Posted on 03/30/2002 7:53:37 PM PST by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
Here is the post you still seem to believe I replied to, and all replies to it:#52473
Still stickin' with your story?
While waiting, I will note that Hebrews 12 also demonstrates the task we are charged to perform in this excerpt: "let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,"
v.
Thus, the first mistake was yours. Misrepresenting (albeit unintentionally) v's views.
The second mistake may have been v's. It's difficult to tell since the post has been removed. It apprears he called you a liar and a scoundrel at the least. Perhaps a rash judgement on his part, but, frankly, having myself seen the number of times Catholic views are misrepresented on these threads I can understand his frustration, though it was uncalled for.
However, your 490 is disturbing. The first time you misrepresented his views, it was a mistake. Having been called on it, though, you then compound the error by reiterating it in your 490. I understand you may have a tendency to believe you are incapable of error, but you should review the posts and I think you'll see in this instance, it is you who are wrong.
AlguyA, your wrong, ventana threw the first punch after he thought ipeV had added words to his post.
v was wrong for not asking him why he mixed his answers up and used it to answer the wrong post.
This confusion came from v's not italicizing the question he's answering, but I noticed ipeV does when he post.
I ran into the same problem the last time ventana and I discussed crowns, and I had to keep going back in order to know what he was referring to. It was very confusing.
After the verbal barrage ipeV received, I think he handled it better then most of us old timers would have.
Ventana, that was a self righteous outburst that should not have happened.
You owe him an apology. ( He who throws the first punch……) When you attacked ipeV, he had no idea in the world what you were so mad about, you two had been having a great conversation between you until then.
IMO JH
Sara, thanks for bringing Rev 2 and 3 back to my attention, because when I was in the WWCofG, we thought we were the church of Philadelphia, Hummmm, I wonder why Herbert chose that one? Lol
I’m not sure if some have purposely tried to change what we NC's believe eternal security means, or if it’s by accident, but where have you ever heard a believer in “Eternal security” or as you prefer to call it, “OSAS”, ever make a statement, that since we are saved for eternity, that means we don’t have to overcome or chance and grow in God’s Spirit or have works?
We may have made the claim that we don’t take credit for overcoming, and give the fruits of His Spirit back to God, but I personally know of no one, who thinks we don’t have to make changes in our lives and persevere until we die, or Christ returns.
The 7 churches in Rev are thought provoking, and where I used to think it represented the Catholic Church and the Baptist, and of course the WWCG, I see now it represents all of us believers in His “church,” at different stages of growth and time eras we are in and go through.
Now if I have convinced you that we the saved have to overcome just as you do, then when it talks about the church that needs to repent, or overcome, or persevere, or get off the fence, each of us can fall into that category.
Those who God said needed to repent, (turn around) well, …..they need to repent and turn around, why else would God give them this warning if He didn’t think they would take heed and do as He said, so He can forgive them?
The Lord had John write this as a warning to us today, so we wouldn’t be among those who it describes in the 7 churches.
Now since all of us know we are capable of mistakes and sin, even when our eternal life is secured, we all should take heed from this, and ask God to help us see our sin and repent and ask Him to take those sins from us.
Here is where we separate in our thinking. You read Rev, 1 and 2 and hear God say that if you aren’t earning your salvation by accomplishing works, God will send us to hell, and we’ll loose our eternal life. Is that essentially your feelings?
Now please read back through the warning to the 7 churches, and show me where God said we would loose our eternal life if we were guilty of any of these things.
In fact a few of them had no direct penalty, but the ones that did, here was the penalty.
Rev 2:5 - Ephesus, - I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place,
V-12 - Pergamos - Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
V-14 - Laodiceans - I will spue thee out of my mouth.
These are the only 3 churches who God spelled out their punishment, but none of them are eternal death or loss of salvation.
Even the worse one, to have God spew us out, doesn’t sound like eternal death to me, He spews us out so we’ll see our sin and repent and change.
The other 4 churches apparently repent and are forgiven since God forgives them and they are back in his graces.
My discussion with Ventana was partially over him saying we Christians would not receive crowns, but again in Rev 3:11, Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
This is the warning that God was giving His church, that they could loose their rewards and their crowns by not cleaning their lives up before they die or Christ returns. This isn’t about salvation, since God calls them His church, it’s about rewards, not salvation, God doesn’t want us to loose the rewards we worked for.
These warnings aren’t to destroy us for eternity, there to help save our rewards and our crowns.
Crowns represent our victories and good works, and God is again telling these 7 churches to hold onto their crowns, so thanks to the warning, we will.
End of 1st part, more on the way sara. Lol
JH :-)
Remember God was going to destroy Nineveh, but they heeded His warning and the destruction was averted. God warns us when he knows we will change.
Lets pray these warnings served the purpose of why God gave them.
Mt 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
Mark 9: 41. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
1 Cor 3: 14. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
V-15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
Note above, that a mans works/rewards and salvation are two totally separate things. This mans rewards/works, can be burnt up, done away with, but even so, it has no effect on his salvation, he shall still be saved.
