Beloved57 are you sure you’re chosen?

glorydaz · Mar 5, 2022

Clete said:
Romans 3 is very clearly written to believers. He is not presenting that material to unbelievers. He's making the case that, as believers in Christ, we do not need the law because we aren't saved by what we do but by what we believe.

I don't agree. Paul is preaching the gospel for good reason. There are unbelievers in every group.

Romans 1:15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

Clete said:
Now, I'm not saying that it isn't great information for unbelievers to hear. On the contrary, it would be amazing information for them to hear and it may well be the very path that an unbeliever takes towards salvation. I'm also not saying that the fact that salvation is a gift isn't an important aspect of the gospel of grace (sorry for the double negative there). It's very obviously is an important aspect of the gospel - no question - but there are many aspects of the gospel that are not only true but that are amazingly important in regards to how we live our Christian lives but that are not aspects that one must understand and accept in order to get saved.

The fact that salvation is a gift seems pretty essential to me.

Clete said:
The fact, for example, that we are identified in Christ and that His righteousness is now our righteousness and that we are NOW perfect IN HIM, that we are PREDESTINED to glory IN HIM, etc. All mind blowing stuff that a Christian MUST understand in order to grow in their faith and in order to have any lasting fruit whatsoever but NOT stuff needed in order to trigger the transformation from death to life, not need to go from being condemned to being saved.

Yep, that's not essential for salvation.

Clete said:
To get saved, all one must understand is that God is real, that you have sinned against Him, that justice demands your punishment for those sins, Jesus died to pay the price you owe and that God raised Him from the dead. If you believe that and you call upon the name of Jesus Christ for your salvation, you will be saved.

And that's it! Nothing else is required. That alone, at least implies that it's a free gift, right? There's not a single hint of any requirement to perform any sort of ritual or recite any prayer or mantra, no list of rules one must follow or anything else of the sort and, if they accepted Christ on those simple terms, but didn't actually catch that it was totally free and they, in their ignorance, start doing doing doing instead of resting resting resting, then it doesn't mean they didn't get saved, it means there's stuff for them to learn.

That's why they need to hear that salvation is a gift....not of themselves so that none should boast. No one should go into salvation thinking they might have to do something in order to be saved. Why leave them wondering? Also, if they are left thinking they can do anything to add to the work on the cross, then the gospel has NOT been preached. The work of salvation was finished at the cross.

Clete said:
In fact, I would venture to say that there hasn't yet been a single Christian who did not have to go through the process of learning that they effort to be righteous WILL fail. New Christians seem invariably to believe that "while justification is God’s work, by faith in Christ, sanctification (growth) is our work, to be performed under the influence of the gratitude we feel for the deliverance we have experienced, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit. But the earnest Christian soon finds how little gratitude can supply the power. When he thinks that more prayer will supply it, he finds that, indispensable as prayer is, it is not enough. Often the believer struggles hopelessly for years, until he listens to the teaching of the Spirit, as He glorifies Christ again, and reveals Christ, our Sanctification, to be appropriated by faith alone…" (Andrew Murray).

The point being that all of that is one aspect or another of trusting in the flesh and it does not mean that one isn't saved, it merely means that they're immature, as perhaps we all are to one degree or another.

Clete

It's a journey, that's for sure.
It's getting a person through the door that counts.
Why leave any room for "works of righteousness" is my question.
Let them know, right off the bat, that salvation is a gift paid for with the blood of Christ alone.
Faith alone in the blood alone. I see it everywhere in Paul's letters.

Clete said:
P.S. These kinds of truths, by the way, is how it is so obvious that those who think they no longer sin are so ridiculously delusional. They haven't any concept at all of what the gospel of grace is really about. Their lives are focused on what they do and do not do rather than on that which has already been done. The first step toward producing lasting fruit in one's Christian walk is the understanding that you cannot live the Christian life and that the harder you try, the stronger the Holy Spirit will slam you down and make certain that you fail. The attempt itself is sin!
Until one gets it into their head that it is "not I, but Christ", then its just one long slog through the mire of fleshly effort which will only produce failure after failure.

