Posted on 06/14/2002 7:52:48 AM PDT by Matchett-PI
My I get clarification? Are you saying salvation is impossible without faith and repentance and that faith and repentance are not works?
By the way, since repentance means "to change one's mind or direction," how does one "practice repentence." Do they keep changing their mind and direction?
Hank
And your point is (assuming you had one)?
Why didn't you address the point made by the author, wherein he admits that doctrines have been mishandled and lost by the mainstream Christian churches? Don't you find that to be a startling admission?
Maybe you find Brigham Young's declaration to be nonsense. Fine. Just prove that angels or other celestial beings are incapable of living there.
Take all the time and bandwidth you need.
Joseph Smith's god reflects his racism.
I do believe the Reformation was a return to the Pauline doctrine of Justification found in the NT not a "lost gospel" found in some golden tablets on Culmorah or a spurious papyri purporting to be the Book of Abraham describing God's residence near unto the planet Kolob.
To compare Luther and Calvin to Joseph and Bringem Young is laughable. Or, with Brigham, do you believe the Sun and Moon are inhabited?
Prove it. Quote them. Name, date, reply # and thread reference.
Unless you can do it you need to retract that statement to avoid being charged with using the same sort of disengenuous tactics that are used by Clintoon to mislead his useful idiots.
Now you think they live on the sun? Wouldn't these spirit children live with their father and mother on Kolab? Isnt that why you seal your children to you?
Oh, you mean like the racism displayed by Christ when he told the woman of Canaan that He was "not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel", and that when she begged His help, He responded that "it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs" (which might cause us to take a second look at Matthew 7:6 and Philippians 3:2)?
I do believe the Reformation was a return to the Pauline doctrine of Justification found in the NT...
Why would a Church, against which the gates of hell would supposedly not prevail, need to return to a doctrine? Does this not tell us that the Church left the doctrine at some point? What other doctrines were left behind somewhere?
... not a "lost gospel" found in some golden tablets on Culmorah or a spurious papyri purporting to be the Book of Abraham describing God's residence near unto the planet Kolob.
I presume then that you find the Dead Sea Scrolls to be utterly worthless (unlike the author of the article at the top of the thread who seems to find value in searching ancient documents and treatises).
To compare Luther and Calvin to Joseph and Bringem Young is laughable.
I agree, but probably not the way you mean it.
Or, with Brigham, do you believe the Sun and Moon are inhabited?
I can't prove that they're not inhabited by celestial beings. As if believing one way or the other affects my eternal salvation.
Is that correct? And very importantly, is faith a work? Is repentance a work? You did not answer those questions. On other threads, Calvinists have asserted that faith and repentance are works. Is that your position? Hank
There's a trap laid, whether intentionally or not, in the way you're asking. What you're trying to get us to say is that faith and repentance are works, agree that you cannot be saved without faith and repentance, then show that therefore we are saved by our works of faith and repentance. Faith and repentance ARE works. Repentance is a necessary byproduct of faith, for we cannot have faith in Christ and not realize the need to turn from our sins. So the issue really is faith and whether or not it's a saving work. Faith in and of itself does not save, just like election does not in and of itself save. What saves is God's grace...his imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the elect (however you define them). Faith is the vehicle. If you agree as you stated above that faith is a gift, then it is not a saving work in the sense you're trying to portray it.
This always ends up back at the James debate over faith and works. If one truly has faith, works are inevitable. They are the work of the Holy Spirit through that individual. Faith without works is a dead faith, not a living one.
I suppose this will lead us off on another tanget in this thread:)
All things are possible with God.
What I mean it this: God can elect to save those who die in infancy, those who are mentally retarded, etc. and these individuals may never exercise faith or repentance. However, for those who are not so constrained, the work of regeneration and the application of God's grace lead to faith and repentance.
Yet, it is important to note that man made substitutes for this saving faith and Spirit led repentance are foul "works" which are a stench in the nostrils of God. He hates the counterfeit, and there are plenty of them in abundance.
Prove it. Quote them. Name, date, reply # and thread reference.
Matchet, for mercy's sake, this is only a forum, not a congressional investigation. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. It is just that on some occasions, when someone makes an argument such as that based on Acts 16:30 "And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house," that one must do something to be saved, and that something is to "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," some Calvinists have protested the argument is for "works salvation."
If none of them have ever said that, then I'm mistaken, period. Nevertheless, I'm quite sure I've seen it on this forum, but if not, I've certainly read it elsewhere.
Really, Matchett-PI, you need to lighten up a little bit. Everybody knows there is disagreement here, else there wouldn't be any discussion. It is the reason for the discussion. But if no one is allowed to express their veiws in the best light they can, there won't be any discussion.
If Calvinists do not hold that believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is a work, than they will have no objection to the argument that, what one must "do" to be save is to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," period, because doing that is not doing work.
Hank
When I demanded that you provide legitimate proof of that by asking you to quote them. Name, date, reply # and thread reference, you tap-danced:
"If none of them have ever said that, then I'm mistaken, period. Nevertheless, I'm quite sure I've seen it on this forum, but if not, I've certainly read it elsewhere."
Feminized males, air-head females and other intellectually dishonest, emotion-driven useful idiots are easily indoctrinated.
