Not By Works

[EleventhHour]

Why do believers leave if Jesus' is so competent the way you say He is competent?
Why doesn't your version of Jesus' 'to the uttermost' include not letting the sheep out of the pen in the first place?

Why do believers leave

Believers do not leave, there is no option to leave... get that through your head.

 

[Lightskin]

My pleasure.
You ended up answering the question the same way I did.

Wrong again. I asked if you would give all your money to someone if it meant them keeping their salvation. IOWs you would be providing them the hope they needed. You openly admit you would deny such hope.

You on the other hand are not a true believer as you prove time and again by your own words, hence why YOU would not get my money.

 

[mailmandan]

No, I just happen to have better insights into their doctrines.

They defend the necessity to have works for the same reason you say believers have to have works.
You're too close minded to see that.

Thank you for making my point about you being naive.

 

[Judges1318]

Believers do not leave, there is no option to leave... get that through your head.

Until we're talking about the Prodigal son.
Then suddenly he proves you can go back to unbelief and still be saved.

 

[Lightskin]

Mmd also says works are necessary in salvation, but not for the purpose of earning salvation.
Feel like discussing it with him?
Probably not.
It's that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' thing, right?

I don’t know Mmd, but make no mistake about it, I will discuss the truth of Scripture with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

 

[Judges1318]

Thank you for making my point about you being naive.

Because you don't listen you don't understand them.

 

[posthuman]

It's apparent that He did not entirely withhold His grace from the vast majority who He apparently knew would not continue in their believing.

dude.

re-read John 6.
He does not consider them to have ever believed. it says, He knew from the beginning who did not believe. from the beginning. that means before they ever heard a word spoken from His mouth, He knows who is His own and who is not.

dude.

He says to the ones who come to Him boasting, He never knew them. He does not say, He knew them once, but they quit knowing Him. He says they were never His sheep -- you said before, i think there is only one way to understand the scripture. that is correct. because there is only one Truth: His name is Jesus. and the truth is that He will not lose even a single one of His sheep, that He knows His sheep by name, that He calls them to Himself, and when they stray, He seeks them out and carries them home on His own shoulder. He carries them. He doesn't just go and yell in the woods, here sheepie sheepie, and if they don't 'have a good and noble heart' enough to free themselves from brambles or wolves, abandon them. He is The Good Shepherd, and He gives His life for His sheep.

you've got to stop ignoring what the text says.
i really don't give one single damn about your 'old osas' vs 'new osas' vs whatever. what i care about is what the actual Lord of heaven and earth has said, and what He has said is that He knows His sheep, those who aren't His sheep cannot believe, that He does not lose a single one of those given to Him, that no one can come to Him unless it is first granted by the Father. so you're not going to keep telling me that He loses sheep or that His sheep follow strangers. that's plainly contrary to what He says.

it's time to give up the creme-puff war. God is able and faithful to keep us. that is why we trust Him, and that is why we have been saved, why we are being saved, and why we are going to be saved. if no one here preaches that we should go on sinning, and no one here really preaches that we're saved by our own efforts and desires, then why the heck are we going on quarreling for hundred thousand posts?? we are His workmanship and we are created in Him unto good works -- absolutely we need to spur each other on towards righteousness and increased faith. but the way to do that is not by threatening everyone with damnation, as though God forsakes the weak. He is the God that takes up the cause of the poor and needy, who binds up and heals the broken.

 

[Judges1318]

I don’t know Mmd, but make no mistake about it, I will discuss the truth of Scripture with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

He's all your's @mailmandan.
Tell him all about how real believers never leave, or else they're not real believers to begin with (1 John 2:19), and how real faith has works or it's not real faith (James 2).
Make sure you get 11th hour in on it too.

 

[Micaiah-imla]

Work it out. Work out what you have. Don’t just let it sit idle

not work to earn it

I see your point.

But the “fear and trembling” part seems to imply a greater consequence if you do not work out your salvation.

