Justification - Part 2

[Arsenios]

Many in history have had radical changes, even to their personality - become wholly different. But the faith in Christ that is evidence (there's that darn word...) of repentance toward God is wholly missing.
God was not impressed with Bill W. and Dr. Bob of A.A. when they radically changed their lives based on following "god as (they) understood him". Bill W. was wholly adamant that he would not turn to Christ, but did much good. Shall we say his 'repentance' was acknowledged as "good" - as "evidence" of a godly faith? Hardly.

Even Pilate reconciled with his brother at the hands of the Man he crucified...

The question for Salvation in this life hinges on Union with Christ-God...

Pray for Bill W. and Dr. Bob of AA that their souls be saved...

I was so dismissive of Christians that my only way to Christ was BY God...

Union of creatures with their Creator CANNOT be earned...

The ONLY way for it to happen is by God GIVING Himself TO us...

Repentance from sin unto death only earns death...

But if you do repent from sin unto blood,

God gives Life Eternal...

For...

A heart that is broken and humbled
God will not despise...

Living the promise of repentance by repenting is more important that BELIEVING it without repentance...

God rewards repentance...

Faith without the WORK of repenting is DEAD...

That's BOOK - The Good Book...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Which version of the Bible added Chosen?

Whichever one MennoSota quoted from...

I do not know which version he uses...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Then repentance is not a good work as you earlier insisted - since you earlier said a good work requires faith.

Then repentance happens with an inert God since the Dead Atheist has to come to God via the adequate performance of this good work (which you claim isn't a good work) which he performs with an absolutely inert God (whom you claim is never inert), and the prime cause of life/faith/justification and God no longer being inert is the Dead Atheist's adequate performance of a good work.


In once place, you FIRST have one WITH faith and life and Holy Spirit who "then" is Called by God and "then" repents. So, one must ask how he STOPPED being a Dead Atheist and now a Christian (with "belief" and "faith") BEFORE he is Called and repents... when you insist he must REPENT before anything - that's the "preparation" for the whole thing, must be accomplished BEFORE anything else, what MC calls, "the FIRST step?" Which is it? Is God inert UNTIL the Dead Atheist who denies God even exists, who thinks the Bible is all silly falsehood, who has NO Holy Spirit, NO spiritual life "repents" before God, THEN God springs into action and gives him faith and life, his own good work being rewarded? OR is the Holy Spirit working, changing the person, working in mysterious ways, working His miracle, so that they "hear" and "respond," so that FIRST comes God working His mysterious miracle granting His GIFTS of faith/belief, spiritual life, justification - which reveals itself in good works, perhaps first among them, repentance? The second is the Protestant view you (for hundreds of pages) have repudiated but occasionally affirm but then denounce.



- Josiah

You sure do know how to twist my words without citing them...

Try answering the substance of the point...


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

It would not be the first time...



The word CHOSEN has been added to the Bible in this veresion...



The word CHOSEN has again been ADDED TO the Bible in this passage...
These first two simply say:
"by the Will of God"
and that by way of the greeting line of the epistle, and not by content...
The word CHOSEN is not there...



He is telling others that they are chosen...

Look - He IS chosen by God for the works he is doing, and he knows it, but he is not running around beating his chest about how HE, PAUL, is the CHOSEN ONE of God...



No question of the chosen nature of God's people...

They just do not go around blabbing it...

And we disciple ours not to even think it...

Arsenios

You're struggling with this and working hard to extricate yourself from your obvious wrong statement.
We, who live by faith, have assurance of our secure standing before God. His promises are true and we can boldly proclaim his promises. We don't brag about ourselves. We brag about the one who has purchased us and brought us from death unto life. You and MC seem clueless as to this praise. I'm sorry you have no sense of security in Christ.

 

[RichWh1]

Colossians 1
[1]This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy.
*2 Timothy 1
[1]This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. I have been sent out to tell others about the life he has promised through faith in Christ Jesus.

Why did you add the word 'chosen' to those verses when no Bible contains the word chosen? Adding to the word changes context! Makes it a pretext! What version? The NMV? (New Menno Version)?

 

[MennoSota]

You'd be surprised. (sorry for the rabbit trail - back to topic...)

You seem to be inferring some "pew survey" determines God's work.

 

[MennoSota]

Repentance will bring you to God Who will Receive you with the Gift of Salvation here and now...

You have a strange way of twisting my words...

Without citing them...

Arsenios

God will bring you to repentance by graciously redeeming you and gifting you with faith.
You have twisted God's work in order to make it man's work.

 

[MennoSota]

Which version of the Bible added Chosen?

I'm pretty sure it's the Arsenios version that has removed it to fit his dogma. Kinda like Charles Taze Russell and the JWs.

 

[MennoSota]

Why did you add the word 'chosen' to those verses when no Bible contains the word chosen? Adding to the word changes context! Makes it a pretext! What version? The NMV? (New Menno Version)?

NLT check it out.

 

[RichWh1]

I'm pretty sure it's the Arsenios version that has removed it to fit his dogma. Kinda like Charles Taze Russell and the JWs.

His version did not remove it because the original manuscripts never had it! So again I ask, which version are you using and why add words that are not supposed to be there?

 

[RichWh1]

NLT check it out.

