I fear

From the above, I take it you feel "faith and repentance" is interchangeable with "repentance and faith", if thats not your feeling, please tell me.
But if it is indeed your feeling, then I am wondering if you see repentance as a work.
Do you feel one must change before one can be saved, or do you feel one is changed by salvation?

In previous post the word "reformed" is used. I don't know if indeed this does apply to your church or not; but I would like your impression of what "reformed" means.

thanks in advance

 

I think I would say they are interchangeable. In other words the particular word order of the phrase doesn't matter so much.

No. I don't see repentance as a "work," per se. Are there good works in the Christian life? Sure. Are they required? Yes. Do they do anything for salvation? No.

Repentance and the works that spring from repentance is, in my estimation, a work of the Spirit, primarily. Repentance is our response to the work of the Spirit (not His only work), so our repentance and good works are not primary causes but secondary responses.

I feel one is changed by salvation.

The Bible gives us a great picture of our salvation when we see Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. God never said to Moses "you tell those people to clean up their acts and maybe, just maybe after they've shown me they can be faithful, I'll remember my promise and set them free." What God did is this--He set the people free from slavery in Egypt and then gave the Law. It is no mistate that the Covenant of Sinai (the 10 Commandments) starts "I am the LORD...who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the bondage of slavery." The implication is, then, that because you have been set free by me, you will do the following and you will do it rejoicingly and willingly because of my getting you out of Egypt.

The model, then, is that God acts first in salvation and we respond. Our response, like the Israelite response, is to do the things God requires (which are for our own good anyway!), not the things of our own desires. In other words we turn from ourselves to God. But, it is all because of His primary, initiating work.

I often say: "We do not do good works in order to be saved. We do good works because we have already been saved."

I am reformed. Our church is becoming more reformed. But, it is not my primary goal to have a reformed church. My primary goal is to have a church where the people know the Bible front to back and live it out daily.

Reformed means reformed theology. The theology of Calvin in the spirit of the reformation as a whole--the "Solas." But again, making Calvinists is not my goal. I want our people to be able to read the Bible, understand the Bible, and apply to their own lives. At some point, I would love for them not to "need" a pastor to instruct them. I'd like for each person to instruct themselves. Of course a pastor is still needed for teaching, exhortation, preaching, etc...

Hope that helps.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

First let me say I am enjoying our exchange and learning from it.

Ok, that's ok in understanding; but not necessarily agreement.:smilewinkgrin:

Do you see repentance as an outward change, an inward change, or both?

I agree good works follow salvation; but I don't measure a man's salvation by his works.
And I agree "repentance and good works are not the primary causes but secondary responses" so therefore does not salvation from faith have to precede repentance making the order faith and then repentance?

I agree for one cannot change by one's self.

This is a great picture of how God saves man and I would also add the passage of Acts 7:51 where the Holy Spirit was speaking to the audience of Stephen.

Here, it seems you definitely put faith before repentance.

Since the topic is repentance, are you equating repentance with good works?

I understand the above, but that still does not tell me what you feel "reformed" means.
The word itself denotes going from something to something different as in remanufactured or remodeled.

IYO what is the change or difference when one is "reformed"?
What was the old and what is the new?

 

Me too. Thank you.

I think it is both, but they are not the same thing. Repentance is, first and foremost, a change of heart (wrought by the Spirit) which leads to a change of actions.

Well....I don't think a man's salvation is measurable. We cannot know a man's heart, only God can. So, we--as finite humans--have to look at a person's "works." That doesn't mean only his or her works. But we must look for the fruit of repentance and faith. In other words, we must become fruit inspectors. We can expect Christians to produce certain fruit and when we see those fruits on a consistent basis, we can be more sure of a person's salvation.

Not necessarily. I would argue repentance and faith are two fruits of something that God has already done. As such, the order in the phrase "repentance and faith" or "faith and repentance" is unimportant--since both are involved in the response.

No. See above.

No. But, I think good works will necessarily flow from true repentance. In other words I absolutely reject the concept that Jesus can be Savior and not be Lord. If you claim Jesus as Savior, He must also be Lord. To claim Jesus as Savior and reject Him as Lord is to reject Him totally.

"Reformed" means "Reformed Theology," "Doctrines of Grace," or "Calvinism." That's all. It points to the reformation (Luther and his 95 theses of 1517, Calvin, Zwingli, etc). The reformation, at least in Luther's mind, was intended to reform the Catholic church. It actually started the "protestant" movement.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

I agree and this is a good place to stop.

