Rom 8:30

[Briguy]

Adam, you have hit on something key here. What you say is true about the old covenants. What is this age though? What did Jesus do for the world? Who now is the head of the church??

You see Adam, When God came himself and died an earthly death with real blood something happened, something really BIG. Even some who were dead were seen walking around after the death of Jesus. Hades was opened and Heaven was cleared for all who were called of God. People could now once again have direct fellowship with God and the souls of those who died righteous and who will die righteous could now be with God in Heaven, not just in Paradise, in sight of Hades. The veil was riped and the walls of the previous covenants came crashing down. Jesus called his shed blood a new covenant and so it was. Jesus himself was on the side of the people. That means God for the first time is on both sides of the covenant. God the father on one side and God the Son as head of the Church on the other side and the Holy Spirit on the earth for the first time as "counselor" binding it all together. Does that make sense. The Covenant in Christ is unbreakable because God is PERFECT and on both sides. He is the assurance of a final everlasting covenant, for he cannot break a covenant that He has with Himself. I got excited just writing that. Here is section of verses concering the elect that I would like you to comment on
Acts 13
[46] Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
[47] For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.
[48] And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
[49] And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.

MOP, you make nice comments but never show any proof. I could say that the sky id purple but I better have a pictur or something to prove it or no one will believe me. I appreciate your convition, just wish you would explain why you believe what you do, and add some scriptures that you find on your own - Thanks

Myles, thank you for your thoughts. Tell me something. How much obedience is enough? How far do I carry the cross - for it to guarentee my salvation? How many good works will please God and gain His acceptance of me? 10 works a week? 15 a week? 20 a day? Where is the line between doing enough, behaving a certain way having Grace and not doing enough, baving not well enough and losing grace? How close can I get to that line and still go to Heaven?

In Christian Love,
Brian

[Myles Domini]

Brian dont be so fixated on the prize that you miss the beauty of the present. Let the future alone and love God in the present. You're misinterpreting me because you are fearful, fearful that nobody can merit heaven. Although this is true you have not allowed your fear to turn to perfect fear which in turn would become perfect love as the beloved disciple tells us in chapter 4 of his 1st canonical epistle. God's love is an awesome flame, so bright and burning that the Hebrews called his highest angels 'Seraphim' or burning ones. God made us for himself and our hearts are restless until they rest with Him to paraphrase St Augustine. All the pleasures of the earth are lower goods that obscure the eyes to the highest good: God. Salvation is coming into union with God, returning to the state of grace that Adam lost and moving ever closer to Him in life and death. But God's grace and if new wine is poured into an old wineskin it will burst.

Good works maintain the condition of the wineskin they do not earn grace they allow one to co-operate with it. It is not a question of how many works you do, you're missing the point because you're eye is so fixed on the finger pointing that you're not seeing the glory of what its pointing at. Its not a question of how many acts because the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church, is a relationship of love. It would be like asking how many kisses a wife has to give her husband? Its a nonsensical question. The point I'm making is the wife cannot be an adulteress and devoted to her husband. If she leaves her husband she blinds herself to his love and cuts herself off from it, get the analogy? The good works do not merit salvation. Nobody merits it. We are saved because God wills all men come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved as Sacred Scripture tells us in 1 Timothy. But we must co-operate. God doesnt force His love on anyone. If we as members of the bride of Christ want to leave the marital home, He allows it, and if we wish to repent and come home He allows it. He doesnt count the acts but the acts are needed to deepen the relationship.

You're being legalistic in your question with your emphasis on 'how much' and 'what guarantees'. Love isnt like that. God is love and love is God and as my signature reads we love because God first loved us. We dont merit the love of God, we were created to experience it by God's desire. The love is free but we can reject that love if we wish it is not forced upon nobody. How long does a marriage have to last? So long as the two partners are willing to work at being together. God isnt counting your actions, God is loving you and expecting you to reply in kind.

