Love Alone Saves

[Adonia]

I do this because i have learned over the past twenty years of conversation with folks from all types of sects that if you want to really know what a group is teaching you have to go directly to the followers to see what they are getting out of their leadership.

It doesn't matter if it is JW's. Mormons, SDA's, Catholics, Baptist, etc. If you want to know what their church is actually teaching then ask the followers what they believe.

You tell me, where is Adonia and Utilyan getting this belief that one can reject Jesus Christ and still be saved? From the Pope's comments? Their own local church's bishop? Why do they believe this way as Catholics? I always thought that Catholics towed the line. Maybe they are just repeating what they have been taught because they do not seem to react to Scripture when shown, they just ignore it.

Where do I get my opinion on this? From my observations of people of every stripe. I have seen non-Christians acting more like Christ than people whom claim Him as their own. And I read certain things in the Scriptures, like Luke 13: 29-30 which says: "And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last".

 

[Adonia]

Opinion based upon scripture is stronger than opinion based upon tradition, without biblical merit, which is what I often see in the church at Rome.
It's funny to see you just sweep things away with a short comment, yet have no sound biblical response.

I have provided biblical evidence for my viewpoint (which derives from the authority of the Universal Church) before, you just reject it. But once again, all you have is your interpretation of the Scriptures, that's it and that's a fact. It is no better than the JW's, the Mormons, or a thousand other "Christian" sects out there.

 

[steaver]

Where do I get my opinion on this? From my observations of people of every stripe. I have seen non-Christians acting more like Christ than people whom claim Him as their own. And I read certain things in the Scriptures, like Luke 13: 29-30 which says: "And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last".

But are you not Catholic? Are you saying your Catholic's position on salvation is wrong? If so, why do you stay Catholic?

And you say you get this from reading scripture, what about this scripture....

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3:36)

 

[steaver]

I have provided biblical evidence for my viewpoint (which derives from the authority of the Universal Church) before, you just reject it.

Here is a good example Herbert.

Adonia declares the RCC is teaching salvation through loving thy neighbour with no acceptance of Jesus Christ needed. I have to wonder where he is getting this, if he believes the RCC is teaching this.

 

[MennoSota]

Straw man set up by Calvinist to condescend those who oppose them.

This is quite simple actually and not so complex as folks on either side tend to make it.

We can learn man's will verses God's will from the Garden of Eden. Man's will does not trump God's will but rather it is created in God's design to teach mankind and to foster true, healthy relationships of adoration and love between God and man.

To say it short and sweet, It was God's will to give mankind his own will so man could learn and make his own choices concerning his Creator. Man could choose to worship and love God or man could choose to reject God. God did not want robots which he most certainly could have created in the garden. It is such a perfect plan and design when you think about it. Anyone who takes such a beautiful design and turns it into a plan of a God who must destroy the masses and save a few WITHOUT any input from the man is seriously destroying a beautiful plan.

To summarize your comment:
You believe your will trumps God's will because God designed it that way.

 

[MennoSota]

Where do I get my opinion on this? From my observations of people of every stripe. I have seen non-Christians acting more like Christ than people whom claim Him as their own. And I read certain things in the Scriptures, like Luke 13: 29-30 which says: "And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last".

Colossians 2 shows that humans can certainly discipline themselves to act in an outward fashion that appears holy, but it doesn't change the heart or the deadness of their spirit.

Colossians 2:6-23
[6]And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him.
[7]Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
[8]Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.
[9]For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.
[10]So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
[11]When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.
[12]For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
[13]You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.
[14]He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
[15]In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
[16]So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths.
[17]For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality.
[18]Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud,
[19]and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.
[20]You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as,
[21]“Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”?
[22]Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them.
[23]These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.

 

[MennoSota]

I have provided biblical evidence for my viewpoint (which derives from the authority of the Universal Church) before, you just reject it. But once again, all you have is your interpretation of the Scriptures, that's it and that's a fact. It is no better than the JW's, the Mormons, or a thousand other "Christian" sects out there.

No, you have provided church dogma, which comes from tradition, not biblical truth. There is a vast difference, despite your objection.
The interpretation of the Roman church is often closer to Mormons, Jehovah's Witness and other cults than it is to God's word. This is the reason Luther called for an honest dialogue within the church of Rome. The result was a prideful continuance of false teaching and yet another attempt to kill anyone who dared to question the authority of a political entity of flawed men.

 

[steaver]

To summarize your comment:
You believe your will trumps God's will because God designed it that way.

Lol. No brother. Man's will to make choices is in God's will. It is God's design and God's plan. And it makes perfect sense. God did not want robots. He could have made man without sin from the very beginning, perfect little worshipers who would love His every command and His every word and His every way. God did not do that from the beginning and Calvinism then comes along and wants to make the ultimate goal of God was to indeed make little worshipers who have had no choice but to worship God because God caused them to be little worshipers who love His every command by zapping them into a spiritual rebirth without any choice, the very choice He designed from the beginning.

