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Author | Topic: Who can be saved? A Christian perspective | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
In Message 92 Iano wrote:
1) We will have seen that there is no requirement to believe in Gods existance in order to pass from position:lost to position:found. That a person will have God revealed to them after they are found means we can say the person who saved must believe in God - but their belief is a marker of them having been saved, not a cause of their being saved. The cause of their being saved is their believing God. Not believing in God. To which I reply:
quote: This is a more appropriate place to continue the discussion if he wants to.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
How can you believe in something you dont see, hear, taste, touch, or smell? If I'm understanding him correctly, Iano is saying that that its not the belief IN god that matters but its the believing god that matters. God says murder is wrong. If you also think that murder is wrong then you are believing god (believing what he said) regardless of if you believe in him or not. Make sense? To me, this seems to make the action what is important and not the faith. But Iano is a salvation by fiath guy so I looking for clarification.
Its easy to believe in God once you have an initial encounter, perceived, imaginary, or otherwise. The encounter preceded the decision to believe, however. To believe IN him, yes. But to believe as true the same things that he says are true, not necessarily.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Hi iano,
Thanks for replying. I hope we can have a good discussion on faith vs works. Not to change each other, but to get a better understanding of the position. I'm a little short on time now, and I don't usually post on the weekends, so its gonna be a minute before we can get the ball rolling. I know Paul is a big salvation by faith guy, but I do want to read over Romans again before I get into it. Do you have any good passages where Jesus, himself, supports the salvation by faith position that I can look into?
Cstholic Scientist writes:
Belief and faith are the same thing in this context.
So salvation is not by faith but by believing God.. That confuses me a little. If believing God is agreeing with what he says, what does that have to do with faith for an unbeliever?
.. and you go about believing God by what you do... your works. I'd disagree. I note you got my point about it being possible for people to believe God without believing in God - the example used being most unbelievers belief that murder is wrong. That is but an example to make that single point: unbelievers can believe God. I wouldn't hold this belief regarding 'murder is wrong' to be the belief around which salvation occurs.
Oh, okay. That makes sense.
Belief around which salvation occurs centres around our being convinced of something going by the title: Sin, Righeousness & Judgement. I didn't get that one. Can you explain a little further please? Is that one something or three somethings? As in, one title or three seperate ones?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Thanks for the reply, iano.
I think my biggest problem with salvation by faith is the atrocities it allows for... The deathbed conversion of a terrible man allowing him into heaven or someone like Mother Teresa going to hell because they lost their faith just before they died. That, and this:
Jesus isn't the one to go to if a systematic laying out of the gospel (and the need for it) of salvation by faith is what your after. That task falls to Paul. Having said that, reading Jesus through the lens of salvation by faith (and not by works) would indicate him teaching the same thing. I don't like reading Jesus through a lens.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
The classic dilemma for a salvation-by-workist is the seeming unfairness of the good person being damned whilst the evil person 'gets into' heaven. Please explain. I have no idea what you're typing about.
This is resolved easily enough by supposing each of these two people a grain of sand on a beach. And the distance between them and God (in respect to holiness) the same as the distance between the beach and the moon. What relevance a persons goodness if all it can do is raise you to a slightly higher position than another grain of sand on the beach. We're ALL filthy in sin. One stinking immeasurably less than the next perhaps. But all stinking for all that. The problem is that we reek, not that we reek immeasurably less than the next fellow. I'm not buying it. It doesn't seem like I'm that bad of a guy. And I can see the difference between me thinking that this girl's Halloween costume made her look incredibly hot and another guy who actually raped somebody. Using God's measure of holiness to say that I'm immeasurably less worse than an actual rapist because I've mentally lusted over some cleavage seems like a sales gimmick. Its a way to "show" me that I need what's being sold. But it runs counter to what I can actually see.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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I don't think that you can just lump all Christians into this set just because they are Christian. All of the goats being christians does not imply all christians being goats.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Here's what jar's getting at:
The goats' reply to Jesus is like: "Wait, what? When didn't we help you." As if they've been following him around this whole time. The sheeps' reply is like: "Wait, what? When did we help you." As if this is the first time we've met.