As for where the line is? St John the beloved in 1 John 5 says there are fatal sins and thats crossing the line but he also mentions that there are non-fatal sins. But to think of your relationship with God in these terms once again is legalism and is also heartless. It lives the law without the spirit of the law and thus becomes the righteousness of the Pharisees. Does a man cut off his hand because he knows its not fatal? Or allow someone to sear his back with hot irons because it is not fatal? No? Should men sin because they know its not fatal? No? Again, thats not what love is about. God wants a relationship of love with His people. Your question betrays you in highlighting that you are only thinking of the reward that awaits you when the reward is nothing more than what has been given now in a less obscured manner: God.

Once again I ask you to consider what the Apostle Paul called the faith that works by [b]love[/b]

Bless...
Myles

[Briguy]

Hi Myles, I sort of followed you but this post inparticular you were kind of abstract in your thinking and not very consistant. Think of your marriage example. There can be a point in a marriage where one person may turn away from the other because of various factors. It is a relationship of love, like ours with Jesus. When one partner starts doing wrong and the other partner gets upset. When enough wrong is done the one being wronged may give up and quit. A little wrong and the person does not quit but more wrong and the partner does quit. There is a point when it is too much. That is what you believe about a persons relationship with Christ. They can disobey or fall away to a point where Jesus dis-owns them and their salvation is no more. I was just asking at what point does God turn us loose. Though He bought us with the blood of His son, you believe that He will at some point cast a bought one back. Kind of like the fisherman who those back the fish. When does that happen? What is the criteria. I don't feel that is legalistic to ask. I am sorry if i came across legalistic in my last post. My question felt like good honest questions and were intended to be difficult to answer. Anyway, I am guessing you view the Christian covenant like the marriage covenant because the Bible makes reference to God's people being a bride. There is a HUGE difference and that anaolgy was used as symbolic but not representative. What is the difference you ask???? One member of the God/Children covenant is PERFECT, and the other side was bought by PERFECT and EVERLASTING BLOOD (sacrifice). In marriage neither partner is even close to perfect.

Please address my comment about God being on both sides of the new covenant and that making it unbreakable. I think that I need to understand how you feel on this point to more understand what you are saying.

Thanks again for the great debate and for the Charity by which you deliver even tough arguments.

In Christ,
Brian

[Myles Domini]

The parable of prodigal son expresses it best I think. It would've been extremely odd for a first century audience to hear such a strange tale in their highly patriarchal society. The Father's younger son, not even his eldest, decides to leave home and the Father instead of slapping him around the head gives him what he wants and lets him go. Our relationship with God is like this, which is the point Jesus is making. We even sin with the goods God gives us by His will and yet God is always standing on the road looking for us to come back waiting faithfully for the faithless but He compels nobody to come to Him. God at no point stops looking out for His disobdient offspring but He does allow us to do what we will and if what we will is to sin, which He will not permit in His household, we are free to leave. He will always welcome us back but we must make the choice to co-operate, which has been my point all along. If you co-operate with God you are free to live in the house under His rules. But if you dont you must leave. In order to be part of the covenant you have to have a part in Christ because only through Him can we be saved. But we can break ourselves away from Christ because we have the freedom to. He will always accept us back. He never puts up barriers. But humans do. God's love is often unrequited. He loves and others do not love Him in return.

Jesus preaches more times about damnation in the gospels than He does about salvation and warns people that apart from Him they can do nothing exhorting them to keep His commandments and making clear they realise that branches that do not bare fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire (Jn 15). Not because of Him, but because they cut themselves off by their sin. The sin blinds us to the beauty of God's love as you see in Rm 1, where God's punishment is to give 'them' over to their lusts and to let them enjoy it. God knows the pleasures of sin are a fallacy, transient distractions for hearts created to love infinitely and which consequently can never be sated by the momentary high of sin. God is naturally always seeking these out asking them to come back like Hosea sought out his prostitute of a wife in the Old Testament. However, he cant make the unfaithful bride come back. Or rather, He can, He has the power, but He gives us the freedom to choose and if we choose sin He permits us to live and die in it.

There is no point at which God cuts us off, we do it to ourselves. A good book on this subject is 'The Great Divorce' by C.S. Lewis.

Bless...
Myles

[Briguy]

Hi Myles, good post but you did not answer my question. How can a covenant be broken when God is on both sides of it??

