C
CHESTERTONRULES
Guest
Predestination to salvation.
Then why did he need to die at all?
Why didn’t God just create the elect?
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Then why did he need to die at all?
Why didn’t God just create the elect?
R
Reformed
Guest
Hi dear sister in the Lord,
Thank you for sharing the Lord Jesus Christ! I understand your quote from Romans 10 and that is a wonderful passage. I think we need to reconcile Romans 10, with James 2, and Matthew 7. I think many in the churches today (Protestants and Catholics alike) have false professions of faith and are not united to Christ; thererfore, they are not saved from the wrath of God and eternal damnation. I think the modern idea that an altar call and sinner’s prayer causes an automatic conversion is unbiblical.
Matthew 7:21
I** Never Knew You**
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven
G
guanophore
Guest
I agree. Why do you suppose God would command man to do something that he is not able to do?So, what’s the beef with the OP? We know that Roman Catholicism teaches two aspects of atonement too.All mankind are actually commanded by God to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sin. This is more than a choice. It is actually a command of God.
R
Reformed
Guest
Well, we know the 10 commandments were given to us to drive us to Christ according to the Bible.
C
CHESTERTONRULES
Guest
Not exactly.
Regardless, man is capable of following the ten commandments with God’s grace.
R
Reformed
Guest
Behold…the Word of God.
Galatians 3:15-29 NIV
The Law and the Promise
15Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,”[a] meaning one person, who is Christ. 17What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.
Code:
19What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. 20A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.
21Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
23Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
C
CHESTERTONRULES
Guest
The LAW is not the ten commandments, it is much more.
Also, Paul makes it clear that we must follow the teachings of Christ to enter heaven. We need God’s grace to do it, but we must do it:
Gal 5
19The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
M
mercygate
Guest
Is your point here that the converted heart will naturally live the law because the law itself reveals God’s justice, and the just-ified man does not NEED the law because he now lives the life of the author of the law?
The passages you quote indicate that. No? “We are no longer under the supervision of the law” because our hearts are conformed to Christ. Yes?
R
Reformed
Guest
But how does Jesus summarize the 10 commandments? The first four commands are your duty to God. The next six commandments are your duty to your fellow man. What happens when you break a commandment of God in this life. Did Jesus Christ come to abolish the law or fullfill it on our behalf? It sure seems you are trying to merit salvation with your last statement.
The Great Commandment - Mat 27
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 5:17
Christ Came to Fulfill the Law
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
R
Reformed
Guest
I think we need to define what the law is in context to a verse. In Galatians 6, we are commanded to obey the law of Christ. Maybe in general, the law is commands of God to obey. When we don’t obey a command of God as unbelievers or believers, it is sin. The OT reveals obedience to the commands of God receives blessing. Disobedience to the commands of God is curse and death. Since we are all children of disobedience before conversion, we are under the curse as lawbreakers. Christ’s mission is two-fold in regards to the law. Christ came to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law thus meriting or eternal blessings for those who are united to Him. Therefore, since we are united to Christ, God pours out His blessings on us because what Christ merited on our behalf for keeping the law perfectly. In addition, Christ bore the penalty and curse of the law on our behalf because we are all lawbreakers. He is our substitute who bore our curse of the wrath of God on the cross in our place. The law has different usage and we know that the law is good according to Scripture. The law shows us that we are sinners, thus pointing us to our need for a savior. It sure seems Roman Catholic theology is guilty of trying to maintain their relationship with God through obedience of the law (see the book of Galatians).
To answer your questions above, I believe all Christians struggle with sin in this life (rom 7). We never arrive to the point where we never struggle with indwelling sin on this side of glory. The justified man understands that obedience to the law is not the way to salvation because we are under grace… which was merited by Christ by His life and death. Therefore, we live in gratitude for what has done on our behalf. We obey God because we love Him as being God and especially what for what He has done for us in Christ…to the praise of His glorious grace. Paul writes that the love of Christ compells us to do this or that. We are only able to live this way through the Spirit (Rom 8). However, the indwelling flesh that remains causes an internal war within us - Spirit against flesh. Our motivation for obedience is everything. Do you try to keep the law to merit something from God?
M
mercygate
Guest
On board with you in nearly all points. Quibbling of course about your observation that Catholics try to maintain a relationship through obedience (although I concede that it CAN look like that). We DO recognize the “obedience, which leads to righteousness” (Rom 6:16). My point was that “obedience” for a Christian is either “perfect” (because his heart is perfectly converted IN Christ) or, because of the concupiscence that remains in us, that obedience is imperfect though – as you note – it is under the will of “love of Christ that compels us to do this or that.” In any event, neither of us sees the life of a Christian as exempt from what the law means. The decalogue shows us what life is like in the Kingdom.