Clete · Mar 5, 2022

Idolater said:
Can you agree with this 'framework' or 'scaffolding' below? It's from an earlier post:

"I believe in just one point even, if this person believes in Jesus, he or she or neither he nor she, is going to heaven.

"When asked, the Lord 'summed up' the Old Testament in 'one point' this way: " all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them"

"That requires a lot of unpacking. When asked to unpack it into two points of course, we all know that He said love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. So that is His 'two point' summary of the Old Testament.

"And those two points are directly related to His 'one point' summary of the Old Testament, given above, Matthew 7:12, viz., they completely elaborate on it. There is no loss of information or meaning, in going from Matthew 7:12 (the 'one point' OT) to Leviticus 19:18 & Deuteronomy 6:5.

"I have put forth two points, which are basically Romans 10:9 but in slightly different words (believing in Christ's Resurrection is as stated, and with the slight difference that I equate addressing Him as "Lord" with believing that He is God).

"I would submit however, that if we were to provide a 'ten point' summary of the OT, that it would be the Ten Commandments. What you're attempting to do with your 'six point' summary of the Gospel is parallel with summarizing the OT with the Ten Commandments, and so that's going to require a lot of discussion I think, unless we can all agree on where the Bible does list out ten points that could be a candidate for a 'ten point' summary of the Gospel, similar to how the Ten Commandments are a candidate for a 'ten point' summary of the OT."

End quote.

Could you 'sum up' the Gospel in one point? How about two points? Or, is it all six at its briefest? Any answer you give is fine, I just want to know.

None of that has anything to do with the gospel of grace except that Jesus both lived and died under the law. We are not saved because we follow the golden rule or the Ten Commandments or any other rule or set of rules.

Idolater said:
That's not why you do it.

Oh yes it is! (This is literally why it is difficult to not think that you're just lying, Idolator!)

Hail Mary. — The Hail Mary (sometimes called the “Angelical salutation”, sometimes, from the first words of its Latin form, the “Ave Maria”) is the most familiar of all the prayers used by the Universal Church in honor of our Blessed Lady. It is commonly described as consisting of three parts. The first, “Hail (Mary) full of grace, the Lord Is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women”, embodies the words used by the Angel Gabriel in saluting the Blessed Virgin (Luke, i, 28). The second, “and blessed is the fruit of thy womb (Jesus)”, is borrowed from the Divinely inspired greeting of St. Elizabeth (Luke, i, 42), which attaches itself the more naturally to the first part, because the words “benedicta to in mulieribus” (i, 28) or “inter mulieres” (i, 42) are common to both salutations. Finally, the petition “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” is stated by the official “Catechism of the Council of Trent” to have been framed by the Church itself. “Most rightly”, says the Catechism, “has the Holy Church of God added to this thanksgiving, petition also and the invocation of the most holy Mother of God, thereby implying that we should piously and suppliantly have recourse to her in order that by her intercession she may reconcile God with us sinners and obtain for us the blessings we need both for this present life and for the life which has no end.” - https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/hail-mary

and...

The Catechism of the Council of Trent breaks down the Hail Mary prayer into two parts when defining what it means. This is what the Catechism says about the first part:

The first part of the Angelical Salutation. When we say by way of prayer: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women,’ we render to God the highest praise and return him most grateful thanks, because he accumulated all his heavenly gifts on the most Holy Virgin ; and to the Virgin herself, for this her singular felicity, we present our respectful and fervent congratulations.

And this is the description in the Catechism of the second part:

To this form of thanksgiving the church of God has wisely added prayers to, and an invocation of, the most holy Mother of God, by which we piously and humbly fly to her patronage, in order that, by interposing her intercession, she may conciliate the friendship of God to us miserable sinners, and may obtain for us those blessings which we stand in need of in this life and in the life to come. Exiled children of Eve, who dwell in this vale of tears, should we not earnestly beseech the Mother of mercy, the advocate of the faithful, to pray for us? Should we not earnestly implore her help and assistance?

What Is the Hail Mary Prayer? Words and Meaning

Discover the origin, meaning, and words of the Hail Mary Prayer. Learn the importance of Mary in Christianity and the Bible. Use the Hail Mary Prayer for blessings from God, praying to Mother Mary for grace and love.

www.christianity.com

The Council of Trent is pretty much the horse's own mouth but every reference you can find tells the same story. How many manifold witnesses to the meaning and purpose of the prayer does one need? Is two enough? Want four? How about forty? Any reference you want to find, will tell you the same thing.