The prodical son was never not the son. When he was gone and doing wrong he came to a point where he realized his mistake and did not feel worthy to be a son. He went back to his father hoping to be a servant, be he was greeted as a prince. The prodigal son was a son in the begining, middle, and end of the story. This story is about fellowship and not losing salvation.

Think on this. We know God chastises(sp?) whom He loves, His children (that is a Biblical fact) If by doing certain wrong we can again be seperate from god, who is He really chastising and what is the criteria. No, God gets the saved persons attention and peace will come to the wayward son when they return to fellowship.

I'll wait for your responses before I continue.

One other important thing. God knows what we will do before we do it. He is never standing around waiting to see what we will do. He knew what we would do, who would be saved, etc... before the foundations of the world. Ponder that as you think about what you are trying to say about doing good and obeying to gains God's favor. Abraham was righteous by faith, not by works!!

In Christ,
Brian

[Myles Domini]

The passage that you speak of is from Genesis 15 as quoted in Romans. Abraham believed in God from Genesis 12, Genesis 15 was when he sealed the covenant. As for the eternal covenant with Christ naturally it can never be broken but that doesnt mean we cant break ourselves from it. We can because we are merely leaves that have been branched onto a vine, the covenant is not ours, if we have inherited the spirit of sonship its because we became 'Sons in the Son' as St Athanasius taught.

Since the Covenant is not ours or of our making the gates of Heaven are always open to those willing to accept the Son but we always have freedom to reject Him. Seperating ourselves from the true vine as Jn 15 makes quite clear we can do, is not God chastising anyone, its human freedom. The fact that God knows the future doesnt mean that He makes us act the way we do. He just knows how we'll act.

I dont know where I said humans merit their salvation. I cant remember saying so I am left without anything to ponder. A gift is not merited it is given, but all gifts can be refused even if the giver keeps trying to give.

[Briguy]

Hi Myles, In John 15 an important point is made about what jesus coming to the world meant. Before Jesus, only Isreal were God's chosen people but with Jesus "salvation has come to the Gentiles" (not a direct quote). Where Isreal were the branches on the vine beofre now the gentiles have been grafted onto the tree, as a people, not individually. Those from the house of UIsreal or gentiles now can stay on the tree by trusting Christ (abiding in Him). If one is does not accept Christ's payment for their sins they are broken off off individually and thrown into the fire, or gathered up from the ground and eventually thrown into the fire. If one who doesn't believe turns to Christ and believes that person is grafted back into the vine individually and their they will stay. Jesus is teaching symbolically and not doctrinally here. This is not teaching that a person can jump on and off the vine all of their lives.

Myles, My main point and contention is that the New covenant is completely different then any other covenant. The Holy Spirit,God coming to earth and being put to death physically, the ressurection, etc... should make it clear that this new covenant is not some continuation of something in the past. There was a direct line in history where things just stopped and all was made new. Jesus coming is as distinct in History as Adam and Eve. This newness is best shown in the new personal relationship we can have with Christ. No walls, no sacreifices, no cutains, no priests, just us and God for the first time since Adam. You see, we are all called priests now and we are called saints (saved people that is). God truely made an unbreakable, unchangeable, everlasting covenant. There are no more covenants to come. This time God is on one side and Christ, His Son, as head of the "body" is on the other side. Perfect vs. perfect = unbreakable. You say the covenant is not ours, and you are right, but then you say we can do away with it if we want. How often have you given a way a car that you did not own??? or even sold one??? The answer is never and that is why we can't give away our salvation. Our salvation is eternal from the moment we have saving faith. We, as Abraham, are rigthteous by faith and nothing else. The Law has no place in NT theology.

In Love and Truth,
Brian

[thessalonian]

Alistar Begg, a Protestant I sometimes hear on the radio this morning spoke of a man who he met that had come to Christ. This man started attending a church and made friends. His friends started getting married but he wasn't ready to yet so he decided to invite this girl in to live with him. Mr. Begg met this man while he was still living with this girl. The man admitted that he knew his relationship was wrong from the start. After a conversation with Mr. Begg he decided to break the living arrangement off. Praise God for that. But here is the kicker. The man said I now see how much God loves me and how lucky I am that he brought me to this point. Mr. Begg said, ya, your lucky, he could have chosen to have a roof fall on your head and bring you in to heaven like a shipwrecked sailor. ?? . You can blantly and knowingly disregard God's law and go to heaven? This stuff makes me mad.

