The Christians "Salvation"

OK, lets start right there Brother Adam!

If you walk into my home or Church and ask-- How can I be saved?

I already know the Holy Spirit has done this unto you and the operation on your heart has already begun! I may not see the end result, but that is why our work is seperated by God Himself into seed-planters, seed waterers, and reapers!

Not only that Adam, but I also know that if you walk into my home or church and ask-- I know that God Himself has ordained this event from the very foundation of the world! Praise His Holy name that is far above every other name written in Heaven!

 

If an unsaved person came into my home asking how to be saved, I’d first start by saying that ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God’ (Rom 3:23) which means we all fall short of the divine standard of absolute holiness, we stand before God, guilty as charged.

I then tell him that we have no righteousness of our own, nor could we do any good work that would help in the slightest way to accomplish our salvation. Isaiah 64:6 refer to our works as ‘filthy rags’. We can try to make our lives appear respectable, but inwardly our heart is unchanged.

I then tell him what God has done, which is in accordance w/ His grace He intervened in our behalf. He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into this world to shed His blood as the payment in full for our sins. Christ died the death he and I deserve. Christ is now our advocate of righteousness we have before the Father as stated in 1 John 2.

I would at this point tell him what he must do in order to receive the gift of salvation that God has provided by His grace. He must personally accept it, or the gift will profit him nothing. Only the blood of Christ has the power to cleanse sin, and it’s through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that the cleansing power of the blood can be applied. The moment he believes, taking God at His word, he’ll receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life. He’ll now stand before God complete and perfect in Christ’s righteousness and not on his own. Christ is our advocate. He then can be sure of his salvation b/c of God’s promises in His Word and upon the finished work of Christ on the cross (1 John 5:11-13).

Once he’s received Christ I would recommend him studying the bible, find a good church, develop a healthy relationship by prayer and surrounding himself with other Christians with the same goals.

 

Acts 16:31
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.

 

Your church may concentrates on rules; ours concentrates upon a relationship--a relationsip with Jesus Christ. That is the key to everything. In order to join our church there are only two basic requirements. One is that a person is saved or born again, such as Nicodemus became. One must put his faith and trust in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ and accept, by faith, Christ as His own personal Saviour.
Secondly, though not part of salvation, the first step of obedience in the Christian life is baptism. The act of baptism says to the church that the individual is serious about his salvation and is willing to be an active member of the church. He is willing to obey Christ. Look at history. Baptism (whether believed to be a part of salvation or not is irrelevant at this point) has always been considered to be the door to the church in almost every denomination.
So there are the two basic requirements: salvation by faith, and baptism.
When a person is saved, the Holy Spirit working from within will change that person. The Bible says:

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

If he was formerly a Sikh and now has become a Christian, he will leave his Sikh baggage behind, and wholly accept Christianity. You cannot be both a Sikh and a Christian at the same time. There must be change. But a person grows, not all at once, like a child--he grows in grace and knowledge in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I cancelled out nothing. Many scholars and pastors are wrong. Many of them bring their own baggage and pre-conceived ideas into their "sholarship" before doing an "objective" study, and so their research is biased from the very beginning. Most of the history written by Catholics is like this, as is their doctrine. Reading the last few pages of "Did Joseph and Mary have children" thread is a real eye-opener. The Catholics failed miserably to provide any evidence for their beloved "perpetual virgin Mary" doctrine.

And only one of those is the correct view. Only a study of Scripture (not man's doctrines; not catechical studies, not church fathers, not history etc.), but Scripture itself, will reveal the correct view.

Even in the asking of this question, you fail in your understanding of the word church. Look it sometime in a Greek lexicon. The only definition that it had at that time was "assmebly." The only "church" that Christ, or the apostles, ever spoke of was a local assembly or congregation. That is what the word means. There is no such thing as a universal church. The Bible knows of no such concept. Ekklesia, the Greek word for church, has no such meaning.
Thus there are many so-called "churches" that by a Bible-based definition, are not churches at all.
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1. One must first show the individual that he is lost, a sinner--for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom.3:23). By our sin we have offended a holy, righteous God, making it impossible for one to enter into Heaven. For how can an unrighteous person such as I stand before a holy and righteous God. It is an impossiblity.

2. Secondly, the consequence of sin is death.
Romans 6:23 "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life."
--There is a comparison here. Eternal life is being compared to eternal death--separation from God for all eternity. That is my wage, that which I deserve. I deserve eternal death because of my sin. I have offended a holy God. I have sinned, and must pay the consequences of that sinned which God says is eternal separation from Him in a place called Hell.

