Featured I'm sure my denomination is closer to the truth than..."

Think about this. Your soteriology provides absolutely no salvation for the human will - none! At no point prior to death is the human will "saved" according to your soteriology. And a soteriology that provides no salvation for the will provides no real salvation at all, as it is the will that needs salvation the most above every other aspect of human nature.

 

Have you considered the reverse possibility? That my previous verse by verse preaching through the New Testament and careful hermeneutics shape my theology? I guess not, because my conclusions conflict with yours. The true test is to compare the contextual basis for your conclusions versus mine but I doubt you will want to do that especially if you never have studied and taught the book of Acts verse by verse?

I hate to shock you so you might take your time and read what I am going to say very slowly to reduce the shock factor. I believe there are true Christians in nearly every denomination in Christendom and outside of them IN SPITE of what those denominations may teach or not teach. Let that digest for a moment and think about it in regard to your ridicule and false accusations.

Where did I ever say it was? Who are you talking about?

A good Roman Catholic theologian who is a strict sacramentalist could and would say the very same thing you said and agree with you. However, when it came down to the details of explanation the devil is clearly there and no real gospel, no real salvation at all.

You seem to be a good chap and well intended but salvation is in a "new creation" or supernaturally changed person and expressed in a soteriology that always excludes works from A to Z as any kind of conditionality or contingency.

 

That is untrue and proves that you understand no soteriology that disagrees with yours. The General Baptists and Free Will Baptists -- the original Baptists -- would be highly insulted by your statements.

But there is no need to discuss it further, as we have been around and around this tree. Besides, I don't want to get into another wrestling match with you and derail the thread.

I'll just make this critical point -- a saved will is still free. God never takes away our freedom to choose.

 

Goring back to the OP, I'm sorta curious. If one doesn't believe that his denomination holds the truth on everything, why is he still there?

I'm a Baptist. Southern Baptist. I know, there are umpteen kinds of Baptists, and not even all SBC churches see eye to eye. But I do believe that Baptists are closest to being right on those basics by which one would identify them as Baptists. In this cum-bah-yah age, there seems to be some reluctance to say, "what I believe is right, and what you other denominations believe is wrong."

By definition, if you believe something is true, those who see it differently must be wrong. Now we can be nice about expressing that, but it is nonetheless true.

In the meantime, we have the Baptist Board to air differing views on the lesser issues.

 

I found out recently that that would include Lutherans also.

 

A miss is as good as a mile?

What percentage of truth is required to be know and confessed to guarantee salvation?

For a thousand years confessing the ecumenical creeds was sufficient.

 

I grew up as a conservative Presbyterian, and am now a Southern Baptist. I was a Presbyterian for 25 years, and have been a Baptist for 35 years. Tom and I serve in the same church. We agree on most all issues except for communion, which is another thread.

I look at the hundreds of denominations and thousands of sub groups all coming from the first church in Acts as a sign of man's lack of ability to follow one Spirit. Probably all in existence now are not exactly what the Lord would have in a New Testement church. However, some have to be much closer than others, and I serve in the one that, IMO, comes the closest. Baptists baptize like Jesus Christ was baptised. We do not treat it as a means of salvation, but a symbol of our faith following salvation in Jesus Christ, in His death, burial, and ressurection. I believe the churches in the New Testement to be autonomous. New Testement churches exist to carry out the work of the Lord, telling others about the Gospel, helping those in need, comforting and edifying one another, giving of our time, talents, and money, comforting the sick, praying for others, observing the Lord's Supper, and most of all, worshiping and praising Almighty God. Scripture does not teach we slip in and out of salvation based on our daily lives. Scripture teaches that only God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are to be worshiped, prayed to, or thanked for the many blessings He bestows on us. I believe the Baptist faith to follow this the most closely.

How anyone ever got the idea of a hierarcy to run a church, using Baptism for salvation, losing salvation, baptising infants, or rules we have invented like no caffine, no musical instruments, or no contreceptives I will never understand. Whole denominations are based on such nonsense. We have so many theories about creation, end times, dispensationalism, God's sovereignty, etc, that these certainly add to the number of denominations. I have even talked to some people that believe cremation is evil.

By the way, for whoever mentioned Calvinism, that transcends denomination. Look at the differences in our own faith. Where I came from, the Presbyterians, it is not an issue. It is a basic doctrine. I am not going to get into that here, but I do believe in God's sovereignty, but despise the person it was named after. Another thread.

I agree with Tom on this point. If one does not believe in basic Baptist beliefs, that they are as close to the NT model as we are going to get, then why are you still here? I am quite clear in my mind why I am a Baptist and not a Presbyterian. I would seek out a Presbyterian church if there was no Baptist one in the area.

