How to salvage OSAS in view of Rom 11 and 2Tim2

Yes, and whatever this "end" was, it was something they themselves would see in their lifetimes. We have just extended that to ourselves, but this takes it out of context and thus causes this debate.

It's not separate "gospels" it is phases of the same Gospel. What do you consider to constitute a "gospel"? A set of instructions? The Old Covenant had totally different instructions. There was no "belive on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved". They had the atonement ritual. That was not a "separate gospel" either, was it?

No; like I said, I'm not sure of this, as it raises many questions. (so I'm not trying to "save" anything!) But it does seem to answer the ones we are debating about here.

You and the CoC'ers seem content to solve it by simply redefining "faith" as works; like in these often repeated examples:

I addressed this on one of my pages dealing with the popular "Abundant life" gospel that also uses these passages:

Many Christians love to cite John 9 and the blind man Jesus healed; saying "See, Jesus told him he had to go and wash in the pool of Siloam to receive his sight. This 'didn't make sense', and Jesus could have just opened his eyes right there; but the man had to do something 'in faith', to receive the blessing; so that is how it works today". (And this can be anything from "thanking God 'in faith' when we are hurt", to sending ministries thousand dollar "vows of faith"; depending on who the teacher is). But still, if a nonbeliever washed in the pool, it would not have worked. What Jesus did for him was still a supernatural miracle, not something natural any man can do that is made supernatural just because you do it "in Jesus' name". That was the whole point of it being a miracle! (And from just taking the context alone; it would seem that washing in the pool was necessary because the clay needed to be removed from his eyes). Even better is the account of Naaman in 2 Kings 5, who was instructed by Elisha to wash 7 times in the Jordan to be healed of his leprosy. In. v.11, he was angry, wondering why the prophet didn't just call on the name of the LORD and wave his hand over the spot and cure it. Once again, this is taken to prove that God puts us though more diffcult processes just because they don't make sense to us. But once again, the context sheds light on this. Naaman was a commander of the king of Syria, who often conflicted with Israel. We see even on v.12, where he resents the command on the basis of the rivers of Damascus being "better" than the waters of Israel. Sure enough, once he does it and is healed, this results in him proclaiming that "there is no God in all the world except in Israel" (v.15) So it was obviously his contempt of Israel (and lack of first hand knowledge of God) that was being broken,not his "understanding" on the most practical way to be healed. (Especially given that he was coming to Israelites to be healed). It is just saddening how widespreadly, passages like these are used, not only by evangelical "abundant life" teachers to support their "no understanding" doctrine, but also by heretical works-righteousness advocates, such as Catholists, Campbellists, some sabbatarians and other cultists to teach baptismal regeneration and other denials of salvation by faith alone.

Another thing I should add, is that before Christ, God was essentially "babying" people, as we see in Is.28:9-12, with the concept of "line upon line, here a little, there a little". That is part of the reason why god often commanded people to do "silly little things that didn't make sense" to reach a goal. But under the New Covenant, we would not remain in that state. (1 Cor.3; Heb.5). Baptism or other works we do today are NOT such "tests of faith" with salvation being what they achieve.They are SIGNS of faith; yes, but you all are making them TESTS of faith, but this contradicts Paul's language contrasting "faith" and "works", and just brings us back to the uncertain, uneasy state Israel was in with God. That is no gospel at all!

Not if the traditional view is taking it out of context.

 

Once again, you show your willingness to distort the truth. If I'm not mistaken, you are the only person here who has even made a reference to "wicked saints".

You have made wild and unsubstantiated claims about Scriptures and have refused to show Scriptures to validate such claims, and your debating techniques boil down to "is not! BobRyan said so!"

You have also made wild and unsubstantiated claims about fellow brothers and have spread falsehoods and distortions. I can no longer suspend belief, and I now have to believe that you do it intentionally.

 

Where did Christ say this was the definition of salvation? I say that here BobRyan defines salvation as, and Christ is speaking to saved people of fellowship and discipleship.

John 15:3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

I don't believe in purgatory. I believe in Hell, it's in the bible.

I think you understand what I am saying and you just don't like it.

 

Does that mean I'll never be saved?

 

But this is not what you said. What you said was

re·quire (r-kwr)
tr.v. re·quired, re·quir·ing, re·quires

1. To have as a requisite; need: Most plants require sunlight.
2. To call for as obligatory or appropriate; demand. See Synonyms at demand.
3. To impose an obligation on; compel:

It's one thing to say that works may be evidence of salvation, but to say that you have to have them? That is like saying my coming to work today is evidence that I will recieve a paycheck, but I didn't earn the paycheck by coming to work.

Naaman was told to do something to get rid of his leprosy and he did it. We were told to do something to be saved, and I hope you did it too.

 

um...I'm pretty sure I did so...I tried about three times on my own

 

James,

bmerr here. I don't think meeting the set conditions to receive something is neccessarily equivalent to earning that same thing.

For example, let's say my rich uncle dies, (now we know this is ficticious), and leaves 100K to me, but has stated in his will that I can only collect it if I meet his condition of showing proof of steady employment for 1 year.

I am able to show the required proof of employment, (and I promise I've never made $100,000/year), and I collect my inheritance. Did I earn my inheritance, or did I simply meet the conditions that were set in order to receive the inheritance? The latter would be the case, agreed?

Similarly, the blessing of the remission of sins and salvation are offered in the NT. The conditions of faith, repentance, and baptism have been placed in the Testament of Jesus Christ. Testaments, or Covenants, once confirmed cannot be changed (Gal 3:15-17).

Our meeting these requirements does not earn our salvation.

The definition of "require" you provided was very nice, but Heb 5:8-9 still says, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him".