If not working out my salvation did not lead to loosing it then why would anyone fear and tremble about not working it out?

If I knew that cops were not permitted to arrest or ticket me then I would not get nervous whenever I got pulled over by the police. But the fact that police can ticket and arrest causes people to be better drivers when they see a cop near by.

As Christians we know that the greater authority (God) is always nearby and watching; this should cause us to be better people at all times: especially because we know that God has power to destroy both soul and body in hell.

 

[EleventhHour]

Until we're talking about the Prodigal son.
Then suddenly he proves you can go back to unbelief and still be saved.

This makes no sense.

"Prodigal" >>>>> does not mean leave and then return

 

[Judges1318]

Wrong again. I asked if you would give all your money to someone if it meant them keeping their salvation. IOWs you would be providing them the hope they needed. You openly admit you would deny such hope.

You on the other hand are not a true believer as you prove time and again by your own words, hence why YOU would not get my money.

But I am a true believer in your osas doctrine.
Yet, you won't give me any money to keep believing.

 

[posthuman]

You're getting bungled up because you're trying to stretch the metaphor of sheep and goats beyond it's intended use. The metaphor makes no provision for goats becoming sheep either, but that is essentially what happens. And in the other metaphor, there is no such thing as a tare becoming a wheat stalk, but that is essentially what happens.

if tares don't become wheat then that is not what happens. the leopard does not change its spots.
He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He knows who He came to seek and save.

 

[Judges1318]

This makes no sense.

"Prodigal" >>>>> does not mean leave and then return

Why doesn't Jesus' competency keep the Prodigal from leaving?
But Jesus' competency keeps him saved no matter what?

Why can't he do the little thing when you are sure he can do the much bigger thing?

 

[posthuman]

Maybe the better way to view it is the Shepherd can't help a wandering Sheep who He went to find and found it dead.
You don't bring dead sheep back to the fold.
Only those that still have life in them.

good grief dude. you don't know that this Shepherd is the one who raises up dry bones, wraps them in flesh and sinew, and breathes life into them?

He has quickened us. bringing dead sheep to life and gathering them to Himself is exactly what God stepped down to do!

 

[Judges1318]

if tares don't become wheat then that is not what happens. the leopard does not change its spots.
He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He knows who He came to seek and save.

I don't know about you, but I once was a tare, but now I'm a wheat stalk.
This leopard did change his spots.
This goat did become a sheep.

But that don't quite fit into the metaphor of the sheep and the goats, now does it?
That's because the metaphor is meant for the purpose it was used for, not to teach us everything about sheep and goats.

 

[posthuman]

Why doesn't Jesus' competency keep the Prodigal from leaving?
But Jesus' competency keeps him saved no matter what?

Why can't he do the little thing when you are sure he can do the much bigger thing?

He has constrained all under sin, in order that He may have mercy on all.

 

[posthuman]

This leopard did change his spots.

you did it? yourself?

no, mate. He found you lying in your blood, and He said, live!
He was looking for you. specifically for you. you were poisoned, sick, mutated and deformed, and He put ointment on you, that heals, that returns you to the state for which He first created you.

 

[Judges1318]

good grief dude. you don't know that this Shepherd is the one who raises up dry bones, wraps them in flesh and sinew, and breathes life into them?

He has quickened us. bringing dead sheep to life and gathering them to Himself is exactly what God stepped down to do!

But you think He did that despite the condition of believing.
You have the stain of Calvinism affecting your beliefs.

 

[Judges1318]

you did it? yourself?

Not a chance.
But that hardly means I didn't have to accept Jesus for that to happen.
He didn't wave a magic wand over me, or purposely make me only able to be a believer.
You have to believe that He did because you have been taught that if I do the believing that's my works in the dreaded works gospel.
Sorry, but Paul did not define the works gospel that way.

 

[Judges1318]

I did not know that the Bible says ME accepting Jesus is a works gospel.
But I will know it if someone would just show me the scripture that says that.