Why is the bible so open to interpretation?
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We have a choice either to believe in Jesus and the New Covenant or not. The New Covenant started after Jesus shed His blood and died and then rose again.
What part of "to believe in Jesus" is a mystery to you? How can you not believe in the New Covenant? Jesus said this is the New Covenant -...eat and drink - do this in remembrance of Me.
Jesus died on the cross and took our sins away - are we not to believe in that too? He rose again to give us new life in Him - are we not to believe in that either?
Why is the gospel continually a mystery to you? Why are you continually against the things of Christ in what He has done?
Can you not see why many of us are genuinely concerned about you?
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T
TonyJay
Guest
19 We love Him[b] because He first loved us. (1John 4:19)
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’[d] 38 This is the first and great commandment.39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’[e] 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22:37-40)
Yes, Peter, I am a follower of Christ Jesus, a disciple.
Absolutely I want to emulate Him.
Without Jesus Christ as an example how would I really even know what it might mean to forgive?
Who else has shed his blood to death in order to forgive.
By whose example apart from Jesus Christ should I look to in order to understand what it is to forgive?
By the way how on earth can you accuse me of idolatry for wanting to follow and worship Jesus Christ?
Wow - this is one of the most extraordinary things I have ever read.
I will continue to pray for you Peter.
I think that question better applies to you. You ALWAYS condition belief in Christ with something else. Belief in the new covenant, belief in the new creation, belief in one's identity, belief in Christ IN YOU. What is keeping you from believing solely in the man Jesus who resides in heaven?
Here, I fixed it for you
"Can you not see why many of us hyper/false grace believers are genuinely concerned about you?"
nonsense.......What part of " to believe in Jesus " is a mystery to you? There are many praying for you and believing the Lord to reveal Himself to you so that you can walk in freedom and love and then you can stop depending on your own self for life.
Our faith becomes effectual ( which means working ) when we acknowledge every good thing that is in us in Christ. I encourage you to start believing in Christ and what He has done.
Philemon 1:6 (KJV)
[SUP]6 [/SUP] That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
"I have sin that I will not recognise as sin."
In your theology not recognising Christ does everything is sin.
Now this is not sin in the normal sense but your theological definition.
To obey Christ, to follow His commands, to walk in the Spirit, to know Him transforming
my soul by walking in His ways is sin.
This is the place you end up, the fruit of your theology, and only because of your theology.
And it all starts with the heresy of future sin being forgiven.
Now for you if future sin is not forgiven you feel then salvation is conditional on a righteous
walk. But how else is the blessing of God defined? How did God ever compromise on sin?
And the sin God is talking about is real, obvious, blatant sin, not hyper-legalist definitions of
sin.
And Jesus's core message is purify your heart, cleanse your soul, walk as Jesus walked through
obedience and communion with Him.
T
TonyJay
Guest
I have described other posts that you have written as word salad.
So it is with this post.
I suggest you repost - and this time think about what you want to say.
This post is barely recognisable English - never mind theology.
Idolising a personality or worshiping Jesus
One thing I have noticed in idolising leaders or people, is accepting whatever they do is
ok. I mention this because I find I do not idolise Jesus, I worship Him because of who
He is. All I have seen Him do is ok, not because I am idolising Him, it is how it comes
across to me.
Now I do not know how others feel or approach Jesus, this is just an observation I make
about myself.
"By the way how on earth can you accuse me of idolatry for wanting to follow and worship Jesus Christ?"
I did not do the above, so I do not understand this statement. Maybe you miss-read my
comment which as I have stated was just a passing thought about idolisation of personalities
and my response to the Lord.
One thing I have noticed in idolising leaders or people, is accepting whatever they do is
ok. I mention this because I find I do not idolise Jesus, I worship Him because of who
He is. All I have seen Him do is ok, not because I am idolising Him, it is how it comes
across to me.
Now I do not know how others feel or approach Jesus, this is just an observation I make
about myself.
"By the way how on earth can you accuse me of idolatry for wanting to follow and worship Jesus Christ?"
I did not do the above, so I do not understand this statement. Maybe you miss-read my
comment which as I have stated was just a passing thought about idolisation of personalities
and my response to the Lord.
T
TonyJay
Guest
Come on Peter!
"Idolising a person is not healthy" and
"but knowing someone and respecting how
they function, and worshiping the Lord for who He is, is life itself"
or did not realise what you wrote?
Jesus Christ is a person - do you understand that?
The Father is a person - do you understand that?
The Holy Spirit is a person - do you understand that?
I gladly acknowledge that I worship the triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
If you wish to call it idolatry, then, so be it.
Very simply he forgives us of an eternal debt........... and because he has we thank him for all the work he did to accomplish our forgiveness.
Yes, we should obey the loving commandment to forgive one another. It not just a good suggestion but a perfect law. For at whatever point we violate the law of God we are guilty of violating the "whole law" and the wage due for any point of it is eternal damnation, never to rise to new life forever more.