The whole point about the covenant of the law with the blessings and curses that go with the covenant, and Our Lord’s having taken the curse on himself, goes to a whole different topic from the OP of this thread. I doubt we would disagree on much, if anything, of that.
R
Reformed
Guest
Do you see how much we have in common?
I can understand the call for unity. But, I have no idea how Roman Catholic theology can get around the bibilcal doctrine of justification. If you do not receive imputation in justification, then the basis of your standing before God is your imperfect transformation. I understand James 2, that good works and transformation always follows a person who has been justified. Do you follow my frustation with Roman Catholicism?
M
mercygate
Guest
No, because for Catholics, justification is not a legal fiction but a fact. “Nothing unclean shall enter” the Heavenly City. I don’t want to run down the trail of Purgatory on this thread, although it fits here.Do you see how much we have in common?
Don’t get tangled up in cultural “furniture” of a Purgatory that is a “third place” and looks like hell. Purgatory is the vestibuile of Heaven. The process of final purgation is a function of sanctfying grace and part of the “finished” work of Christ on the Cross and the justification purchased there. (I go bonkers with people who persist in the delusion that this doctrine is “unscriptural” and that it “takes away from the finished work of Christ.”) Think of purgation as the last operation of grace to purify the faithful heart of every last vestige of attachment to sin. It’s the wedding garment. Jesus pays the price on Calvary, but the package is in transit until final delivery upon our death.
R
Reformed
Guest
Do you see our division? Justification, sanctificaton, and glorification is all part of the process. However, if justification is not imputed to us on the basis of the righeousness of Christ alone, then you appear to be basing your justification on your personal transformation done by God. It is a great formula for fear, and boasting in the flesh.
M
mercygate
Guest
I simply do not compute this AT ALL. Anybody who has the least inkling of the power of grace in transforming one’s life cannot possibly boast in ANYTHING. We rely on Christ to DO the deal struck and ratified in baptism, and to cancel the debt in fact; “Nothing unclean” shall enter. We must BE clean; not just deemed to be clean.
Catholics see the legal fiction model as almost a refusal of grace. I-am-so-totally-depraved-that-even-Christ-cannot-make-me-whole-so-He-just-pretends.
C
cfrancis
Guest
The highlighted statement appears to harken to Rom 4:
1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?
2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
3 For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
As the context of Ch 3 and 4 clearly reveal, Paul is presenting Abraham to the Jews as one who preceded the Law and was found righteous by referencing Gen 15:
6 Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
James 2 also calls to Abraham:
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
James uses the same Greek word for “justification” word as Paul in Rom 4. Yet James cites not Gen 15, but Gen 22:
17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.
18 “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
This is the same promise God made to Abram in Gen 15:
5 And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them " And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
Two distinct references to justification, at two different periods of Abraham’s life.
R
Reformed
Guest
Great point, how do we reconcile Paul with James? Paul and James both use justification in different applications. We have an apparent contradiction. You cannot use one small Epistle of James to change what Paul writes in 1/2 of the New Testament. I’m not sure James even proclaims the gospel in his Epistle. What is the gospel according to James, can you even develop one from the book of James? I love the book of James and is it completely complimentary to the 13 Epsitles of Paul in the right context. If you want to understand the gospel fo God’s grace, you need to understand Paul.
M
mercygate
Guest
This is not a contradiction. And James would not have been included in the canon if the Church had deemed its message contrary to the gospel.
Romans & Galatians are specifically addressing “recidivism” to the ritual law. Romans is ALL about Judaizing and circumcision. The “works” in question are works “of the law” – not works of Christian love. James speaks entirely about works of faith and love, done by professing Christians in His name. So James affirms that *these *works are HOW Christians LIVE in Christ. Kind of what I was getting at earlier when I suggested that the heart of a Christian has been converted into the heart of Christ, therefore he is not “under” the law because the law of righteousness is now written on his heart.
R
Reformed
Guest
Do me a favor to prove my point. Please proclaim the gospel of God’s grace through the writings of the Apostle of James.
M
mercygate
Guest
James assumes the Gospel of Grace. I would say that if you are having a problem with Scripture, the problem does not lie with the Scriptures.Do me a favor to prove my point. Please proclaim the gospel of God’s grace through the writings of the Apostle of James.
Abraham, who lived before the law, nevertheless lived it: in faith. That is why he is “our father in faith.” His faith was a working faith. Cf. Mt 25.
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