Salvation - Part 2

MoreCoffee said:

Implications perceived and constructed from whose perspective. Arsenios didn't construct the things that lamm claims. Lamm did that and Josiah. What Arsenios wrote doesn't say a word against the sufficiency of the Lord's sacrifice nevertheless saint Paul speaks of "what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ" (Col 1:24).

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But the phrase itself is harmless.

Lämmchen said:

To diminish Jesus' work as Savior by insisting you have to [DO] something for your salvation is making Christ a Little Savior since then He has only a small role to play.

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God CAN save unrepentant child murderers and man slayers...
God CAN save unrepentant persons...
God CAN save the floater in the punch-bowl...

But God incarnated to save repentant sinners...
We who are sinners must turn from our sins...
THEN God will Save us from Death...
Which He does by ENTERING us into Life...
By MEANS of Christ's Baptism into His Body, the Ekklesia...

THAT, you see, is the EKONOMIA of God's Plan for human Salvation...
We are to live repentant lives overcoming evil powers and principalities...
IF we step this Way of Salvation, we CAN do so...
And IF we do so, God will Raise us to Himself...
And to each according to his or her efforts...
And this as God sees fit to do...
The Gift is God's to Give...
It cannot be earned...

It is MAN who is wounded and dying on this earth...
It is MAN who needs restoration and ascent...
And it is MAN whom God desires to willingly receive His Gifts...

"Be ye repenting, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"

Here and now...

The only thing standing in the way between you and God is YOU...

Were it all up to God, we would ALL be saved...

But He did not establish His Salvation that way...


Arsenios

Albion said:

But the phrase itself is harmless.

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So what is left behind of the Sufferings of Christ that is so harmless?


Arsenios

Hi Arsenios. I am willing to go over the matter -- again-- if you insist and although I was not the one who coined or posted it. What is the difficulty you are having with it? In fact, if you see my post a couple of ones back (not the one immediately before this) I think I said there all that needs to be said in explanation.

Arsenios said:

And it is MAN whom God desires to willingly receive His Gifts...

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The problem with this is that no dead person is so willing. Ephesians 2:8-9, Ephesians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Ephesians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 12:3, Romans 8:7-8, John 1:13, Romans 9:16, John 6:44, Romans 3:10-11 and so many more. Read them. Believe them.



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The simple fact is that there are stages in Salvation by God...

First is purification of the heart, which we do (or not) responding to God's Call to Repentance from evil...
Second is the Illumination of the Nous in Baptism INTO Christ (Justification)...
Third is the Deification (Glorification) by God of those overcoming dark powers and principalities...

In OT times, the second stage was not available...
All man had was the Levitical Law of Moses...
FEW found Deification...

David did, as did Moses, and the Prophets...
But their "perfecting" had to await Christ's descent into Hell to retrieve them into Himself... (as Hebrews affirms)

But the Incarnation of Christ provided the intermediation of Christ-God Himself for our ascent to Deification by God...
For Moses was a God to Pharoah...
As was Paul to the islanders where he shipwrecked...


Arsenios

Albion said:

Hi Arsenios. I am willing to go over the matter -- again-- if you insist and although I was not the one who coined or posted it. What is the difficulty you are having with it? In fact, if you see my post a couple of ones back (not the one immediately before this) I think I said there all that needs to be said in explanation.

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Thank-you - I was just hoping for a one to three word answer on what is lacking that Paul provided of the Suffering of Christ...

No need to re-open the can...


Arsenios

Josiah said:

The problem with this is that no dead person is so willing. Ephesians 2:8-9, Ephesians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Ephesians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 12:3, Romans 8:7-8, John 1:13, Romans 9:16, John 6:44, Romans 3:10-11 and so many more. Read them. Believe them.
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We are in Adam...

What Tree in Paradise did he eat of its Fruit that caused his death?

You see, we live under the nominal rulership of death in this life, to which we WILL die...

You seem to think we are corpses...

We are God's Creation...

And in Christ, it's pinnacle...

We are partaking of both good and evil under the local rulership of death...

Yet God is in charge OVER this local (worldly) dictator...


Arsenios

Josiah said:

The problem with this is that no dead person is so willing.

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ALL of them are, to varying degrees...

Hitler loved Eva and his dog...


Arsenios

MoreCoffee said:

Sinners are not dead persons. They breathe, walk, talk, and do all sorts of things. Some repent. Pray God that more will repent.

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Spiritually dead.

Get it?

And no, I am not going to explain THIS one in three or four posts LOL

Arsenios said:

Josiah said:

Arsenios said:

And it is MAN whom God desires to willingly receive His Gifts...

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The problem with this is that no dead person is so willing. Ephesians 2:8-9, Ephesians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Ephesians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 12:3, Romans 8:7-8, John 1:13, Romans 9:16, John 6:44, Romans 3:10-11 and so many more. Read them. Believe them.


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You seem to think we are corpses...