Its why we are to keep the commandments by guarding them with all our heart soul and mind .And when we do sin and to hear His voice by which he turns us we should repent. This is knowing with certainty if he has begun the good work of salvation in us he will finish it to the end. He is not served by human hands in any way shape or form .
Have you ever sinned by violating any commandment?
If that is a principle it comes from a commandment of men as an oral tradition thereof..It is not a biblical principle.
Is it a work to forgive someone who offends you? It was for Christ the eternal one.
The law of faith in respect to the work of Christ's faith that freely provide His grace says differently than you propose .
Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the "law of faith".
How many times does a person have to crucify the Lord of Glory before it’s enough?
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. Heb 6:4
Better thing accompany salvation to those who have truly been forgiven .The scripture calls it redemption.
Have you been redeemed?
That parable speaks of God having mercy on this person God has mercy on many who are not forgiven of the eternal debt .They simply have not passed from eternal damnation (never to rise to new life again )
John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Have you passed from death to life?
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You seem very sensitive about this distinction.
Yes I worship Christ and God, and the Holy Spirit. I am not calling anything idolatry.
I am saying for me I have never worshiped God for being God, without a character.
I know God as my creator, as the giver of the things around me, as the blesser of
my life, as the giver of love etc. This is the source of my worship.
What I am saying is I could worship God because He is most powerful being in the universe
and it would be stupid not to honour Him. But my heart says to me if He was evil, cruel,
unjust, unrighteous, I would find this very hard. And I praise Him that he appears the very
opposite of this, and all Praise is due His name.
So please understand I do not know what is upsetting you.
Do we not worship the Lord for the same reasons and appreaciate His glorious presence
on the same basis?
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”
Rev 5:12-13
Why this struck me is partly because of Jim Jones and the massacre.
They followed him to suicide because whatever he said and did was ok, they just
obeyed.
The funny thing is in this anology you do not idolise Christ, because you specifically
do not want to obey, because obedience is self righteousness.
So maybe I am idolising Christ and you are not. I do not think either is true,
it was just a thought, an aspect of reality.
This is where we disagree. Jesus is very specific.
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matt 6:15
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Matt 6:14
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.
Matt 18:35
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.
Mark 11:25
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Luke 6:37
Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
Luke 11:4
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Col 3:13
Now everything else is irrelevant if we cannot agree on this point.
It is clear what Jesus preached and what Paul believed.
If you overthrow Jesus's words and ideas, then that is the end.
Imagine this, everyday a person goes to a mirror to look at their reflection.
Rather than seeing who they really are and dealing with issues they just see their
idealised version of who they are. The idea is if they see the ideal they will become
it.
But this is like a pharisee seeing the surface of who they are and the illusion of their
projection and taking that as the revelation of God to them. Their conscience will
be seared, their real sin will not be dealt with and they will behave as if things are
resolved when nothing has progressed. This is 100% delusion, and a confessed
delusion, because the illusion is taken as the reality.
To pretend you are something you are not is one thing, but to know you are
not something but try and convince yourself you are, is just self deception.
I cannot think of a more stupid idea, it is like gouging out your own eyes and
then saying you are wonderful, because the image in your head is wonderful.
This is just nuts.
Rather than seeing who they really are and dealing with issues they just see their
idealised version of who they are. The idea is if they see the ideal they will become
it.
But this is like a pharisee seeing the surface of who they are and the illusion of their
projection and taking that as the revelation of God to them. Their conscience will
be seared, their real sin will not be dealt with and they will behave as if things are
resolved when nothing has progressed. This is 100% delusion, and a confessed
delusion, because the illusion is taken as the reality.
To pretend you are something you are not is one thing, but to know you are
not something but try and convince yourself you are, is just self deception.
I cannot think of a more stupid idea, it is like gouging out your own eyes and
then saying you are wonderful, because the image in your head is wonderful.
This is just nuts.
anyone involved in this thread please take note : unless he has changed his mind ( hopefully so), peter denies the Biblical definition of sin, that being missing the mark, falling short of a standard, knowing to do good and not doing it. please keep this in mind.
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TonyJay
Guest
It is nuts!
But do you really believe that Christians think this way?
Maybe there are some flaky individuals out there but no one I know thinks that way.
There is a doctrine in orthodox theology that deals with assurance of salvation.
Once we have been adopted into the Kingdom of God then we are heirs and co-heirs with Christ.
We are not employees of the Kingdom with temporary contracts based on performance.
Instead we are adopted children of God.
In your world no-one can claim to be an adopted child of God instead we are all on contracts and judged by our performance. In other words there is no salvation - we are judged according to our performance - no more and no less.
Before I accept Jesus I am subject to the Law and therefore condemnation because I am unable to claim righteousness before the Law.
However, in your world, I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, but there is only retrospective forgiveness of sins. The very next I sin I am condemned - no salvation only eternal separation from God.
You assume that you are able to remain sin free and therefore stay in God's good books but in this system there is no salvation - you are still under the Law and the slightest infraction condemns you.
Luckily, there is a solution - the blood of Jesus Christ was shed and the death of Jesus Christ is a completed work that fulfils the demands of the Law on our behalf. It is a completed work and it is efficacious.
