Salvation - Part 2

[psalms 91]

Who do you think they look to? We ask Jesus to come into our heart we proclaim Him Lord and saviour so yes it is Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit upon us.

 

[Albion]

That seems right, but there are Christians who talk as though Christ commissioned a certain institution or organization with officers who have taken over for him (with his permission, of course).

In response to that thinking, it is not necessarily a bad idea to say again that Jesus created a movement and a bond between Man and God, not a religious version of Sams Club with a membership card and privileges that other believers don't have.

Although I wince when people say that they are against all religions because they are Christians, they do have a point.






.

 

[psalms 91]

Its called the Way. It is the true religion of Christ and its followers are found in every denom. There is no special one only those who obey and follow the Way.

 

[Albion]

Yes. That doesn't make all churches equally correct in what they are doing or teaching, but the faith transcends all those little boxes.

 

[Josiah]

That seems right, but there are Christians who talk as though Christ commissioned a certain institution or organization with officers who have taken over for him (with his permission, of course).

In response to that thinking, it is not necessarily a bad idea to say again that Jesus created a movement and a bond between Man and God, not a religious version of Sams Club with a membership card and privileges that other believers don't have.

Although I wince when people say that they are against all religions because they are Christians, they do have a point.






.

No denomination is the Savior. Jesus is the Savior.

No dead, fallen sinner is the savior of himself/herself, Jesus is the Savior.

All the attempts to get the focus off Christ.... to make Christ as small and irrelevant as possible.... to make self (even if self is a denomination) as big as possible... is condemnable. Jesus is the Savior.

 

[Arsenios]

We cannot believe or obey anything that first isn't true.

Sure we can, and not only can we, but we do so all the time...

That's the most relevant part...Jesus.

Yes, obedience to, and not just hearing without obedience to, Jesus...

What He did for you at the cross.

What He did for ALL -

"And I, if I should be lifted up, will draw all (men) unto Myself..."

That's your salvation.

This is the error -

Forgiveness of sins is not Salvation...

Being conjoined with Christ in purity of heart IS Salvation...

Forgiveness of sins is but preparation for for that Union with God...

Look to Him.

Always...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

No denomination is the Savior. Jesus is the Savior.

No dead, fallen sinner is the savior of himself/herself, Jesus is the Savior.

All the attempts to get the focus off Christ.... to make Christ as small and irrelevant as possible.... to make self (even if self is a denomination) as big as possible... is condemnable. Jesus is the Savior.

"Saul, Saul!
Why are you persecuting ME?
It is hard to kick against the pricks."

Paul was not persecuting Christ when he saw to the stoning of Stephen was he?
He was just peresecuting Stephen, wasn't he?
Or was Christ telling the truth?

If I step on your toe, am I stepping on you?

Is the Body of Christ actually Christ Himself?

Christ seems to think so...

Why don't you?


Arsenios

 

[Lamb]

Being conjoined with Christ in purity of heart IS Salvation...

Forgiveness of sins is but preparation for for that Union with God...



Always...

That's the Lord's work to save us.

 

[MennoSota]

Of course, according to TULIPian uber-Calvinist, God actively chose to NOT make most alive in Christ but rather to set them aside as the eternally damned, in order to populate hell with most people. Since most are actively exempted from Christ, from His mercy and grace, from anything remotely related to Christ, since God determined that Christ would NOT die for all these folks (the majority of humans), therefore he doesn't make most alive (wouldn't do any good) and doesn't give most faith (would be in vain since their faith would be in something they are excluded from, nothing for that faith to apprehend or trust or rely up... and thus the Devil gets most.


I disagree with all these "logical" attempts to make God small and evil..... or man big and good. Whether that is Pelagianism/Arminianism and the falsehood of "free will" or whether that is TULIPianism (lol) and Limited Atonement and the falsehood that God wants most to go to Hell. Man is not good... God is not bad.

Then please stop trying to make God smaller than His Sovereignty demands, Josiah.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Must be time for the popcorn and coke ...

*watching the fight*

 

[Arsenios]

That's the Lord's work to save us.

I think it is almost a matter of robotics...

One can always say: "God is the Savior and man has nothing to do with entering his own Salvation."

And one can then prove one's self right by quoting Jesus: "Apart from Me you can do nothing."

And from this idea, that man cannot save himself, one can then proclaim:

Man must be saved prior to doing any good whatsoever...

Which is Biblically false, for we are born into life and death in Adam - We are not born dead, but both alive and weakened unto death, where Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of BOTH Good AND evil... We are now born into both, and not just evil, as some think... We are not lifeless, but mortally wounded in our very birth, because "What has life to do with death, or Good with evil, or God with sin?" So we are born into crisis, and it is into this crisis that God incarnated, so as to gather INTO Himself all who respond to the Call of God unto repentance... For into this rulership of Death over man born without the Life in which God created Adam, Life incarnated and we who are Baptized into Life are in that very action Baptized into Christ's Death on the Cross... Our lives are ALL about Life and death... And about OUR decision to choose Life or death, which translates into Life in the Kingdom of Heaven here and now, OR into life on earth with its inherent death that does not have God's Life in it that overcomes the world and the rulereship of death...

And growing up as a sinner and having a turning point in one's life with God, one will then regard that turning point as the very event of God's Saving the lost sinner... (losing sight of the matrix out of which that event arose)... And now seeing Salvation as an encounter with God - Which it is, but it is not just ANY encounter with God...

