People ARE Mixing the Gospels Together!

Hello Bob Bobber,
I have to say I haven't wanted to be part of this discussion because you seem to be one of those Lone Rangers who make up your own theology and treat the Body of Christ as all deceived, which is at least borderline heresy. And yet you also seem to have a very fine grasp of the doctrines of grace and the true meaning of salvation. It's hard for me to put it all together and I haven't wanted to get all chewed up in another EvC mangling of Christian doctrine so I've stayed out of it.And I may regret joining in now but I really don't get why you are having such a problem answering jar's question. Isn't the answer just the simple one that we're all destined to Hell based on our natural condition, which is the sin we inherit from Adam, and this is due to sin's being what keeps us apart from God, who is holy and can't co-exist with sin. THEREFORE for God to be reconciled to us in our sinful condition is a huge mercy, saving all those from Hell who believe on the salvation through Christ's sacrifice. That's why we should care. It's Hell or reconciliation. Yes?

Scripture says we are "at enmity" with God in our natural fallen condition, we're His enemies. No He doesn't hate us even in this condition -- "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should have eternal life." That says it all. We naturally merit Hell, yet God loves us even n that condition, and yet He cannot save us because justice by His inexorable Law demands that sin be punished or atoned for. Therefore He sent His Son to die in our place to effect reconciliation between His holy nature and our unholy nature. He does love us but reconciliation is impossible as long as we remain at enmity with Him because He's holy. Jesus' sacrifice is what expresses His love and effects the reconciliation that otherwise is impossible between us and God. It ALL focuses back on the cross. Yes, but His loving us doesn't save us until it is recognized in the sacrifice of His Son for us, when Christ died for us, resurrected and then went to the Father, completing his work of atonement that reconciles His enemies to Him.
 But I think you are missing something here. The reconciliation is the death of Christ, and THAT took place for each of us while we were His enemy. I agree it occurred before we repented: Even while we were sinners Christ died for us, because of God's love, but the reconciliation isn't effected until we SEE His love in the cross, RECOGNIZE His death in our place out of love, THEN we repent and give our lives to Him.You seem to be saying something different, and I probably won't argue you with you much after this.

Yes, you keep emphasizing this major truth, that we cannot be saved by our works. And it's also true that even some of us who know this intellectually still emotionally behave as if we thought our good deeds would save us, which is a terrible condition to be in. We all have to learn to submit completely to God's grace as the ONLY way we are saved, our own efforts being worth absolutely nothing. So far I agree with you if I'm getting what you are saying.
 I agree that's disturbing, and there are some churches that even teach that we cannot know if we're saved, although scripture is very clear that we can know, and John wrote much of his gospel and his epistles to show us how we can know. Still some of us are weak and have to learn it. The churches who teach that we cannot know are very much in the wrong however.What may be even MORE disturbing, however, is that there are many CHristians who think they are saved and aren't because they don't recognize the fact that they are depending on their own works instead of on Christ, or because of some other failure of understanding. Revivals are full of stories of people who thought they were Christians but when revival came God opened their eyes to the fact that they weren't saved, and then they were able to seek salvation through the Holy Spirit in the revival and were saved.Anyone who says the Christian life is easy doesn't know what they're talking about.On the one hand it's the easiest thing imaginable: believe that Christ died for your sins and give your life to Him; you are no longer your own, you were bought with a price, you belong to Him. On the other our fallen nature dies hard and we don't even know when we are depending on ourselves instead of on Him and have to learn it over time.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Didn't answer this the first time.We have this new identity IF we are in Christ, IF we have put all our trust in Him for our salvation. THEN we are "dead to sin" because He has taken all our sin upon Himself.

Great. You state that principle well. There are other things you've said I'd want to take issue with but as long as we agree on this I'd rather leave it there.I do wonder if you could be saying that we don't have to turn from sin to be saved, which would be false. It's just that Christ has accomplished this for us too, the ability to turn from sin, the ability to repent, the ability to love God. All these things ARE necessary but they are the RESULT of Christ's death for us, they are all part of the gift of salvation, which we possess through faith in Him.If we agree on this I'm happy to leave it there.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

OK, we agree about this too. We still fall into sin, but we do have this new spirit that wants to do good, because Christ's sacrifice allowed Him to send us the Holy Spirit to motivate us, fail though we often do at following Him.

Well, Bob, I'm happy that we seem to be in agreement about everything we've discussed here about being saved by grace alone through Christ alone with not a shred of reliance on anything in ourselves. I can't agree with you about your idea that there are "two gospels" however, but maybe we don't have to have that argument.

OK, now I see that a problem is that traditional Christianity interprets that, as well as most of the Old Testament, as a "type" or prophecy of the true Christ. The promised King IS the true Christ, risen from the dead, but you can only understand such a promise through the New Testament interpretations of the Old. As Jesus told the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 22 the Old Testament is all about Him. Some of the Jews recognized that, accounting for the many thousands of Jewish believers in Christ reported in the gospels and the Book of Acts, but most of the Pharisees retained their worldly interpretation of a worldly Messiah and completely missed the meaning of their own scriptures. Jews today maintain that same misunderstanding, although we are also seeing the conversion of many Jews to the truth about Jesus.