If the blood of Jesus cannot cover prospective sin then it cannot cover retrospective sin either.
Either the blood of Christ covers one's sins or it does not.
There is no this sin or that sin that is excluded.
There is no sin on this date that is included or a sin on another date that is excluded.
Think on this - why do Paul, John and others acknowledge that the saints sin.
If they did not then there would be no need for statements such as this:
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10)
John is addressing these words to believers.
Born again believers.
True believers.
And again in chapter 2 John talks again about sin and forgiveness of sin to believers. The context makes it clear that this is not retrospective sin committed before they became believers but sin committed as believers:
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)
In addition let us go to Paul's letter to the Romans to see what that writer says, again writing to believers:
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Why should Paul raise the very fear that you seem to have that if we are saved by grace then why shouldn't we just continue to sin?
The reason is that it is actually true that we have been saved by grace.
All of our sin is covered by the blood of Jesus for all time.
If it were not so there would have been no need for Paul to raise the issue.
However, Paul knows that human beings sin, including believers.
That is why he has to remind these believers in vs 11-13 why they should not sin and again in vs 14 summarises why we should not sin.
There is no mention of losing one's salvation if they should sin rather the emphasis is that we are no longer slaves to sin and the fact that we are under grace and not the law.
Read all the reasons Paul uses to motivate believers not to sin - all of them emphasise that we are in relationship with God - not that we will lose our relationship with God and be condemned because we sin.
Even James, again writing to believers tells them to confess their sins or trespasses to one another in James 5:16. Why would he write that if believers never sinned.
Before you think of responding with other Scripture that you may think 'disproves' what I have said understand that the Word of God does not contradict itself.
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Yes he who is not served with human hands in any way shape or form is very specific. When he speaks to those who have have been given over from eternal damnation (never to rise to new spirit life again) to eternal life in respect to those in whom he began the good work of salvation he will finish it to the very end. He cannot(impossible)to lie or go back on his promise. If born again Christians refuse to forgive another believer the log in their own eye can get lager than life.
When he does turn us so that we then can acknowledge His presence then after that we then can repent as His grace that we have temporally fallen from gives us the authority to do so. It, His grace teaches us to say no to not forgiving one another.
Christ, the anointing Holy Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of grace. No man can separate God from God.
Why would you purposely do despite to the Spirit of grace. Are you trusting in the faith of another mediator other than the Holy Spirit?
Hebrews 10:29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
There is a simple painful understanding here.
The argument goes, we sin all the time, it is inevitable, so you loose your salvation
everytime and re-establish it based on your repentance.
Now let me put this is terms of murder. I am happy with my family, I love them all, but
suddenly out comes a knife and stab each one of them to death.
The relationship still is going on, nothing has changed. We can talk, be pleasant, think
about our futures. No we cannot, they are dead.
Now one moment each sin is the same so it is deadly, and then suddenly sin no longer
matters and the consequences no longer exist. This is just junk. It is also foolish.
When did God ever say sin is ok? When is sin just a minor I am not sure that is sin, or not.
No sin is obvious. brutal. painful and causes harm all around.
Now no believer in HG thinks there is a problem, or they are in total rebellion against God.
But what is the point of Christ on the cross if you go out and do the same things again.
Jesus simply said things like "Sin no more."
It strikes me that the idea sin is everywhere, is undefined and implicit in all human behaviour
is what has caught the believers minds. This is a kind of OCD self condemnation. It is the fruit
of long term legalism and telling people who condemn themselves that they have believed satan
and really though they are sinning, God has forgiven it all. And the final poison is, the righteous
are just hypocrites living a lie. Now this speaks to the failures and hopeless cases, saying they
really have the truth, and everyone is just like them, they are just deluded and actually as
reprobate.
The argument goes, we sin all the time, it is inevitable, so you loose your salvation
everytime and re-establish it based on your repentance.
Now let me put this is terms of murder. I am happy with my family, I love them all, but
suddenly out comes a knife and stab each one of them to death.
The relationship still is going on, nothing has changed. We can talk, be pleasant, think
about our futures. No we cannot, they are dead.
Now one moment each sin is the same so it is deadly, and then suddenly sin no longer
matters and the consequences no longer exist. This is just junk. It is also foolish.
When did God ever say sin is ok? When is sin just a minor I am not sure that is sin, or not.
No sin is obvious. brutal. painful and causes harm all around.
Now no believer in HG thinks there is a problem, or they are in total rebellion against God.
But what is the point of Christ on the cross if you go out and do the same things again.
Jesus simply said things like "Sin no more."
It strikes me that the idea sin is everywhere, is undefined and implicit in all human behaviour
is what has caught the believers minds. This is a kind of OCD self condemnation. It is the fruit
of long term legalism and telling people who condemn themselves that they have believed satan
and really though they are sinning, God has forgiven it all. And the final poison is, the righteous
are just hypocrites living a lie. Now this speaks to the failures and hopeless cases, saying they
really have the truth, and everyone is just like them, they are just deluded and actually as
reprobate.
