Subject: What exactly must a person to be saved? |
Bible Note: "You like to mention what God does and leave out the Philippians 2:13 which proves my point." The sentence which contains Philippians 2:13 begins in the previous verse. What does that verse say? To ignore the first half of Paul's comment is just as wrong as ignoring the second half. "About the works you like to emphasize..." Me, or the New Testament? You still haven't explained how you fit God telling Christians to do things (not merely to believe things, but to outwardly demonstrate that belief) into your theology. "God does them and not man." Really. So Paul is telling God to love my wife as Christ loved the church, and he commands God to abstain from sexual immorality, and Peter tells God to make my calling and election sure, and Peter tells God to live in subjection to the earthly authorities? God certainly gives the strength and accomplishes the sanctification, but Christians are active partners in the endeavor, just as Paul laid it out: "For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me." --Colossians 1:29 Who labors? Who strives? Paul. From Whom does the power come? God. "If they come, they come because God does them." Scriptural support for this? "No sense trying to do them." So when God tells me to refrain from sexual immorality, there is no sense in me trying to do that? You don't really pattern your life after taking God's commandments as meaningless, do you? "If they don't come then God didn't elect that person." Well, I agree with that, but that doesn't mean at all that God is obeying Himself in my life. What you do seem to be saying is that the works are the primary evidence of salvation, which is my point entirely. "Because the word obey means believe and God gives me the belief." Where do you get the idea that "obey" merely means "believe"? "People talk about works and baptism but you have to admit if they don't do them then God didn't want them done." Why do I have to admit that? Scripture does not teach that he is indifferent about our disobedience. And lest we forget, the command to be baptized came "after the Cross." You wrote: "He only cares about faith which He gives as a gift." The Bible teaches: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith WORKING through love." --Galatians 5:6 Sanctification is a work of God's free grace, but it most certainly involves the obedience that God brings about but that WE do. "But emphasizing passages about obedience puts pressure on me to do, then where is the glory to God?" In your faithful obedience to Him. God is not glorified by do-nothing "believers." Do you think that lazy, pew-sitting, disobedient churchgoers display God's glory? How is God glorified if we do not do anything? Did the apostles glorify God by inaction? "That's all I can write." I wish you would write, specifically addressing some of the Scriptures I have brought up. If you are right, you have to reasonably integrate the passages I have brought up into your works-less worldview. We can't pick and choose the parts of the Bible we are going to cling to. --Joe! |