General Discussion Truth, Style, Reality

[GiLGiJ]

There's only one truth, and it's up to each of us to bend ourselves to Him, from each of our points of view, approaches, and styles of communication. Even though we each grapple with what we know of His Word, there does exist a single truth, which our same Head sees from His own all-encompassing point of view, and He desires us all to work together in that same truth and to say the same thing (1 Cor 1:10).

Questions, comments? Do you agree in principle? In practice?

 

[C.W. Pettit]

And so, perhaps, like various parts of the Body, we each have a part.
I believe salvation is vital. I believe baptism is important. I believe communion is important.
I believe sanctification most important (the moment a believer lays his all on the altar and dies to Self and the process after)

I believe the Word was inerrant but new translations have shifted to cater to customers to make a profit.
(look up any translation site you can - and read how the major concern was with trends today - not actual preservation)
Any new translation that focuses on gender neutrality, racism, phobias of spiritual things, warping God's Law is bad.

I believe in the Daniel prayer model 3 times a day. Jesus asked His disciples if they could not stay and pray 1 hour with Him, so I aim for 3 hours of prayer per day.

I believe I am a sinner AND that God calls us to live without sin (Matthew 5:48 and most of I John) and he explains how it is possible today in Ezekiel 36:25-27 where God takes out the heart of stone and gives us a new heart of flesh - and puts His Holy Spirit in us - baptizing us with obedience and power to live His commands. (Anyone who emphasizes the process over the heart change is in essence saying that they need a heart transplant all the time) God does everything good. Only one transplant is needed. Sure there is getting used to the new heart and growing after but that is intended.

 

[C.W. Pettit]

I don't know if you have heard of the great dramatized production, "Bend Us!" about the mass revival in the Hebrides, but our church watched the entire recording of the play. It was fantastic.

 

[GiLGiJ]

I don't know if you have heard of the great dramatized production, "Bend Us!" about the mass revival in the Hebrides, but our church watched the entire recording of the play. It was fantastic.

Click to shrink...

When God is ready to move, will He find faithful hearts in which to do so? I mourn the perversity of diversity in modern Christianity. We are a beautiful rainbow of differences, and that's as it should be, but not in doctrine! God wants us to say the same things - His things.

Those women who prayed were faithful in receiving that man who preached; and the island was full of hearts willing to be moved, and so God came and moved them in a big way, and so there was revival. The prayer didn't bring Him - He was coming. The prayer readied the people to receive Him.

We have our prayers in the modern western Church, and we have our Bible readings and preaching; let's go on to continual closeness with God in truth, regardless of our personal styles, working together every day to encourage and rebuke, to teach each other and ready ourselves for that time when He will decide to visit us in a big way.

God is willing, and we humans He's saved are willing, but we are confused so often and allow our weak flesh to surround us and clutter up the truth we each can understand from our various viewpoints. Like Paul, the body serves sin as the mind serves Christ; we must subdue the body and bend to wash off the hard-to-reach filth that we each gather by walking in this blasted and cursed World.

 

[C.W. Pettit]

Yes, God was coming. I never suggested the prayer brought Him.

Again, I point to Scripture where God gives a new heart of FLESH - a good thing. Paul meant the old self which he took off and put on the new self.

Peter wrote, "Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil;" (1 Peter 2:18)
People barely go to church today. Many adults in my church to actually come play games on their phones the entire time.

Do not be okay with anyone promoting "your flesh is evil and causes you to sin; try your best and God will clean you up when you die."
which is the same as, "your DNA makes you obese." "Your parent's susceptibility to drink makes you a drunk."
This is all a crutch. God did not call us to make people hobble around on crutches.

He told Abraham, "Walk before me and be blameless." Also to Moses. There was no OT law for lesser sins. Violent criminal sins meant death.
Defiance meant death. Blaspheming meant death. The majority of the Hebrew laws were for accidental sins when a person was unaware it was wrong. Then they could be redeemed, washed, cleansed, etc.

We as Christians are to live this life apart from all sin. "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." (Hebrews 10:26-27)

No one can keep sinning after salvation. It is not supposed to happen at all. That's why Calvinists say - you have not been saved if you keep sinning. And Wesleyans say - you can be saved and lose your salvation.

 

[GiLGiJ]

Yes, God was coming. I never suggested the prayer brought Him.

Click to shrink...

And I never meant to suggest that you did suggest that. I didn't even think of it, if that makes you feel better.

