Posted on 11/12/2010 4:54:05 PM PST by Benchim
The first Leg on the Stool is Belief in Christ. Belief means to steadfastly trust in the fact-- that Jesus is the Son of God. The Greek word is pistevo. "For God so greatly loved the world that He gave up His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
You will find nothing in the definition requiring "obedience" or "sinless" conduct .
(Excerpt) Read more at antinomianism-salvation.blogspot.com ...
Salvation is the beginning of the Christian life, not the end / goal thereof. We are saved with a purpose beyond our own smug self-pleasuring with our own saved status. “For God so loved THE WORLD ... “ that He redeemed a race of caretakers for it. Eph. 2:10 gives us the “why” of our salvation, even as vss. 8 and 9 describe the “how.”
If your salvation is pointless, are you really saved?
“..are you really saved?” If I am not saved, no one is. All are sinners. Without the atonement ,you are doomed.
If your salvation is pointless, are you really saved?
It does no good for us to go around telling some one they are not saved, because they do this or that, in the first place it usually comes from their own mind and not the Bible.
Do not drink, do not smoke, etc, many preachers will whine about smoking more than they do adultery, why? because it makes them keep in tune with the world, the New World Order.
Christ within us is the only thing that will keep us from sin.
My beloved mentor, the ArmEnian Calvinist, once wrote an essay The Menace of the Sunday School. Sunday schools, you see, usually teach the religion of Moralism rather than Christianity. These institutions usually attract an abundance of moralistic souls, "old ladies of both sexes and all ages," to serve as SS teachers.
When people set aside the Law of God, it is usually to replace our Lord's light yoke and easy burden with the far more suffocating load of human tradition. God gives us two to-dos, and 8 to-don'ts, then leaves us to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling." We bear fruit to God by being as good as possible at what He has called us to do -- and our callings are as unique as we are.
Legalism substitutes human rituals (such as altar calls) for God's grace, which makes us equal to the demands of life and death. People who fall into the La Brea tar pit of legalism have less energy left over for actually doing useful stuff to glorify God and bless our neighbors.
What do you think Legalism is?
IMHO, using God's Law as a mechanism for earning brownie points with the Almighty, rather than as an operator's manual for the best and happiest possible life. It is BECAUSE we are saved that we can profit from God's Word, and rejoice in His Law. It is BECAUSE we are saved that we can flip the bird to any idiots who want to put their own personal yokes on our necks.
Why did Jesus have to die, in your opinion?
To atone for our sins, and to restore us to some measure of what Adam lost.
But in post 28 you say: To atone for our sins, and to restore us to some measure of what Adam lost.
Post 25 gives the impression that keeping the law saves you. Post 28 says that Christ died to atone for our sins. Sins are the failure to keep the law.
Either the law saves, or Christ died for us because we could not keep the law. It cannot be both. Can it, in your opinion?
Legalism substitutes human rituals (such as altar calls) for God’s grace, which makes us equal to the demands of life and death. People who fall into the La Brea tar pit of legalism have less energy left over for actually doing useful stuff to glorify God and bless our neighbors.
One of the more depressing experiences a Biblical Christian can have is -- to read through the tracts in the lobby of the typical "evangelical" church. Time after time, a few basic themes get tarted up and recycled as though they were fresh, original, and engaging: the "Romans Road."[2] the "Four Spiritual Laws." etc. After a while, you start to notice a fairly consistent pattern. All of these tracts studiously ignore, or are indifferent to, two minor items:
These tracts, alas, confuse and confound means and ends. These tracts make God our tool, God our toy, God the means to our ends.
Don't you have a little problem with that? I do.
Christ died to save us, from our sins, and from ourselves,[0] so that we could truly live. We are God's means to His ends. We are saved to serve, and we find true joy in the King's service. Wearing His colors. Feasting at His table. Faithfully tending to the portion of the Kingdom He has stationed us in.