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Spiritually, yes those who are lifeless are in a sense spiritual corpses. But I simply noted that your whole argument if founded on something the Bible clearly and often says is not the case.

Read the following:

Romans 9:16

John 1:13

Ephesians 2:1

Ephesians 2:8-9

1 Corinthians 2:14

1 Corinthians 12:3

Romans 8:7-8

John 6:44

Romans 3:10-11


"Those who see themselves with little sin will have a little Savior" - Martin Luther.



- Josiah



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Arsenios said:

The simple fact is that there are stages in Salvation by God...
Arsenios

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Lets be straightforward. That is a denominational POV.

Let us not talk as though "everyone knows...."

That's better.

MoreCoffee said:

Sinners are not dead persons. They breathe, walk, talk, and do all sorts of things. Some repent. Pray God that more will repent.

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How do you get that from "We were DEAD in our sins?"

Where do you get that from what God says:


Romans 9:16

John 1:13

Ephesians 2:1

Ephesians 2:8-9

1 Corinthians 2:14

1 Corinthians 12:3

Romans 8:7-8

John 6:44

Romans 3:10-11


How can everything hinge and start with a fallen, dead man's WILL when God said "It does not depend on the will of man?"

How can everything hinge and start with a fallen, dead man - void of the Holy Spirit - FIRST discerning the things of God, including His wisdom, His will, His righteousness... and how that dead person violated all that, when God said, "he CANNOT discern the things of God, they are foolishness to him?"


ONE of the many problems with the soteriology you and our EOC friend are promoting (for entirely different reasons) if you put mans' WILL and WORKS as first.... the very thing that means justification comes.... something one does WITHOUT the Holy Spirit (because justification hasn't come yet), without spiritual life (because justification hasn't come yet).... the dead, unregenerate, lifeless man void of God or the Holy Spirit or spiritual life... WILLS it (thus it all depends, it's all founded on unregenrate mans WILL) and because he discerns Spiritual Truth (a LOT of it) and because he performs a good work (repentance). As I've noted, this violates a LOT of Scriptures that you've simply chosen to ignore. Including the one that says we are DEAD in our sins.... fallen man CANNOT discern spiritual matters.... and justification is NOT (it explicitely states) because of the will or deeds of man.... NOT.... it doesn't say "BECAUSE of the will and deeds of man." What you keep shouting - in order to denouce that Jesus is the Savior - is a clear, direct, undeniable contradiction of Scripture. And it undermines the point of Christianity: All NEED to be SAVED (not given a pep talk, not a vitimin pill, not a helping hand) and that God has provided the SAVIOR in Jesus Christ (not a possibility maker, not just a helper, not just an inspirational teacher but SAVIOR). You even violate the Creed you nonetheless profess every Sunday, that GOD is the GIVER of life - not that all already have life so there's nothing for the Holy Spirit to give.... not that the Holy Spirit simply OFFERS it... but that the Holy Spirit GIVES it. No one steals it by willing it or doing a certain work - the Bible over and over says it's NOT, N.O.T., not because of our will or works but by God's MERCY.... God GIVES it. "Whom the Father will GIVE you" Jesus said..



Now, to your silly point.... yes, those who are spiritually dead, void of the Holy Spirit, they CAN walk and talk. What a silly point you make! But walking and talking are not functions of spiritual life, they are functions of physical life. Jesus said we must be born AGAIN... not just from flesh (that leads to talking and walking) but from the Spirit (that leads to faith and a life lived from such).




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Albion said:

Lets be straightforward. That is a denominational POV.

Let us not talk as though "everyone knows...."

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It is Paul's point:

Rom_8:30
Moreover whom he did foreordain,
them he also called:
and whom he called,
them he also justified:
and whom he justified,
them he also glorified.

The beginning is being Called (to repentance)...
The middle is being Justified...
The end is being Glorified...

Arsenios

Arsenios said:

It is Paul's point:

Rom_8:30
Moreover whom he did foreordain,
them he also called:
and whom he called,
them he also justified:
and whom he justified,
them he also glorified.

The beginning is being Called (to repentance)...
The middle is being Justified...
The end is being Glorified...

Arsenios

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Paul is quoted, but what follows is still a denominational interpretation of the passage.. Bible-oriented denominations would take something from it that is quite different from what you did.

This is not an insult, but just the fact of the matter.

Josiah said:

How can everything hinge and start with a fallen, dead man's WILL
when God said "It does not depend on the will of man?"

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Man can desire purity of heart, as Paul reported:

Rom_7:19
For the good that I would
I do not:
but the evil which I would not,
that I do.

So to desire what is good is within the power of fallen man...
Yet to ATTAIN that good is not...

"Of God the Gift..."

Hence; "Ask and ye shall receive..."

All better now?


Arsenios

Albion said:

Paul is quoted, but what follows is still a denominational interpretation of the passage.. Bible-oriented denominations would take something from it that is quite different from what you did.

This is not an insult, but just the fact of the matter.

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Much more can be taken from this passage...

But the three stages are hard to avoid...


Arsenios