Not By Works

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Studyman

Senior Member
Oct 11, 2017
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Studyman,

Good Scriptures you have offered. The context of those Scriptures are descriptive of believers, they are not then prescriptive texts.

Now, you also speak of those who say they love God, but do not follow or obey God in essence. That is also descriptive of something, perhaps it describes what they truly are in opposition to their profession, but we cannot be certain of this. That these allegedly do not obey God adds nothing to what you are attempting to convey with the Scriptures quoted. It only describes them, they cannot by deciding to obey God then earn heaven, or enter the Kingdom, or even see the Kingdom (John 3) until they are first regenerated.

At times people err in Scriptures by using some as prescriptive texts when they are instead descriptive. You are zealous to serve God it appears, however you are making the mistake I am speaking of. I hope you can accept this in humility and continue to grow in grace and knowledge.
It would be helpful if you would be specific in your rebuke so I might learn from it.
 
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PHart

Guest
Yes. Those that want to try and hang on to the "willful sin" escape clause, as if they don't willfully sin, justify themselves with reassurances in their minds, that THEIR sin isn't willful.
The willful sin being talked about in Hebrews 10:26 is the sin of willfully abandoning trust in Christ and willfully going back to the world, or to a false system of belief, in unbelief. Unbelief in Christ is always signified by a lifestyle of sin.

And, no, I haven't committed that willful sin. But I know of those who have. It's far different and distinguished from the willful sin of the one who is still believing in Christ.


That's why they have to work for their salvation.
They either can't or won't understand what the willful sin is the writer to Hebrews is talking about.
Which ironically enough is NOT relying on Christ's Blood alone for their salvation!

They just can't see it. Sad really.
I see it. That's why I say you can't keep a salvation that is dependent on belief in Christ's blood for salvation. It's that simple.

If you want to argue that the true believer can never stop believing, well, fine, do that. You and you alone will find the answer out to that question when you come into your 'Job' suffering and face the temptation to get out of your suffering by going back to the world. You won't need me or anyone else to lecture you about if you can stop believing or not at that time.
 
Feb 24, 2015
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Where in my statement did I justify sin? Where did I say we should dwell and stay in sin? Why are you putting words in my mouth?
Here is the problem, I am not saying you are saying this, I am saying those
who wish to criticise your position are doing precisely this.

Anyone who they feel fails they will attack.

Unfortunately it is easy to missread some peoples contributions, as the opposite
of what they mean. I apologise if you have done this.

By the way they are happy to heap whatever they can on the "opposition" lol.
 
Feb 24, 2015
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It would be helpful if you would be specific in your rebuke so I might learn from it.
I have to say this assumes these contributors in interested in people learning, rather than
they are just preaching their view, and woe to anyone who disagrees, lol.

p4t first comments to me were I was a troll, evil, etc. so I know he often has no intention
of sharing.....
 

blue_ladybug

Senior Member
Feb 21, 2014
70,920
9,669
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John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that all who believe on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life..


Note the word "believe". Also take note that the verse does NOT say, "all those who KEEP BELIEVING"...
 

blue_ladybug

Senior Member
Feb 21, 2014
70,920
9,669
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We don't need to KEEP believing in Jesus, to be saved. We only need that initial first belief, then it's just natural to keep believing.. although NOT to keep salvation.. :)
 

gb9

Senior Member
Jan 18, 2011
12,324
6,693
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Here is the problem, I am not saying you are saying this, I am saying those
who wish to criticise your position are doing precisely this.

Anyone who they feel fails they will attack.

Unfortunately it is easy to missread some peoples contributions, as the opposite
of what they mean. I apologise if you have done this.

By the way they are happy to heap whatever they can on the "opposition" lol.
it's interesting that you used the word opposition , since you are in opposition to the Biblical definition of sin, and also in opposition to the reality that no one, including you, by using those clearly defined definitions is sinless.

there is your opposition.
 

VCO

Senior Member
Oct 14, 2013
11,995
4,615
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I would have to be real hungry...and I mean so hungry that my backbone was chewing on my stomach......
I cooked one just because it was a recipe in my Wild Game Cook Book. THAT CURED ME OF TRYING EVERY RECIPE IN THE BOOK. It was the most horribly tasting, and foul tasting grease, that I ever had in my mouth. And it smelled up my apartment, and the hallway, just as the Landlord came up the stairs to show a girl his vacant apartment. Needless to say, she did not take the apartment.
 

VCO

Senior Member
Oct 14, 2013
11,995
4,615
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We don't need to KEEP believing in Jesus, to be saved. We only need that initial first belief, then it's just natural to keep believing.. although NOT to keep salvation.. :)

I agree, the Nature of a Truly Born Again Human Spirit is to keep believing. Those who fall away only prove they only knew about Jesus in their head, and NOT in their heart, in a newly born again human spirit.
 