OSAS is a damnable lie! Sorry Brian but I cannot have respect for this heresy that leads people down the path of destruction.

Tit.1
[11] they must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for base gain what they have no right to teach.

Edited May 23, 2005 by thessalonian

[Briguy]

Thess (Gerald, if my memory is correct). I do not mean to upset you. I present my arguments with logic and scripture and use real life examples to help make my point. To me this is a growing experience. You see, all Christians start as "babes in Christ" They need to grow and mature. They learn and grow in knowledge. In your example the person was was saved but God was weighing on his heart to do what was right, which he finally did. The man grew in the knowkedge and grace of the Lord. He was convicted and in time acted on those convictions.

Now here is the thing that seperates us and apparently gets you mad. God sees the heart of each person. God does not save based on what a person does because He knows what each person has done, is doing, and will do. It makes no sense to put our curent actions in the equation at all because God knew what we would do before we did it, therefore if we were judged by what we did, it would be just as fair by God to judge us ahead of time. There is no difference in that respect. That is why we are forgiven forever and the sacrifice is once, for all time. It just does not make any sense any other way, even if it gets you angry, which I really do feel bad about.

God's blessings,
Brian

[mulls]

[quote name='thessalonian' date='May 23 2005, 10:41 AM'] and bring you in to heaven like a shipwrecked sailor. ?? . You can blantly and knowingly disregard God's law and go to heaven?  This stuff makes me mad.
[/quote]
Makes me think of this:

11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; [b][u]he himself will be saved[/u], but only as one escaping through the flames.[/b] 1 Cor 3:11-14


people can be disobedient, and not do what they're supposed to do....like works which will not bear fruit and instead be burned up, and still be saved.



For the record, I don't think you'll find any sort of serious Christian anywhere who would advocate just "being saved," and then not acting on/in God's will. Those who say "I prayed a prayer to accept Jesus so I'm fine" should examine themselves, that they're calling an election is made sure, and that they're not deceiving themselves into thinking they are in a proper relationship with the Lord.

Proponents of eternal security do not promote a lifestyle of arrogance or laziness or disobedience. They simply give glory to God for the fact that nothing and nobody can take away what Christ has done for us.

People do backslide and fall away for a time, but God can and will restore them (Prodigal son). That's when we need to go to Christ to forgive us and " cleanse us from all unrightouesness," for he is able (1 John 1:9).

Of those who turn their back on the faith and fall into apostasy, it is believed that they were never apart of the faith to begin with, and were deceived just as they deceived others.

Edited May 23, 2005 by mulls

[Briguy]

Thanks Mulls, I thought I was alone in this issue, at least on this mesage board.

Gerald, still waiting on your response.

In Christ,
Brian

[thessalonian]

[quote name='Briguy' date='May 24 2005, 07:32 AM'] Thanks Mulls, I thought I was alone in this issue, at least on this mesage board.

Gerald, still waiting on your response.

In Christ,
Brian [/quote]
Mad? Oh contraire. You mistake directness and calling a spade a spade with mad. Brian I think your heretical theology has been tolerated a bit to much. I make no judgements on you personally but your theology is damnable. This man was living in sin! Making a mockery of God's laws and Alistar Begg said he would have been going to heaven. This is nonsense. This wasn't about him not really being saved. Allistar said he was still saved. What a muddy bunch of pond water. Peter denied Jesus three times but your answer is a Christian can deny Christ. A man dispairs and falls away after loosing his job. There is no way of telling if he is a Christian and you say he still is.

Eph
[20]
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,
[21] to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

No, Brian it does matter what we do because God gives us the grace to do it. He gives us the grace to overcome sin.

I like you brian. I don't like your theology.

Blessings

[mulls]

Nah I'm here Brian....been here a long time, have conversed about everyt topic under the sun with the phatmass folks. sometimes I just dote around and make jokes, sometimes I feel like mixing it up. I've been in a mix it up mood lately.


Thess,

would you mind responding to my last post as well? I would like to have your take on it. thanks.