Idolater said:
There's unfortunately a long lexicon of jargon with Catholicism, and absolution is one of the entries in the lexicon, and it's ONLY associated with the sacrament of penance, reconciliation, or aka confession.

Confession to a priest who then tells you to go recite what? The Ave Maria!

I'm no Catholic expert but I'm not completely ignorant of how it goes.

Idolater said:
That's with a priest, a confessor. The confessor would be sinning to divulge what you confess, it's called the sacramental seal, and whereas we think that telling the truth is always the same as telling the accurate, in the case of the confessional to tell the truth is to remain mum. To utter what's confessed is a sin for a confessor, to anybody and for any reason. Sacramental seal.

I don't think any of that is relevant except that it's just another example of how the Catholic does NOT rest on the finished work of Christ for his salvation. For the Catholic salvation is about what you do, not what you believe.

Idolater said:
We don't! Nobody does that!

If you believe that Mary intercedes for you with God then, yes, you absolutely do put her in the place of the Holy Spirit, more than that, in the place of Christ Himself for there is ONE mediator between God and He's not a dead woman named Mary.

Idolater said:
Not with authorization. It would belie a profound misunderstanding of Catholicism to do that, it is certainly not authorized.

Double talk. I don't care how you redefine terms or what you think you mean by the terms "prayer", "Mary", "intercession" or "Holy Spirit". If you pray to Mary at all, you commit blasphemy, much less for the purpose of intercession between you and God.

Idolater said:
I'm not in trouble. And I don't you, or @glorydaz or @musterion or JR or RD or any other MAD is in any kind of "trouble" at all, let alone 'deep trouble'.

Saying it doesn't make it so.

Idolater said:
Someone who sees Jesus as just another 'demigod' or just one 'deity' among many; that's someone in trouble.

True!

Idolater said:
Someone who thinks Jesus was just a man, who didn't rise from the dead; that person's in trouble.

True!

Idolater said:
Not MADs who believe He's God and that He is risen from the dead----there isn't any "trouble" there at all, least of all 'deep trouble'.

Quite so!

Idolater said:
Not in my view, and I don' think I'm being unreasonable in claiming to be speaking for all of Catholicism here either. My evidence? My "contextual reasoning" and all of the Bible and the Catechism, which is basically 'the teacher's edition' of the written expression of Catholicism, the standard by which all things are judged Catholic or not Catholic.

I judge by what I see and hear and read. What is not unreasonable is to judge a doctrine by the words that those who hold to it say in the exposition of that doctrine and the actions they perform in the practice of that doctrine. Catholics claim one thing and then say and do the reverse. They claim that they don't worship Mary but they pray to her and their own documents state plainly that they do so in order to gain her intercession of their behalf before God and they have idols made in her image all over both their churches and their homes.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,

Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession [g]for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Clete

Clete · Mar 5, 2022

glorydaz said:
I don't agree. Paul is preaching the gospel for good reason. There are unbelievers in every group.

The book is there for all to read, glorydaz! The context isn't ambiguous or even debatable. Paul was NOT writing to unbelievers - period. It isn't a matter of opinion. It's perfectly clear who the book of Romans was written to. It was written to...

Romans 1:7 To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

...believers!

glorydaz said:
That's why they need to hear that salvation is a gift....not of themselves so that none should boast. No one should go into salvation thinking they might have to do something in order to be saved. Why leave them wondering? Also, if they are left thinking they can do anything to add to the work on the cross, then the gospel has NOT been preached. The work of salvation was finished at the cross.

It's a journey, that's for sure.
It's getting a person through the door that counts.
Why leave any room for "works of righteousness" is my question.
Let them know, right off the bat, that salvation is a gift paid for with the blood of Christ alone.
Faith alone in the blood alone. I see it everywhere in Paul's letters.

My list is not intended to be a guide for the preaching of the gospel. The fact that some aspects of the gospel are not included ought not be taken as a recommendation to "leave them guessing" or to "leave room for works of righteousness". That is not the point of the exercise at all.

