Matt 18 and Forgiveness Revoked

Let's see brother, where did you deal with the Eph 2:8 delema..."not of yourselves"...maybe you could point it out in your long post trying to pound home the misguided teaching of a parable.

God Bless!

 

Actually Romans 8 does address the fact that you must have been born again or you will not be saved...

"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness".

The Word of God is written in such a fashion as to speak to anyone who is reading or hearing it. That includes the lost as well as the saved and even those who are just going along with the crowd of Christians but have never been born again.

So you cannot declare that Romans 8 is speaking solely to those who are born again. Paul even warned the Corinthians to examine themselves to see if they were truly born again. That goes for all who read the scriptures as well.

God Bless!

 

So he doesn't need to do anything to recieve it but he needs to do something to keep it? Yet another delema. Here Bob I want to freely give you a new heart, but in order to keep it............wait a minute, free means no but's! Another pesky word "freely".

God Bless!

 

Hey Bob, maybe you could explain to me how to forgive someone from the heart. What if I can't? Oh I can go put on a happy face and tell the person I forgive them, but what about my heart when deep down I am still angry and secretly hold a grudge against the person. Maybe they murdered my son or daughter, or raped them, or maybe it was a spouse who committed adultery over and over like 30 times (true story, it happened to my brother).

I don't know what you do Bob, but I take it before the Lord and ask Him to forgive me for not being able to forgive as I should from the heart. Would this cover me since the scripture states that He is faithful to forgive us if we confess to Him our faults?

God Bless!

 

Romans 8:14 doesn't say "children", it says "sons". "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Son-ship is a position. You are adopted into position of son.

"Adoption" is a poor choice of word for this day and age. Most people today think of adoption as taking an orphan and adopting him into the family. The word in the NT (just look in the next verse in Romans 8:15 for the nearest example), is son-placement. "Huios".

Everyone who has accepted the Lord Jesus is born from above; they are saved; they are children.

But, only those who are led by by the Spirit, they are the ones who are placed into position of son-ship.

 

No Bob. They are not seen as "unacceptable". They are seen as interpreted by the scriptures themselves and not by self-interpretations. Eph 2:8 does not allow for oneself to have anything to do with getting saved or staying saved. One can only accept the Free Gift. Once accepted it continues to be ALL God and NONE You or I that saves. From there you can then deal with the parables.

Bob, it is a PARABLE! It begs for interpretation! Don't let it confound you in such a way.

God Bless! Nite-nite, I must go to bed for now.

 

Here is the bottom line. If I forgiving others can play any part in my salvation then " not of yourselves " is a lie.

You have been unable to find harmony between your view of Matt 18 and the clear words of Eph 2:8. This alone destroys your understanding of the parable. And now I will give you yet another blow to it. You speak of "forgiveness revoked". You say the servant in the parable has recieved the gift of eternal life through total forgiveness of his sin debt. If this is true you have another problem...

" For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance ."(Ro 11:29)

" ametameletos "(Gk), irrevocable , " cannot be recalled or undone "(Webster's)

OSAS

God Bless!

 

Hey brother Bob, this is just a side note, another brother (bmerr) tells me that I will not be saved unless I leave my wife. She was married to another and he is still alive so according to him I am living in the sin of adultery. If I do not repent and put her away, he says I will not be saved. So I guess it doesn't matter if I trust in Jesus or not, if I will not abandon my wife I won't be saved. What do you think?

I guess this would fall in line with the belief that one must repent of all known sins before Jesus will hear any cry for salvation.

I was just wondering what you thought. If anyone wants to debate repentance of sin they can begin a new thread on it.

God Bless!

 

It looks like many of you do not remember the New Covenant that God has made with us.
Take note that God will remember our sins no more, but there is something conditional on our part...

Hebrews 8:
10: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12: For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13: In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

God's purpose is to write His law upon our hearts.

We will not receive mercy from God if we ourselves are not in turn merciful.

Mt:6:15: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.


Mk:11:26: But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.


Mt:5:7: Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.


Claudia

 

TO EVERYBODY:

Think about the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee.

It was the Publican who went down to his house JUSTIFIED. God had mercy upon this man.

The Publican realized he was a sinner in need of God's mercy. He was brought down to a certain state of humility, and this HAD to happen before he could receive the justification/mercy of God. He had to come to the realization of his "undone" and totally unworthy state.

The Pharisee however, did not at all realize his completel unworthiness, and therefore his attitude of haughtiness towards others: "I thank God that I am not as other men, adulterers, unholy.."

He had the same attitude dont you think, as the man in the parable who was forgiven, went out of prison and then tried to strangle someone who owed him a debt? God then revokes his forgiveness and the man gets thrown back into jail.

If we have not become aware of our own unworthiness and completely undeserving state... how do you THINK this will be revealed in our actions towards others?

And IF we have not been brought down low to a state of humility can we have been justified/shown mercy to begin with? I dont think so.

How we treat others is a REVELATION of our spiritual condition. We show we have never realized just how helpless and undeserving we are of mercy when we go out and do not show mercy to others, for we expect them to "earn" our love, to "earn" our forgiveness, do we not?

How then could we ever have realized our own pathetic and undone state and then how could we ever have been justified as the poor Publican was?


Claudia

[ January 15, 2006, 11:05 PM: Message edited by: Claudia_T ]

 

"We love, because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19


1Jn:3:15: Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.


I would say that is extremely simple, clear and easy to understand.

As I said in my last message post, we love others when we realize just how underserving we were and are of God's mercy, THEN His love flows through us to others... and the Bible CLEARLY says in all simplicity that if we do not love our brother WE WILL NOT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE!

So much for the "unconditional salvation" theory.

You must understand we DO NOT DESERVE GOD'S MERCY... but if we are merciful to others we PROVE we have received it!! Get it??

...and if we have not received it we cannot go to heaven. did we then EVER or will we EVER deserve it? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Its too bad so many Christians have this all mixed up and they just do not get it.

Now read this and think about what it is saying:

Luke chapter 6:

31: And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
32: For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
33: And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
34: And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
35: But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
36: Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
37: Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
38: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.


Judge not, condemn not, forgive, love others even if they dont love you... "For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." There's that same idea again!

(Just a side note):I find it interesting that the "only believe" people are normally fond of quoting the "judge not" part of this frequently. They dont seem to mind if it was said before the death of Christ on the cross... and they believe it applies NOW to Christians.

But anyway, the idea is that we are classed with the sinners, the Heathen, the unbelievers, if we only give love to those who love us back.

The entire idea of true Christianity is to love others no matter if they love you back.

...if we dont show mercy and forgiveness to others unless we think they somehow "deserve" it then we missed the whole boat!


and THIS SIDE of the cross of Christ we read:


1John:3:

14: We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.
15: Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

How can you be "saved" if you are abiding in DEATH and do not have eternal life abiding in you?

Now tell me eternal life is NOT conditional. You cannot do it without ignoring so many of the scriptures. You have to downright deceive yourself into believing a lie.

Claudia

[ January 15, 2006, 11:28 PM: Message edited by: Claudia_T ]

 

Don't forget that the Pharisees were called righteous in several places in Scripture.