What are we looking for? You just said a man's salvation is not measurable by other men.

I have heard that many times, could you supply scripture instructing us to judge the salvation of others by the fruit they produce.

Again, I don't understand your reasoning.
First you say a man's salvation is unmeasurable by other men, then you go on and tell how to measure it.
I am beginning to feel you do believe repentance (change) is a requirement of salvation.

How does this compare with what Paul said of the matter in Rom 10:9 that one should confess the Lord Jesus and believe in the heart that God has raised Him from the dead to be saved?

I take from the above you believe true repentance brings on good works and if a person is truly saved then Jesus will be Lord of his life and he will show it with good works.
Therefore if a person does not show good works, then they really are not saved.
Are not there other religious theologies that associate good works with salvation also?

Again, I am not asking for a lesson in history, I am asking what "reformed" means to you personally.

And what does the above described movement have to do with a Southern Baptist church?
Southern Baptist were never a part of the Catholic church, we did not break away from anything in protest.
Southern Baptist is not "protestant" for there has always been truth outside the Catholic church.

 

In one sense it cannot be known (as God would "know" something). We can only do our investigation to see if the fruit of repentance and faith are present.

God knows perfectly, we don't. We make our educated adjudications about people--especially when deciding whether to grant church membership.

Matthew 7:15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

Not in a linear sense. If someone is truly saved, there will necessarily be fruits of repentance. For instance (and this is a paraphrase of something Mark Dever wrote in What is a Healthy Church) a true Christian will show the fruit of repentance by taking God's side against sin. A false believer will show his or her diseased/bad fruit by taking sin's side against God.

So, under normal circumstances, if the repentance is not present it is much more likely that a person is not a Christian since repentance flows from salvation. If a person is a one-day-old Christian we wouldn't expect to see the repentance of a one-year-old Christian or a five-year-old Christian, and so on. But, over the course of due time, we should expect to see constant and consistent repentance--taking God's side against sin and repenting of individual sins.

I don't understand what you are asking. Please explain further.

Yes, that would be accurate. Again, though, under normal circumstances he/she will show good works. We are not talking about death-bed conversions or the thief on the cross or the guy who gives his life to Christ and then, five minutes later, gets whacked by a bus and dies.

Sure. The difference is this: The other religions require good works in order to be saved. Christians do good works because we have already been saved.

"Reformed" means "reformed theology" or "Calvinism."

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

So who makes the "adjudications about people" you as the Minister, the deacon body, the local church body by vote, or do you have a board which is to judge how much penance is enough before granting church membership?

Do new converts have to go through some class to make sure they are grounded in Reformed Theology before membership is granted?

I guess to boil down my questions I could ask in your opinion how much penance of works must one perform before you are satisfied of their salvation.

Would a man having intimate relations with his father's wife be considered an act showing a lack of salvation?
Paul did not think so.

Why not? Are they different? If so, what makes them different?

(Personally I think you are confusing rewards with salvation.)

Catholic apologists seem to phrase it as:
"Saved by grace, through faith, and kept by works"

I would agree Christians should do good works because we have already been saved.
But I would not agree one must do works to prove they are saved.

This seems like pulling teeth.
Ok, "Reformed" means "reformed theology" or "Calvinism",,,
so now I will ask:
What does "reformed theology" or "Calvinism" mean to you personally?

 

Penance? Who said anything about penance? Our church has elders. We have a membership process--I interview applicant asking about their backgrounds, baptism, conversion, etc. Based on that interview, the elders discuss whether or not to recommend them for membership. Assuming they are recommended, they would be presented to the church body and the church would vote on whether or not to admit them to membership. After all, our government is "Congregational."

Yes. We have a six-section course. No, it is not the "basics of reformed theology." We go over our statement of faith (which is Calvinistic, but more than that it is orthodox and it is very close to the BF&M 200 on things like election and salvation). We go over our church covenant, the SBC, etc.

Again, I have no idea where you are getting penance. We look at their lives, their testimonies to see if repentance and faith are present as far as we can tell.

Yes it would. And Paul certainly thought so:

1 Corinthians 5:3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. 4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
​

Now, can we say for certain this man was not a Christian? No. But, the church could no longer confirm that he was--because of his persistent sin and his boasting in that sin. This was unheard of sin, even among the Corinthian people as a whole. This brought public shame on the Church and on Christ. Therefore, church discipline was enacted on this person (and it looks like it worked, in 2 Corinthians, Paul encourages the restoring of a person).

