The Modernist Christ versus The Christ

So the Virgin Birth is one of those that will be the difference between a person who is saved and who is not? If this is the only thing that he disagrees with you on, is this person damned to Hell?

I don't know any Christian personally who says that Christ sinned. I also don't believe I know anyone from an evangelical church who denies the divinity of Christ.

Scripture is God-breathed, but isn't this getting into Trinity issues here?

I know no evangelical Christians who say that Christ was not risen again.

So if this was the only difference between them and you, they'd be damned to Hell?

There are many people on this board - even Calvinists - who believe that a majority of people will be in Heaven, including KenH, who is quite conservative. I'll have to tell him that you say he's damned to Hell because of that.

So annihilationism is one of those doctrines that will damn a person to Hell?

Are you thinking of Spong here?

There were several cases in which Christ was not judgmental, so I wouldn't say that Jesus would fall completely under the category of "judgmental." Does this mean I am damned to Hell?

Jesus was not intolerant of sin. He was forgiving.

So which evangelical Christians are believing this?

So Harao believes in all of these things? I've never picked that up from him. How many of these are necessary to invalidate a person's profession of faith? One? Two? Four? or all of them?

I'd still like to ask how you came to the conclusion that the distinctions between the two are modern and not modern. From where do you get this information and distinction?

 

Originally posted by ScottEmerson:
Originally posted by Mark Osgatharp:
Legitimate - Illegitimate
So the Virgin Birth is one of those that will be the difference between a person who is saved and who is not? If this is the only thing that he disagrees with you on, is this person damned to Hell?
__________________________________________________

This goes to he very heart of the Christian faith:
"...if ye believe not that I am HE ye shall die in your sins." John 8:24
I think Jesus said it best.
If he was just the son of Joseph, there is a big problem there, because I am sure that by "HE" he meant His divinity; He is God the Son, and this He could not be as a son of Joseph. So, to answer your question-yes.

 

Monogenes merely means "only one of its kind." It has NOTHING to do with the Virgin Birth. Paul did not mention the virgin birth once, nor did John or Mark. While I am in no way saying that Christ wasn't born of a virgin, if this were such a damnable doctrine, don't you think that Mark, John, Paul, or some of the other writers would have said something?

Name those Baptists that you know. I think you're constructing a system that doesn't exist.

You're talking about a slim (maybe 1-2%) of professing Christians. They (like Bishop Spong) will readily admit that Christianity to them is not a relationship. You're making a red herring here.

But salvation isn't dependent upon believing Christ is the only way. That's what you have to prove, and that's what you have yet to do.

So we can take this off your list - thanks.

Because the reason we get saved is NOT to avoid Hell. We accept Christ to establish a relationship with Him.

Again, you are talking about a group of people who make up a scant minority of people. Again, what Baptists (or evangelical Christians) do you know who believe this?

So post us and fill us in on specifically what he has said. You bring forth such an accusation, accusing a man of not being saved, then surely you can provide some evidence of his denying Jesus Christ, especially since you think he fits ALL these categories as a modernist.

Theological modernism has been around a whole lot longer than merely the 20th century. You should read some of the works of Schleiermacher and A. Ritschl. In literally everyone of your distinctions, you have posted different errors about Christ. However, not one of them states that a person who may believe in one or more of those is damned to Hell because he doesn't specifically believe a certain doctrine. In other words, you've said that if "a person doesn't believe like me, then he's going to Hell." That is an assertion that Scripture cannot support.


Here is what I would consider the defintion of what modernists believe about Christ: Christ was merely a man whose life, being so extraordinary, has been invested with a theological meaning by the faith of the early Christian community. Since our Lord's life was such an anomaly in His own time and place, the faith of His early followers invested Him with divine attributes.
I think this is extremely wrong, but God has not given me the power to say who is saved and who is not. I think thta if he had, I would spend more time examining the way a person acts and speaks than his or her doctrine, for THAT is how we will discern followers of Christ - by their fruits.