3. But there is hope.
Romans 5:8 But God commendeth (or demonstrated) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
--Christ so loved us that He paid the penalty for my sin (your sin) for us. He died on the cross to pay that penalty. He could do that, first, because He himself was God, and second, because he was perfect. God required a sinless sacrifice for sinful man.
See John 3:16; John 14:6; etc.

But Christ did not just remain on the cross. He was buried, and then on the third day He rose from the dead (1Cor.15:3,4). Because He lives today, we also can have life eternal. Our Saviour is not dead; He lives. Other religion worship someone who is dead. Their graves are here today. But Christ's tomb is empty. He is risen; alive forevermore. This is the great evidence of the truth of Christianity.

4. Finally, If you believe that He died and rose again, and that this sacrifice he did for you, then the Bible says that:
If you should call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved (Romans 10:13).
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved (Acts 16:31)

If you but pray and ask Christ to save you on the basis of what He has done for you, accepting Him as your Lord and Saviour, then He will come and be your Saviour, forgive your sin and grant you eternal life. Why don't you ask him to be your saviour today.

 

Belief and acceptance are not two different things like you are making them out to be. You cannot accept something without believing it. For example, Will you accept the doctrine of the eternal securtiy of the believer, without first believing it? Will you accept the Catholic doctrne of purgatory without first believing it? You accept Christ as your Saviour based on what you just heard, i.e. your belief. The two are inseparably wrapped up in each other.

John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
--to accept is simply a synonym for receive.
I could have said: Will you receive him as your Saviour, as you said "I received the Lord as my personal Saviour."

That brings us to another question. Did you receive Christ by faith, and if so, was it by faith alone? What work would you have done in receiving Christ as Saviour in order to be saved?
If Christ was your Saviour then, is he now, and will he be forever? Or do you believe in a works-based salvation, that by some work, you can lose your salvation; just as by some work you can gain your salvation?
DHK

 

Someone recently wrote, 'Christ established the "church" as the pillar and foundation of truth.'

Ray is saying, 'Your view of the church is relentlessly shaky at best. God gave the Commandments at Sinai directly to Moses and did not ask for an Israelite Magisterium to help interpret the commandments to the Israelites and to the Christian church. God is the Originator of His truth and He the Holy Spirit [John 14:26 & I John 2:27 is the interpreter of that which the Godhead has revealed to us for our salvation and sure hope of eternal life.

'Scripture is in great conflict with your above statement. Jesus most strongly affirmed that He, the Rock, is the truth, [John 14:6] and the Apostle John also previously said in John 1:17 that Christ is the Source of all grace and truth.

The Rock, Christ is called ' . . . a sure Foundation' in Isaiah 28:16 & I Corinthians 3:11, moreover, He is more than worthy to be believed in unto everlasting life. [John 3:16] Scholars affirm that St. John was written in 69 A.D. and the John's Epistles were written in the years between 95-100 A.D. {Dr. Fred L. Fisher, Th.D} My point is that between the writing of the Gospel of John and III John, are about thirty years, and the Apostle John never changed his mind or position as to the Holy Spirit interpreting the truth of Christ.

The Roman Catholic Church's claim of also tossing in the truth of God is fraudulent and has through the centuries muddied the purity of the crystal clear waters of Divine truth.

God would never leave His truth to become a human add-on theology knowing Peter's and our proclivity to human error. We all error at times in our interpretation because of Original Sin which still cleaves even to Catholic prelates as well as you and me. That is why we must through our life time study the Words coming from God in His Book called the Bible. This always brings us back to a purity of theological thinking.

 

We all error at times in our interpretation because of Original Sin which still cleaves even to Catholic prelates as well as you and me. That is why we must through our life time study the Words coming from God in His Book called the Bible.

So much for the millions upon millions of illiterate Christians who have never been able to read the Bible.

Christianity, as you propose it Ray, is Gnostic: only for the intellectuals, the specially initiated.

If you go back to the New Testament, you don't see the Apostles handing out green Bibles. You see them preaching the word of God orally, restoring the Davidic Kingdom in their ministry, gathered under one visible head, guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, which was poured out upon the Church by Jesus, the King, at Pentecost to unify humanity - Jew and Gentile - in God's Family.

What you propose is division and chaos. You suggest that God's Kingdom is far off in the future. You require that believers be literate. You set up a principle entitled Sola Scriptura, which places authority in your own hands and you submit not to any other authority. You do not have a "leader", a "bishop", for you have become your own shepherd.

