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A person either understands that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, or he tries to work and earn your salvation. If you try to work for your salvation you are simply working yourself deeper and deeper into a dept you can never pay. Those who work for eternal salvation are going to spend eternity in the lake of fire. Eternal life is offered only as a free gift which is received through faith alone. If you are trusting in your works, then you are not trusting only in the work of Christ which results in no salvation.
Those who say that you must be baptized in water in order to be saved from eternal condemnation are teaching a false gospel and misleading others. The issue of what is required for salvation has to be understood.
It does not seem that Jeshua commanded this because it says that he who does not believe shall be damned...Here it is an open statement, It could mean by water or by the Holy Ghost...There is not enough information to give a definite definition...Except for the thief on the cross was not baptized and if baptism is an integral part of Salvation, then the thief is damned regardless of what Jeshua told him from the Cross...For there is a certain set of steps that Hawyaw has decreed in order for Salvation to occur...Though it be all His doing and nothing of us that saves...And since Hawyaw has decreed it to transpire a certain way then it will transpire that way or no Salvation can occur for Hawyaw is not fickle or double-minded...
Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
What Mike doesn't seem to grasp is that Baptism is not man's work but God's. In Baptism, God acts to save the one who is baptized. Remember Jesus Baptism. The HOly Spirit is given an alights on Jesus. The Father looks down on Jesus and says, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. This is what Peter promises on Pentecost; that if the listeners, repent, and are baptized, they will receive forgiveness for their sins and the HOly Spirit. Not only this, but in Baptism God makes them a child of God, and they are bonded to Christ Himself.
Ro 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Ro 6:5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
The result is that God gives those baptized faith to believe because no one can believe without the work of the Holy Spirit..1 Corinthians 12:3 and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.
Conversion therefore is not a decision of man, (which would be a work), but God's work to save because God predestined , called , justified and sanctified those who he has chosen.
Jn 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jn 6:65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it has been given him from the Father.
Katie, you've been putting on some very good answers but I think you are missing on the doctrine of original sin. Unless you know of one, I have never heard anyone claim that they can find a text that claims an age of accountability in the Bible. The reason it doesn't is that everyone is born in sin. People die because of sin. Babies die because they too are born in sin. Its inherited from their parents. There are many texts that teach the sinfulness of children.
Ro 3:10 As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one;
Ro 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
Ro 3:20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
Every Christian parent knows their children are sinners. They start disobeying their parents early when they start saying NO. That is sin.
Not only that but Children to be sinless would have to be born knowing God, having faith and love for God or they are guilty of Idolatry, that is breaking the first commandment. But they are not born knowing this. They have to be taught.
The last point I want to make Katie is that babies can believe. Note the following text.
Mt 18:6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones WHO BELIEVE IN ME to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Lk 18:16 But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Lk 18:17 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." The only way anyone can be part of God's kingdom is by faith, therefore it seems consistent with scripture that babies can have faith that God gives through the power of the Holy Spirit through God's word.
It helps to remember that from the beginning of the Christian church, infant baptism was practiced. It is still practiced in the majority of Christian churches in the world. The practice of infant baptism was never seriously challenged until after the beginning of the reformation.
I must point out that it says 'children' not babies....An aside on Mat. 18:17 - It is strange that Jeshua would use the word 'church'...For He was Jewish and Synagogues existed...Unless, seeing the translation of the Greek word for it which means assembly or congregation not a building...
I really don't think literal water baptism is what the scriptures mean about [being "born of water" and of the Spirit]. I think the water is the Word and the Spirit is the Holy Fire that purifies. It's truly all spiritual in the end.
That is not stated in the Scriptures but in the Letters...For when the Apostles referred to the Scriptures they were referring to the Old Testament, The Books of Enoch and such for their Letters were not cannonized as yet...In their Letters they always pointed toward established doctrine of the Old Testament...As Peter said in one of his Letters to the Churches...'Prophecies of the Scriptures are not open to individual interpratation'...He was not reffering to the Letters to the churches but to the established works of the Old Testament...
That is my question. Why not take the scripture exactly like it reads? I would say people won't accept the simple language because it doesn't fit into their faith alone doctrine. Baptism is a work ordained of God. It is a work we are commanded to do by Jesus. How can anyone argue with the Savior?
Katie
Then what happens to your faith when you come accross a verse that SEEMS to contradict another verse?...It can shake you up some unless you decide from the outset to balance them out and figure out what is really being implied here...For Hawyaw does not contradict Himself...