2 John 8:8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
Consider this sara, If its our works, that reward us with salvation, then what would we need a full reward for? Are there different degrees of being saved? A less then full reward, would that mean we are just a little saved? A full reward, would that mean we were really saved big time? Lol
JH :-) PS, I'm sorry this post was so long, I'm getting old and I forget to stop sometimes. LOl
My main question for you would be, why is there no place in scripture wher we're told that a believer will ever loose his salvation, or go to hell, in those words? Why did He always use words that can have many neanings?
Since loosing our eternal life would be the worse thing that could happen to a Christian believer, why wouldn't God make sure we understood what our fate would be?
The only answer I can think of is because God knew no believer would ever loose his salvation and go to hell.
End of PS Lol
I agree, the confusion was due to my sloppy posting.
ipeV, I'm sorry I misconstrued your inadvertant misrepresentation as deception. I apologise.
v.
Rev 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Since these words are being spoken to the Churches [JH: "all of us believers in His 'church,'"], They have joined with Christ, and should have Eternal security.
Now you may give all due credit for your overcoming to Jesus (which would make it, by my understanding, a manifestation of irresistible Grace), but why does this passage say you will not eat of the tree of life unless you overcome, and how could you not overcome if it was all due to Jesus?
What does overcoming mean to you?
If overcome means "receive Eternal security" why mention it to Churches that already have that, and if not, why put it in the form of a warning :"he who has ears, let him hear?"
Do you agree that the "Tree of Life" is Eternal Life?
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
The answer to your question (in paraphrase) why does it never tell us we can lose our Eternal security? is this: these passages, and the one above, clearly do say that unless we interpret them the way you do: James 1:12-15, and Mat 24:13 and Cor 9:27, and Peter 2:20 all say much the same thing, and further, James says that failure to win the crown (resist temptation) is death.
It may be that it never occurred to the authors that their message could ever have been misunderstood given the context, and they took it for granted that we would all continue to interpret the Bible in the same way. Clearly we do not. As a message of peace and love and promise, perhaps the authors felt it should remain the hopeful side of the equation and left the serious fire and brimstone up to the Pastors of the individual churches.
v.
What are you implying? Is that Garner Ted's dad?
This assigning Biblical church identities to current denominations is something new to me, and XSt linked to it the other day as well. Is this something you still believe? Any links to reasons why, rather than them just being the Churches back then?
v.
1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death
. Reward for enduring=Crown of Life
Penalty for not enduring=death
Reward for overcoming=eat of the Tree of Life
Penalty for not overcoming=death
As a working definition of temptation: anything that closes you to Grace: the snares of Satan, Sin, and failure to follow His word. That which will cause you to fall away unless you repent of it.If you feel they are different, can you explain why?
v.
this is my final post on the subject. If my point is not clear after these thousands of words, it will never be. Thank you for listening.
The Ducks would be advised not to take a 3-1 lead against this team. It's a pity, however, that we won't have a Ducks'n'Nucks Conference final.
I think I'll root for Minnesota to reach the finals, and not just because they will have the decency to start there games at a reasonable hour.
SD
SD
That is exactly what it says. Such a statement, on its face, is rather appalling.
SD
Glad to see that your mother didn't name you Luther - scrolling down the list of names made me nervous for a minute. Then I recognized your writing style and the content in it was definitely soothing (to my ears, anyway).
Good Letter, My son's going to CMU in the fall, looks like you'll be neighbors. What's that part of the country like, and Pittsburgh?
v.
But God doesn't ask that we become world class runners (through our own efforts). How many persons could become world class runners (through their own efforts). Could you ?
I think you sidestepped the point. I was not claiming anything about what we can or can not do apart from God. I was making the point that the race is won when we win the race. Not when we decide we are going to train and run the race.
It's not that much to ask, really.
There was a Seinfeld episode where Kramer tells Jerry all about his plan to get rid of all his furniture and build a series of "levels" in his apartment. Jerry bets Kramer that he will never get it done.
Later, Jerry asks about it and Kramer says he decided not to do it, so the bet was off. Jerry points out, to no avail, that that was exactly what he bet on.
All of which is by way of illustration that intentions are not concrete facts. We can intend to live a life of faith and following Jesus, but we can't say we have done so until we do so.
God merely asks that we place our hand in His and walk with Him. If, at some point, we find ourselves making a world class run, it will be because of Him (our hand being in His), not because of us.
This is a major dividing point. Catholics do not say we acheive without God or of our own power. Rather, we recognize our free agency ability to allow God to work through us, or to not do so.
The Protestant idea that we play no part whatsoever in our day-to-day activities and choices just doesn't seem realistic to us. We get up in the morning and we can decide to do God's work (that is, allow God to use us to do His work), or we can get up in the morning and decide to be all for our selves. We really make this choice in a free manner.
Therefore, anything we do of merit is the result of God and us working together. For sure we are the infinitely junior partner, but we do have to give God reign over our will. That is our contribution to the partnership and it is not a trivial thing.
SD
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.