 

First faith is not blind. Neither is faith purely intellectual in the sense that is merely giving consent to a basic set of facts as you would in a history class. However, faith is based on those things that are true, based on our intellect. Contrast Christianity to Islam. A Muslim grows up believing by blind faith whatever the Muslim cleric teaches, without knowing what the Koran teaches. He accepts the concept of a fatalistic god called Allah. Whatever Allah decrees (whether you have been good or bad) is your fate. The only guarantee a person has of paradise is dying as a martyr for his faith. Otherwise it is all in the fate of Allah--fatalistic--vindictive and cruel. Out 99 attributes of Allah, love is not one of them.

On the other hand Christianity is based on love. It is also based on the historicity of the life of Jesus Christ who claimed that not only was He the Son of God, but God Himself--God come in the flesh. He demonstrated this, not only by his works, but by His own resurrection from the dead. My faith is not blind. Faith has an object. The object of my faith is the Risen Lord, based on the facts recorded in the Bible, and verified throughout history. It is not a blind faith. It is not merely intellectual consent. It is faith based on intellectual facts of history and faith that is based on the facts of the Word of God.

Faith is confidence in the Word of another. It is trust. In order for me to put my trust and confidence in another's Word or promise, I must understand what the promise or word is. Thus an infant cannot have faith because there is no understanding. Yes, one must understand the gospel before he believes the gospel. That is a given. But the gospel message is a very simple message. I explained it in a post above. It is summarized nicely in 1Cor.15:1-4.

Faith cannot be classified as a work. Jesus making a play on words said:

John 6:28-29 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

The question was: "What work must we do"
The answer was: There is none. Using a play on words, Jesus said the only work you can do is to believe on him whom he hath sent. "Believe" is the only "work" which in reality is not a work. For salvation is not of works. Paul made this abundantly clear in Eph.2:8,9.

I never said anything about "intellectual grounds."
Theological grounds, perhaps. I go by what the Bible says. Study John 10:27-30. I don't find anywhere in the Bible where it teaches evolution to the extent where a sheep can evolve to a goat! Once a sheep always a sheep; once a child of God; always a child of God. You may be severely disciplined by God, when you go astray; but He doesn't kick you out of His family. There is no teaching in the Bible to that effect. Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship.

Even more so than the Old Testament. Every born again person becomes part of the family of God. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are part of the bride of Christ awaiting the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Each local church is a picture of His body, where Christ is the head, and every member has its function as a member of the body. It is explained well in 1Corinthians, the twelfth chapter.
DHK

 

Hi all!

I have two questions regarding related topics.
Both have to do with the protestant understanding of certain scripture passages. Please do not respond from a position of trying to disprove the Catholic understanding of these passages. Rather with your own or your Church's interpretation.

1.) How would you coalesce the passage of James 2:14-26 in you theology of sola fide?

and 2.) Phil. 2:12, Why specifically "work", why "fear" and why "trembling" in regards to salvation; if all that is needed is faith, and faith alone?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

 

Oh,
and one additional question:

Is it the general consensus in Protestant theology that the Works of the Law spoken of throughout Paul's letter to the Romans, is in regard to humankinds good deeds and specifically not in reference to the Old Covenant Law?

Again Thanks
God Bless
Steve

 

Yeah, and so much for the millions of people who cant read the RC cathecism, 38 volumes of the church "fathers", and other esoteric gobbledy-gook.

 

Ps104,

It seems everyone has bugged out. Would you care to take a shot at the questions I've posted? I've been told that many a commentary has been written. But I can't recall ever seeing one. I've noticed you're close to the 2000 posts club, surely they're of more substance than your last.

 

Carson Weber,

People can see through the fact that you do not want to deal with the issues and Scriptures that I have set forth to back my comments. Your accusations made were not made to compare your belief with mine but to accuse me of things I never said. You might make a good lawyer, but never a Christian theologian. And I mean no intent to hurt your feelings.

Now here is your post. 'So much for the millions upon millions of illiterate Christians who have never been able to read the Bible.'

I am saying, 'Where are the millions of illiterate Christians who have never read the Bible? I never brought up the idea and what is your point anyway.

You said, 'Christianity, as you propose it Ray, is Gnostic: only for the intellectuals, the
specially initiated.'

On the contrary, I believe that any true Christian can understand the meaning of the Bible; they don't need a Magisterium to spoon feed them. As I said in my post above, the Spirit of God is every Christian's Teacher in the things of God. The Spirit never contridacts Himself.'

You said, 'If you go back to the New Testament, you don't see the Apostles handing
out green Bibles. You see them preaching the word of God orally, restoring
the Davidic Kingdom in their ministry, gathered under one visible head,
guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, which was poured out upon the
Church by Jesus, the King, at Pentecost to unify humanity - Jew and Gentile
- in God's Family.'