No one has addressed the point, why are there so many denominations. One would think that really off the wall churches like the RCC, Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, etc have such a warped set of doctrines, that they would not attract enough members to sustain themselves. How can any thinking human being read Scripture with the Holy Spirit residing in him or her, and come to the conclusion that the RCC has any credibility? Where does anyone get the idea that we can lose our salvation, or have to be baptised to obtain salvation? These ideas are so alien that it is a stretch of the imagination to even call them Christian.

One must look at the last 2000 years and wonder why we split so many times when the Lord left us with one church. The Lord promised to preserve His church. I have no doubt He has since His asscension. By the process of elimination, it certainly was not the RCC, for reasons one could write novels on. At the Reformation, several Protestant groups formed different churches, but still heavily influenced by Catholic doctrine and customs. Common sense says none of those groups preserved the church. Nut case groups like the Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Holiness, 7th Day, and more extreme, JWs and Mormons, (cults) are relative newcomers, so they did not. That leaves one conclusion for me. Although not a direct link, local churches of like faith and order to the modern Baptist church, preserved the true NT church of Jesus Christ along side of the Catholics, Anglican, Orthodox or other heirarchical churches connected to political power. The church Jesus preserved went from local church to local church, and today, I believe it to be the Baptist faith. Otherwise, I would not be one.

 

But what is it "saved" from if it were just as "free" before it was saved?

 

Baptist is not per se a denomination. We are connected by the belief that each local church should be autonomous with no hierarcy. One question you did not address, if the church was not preserved by local autonomous churches of like faith and order, what group did preserve the church? The RCC?

Yes, there are saved in all denominations. It is not the Lord's fault that there are hundreds of them. The "universal church," as you define it, is made up of all true believers in all denominations. Each member is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. How does that organization carry out the Lord's work on this earth? The universal church never sent out a missionary, never had an outreach program to tell a lost world about the Gospel, never took up an offering, never baptised anyone or administered the Lord's Supper, never helped the needy, comforted the sick, prayed for anyone. What function does the universal church serve on this earth?

 

EXCELLENT!!! That is the question that I was about to ask Michael myself & it stands on it's own as paramount.

LOL ... just listening to a Bob Dylan album " ... in the song Gotta Serve Somebody the song states ..... You're going to have to serve somebody, now it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but your going to have to serve somebody (lyrics to ponder). :smilewinkgrin:

 

:thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:

 

I'd rather not have any more part in turning this thread into another debate on eternal security; that has been debated to death over and over again.

Eternal security was not held by the original English Baptists. So, where did later Baptists get it from? From Calvin. It is fatalistic determinism which is diametrically opposite to the true character of God. I even hesitate to say that because some whom I consider friends here hold to this, but that's my belief about it.

Maybe someone could answer this: When does God take away our freedom and ability to choose?

 

The universal church, just like the visible local church, is made up of individuals, and it is individuals who do all those things you mentioned, either singly or as a group.

 

Some basic facts:

1. The Church is not universal, visible or invisible. She is local and visible without an earthly vicar.

2. Denominations are basically groups which came from the attempted reformation of the RCC, the oldest, and probably largest cult in the world. These groups could also be called daughters of Rome. There are other large relatively recent cults which have other origins--LDS, SDA and JW to mention a few.

3. True Baptists were never a part of Rome. They are not a denomination. There is no: The Baptist Church. They were not part of the so-called Protestant Reformation. In fact, they were persecuted by Luther, Calvin, etal.

4. We live in an age of ecumen-ism and easy believe-ism. We have unregenerated religious leaders in high places. Mt. 16:18 still applies--a lot of folk are confused about who got the keys; or, they got keys--for the wrong lock.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Peace,

Bro. James

 

I don't know if this link will work:

Security and Assurance in Calvinism and Arminianism

Basically Calvin got his material from Augustine. Augustine believed in eternal security. He lived long before Calvin did. Thus eternal security was believed and taught for years before Calvin.

 

Augustine did Not believe in eternal security. The quote below is from the article you referenced above. Augustine did believe in Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace up until a person becomes a Christian. But after becoming a Christian, he believed that a Christian could forfeit their salvation by stopping believing. Martin Luther was an Augustine monk and the Lutherans also believe as Augustine did.

In a sense, Augustine was a Calvinist minus eternal security.

"It is ironic that Augustine held such a strong view of sovereign grace, and yet rejected security
and assurance for the believer. There is theoretical certainty, but only in the mind of God, who
alone knows the elect. For believers there is only uncertainty, both theoretical and existential—
the former because God may not grant them the gift of perseverance and they may fall away; the
latter because, as a result, they have no assurance in this life.37
It is ironic indeed, then, that divine sovereignty was the very doctrine Augustine used to
eliminate security and assurance. God sovereignly grants or withholds perseverance from the
believer. God is sovereign, but arbitrarily so; His sovereignty offers no comfort to the believer.
“The Christian is left in a position of prayer for the gift of persevering grace, hoping with fear​

and trembling that he is one of God’s elect.”38"