Does it really make sense to you for God to go through all this complex spiritual exercise, from sin entering into the world and having His own Son tortured and slain for those sins just to in the end zap folks into loving Him anyways??? He could have done that in the beginning! Zap! It is finished! No sin, no suffering, God has a creation of mankind which loves His every word! But that would not be genuine true love, now would it? And neither would it be in Calvinism. From your pov, you only love God because he made you love Him.

 

[MennoSota]

Lol. No brother. Man's will to make choices is in God's will. It is God's design and God's plan. And it makes perfect sense. God did not want robots. He could have made man without sin from the very beginning, perfect little worshipers who would love His every command and His every word and His every way. God did not do that from the beginning and Calvinism then comes along and wants to make the ultimate goal of God was to indeed make little worshipers who have had no choice but to worship God because God caused them to be little worshipers who love His every command by zapping them into a spiritual rebirth without any choice, the very choice He designed from the beginning.

Does it really make sense to you for God to go through all this complex spiritual exercise, from sin entering into the world and having His own Son tortured and slain for those sins just to in the end zap folks into loving Him anyways??? He could have done that in the beginning! Zap! It is finished! No sin, no suffering, God has a creation of mankind which loves His every word! But that would not be genuine true love, now would it? And neither would it be in Calvinism. From your pov, you only love God because he made you love Him.

You still skirt around the obvious. According to you, your will is greater than God's, by God's will. You imagine that humans are robots when God makes the choice of salvation rather than men. It is equivalent to saying that an infant is a robot if the mother chooses to feed the child when she chooses rather than whenever the child wants to feed. Are children robots when the mother decides when feeding will take place? Is it true love to choose to not feed the infant because the mother has a plan the infant does not comprehend?

 

[steaver]

You still skirt around the obvious. According to you, your will is greater than God's, by God's will. You imagine that humans are robots when God makes the choice of salvation rather than men. It is equivalent to saying that an infant is a robot if the mother chooses to feed the child when she chooses rather than whenever the child wants to feed. Are children robots when the mother decides when feeding will take place? Is it true love to choose to not feed the infant because the mother has a plan the infant does not comprehend?

This is actually a good analogy of how God calls folks to Himself. Throughout ones life God may come calling many times with the offer of food, the person can say no I don;t want it or say yes feed me! Have you ever witnessed those mothers who try to force feed their child for their own good? Doesn't usually go well. lol. Good analogy!

No, I didn't skirt around anything. It is your view that God giving man a will to make choices is God giving up His own will. I say it is God's will to give man his own will. The two work perfectly together in God's plan of creating true worshipers who genuinely will to love Him, not because God made them love Him.

 

[Yeshua1]

No, you have provided church dogma, which comes from tradition, not biblical truth. There is a vast difference, despite your objection.
The interpretation of the Roman church is often closer to Mormons, Jehovah's Witness and other cults than it is to God's word. This is the reason Luther called for an honest dialogue within the church of Rome. The result was a prideful continuance of false teaching and yet another attempt to kill anyone who dared to question the authority of a political entity of flawed men.

The RCCC denies the true Gospel, as it is basically the Old Covenant teaching trying to paste on the New Covenant, and jesus stated that need new wineskin, as old one will burst!

 

[steaver]

According to you, your will is greater than God's, by God's will.

Let me ask you a question brother.

God has given us the power of procreation. He gave a command, be fruitful and multiply. Many have chosen to not have children when they most certainly could have. Does this mean man's will has trumped God's will? Don't you see how man's will is in God's design? And that it does not equate to man's will being greater than God's will?

If you had the power brother to procreate a child and in that child was designed no will of it's own, that child could not possibly ever go against your will, assuming your will for that child was pure, a perfect love not wanting that child to ever end up on a wrong path, would that child's love and respect for you be actually based on a genuine choice to have a love and respect for you? Of course not, because the child had no will to make choices.

God could have done it this way and all would be ok I guess, but would God really be getting a truly genuine love back in return? No, just one manufactured by God. What a wonderful God we serve!!!! How magnificent are His thoughts and His ways beyond our own!!! What a perfect design created to produce good genuine fruit that loves and obeys God by choice!!!!!

No, I believe God has done it perfectly even though it must involve pain and suffering, for through that pain and suffering is born a true and genuine love of God. Nothing robotic which would be no love at all.

 

[MennoSota]

This is actually a good analogy of how God calls folks to Himself. Throughout ones life God may come calling many times with the offer of food, the person can say no I don;t want it or say yes feed me! Have you ever witnessed those mothers who try to force feed their child for their own good? Doesn't usually go well. lol. Good analogy!

No, I didn't skirt around anything. It is your view that God giving man a will to make choices is God giving up His own will. I say it is God's will to give man his own will. The two work perfectly together in God's plan of creating true worshipers who genuinely will to love Him, not because God made them love Him.

The thing is...God tells us that no one will come to God to feed. Like an infant that is incapable of rolling, lifting it's head or grabbing for food, so humans are in their relation to God. If God were not to do the work, humanity would remain incapable of anything but rebellion and rejection of God.
The love of God is displayed by His gracious adoption of his children. (Somehow you imagine that we adopt God. It's so silly of you.)

 

[MennoSota]

Let me ask you a question brother.

