Must Jesus bear the cross alone?

I disagree that those scriptures are misinterpreted. We have examples, did Peter, Paul, John, and the many beheaded die literally or figuratively? Literally. It doesn't matter how we die, but it does matter if we denounce God. "If you deny Me before men I will deny you before My Father in heaven." "If you lose your life for My sake, you will find it.

Only the death of Jesus secures for us eternal life.. And if all believers where required to be executed then no Christian would ever die of natural causes..

Yes Christians should face death instead of denying Jesus.. But that is not always necessary..

Just so we all understand, you are saying that Christ’s apostles died and did not have internal life with God?

I find it one of the worst insults to confuse my beliefs with catholicism. They Holy Spirit did not cause the apostles to fall asleep. Jesus asked them why they won't stay awake with Him. I agree that Jesus alone paid for sins. But that doesn't mean Christians won't have to die for Him. Peter on the cross did not pay for anyone's sins, including his own.

This is what people have a hard time understanding... our obedience does not earn salvation, but God only gives it to those who obey Him. It is not that obedience won't earn salvation, it's that it can't. Therefore God can have us work all He wants us to, and still have salvation be a gift. Calling Him Lord is not enough, we must do His Will (which is to obey Him). PLEASE do not turn this thread into a OSAS thread, there are plenty others that cover that.

I don't think you read all that I said, because I already said that and gave the example that Moses was not executed. And I agree that Christ's death alone paid for our sins. But we must be obedient, even unto death, because God only gives salvation to those who faithfully obey Him till they die. Revelation 21:8 mentions the cowardly among those who will go to hell.

No, I don't know how you got that. The apostles do have eternal life because they were faithful even unto death.

what you say here is SO important to understand

we can and often enough do, suffer for the sins of others

a wife suffers if her husband commits adultery...it certainly was never God's will for the husband to do that

a child does not look before they run onto the road and they are killed...God does not make that happen

Christians get diseases...God can heal but often does not...and die...this is a fallen world

women are raped, men are laid off after 20 years on the same job, children get messed up with bad company even in a Christian home, Christians loose their homes because they can no longer pay the mortgage...and on and on and on and on

it is our response that determines how God works out our situations

I do not understand what what you say....

I don't know what happened to my post, so I will try to post it again...

Hebrews 10:26 says that if we deliberately keep on sinning there no longer remains Christ's sacrifice for our sins. There are other scriptures as well. So let's say hypothetically that it is judgement day, you are the judge, and you have filtered out all the Christians who lost their salvation. You've narrowed it down from a large group to a small group who will actually be saved- these are the ones you foreknew would be saved before the creation of the world. The others were those you didn't know in the way that you know and loved the saved. Just because you knew the end result doesn't mean that the gospel didnt work for the other group, it's that you foreknew which ones would not lose the salvation they received.

Jesus gave the parable about the servants who were entrusted with the master's talents. The last servant (he was a genuine servant of the master- not a stranger off the street) the master cast out where... where there is what? Weeping and gnashing of teeth. We know by other scriptures that means hell.

Out of the 600,000+ original people who escaped slavery in Egypt through the parting of the sea, how many made it into the promised land that represents heaven? Two- Joshua and Caleb. "Many are called, but only few are chosen."

"If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?" 1 Peter 4:18

A most excellent post. Perhaps too excellent for this site.
God does not force the death of His Son on us. He gives us the free stuff...the regeneration of the heart...but the vast majority stay right there. Their race is one step and one step only. The have received the holy lamp but will not go to God for the holy oil that lights that lamp in order that we may truly be lights in this world. We need to go to God...like the 1 healed leper out of 10 and offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God....to carry both the death AND the life of Christ. Jesus abides in us but we need to believe INTO Him. When we abide IN Him we then walk as He walked. We carry about the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal bodies. We have this treasure in earthen vessels.

All praise to God! <><

Thanks to God's grace we have Jesus who saves everyone who believes in him!

He doesn't save everyone who believes in Him, only those who believe and obey. Demons believe, He will not save them. Those who only call Jesus Lord obviously believe in Him, but will not be saved because they didn't do the Will of the Father- which is to obey the Son.

All depends on your interpretation obey. If it’s love God and love your neighbor then I am good with that. Anything in addition to that is not to read the word correctly.

