VCO,
Cassian, are you a Jehovah Witness? Why do you need to guess, I have told you specifically which Church I belong to. You even rediculed that point.
I am a member of the Orthodox Church.
Hardly Truth when it has been clearly shown to be of men, modern men at that.
I don't get Truth from individual men. i get it from the Church who was the recipient of that Truth in the beginning via the Apostles. The Truth is what was given and preserved by the Holy Spirit within His Body, of which Christ is the Head. It is NOT from man imposing his best intellectual guess as to what it might mean.
I think you are the one who needs to ask yourself that question.
Christian beliefs and one of the standards is the Nicene Creed. How come you don't hold to the Nicene Creed?
Yes, most Protestants adhere to the change made by the RCC of adding the filioque clause to the Nicene Creed.
k You seem to have a way of self indictment. it fits your position perfectly. You are scoffing at the work of the Holy Spirit in giving and preserving God's revelation to man unchanged for 2000 years. You have yet to show that the Holy Spirit gave us the premillennial concept, and has preseved it within His Body. All you come up with is your man made modern theory of dispensational/premillennialism.
☝t<><
Not at all.
In me is genuine LOVE for my LORD, and I
know the Holy Spirit is in me, teaching me, and empowering me to do the Work the Father has willed me to do.
What do you mean "How come you don't hold to the Nicene Creed?" I was raised on it in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and I certainly believe it, even though it is VERY lacking especially concerning the Work of the Holy Spirit. Here is their statement about accepting the Nicene Creed:
[qoute]
What are the Ecumenical Creeds?
The three ecumenical creeds in the Book of Concord are theApostles’Creed,the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed. Theyare described as “ecumenical” [universal] because they areaccepted by Christians worldwide as correct expressions of whatGod’s Word teaches.
www.lcms.org/document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=1089
Here is the Nicene Creed that I was raised on:
Nicene
Creed
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I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
☝t<><
NOW obviously, that is NOT everything we Christians are to Believe, it is ONLY the core of our common Beliefs. Later versions of this Creed changed the word catholic to Christian, to end the confusion. Now let me expound on the MAJOR error in thinking that a lot of people who think they are Christians make. It is the Biblical definition of the Word "BELIEVE". They think because they have memorized the Nicene Creed and acknowledge intellectually that it is true, they are SAVED CHRISTIANS. WRONG! Even the Demons believe like that. The word Believe in the Jewish way of thinking involves much, much more than intellectual acknowledgement. It involves a TOTAL willingness to put your whole weight upon what you claim to believe.
For example:
If two Jews walked up to a frozen over lake in early winter, and Jew #1 said to Jew #2, "Do you BELIEVE the ice is thick enough to walk on?"
And Jew #2 responded, "Yes, I BELIEVE it is thick enough to walk on."; and then stuck out only one foot and gingerly tested the ice with that one foot.
Jew #1 would SCREAM, "LIAR! If you genuinely Believed it, you would have boldly walked out there and put your whole weight on what you claimed to BELIEVE."
BELIEVE, therefore, in the Bible is not just intellectually acknowledging something is TRUE, for example:
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John 6:47 (NKJV)
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47 [/SUP]
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
ENGLISH carries a
MUCH LOWER meaning to the word BELIEVE than the original languages. At the time CHRIST said that, the word BELIEVE carried a meaning that involved putting a complete TOTAL TRUST IN HIM, or it was LESS than what word BELIEVE meant at the time.
HENCE all those on the Broad Road to Destruction think they are SAVED, when they have NEVER entered the very NARROW GATE of TOTALLY TRUSTING HIM.
Let me prove it to you:
Romans 10:9 (NASB)
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9 [/SUP] that if you
confess with your mouth
Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved;
It is NOT a CONFESSION, unless it is absolutely true about yourself. In that case, anything less than "absolutely true" would only be a PROFESSION and not a CONFESSION; which is what the demons at GADARA did.
Luke 8:28-30 (ISV)
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28 [/SUP] When he saw Jesus, he screamed, fell down in front of him, and said in a loud voice,
"What do you want from me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you not to torture me!"
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29 [/SUP] For Jesus was in the process of ordering the unclean spirit to come out of the man. On many occasions the unclean spirit had seized the man, and though he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, he would break the chains and be driven by the demon into deserted places.
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30 [/SUP] Jesus asked him,
"What's your name?" He answered, "Legion," for
many demons had gone into him.
The word LORD actually means MASTER, therefore, if you have never surrendered to JESUS as MASTER in your Heart, totally giving HIM CONTROL because you LOVE HIM, it is ONLY a Profession when you call HIM LORD, and you remain UNSAVED.
Matthew 7:21-23 (ISV)
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21[/SUP]
"Not everyone who keeps saying to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will get into the kingdom of heaven, but only the person who keeps doing the will of my Father in heaven.
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22 [/SUP]
Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name, drive out demons in your name, and performed many miracles in your name, didn't we?'
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23 [/SUP]
Then I'll tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Get away from me, you evildoers!'"
1 John 2:4 (ISV)
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4 [/SUP] The person who says, "
I have come to know him,"
but doesn't continually keep his commandments is a liar. The truth is not in that person.
The Greek Word "keep" is in the Greek Perfect Tense, which we do not have in English. It therefore is NOT describing Perfection, but rather a Lifestyle of Striving to KEEP. And what do we do when we fail? Refer back to 1 John 1:9, which is also describing a Lifestyle of confessing and repenting of sin, every time we find it in our lives.
P.S. Why did I leave the Lutheran Church? ONLY because my born again human spirit was HUNGRY for much more BIBLE TEACHING than I was getting in the 10-15 minute Lutheran Sermons. HENCE I found that most non-Denominational Community Bible Churches teach the Word of GOD for nearly an hour in every 1.5 hour Service, and my born again human spirit finally ENJOYED a FULL MEAL of the Word of GOD every Sunday.