We would assert your normal assertions on you…you are pulling things out of context for your own benefits as well. If you understood election and predestination and how God saves individuals…you would understand our position. But, you normally do not care to hear about these things. You just avoid them by telling us time and time again that we are pulling things out of context. Be careful that you are not doing the same thing.
Apophasis, your post about us not being yet glorified sounds like the Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory. I want to thank you for your insight. However, many of your posts show how our definitions of words get in the way of our understandings and that sometimes we are saying the same thing with different words.
Not so… but that is your position…without any authority.
verse 10 “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the **GOOD WORKS **that **GOD HAS PREPARED **in advance, that we should live in them.”
not of works of the law.
EXACTLY
:banghead:
Regarding Eph 2:8-10, I don’t have to adapt my doctrine. It says exactly what I believe. You have to adapt Scripture verse after Scripture verse to your doctrine. You have to twist a little bit here, a lot there, to get the Scriptures to say what it is you want them to say. I have shown over and over again where your interpretations fall flat on their faces and result in contradictory, confusing, and outright absurd meanings.
I have have made it quite clear on the thread…Challenge - The Golden Chain of Salvation. I Challenge You.
I don’t see a “golden chain”. I have stated my case. You have stated yours. I am ignoring your other thread. It’s the same ole same ole and has been refuted for 500 years. It’s no more convincing now than it was then.
Suit yourself…The scriptures that you have in mind do not contradict but complement. The truth is that you do not want to see it.
My posts on these physical bodies being not yet glorified have nothing to do with Rome’s doctrine of Purgatory? How did you come up with that? The glorification of a true believer’s body has nothng to do with Rome’s doctrine of “purgation.” There’s no reason for it. It’s simply not necessary because of the cross.
Actually, we’re not. My arguments are based on salvation by grace through faith alone - not through any work(s) other than that of Christ’s vicarious work on the cross on our behalf. On His redemptive work alone God saves all who turn from self and trust completely in Him.
ALL Scripture is written FOR you, but not ALL Scripture is written ABOUT you. One cannot draw from ALL the Scriptures if he wants to understand salvation this side of the cross of Christ. As Paul clearly points out:Rom. 11:6 “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”
Actually, it’s Biblical, it’s Apostolic, and therefore existed even before a church at Rome ever did. Sadly, it’s Rome that moved away. The doctrine of “salvation based on cooperation” is what’s new.
But its not the “prepared works” that save you. Paul just got through saying, by grace through faith you have been SAVED (past tense, a “done deal”), “not as a result of works.”
No. "For by GRACE you have been saved (how?) through FAITH, NOT as a result of works. Salvation is not a wage due but a divine gift, apart from works.
God loved you and sent His Son, not that you might love so that He might save you. God does not save based on your love, but your FAITH.
You need to notice it is those already saved and created in Christ Jesus for whom the “good” works are prepared. You’re trying to put the cart before the horse, Odell. Can’t go anywhere like that. That salvation cart just won’t move.
No, not simply believe in God, but believe what He has done FOR YOU through His Son - alone. Such a faith is not so easy, as domonstrated over and over again on this thread by you (plural) who continually resist His grace. You want nothing to do with it.
That narrow road leads to the cross. Few, indeed, desire to go down it. They’d rather go their own way, they want salvation on their own terms. But all other ways lead to destruction. Salvation is only by way of His cross (not ours).
According to you. I would agree that my citations do indeed compliment, but having been where you are and held your errant opinion, I conclude differently now.
A cheap shot? The fact is that there is not only a scriptural balance that refutes your position, but no ECF basis for it as well.
2 Cor 5:10 "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad."What’s the problem? Paul elaborated on this judgment in 1 Cor. 3:10-15. This is not speaking of a salvation process. At the judgment seat of Christ the Christian worker’s labors (not salvation) will be examined (tested). If found valuable he will receive reward. If not, no reward. It’s quite simple. For this reason Paul says:2 Cor. 5:9 "Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.What is it you don’t understand?
What is the fruit of your “labors”…does this ring a bell?
Or
Salvation is a process with integrable components. If its not, if OSAS were true, why would the wording of 2 Phil 2:12 imply otherwise? Also, lets not forget:
You will never win the reasoned assent of any number of men with your doctrines since you can’t explain other parts of scripture that directly violate it (like the above).
This statment is CLEARLY at odds with what Scripture is saying…how did you derive this? Read it again.
It didn’t say, if you lived an immoral life, you will get “no reward”. This is something you fancied because if you dig deep enough, you know its at odds with your fundamental beliefs. I say its at odds with your understanding of Christianity because you believe in OSAS and you will refuse to acknowledge that sin can get you to Hell because that is the only just reward of “what you have done, whether good or bad”.
What OSAS does is contradict Jesus…just because you “accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior” doesn’t mean you are not liable to sin anymore. Jesus makes NO distinction between those who are “saved”(even in your false Protestant sense) and those who are not.
Point #1 I came up with the idea that you somehow stated the idea of Purgatory by your words when you said that we are saved but not yet glorified. This is the same as if someone dies but does not yet have the holiness to be in the presence of God. (See stories about OT high priests who were not holy enough to enter the Holy of Holies - they died). It is that simple and your explaination can be accomodating in theory. But if your explaination is about being holy enough now to be in the presence of God, then you must be an extremely quality individual who has removed the problems others have with our disordered tendencies to sin. IMPRESSIVE! Tell me how you did it and don’t give me the response that God did it on the Cross for you since others in the same boat as you and I and they don’t act in holiness all the time and God died on the same Cross for us also.
The warnings of scripture are the means by which God keeps the elect…
I’m with you
I’m also with you here, since this is a HOPEFUL mentality; not in an absolute mentality. Otherwise the option of “not persevering” doesn’t exist which fits very nicely into the comfort doctrine of OSAS. Do you confess that there is a possibility of failing to persevere?. If so, OSAS is therefore nullified.
if you SEE heaven [ie: if you have an absolute assurance of salvation because you are “saved”] your hope is seen and therefore according to St. Paul, is not hope at all and cannot bring about salvation.
- have inspired me to study the Catholic Church’s teachings on predestination. I found a couple of interesting links - you can find it in the “Golden Chain” thread - and discovered that when Catholics teachings on salvation are placed within the broader context of its teachings on predestination, the Catholic Church strongly asserts the absolute gratuity of salvation. Here is a quote from one of those links:Catholics do not believe we earn our election. The debate among Catholic theologians is not whether election is based on man’s choice. Rather, the debate is centered on how does God involves man’s free choice in the salvation of the elect and the damnation of the reprobate? Where we differ from Calvinists is that we believe God’s saving of the elect *in time *involves their free response to His grace as manifested by a faith that perseveres in working through love. Those that are numbered among the elect can never be lost. However, where we differ from the Calvinists is that we do not believe all of the justified are members of the elect. There will be those who experience the initial stages of salvation (i.e. justification/salvation), but will fall away.
The reply to this question given by Fr Vincent about 6 weeks ago was that you would go straight to hell. You commit a mortal sin, are hit by a bus, you go to hell, no matter what else you have done in your life. Hard luck.
Let me put the question straight back to you: how do you know you have what is called saving faith? And how do you know you have the Holy Spirit to guide you into the right interpretation of the Bible.