Hmm.. so how much obedience does it take? In John 3:16, Jesus said that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. In John 3:18, Jesus said he who believes in Him is not condemned.. Elsewhere, we see the same message in John 6:40,47; 11:25,26; Acts 10:43; 13:39; 16:31; Romans 1:16; 3:22-28; 4:5; 10:4; 1 John 5:13 etc..

In James 2:19, we see that the demons believe "mental assent" that "there is one God" but they do not believe/entrust their spiritual well being to Christ; have faith/reliance upon Christ for salvation. In other words, they do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31) and are not saved. Their trust and reliance is in Satan, as demonstrated by their rebellion in heaven and continuous evil works.

They didn't do the will of the Father by looking to the Son and believing in Him. You continue to misinterpret the scriptures to teach salvation by faith + obedience/works. Those who call Jesus Lord in Matthew 7:22 obviously believed in the existence of Jesus, but they did not believe/entrust their spiritual well being to Christ; have faith/reliance upon Christ for salvation. Jesus NEVER knew them (Matthew 7:23) which means they were NEVER saved.

*We must not confuse God's will for us to become saved:

John 6:40 - For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.

*With God's will for us AFTER we have been saved:

1 Thessalonians 5:14 - Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. 15 See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Give me a few examples of the things we must faithfully obey till we die? Just so i know exactly what your talking about here..

So you ask how much obedience does it take?
You know the difference between visiting a place and living there. Well, sometimes Christians visit sin, and that is covered by Christ's blood. But LIVING in sin is not covered by Christ's blood. Example...

A Christian who does not drink alcohol goes to a New Years Eve party. They convince him to participate in a toast. He does, and he keeps sipping his champagne until he is poured another glass, then another. Finally he realises he's drunk. It is a sin, he didn't make sure not to get drunk. He feels bad, prays for forgiveness, and makes plans of how to avoid that sin next time. He did not plan on it, he did not go there with the intention to get drunk. This sin is covered by Christ's blood.

The next Christian heads to the store to get lots of beer because he plans on getting drunk with his buddies on the weekend- which is his practice. He gets drunk every weekend, sometimes during the week, and has for years, and plans to for more years to come. This is premeditated sin. He planned to sin, has no goal to stop, and puts forth no effort to stop. He is living in sin on a regular basis. His sin is not covered by Christ's blood because he's not even trying to quit. This is trying to use Christ's blood as as licence to sin- which does not work because in such cases God revokes Christ's sacrifice on their behalf. "But if you sin deliberately there no longer remains a sacrifice for your sins." Can he repent and come back to God like the prodigal son? Yes, but he is spiritually unsafe if he dies in the meantime. (Jesus- do not leave this life without him.)

I'll do one more cause you post too much to reply to at once...

You say "everyone who believes in Him." Jesus did not put everything we need to do into one verse. There are things other than belief that are connected to salvation- repentance, confession, baptism, being faithful even unto death and until death. You cannot pick the one you want and ignore the rest, you need all of them. Jesus did not give us only one thing to obey.

I know you have a hard time with the word 'obey' (and 'do' and 'if'). But faith itself is obedience. In Hebrews 3:18 and 19 'disbelief' and 'disobey' are used interchangeably. Therefore if you say you must believe to be saved, it is the same as to say you must obey to be saved. And I'd agree with you, the only difference being that I believe you must obey the whole time, not just once, and not just one thing.

Well one is having Christ's blood- both getting it and keeping it. We get it when we are baptized into Christs death (Romans 6:3)- which is when God circumcises us with Christ's blood. (Colossians 2:11). Then, just as a heart continues to pump blood through the body, the Lords Supper distributes His blood through the body of believers. Therefore, we must not forsake the assembly, but partake of the Lords Supper upon the first day of the week in the assembly of Christinns. Jesus says "I tell you the truth, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you." So I don't care who says things like "All you need to be saved is believe." I know we must continue in Christ's blood to be saved.

As for other things, such as repent, confess, be baptized, remain faithful, etc. All you have to do is look in the new testament for these key words: must, if, save/saved, remain, do, but, etc. 'MUST' being the most important because it is salvation-dependent. "If anyone wants to be My disciple they must take up their cross daily and follow Me."

Yet the unrighteous practice (willful, habitual lifestyle with no effort to stop) sin (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21); not the righteous who are born of God (1 John 3:9; 1 Corinthians 6:11).

