Featured Total Depravity or Free Will in this tract?

[FONT=&quot]Romans 10:3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.[/FONT]

Paul never changed the topic. His heart's desire was for Israel to be saved. The Jews were not saved. They needed to be saved the same way the Gentiles needed to be saved--through the blood of Christ.
"Saved" and "Salvation" refer to justification in opposition to keeping the law. The Jews tried to establish their own righteousness, mostly by keeping the law. That would never work. They needed the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
They needed to come as sinners to Christ and call upon his name. Only that gospel message could save them. It was by faith and faith alone.

 

No, Paul was not speaking of salvation in a conversion sense. He was speaking in terms of Eschatological salvation, which is also through Christ.

They thought that being in Moses qualified them. I will try later to work on demonstrating it. But, it is very long

 

I personally have red flags going off. I fear for you...........raying:

 

If you have red flags going off, that's a real good indicator that I'm on the right track

 

You never answered my question. I answered yours........

 

I agree 100% with this. However, since baptism was the most open, public confession of Christ in the early church....

How does that relate to your insistence that confession is necessary before receiving the Spirit? And why did those in Acts 10 receive the Spirit before baptism? For that matter, they received the Spirit before Peter finished speaking (v43).

Before he got to a "sinner's prayer" punch line

 

"Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
That is pretty much instantaneous. The order is logical and has to do with faith.

As for Acts 10, let's start at the beginning.
[FONT=&quot]Acts 1:4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.[/FONT]
The command given to apostles was to wait for the promise of the Father.
What was the promise of the Father? The promise of the Father was the promise Jesus gave them, that the Father would send them the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, and that He would be with them forever. It had nothing to do with "baptism" (not a word but a transliteration of a word meaning immersion).
--They were to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit and that is all.

The Holy Spirit came upon the Jews in Acts 2.
The Holy Spirit came upon the Samaritans in Acts 8.
The Holy Spirit came upon the Gentiles in Acts 10.
The Holy Spirit came upon some OT Jews who had only heard of the preaching of John the Baptist in Acts 19.
Each "pentecost" was unique in and of itself. There will never be any other events like these ones. We don't pattern our lives after these events. In fact the book of Acts is a book of history. We don't derive doctrine, per se, from historical events, but rather from doctrinal books such as the epistles.

There are four separate events when the "Holy Spirit came." They all had similarities and they all had differences, one of which you pointed out. There they believed AS Peter was preaching. During the sermon they put their faith in the Lord. It was as if they were interrupting his preaching and Peter didn't have the time to finish his sermon. Revival broke out instead. But if that happened to me I wouldn't complain either.
The fact is, the promise of the Father, i.e., the coming of the Holy Spirit, was fulfilled. What did Peter say:

[FONT=&quot]Acts 10:47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?[/FONT]
and:
[FONT=&quot]Acts 11:15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.[/FONT]
--Peter emphasizes that the Holy Spirit fell upon them AS he fell on them at the beginning--Even though he never completed his preaching.

 

I agree. The point in chapter 10 is that you are demanding a confession/profession before you acknowledge that someone has passed from death to life. Not only that, you add confession/profession as a means of accessing grace in the first place

However, these men received the Holy Spirit before they made the most pronounced form of confession in that day.

 

I felt like I was on an island within 6 months of searching the scriptures for myself. I used to sweat it, thinking something was wrong with me, because I could see that many traditional Protestant doctrines just aren't supported by the whole of scripture.

It was while I was trying to hash through all the doctrines debated between Calvinists and Arminians. I could see that each side was relying on "proof" texts which:
1) completely negated the proof texts of the other side
2) did not explicitly say what was ascribed to them

Related to #2, you have never supplied any scripture which explicitly states that man chooses to believe in Christ. Not inference or philosophy, but a plain statement. I'm not talking about reading Acts 16:31 and pressing "well, it's obvious that he made a choice"

I'm talking about where scripture literally says it. There are none.


Continuing, though..... I started comparing phrases in various passages, seeing parallels in supposedly unrelated passages.

I started looking into all the "saved" passages in the NT, and seeing very conflicted info, if saved only has one meaning.

Probably the first I saw was in James 2:14-26
Why do people claim that verse 19 says the devil believes in Jesus? James didn't write those words.. And, why do people claim that James said "true faith always produces works" ??

Those words cannot be found anywhere in the passage.

I just started seeing too many instances where doctrine is pushed onto the text. It really made me lose a lot of respect for so-called scholars. All that studying, only to force a doctrine onto the text?

So no, it's not likely you'll find any of my views in a commentary. But are you looking for consensus or truth?

A friend of mine asked once "so everybody else is wrong, and you're the only one who's right?"

But I wonder if Martin Luther ever felt like he was on a spiritual island?

But that doesn't mean I have disregarded the insights of others. Nelson Publishers had a commentary that got me to ask a lot of questions which led to my conclusions

 

But don't you see it is unavoidable? You will have no choice but to do as these men before you have done, in fact, you are already doing it. You have already declared that believing is a passive act, nowhere in Scripture will you find such a statement, using your own objection, "Those words cannot be found anywhere in the passage".

I guess if we want to have perfect preaching then we musty all simply reiterate the scriptures word for word adding absolutely no commentary or opinion of any kind, just repeat/read what has been written, from our pulpits, in our SS classes, in our bible studies. No contemplating, no debate, just read the scripture and let the Holy Spirit take it from there.

 

As I mentioned, you cannot use these examples as your default. Pentecost happens but once in history. Our salvation is not accompanied by tongues, a mighty rushing wind, etc. We do not have the same phenomena experienced in the Scripture that you are pointing to, which renders your case moot.

Use an example in the book of Acts after Acts 10.
What about Acts 16, with the Philippian jailer. What did he do once he heard Paul and Silas, and saw some of the phenomena there?
"Trembling, he brought them out and said: Sirs what must I do to be saved?"
He said: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved..."

Believe is active. Believe or have faith leads to salvation. He obviously heard the message through: their singing, their possible witness to other prisoners (which they were not shy about doing), and even in the open before they were arrested.
Luke also does not give a full account. It is abbreviated. How much of the gospel is explained and when we are not told. There could have been an hour of explanation immediately following verse 31. Either way we can be sure that he heard the gospel. We can be sure that he believed the gospel. It is his belief in the gospel that gave him salvation.
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." That is what he did. Salvation came to his house.

[FONT=&quot]Acts 16:32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Acts 16:34 And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.[/FONT]
--We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
The grace is the grace provided on the cross by Jesus Christ.
The faith is our faith put in that sacrificial blood offered to us as payment for our sin.
Christ is the only one that can provide salvation. He is the object of our faith.

 

Huh?

Now you're arguing in favor of what you argued against 15 posts ago.

My contention all along is that grace is accessed through faith ALONE. Believing upon Christ. Hoping in Him for eternal life.

APART from any confession, apart from baptism, apart from acts of contrition and penance.

Merit is found only in Christ, access is through a knowledge of the truth


So what's your point in the above?