Subject: Sola Scriptura supported by bible? |
Bible Note: "My authority is Jesus Christ. He is not dead, but He is alive and He reigns in and through His church." What if I attend a church that teaches the bodily resurrection never took place? Who are you to tell me that he is alive? Which church is the one He reigns through? The Protestant one? The Catholic one? The Orthodox one? The Coptic one? The Church Universal and Triumphant? You can't answer that, so in effect you are saying that there is no clear authority. "To the degree that we claim to be right we in a sense are simply trying to justify ourselves." Nonsense. Paul considered himself to be right. So did Jesus. Were they just trying to justify themselves? God revealed truth to us. God wants us to apprehend the truth and live by it. You say the church (whichever one of the contenders is "the church") defines truth. "But we are justified by faith, not by being right." Many churches teach that we are justified by our works. Are they right? If not, why not? "You listed a bunch of different groups. These could be likened to the Samaratins of Jesus' day. They had a resemblence to the true religion, but had been corrupted by the many pagen beliefs. Yet Jesus on several occasions used the Samaratins to convict the Jews." Yet Jesus never approved the beliefs of the Samaritans. Jesus taught truth. Jesus did not teach obscurity. In the same way that God judged Israel in the Old Testament using pagan nations, Jesus the Son had every precedent for shaming the self-righteous by the use of unbelievers in the truth. "We are justified by faith in Christ, not by being right." Again with that statement? Do you mean faith alone? Or faith plus something else? And do you mean Christ the great human teacher, or Christ the created angelic being, or Christ the spirit brother of Lucifer, or Christ the ascended master, or Christ the second person of the Trinity? Where is the identity and nature of jesus of Nazareth authoritatively revealed? "Faith in Christ means trusting that He is faithful when we are not" Where do you get that definition? What if my church defines faith differently? Are we at a stalemate? "So my trust is in Him, not the Bible or any particular interpretation of it." And where do you get your information about Jesus Christ. How do you know it is reliable? What if you are worshiping a false god? Should Jesus even be worshiped? Who says, and why should I listen to that church? "But can we still trust that as the church, we are justified?" Well, you still haven't defined what "the church" is, so I will have to refrain from answering. And dince differing groups define justifcation differently, I can't know if I am justified because I can't get a clear fix on what it means. See, I have this book which defines pretty clearly what it means to be justified, and who Jesus is and what God is like and what faith is and exactly who and what we should put our faith in. It defines what the church is, and tells me a great deal about human nature and this place called heaven. However, you seem to think that none of that information should be trusted (that "crutch" thing, you know), and that we should just have faith (whatever that is) in Christ (whoever He is) and trust that we are justified (whatever that means) and submit humbly to the church (whatever that is). "It is a scary thing to not have all the right answers" You should be a very frightened human being, then! --Joe! |