That passage in Hebrews might seem to mention salvation, but the passages that directly talk about salvation don't even mention sin, except that Christ died for them. I know there are several passages that seem to indicate otherwise, but if you look at them with a different point of view (which you might be hesitant to do, as though mere contemplation will make you lose focus and -BAM- you realize you've been sinning so much you couldn't hope to remember them all to repent of them all), but that different point of view aligns across all those passages.

For instance: Since the people who go to Hell sin, why should you want to (Ephesians 5:3-7)? Remember, concerning verse 5, that our sin-corrupted bodies will be changed to be like Christ's glorified body when we see Him as He is, and we will see Him first at His appearing, before we enter Heaven, so even that fearful verse doesn't necessarily mean that we will lose our salvation because of doing the things that the unsaved do. No verse that's directly about salvation says it's in jeopardy due to our sin. If you find one, let me know.

~~~~~~~~~

Here's a general recount of the flow of the passage surrounding the one you quoted in Hebrews 10. See how a different point of view changes it. Even on the level of word-for-word detail, you're interpretation keeps missing 2 things: 1) The focus on the conscience looking forward to and fear and supposing that they will be punished like the unbelievers, and 2) that this passage is focused on a single sin, namely the rejection of salvation doctrine, that Christ's death is useful to save. It's saying that sin makes us afraid that we've lost our salvation (vv. 27, 29 "suppose", 35, 39), and the cure for that is to remember that salvation is ultimately trustworthy (v. 22), because Christ has done so much to ensure it (vv. 20-21). It doesn't say that God will start to remember future willing sins (v. 17)!

~~~

Because of the New Covenant (v. 16), God won't remember our sins anymore (v. 17). Because of the remission (God "not remembering") of our sins, there's no more sacrifice for them (v. 18).

So, let's be bold to love Christ freely, because nothing is holding us back anymore - we have full assurance of our salvation due to our faith in what Christ has done for us, and our conscience is not longer evil (vv. 19-22). Our profession of faith is Christ, and He is faithful to complete His own promise to us who trust Him (v. 23).

Now we can come together and help each other love and do good works, exhorting each other and waiting for the day of our hope (vv. 24-25).

Since there's no more sacrifice for sins, if we willfully commit them, we become afraid of judgment like the enemies of God will suffer (v. 27). After all, since Moses' law didn't mercifully pardon anyone worthy of death, it's only natural that we should suppose ourselves worthy to receive even worse punishment than that

*if we deny the efficacy of Christ's blood to keep us after sanctifying us as though it were not holy, then we do an act of despite to the Spirit of Grace* (vv. 28-29). We know that God is vengeful (v. 30), so we fear when we sin (v. 31), but we should remember the troubles that He has brought us through, individually and together (vv. 32-33), and you were confident then of your Heavenly reward. So we need patience to continue *believing* and not to draw back into *unbelief*, or God won't have any pleasure in our soul (vv. 34-38); but we aren't like that, because we *believe* Christ and His saving work, and that's why our soul is saved to please God (v. 39).

~~~

Verse 26 is a simple factual statement about the end of the sacrificial system. It doesn't say we've lost our salvation. Verse 27 and beyond says that we become afraid that we're worthy of the same punishment as the unsaved.

1 John 2 also has some verses that people might fear, but it says the same thing, that the sinning Christian fears the loss of their salvation (v. 5b). The darkness in vv. 9-11 isn't a euphemism for not being saved; it has to do with the mind's perceptions, darkness, not seeing, and we know by experience that that's how it works - we stumble around with our spiritual senses cut off when we live in unrepentant sin.

1 John makes it clear, along with Romans 7, that we do sin, but sin is not of God. It's of our sin-corrupted bodies, but we still serve Christ with our minds even as our bodies serve sin. There's hope one day for a sinless body when we see Christ as His is - that's what the Bible talks about in particular when it mentions the Christian's hope.

~~~

Furthermore, relying on not willfully sinning as a requisite component of salvation goes beyond the biblical mandate, where God does directly describe what we must believe and what we must do to be saved. Keeping from willful sin is a duty, a good work; it's the very definition of works religion, even is Jesus' great saving work is also a part of it. In this way, it's very similar to the Roman Catholic's Transubstantiation, where Christ's actual saving work is deemed insufficient, and their play-act of His death fills up what they suppose is lacking of sufficient grace for our sins.

~~~

God is One, and His Truth is one truth. Salvation doctrine is the mightiest of them for us now; it's His greatest act of love, and we know that love is the greatest thing, followed by faith and hope.