I’m not sure that we can say that we have anything *perfect *yet in our union with God. That’s what heaven is for!
I think the above statement makes sense if you say it like this:
I was not asking how many times a husband and wife have to have sex before they have consummated their marriage. I’m sorry that I did not make myself clear in my question. (I understand the Catholic Church’s teaching that once a husband and wife have engaged in the marital embrace their marriage in consummated.)
This sentence here is one of the reasons I am finding it fascinating to dicuss the nitty-gritty of our use of terminology. Are you saying that God has some family members, some children, who are not Christians? Granted, in a very general sense, that of God being the Creator, all people could be termed as God’s children since He has created all people. But I see the concept of God’s chilfren also being used in a more narrow sense when speaking of following Christ. In John 8:42-44, Jesus tells the religious leaders, 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. 43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. So I see two families represented in Scripture, those who have God as their father and those whose father is the devil. Which ones are the Christians? I believe the Christians are those who have God as their father, and the children of the devil are not God’s children, they are not in the family of God.
And I have specifically avoided using the word “salvation” since that would just be another term that we would have to explain in terms of how each of us are using it. I believe that when a person becomes a child of God, a member of God’s family, they have salvation. They have passed from death unto life.
Does a sin on my part constitute a continual rejection of God? If you are talking now about people who continually reject God, then I don’t think you are talking about Christians, at least from my perspective. I certainly think that people can make a false profession of faith and never back it up by following God. If so, they never truly became a Christian, they remained a child of the devil. I also think that a Christian can commit a sin without going back to being a child of the devil. The question to me is more about the NATURE of a Christian than it is about free will. The nature of a child of the devil is that they cannot help but sin. They do not have the free will to do righteousness because of there nature. All their righteousnesses, as Isaiah says, are as filthy rags. The "good’ things they may try to do are worthless because they are children of the devil. A child of God has become a new creation. A child of God has become united with the Holy Spirit in the same way that flour and water are united to create a cake. Once the cake is made, the very NATURE of the cake is that you cannot separate the flour from the water anymore. I see it as being the same way with Christians. Once we are united with Christ, there is a new NATURE and it is one whose very essense is acceptance of God rather than rejection. Can someone with that new nature still sin? Sure, but that sin does not condemn us to going back to the devil’s family.
As I said, someone who spends the rest of their life that way never truly meant it when they claimed that they loved God. But even if I do mock my dad once in a while, does that mean my dad stops being my dad? If God is my dad, he will chasten me AS A SON, not pour out his wrath upon me as a child of the devil.
I think you need to explain to me further what you mean by " a more unitive aspect" to the marriage act. To me, my wife and I are either in a one-flesh relationship or we are not. We cannot become “more” one-flesh. We can become more unified with each other in terms of our attitudes and goals and understanding of each other. I would refer to that as “growth” in our marriage relationship, but we have to already be married to have growth in our marriage. We have to already be one-flesh to have growth in intimicy. So I don’t think my position at all reduces the marital embrace to simply being pleasurable. I think that each time we engage in it, we illustrate the one-flesh relationship that we already have and we grow closer to being in unity with each other in all areas of our lives. Similarily, in my spiritual life, every time I exhibit obedience to Christ and submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit, I am growing in unity to Christ. So I suppose I could say that my obedience to Christ and to the Holy Spirit is the same as engaging in the one-flesh relationship. My whole life of “walking in the Spirit” is re-affirming my one-flesh relationship to God.
Your use of the word “re-affirming” seems to go right along with the sentiment I expressed above. Each time you do it, you are not creating a new one-flesh relationship, but you are re-affirming the one you already have. Do you think that a couple needs to keep re-affirming in order to prevent the one-flesh relationship from becoming . . well, not there any more? Can you actually lose your status of being a one-flesh couple if you stop engaging in the marital embrace? I certainly wouldn’t tell my wife we should stop, but I also wouldn’t tell her we have to do it every day or our status will disappear.It seems that in your theological system, the One Flesh Union–once!–is enough. Perhaps your spouse might show a reasonable skepticism if you told him/her you need never unite in this way again, as you’re already united?
The first people that come to mind are our Jewish brethren. Certainly Scripture makes clear that they are children of God, yes?
Oh! And just as I was sitting here another thought came to mind (courtesy of the Holy Spirit, perhaps?). What about the Good Samaritan? He certainly could not be classified a Christian–where would you put him? Child of God or Child of the Devil?
My understanding of John 10:29 is that the word is “snatch”, which means to be taken against your will. So, indeed, no one can take you away from God against your will, but if you choose, you can certainly fall away.
If they are rejecting Christ as the Messiah, then I don’t see how they would be the children of God. After all, it was to the Jewish religious leaders that Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil.” Do you think that a person can have God as their father and the devil as their father at the same time?
First I need to know what it is in the story of the good Samaritan that causes you to say that “He certainly could not be classified a Christian.” The Bible does not say one way or another whether the Samaritan was a follower of Christ, but we do know that the Samaritan, whether he was a child of God or the devil, was an illustration of what it truly mean to love one’s neighbor. Therefore, I’m inclined to think that he was a child of God, but the Jews at the time probably would not have accepted him as such because the Jews had such an animosity towards the Samaritans.
But there are also a myriad of verses which teach OSAS, such as John 3:16, which says that a believer will never perish, but HAS eternal life. If the spiritual life that I have as a believer can change back into spiritual death again, than that life was not eternal, but God’s promise to us is life that is eternal.
