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God is going to toss you into the place where you belong.
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Originally Posted by nateswift
^Do you get to have a front row seat?
From the sound of it, he sure would like one...perhaps right next to Thomas Aquinas so they can sit back and watch as "God blesses them by letting them watch the Torment of the damned". They can laugh and cheer as they watch OzzyRules and probably several past family members who missed the boat or just didn't cut it be hidiously tortured for eternity and can say things like "A little warm down there?! lol!" and "Don't worry Grandpa, only 1 minute + infinity to go!"....such fun...
What do you think about this interpretation? I have always been confused by Christians who say that "works" don't figure into salvation. But so much of the New Testament actually STRESSES good works. The idea of "grace" just doesn't make sense either.
There is a difference between good works and religious traditions. (Circumcision, dietary, etc)
In other words, the only thing that really matters is our works. This makes sense. It's the message I get from the New Testament. Which is why I don't even care about traditional Christianity anymore. Or even anything to do with the Bible. I've thrown the Bible into the place where it belongs.
Works do not enter into a conversation of being saved, salvation is very broad, extremely broad, but the kingdom of heaven is in 3 sections as the Temple shadows the kingdom and thereby showing us what it is.
You can live a life of a person who speaks against Jesus, who speaks against keeping the laws of Moses and wont keep the laws themselves, and even they are saved.
They are the least in the kingdom but AT LEAST, they are in the kingdom.
Fire will test the works of all men and what he has built will be tested to see if it can stand in the fire.
But we see clearly the least, the least will watch their works burn in the fire and they themselves will not be able to stand in the flames, but others will watch as their works are not burned, and they receive a reward.
REWARD has nothing to do with salvation.
The person who has his works burned up in the fire will be saved, but only as one who goes through a fire.
No resurrection.
Resurrection is the prize, the reward for those who have built and woven a fine work of linen.
You're basically saying that boasting becomes merely a byproduct to faith by works and therefore being saved by faith alone was only a part of Paul's meaning.
But the Christian apparatchik has bastardized Paul's teaching (if all this is really true) to mean that the ONLY reason to be a follower of Paul's "saved by faith" philosophy (and it IS a philosophy, it is NOT part of Jesus' teachings) is 1. it's an easier path to salvation 2. (and here's its true Achillies' Heel) a person can commit the most atrocious acts all his life hurting people and still be saved with no accountability before God for their prior evil actions (James Porter is a perfect example--he used his priesthood to molest and rape more than 200 children and we can assume that after a lifetime of doing this he finally repented on his deathbed and begged God's forgiveness, died a few minutes later and skated right into God's arms). Atheists on the other hand could spend their entire life doing good for their fellow man--feeding them, clothing them, visiting them in prison--and when they die they go directly to hell and burn for eternity. If Christians cannot see there's is something morally wrong with this Christian paradigm then they really need to reevaluate their humanity.
I don't believe in hell and neither do millions of other Christians. Any modest digging into the topic will show that the word hell does not appear in the earliest copies of the Bible and the Bible is clear about what happens to us at death. The best illustration I've heard compares death to a flame of an expended candle. What happens to the candle flame at the end?
You're basically saying that boasting becomes merely a byproduct to faith by works and therefore being saved by faith alone was only a part of Paul's meaning.
But the Christian apparatchik has bastardized Paul's teaching (if all this is really true) to mean that the ONLY reason to be a follower of Paul's "saved by faith" philosophy (and it IS a philosophy, it is NOT part of Jesus' teachings) is 1. it's an easier path to salvation 2. (and here's its true Achillies' Heel) a person can commit the most atrocious acts all his life hurting people and still be saved with no accountability before God for their prior evil actions (James Porter is a perfect example--he used his priesthood to molest and rape more than 200 children and we can assume that after a lifetime of doing this he finally repented on his deathbed and begged God's forgiveness, died a few minutes later and skated right into God's arms). Atheists on the other hand could spend their entire life doing good for their fellow man--feeding them, clothing them, visiting them in prison--and when they die they go directly to hell and burn for eternity. If Christians cannot see there's is something morally wrong with this Christian paradigm then they really need to reevaluate their humanity.
You're basically saying that boasting becomes merely a byproduct to faith by works and therefore being saved by faith alone was only a part of Paul's meaning.
Paul's position was that he did nothing to earn it or deserve it, so he had no business claiming it as his own. He did boast --but only in Christ. He would not boast about HIS OWN MERIT.
Quote:
But the Christian apparatchik has bastardized Paul's teaching (if all this is really true) to mean that the ONLY reason to be a follower of Paul's "saved by faith" philosophy (and it IS a philosophy, it is NOT part of Jesus' teachings) is 1. it's an easier path to salvation 2. (and here's its true Achillies' Heel) a person can commit the most atrocious acts all his life hurting people and still be saved with no accountability before God for their prior evil actions (James Porter is a perfect example--he used his priesthood to molest and rape more than 200 children and we can assume that after a lifetime of doing this he finally repented on his deathbed and begged God's forgiveness, died a few minutes later and skated right into God's arms). Atheists on the other hand could spend their entire life doing good for their fellow man--feeding them, clothing them, visiting them in prison--and when they die they go directly to hell and burn for eternity. If Christians cannot see there's is something morally wrong with this Christian paradigm then they really need to reevaluate their humanity.
Paul called himself the chief of sinners. He said he'd done more than anyone to hurt the name of Jesus...yet he was saved by Christ despite that. He deserved NOTHING but punishment, but he got mercy. It is self-righteous delusion to think that we are better than anyone else or that we deserve God's love more than anyone else when we consider how every single one of us has sinned against God's Law.
So is it scandalous that a guy like James Porter would be given mercy if he truly repented and trusted Christ? Yup.
It is also scandalous that a man like me be given mercy by repenting and trusting Christ.
Paul's position was that he did nothing to earn it or deserve it, so he had no business claiming it as his own. He did boast --but only in Christ. He would not boast about HIS OWN MERIT.
Paul called himself the chief of sinners. He said he'd done more than anyone to hurt the name of Jesus...yet he was saved by Christ despite that. He deserved NOTHING but punishment, but he got mercy. It is self-righteous delusion to think that we are better than anyone else or that we deserve God's love more than anyone else when we consider how every single one of us has sinned against God's Law.
So is it scandalous that a guy like James Porter would be given mercy if he truly repented and trusted Christ? Yup.
It is also scandalous that a man like me be given mercy by repenting and trusting Christ.
Hence the "I was a worse sinner than you were" measuring contests that had become so popular in the 90s...
Paul's position was that he did nothing to earn it or deserve it, so he had no business claiming it as his own. He did boast --but only in Christ. He would not boast about HIS OWN MERIT.
Paul called himself the chief of sinners. He said he'd done more than anyone to hurt the name of Jesus...yet he was saved by Christ despite that. He deserved NOTHING but punishment, but he got mercy. It is self-righteous delusion to think that we are better than anyone else or that we deserve God's love more than anyone else when we consider how every single one of us has sinned against God's Law.
So is it scandalous that a guy like James Porter would be given mercy if he truly repented and trusted Christ? Yup.
It is also scandalous that a man like me be given mercy by repenting and trusting Christ.
Then you are of the view that you can't be saved without Faith in Jesus but you can also have Faith in Jesus but not be saved if your sins are so bad that they cut you off? Paul suggested that, too, though he wouldn't realize that this clobbered his belief that faith in Jesus made you a good person.
I suppose it can be argued that nobody that believes in Jesus can do bad things and/or if they do, their faith is not real and they not real Christians.
Whichever way, it seems clear that works cannot be excluded from the salvation -scenario.
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