Right Behavior Inherits Eternal Life

It's a difficult one PurpleDawn. As are most "what is the bible saying" threads. For the reason you give: everybody can extract verses to support their own case.If I look at where I think the doctrine of "salvation by faith alone" and "you cannot loose your salvation" is most completely explained from A-Z (Romans) then I have to read the whole thing with reference to what it has said already to draw that doctrine out. It can't be shown in a verse or two. Even Romans can be made to state two different ideas if singular verses extracted hither and thitherMaybe in this thread, context and overview of the purpose of the passage will be included to support each view.God bless with it whatever happens...

I can have love for someone and I am able to show I love someone in deed. If I have love for someone then acts of love are indicative consequence of it (I can't express love through deeds if I don't love. I may carry out a similar act but it is not love doing it - it is something else). Loving deeds are a derivitive of the love. Love that doesn't express itself in deeds is not love. It is a sham. It is dead.Faith without works is dead. Faith with no works is not faith. As love without deeds of love is not love.The verse is telling us, not that it is faith + works that results in salvation but that works is a natural consequence of saving faith. If there is no works, it is because there is no faith and no salvation. Faith itself does the saving not the works

Hi Mike...
Whilst I didn't mention good works arising exclusively from faith, it does raise a point. Who says a faithless person can do good works?. Whilst somebody without faith giving money to the poor can be thought of as doing 'good works' they do so in the eyes of their fellow man. Is that the same thing as 'good works' when described in the bible. If a person who is hostile to God (or as the KJV puts it: an enemy) of God), how can their works be considered 'good' by him? Maybe there is some passage somewhere which shows they are? The passages that spring to mind seem to associate good works with righteous people, people of faith etc I don't get you? Which passage is this?

Remember that it is not Jesus' words were reading but words attributed to him by Matt/Mark/Luke/John. The only way we can presume these to be his actual words is if we presume God ensuring that this would be so. If so, there is no particular problem with Acts or the Epistles or Revelation. We can go on that it is all God-breathed or none of it is. I can't see how we can subjectively pick and chose.

Think of anything you have faith in. Your car brakes ability to stop you for instance. Is it a vague thing or is it something much surer than that. I can't speak for all but would say that Jesus is the son of God is something I am more certain of than I am that the sun will rise tomorrow. Vague? Hmmmm The message is "you can be saved by...(add whatever method by which you reckon he said this is achieved)". How could one "truly have faith" in that without being sure that Jesus a) was the son of God and b) was therefore in a position to enable these claims he made?

After all the posts you must have read and this is how you paraphrase it. Tut tut....Would people who said "I believe Jesus when he says "belief in what I have done is sufficient". Works are anything but irrelevant. They are very important indeed. But just not in relation to salvation s'all" irritate you as much?This message has been edited by iano, 15-Nov-2005 03:36 PM

