and I would be on my way again.
Why would you say it is impossible to protect me from driving into a telephone pole? We're talking God here. :) I could give a baby a certain toy and only let him play with it while I was sitting right in front of him and looking right at him. This would protect him from injuring himself. I think God watches us that closely all the time. He will certainly let us stick a block in our eye from time to time, but He would never let us choke on it.
This is the verse [John 6:] 54, again: "Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you". The condition is right there: take the Eucharist, and the consequence of violating it is there, too: you shall not have life.
Here you are only showing one condition and I am saying that you are really asserting two on this point. I know we honestly disagree on whether this verse is talking about the Eucharist or not, but that's not even what I'm talking about.
We started with your saying that God's promising "eternal life" is consistent with the possibility of losing it for failure to keep a condition. I am saying that your posit requires TWO conditions and not just one. First you are saying there is a requirement to (in your interpretation) take the Eucharist in order to get eternal life in the first place. Verse 54 DOES take us this far. But then, in order for eternal life to actually BE eternal, you impose a second condition, that of repeating the sacraments along with everything else one needs to do in order to keep eternal life. This second condition is not found in the verse, nor do I believe it is found anywhere in scripture. Eternal means forever.
FK: "I know there are a few verses that "sound" like one can lose his salvation, but the whole weight of scripture is squarely on one side, IMO."
You then list several verses presumably as examples of the possibility of losing one's salvation:
he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved (Mt 10:22, 24:13, similar Mark 13:!3)
Very true. POTS says that perseverance is guaranteed by God for the elect.
Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor 10:12, also see the entire preceding discourse)
Right, we should never rest on our laurels. The plain meaning of OSAS is false. Earlier it says:
It wasn't the performance of ritual or task that was important. Paul says faith is what matters. Verse 12 follows this. We should not think we are "covered" because of our race or our deeds AS THE REASON for our salvation. We should also be constantly examining ourselves for potential correction.1 Cor 10:2-5 : 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.
by good works you may make sure your calling and election. (2 Peter 1:10)
YOU may make sure. By faith first, you knew it originally. That is different from it being sure in fact, it has to do with our knowing it continually. This is a perfect verse for showing that works are an evidence of an already held faith, and not an independent component of salvation.
On Romans 2:6-10, Paul was specifically talking about deeds, evil ones, and to drive his point home he focused on the back end of a higher truth. The whole chapter is about deeds, but elsewhere he puts them into context. Faith comes first, then deeds.
The text does not say anything about "represents" in either Chapter 5 or 8. Besides, what difference would that make anyway: obviously incense is not the prayer itself, but the reality described in Apocalypse 5 and 8 is still saints praying to God who knows of the prayer as He is judging us.
The difference is whether saints, after physical death, actually pass along prayers they have received from us or not. So I agree that the incense is not the prayer of the living person on earth itself. The prayers of the people on earth go directly to God.
Amen. Dead people are not mediums between men and God. We have to ask ourselves "what point is there in believing God created a transit to Himself other than Jesus Christ?"
The answer is because he who would control that earthly transit controls other people. It's the human condition of fallen man to seek control over other people and at the same time, to submit to another's power over us. We are schizophrenic without God's grace.
But Scripture is clear there is no intermediary between men and God but one man, Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5). No idols, no falling down to the stock of a tree, no prayers to dead people who cannot save us.
But then, in order for eternal life to actually BE eternal, you impose a second condition, that of repeating the sacraments along with everything else one needs to do in order to keep eternal life. This second condition is not found in the verse, nor do I believe it is found anywhere in scripture. Eternal means forever.
Amen. Grace cannot be bartered for; it is a gift of God. Once given, eternally saved. And God's grace was given to His children from before the foundation of the world, not according to him who runs or him who wills, but according to God who shows mercy" (Romans 9:16).
True: the purpose of the free will is to drive us to Heaven, and God always offers reconciliation and renewal after the crash.
Why would you say it is impossible to protect me from driving into a telephone pole? We're talking God here. :) I could give a baby a certain toy and only let him play with it while I was sitting right in front of him and looking right at him. This would protect him from injuring himself. I think God watches us that closely all the time.
Watches, yes, protects us -- no, not always. The scripture is filled with men chosed by God who nevertheless drive themselves into telephone poles, the entire Hebrew nation being one example, St. Peter the other. Christ said that He will pray for Peter, and He warned Peter, but He did not protect him from denying Him.
Verse 54 DOES take us this far. But then, in order for eternal life to actually BE eternal, you impose a second condition, that of repeating the sacraments along with everything else one needs to do in order to keep eternal life. This second condition is not found in the verse, nor do I believe it is found anywhere in scripture. Eternal means forever.
But I gave you just recently verses about perseverance and making the election sure. Hence the eternal life can be lost through our actions. Was the Eucharist meant to be taken once? This is at least a strange hypothesis. Most people eat every day, and Christ said "food indeed". The parallel is with manna from heaven, and that was eaten every day till the journey lasted: "the children of Israel ate manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land" (Exodus 16:35). Besides, if your interpretation were correct, the Eucharist would have been an initation rite, but we already have one, baptism.
POTS says that perseverance is guaranteed by God for the elect
POTS may say the strangest things, but where does the scripture say it?
YOU may make sure [re. 2 Peter 1:10]. By faith first, you knew it originally. That is different from it being sure in fact, it has to do with our knowing it continually. This is a perfect verse for showing that works are an evidence of an already held faith, and not an independent component of salvation.
This is a very innatural mental gymnastics, not supported by the plain text. St. Peter lays out an elaborate programme of growing in virtues just so that you know what you objectively already have? Verse 8 warns of actual, not illusory emptiness and fruitlessness; verse 9 speaks expressly of forgetting the cleansing of OLD sins, not of present or future sins. It is hard to imagine that this admonition is all about subjectively forgetting an objectively assured salvation, especially with the numerous references to perseverance elsewhere.
The difference is whether saints, after physical death, actually pass along prayers they have received from us or not. So I agree that the incense is not the prayer of the living person on earth itself. The prayers of the people on earth go directly to God.
The scripture says they pass the prayers at Judgement, and it says that the members of the Church are all connected in the Mystical body of Christ, so I stand by my reading of Apoc 5 and 8.