Jesus said "everyone who believes in Him." I believe Jesus. I don't try to "add" additional requirements to "believes in Him."

Repentance is a change of mind which precedes saving belief in Him (Acts 20:21). Confessing with out mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in our heart that God raised Him from the dead are not two separate steps to salvation, but are chronologically together (Romans 10:8-10). Water baptism FOLLOWS "believes in Him unto salvation" (Acts 10:43-47; 11:17,18).

If Revelation 2:10 teaches that we must be "faithful enough" in addition to believing in Him/placing faith in Him for salvation, then just "how faithful would you have to be?" Where do you draw the line in the sand and say that you were "faithful enough" so now the Lord will be able to save you? That is vague and could include ANY number of good works.

This verse is meant to be an encouraging statement from the Lord to Christians at the church of Smyrna who were being persecuted, even to the point of death. Jesus was not telling these Christians that if they are not "faithful enough" in addition to believing in Him/having faith in Him for salvation that they will not receive eternal life. That is salvation by works! The Lord was telling them that they will receive the crown of life after death, be faithful, hang in there!

*In the very next verse, Jesus said - "He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death." 1 John 5:4, we read - "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. ONLY BELIEVERS are saved, overcome, and are faithful unto death (Ephesians 2:8; 1 Peter 1:9). Unbelievers are not saved, do not overcome and are unfaithful unto death.

Actually I don't, as long as passages of scripture that contain the words (obey/do/if) are not being misused to teach salvation by works.

Choosing to place our faith (belief, trust, reliance) in Christ for salvation is an act of obedience in which we obey the gospel by choosing to believe the gospel (Romans 1:16; 10:16). *Not to be confused with multiple acts of obedience/works which FOLLOW and are produced "out of" faith.

I hear this same argument from Roman Catholics who basically define belief as obedience/works. I was once in a discussion with a Roman Catholic about faith and he made this erroneous statement below:

That Roman Catholic also made this statement:

We ARE saved by faith - as long as you properly define "Faith". Faith is NOT simply "believing". Faith INCLUDES: Being baptized, eating His body and drinking His blood/partaking the Lord's Supper during Mass, works of mercy and charity, obeying his commandments, doing the will of the Father etc..

His argument about faith being "defined as" and INCLUDES this list works above equates to salvation through faith (his version of faith) + works. Sound familiar?

Here is why belief and obey are sometimes used interchangeably. In John 3:36 in the NASB, we read - He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not [a]obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

In regards to "does not obey the Son" in the New American Standard translation of the Bible, this does not mean that receiving eternal life is received based on the merits of our obedience/works which follows believing in the Son, but obey by choosing to believe in the Son. *If John wanted to make obedience the central theme in salvation here, he would have said: "He who believes and obeys the Son has eternal life," but that is not what John said. *To obey the Son here is to believe in the Son.

The King James Version renders this same verse as: He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that "believeth not the Son" shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. The NKJV says "does not believe the Son" and the NIV says "rejects the Son." The Greek word translated as "believeth not" in that verse is apeitheo and it means: not believe, disobedient, obey not, unbelieving. Strong’s definition of apeitheo is "to disbelieve willfully and perversely." *So in the context of 3:36, to not obey the Son means to reject His message by refusing to believe in the Son.

I have often heard works-salvationists (including Roman Catholics) cite John 3:36 in the NAS translation of the Bible and stress the word "obey" the Son, then write a blank check with the word "obey" and fill out whatever amount of works they feel are necessary to be saved (water baptism, partaking of the Lord's Supper during Mass, obeying the commandments, performing works of charity etc..) and call that believing in the Son, yet they are actually believing in their works and not IN THE SON.

You misuse the word "obey" in scripture in such a way that the end result is salvation by works. Faith + works is still salvation by works. In contrast, Faith IN CHRIST ALONE is NOT OF WORKS (Ephesians 2:8,9).

Just as i thought a works salvation preaching religonist..

Woe to you if you EVER fail to do exactly what you have preached here. And be assured you will fail to live up to the standards of Christ.

You have made all these things a MUST to do for salvation to be had.. You have declared belief in the Atonment of the LORD Jesus Christ to be not enough. That the Blood of Jesus is insufficent for our salvation.. You have placed a stumbling stone before yourself and anyone else who listens and accepts your preaching..