Salvation?
Salvation is an umbrella term which, in essence, means being saved from having to face the consequences, w.r.t. God the Father, of our sin. The consequences of being saved encompasses but are not confined to the following:- having ones previously dead-to-God spirit brought to life. Ones spirit becomes alive (or receptive) to God
- receiving the Holy Spirit as indwelling as opposed to his external work on people whilst still unbelievers. The Holy Spirits work is multifold in the believer.
- being declared justified (just-as-if-I'd never sinned) by God in a legal sense. To be justified means to be considered, by God, as righteous in His sight. This righteousness is not the persons own doing, it is given to him by God.
- because a person is seen, legally, as righteous, they will not face condemnation (condemnation results in hell).
- Once saved, always saved. The person who is saved may realise this or they may not. Whether they do or not doesn't affect their legal position. They will go to heaven - whether they like it or not.Salvation how and who?
Salvation open to everyone but it can be refused. The way in which it is accepted is not some formula of words "I repent, I believe etc" It is more organic that that but those things will be part of the process somewhere. It may be different for different people. Damascus road or otherwise. In my case in went like this. In repenting I mean that I:- admitted to God("if you exist") that I have led a life independant from God.
- I admitted that I had offended God and apologised for what I had done (not every sin but just generally)
- I invited God to come and take his proper place in my live. God on the throne, me subject to God.
- I didn't believe that God existed at this stage. All I said was based on "I say these things to you if you are there"I didn't just decide someday to do this. I had been drawn to the point where I could. By God.Salvation when?
I don't know at which point it comes in all cases. The above isn't a magic form of words that does it. It is the heart behind them. They were genuine, heartfelt words in my case to whit: submission to him. God came then. It could be different in other cases. The moment that my confession (or act of faith)was accepted I was saved. It was the next day when I woke up I knew that God was in me (it could have been the moment I prayed that prayer - but I fell asleep afterwards). From the moment I was aware of God inside that I believed...Different parts of the process happened later (eg: actually confessing sin (a long list that he helped me draw up) and asking it to be forgiven. I've heard cases like mine and cases other than mine. End result is the same.Salvation who?
God is the one who saves. From start to finish. He is the one who draws the person, he convinces them of need of him (not that the person sees their need as "I need God" initially). At some point the need gets unbearable and the person cries out to the only person who could possible help them (if he exists) And he supplies the righteousness (He gives us Jesus righteousness as a coat to wear over our own unrighteousness - so he can't 'see' our unrighteousness anymore.God does it all. A person cannot save themselves. They rely on God all the way. A person can condemn themselves.Salvation? Who is excluded?
Only those who would exclude themselves. The process of being drawn to make an act of faith is gradual. You can struggle the whole way. And struggle so much as to free yourself from the hook. In the same way the person who is drawn in and landed doesn't realise until it happens that it was God drawing, the person won't realise until they face him that is was God they were refusing.That okay?This message has been edited by iano, 15-Nov-2005 06:37 PM

...to them. It doesn't have any negative effect on the truth of the matter. Jesus is not lessened in his position by people not believing it. All that can be said is the person doesn't believe. No more. The medium? Who or what is the medium It doesn't matter what people think of the message or the messanger. All that matters is whether it is true or not. Our likes and dislikes have nothing to do with that.Man judging God according to mans values. Now THATS funny

See comments a few posts ago to PD. Goddidit. Conversion happened and THEN I started reading the bible. It's fitting perfectly together showed me what I had become.Bible bashing and fruits don't convert people. Neither for that matter do discussions on EvC. God is the one who converts people. All the other stuff are just tools God uses. But until he does, nothing happens. You could listen to bible bashers and hang out with Christians til your (literally) blue in the face. Nothing will happen until he applies them.This message has been edited by iano, 15-Nov-2005 07:20 PM

I believe the earth goes around the sun. Do I have to live it or can I just believe it? Jesus died for my sins, I'm going to heaven. I don't need to live it to believe it. Living it is a possible consequence of it. But belief isn't defined by it.A person may live their belief to a greater or lesser extent. Does this mean they believe to a greater or lesser extent? Patently not.And how does one know if someone is living their belief or not? A chap who steps over a tramp may not taken to be a christian - but he may be stepping over the tramp after walking away at the last minute from a schoolyard where he was planning to sell crack to kids. Living your belief is relative to where you were before. And nobody knows where a person is coming from. Arbitary actions chosen as a measure of living your belief are just that. Arbitary

It's the least of these my brethern'. What 'my brethern' is biblically, would have to be figured out. Note that when he is talking to the goats a second later he says 'the least of these'. Nothing to do with brethern.An insincere belief. What is that actually? I believe something but I do so insincerely. Surely it can only mean in fact 'don't believe'. How can you believe "the world is round" insincerely? Either you believe it or you don't