I am saying, the Davidic Kingdom was rejected [John 1:11] but it will be restored after the Great Tribulation in the Kingdom age of one thousand years. [Rev. chapter 20] We are living in the church age right now.

The Apostle Paul corrected Peter for only sitting with the Jews; I think the place was at Jerusalem. God through Paul would not let one of His apostles give a mixed message as though Gentiles were not worthy to become saved. At one time Peter's attitude toward the 'uncircumcision' was not correct, but God quickly corrected the matter.'

You said, 'What you propose is division and chaos.'

Ray is saying, 'The Holy Spirit is the Author of unity of theological thought and not confusion, as duly noted in John 14 and I John 2. Confusion happens only when Christians do not bow to the sovereign and truthfulness of God's Word the Bible.

You said, 'You suggest that God's Kingdom is far off in the future.'

Ray is saying, 'That every event from the Genesis account of Abel's belief in the true God until the last Christian comes into the faith is generally known as the Kingdom of God. But in a dispensational sense we are living in the age of grace or the church age since Pentecost. The Apostles messages were not written to the Kingdom of God but to the various churches such as the Church at Rome, Corinth, Ephesis, Colossae, and so on. This should, after awhile, seep into your bright mind.'

You said, 'You require that believers be literate.'

Ray is saying, 'No I do not believe that believers have to be literate. People can have the Word of God read to them in or out of church, and the Christian will understand the truth when they are dependent on the Spirit or another elder of the church. The sinner will only will understand the historical parts of the Word of God, but when you and I explain the simple plan of salvation, through the saving benefits of the Cross, it is then that the Holy Spirit begins to show him the truth and convicts the man of sin and his need of Christ as Savior in his life.'

You said, 'You set up a principle entitled Sola Scriptura . . . '

Ray is saying, 'I did not set up anything but the Protestant Refomers did this. This was done to emphasize the absolute authority of God's truth in the Bible. We except no other source of authority than what the Lord God has stated. This is to be absolutely on safe spiritual ground.'

You were saying, ' . . . which places authority in your own hands and you submit not to any other authority.'

I am saying, 'I have no personal authority at all. My ministry as a pastor was to preach what the Bible says. What is the most important concept in the N.T. It is found in John 1:12 and John 3:16.'

You said, 'You do not have a "leader", a "bishop", for you have become your own shepherd.'

Ray is saying, I have always had a bishop or a spiritual superior who was a pastor for all of the ministers under his care. Before my ordination I had to go over several pages of doctrinal truths by way of answering their questions, and then it was reviewed by the head men of my denomination. If I would have denied issues like redemption, the atonement of Christ, Hell, Heaven, the virgin birth, the rapture of the church, the Second Coming and so on, I would never have been ordained into the Christian ministry. You said, 'You have become your own shepherd.' This also is not true because after college and the experience of seminary training being guided by Elders and doctors of the church, they, then placed their hands on my head and other men as we kneeled at an altar in front of the church, during the days of Annual Conference.

I became a shepherd of sheep in guiding them in the Christian way of life. You will find out when you become a pastor and preach each Saturday night and/or Sunday that you will especially enjoy going to church to hear another clergyman 'feed your soul.' These are very special times of spiritual joy.'

Ray

 

Stephen III,

You weren't having any takers and asked these questions:


1.) How would you coalesce the passage of James 2:14-26 in you theology of sola fide? and 2.) Phil. 2:12, Why specifically "work", why "fear" and why "trembling" in regards to salvation; if all that is needed is faith, and faith alone?

I do know that the RC theory of salvation involves persevering in good works until the judgement at which time God decides if you've done enough to merit eternal life. That would be why they shy away from saying "I'm saved" until they're dead. It's always "being saved" and "will be saved". So it appears that "being saved" involved a DOING of something. That explains the work, fear and trembling that you you mention. As for myself, my fear and trembling stopped when I accepted the Lord and it was replaced with thanksgiving, joy and assurance. Why else would we praise the Lord if we were constantly living in fear that He might reject us upon our death due to our failure do quantity or quality works. As aforementioned, the work of God is that we might "believe in Him whom He has sent"...St John 6:29.

And your second question:
(2.
"Is it the general consensus in Protestant theology that the Works of the Law spoken of throughout Paul's letter to the Romans, is in regard to humankinds good deeds and specifically not in reference to the Old Covenant Law?

Col 2:20 "Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not)"

It appears we're dead to works and also the commandments and doctrines of man as Col 2:22 says.

Verse 23 says they're only good for will worship.
They make a person feel good and make us think we're appeasing God but that was done on the cross.

Singer