Power-hungry cynical opportunists looking to gain a following know that such mentalities aren't interested in reality, only in what they *feel* is true -- only in what they *want to believe*.
As you're well aware, you will still have credibility with them even if you don't provide legitimate proof for what you want them to believe about what others have said.
Not so with intellectually honest, Berean-type, critical thinkers. They will always want to check to see "if these things are so".
You con't...: "... Really, Matchett-PI, you need to lighten up a little bit. ... if no one is allowed to express their veiws in the best light they can, there won't be any discussion."
You won't mind then if I get on the various threads and say "I'm quite sure I've seen it on this forum, but if not, I've certainly read it elsewhere that Hank Kerchief has asserted that faith and repentance are works."
If you protest, I'll just ask you to please lighten up and not be so picky about details, how's that?
Exactly.
It is the work of God --- so that no man can boast.
"Saving faith" is the faith of Christ in the regenerate -- it isn't a faith that arrogant fallen man, dead in his sin, thinks he can work up.
I have never believed faith or repentance were works, and have always held that repentance is the surrender or giving up of ones works, and faith is embracing the finished work of Christ resulting from the conviction that one is totally incapable of saving themselves.
(I do not mean that these are all faith and repentance are.)
Now, you said, "What you're trying to get us to say is that faith and repentance are works, agree that you cannot be saved without faith and repentance, then show that therefore we are saved by our works of faith and repentance."
I am not trying to get anyone to say anything. I am trying to get people to think about what they say, and to realize exactly what you have realized that if faith and repentance are works, and salvation is impossible without them, (and it is), than salvation is by works (which it cannot be).
Now Calvinists have become very shrill in their answers to these simple questions for reasons I do not understand. I hope this will put the Calvinists at ease.
Here is an evangelist who is dealing with a person obviously convicted of sin showing him from the Scriptures that he must repent of his Sin, and his false hope in any religious or good works he has done, and embrace without reservation the finished work of Christ as his only hope. Now this poor sinner does just that, "just as he is, without one plea," except the shed blood of Christ.
Now, if the evangelist happens to be a Calvinist, he believes what he has just witnessed was the work of God; the holy Spirit convicting the sinner of his sin, enlightening His eyes to His need, emparting to him the gifts of repentance and Faith. (Eph. 2:8, Atcs 11:18)
If on the other hand, the evagelist happens to a non-Calvinist, he believes what he has just witnessed was the work of God; the holy Spirit convicting the sinner of his sin, enlightening His eyes to His need, emparting to him the gifts of repentance and Faith.
What's the difference. The difference is in the "small print." The Calvinist believes God only does this work in those that are predestined to be saved. The non-Calvinist believes God provides enough grace to every individual, whatever amount of grace is needed (God knows) to at least understand that he is a helpless sinner and in such need that there is nothing he can do to save himself, and that God has provided that salvation in full, and that he must give up all his own works, and surrender entirely to the will of God, trusting only in the shed blood of Christ. To this point, I think both Calvinists and non-calvinists could agree (although some will not, of course). It is at this point that I think the real difference between Calvinists and non-Calvinists must be decided. At that place where a person understands what must be done, the Calvinist believes they cannot do it unless God causes them to do it, and the non-Calvinist believes they can do it, because God has given them whatever ability is required to do it. (Both believe God gives the ability, Calvinists believe it is only given to some.)
For some Calvinists and non-Calvinists the issue is not does God know everything, including who will or will not be saved, or does God predestinate everything, including who will and will not be saved, or whether there is any work that anyone can do to be saved, because there isn't. The whole question of importance for some of us is simple, does God enable everyone to the point where they can choose to surrender, or only to some. Those who believe God only enables some are Calvinists. Those who believe that God enables everyone so that they must choose (just as Adam did) are not.
So the entire issue of whether or not non-Calvinists teach "works salvation" revolves aroung the single question of whether a choice, made by a person enabled by God to make the choice, is a work.
Hank
I once heard salvation described as the doorway to heaven. Above the outside of the door was written "Whosoever will may come" and once you got in and looked above the inside of the door, it read "those He foreknew He predestined." The point was that regardless of which "side" you are on, the saved are saved and the unsaved are not. Regardless of your opinions as to how you came to believe, the fact still remains that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you will be saved (Acts 16:31a). You can be assured of this salvation by seeing the work of the Holy Spirit within and seeing the fruit of the Spirit. I'm not saying that both Calvinists and Arminians are completely correct in their positions, I'm simply saying that these issues should be approached with the above in mind.
As far as faith and repentance as works, the question again is "who is the author of the work?" If faith and repentance are authored by the individual, then it is the work of that individual. If it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, then it is the work of the Holy Spirit. Do you see where I'm coming from? If God through the Holy Spirit equally enables all men to choose to be saved, why will some respond and some not? Clearly that reason (or "secret counsel" as it has been attributed to God) rests within the person and not with God. Therefore, that choice if not by God must be by man, and thus a work. If there is something in the core of their being that goes beyond their life experience, it must be God's doing. If we return to some measure of dependence upon God, then the Arminian version of free will cannot stand because God knows the full extent to which any action of His affects the universe. If God extends the call unequally, then He is "unfair" because He has not given all the same opportunity that Arminian justice dictates.
Interested in your take.
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