While I appreciate your effort to arrive at a level of belief based on rationale and logic, it must, I think, suffer from the exact same kind problems that occur with any subjective evaluation. Namely, it is not an absolute evalutation. The problem with that, as I see it that there is no way of telling how close to the absolute. The question then arises: what objective benefits can this subjective evaluation hold for me? Looking at one example of where this naturally leads: The Gospels corroborate under the following conditions and limitations:- imperfect memory, like you say, and probably made more so over time. No one could remember in the kind of verbatim way we take the gospels to report Jesus' words - no even by corroboration. The best we could say was that the writers reported the 'spirit' of what he was saying.-imperfect understanding of what Jesus said in the first place causing problems to the above. Committee style decision may now be accounting for whatever corroboration there may be- 2 writers weren't eyewitnesses to events. We must reduce our corrobortion from 4 writers to 2. We can't be sure that even the two are independant corroborations. Matthew influenced John to sway things to his recollection? Why not? Who knows?- lack of education, experience and skill in the field of accurate transmission means it is safe to assume that no one was taking accurate notes as Jesus talked.- we have no reason to think the writers didn't have their own axe to grind. If, as appears necessary, some kind of pre-discussion went into deciding what to leave in and what to leave out who is to know how those decisions were arrived at and whether the decision making was good, bad or indifferent. Lets assume you've had the pleasure of committees coming to decisions. Peer pressure, confusion, hazy memories. To be expectedThe trouble with a reasoned approach Mike, is that it must be founded upon an extremely large series of unknowns - some of which I've touched on here. That the gospel 'corroborates' means in no way that it can be taken as accurately recording Jesus' words. The opposite is far more likely. It could corroborate for a myriad of reasons. Which is why one must end up with the statement, as you honestly do: But 'some kind of truth' is, I think, worthless - for want of an objective way of telling which bit of it is true and which isn't. Corroboration in and of itself doesn't imply the honesty, integrity or accuracy of the recording. Your logical position would I suppose, have to admit that it can't actually point to a single sentence that Jesus said and demonstrate in an objective, absolute way: "He said that - we can take it as accurate and true". Truths are objective, not subjective.(Edited to reduce the a somewhat combative tone.)This message has been edited by iano, 16-Nov-2005 08:12 PM

It depends I suppose on what I profess to believe. I believe for example that Jesus is my Lord and my saviour - who has done that despite the fact that I am a sinner and cannot do as he does (never does the wrong thing, always does the right thing)I do believe that he instructs me on how to live my life in relation to others. That includes good deeds. I don't believe my salvation is affected in the least by the level to which I adhere to his instructions. The motivation for carrying out his instruction is other than to do with attaining or holding onto salvation. You'll notice that I've changed the word command to instruction here. I believe that command is law and that I, as a believer am freed from the the demands of the law. Because unlike and unbeliever, I am 'in' him. I am not, nor do I want to be, freed from the demands of his grace.I could go on but you may see my point. My belief is sincere. It is not the belief that you would try and impose on me. That's your belief about what I should believe according to your interpretation of whichever bit of the bible you happen to hold to be relevant this week Don't get to het up on the brethern/no brethern point. I mentioned out of interest. There is some reason for the exclusion of the word brethern when the goats are addressed. What it is I don't know but it can't be ignored. I don't help all the people I could possibly help Ringo. It has nothing to do with them being considered brothers. There are reason for it: chief amongst which is that I am a sinner - not Christ. And not even Christ helped everyone he could have.This message has been edited by iano, 16-Nov-2005 09:40 PM

Quite a number of the verses you quoted are from Romans 7 which deal with a man struggling under the weight of Law on him. He is a man who realises a) that the law is good and b) he can't keep it c)he is in need of deliverence from it.The man in Romans 7 is not a Christian. The man in Romans 7 is a man on whom the law is carrying out it's work - to be a schoolteacher to lead the man to Christ. Which is precisely where the chapter ends up.Paul is describing the process which brings a man to Christ. He has earlier in that same chapter (with the wedding analogy) spoken of how the Christian is freed from the law (of sin and death - the rules and regs law) I agree completely that it is by faith not by works that a man is saved. Yet Paul and others exhort us to flee from sin, put to death the deeds of the flesh, let not sin reign in your mortal flesh etc etc. One cannot be exhorted to do something if one plays no part in so doing. Free will therefore, I would argue, is anything but obsolete. Whereas before, free will was dead unto God (as witnessed by the second half of Romans 7, unable to resist sin) it is now alive unto God and HAS the ability to resist sin. Not that it will always succeed but it can succeed. Otherwise the exhortations as to how we should live are pointless

An automaton in other words? Which to me seemed to be the precise thing God ensuring he would avoid when he gave us free will in the first place??Why are we exhorted so often not to let sin reign if we have no choice in the matter. Surely exhortation can be only addressed to an exhortable person.