God has given us the power of procreation. He gave a command, be fruitful and multiply. Many have chosen to not have children when they most certainly could have. Does this mean man's will has trumped God's will? Don't you see how man's will is in God's design? And that it does not equate to man's will being greater than God's will?

If you had the power brother to procreate a child and in that child was designed no will of it's own, that child could not possibly ever go against your will, assuming your will for that child was pure, a perfect love not wanting that child to ever end up on a wrong path, would that child's love and respect for you be actually based on a genuine choice to have a love and respect for you? Of course not, because the child had no will to make choices.

God could have done it this way and all would be ok I guess, but would God really be getting a truly genuine love back in return? No, just one manufactured by God. What a wonderful God we serve!!!! How magnificent are His thoughts and His ways beyond our own!!! What a perfect design created to produce good genuine fruit that loves and obeys God by choice!!!!!

No, I believe God has done it perfectly even though it must involve pain and suffering, for through that pain and suffering is born a true and genuine love of God. Nothing robotic which would be no love at all.

It means that God's will was that they not procreate.

 

[utilyan]

No you said even satan believes in Jesus Christ, is satan born-again? You have to get a little deeper on just what it means to be "born-again". I don;t think you understand what it means.

I don't think you understand what "born-again" or "believe" means. I showed you a video with biblical indication.

You want Believe = Born Again, not happening.

Here I am showing you scripture that demons "BELIEVE", Demons recognize JESUS as GOD, son of God, The Christ. What are they lacking buddy? Why are they not born-again?

They meet all your criteria. They even trust Jesus. THEY PRAY TO JESUS. Hey Jesus can you let us go on those pigs? Jesus gives the permission, they obviously believe they have permission and they went to pigs.

There is faith involved if your making a request on Christ expecting to get it. Faith is fancy word, not a magical word or supernatural word. It represents TRUST and CONFIDENCE.

If You and I did not have LOVE we would be NO DIFFERENT then the demons. Thats the fine line between Good and Evil.





James 2

19You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.


Mark 5

1They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. 2When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him, 3and he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain; 4because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. 5Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones. 6Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him; 7and shouting with a loud voice, he said, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not torment me!” 8For He had been saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9And He was asking him, “What is your name?” And he said to Him, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10And he began to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. 12The demons implored Him, saying, “Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.” 13Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they were drowned in the sea.

 

[utilyan]

The thing is...God tells us that no one will come to God to feed. Like an infant that is incapable of rolling, lifting it's head or grabbing for food, so humans are in their relation to God. If God were not to do the work, humanity would remain incapable of anything but rebellion and rejection of God.
The love of God is displayed by His gracious adoption of his children. (Somehow you imagine that we adopt God. It's so silly of you.)

"God tells us that no one will come to God"

No one comes to Pizza without God's grace.

That doesn't mean I can't eat Pizza.

Your idea of God would leave an infant on the highway on purpose and for his selfish glory.
He is a sick, evil, selfish, megalomaniac.

I'm starting to think you like him just cause he makes everyone look better.

The United States is not in rebellion with China. We would actually have to be citizens and part of China to rebel against China.

So if you want to insist that we are in rebellion God, then that indicates we were not rebellion at the start, we at one time full citizens with full rights and access to not sin, ie elect.

 

[Yeshua1]

"God tells us that no one will come to God"

No one comes to Pizza without God's grace.

That doesn't mean I can't eat Pizza.

Your idea of God would leave an infant on the highway on purpose and for his selfish glory.
He is a sick, evil, selfish, megalomaniac.

I'm starting to think you like him just cause he makes everyone look better.

The United States is not in rebellion with China. We would actually have to be citizens and part of China to rebel against China.

So if you want to insist that we are in rebellion God, then that indicates we were not rebellion at the start, we at one time full citizens with full rights and access to not sin, ie elect.

God alone saves us, as salvation not found in ANY church, ANY ordimamce/Sacrament, but in Jesus alone!

 

[steaver]

The thing is...God tells us that no one will come to God to feed. Like an infant that is incapable of rolling, lifting it's head or grabbing for food, so humans are in their relation to God. If God were not to do the work, humanity would remain incapable of anything but rebellion and rejection of God.

This is correct. So God must first extend Himself to His creation. This He does through the convicting power of the Holy Ghost, drawing people unto Himself through the Spirit and through His Word. God is always first in all things, ever pursuing, but it is up to the infant to receive the milk that is offered.

 

[steaver]

Here I am showing you scripture that demons "BELIEVE", Demons recognize JESUS as GOD, son of God, The Christ. What are they lacking buddy? Why are they not born-again?

They meet all your criteria

Angels cannot be born-again. They are lacking humanity. Born again is for human beings only. So you do error in your attempt to defend your position. The foundation of your argument is seriously flawed. You will have to find a different solution for your dilemma.

 

[MennoSota]

This is correct. So God must first extend Himself to His creation. This He does through the convicting power of the Holy Ghost, drawing people unto Himself through the Spirit and through His Word. God is always first in all things, ever pursuing, but it is up to the infant to receive the milk that is offered.

Good. You acknowledge that God first chooses whom He wills and apart from God no man will ever choose God or seek God.

This is love. Not that we chose God, but that God chose us.