It is an academic exercise designed merely to answer the question of what must MINIMALLY be accepted in order to be saved. It's not a prescription for evangelism. It isn't advice for the new believer. It isn't even an attempt to rank one doctrine over or beneath another. It's nothing more than an attempt to boil the gospel down to only its barest essentials.

Aside from the addition of an overt acknowledgment of the deity of Christ, my six point list is little more than a fleshing out of Romans 10:9-10. So far, no one has said anything to persuade me that Romans 10:9-10 needed any revision and if it was sufficient for Paul to simply leave out any mention of good works then the same omission is for me as well. In other words, the fact that it is a free gift is essentially in there because it would otherwise have to included a list of dos and don'ts.

Clete

glorydaz · Mar 5, 2022

Clete said:
The book is there for all to read, glorydaz! The context isn't ambiguous or even debatable. Paul was NOT writing to unbelievers - period. It isn't a matter of opinion. It's perfectly clear who the book of Romans was written to. It was written to...

Romans 1:7 To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

...believers!

Ah, so your claim is that Paul could see into the hearts of all those who were in Rome...called to be saints.
What? Called by his gospel? Probably.

There is absolutely no guarantee that those in that assembly or ANY assembly were all believers, and Paul was well aware of that.

1 Cor. 15:2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

The point being, when preaching Paul's gospel, we are free to plant and water with anything from any of Paul's letters.
The very point of GRACE being that it is freely given. Why would you want to avoid preaching that free gift while preaching the gospel?

glorydaz · Mar 5, 2022

Clete said:
My list is not intended to be a guide for the preaching of the gospel. The fact that some aspects of the gospel are not included ought not be taken as a recommendation to "leave them guessing" or to "leave room for works of righteousness". That is not the point of the exercise at all.

Sorry, I didn't see what you were looking for.

Clete said:
It is an academic exercise designed merely to answer the question of what must MINIMALLY be accepted in order to be saved
It's not a prescription for evangelism. It isn't advice for the new believer. It isn't even an attempt to rank one doctrine over or beneath another. It's nothing more than an attempt to boil the gospel down to only its barest essentials.

Aside from the addition of an overt acknowledgment of the deity of Christ, my six point list is little more than a fleshing out of Romans 10:9-10. So far, no one has said anything to persuade me that Romans 10:9-10 needed any revision and if it was sufficient for Paul to simply leave out any mention of good works then the same omission is for me as well. In other words, the fact that it is a free gift is essentially in there because it would otherwise have to included a list of dos and don'ts.

Clete

Then I have a few concerns about your use of Romans 10. Just like chapters 9-11, Romans 10 is for the Jews.

I know, I've used believe unto righteousness myself, because that part is also in Paul's gospel. In the same way, John 3:16 is something I could preach, even though it's dependent on WHAT is believed. In that case that Jesus was Christ the Son of God.

So, the problem with Romans 10:9-10 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

It's law, and this is what the Kingdom Jews were to do. Notice the IF. There are no such stipulations in Paul's gospel. Israel chapters 9-11.

Matt. 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

Hoping · Mar 5, 2022

Idolater said:
So if you NEVER go to church: Sin, or nO?

No.
"Going somewhere" doesn't influence the fellowship or ability to learn what pastors and teachers have for their flocks.
Nor does it inhibit the sharing of the bread and wine taken in memory of the body and blood of Christ our Savior.
But going somewhere designated for meetings certainly doesn't hurt either. Most "church" groups, big and small, have set times and places for services of one sort or another.
Missing out on them hurts only the "misser".
Eventually, the missing of services and fellowship in general will manifest that the "misser" was never really born of God to begin with.
Those reborn of God's seed love meeting together.

savior.

JudgeRightly · Mar 6, 2022

Idolater said:
There's unfortunately a long lexicon of jargon with Catholicism, and absolution is one of the entries in the lexicon, and it's ONLY associated with the sacrament of penance, reconciliation, or aka confession. That's with a priest, a confessor. The confessor would be sinning to divulge what you confess, it's called the sacramental seal, and whereas we think that telling the truth is always the same as telling the accurate, in the case of the confessional to tell the truth is to remain mum. To utter what's confessed is a sin for a confessor, to anybody and for any reason. Sacramental seal.

