Posted on 11/06/2011 4:29:37 AM PST by markomalley
I’m not deceived.
I’ve been redeemed, sealed with the promised Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.
Your thinking that I’m a liar doesn’t make it so. Your accusations are baseless because you don’t KNOW.
There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus......
Those who are saved are sealed unto the day of redemption. God has forgiven us, not for our own sake, but for Christ's sake. So what is lost when a saved person sins against God? His ability to be an effective workman for Christ. The world will judge by his worst sins. And his ambassadorship for Christ will be made shipwreck. He will know day after day what his sin cost him as he strives to preach the word as he did before, but without the same power and respect he once had in the Body of Christ. His power to convict others is lessened. His telling others of God's reconciliation to man through the shed blood of Christ is diminished. Because man does not forget the worst of other men. That's what is lost. His time on this earth to bring others to Christ. It may not sound so bad to you, but I believe this is about the worst thing that could happen to a man, once he is saved. He has grieved the Holy Spirit. Satan has effectively shut down his witness. He knows it, Satan knows it, and God knows it.
“A mortal sin does not usually mean a sin that cannot be repented; even after a mortal sin there is a chance for repentance.”
I’m not talking about a mortal sin per Catholic theology. Hebrews does not envision salvation as possible for one who has spurned God’s grace after knowing it.
“26For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.”
That quote is from Malachi, not genesis. It talks about nations, not individuals.
read 1 Timothy 2:4.
There is only one sin that can’t be forgiven and murder, rape, etc. are not the sin against the Holy Spirit.
I’m familiar with 1 Tim 2:4. I’m not the one who believes in predestination.
However, if someone knows the truth of the witness of the Holy Spirit about the Christ, and then rejects it, that IS the sin against the Holy Spirit.
you are correct, that ultimately is the sin against the Holy Spirit.
but that doesn’t mean that a Christian who seemingly has turned against Christ and is living like a pagan, that we shouldn’t keep praying for this person to turn back to Christ or to stop witnessing to them in word and action.
the story of the prodigal son tells us this.
Paul is using them as individuals, not nations. Romans 9 is clear on that point.
Paul is using them as tribes, which would be normal for a Jew. That is why he quotes from Malachi, written 1500 years after the two men died. A tour in Afghanistan taught me a few things about tribal thought...
See here for a good discussion:
and here:
Romans 9-11 deals with the problem of the Jews - why did most Jews reject Jesus? That Paul was using archetypes is obvious when the context is read:
6But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 9For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
a tribe is a group of individuals, so ultimately, tracing it back, we come to individuals.
minor point IMO.
And I'm sure it taught you much about God.
Matthew 23:23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
The grading of sin is a man made construct. It is not Scriptural to claim there's venial and mortal sins. ALL sin leads to death. That is the only penalty for sin, any sin.
James 2:8-13 8If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. 9But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
No sin is greater than the grace of God.
Romans 5:20-21 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
you see, the One True Faith harmonizes all the Scriptures along with the Apostolic Tradition, it doesn’t pick a verse here and there and start a new denomination on it.
Not the one true faith, which is not Catholicism.
Catholicism picks one verse about Peter and a rock and started a whole denomination over it.
And misinterprets the verse to do it.
A God who lived the perfect life for us that we couldn't live ourselves, died the death for us that we couldn't die ourselves, who calls us, draws us, enlightens us, fills us, strengthens us, seals us, even goes as far as determining when and where we'll live so as to make it easiest for us to reach out for Him and perhaps find Him, who shows us compassion as a father shows compassion to his children, who knows our frame and remembers that we are dust isn't going to throw us under the bus for every little slip we make.
I am saved now and secure in that because I have already died to sin when I received Christ. The life I now life in the body I live by the Holy Spirit who indwells me.
Romans 8:10-11 10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Words such as "false" "wrong" "error" do not attribute motive.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
I am saved. God has declared me forgiven and in Christ. Even if there is some sin I failed to repent of at the time of my death, I still go to heaven.
Declaring one's own salvation is not Christian.
No wonder that you have spurned the Catholic Church. You spurn the very foundations of Christianity. Nobody who is Christian can possibly declare their own salvation. If you assume that, you mock the Judge and attempt to usurp His place.
I would love for someone with a theological bent to research what the military learned about tribal vs Nation-state thought, and write a theological introduction to tribal justice as it relates to the justice of God.
Nation-states think of two individuals in conflict, and the disinterested third party (state) hears the case and determines guilt and punishment.
In tribal thought, there are two parties - two tribes. And the goal is NOT finding out who did it, but reconciling the two tribes so that there will be no war.
In the case of man vs God, man ‘attacked’ God by rejecting his provisions for Adam, and by continuing to act evilly. In a normal situation, reconciliation would require something from the man tribe. But God so desires reconciliation that GOD provides the payment. This is unheard of mercy from one tribe to another, and would show just how much that tribe desires peace.
To reject that offer is to say, in effect, “We do not want peace. We want WAR, and we will accept NOTHING short of total war!”
Thus God’s judgment against man will be shown to be far beyond just, because the man tribe would not settle for anything less than total war.
When Paul said we all sinned in Adam, he wasn’t discussing sin as an individual act. He was saying that in our tribal archetype, man rejected God and God’s provision, and ruined what God had made. As a tribe, we follow our archetypical father in continued rebellion and destruction of God’s property (earth).
God has offered to reconcile us to Him by unimaginable mercy, making the payment for our offense Himself - and we continue to reject reconciliation.
Modern man wants to put God in the dock, to use CS Lewis’s term, and wants God to defend himself to us. But like Lewis’s novel ‘Till We Have Faces’, when that time comes, we will find that we and only we wanted war, and that God was and is totally justified, to the point that every man who has ever lived will admit God is just and gracious.
The religion forum usually devolves into Catholic vs Protestant, fighting fights that were in many ways settled 500 years ago and more. I think you are wrong in claiming transubstantiation. You think I am wrong in denying it. But God knows and will judge our hearts (Romans 14). Is there really any doubt that God, who so greatly desired reconciliation that He paid the blood price instead of the guilty party, will judge us with mercy for our ignorance and folly, provided we agree that the tribe of Adam was wrong, and that God has always been just?
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