TruthTalk

Senior Member
Jul 17, 2017
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We don't need to KEEP believing in Jesus, to be saved. We only need that initial first belief,
then it's just natural to keep believing.. although NOT to keep salvation.. :)
That is wisdom from God blue_lady. Believing is like taking your first breath and then,
"it's just natural to keep believing." Just like these two......:)
 
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Dec 12, 2013
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John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that all who believe on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life..


Note the word "believe". Also take note that the verse does NOT say, "all those who KEEP BELIEVING"...
Amen Blue......
 
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PHart

Guest
John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that all who believe on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life..


Note the word "believe". Also take note that the verse does NOT say, "all those who KEEP BELIEVING"...
The word 'believe' is in the present tense. Can you explain how it is that one presently believes without continuing to believe, as if they are two different things?

Now I can't tell if you are presently in 'H-grace OSAS' mode, or 'Calvinist OSAS' mode, lol, so I don't know which argument to address, but what is clear from this and other verses is it is only the believing person (present tense) who presently has eternal life. If you stop believing you no longer fulfill the qualification of the one who Jesus said presently has eternal life. So you can go one of two ways with this: You can say the true believer never stops believing, or else he was never a true believer to begin with, and therefore always fulfills the condition for having eternal life, or, the person who stops believing still has eternal life despite the fact that he no longer believes and is not presently believing (which is a joke).

It's easy to see the Calvinist OSAS argument is by far the only reasonable one of the two (the true believer can't stop believing), but that makes passages like Hebrews 10:26-31 meaningless. And of course we can instantly discount any argument that says ex-believers will enter into the kingdom of God. So that's out. But in my doctrine (you are saved as long as you are believing) all the scriptures about eternal life and believing, and the warnings about what will happen if you stop believing come into perfect harmony and in no way cancel out or nullify one another.
 
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PHart

Guest
I agree, the Nature of a Truly Born Again Human Spirit is to keep believing. Those who fall away only prove they only knew about Jesus in their head, and NOT in their heart, in a newly born again human spirit.
When genuine tongue talking believers abandon the faith we know that it isn't just fake believers who fall away into a rejection of Christ.

Don't project your experience with God onto every other Christian. Just because you're strong in your believing doesn't mean every other believer is too. But I know that is a tendency of our fallen nature to project our feelings and experiences onto others in a judgmental kind of way. A big, big step of spiritual maturity for me was to stop doing that. That sent my growth in the agape way of God's love to an all new level.
 
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PHart

Guest
Truth Talk.....are you 'Karl' in another online forum?
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
60,241
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When genuine tongue talking believers abandon the faith we know that it isn't just fake believers who fall away into a rejection of Christ.

Don't project your experience with God onto every other Christian. Just because you're strong in your believing doesn't mean every other believer is too. But I know that is a tendency of our fallen nature to project our feelings and experiences onto others in a judgmental kind of way. A big, big step of spiritual maturity for me was to stop doing that. That sent my growth in the agape way of God's love to an all new level.
But you have NOT stopped doing that. Just the other day you claimed that if I said there was nothing a believer can say, or do, or think that can cause them to lose their salvation, then I say that grace is a license to sin. Your ideas about yourself are as others who push their good works: self deceived. Whatever new level you imagine you have achieved is not as great as you suppose.
 
Dec 12, 2013
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The word 'believe' is in the present tense. Can you explain how it is that one presently believes without continuing to believe, as if they are two different things?

Now I can't tell if you are presently in 'H-grace OSAS' mode, or 'Calvinist OSAS' mode, lol, so I don't know which argument to address, but what is clear from this and other verses is it is only the believing person (present tense) who presently has eternal life. If you stop believing you no longer fulfill the qualification of the one who Jesus said presently has eternal life. So you can go one of two ways with this: You can say the true believer never stops believing, or else he was never a true believer to begin with, and therefore always fulfills the condition for having eternal life, or, the person who stops believing still has eternal life despite the fact that he no longer believes and is not presently believing (which is a joke).

It's easy to see the Calvinist OSAS argument is by far the only reasonable one of the two (the true believer can't stop believing), but that makes passages like Hebrews 10:26-31 meaningless. And of course we can instantly discount any argument that says ex-believers will enter into the kingdom of God. So that's out. But in my doctrine (you are saved as long as you are believing) all the scriptures about eternal life and believing, and the warnings about what will happen if you stop believing come into perfect harmony and in no way cancel out or nullify one another.
You know...most take what you say with a grain of sand....the bible teaches a present continuing result from a past completed action and the bible is clear...any that walk away were never of us or saved to begin with...your anti-Jesus rhetoric and self saving dogma denies and sweeps under the table the power and promises of Jesus......
 