Obeying the commands of Jesus is not working to earn salvation. Obedience to what Jesus commanded is called faith working through love. Those who come to Jesus want to do what He says because they love Him. Can't you see the difference?
You are the one who is teaching a false gospel . You are teaching that it is not necessary to obey the command of Jesus to be baptized. You preach a different gospel than the apostle Peter did on Pentecost. You have departed from the gospel as it is written in the New Testament.
Katie
He is not teaching a false gospel...what he is simply trying to explain is that many say that without baptism you are not saved even though you believe in Jeshua...It seems that they are putting water baptism above Faith and that is wrong...The Gospel is good news and what is good news?...If your creditors for you college loans of, say, $100,000 called you and said, 'You are free and clear now of your debt, some one has paid it for you', wouldn't that be good news?...That is an analogy to a spiritual Truth...
Do you even realize the Jewish custom of that act and why?....
Is this a reference to the Ritual washing customs of personal hygiene and aspects of slavery; but not to the Spiritual application or Revelation?
Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest. And He said to them, 'The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet, I am among you as the One who serves.'
Many desire to lord over others, exhibiting an inordinate opinion of their own superiority as benefactors without true humility or understanding the nature of the cross; and what Christ endured because of humanities errors.
Katie, there is a difference between genuine Faith and claimance of faith...James was merely stating that the proof of one's Faith is in the substance of their actions, not just in claiming faith...That is why he said show me your faith without your works and I will show you my Faith BY my works...In other words...Proof of Faith...It parralells the verses that state that you shall know them by their works...In other words when one becomes a genuine believer it becomes their nature and desire to follow after doing good works knowing that it is not the works that save them but only Jeshua saves them...However, by True regeneration of the spirit, they have been changed on the inside by Hawyaw...It is not of themselves...Anyone that believes it is of themselves through work are the ones that James is speaking of, in other words, flase christians...
As I read through some of the posts here and in the other threads that have dealt with this issue of faith and works, I realized that no one really spoke of the idea that many have claimed to "believe", but truly do not in the salvation sense of the word. One evangelist referred to it as "mere intellectual assent".
A lot of people claim to "believe in Jesus", but often simply believe about Jesus. So the faith/works scenario in James 2, it would seem, would be one way to distinguish the two situations.
It seems there are some who wish to include works in the salvation process. When there are responses to the contrary, some will even suggest that faith and repentance are something we have to do, making them works, rather than part of the salvation process.
So thanks for getting that post on here. Pehaps there will be more to share.
Katie, there is a difference between genuine Faith and claimance of faith...James was merely stating that the proof of one's Faith is in the substance of their actions, not just in claiming faith...That is why he said show me your faith without your works and I will show you my Faith BY my works...In other words...Proof of Faith...It parralells the verses that state that you shall know them by their works...In other words when one becomes a genuine believer it becomes their nature and desire to follow after doing good works knowing that it is not the works that save them but only Jeshua saves them...However, by True regeneration of the spirit, they have been changed on the inside by Hawyaw...It is not of themselves...Anyone that believes it is of themselves through work are the ones that James is speaking of, in other words, flase christians...
Quote:
Originally Posted by JAA2310
As I read through some of the posts here and in the other threads that have dealt with this issue of faith and works, I realized that no one really spoke of the idea that many have claimed to "believe", but truly do not in the salvation sense of the word. One evangelist referred to it as "mere intellectual assent".
A lot of people claim to "believe in Jesus", but often simply believe about Jesus. So the faith/works scenario in James 2, it would seem, would be one way to distinguish the two situations.
It seems there are some who wish to include works in the salvation process. When there are responses to the contrary, some will even suggest that faith and repentance are something we have to do, making them works, rather than part of the salvation process.
So thanks for getting that post on here. Pehaps there will be more to share.
Amen...
How I understand and see it is that.....
The geniune Christian faith will be so in tune with the Holy Spirit that the nature of Christ is now their life....., the old is gone and new creation in one has begun.
The new faith one is now walking in will not recognize, nor acknowledge they are doing the works of God.
They will without even thinking about it, become it....., the new nature (Christ) the regenerated man/woman (born again) it will be their life.... living through and out in their everyday, moment to moment life..... their faith in Christ becomes so much a part of them they do not even realize it is the work of Christ, His nature in them that other's will witness in their life and the world around them !!
Christ' nature through the Holy Spirit becomes what and how they live the rest of their life on this earth.....
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