Posted on 09/29/2006 8:27:34 AM PDT by Buggman
Glad you agree. So when will you be participating in a Sabbath service, now? :^)
The problem is no one will be able to live by these standards. While you personally may wish to try to live your life to this standard, it is wrong to ask this of others. It amounts to living under the Law.
So, if someone were committing adultery in your congregation, you'd just let it pass since, "While you personally may wish to try to live your life to this standard, it is wrong to ask this of others. It amounts to living under the Law."
Interesting.
First of all, she's pointing out that simple popularity is not evidence of the truth--in fact, if you see a flood of people going through the same gate as you, you might want to double-check its width.
Secondly, Sunday-worship was not the universal practice of the Church for at least the first four centuries. There are too many Church Fathers who attest to the contrary, with reactions ranging from perplexed tolerance (Justin Martyr) to anti-Semetic rants (John Chrysostom) for you to sustain such an argument. There is some evidence that the Nazarines survived until at least the eleventh century, but even ignoring that, you can only claim the "universal Church" as your witness by acceeding to all of the other Catholic beliefs and practices which were "universal" by the fourth century as well, including the Eucharist and the Mass, Baptismal Regeneration, the perpetual virginity of Mary, etc.
The fact that you claim fourth-plus century tradition as authoritative, yet pick and choose what you accept from it, is evidence of the weakness of your position.
[Matt. 25] ... Y'shua is speaking about the Jews when he speaks of his brethren
Christ's brethren are those who believe in Him, and no other.
"And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, 'Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.' " (Matt12:49,50)
"Whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me. For he who is least among you all will be great." (Luke 9:48)
"And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:40)
Whoever does not acknowldege Jesus is not doing the will of the Father, and consequently is not Christ's brethren.
"But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham;" (Rom. 9:6,7)
"As it is written: 'Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.'" (Rom. 9:33)
The trick is to look at what all the Bible says about "Israel", anmd to not make excuses for unbelieving "Zion". In reality these Karaites are merely stumbling over Jesus.
The will of God is not bound up in the shadowy law of the old covenant. The will of God is in seeing Jesus Christ as He is revealed supernaturally in the Scriptures through the power of the Spirit.
138 posted on 10/12/2006 12:11:14 PM MDT by topcat54
Pray and ask for the Ru'ach haKodesh to illuminate the Word for you. If you are not doing what the Father commands, you are not a brother of Y'shua. Job looks forward to Y'shua (job 19:25-27) The Karaites look forward to Y'shua, when He will come again to reign and rule.Re-read all of those verses you provided, where Y'shua speaks of doing what the Father commands.
b'shem Y'shua
He; chuck is XeniaSt
My apologies.
Looks to me like you are reading Job but ignoring Paul. He makes it clear what is the condition of those in this present age who do not openly, verbally, and specifically acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
You see, it not a matter of following old covenant shadows to gain righteousness. It's purely a matter of believing in Jesus Christ.
I have already come to Christ by the Holy Spirit working in my life. I can read the plain words of Scripture and see the condition of the Karaites and all others who do not believe in Jesus. Today is the day of salvation. If a Karatire dies only to stand before the judgment throne of Almighty God clothed in their woen righteousness instead of the righteousness of Christ, they will suffer eternal torment in the lake of fire.
Sady, some Christians today cannot come to grips with that simple fact.
I pray your name is written in the book of Life.
I rejoice that my name is written in heaven (Luke 10:20), because I trust God and what He has promised in His Holy Word.
"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, 'Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.' " (Rom. 10:9-11)
All that matters, from a human perspective, is a good testimony about the Lord Jesus Christ -- nothing more, nothing less.
You really need to pray for your Karaite friends that they would come to a knowledge of the truth, and stop their stumbling over Jesus.
"He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:18)
Thank you for your perspective on church history. It certainly rises to the same level as your understanding of theology.
Unless one is into a different theology based on so-called "the Noachide Laws".
The Ten Commandments were a summary of the moral law as given to us by God. The Westminster Confession (my personal confession) puts it this way:
1. God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.This general outline is what the vast majority of the church has believed and taught for 2000 years. It certainly makes the most sense out of relating the old covenant to the new, and how Christ our pefect Lawgiver expects us to relate law to grace.2. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the first four commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man.
3. Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.
4. To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
5. The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it. Neither doth Christ, in the gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.
6. Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified, or condemned; yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of his obedience. It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin: and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve; and what afflictions, in this life, they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law. The promises of it, in like manner, show them God's approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof: although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works. So as, a man's doing good, and refraining from evil, because the law encourageth to the one, and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law; and, not under grace.
7. Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.
Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 19
"He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:18)
148 posted on 10/12/2006 2:33:15 PM MDT by topcat54
However it is YHvH who chose all who who would be chosen before the foundation of the universe. I do pray that all will come to know the Word of G-d, Who is Yah'shua.
b'shem Yah'shua
One can always tell when you don't have an actual counter-argument: You get progressively more snide.
Then He also must also have chosen them to believe in Jesus, His only begotten Son.
"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad." (John 8:56)
"And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal. 3:29)
"What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded." (Rom. 11:7)
To speculate that someone may be "chosen" and yet God does not bring to them the means to hear the name of Jesus and believe in Him is sheer folly in light of all the testimony in Scripture (Acts 8:26ff)
153 posted on 10/12/2006 3:20:22 PM MDT by topcat54
The name given to the L-rd G-d who tabernacled among us is Yah'shua. If do not know the L-rd's NAME how can you know Him? How can you call upon His NAME to be saved? My Messiah's name is not Jesus. that is a corruption of Greek to Latin to English.
b'shem Yah'shua
Here are a couple more texts that ought to give one pause:
Jam 3:1 My brothers, do not be many teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
Heb 10:26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, Heb 10:27 but a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
My question about being worried about one's salvation is absolutely NOT out of line.
Who among us does not pray to God each and every day that we are doing His will? Who among us doesn't pray that we are using our gifts to give Him glory? There is a whole lot of responsibility in what we are doing here.
Lots of people fail to recognize that we will indeed be judged. We will be judged by a known standard. Did any of you wonder why there are uniform standards of measure in the OT? Are they there only or the purpose of commerce? Or is there a greater meaning?
Lev 19:35 You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures and weights, or in quantity.
Are we to assume that God is not going to be righteous in our judgment? Has God hidden His standards or are we blessed with the knowledge of them through His Word?
This is NOT salvation through works. Salvation through works assumes that God does NOT want us to be saved! It assumes that it is impossible to please God, but if we accumulate enough good "merits", the He has no choice but to let us in. This of course is poppycock. God desires that we be saved:
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Joh 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.
It says "might be saved" FRiends, not "will be saved".
If one wishes to push their hobby horse issues, they are certainly free to do so in this forum.
However, in the infallible Word of God, a large portion of which was written in Greek to a largely Greek speaking audience, Paul and the other apostles had no problem identifying our Savior as Iesous. What you call a "corruption" is in reality part of the God-breathed Word. No phoney transliterations. No requiring Greek speakers to get all tongue twisted with His name.
God can speak Greek just as well as He can speak Hebrew or Aramaic.
If that is the reason for why Karaites don't know Jesus, it's a poor one.
Without God's spirit living in and through us then it truly would be impossible to keep God's commandments in spirit, although we may be able to keep them physically. Nobody would have been saved except for the sacrifice of Christ:
Mat 19:25 When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?
Mat 19:26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
With the new covenant, God's laws, the ten commandements, are written on the hearts of believers:
Jer 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Heb 10:16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
2Co 3:3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
This process of God writing his laws upon our hearts is only possible through the sacrifice of Christ. We call it "having the spirit of God", or the indwelling of the holy spirit.
The Ark of the Covenant was a type of the human heart. In the ark, God specified that the ten commandments be placed in it:
Deu 10:2 And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou didst break, and thou shalt put them in the ark.
Deu 10:3 And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.
Deu 10:4 And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spoke unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me.
Deu 10:5 And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.
The ten commandments were the heart of the old covenant:
Exo 34:28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Those who enter in the new covenant with God pledge to follow these same laws, with a distinct advantage. All we have to do is allow the spirit of God to lead us.
This "writing on our hearts" manifests itself as Godly love. ...love toward God and love toward others.
Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Mat 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
Mat 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Mat 22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
The ten commandments ARE the written expression of Godly love toward God and others.
Since the subject is the kosmos, are you saying that it might not have been saved?
What precisely does it mean to have the laws written upon our hearts?
Since the subject is the kosmos, are you saying that it might not have been saved?
Isa 65:17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. And the things before will not be remembered, nor come to mind.
2Pe 3:11 Then, all these things being about to be dissolved, what sort ought you to be in holy behavior and godliness, 2Pe 3:12 looking for and rushing the coming of the Day of God, on account of which the heavens, being on fire, will melt away, and the elements will melt, burning with heat? 2Pe 3:13 But according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Apparently the kosmos doesn't make the cut.
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