Posted on 01/05/2010 9:46:47 PM PST by the_conscience
I read post 1,467 with interest. Scripture doesn’t teach a ‘free ride’. It is ‘only faith’ because through faith we are reborn, and our heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh. As long as we have the heart of stone we get from Adam, we can do nothing good, because our heart is...stone.
The gift of the Holy Spirit combined with a heart of flesh makes us a new creation. That new creation desires to do good, while our flesh (in this case, the old man) pulls us down, setting up the conflict Paul discusses in Romans 7. But as a new creation, we are already destined to be conformed to Jesus, and God will see us through.
The images we use need to be balanced. Too often, someone grabs one ‘image’ - Mary as ‘mother of God’, or ‘dead in sins’, and carries it to an extreme it was not meant for, creating confusion. We have free will, and we are elect. Both true, but both capable of being taken to a logical extreme not meant.
As you say, “The reason we resort to images is that we know that sheer literal language ain’t gonna convey what needs to be conveyed.”
We toil, but the energy comes from God. Makes no literal sense, but it is true.
And as you point out, it is getting late. Good night, and God bless!
I think intercession is a calling . . . and a challenging one.
Intercessors often experience in their own bodies the feelings of those they are interceding for. It can be quite traumatic.
Travail in agony is a common experience.
I sure find that perspective more than fascinating.
To determine
“BETTER” or “WORSE”
I believe
one BEST know
1. The goal
2. The criteria, standard of measure that informs when the goal has been reached.
3. The context.
If the goal is passionate love making . . . your point is well made.
If the goal is to surgically solve a urological problem . . . a different perspective would be BETTER.
That you bought into historical revisionism I guess shouldn't come as much of a surprise.
What is unequivocal is that a cult so determined to control speech especially in regards to how others should regard them and refer to them has no real interest in natural rights.
Shame.
And we can be similarly as indignant
and just as justifiably so
WHEN
Vatican Affiliiates et al
dogmatically INSIST in their most !!!!DEMANDING!!!! and !!!!CONTROLLING!!!! style that
Trinitarian Protty Christians
HATE them personally or even that we hate the whole of the Insitution merely because we hate various spiritually deadly heresies, from our perspective.
However, the lack of insight and fair-minded capacity to see that what's good for the goose is good for the gander seems to be wholesale lacking between the ears of every last person of the 1-3 dozen in the more rabid Vatican Affiliated cliques hereon.
That's most underwhelming; unimpressive; cheeky; duplicitous; hypocritical to the max etc. YET WE ARE SUPPOSED TO RESPECT such a double standard and mentality???
Not remotely likely.
BTW, I don't believe that every last Vatican Affiliate worships Mary. I've known plenty who do not. And I do not know emphatically 100% that any given individual does--even amongst the rabid cliques so given to SOUNDING LIKE they do 24/7.
However, we can note that certain phrasings, compulsive defensiveness; fixations etc. SURE SEEM TO INDICATE SUCH because, as Scripture asserts, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
Also, I recall the research I did on Vatican affiliated church names in the greater Los Angeles area--should be a clue to the relative priorities given Mary vs Jesus. Mary triumped over Jesus by quite a margin. 10's of percentage points, IIRC. Then we had a raft of rationalizations about that. Very illogical and unimpressive, to the Protty perspective on reality.
So much error, so little time.
“When St. Paul says “Who [God, that is] will render to every man according to his works”, I take from it that God will render salvation or condemnation according to his works (Rm. 2:6, and for context see down to verse 10, and of course see Matthew 25 the second part of the chapter).”
Paul wrote in paragraphs and pages. His thought extends beyond the scope of an individual verse. To take a verse and apply it literally without looking at the context of the whole argument is to court error.
“Nowhere, except in Luther’s fraudulent and now forgotten translation, does any part of the Romans teach that man is saved by faith alone.”
Try Ephesians 2. Try John 3. Try Galatians. Try ROMANS!
“9because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
That we are saved by grace through faith that manifests itself in good works is the theme of most of the New Testament.
And what are we judged on?
Jesus said, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already”...Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
“Efter we are justified we are in heaven or hell, to late to develop anything.”
NO! No, no, no!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are justified already, or we are not Christian at all!
Rom 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
1Cr 6:11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
We HAVE BEEN saved.
Ephesians 2: made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Colossians 1 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him
We HAVE BEEN justified, we HAVE BEEN reconciled.
Hebrews 10: “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
PERFECTED FOR ALL TIME.
“the verse you omit to make the erroneous point.”
Not hardly.
8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
We are justified and saved BY GRACE thru faith - not thru works of obedience. What does it SAY?! You HAVE BEEN SAVED. Not will be, or might be, but HAVE BEEN SAVED!
And why does he save us? We are created in Christ FOR good works. Not BY good works, but FOR good works!
“Where, do you think, St. Paul got his Romans 2:6-10, an AWANA class?”
Most AWANA classes would know to put Romans 2:1-6 in the context of Romans 1-3...
I’ll close with this...
“28Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Perhaps a 4th grade language lesson would help . . .
There’s a
DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN
A LIE
VS
A DISAGREEMENT
about reality.
Sheesh.
“Papists, however, gather from this that the saints are redeemers, because they shed their blood for the expiation of sins. / Really? We also, I take it, offer the Eucharist in the name of saints?”
Sorry - in scripture, the word saint applies to ALL believers. And you are the one trying to apply the suffering of Paul as merit to the sins of others...
A lot of truth to that.
None of which has anything to do with the Catholic Church.
However, dear Bro.
I respect YOU as a person toooooooooooooooo much
to even think of asking you to use
“Pentecostal” or “Charismatic”
if you felt to the least degree that using such terms
was affirming some heresy, some historical lie, some spiritually questioinable to hazardous issue of some substance to you.
I wouldn’t dare to ask that of you.
I’d be happy with you thinking up any label to substitute which you felt fitting and which did not push my buttons vis a vis heresy etc.
Why is a similar stance on the part of RC’s et al so impossible?
Of course there is.
And these serial misrepresentations of Catholic teaching are lies.
You got no further?
I would think that the vast majority of Protestants WOULD get heartburn from this because it presupposes the possibility that Christ would PREFER (at least in some circumstances) that prayer be directed away from Him and to another. The bolded words above indicate a SUBSTITUTIONARY prayer. When I ask a friend for prayer it is never INSTEAD OF my own prayer on the subject.
Without implying anything else, most Protestants believe Christ wants a personal relationship with each of His children. Preferring a middleman in prayer necessarily lessens that relationship because communication is less and it is less personal by definition.
The overwhelming anecdotal evidence on this forum is that it bears some relation to the Roman Church.
I have no concern with any Roman Church.
I’m Catholic.
Yes, that’s exactly my point.
So then you never ask anyone to pray for you?
Your point is that you’re not describing the Catholic Church, but rather some church in Rome?
Gotcha. Spot on.
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