If someone confesses to a crime (most crimes are sin) he committed or is about to commit to a priest (are indulgences still a thing?), that priest should then go to law enforcement and have the man arrested for his crime or for conspiracy to commit a crime.

Clete · Mar 6, 2022

glorydaz said:
Ah, so your claim is that Paul could see into the hearts of all those who were in Rome...called to be saints.
What? Called by his gospel? Probably.

No need to be snide. Remember the challenge was for you to show me where Paul was telling an unbeliever how to be saved where he explicitly tells the person that its a free gift. It was a rhetorical challenge anyway because I know that no such passage exists. That, by itself, doesn't prove my case, but it is certainly strong evidence that simply leaving out the need for good works is sufficient to communicate the gospel.

glorydaz said:
There is absolutely no guarantee that those in that assembly or ANY assembly were all believers, and Paul was well aware of that.

1 Cor. 15:2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

The point being, when preaching Paul's gospel, we are free to plant and water with anything from any of Paul's letters.

Of course we are free to do that! I am not suggesting otherwise.

glorydaz said:
The very point of GRACE being that it is freely given.

Well, yes - sort of. I mean, grace is free now but it wasn't always and it won't continue to be either. Grace is God's willingness to even have anything to do with us in the first place. It doesn't have to be freely given and wasn't until Paul. Before Paul, one was saved by grace through faith PLUS works. The grace was necessary because it is not possible to follow the law perfectly and the grace covered that imperfection and did so freely but the point is that obedience to the law was necessary and God wasn't kidding about it. For now, God has set aside Israel and the law and so grace is truly free as can be but when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, God will turn back again to the people of the law and "He will exalt the law and make it honorable", at which time there will still be grace but it won't be free, at least not in the sense that it is during this dispensation.

glorydaz said:
Why would you want to avoid preaching that free gift while preaching the gospel?

I have no desire to avoid it, I just do not believe that a person must first understand that it is a free gift in order to get saved in the first place.

Imagine how that might go on judgement day when God says to someone standing before Him....

"You believed in Me and that I am holy, righteous and just. You understood that you sinned against me and deserve my wrath. You understood that I became a man whom I called My Son and that He willingly died on your behalf so that no such judgment might fall upon you and you called upon the name of My beloved Son Jesus to save you from your sin and you believed that I raised Him from the dead.

BUT!

You, knowing that your sin was great, failed to understand that your salvation was still greater and was offered to you as a free gift and you set about trying to do all these good works thinking that you in my debt.

Therefore, I never knew you! Depart from me you sinner into the eternal fires of Hell where you will spend all of eternity!

Does that ring true in your ears? It surely doesn't in mine! Instead, I think I'd watch Colossians 3 play out, where this poor soul's works are thrown into the fire while he himself was saved.

Clete

Clete · Mar 6, 2022

glorydaz said:
Sorry, I didn't see what you were looking for.

Then I have a few concerns about your use of Romans 10. Just like chapters 9-11, Romans 10 is for the Jews.

I know, I've used believe unto righteousness myself, because that part is also in Paul's gospel. In the same way, John 3:16 is something I could preach, even though it's dependent on WHAT is believed. In that case that Jesus was Christ the Son of God.

So, the problem with Romans 10:9-10 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

It's law, and this is what the Kingdom Jews were to do. Notice the IF. There are no such stipulations in Paul's gospel. Israel chapters 9-11.

Matt. 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

I flatly disagree. In fact, I KNOW that you are just simply wrong on this point.

Paul was not the apostle to the Kingdom Jews and had agreed to let the Twelve minister to them and he most certainly was not teaching anyone how to be saved under ANY law. Good grief would Paul flip over in his grave if he were to hear such an interpretation of his teaching! There is simply no possible way that any idea that Paul was teaching law could conceivably be correct. His ENTIRE ministry was "DON'T submit yourself to the law!"

Besides that, there isn't any such law that states "with the mouth confession is made unto salvation", so you'd be suggesting that Paul was making a new law for the Kingdom Jews. There's all sorts of problems with that, not the least of which is Galatians 3:31 and the fact that Paul would not have had any authority to make such a law in the first place.

