Posted on 07/01/2015 7:13:05 AM PDT by RnMomof7
I have started paying attention to what people say/write. When some are asked about religion, they say Catholic. Others say Christian with no other identity. Some say “born again Christian.” Is being Catholic more important than being a Christian? I have not heard a Protestant denomination mentioned. Very interesting.
You are correct.
Yes.
It is not hate speech. I find these threads very informative. It is a shame that y’all don’t.
Mark, I was asked to be a Facebook friend from someone I had never heard of. I checked his profile and discovered he was a Christian from Nigeria. I read his comments on several pages before accepting his request. The posts I read were all from the Bible. Christians are all over the world.
Let’s not forget the whole gun issue.
And those very questions make salvation conditional on works.
People are lost until they become saved. So there will be murderers and adulterers and if they don't trust in Christ and receive Him, they are going to hell.
However, once they become a Christian, a follower of Christ, born again, even if they commit those sins, and even if for some reason, they don't feel sorry for them, they are still saved.
What Catholics like to set up to try to justify works based salvation, is actually a non-existent situation.
A Christian is not going to go out and willfully, unrepentantly sin with impunity. A person with the Spirit of the living God living in them CAN'T sin callously.
Do we sin? Certainly.
Do we sometimes sin deliberately? Absolutely.
Do we sin comfortably without the conviction of the Holy Spirit making us miserable in it. No.
See, what the problem is, is the person who does not have the Holy Spirit living in them is totally incapable of understanding the change in attitude that the saved person has towards sin and the work of the Holy Spirit in that person's life when they do sin. You cannot have the Holy Spirit living in you and not know it and not have the changed life to show it.
Nobody who belongs to God sins without consequence. It's only without loss of salvation, but God will not let His own continue in sin. And coming under the conviction and chastisement of the Holy Spirit is no picnic.
We are not perfect and God knows that and He knows that we never will be until we reach heaven, so He has provided the means for dealing with sin here on earth without it costing us our salvation.
Our salvation is secure in Christ because we didn't pay for it so we can't lose it. It's a GIFT to us, and it's ours whether we appreciate it or not, but God is not an Indian giver and does not take it back if we think He deems us unworthy of it.
People set up conditions for attaining salvation and keeping it that God never did. It makes people feel good and feel in control to have some say in their own salvation. Trusting completely and fully in God's mercy and grace sounds easy and sounds like it should be easy, but we humans don't like turning over absolute control to anyone, even God.
Anyone who thinks they must do something to keep their salvation, whether it's a positive of doing something, or the negative of not doing something, in effect does NOT trust God and take Him as His word. Otherwise, they would not be trying to do something to *help* Him. People basically are even afraid to trust God completely.
**Is the unrepentant adulterer who has faith saved?**
False categories.
You can be an unrepentant adulterer
OR
You can be a repentant adulterer with faith.
The latter is saved.
It is the broken and contrite spirit that Jesus will in no wise cast out. Your phrasing initially was tricky and I missed the trick. You place 'has faith' alongside unrepentant, where it does not belong. But I see it now. You wrote/questioned:
If someone has faith yet is still attached to sin, is he saved? Is the unrepentant adulterer who has faith saved? Is the unrepentant murderer who has faith saved?
To come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ you must recognize you are a hopeless sinner and that your only hope is in Jesus Christ. Without getting bogged down in picking at nits, the broken and contrite spirit is a work of The Lord. No man comes to the Father but by Jesus. God draws to Jesus those whom God chooses. God breaks the sinner making them broken and contrite.
Contrition of the sinner is the 'thing' God produces so that the soul of the sinner turns to Jesus for Salvation. The work that God does to bring one to the contrition state will harden the soul that rejects their need for Jesus Christ, and too many believe they can be good enough for God's measure without allowing God to bring them to the point of contrition. That is the picture of the unrepentant soul, the one who will not let God bring them tot he point of contrition.
The unrepentant soul is displayed clearly in one Simon Magus. The Bible says that magician believed and was also baptized. But he was unrepentant, he was tasting of the new way but not allowing God's Spirit to bring him to the state of contrition. You can do a Bible search on Simon and see how God dealt with his belief but unrepentant heart. However, even Simon was brought to repentence, showing how Merciful God is. So, to answer the question I misread to start with, my answer is/God's answer is, the unrepentant soul is not yet ready to be delivered from their sin, their sin nature.
This is a very crucial issue you've raised and I'm glad/I thank you that you continued on in this issue since it really is vital to understand The Gospel of God's Grace in Christ. No lifetime of works is going to change an unrepentant heart, because ONLY God brings the sinner to the point of repenting and believing in Jesus as The Christ, The Son of the Living God. It is God's Holy Spirit Who brings the heart to the state of contrition that meets repentence. Now, what is the result of the broken and contrite spirit when it comes to Christ? Let's see what else you wanted to focus upon:
The one lacks the love to forgive others is also save.
I will presume you meant 'also saved'. When a broken and contrite spirit is born from above, they are not yet in a state of perfection, able to love the way God loves. They are to be raised up in the Way that they should go by the present in them Holy Spirit. Try not to conflate the unrepentant with the born from above one not yet able to love with agape. It leads to false conclusions ...
How do you reconcile this with what Jesus said: "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions." [The Bema Seat of Christ IN HEAVEN will feature some very interesting effects of the Shekinah Glory of God shined upon the life of the Saved, Raptured, family members.] Or with his declaration that if we are to enter into eternal life we must keep the commandments.
Now let's look at a false conclusion you reached by my clumsy misreading of your initial questions and the application of the false trail you want me to follow:
You need to stop trying to force that round peg of sola fide into the square whole of Scripture. Sola fide is a manmade tradition that is contrary to Scripture."
Pegs and 'whole' aside, the Bible very clearly and repeatedly tells you that it is by God's Grace that your are Saved through Faith in Jesus Christ as The Deliverer and Lord. This is accomplished in you ONLY by His Spirit first bringing you to contrition and repentance, then placing your faith solely in His Promise to be your redeemer, your Savior, your Lord of Life. When you do that He keeps His Promise to cleanse you from all unrighteousness and place His Spirit in you, right then, not after all that you can do to be worthy of His Grace.
Catholicism teaches a different means to be 'born from above', a means which looks more like an installment plan birth which requires your works to be completed. That is anathema to what The Word of God declares.
This seems to be; shall we say; a bit judgmental.
Well said! Those without the Holy Spirit will soon be here telling us how we believe that a believer can wilfully do anything and still be saved.
Says someone whose chosen religion has a HISTORY of torturing those that disagree with it.
Then you'd better post the TRUTH; or else our lurkers here will not be able to discern.
The catechism states that the Priest reaches into heaven and brings Christ down to be in the wafer ( body, blood, soul and divinity!) then placed upon the catholic altar to be victim for the ones present at the Mass. Aside from my astonishment at the blasphemous nature of such a claim, whose power and authority would YOU claim does that heresy?
Another great one! Keep up the good work.
Simply put but speaks volumes of truth Gamecock.
So is Jesus still being born? Is He still dying on the cross?
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