It looks to me as though obedience is required.

In Christ,

bmerr

 

I think the difference is semantic. If meeting the conditions required to receive something is not earning it, I don't know what other word you could put there. But aside from the 'merit' aspect, meeting conditions is still works. If it be of works it is no more grace.

 

Are you wanting to salvage OSAS?

 

It's not to save OSAS just for its own sake, but to prevent salvation resting squarely on our own efforts, creating an undetermined "line" between "making it" and "not making it" when we fail.

That's not true, and here is where you make your mistake. Just look at John 8, where the Jews were said to have "believed", yet He soon calls the same people "of your father the devil". People "believed on Christ", and had "faith", but it was in the wrong thing. Yet, the Bible's language does still call it believing.

Here is a excerpt of my page on Predestination (since some Calvinists twist the doctrine around to "do works to show yourself elect"), and thus ironicallyfall into the same trap):

To understand then what all of these scriptures speaking of "false faith", "making your election sure", "showing yourself approved" and "perseverance" to be saved were addressing, we must remember that many people in the New Testament, beginning with the ministry of Jesus Himself while still here, were hastily accepting Christ, but they did not understand what the purpose of His mission was. So they "believed" (John 8:31), but eventually their true fruits surfaced (v.37ff). Most others of this class, while not disputing Jesus to His face would show their true colors when persecution would come and they quickly abandoned Him. It's in this context that we have all the scriptures on perseverance until the end. Like the others, these people "believed" and followed for the wrong reasons. Remember, Israel was looking for a Messiah for mostly political reasons, so many really did not understand His Gospel message—that they needed to be saved from sin; not the sin of the pagans, but their own sin. They still thought of themselves as the "good guys" waiting for God to put down the "bad guys", yet they were just as sinful as the ruthless pagans. They had their agenda, and Jesus showed that they were not really following Him, though they professed. As soon as He began speaking of dying, it knocked their whole agenda for a loop, and even the disciples were ready to deny Him and run and hide. Why believe in Him if He's only going to die and not rise up and crush the Romans and restore the kingdom to Israel right now? Many gentiles had also fallen into a similar misunderstanding or misuse as well. (Such as those described who would rise up and apostasize, drawing away their own following, thus using the Church for control). Yet if people "persevered" in faith, then it would have shown that they truly understood Christ's purpose (i.e. the true Gospel). Today we have many cults, liberals, etc. who "believe" in Christ, but knowingly twist or reject parts of the Bible; in effect creating a whole different concept of Christ (as different as the political Messiah of Israel), and most do not even speak of thinking they are "saved", or if they do, they make up their own idea of how to be saved (being good, keeping certain works, being baptized into their group, etc.). All of these are the people who "believed in vain", not someone who really believed they were saved, but fell into sin.
When I see someone who professes Christ but lives in open sin, I question and wonder if he's really saved, but I can't declare that he is not. This is where "do not judge" comes in. Of course, I try to admonish them to repent. If they don't, I leave it in God's hand, not pronounce him "unsaved". There are other evidences you can look for, such as the basis of their profession. One person I know seems to think he is Christian because he was raised in a Christian home. Of course, he'll say he "believes". He puts on an act around his family and church, but lives like a total heathen the rest of the time. When confronted, he says "yeah, yeah, I know", but just continues the way he's going like there is nothing wrong at all. So this person I can really question as not really understanding and accepting the true Gospel (but I still can't be completely sure).

Not what the Bible states what works is, but rather adjust faith to be synonymous with it. So basically, the CoC's "grace is just instructions". He provides the blood, and then the rest is still up to us. That leaves us in little better position than in the OT. To say "repent and believe" is "a work" is what the Calvinists used to argue to prove then that noone can be saved by that, unless God essentially does it for them. That would be devastating for your non-Calvinist position. But we're not talking about the initial act of repenting and believing; we're talking about how we remain saved.

 

Because you have them contradicting other scriptures, and you're content to redefine other scriptures to make them fit your reading of these scriptures. It's just a matter of which set of scriptures must be interpreted in light of which.

 

so we can't remain saved through faith, which automatically forces works out of a believer, then why bother? Agnosticism is now giving a better outlook on the ultimate future than you guys are.

 

HP: You bring up a sad truth. Much of the discussions I witness are nothing more than the trading of one proof text for another. I see very few attempts to actually harmonize difficult and, even at first glance, seemingly contradictory passages. I do not believe God has locked man into such a dead end direction of understanding truth. God has granted to man a mind, equipped with reasoning and abilities to utilize logic and first truths of reason to guide us by as well as Scripture. We need to utilize every avenue of truth God grants to man in the development and understanding of truths, no matter what particular realm of truth we are dealing with.

Truth never contradicts truth. God is the Author of all truth regardless of where it is found, whether in first truths of reason, truth of logic and reason, or Scriptural truth. Our duty is to harmonize our beliefs in such a manner that although we many have many uncertainties, we will never be seen to harbor absurdities. We may error as either philosophers or theologians. When we see an apparent absurdity, our duty is to discover which in fact might possibly be in error and to eliminate any and all absurdities from our formed ideas of truth. May God be our constant help and guide.

 

Since we are going to stick to scripture, what or who should I apply this verse to?

1 John 3:6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

If abiding in Him is equivalent to salvation as you contend, Bob, how do we fudge around verses that say whoever abides in Christ does not sin? I don't think even yourself would pretend that you were sinlessly perfect. If abiding in Christ is how we are saved, and we abide in Christ by not sinning, how can we ever even pretend to be saved? In reality what we are doing is hoping that at this moment we have prayed hard enough and repented good enough to be considered abiding and then maybe a truck will hit us before we slip up again. Is this the gospel you teach?