No, Romans 10:9-10 is the gospel according to Paul. It took him eight and half chapters to build up to it and so it's a mistake not to understand it in its fleshed out fullness but one thing is for certain, it was not being taught to people who has already trusted Christ before Israel was cut off (a.k.a. Kingdom believers). Those folks were being minsitered to and taught by Peter, James and John, not Paul. (Galatians 2:7-9).

Clete

Right Divider · Mar 6, 2022

Clete said:
Well, yes - sort of. I mean, grace is free now but it wasn't always and it won't continue to be either. Grace is God's willingness to even have anything to do with us in the first place. It doesn't have to be freely given and wasn't until Paul. Before Paul, one was saved by grace through faith PLUS works. The grace was necessary because it is not possible to follow the law perfectly and the grace covered that imperfection and did so freely but the point is that obedience to the law was necessary and God wasn't kidding about it. For now, God has set aside Israel and the law and so grace is truly free as can be but when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, God will turn back again to the people of the law and "He will exalt the law and make it honorable", at which time there will still be grace but it won't be free, at least not in the sense that it is during this dispensation.

The idea that salvation by grace has not always been free really rubs a lot of Churchianity the wrong way. They try to force Paul's writings back into all of history (and forward as well).

When I read your paragraph, I was reminded of these verses:

Rom 11:5-6 (AKJV/PCE)
(11:5) Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. (11:6) And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

NO MORE OF WORKS clearly indicates that it was once "of works".

Hoping · Mar 6, 2022

Clete said:
No need to be snide. Remember the challenge was for you to show me where Paul was telling an unbeliever how to be saved where he explicitly tells the person that its a free gift. It was a rhetorical challenge anyway because I know that no such passage exists. That, by itself, doesn't prove my case, but it is certainly strong evidence that simply leaving out the need for good works is sufficient to communicate the gospel.

Of course we are free to do that! I am not suggesting otherwise.

Well, yes - sort of. I mean, grace is free now but it wasn't always and it won't continue to be either. Grace is God's willingness to even have anything to do with us in the first place. It doesn't have to be freely given and wasn't until Paul. Before Paul, one was saved by grace through faith PLUS works. The grace was necessary because it is not possible to follow the law perfectly and the grace covered that imperfection and did so freely but the point is that obedience to the law was necessary and God wasn't kidding about it. For now, God has set aside Israel and the law and so grace is truly free as can be but when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, God will turn back again to the people of the law and "He will exalt the law and make it honorable", at which time there will still be grace but it won't be free, at least not in the sense that it is during this dispensation.

I have no desire to avoid it, I just do not believe that a person must first understand that it is a free gift in order to get saved in the first place.

Imagine how that might go on judgement day when God says to someone standing before Him....

"You believed in Me and that I am holy, righteous and just. You understood that you sinned against me and deserve my wrath. You understood that I became a man whom I called My Son and that He willingly died on your behalf so that no such judgment might fall upon you and you called upon the name of My beloved Son Jesus to save you from your sin and you believed that I raised Him from the dead.

BUT!

You, knowing that your sin was great, failed to understand that your salvation was still greater and was offered to you as a free gift and you set about trying to do all these good works thinking that you in my debt.

Therefore, I never knew you! Depart from me you sinner into the eternal fires of Hell where you will spend all of eternity!

Does that ring true in your ears? It surely doesn't in mine! Instead, I think I'd watch Colossians 3 play out, where this poor soul's works are thrown into the fire while he himself was saved.

Clete

The one's He "never knew" were the workers of iniquity.

Idolater · Mar 6, 2022

Hoping said:
The one's He "never knew" were the workers of iniquity.

No need to be snide.

Hoping · Mar 6, 2022

Idolater said:
No need to be snide.

?

Clete · Mar 6, 2022

Right Divider said:
The idea that salvation by grace has not always been free really rubs a lot of Churchianity the wrong way. They try to force Paul's writings back into all of history (and forward as well).

When I read your paragraph, I was reminded of these verses:

NO MORE OF WORKS clearly indicates that it was once "of works".

That's exactly right. Exactly.

glorydaz · Mar 6, 2022

Clete said:
I flatly disagree. In fact, I KNOW that you are just simply wrong on this point.