Not in the least. Under normal circumstances--baring the death-bed conversion--Christians are to produce good works. We are to produce good fruit.

It is not a proof, per se. I do not have any training in horticulture. So, I need to see oranges on a tree before I can proclaim it as an orange tree. In the same way, we look at the fruit to see if someone's life is matching their claim.

That would take way too long. In a nutshell it is the 5 "solas" of the Reformation.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

To some, repentance means a change of heart while penance means the action showing the change.
You seem to be focusing on things that can be seen by other men.

My statement below asked about salvation, not membership in a certain congregation. You seem to equate the two in your answer.
Would a man having intimate relations with his father's wife be considered an act showing a lack of salvation?
Paul did not think so.

So, can we say you feel if they do not produce good fruit, then they are not a Christian?

Ok, then in a nutshell what do you feel is the one thing all Reformed churches agree on?

 

I never mentioned penance. Repentance showing itself, and doing so naturally, in the life of a Christian is not penance. To return to the horticulture analogy--the orange on an orange tree is not the outside proof that a particular tree is, in fact, an orange tree. The tree is an orange tree and the fruit it produces is the outwardly visible sign that it is an orange tree.

The individual oranges are not the penances the tree produces to gain acceptance as an orange tree.

Yes, it deals with church membership. But the Church--while not granting salvation in any way--does act to confirm whether a particular person is a Christian. So, these things are related, but not the same.

But, you are not correct about Paul's assumptions. To exclude a person from membership in a church is tantamount to cutting off a person from the camp in Old Testament Israel. To do either of these things was to say this person who has done this thing is not one of us. By God's grace, in the New Testament, restoration is recommended and did occur.

Paul's very strong language in 1 Corinthians indicates nothing less than Paul saying this person showing fruits of a non-Christian and thereby proving himself to not be a true Christian.

Again, it isn't that I or we or whoever is declaring them to be a "non-Christian." It is that we (or whoever) cannot confirm that they are a Christians. And, if we read the Bible--OT and NT--the people of God should be easily confirmable as God's people and that confirmation comes largely through observable fruits.

I would say (and others may disagree) the one issue is the sovereignty of God in salvation. Other things might be Covenant theology (unless you're John MacArthur, to name one).

When we say sovereignty of God in salvation, we do not mean that God saves people without their knowledge and we do not mean that God saves people kicking and screaming. Rather we say that God makes the unwilling willing. Also, we say that man must have repentance and faith in order to be saved. But, we say that the aforementioned repentance and faith is a response to God's initiating work. Others will say repentance and faith on our part give permission to God to save us. We categorically reject that. God must be the Initiator and we must be the secondary responder.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

When I read the above I am hearing this:
"He must not be saved, because if he was saved; then he would believe things as I believe them."
I am not saying that is what you are saying; but I am saying that is what I am hearing.

Here I am a bit confused by your statements in the two paragraphs above.
In the first paragraph I get the indication you feel the man was saved, did not lose salvation but only fellowship with the Lord; and then was restored to fellowship with other men when the man had restored his fellowship with the Lord.
However in the second paragraph I get the indication you feel the man in question was not saved at all.

So their word alone with their testimony is not sufficient?
Sounds like you are saying they must have works to prove they are a Christian.

You continually place repentance in order before faith; therefore you must feel it comes before faith.
But you also say repentance is not unto salvation for salvation is unto repentance.
Therefore you must feel a man is saved before he shows repentance or else repentance would be unto salvation.
And since this man is saved before he has faith (which you place after repentance), then again, you must feel he is saved without his knowledge of it happening.

I rest my case.

But you just said no man is saved without that man's knowledge.

Paul says to believe in the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection and thou shalt be saved.

I agree God is always the Initiator; but you still have not answered my question of the one thing all Reformed would agree.
How does God decide upon whom to place His offer of Grace and upon whom to not?

 

Then you are not hearing what I am saying. Agreement in "beliefs" are not the issue. What we are talking about is this: Does the person's actions match his or her profession. In other words, are they claiming to be Christians while living like a non-Christian? Do they claim to be a Christian while engaging in a lifestyle that is incompatible with Christianity? Are they living in homosexual lifestyle? Are they living with someone who is not their spouse? Are they having an affair? Those are just examples. The question is this: Is there known sin that is calling their profession of faith into question?

