Are we going the whole Catholic vs Protestant route again - who is the REAL christian?
Or Tulipers vs Free Willers
Grace vs Works
gah why is this not in the BDF. Why does this topic have to be in miscellaneous. Miscellaneous Forum is for all the threads that can't or don't fit into any of the other forums.
Usually I am not a stickler for rules, but the categories can help direct the discussions and for people that just want to have a bit of light relief they don't want to land themselves in the middle of yet another (fruitless) debate.
That debate isn't the beginning point, nor will it ever be resolved to the satisfaction of all in this world of conflict and contradictions.
So, to answer your question, I'd have to say that the real topical point here is the sufficiency in the shed Blood of Christ, never minding all the claims from within religions and the creeds to which anyone may have chosen to adhere. Perhaps we can, or cannot, agree that creeds, in and of themselves, aren't inspired by Holy Spirit, even though they may seem to be consistent with scripture, it can be asked why they were ever developed at all rather than to simply point to scripture.
So, I personally don't really care who identifies with the word "Christian" or not. That identifier doesn't save anyone any more than attending religious observances, services, sacraments, praise sessions, prayer sessions, et al. What matters is what one believes about Jesus...one either believes in the sufficiency in His statement of "It is finished," or one doesn't. One either believes that Jesus paid it all, or one doesn't. Those two people cannot both be right, but they can both be wrong, or the one be right and the other wrong. That should drive us to discovery and self-examination. The Law if Non-contradiction is a law that God Himself established that cannot be legitimately violated in this realm nor can God Himself violate it...meaning that it's an empirical law that is at the level of governance by which even God Himself is governed; meaning that even God is not sovereign in the sense of what most people understand.
So, if one disagrees that salvation is by what Paul declared in his gospel given to him by Christ Jesus, which is bereft of any and all works/efforts of our flesh, then the one who disagrees with Paul is the one who is wrong. If one places his trust and faith in a man-made, non-inspired creed, then he is wrong, especially when any creed adds concepts and descriptive imagery not of biblical origin, for doing such intimates a belief that a mere man or group of men can articulate absolute truth better than the inspired word of God once given to those men who saw Him in person. All other men thereafter who claim otherwise are anathema dare they preach any other gospel than that delivered to us who had that assignment from Christ Jesus.
So, tell me, from your perspective, do you believe what John wrote in 1 John 2:27? Do you REALLY believe one must place his faith in something written by men who were not under inspiration from Holy Spirit? When two say Holy Spirit revealed to each that which is contradictory, one or both are lying, and therefore cannot be true. With that I'm sure can both agree. When one can see the Greco - philosophical - Eastern Mystic influences within that creed in its descriptors, and therefore disagree with its elevation to the level of being THE acid test for salvation, that disagreement isn't intended to bring on all manner of other non-resolvable debates...especially when the scriptures themselves aren't THE common, authoritative grounding from which to gauge all other premise claims.
MM