Paul was not the apostle to the Kingdom Jews and had agreed to let the Twelve minister to them and he most certainly was not teaching anyone how to be saved under ANY law. Good grief would Paul flip over in his grave if he were to hear such an interpretation of his teaching! There is simply no possible way that any idea that Paul was teaching law could conceivably be correct. His ENTIRE ministry was "DON'T submit yourself to the law!"

Besides that, there isn't any such law that states "with the mouth confession is made unto salvation", so you'd be suggesting that Paul was making a new law for the Kingdom Jews. There's all sorts of problems with that, not the least of which is Galatians 3:31 and the fact that Paul would not have had any authority to make such a law in the first place.

No, Romans 10:9-10 is the gospel according to Paul. It took him eight and half chapters to build up to it and so it's a mistake not to understand it in its fleshed out fullness but one thing is for certain, it was not being taught to people who has already trusted Christ before Israel was cut off (a.k.a. Kingdom believers). Those folks were being minsitered to and taught by Peter, James and John, not Paul. (Galatians 2:7-9).

Clete

Paul isn't "ministering" to the Kingdom believers, he is teaching how the Jews were being saved by faith in HIS NAME.

In Romans 9-11, it's all Jew. In chapter 10, he is showing, through scripture, how the Kingdom believers are saved by their faith in HIS NAME.

John 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

This replaces what was required before Christ came.

Deut. 6:25 And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.

Peter spoke of Paul's writings, as you recall. He knew the programs were different. He knew he was still under the law....just that it was no longer for righteousness unto salvation.

glorydaz · Mar 6, 2022

Clete said:
No need to be snide.

I agree. No need to be snide.

Clete said:
Remember the challenge was for you to show me where Paul was telling an unbeliever how to be saved where he explicitly tells the person that its a free gift.

That's impossible because you claim everybody that Paul is addressing is saved.

Clete said:
It was a rhetorical challenge anyway because I know that no such passage exists. That, by itself, doesn't prove my case, but it is certainly strong evidence that simply leaving out the need for good works is sufficient to communicate the gospel.

Nope, you can't leave out the fact that salvation is a gift from God when you're preaching the gospel.
What is the go to verse when preaching Paul's gospel?

Ephesians 2:8

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Clete said:
Well, yes - sort of. I mean, grace is free now but it wasn't always and it won't continue to be either. Grace is God's willingness to even have anything to do with us in the first place. It doesn't have to be freely given and wasn't until Paul. Before Paul, one was saved by grace through faith PLUS works. The grace was necessary because it is not possible to follow the law perfectly and the grace covered that imperfection and did so freely but the point is that obedience to the law was necessary and God wasn't kidding about it. For now, God has set aside Israel and the law and so grace is truly free as can be but when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, God will turn back again to the people of the law and "He will exalt the law and make it honorable", at which time there will still be grace but it won't be free, at least not in the sense that it is during this dispensation.

Yep, and you just proved my point.

Clete said:
I have no desire to avoid it, I just do not believe that a person must first understand that it is a free gift in order to get saved in the first place.

Imagine how that might go on judgement day when God says to someone standing before Him....

"You believed in Me and that I am holy, righteous and just. You understood that you sinned against me and deserve my wrath. You understood that I became a man whom I called My Son and that He willingly died on your behalf so that no such judgment might fall upon you and you called upon the name of My beloved Son Jesus to save you from your sin and you believed that I raised Him from the dead.

BUT!

You, knowing that your sin was great, failed to understand that your salvation was still greater and was offered to you as a free gift and you set about trying to do all these good works thinking that you in my debt.

Therefore, I never knew you! Depart from me you sinner into the eternal fires of Hell where you will spend all of eternity!

I'd rather just stick to the truth as taught in the scripture, and it better that the whole truth is presented when we preach the gospel.

Clete · Mar 6, 2022

glorydaz said:
Paul isn't "ministering" to the Kingdom believers, he is teaching how the Jews were being saved by faith in HIS NAME.

In Romans 9-11, it's all Jew. In chapter 10, he is showing, through scripture, how the Kingdom believers are saved by their faith in HIS NAME.

John 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

This replaces what was required before Christ came.

Deut. 6:25 And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.