For we are CALLED to repentance...
And in repenting from sins we are Justified by God...
And in this Justification, God Glorifies those overcoming the world...

Overcoming the world entails embracing the suffering which the world imposes, the running of the race, that taking up of one's cross... Without this Way of Life, God does not Glorify... The great gifts come with the great temptations, and avoiding, for instance, a death by torture, is a great temptation...

So man is not a robot of God, but a living and breathing person created by God in the Image (Ikon) of God who in Christ is taking up his own cross in order to follow Christ, and this after being Baptized INTO Christ, and this after repenting from sins unto Baptism... And yes, God knows ahead of time who will and whom will not respond to His Call... Whom He will Justify in Baptism... Whom He will Glorify... But you and I do NOT know... And this does not mean that God picks favorites ahead of time to cause their Salvation... And the mis-attribution of predestination to the fore-knowledge of God turns man into a non-responsive robot with no life who then becomes living...

And the practical result is the justification of evil prior to the imposition of Salvation BY GOD...

And God does not justify evil...

He Justifies persons in repentance from evil...

And Salvation is not imposed...

It is sought in repentance and confession...

It is found in obedience to Christ...

There IS EVERYTHING YOU can DO in order that you FIND Salvation in Christ...

Repentance from sin is everything...

And fallen man CAN repent...

He is not a dead corpse, but CAN do BOTH Good and evil...

And he does...


Arsenios

 

[Josiah]

Arsenios


If you start with GOOD people, ALIVE people, whose sin is not really a problem, who naturally can understand God and naturally can trust God, essentially unfallen man - then yes, God becomes moot, Jesus becomes irrelevant, faith becomes meaningless. If we don't need SAVING, we don't need a Savior. Your anthropology is simply the same as in Judaism, Islam and Buddhism... and jsut as they have no need for a Savior (just a divine helping hand and sufficient time to get it right) so neither do you. Thus, when the Protestant says "Jesus is the Savior... Jesus saves" it conflicts with the grand goodness, the enormous biggness you have in self. Christianity is predicated on two points: We all NEED saving/rescuing. God has supplied such in Jesus Christ. By denying the first, the second is irrelevant. And one has simply gone to modern Judaism or Islam.

Luther: "If you see yourself as a little sinner, you will inevitably see Jesus as a little savior."

God: John 3:27, Galatians 4:8-9, Romans 3:23, Romans 3:10-12, Romans 9:16, Romans 3:12, Romans 5:12, Romans 7:18, Romans 8:7-8, Ephesians 4:22, Romans 5:8, 1 Corinthians 2:14, 1 Corinthians 1:18, Ephesians 2:3, Ephesians 2:1



- Josiah



.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Josiah, you're arguing in circles. Grace is a gift from God. Orthodox theology holds to that. Arsenios hasn't claimed that people do anything good that is independent of God's grace. And Arsenios hasn't maintained that people who are convicted of their sins and desire to repent do so independent of God's grace. He's never implied that Jesus is a "little saviour", to accuse him of that is obvious deception.

 

[Arsenios]

Arsenios
If you start with GOOD people, ALIVE people, whose sin is not really a problem, who naturally can understand God and naturally can trust God, essentially unfallen man -
.

Thank God I start with sinners called to repentance to be Justified by God unto Glorification...

How about you?

Do you start with zombie corpses walking and talking in total depravity from God?


Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

Thank God I start with sinners called to repentance to be Justified by God unto Glorification...

Amen.

How about you?

Do you start with zombie corpses walking and talking in total depravity from God?

You made me chuckle with that remark.

Arsenios

:smirk:

 

[Lamb]

Josiah, you're arguing in circles. Grace is a gift from God. Orthodox theology holds to that. Arsenios hasn't claimed that people do anything good that is independent of God's grace. And Arsenios hasn't maintained that people who are convicted of their sins and desire to repent do so independent of God's grace. He's never implied that Jesus is a "little saviour", to accuse him of that is obvious deception.

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

 

[Albion]

Yes, the meaning of that term or description was pretty clear when it was first made, and the objection to it that followed came across as rather contrived, to say the least.

 

[MoreCoffee]

To diminish Jesus' work as Savior by insisting you have to something for your salvation is making Christ a Little Savior

You say that the Lord, Jesus Christ's, role is diminished when Arsenios says that people do things in the process of their own salvation and I say that he is thereby glorified as just and the justifier of all who love him. Your perspective is not mine. I think it is not Arsenios' either.

Can you show me from the holy scriptures that what Arsenios wrote is not biblical, not part of the teaching of Christ, not in keeping with Apostolic testimony about salvation?

since then He has only a small role to play.

 

[Albion]

The term was obviously just a characterization of the implications built into any claim that we share in the achievement of our salvation.

If Christs sacrifice is not sufficient to pay the price for sin, but we must also build up a resume of good works, then it is reasonable to say that this view diminishes Christs role. No one is asking that the expression be made doctrine or pretending that it was taken from Scripture, so there is no reason to nit-pick it to death.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The term was obviously just a characterization of the implications

Implications perceived and constructed from whose perspective. Arsenios didn't construct the things that lamm claims. Lamm did that and Josiah.

built into any claim that we share in the achievement of our salvation.

If Christs sacrifice is not sufficient to pay the price for sin, but we must also build up

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).

a resume of good works, then it is reasonable to say that this view diminishes Christs role. No one is asking that the expression be made doctrine or pretending that it was taken from Scripture, so there is no reason to nit-pick it to death.