I see no reason at all to make that assumption. If I'm just meeting someone for the first time I would address them as you. What do you suggest they would call Him then if they were just meeting Him for the first time? If you meet someone for the first time and they say: "Hey, thanks for all the money you gave me." Wouldn't your reply be along the lines of: "Huh? When did I give you money?" Conversly, if your good friend said: "Hey, thanks alot for never giving me any money." Wouldn't your reply be along the lines of: "Huh? I've given you money plenty of times, what are you talking about?" The goats' response is like that of a good friend while the sheeps' response is like that of a stranger. I agree with you that that isn't really the whole point, but what jar's saying is consistant with the story.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
It is that the sheep fed the hungry etc with no idea that they were doing it for anyone other than the person they were serving. They just did it because for them it was the right thing to do. They loved unselfishly. Right, they were ministering unto the least of his people, without realizing they were doing it to Him too. So when Jesus said that they did it to Him, their reply was: "Huh? When did we do it to you?" Had they been his followers, they wouldn't have had to ask that, because they would have been around him doing those things and been all: "Yup, I remember that."
The "goats" (corrected by edit) didn’t feed the hungry etc without any understanding that they actually represented Jesus, whether or not they had any idea of who Jesus was. They just didn’t serve the needy because they were too wrapped up in themselves. In other words they loved selfishly. Right, and when Jesus said 'thanks a lot for not helping me', their reply was: "Huh, when didn't we help you?" His followers would have asked something like that because they would have been around him and it didn't make sense that he was claiming they didn't (because they didn't realize he was referring to the least of his people). A person who did not follow Jesus would not have asked something like that, because they would have been all: "Well, since we've just met there's no way we could have helped you yet".
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Let's try this. A fellow comes up and says thanks for the help. As he is a stranger I say to him that this is the first time I've met him and ask when did I help him. He then goes on to tell me that I helped his wife change a tire yesterday and so he didn't have to leave the hockey game he was watching on TV. I didn't make the connection between him and his wife just as neither the sheep nor the goats made the connection between those they did or didn't help and Jesus. Not making the connection is only part of it. The other, more important to the point, part of it is how you would respond to the person. In this case, you said "when did I help him" because he was a stranger. This is how the sheep responded. A follower of Christ wouldn't respond that way because he was no stranger and they presumably had helped him. Now, Let's try this. A This is how the goats responded. It makes them look like they must have been a good friend of Jesus' when they question about when they did not help. A stranger wouldn't question that.
Here is jar's statement.
quote: IMHO there is no justification for that claim. It is consistant with the story, but I think he's extrapolated a little to far. The crowd as a whole doesn't speak for every individual, and there could be non-christians in there kicking dirt and keeping their mouths shut.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Everyone is there including all Christians and all non-Christians. They are divided into the two groups based on how they responded to those in need. Jar is suggesting he knows who is going to be in each group based on whether or not they are Christian. No, you've misunderstood. The suggestion is to know what kind of people are going to be in the group, based on whether they are sheep of goats. All goats being christian does not imply all christians being goats. There can still be some christians who are sheep even if all the goats are christians.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
But the passage says "all nations". It includes everyone. Yes, but then they're seperated.
quote: Are you taking that to mean that the nations were seperated from other nations, but the nations as a whole were kept together? And that's why you can't split up the group of christians into some being sheep and some being goats?
If all goats are Christians then that requires all non-Christains to be sheep. Yeah, I don't particularly agree with every single goat being a christian.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Yes the nations are separated by nations not the people separated. Why? You should make a thread for this because this one's in summation mode.
Yes the text says the nations are separated. The people of the sheep nations are the only people that will be afforded a second chance. They will be afforded that second chance because they happened to live in a country that has helped the descendants of Isaac due to the promise God made to Abraham. Wow. That's fucking retarded. You're saying that Jesus' message was that salvation is determine by the nation you're born in. You've eiehter lost your mind, or never had one. Or are lying. I'm actually suspecting malicious intent, so go back to hell, demon.
The judgment of the nations will take place when Jesus comes riding on a white horse at the end of the reign of the anti-christ just prior to Jesus setting up His earthly kingdom. The sheep nations will be allowed to go into the 1000 year reign of Christ. The problem enters with the word righteous, as it is assumed that is talking about people who have been born again. At the judgment of the nations there will not be 1 person who has been born again. Those will all be gone prior to battle in which the anti-christ is overcome and cast into the lake of fire. So the judgment of the nations is just that, a judgment of nations. The nations who have helped the descendants of Isaac will be the sheep nations and those who have tried to destroy the descendants of Isaac will be the goat nations.
That'd actually make a pretty sweet episode for a Contantine sequal, or something. (seriously, though, have you seen that movie yet? its pretty rad, I think you'd like it) Anyways, that's just some bullshit you made up... and as you say:
But everyone is allowed to believe anything they desire to believe. And your's are pretty colorful, indeed. You need cleansing.
God Bless, Fuck off. How dare you, vile one!
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