Peter spoke of Paul's writings, as you recall. He knew the programs were different. He knew he was still under the law....just that it was no longer for righteousness unto salvation.

Glorydaz, I don't know who taught you such a thing but it could not be further from the truth. It isn't even close to being correct.
I can't even comprehend how it is possible for anyone to teach such a thing. I am literally flabbergasted. I can't even think of what to say except...

NO!

Clete

Clete · Mar 6, 2022

glorydaz said:
That's impossible because you claim everybody that Paul is addressing is saved.

That's not true. First of all I never made any such claim but more directly, Paul was asked by the jailer how to be saved and we have to get the gospel of grace somewhere from his writings, right?

Acts 16:25 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. 27 And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. 28 But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.”

29 Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.

glorydaz said:
Nope, you can't leave out the fact that salvation is a gift from God when you're preaching the gospel.\

Of course you can. Paul did it, more than once.

glorydaz said:
What is the go to verse when preaching Paul's gospel?

Ephesians 2:8

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

That's a great verse but it cannot possibly be the "go to verse when preaching the gospel". Any message that fails to mention sin and one's resultant need for a savior along with Christ and what was done at Calvary and His resurrection from the dead is entirely incomplete.

In other words, faith in what?

You can't answer that without basically quoting Romans and Romans 10 in particular.

Is it not faith in Christ? And more specifically, in His death and resurrection?

glorydaz said:
Yep, and you just proved my point.

Saying it doesn't make it so. I contradicted your point.

glorydaz said:
I'd rather just stick to the truth as taught in the scripture, and it better that the whole truth is presented when we preach the gospel.

I don't disagree with that.

I wonder how many times I'll have to repeat myself before you stop making the same exact point over and over again?

The question I am answering with my six points is not "How should one preach the gospel to the unsaved?"

Just pretend that YOU preached the gospel to someone. You preached it precisely the way you think it ought to be preached. You included every point I've listed and you included every other point that anyone might think is part of the gospel. You preached Christ's death, His resurrection, faith only - no works - free gift - et. al., you even touched on the identification truths and how we are now Christ's own righteousness, etc, etc, etc. You preached it all - practically read the whole New Testament to the crowd.

In response someone not only believes in God but believes that He became a man who then lived a perfect life then offered that life as a payment for the sins of whole world. He then responds to that knowledge by calling upon the name of Jesus for the salvation of his soul and he completely believe that Jesus not only died for his sin but that God raised Him from the dead. He accepts all of that and tells as many people around him as will listen.

There's one catch.

Even though you preached it, he somehow got distracted and managed to missed the point about it being a free gift. He doesn't necessarily have any problem with the notion but he's simply ignorant of it.

You're going to tell me that he hasn't believed enough to be saved yet and I'm telling you that there isn't one syllable of the bible that you can quote me that will prove it. On the contrary, it seems to me that even if someone was intentionally preaching a false gospel that required believers to sell all their worldly possessions and give their money to the church (i.e. sort of the opposite of being a free gift), that people can and would still get saved via that message. The preacher would be in BIG trouble on judgment day and those believers would be hobbled in their Christian walk and would also suffer loss on judgment day but that's a different issue.

Philippians 1:18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

Clete

glorydaz · Mar 6, 2022

Clete said:
Glorydaz, I don't know who taught you such a thing but it could not be further from the truth. It isn't even close to being correct.
I can't even comprehend how it is possible for anyone to teach such a thing. I am literally flabbergasted. I can't even think of what to say except...

NO!

Clete

You've never heard that Romans 9-11 is about Israel? I'm shocked.

glorydaz · Mar 6, 2022

Clete said:
That's not true. First of all I never made any such claim but more directly, Paul was asked by the jailer how to be saved and we have to get the gospel of grace somewhere from his writings, right?

Acts 16:25 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. 27 And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. 28 But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.”

29 Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.

The preaching of the gospel is in the red. expand to see -- Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

Also, you can't take that verse, because it doesn't address WHAT one must believe about Jesus Christ.

Clete said:
Of course you can. Paul did it, more than once.

How do you know that? Seriously.
You're judging by his letters, and you say they're written to believers.

The devil is in the details.
Put in details that aren't there, and they're the devil's details.
Take out details that should be there.....that's the devil's work.

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