Results 1 - 5 of 5
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Author: respectHim Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | when is someone saved? | Rom 10:9 | respectHim | 58900 | ||
John, You wrote "Do you not see that this mis-interpretation of the gospel is a return to salvation by works! What happened to the GOOD NEWS that we have been saved by GRACE not WORKS?" Please let me clarify that we CANNOT earn our salvation through works. To have Jesus Christ as our Savior we must acknowledge that we have sinned, that our sins have placed us under a sentence of death and that we need forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice. We must then accept Jesus as our personal Savior, recognizing that He died for us. Regrettably, many people stop right there and think that's all there is to it. They fail to recognize the crucial necessity of personal repentance. In recognition of Christ's sacrifice and a desire to change our lives to please God, each of us must forsake the sinful ways that brought the death penalty upon us and made Jesus' sacrifice necessary in the first place. We cannot continue to live as we lived before. We must undergo a life transforming change of heart and direction, a process the Bible calls repentance. Peter said, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). Remission means release, that is, release from guilt for your sins. God forgives our past sins and clears our record. After receiving God's Spirit, we are justified, that is we become righteous in God's sight. God counts none of our past sins against us (Romans 3:25). If we stumble and sin, we must ask God's forgiveness so that our state of forgiveness is not lost by our return to our old sinful way of life (1 John 2:1-6). When we are justified, God deals with us as though we had never sinned; the death penalty has no hold on us. However John made it plain that Christians at times will still stumble and sin. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:8-9). John wrote these words after several decades as a Christian and an apostle of Christ, and he included himself among those who still fell prey to sin. The difference in the life of a Christian is that he no longer practices unrighteousness as a way of life. "In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother" (1 John 3:10). A Christian practices righteousness by obeying God's commandments. Yet our obedience to God's law does not save us. It is God who saves us through Christ. The law cannot save us, but our striving to obey it is a condition of our salvation. If we ultimately refuse to obey God, He will not ultimately save us. You quote the verse on predestination (Romans 8: 29), but this is a very controversial subject with many different ideas and interpretations. Let me tell you I have seen a number of ex-Christians on other forums as well as where I work, who will freely admit they no longer practice Christianity because they believe it is a lie or a fraud or simply a fairy tale. This seems to confirm what Jesus said in the parable of the "sower" in Luke Chapter 8. Much more can be said on this subject but I need to stop here for now. respectHim. |
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2 | when is someone saved? | Rom 10:9 | respectHim | 58805 | ||
According to the Bible, repentance and baptism mark the beginning of the salvation process, the time of a Christian's commitment to continue to serve God. The completion of our salvation, as long as we remain in this physical life, is yet in the future. As Jesus said, "He who endures to the end shall be saved" (Matthew 24:13). Paul wrote, ". . . Having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Romans 5:9-10). Notice that Paul wrote in the future tense: We will be saved. Our salvation is not complete. We must endure faithfully to the end of our lives. If a Christian at some time during his life, after committing to serve God, turns away and renounces Jesus and God's way in word or action, he will lose his salvation, unless he repents of his error. Jesus described such a situation. ". . . If that evil servant says in his heart, 'My master is delaying his coming,' and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites" (Matthew 24:48-51). "Carousing with drunkards" can describe the literal behavior of an errant Christian, or it can be a metaphor for evil habits in general. Drunkenness is sometimes used in the Bible to symbolize those who are immersed in the sinful attitudes and practices of the world. Paul made it plain that a Christian can fall away and even lose salvation. He wrote that in his own life he found it necessary to practice firm self-discipline, guarding against the encroachment of sin, "lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27). Once we commit our lives to obeying God, the process of being saved has begun in us, although it is still possible for us to fall away (Luke 8:13). Paul said we will be saved if we continue to the end while holding fast the truth preached to us (1 Corinthians 15:2). Our salvation is assured if we do. Salvation, assuring eternal life, will then go to those in the faith who have endured and overcome. Those who are engaged in this spiritual battle need not harbor fears that they will fail to receive eternal life. As we ask God for help, He will keep us from stumbling (Jude 24). "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). Indeed, we can be "confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). Hope this helps. |
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3 | 4th commandment has been done away? | Ps 111:7 | respectHim | 58024 | ||
It is good to hear that your love for God is why you keep the Sabbath and not from a legalistic approach. To answer your question, I attend one of the Church of God groups. Hope you don't mind but I prefer not to be more specific in case I say something on this board which may not accurately represent their beliefs. God Bless! |
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4 | 4th commandment has been done away? | Ps 111:7 | respectHim | 57874 | ||
may-it, Thank you so much for your kind words. Yes I do keep the Sabbath because I believe all the Ten Commandments are meant to be obeyed, not just nine. There are many clever arguments around to justify doing away with some or all of the commandments, even from very sincere individuals. I only wish I had the enormous amount of time it would take me to properly deal with this issue. Unfortunately this is not possible at this time. I pray that you continue to seek the truth and not be discouraged by anyone. May God bless you always. |
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5 | 4th commandment has been done away? | Ps 111:7 | respectHim | 57721 | ||
A passage from Paul's writings, Colossians 2:16, 17, is often used to support the claim that observance of the Sabbath is no longer necessary. "Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ," he wrote. Paul said only to "let no one judge you," which is quite different from saying these practices are unnecessary or obsolete. A more basic question to ask is whether Old Testament practices were even at the core of what Paul was addressing here. Many people assume that the "handwriting of requirements...nailed...to the cross" (verse 14) was God's law and the requirements He gave in the Old Testament. But this is not what Paul meant. The Greek word translated "handwriting" is cheirographon, and this is the only place the term is used in the Bible. It meant a handwritten record of debt, or what we would today call an iou. In contemporary apocalyptic literature, this word was used to designate a "record book of sin," meaning a written account of our sins. Paul was not saying that God's law was nailed to the cross. What was nailed there, he said, was all record of our sins. Because God's law required the death penalty for sin (Romans 6:23), this record is what "was against us, which was contrary to us" (Colossians 2:14), not the law itself. The New Testament in Modern English, by J.B. Phillips, makes this plain, translating verses 13 and 14 as: "He has forgiven you all our sins: Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over His own head on the cross." It is the evidence against us, not the law itself, that was nailed to the cross, enabling us to be forgiven. This becomes clear when we read the rest of this chapter. It is apparent that other issues were involved that had nothing to do with God's laws given in the Old Testament. Among these were "principalities and powers" (verse 15), "false humility and worship of angels" (verse 18), forbidding to touch, taste and handle (verse 21) and "neglect of the body" (verse 23). Further, Paul referred to the false teachings in Colosse as rooted in "persuasive words" (verse 4), "philosophy and empty deceit" and "the tradition of men" (verse 8). He also referred to submitting to "regulations" of this world (verse 20) and "the commandments and doctrines of men" (verse 22). Could Paul, who in Romans 7:12 said the law is "holy and just and good," possibly be referring to the same law here, or is he addressing an entirely different issue? Taking into account the historical context, the answer becomes clear. As the Church grew and developed in the first century, it had to deal with the progressive infiltration of gnosticism. The influence of this thought and practice is particularly noticeable in the New Testament writings of Paul, Peter and John. However that is another subject. Keep in mind that Paul, earlier had said: "The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good" (Romans 7:12); "The doers of the law will be justified" (Romans 2:13), and "I delight in the law of God" (Romans 7:22). If he were saying that Sabbath observance is irrelevant, such an assertion would be completely inconsistent with his other statements. |
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