Now you are saying things I am having a hard time following.I don't think God ever intended Israel the nation to all have their sins remitted. For that to occur they would all have to have been true beleivers and followers of God but as is revealed over and over in the Old Testament the majority always failed at that. God preserved Himself a "remnant" who were true believers. Only true believers have their sins remitted. The "true Israel of God" is identified by Paul as the Church, or all those who are saved by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone. Jews of the Old Testament who had that kind of faith, and there certainly were many of those -- you can read about them in Hebrews 11 -- those who lived by faith in God and not in their own works -- those are saved along with us, because it's all about faith. They are saved by the same gospel we are although they didn't have the opportunity to understand it as clearly as we do thanks to the New Testament. They aren't saved by a different gospel. True Old Testament believers also recognized the references to the coming Messiah in their scriptures, which are denied by unbelievers.

That's not the Biblical understanding. The covenant God made with David was specifically that the Messiah would be from David's seed, the "dynasty" ending with Christ on the throne forever and ever. David himself recognizes this when he writes in the psalm: In other words, David calls his own descendant "my Lord" which he wouldn't do with a merely fleshly heir, showing that he recognized by the Holy Spirit that the ruler who will come from him and sit on the throne is to be the LORD's Anointed, the Messiah, who will reign forever and ever.Jesus calls their attention to this: How is this ruler David's mere "son" if he refers to Him as "Lord?" That's what Jesus wants them to consider. Those who are thinking only of an earthly dynasty are completely missing what God is saying in the Old Testament. Yes, and in this they would have been right but I don't think you take it quite far enough. It was God Himself who showed them that the ruler who was to come from the line of David would be the eternal God/Messiah Himself. And still only some of the Jews recognized Him when He came. He is to come again, you know, and then He'll literally rule the world from Jerusalem on the throne of David.

As I was taught about the covenant with Abraham, it demonstrates that God is not requiring anything of Abraham, it's a picture of God's sovereignty in completely giving the gift of salvation, which is what the Promised Land represents, without any agreement or reciprocation or "works" from Abraham or from any of us who inherit the covenant by faith.I don't get what your point is here though: God "gave up on the nations?" Where does the Bible say that? Also, God doesn't "experiment," He knows what He's doing. He chose Abraham to be the father of a new nation, through whom He would teach the world about Himself, His Law, and through whom He would send the Savior, who had been promised all the way back in Eden, which was believed by the whole line of the patriarchs from Seth through Noah, and some others like Job, though distorted in many of the pagan religions that sprang up after the Flood. Abraham was to become the preserver of that promise as well as the father of the people through whom the Messiah-Savior would come. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But again, we are to understand the Old Testament through the New Testament. Yes, it will be a whole people that is saved in the end, the Church, the assembly of believers, not an earthly nation. A heavenly nation if you like. You are understanding the OT from an earthly point of view as the Jews today also do, rather than from the Christian point of view which is taught in the NT. Yes, that's the interpretation the Jews had and still have who don't recognize Christ and His salvation which is "not of this world." Actually there are those who understand the Hebrew Bible itself to demonstrate the Christian point of view, and that has to be true or the New Testament believers wouldn't have grasped its true meaning. The national suffering and oppression, and the enslavement are understood from a New Testament perspective to refer to our living under the rule of Satan before we are saved. He is the ultimate oppressor and enslaver. We are "slaves to sin" and ruled by Satan, who earned the right to rule us when he deceived Eve and Adam joined with her in the sin. Ever since then Satan and his demons have invented religion after religion to enslave human beings, while making sure we are bogged down in sin which alienates us from the true God. The exodus from Egypt is a picture of the multitudes who will ultimately be saved through Christ, though we are saved one by one. In the end we will be a great multitude who all escaped from "Egypt," the satanic rule of this world. And we are saved by the blood of the Lamb, which is pictured in the blood of the Passover sacrifice God commanded the people to paint on their door frames to tell the angel of death those who dwelt within were to be spared.All that is what Jesus came to save us from, to set us free from, and all that IS contained in the Old Testament record if you read it spiritually rather than through the flesh. Don't know what you are talking about here. God "gave up on" the entire human race except for Noah and his family. Is that what you are talking about? Yes human beings have a conscience, but it is often twisted and "seared as by a hot iron" according to scripture, so that it doesn't function as it should. The restoration of our conscience to God is one of the gifts through salvation.But in saying that I'm not sure what you meant so I'm not sure whether my response applies.*********I'm going to have to stop for the night now.********Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I think maybe I'm getting what you have in mind here. Are you referring to the end times message of Jesus about how the days before His return will be like the "days of Noah" when the world was overrun by sin and violence? The "Gentiles" in that context would be all those who are unbelievers when He returns, and will be swept away as the unbelievers were swept away by the Flood in Noah's time. The idea is that things seem to be getting worse now as they were right before the Flood. And I guess your mention of the conscience is a way of saying that knowledge of God is in all of us even when we don't recognize it, which is the message of Romans 1, so that those will be "without excuse" when they are condemned by God's judgment at Christ's return.Is that what you had in mind?If so, I agree.****And now I'm going to bed before I fall asleep sitting here. *****Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But the New Testament says that even Abraham wasn't looking for a literal earthly Promised Land, but for a completely different sort of "land" -- Strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Seeking a different country. A heavenly city made by God...The message of the Old Testament is the same as the message of the New Testament. They were saved by grace through faith just as we are, and their inheritance as believers is the heavenly city just as it is our inheritance.abe: The whole drama that points to the Messiah and to our heavenly Promised Land, did of course have to be played out on Planet Earth, and I believe the Jews of earthly Israel are still part of that playing out. But there is only one Promised Land for believers and that's the heavenly city, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You've pretty much lost me now, Bob, so I'll probably just stay out of this from now on.