TruthTalk

Senior Member
Jul 17, 2017
2,904
2,262
113
John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that all who believe on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life..

Note the word "believe". Also take note that the verse does NOT say, "all those who KEEP BELIEVING"...
Right again Blue_Lady. It does not say, "whoever keeps on believing in Him", The free gift of God does not change to, you are saved if you "keep believing", that is just pure nonsense
and a false gospel = a false christ.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that, whoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have eternal life."

True Gospel
 
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PennEd

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2013
13,584
9,104
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The willful sin being talked about in Hebrews 10:26 is the sin of willfully abandoning trust in Christ and willfully going back to the world, or to a false system of belief, in unbelief. Unbelief in Christ is always signified by a lifestyle of sin.

And, no, I haven't committed that willful sin. But I know of those who have. It's far different and distinguished from the willful sin of the one who is still believing in Christ.



I see it. That's why I say you can't keep a salvation that is dependent on belief in Christ's blood for salvation. It's that simple.

If you want to argue that the true believer can never stop believing, well, fine, do that. You and you alone will find the answer out to that question when you come into your 'Job' suffering and face the temptation to get out of your suffering by going back to the world. You won't need me or anyone else to lecture you about if you can stop believing or not at that time.
Your response is not terrible here.

Your error is that those people have RECEIVED THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH, but have rejected it, and go back to their own works. Receiving the knowledge, is NOT the same as believing it.

To put it in YOUR vernacular, they have the ticket for the free lasagne meal, they may have even gotten the meal on their plate, BUT THEY NEVER ATE THE LASAGNE! They either just let it sit there to rot, or they pawed at it and threw it away.

Eat the lasagne and live!!!
 

blue_ladybug

Senior Member
Feb 21, 2014
70,920
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Precisely my point. :) The word 'believe' IS in the present tense. :) And every day, we believe, in the present tense. You cannot say, "I'll keep believing when tomorrow comes". Tomorrow is in the future. Belief is an every day belief, not a sometimes I do, sometimes I don't belief.. You believed yesterday, you've believed today, and you will believe again tomorrow.

For the record, I don't believe in hyper grace at all, which I have stated both on this thread, and several others. I'm not a Calvinist, nor any other denomination. I attend church simply to hear the service and learn from it. :)

Show me with scripture, where Jesus says that the people who KEEP believing to keep salvation, "presently has eternal life".. He doesn't say that at all, anywhere in the bible, that a person must keep believing to stay saved.. The very second a person believes on Jesus, they are saved, for human life and all eternity. :)

Having belief in Jesus will carry you through your lifetime. :) It is JESUS who says that those who never TRULY believed on Him, are not Christians. Those are not my words, nor the words of anyone else here. Those people merely believed the idea that there is a God, but they did not believe in God Himself.

Do you know the future? Tomorrow is in the future. How do you know that you will still be believing, when tomorrow arrives? I'll give you a hint: it's called faith. Your faith keeps your belief going. :) BUT your faith does NOT keep you believing that you have to KEEP believing in order to be saved. You're making Jesus a liar by saying that if you don't KEEP believing, then you will lose salvation.. That's your own self trying to take over what Jesus has already done. Jesus says "believe on me".. So start believing that your initial leap of belief, is enough to keep you saved. :)




The word 'believe' is in the present tense. Can you explain how it is that one presently believes without continuing to believe, as if they are two different things?

Now I can't tell if you are presently in 'H-grace OSAS' mode, or 'Calvinist OSAS' mode, lol, so I don't know which argument to address, but what is clear from this and other verses is it is only the believing person (present tense) who presently has eternal life. If you stop believing you no longer fulfill the qualification of the one who Jesus said presently has eternal life. So you can go one of two ways with this: You can say the true believer never stops believing, or else he was never a true believer to begin with, and therefore always fulfills the condition for having eternal life, or, the person who stops believing still has eternal life despite the fact that he no longer believes and is not presently believing (which is a joke).

It's easy to see the Calvinist OSAS argument is by far the only reasonable one of the two (the true believer can't stop believing), but that makes passages like Hebrews 10:26-31 meaningless. And of course we can instantly discount any argument that says ex-believers will enter into the kingdom of God. So that's out. But in my doctrine (you are saved as long as you are believing) all the scriptures about eternal life and believing, and the warnings about what will happen if you stop believing come into perfect harmony and in no way cancel out or nullify one another.