Masturbation focuses on inducing personal experiences in oneself. Marital love focuses on building and celebrating and enjoying a real and fruitful relationship with another. You seem to keep obsessing on a predefined personal experience. Your god seems to be no bigger than said moment of experience. If there is no point to being saved, then the salvation you are preaching is nothing more than spiritual self-abuse, and ultimately, self-worship.[1]
[1] See this amazing quote from G K Chesterton:
[2] Speaking of the Romans Road, I'm blogging my way through the Book of Romans HERE. My goals are to learn Turkish by doing this, to invite Turks to consider the claims of Christ, and to invite English-speaking Christians to consider learning Turkish. I'm using the free Bible software available from http://e-sword.net to flip between the KJV, the Turkish, and the Greek versions of the text as I go along.
bttt
Just an observation, but I find it interesting that God the Holy Spirit can take the different verses used by Christ as different translations, yet still sanctify the believer who is thinking through them, through faith in Christ. This reveals His work may be much more simple and direct with each believer than we might always anticipate.
Thank You Lord!
Antinomianism is an opposite extreme to legalism.
Whereas legalism may lead to moral degeneracy from arrogance and “self-righteousness”, antinomianism may lead to immoral degeneracy, such as lasciviousness and lawlessness.
Very true. Hence, the appeal of antinomianism. Let me cite a verse from THIS POEM by Rudyard Kipling:
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Well, the action of the Holy Spirit has also worked in the translation of the scriptures, so that the translating does not introduce heresy. A very dramatic instance is the word, “alma.”
St. Jerome was commissioned to create an authoritative Latin translation of the bible. But how? There were countless subtly different versions of the Greek. The Jews had convinced St. Jerome, that the Masoretic Text was and always had been the sole Hebrew text, and therefore represented an authoritative source. (The Dead Sea Scrolls proved this false.)
The Masoretic Text says that the sign of the coming of the Messiah shall be that “a maiden (alma) will be with child and shall give birth to a son.” What kind of a miraculous sign is a woman having a child out of wedlock? Only the Greek preserved the miracle in the text: that a virgin shall be with child! But Jerome was convinced of the superiority of the Masoretic Text. He was about to remove from scripture the proof offered by the gospels that Jesus’ birth showed him to be the Messiah!
Only an apparition of Christ protected the bible from such a devestating error!
Other miraculous interventions to affirm the content of the bible include the inclusion of Mark 16 (the longer ending, which includes the Resurrection), the inclusion of John 7:53-8:11 (the stoning of the adulterous woman), and the inclusion of the trinitarian formulation, 1 John 5:7.
then why did paul write : “ we must make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ”.
there is the story of the blind man who was sitting by the “road” when he heard that Jesus was coming. he shouted out, “Jesus, Son of David”.... and Jesus asked what he wanted. “that i might see, he responded”. Jesus, cured his blindness, and said your faith has saved you. If faith alone would have cured his blindness, then why did the blind man have to cry out, and ask for his cure?
I’m not sure what you are saying. All must “cry out” that they believe.(and mean it ,or they go to hell.(1John 5:11-12) You might consider my ending page at http://antinomianism-salvation.blogspot.com/p/im-saved-what-now.html
I know you will agree.
how can i agree with someone who does not believe in what God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit has revealed?
In the last judgement, in Matthew, Jesus tells us of the lambs and the goats. the lambs who took care of the sick, gave to the poor, ie. lived their Christian life and did the will of God. The ones who said “ Lord, lord”, ie they who “knew Jesus, believed in Him” but did nothing, were sent off the the warm place. Those who persevered in good works, and according to paul, “ran the race to the end”. or, Paul , in Timothy, “equipped for every good work”, were sent to Life Eternal.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2627682/posts
The above link is for some notes regarding how both legalist and antinomian positions may fall away from His Plan, rather than growing in faith through His Work in us.
Do you mean Paul the sinner (Romans 7)?
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