No one who is truly saved can lose their salvation. So, that is not what I'm saying. We say that if someone falls into sin, as the man in 1 Corinthians did, it is possible that he is not a Christian. We cannot know for certain. This is why we say--when someone is put out of fellowship for persistent, unrepentant sin--that the church who dis-fellowships a person is not saying this person is not a Christian. Rather, the church is stating publicly that the church cannot any longer confirm that this person is a Christian.

If Paul is discussing this same man in 2 Corinthians, then I would say he was a Christian--because he repented of his sin.

Not that a testimony is insufficient, but we must be as sure as we can be that there is a proper understanding of the what they are giving testimony to. For example: People might profess faith in Christ but their understanding of the Bible and the Gospel may not be orthodox. They might be closer to the aberrant pseudo-theology of Joel Osteen than true Biblical theology. We would want to know that before admitting a person to membership in our church.

Works do not prove Christianity, but they do help confirm that a person is a Christian.

This is basic to the church as a whole. In the very early church there was a period of 3 years that an applicant would have to go through before being baptized and admitted to membership. Only after a careful examination of the applicant's life and testimony would this person be baptized and admitted. Nothing less than the purity of the church is at stake.

As I have stated before, the way I use "repentance and faith" could just as easily be stated "faith and repentance." I use them interchangeably and the order makes no difference to me. There is no need to read anything into this. Take my words (especially this paragraph) at face-value.

That's not exactly how he states it, but i have no fundamental disagreement with this statement.

Sure I did. I said "The sovereignty of God in salvation." I don't know how you missed that?

According to His good pleasure. That's up to Him and Him alone. But, I would say that "the offer" of Grace is not what is offered. Grace itself is given and there are many tangible results of God's giving Grace (specific, salvific Grace, not common Grace).

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

Let me say I have enjoyed our conversation; but I still am not completely sure of your position.
Personally I see very little difference in saying salvation is not dependant on works; but if works are not visible, then there is no salvation in relation to the salvation of members of the Body of Christ in this day and time.

However I don't see how further discussion would clear this because I feel you have said what you have said and any further discussion would most likely be a repeat of what has been said.

But let me ask this one last question:

Suppose I had to relocated to your city and am looking for a church home. I am Southern Baptist, so I ask for membership to your congregation with transfer of letter.

My testimony:
I am saved by the free gift of the Faith of Christ through the washing and regeneration of His blood.
When I believed on the Gospel of Grace I was spiritually circumcised by the Holy Spirit which separated my soul from my body so the sins of the body no longer stain my soul.

I believe that in the future Jesus will return in the air and call out His Bride, the true Church, before the 7yr period of Great Tribulation which will be followed by the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when He will then setup His physical Kingdom on earth over which He will rule and reign for one thousand years.
This Kingdom will be the fulfillment of prophetic statements in which God promised a physical land to the Nation of Israel.
Therefore I do believe God is not finished dealing directly with the Nation of Israel and I totally reject any notion that the Body, the true Church, has replaced the Nation of Israel in the reception of said promises.

I view myself as a Bible Believing Christian and do not hold to the views of Augustine, Calvin, Luther, or any other Reformed man.
----------

So, in view of my above testimony, would I be granted membership to your congregation?

 

Hello Archangel,

I saw the above in another thread and it brought our discussion to mind.

 

I don't hold to a dispensational eschatology. I'm closer to amillennial. That, however, has no bearing on membership in our church. For us the important thing is that you believe Jesus will return.

As far as your testimony is concerned--it's fine. But, it is not all the information we'd want to know. We'd ask you to explain the Gospel in two minutes or less, we'd ask you about your past church experienced (whether you've been disciplined by any church and why), we'd ask about your baptism and your understanding of it, we'd have you sign our statement of faith and our covenant. And, all this would come after you attended our new members class--all six sessions.

So, no, your testimony alone would not be enough to attain membership in our church. But, your testimony is a good step in the right direction.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

Archangle, thanks for your reply.

 

You're welcome. And, for the record, it's "Archangel." Again...no geometry in my moniker.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

I am terribly sorry for the misprint. Let me assure you it was an honest mistake with no motive or intent. :tonofbricks:

 

Not a problem. I didn't think it intentional. It is an easy misprint to make--I've done it several times myself.

Blessings,

The Archangel