NLT is a paraphrase not a tranalation and not faithful to the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. IOW it's not a version a Christian should use.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

The "New Living Translation" (NLT) is the only one in my search that uses "chosen". It's a moderate paraphrase version. I sometimes read it for clarity, or for reference. It can be useful at times, but I rely on NASB or ESV primarily

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians 1&version=NIV;KJV;ESV;NLT;NASB

http://www.morethancake.org/archives/4915

 

[MennoSota]

Chosen - NASV
Colossians 3:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1; 2:9; 2 John 1:1; Revelation 17:14; Acts 10:41; Acts 9:145
KJV
John 15:16, 19; Romans 16:13; 2 Corinthians 8:19; Ephesians 1:4; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 2:4; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 17:14
In the NASB and KJV chosen is implied in the phrase "by the will of God." Thus the NLT uses the word chosen.
Add the word predestined to the word search, found in Acts 4:28; Romans 8:28-30; 1 Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 1:5, 11
The Bible is so very much filled with promises regarding his gracious choice that one must literally ignore major passages to avoid the truth.

 

[RichWh1]

The "New Living Translation" (NLT) is the only one in my search that uses "called". It's a moderate paraphrase version

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians 1&version=NIV;KJV;ESV;NLT;NASB

http://www.morethancake.org/archives/4915

I use the NASB because it's the best word for word translation from the original languages.
The NIV is the best thought for thought translation.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I use the NASB because it's the best word for word translation from the original languages.
The NIV is the best thought for thought translation.

I prefer the NCB, we use it in the liturgy.

The CCB, which I use sometimes for quotes from the holy scriptures says

2Timothy 1:1 From Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus,
by the will of God, for the sake of
his promise of eternal life, in Christ
Jesus, 2 to my dear son Timothy.

May grace, mercy and peace be
with you, from God, the Father, and
Christ Jesus our Lord. ​

 

[RichWh1]

Chosen - NASV
Colossians 3:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1; 2:9; 2 John 1:1; Revelation 17:14; Acts 10:41; Acts 9:145
KJV
John 15:16, 19; Romans 16:13; 2 Corinthians 8:19; Ephesians 1:4; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 2:4; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 17:14
In the NASB and KJV chosen is implied in the phrase "by the will of God." Thus the NLT uses the word chosen.
Add the word predestined to the word search, found in Acts 4:28; Romans 8:28-30; 1 Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 1:5, 11
The Bible is so very much filled with promises regarding his gracious choice that one must literally ignore major passages to avoid the truth.

That doesn't give a publisher of the Holy Bible the privilege to add words that are not in the original languages. Therefore it is wrong to use those versions that do so!

 

[MennoSota]

NLT is a paraphrase not a tranalation and not faithful to the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. IOW it's not a version a Christian should use.

I disagree and so do all the scholars who worked on it.

 

[MennoSota]

That doesn't give a publisher of the Holy Bible the privilege to add words that are not in the original languages. Therefore it is wrong to use those versions that do so!

By your definition, only the original text is acceptable. All translations use words not found in the original.
There is disagreement when translating. How do you convey the meaning of a word that doesn't have an exact word in the foreign language. You must express the meaning with more than one word.
Thus, I trust versions like the NLT, which have been vetted by peer review, above individual translations of those who imagine they know greek and hebrew.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Indeed it is about the heroes, but moreso, it is about the faith they embraced, and is so because it begins "este de pistis", which is how Greek proclaims: THIS IS FAITH, and the heroes of the Faith all are illustration of this power, indeed this Holy Power...



I have always understood that "brief definition" as the "essential definition" - Through all my befuddlement about HOW it is so, I simply wrote off my inability to grasp its meaning... for a long time, it simply remained hidden in plain sight, and doubtless does so to this day... That is how I read the entire Bible, btw... I approach the text as a Mystery to be revealed across time as one slowly matures in the Faith...

Hebrews 11:1 Faith is the assurance of what we hope for, being certain of what we cannot see. 2 Because of their faith, our ancestors were approved. 3 By faith, we understand that the stages of creation were disposed by God’s word, and what is visible came from what cannot be seen. ​

Here is the literal of 11:1

(This) is Faith:
Of the hoped for
(the) basis of deeds
Proof of (things) unseen

If we re-write the Greek into passable English, it might be this:

Faith is the basis of the deeds we do for things hoped for...
It is the proof of things unseen.

You see faith is the proof of the reality not yet seen...

It is even secularly true...

It is how the airplane was invented...

How houses are built...

How breakfast is made...

Arsenios

Yes, the Greek does move along in the direction that you've indicated. And the brief definition is very far from a discussion of how self-proclaimed-confidence-in-one's-own-election is proof of self's-status-as-elect. And once again saint James' words come to the fore a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. No one can rightly claim to be justified either "before men" or before God simply because self-claims-to-be-elect.

 

[MoreCoffee]

That doesn't give a publisher of the Holy Bible the privilege to add words that are not in the original languages. Therefore it is wrong to use those versions that do so!

Adding some words is justified if the words are implied in the Greek (or Hebrew) source text but in the case of 2 Timothy 1:1 adding "chosen" is not implied by the Greek and adding it is a little bit of theological tampering with the text along the lines of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures produced by the Watchtower Bible and Tract society of Jehovah's witnesses. Tampering with the text to make it fit one's theology is unsafe for the souls of the people reading the tampered-with-text.