 

What do you mean? I'm not doing any of that. However, the question is are one or two of these things enough to damn someone to Hell?

 

Quotes are from Scott Emerson:

1. Monogenes merely means "only one of its kind." It has NOTHING to do with the Virgin Birth. Paul did not mention the virgin birth once, nor did John or Mark. While I am in no way saying that Christ wasn't born of a virgin, if this were such a damnable doctrine, don't you think that Mark, John, Paul, or some of the other writers would have said something?

2. But salvation isn't dependent upon believing Christ is the only way. That's what you have to prove, and that's what you have yet to do.

3. Because the reason we get saved is NOT to avoid Hell. We accept Christ to establish a relationship with Him.

___


My response:

1. Monogenes does in fact mean unique. However, the theological necessity of who Christ is demands the virgin birth. Matthew and Luke mentioned it specifically. How many times does it have to appear in Scripture?

Btw, Paul taught on original sin in Romans 5:12-14. Christ had to have been conceived/born of a virgin. It had to fulfill the miraculous birth prophecy given to Israel as proof that God will not forsake the Davidic kingdom.

Besides, you have chosen a false line of thinking, that being that if something is not explicitly mentioned again and again, it must not be important. Have you considered that maybe it was so obvious and understood by Christians that there was not a need to mention it more than twice and imply it once? Apparently not.

2. Peter would disagree with you:

Acts 4:12

"And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." ESV

If you think salvation could be accomplished any other way, you are an idolator, and therefore lost.

3. Annihilationism is a false gospel. It seeks to "save" people from God's wrath by offering another escape.

Scott, it is a false gospel.

 

I'm just saying that Mark's scriptural proof of John 3:16 as logically leading to the virgin birth is grossly incorrect.

Please note that it isn't me who believes this - I believe in a Virgin Birth. However, I am unwilling to say that if a person does not believe in the virgin birth then he cannot be saved - that is something the Bible does not support.

A person who believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior would qualify a person underneath the rules set in Acts 4. However, the verse does NOT say that - "And anyone who believes otherwise cannot be saved."

How is this a false gospel? How does this negate a person's belief and trust in Jesus Christ? Chapter and verse, please. Are you saying that a person who believes in annihilationism cannot be saved?

 

People didn't believe that the earth was round and they had no clue what gravity was. Gravity still existed and the earth was still round, in spite of their belief.

Maybe he believes that he's saved from annihilation. But what he DOES know is that he has entered a covenant relationship with the God of creation - and that's the important part. Doctrines of Hell do not damn anyone, unless you can find the Scripture otherwise.

 

Scripture?

 

Nowhere in the chapter (or the book of John for that matter) is the virgin birth even intimated. "Begotten" is part of the Greek monogenes, so, honestly, the passage is best read, "For God so love the world that he have his one and only Son..." and so on. There is nothing in this verse that requires the virgin birth.

The definition from carnal came straight from a Greek dictionary that was created by people who are much more learned than you. That you ignore such helps shows how unwilling you are to believe anything differently than your misconceived notions.

The verse says that anyone who believes in Christ will not perish. It doesn't say that a person needs to believe in Hell for Christ to do that. It doesn't say it at all. To insist that one must believe in Hell for Christ to save you makes you quite a post-modern, for you are insisting that perception is reality. Again, your verse lacks the proof that a person must believe in Hell to be saved. And to repeat a very pertinent illustration, a person may not believe in gravity, but that doesn't mean that he floats around.

This example is more evidence that you rape the Scriptures to make it say what you want it to say, and in doing so make a travesty of the name of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

 

I'm getting married Sunday and have much too much (and much too much more appetizing) on my plate to get into this right now, but in a week or two, when I'm back from my first honeymoon, I'll try to do a point-by-point.

Haruo (not Harou)

 

Which Pastor Larry answered - did you miss that?

Why'd you burn 'em? Too much stuff ran counter to your presuppositions?