Yes, when I say God loves all people as children, I mean because He created them. But this is not only in a general sense, but in the deepest and profound way possible. It is precisely because of the fact that He loves us as his children, EACH of us, VERY much, more than we can possibly imagine, that he sent his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins. Paul says in Romans 5:8 that God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So when I say all are God’s children, I do not limit in any way the love that He has for them. Nothing can separate a non-Christian from God’s love any more than it can separate a Christian from God’s love. That is why your equation of love with salvation is in stark contrast to the Word of God.
It does not have to be continual to be a rejection. If I slap my mother across the face, figuratively or literally, I have instantaneously rejected her authority and love over me. She will not stop loving me, but I refused her love. She has not left me, but I have left her. I am the one who must come back and repent and say I’m sorry. So it is with God.
Following God makes one a Christian. Anyone can say anything. Good works are not done in order to prove one is a Christian, but are a necessary part of faith itself. A person who knowingly makes a false profession of faith is not going to do the works part of faith anyway, so your proposed doctrinal statement is meaningless.
I’m not really concerned about what you personally think. I don’t mean offense by that, but what seems fair to you is not necessarily of the mind of God. That said, I’m not aware of any biblical references or Church teaching that says committing a sin undoes our baptism or otherwise makes us children of the devil. I don’t have to become a child of someone else, in order reject my mother’s love. So it is with God.
This is utter nonsense. We are not children of the devil before we become Christians. And people who are not Christians certainly do good works. But they do not attain salvation because they are not sprung from Faith in Christ. To say that they are unable to do righteous things is to ignore facts and your senses, regardless of whether God accepts them as merit unto salvation (‘filthy rags’).
The Bible does not say that the way that we are united with God is like a cake. You’ve simply made this up and stated by fiat, without any support whatsoever, that it applies to Christianity. This is what is known as a straw man argument.
I don’t. And the Bible does not state this. Neither does the Church, nor has it, nor will it.
I have no problem with this statement, but you’re arguing against something I’m not saying. You’re saying that someone who lives their life as a depraved sinner and does not do good works, and otherwise does not live up to God’s standards is not going to heaven. I agree with that. What I do not agree with is that it means they did not genuinely mean it when they said a prayer. The point is, is that the genuineness of one conversion experience does not matter. It is our life that matters. It is the finish of the race, not the starting line that matters. Trying to go back and figure if one conversion experience was genuine is not the judgment day analysis. I’d be happy to show you tons of scripture on point, but this is getting long and I’ve got a flight to catch in the morning.
I suppose if we only became children of God in an adoptive sense, the way that you propose, because we were formerly children of the devil, as you propose, then he could choose to give us back to the adoption agency
He could not be classified as a Christian, because Christ had not yet died, risen from the dead, started a Church, or issued the Great Commission… This is, for all intents and purposes, the same reason Moses could not be considered a Christian… The point of the parable is sometimes religious people do not do good works, but even heathens do, so don’t get all righteous thinking that because you’re in the “saved group” that you do not have to perform acts of charity, because you do.
Because there’s no indication whatsoever that the Samaritan heard Christ preach. There’s no indication that he accepted Christ into his heart as his personal savior. There’s no indication that he was baptized. In fact, there’s nothing there at all that says he even knew who Jesus was.
Indeed. Also.
But what about the ancient Israelites? Wouldn’t they be an example of what you were asking for–children of God who were not Christians? Certainly Scripture attests to that!
Yes, since we are trying to be as specific as possible with the terms we are using, you’re absolutely right. Of the two families, the children of God and the children of the devil, the children of God were not called Christians until after the start of the church.
It’s interesting that you use the “there’s no indication whatsoever” argument. I would agree with that. I never said the good Samaritan was positively a Christian. I simply said that my “inclination” was to consider him such since Jesus used him in the positive aspect of His illustration. And I should have said “family of God” anyway, since as Son of Monica rightly pointed out, the term Christian would not have ben used until after the church started. But the good Samaritan could also have been a child of the devil and performed an act that illustrated neighborliness, though the act itself would have had no spiritual significance for a child of the devil.Because there’s no indication whatsoever that the Samaritan heard Christ preach. There’s no indication that he accepted Christ into his heart as his personal savior. There’s no indication that he was baptized. In fact, there’s nothing there at all that says he even knew who Jesus was.
Do you think he was a Christian because he did a good work?
That’s something I’ve* never *heard an Evangelical claim!
I read that Pope JPII said, “As the marriage goes, so goes the family. As the family goes, so goes society. As society goes, so goes the nation. As the nation goes, so goes the world.” So the state of the world all hinges on the marriage of man and woman!
Indeed. And the Catholic Church agrees with you.
You are expressing a very Catholic viewpoint on marriage!
Indeed. But again, that would eliminte the need for you to engage in the one-flesh-union–if you are faithful to your wife, your whole life is re-affirming your one-flesh relationship and there’s no need to engage in the marital embrace.
Certainly when it says “households” common sense (and statistics) would tell us that there must be infants included in households.I said the “no indication whatsover” argument was interesting because that is the same argument us evangelicals use in regards to the infant baptism verses where, say, the Philippian jailor is baptized with his whole household. There is “no indication whatsover” that infants were in that household. But we are talking about enough undividual points without bringing infant baptism into the mix. I just had to explain why I found the comment interesting.