| Author |
Message |
Gorancroatia
Registered user
Username: Gorancroatia
Post Number: 63
Registered: 6-2010
| | Posted on Friday, August 27, 2010 - 6:56 am: |     |
Colleen, what do you say about this verse:
Gen 26:5 "Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."
? |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 1364
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 27, 2010 - 7:48 pm: | |
Goran;
"For what does the scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.'" Romans 4:3
You see, Abraham believed God and moved to the country that God had him move to. He TRUSTED God. |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 1365
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 27, 2010 - 8:03 pm: | |
And I'd like to add that when a person is saved, the Holy Spirit comes to live in that person and He is the One Who changes the person's life. That's why this New Covenant is called "the ministry of the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:8). We're not in "the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones" (2 Corinthians 3:7)any longer. That's why the 10 Commandments were in the Ark. It was death to look in the Ark. The mercy seat - Jesus - covered it.
Once we're saved, how we live depends upon whom we're looking at. Ourselves to see how good we're doing? Or are we looking at God? But FIRST a person needs to be saved!!! |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11615
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 12:10 am: | |
Goran--that verse is in a context which you did not mention. God is reiterating His covenant with Isaac, and He is telling Isaac that He will multiply his descendants not because Isaac is obedient, but because Abraham trusted God, and He promised these things to Abraham.
God's commandments exceed the Ten. God has given MANY commandments, including "Don't eat of that tree" to "Don't add any words to this book." To try to make Genesis 26 say Abraham kept the ten commandments is to read something right into the Bible that is not there.
Moreover, to insist that Genesis is referring to the law which came years later and was not recorded until Exodus is to ignore the plain meaning of the words. Furthermore, Galatians 3 states that the law was given 430 years after Abraham, and it was to last until the Seed.
The plain words of Scripture have clear, standard meanings. To read any other meaning into them is to rewrite the Bible according to our image instead of allowing it to rewrite our paradigm into a biblical one.
Colleen |
Gorancroatia
Registered user
Username: Gorancroatia
Post Number: 64
Registered: 6-2010
| | Posted on Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 11:42 pm: | |
Plain context was : Abraham. When you try to do contextualization you become an interpretative. Then there is no further understanding. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11617
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 12:05 am: | |
Goran, are you saying the individual verses of the Bible can be read individually and understood apart from the verses around them?
That is exactly what Adventist proof-texting does.
Colleen |
Gorancroatia
Registered user
Username: Gorancroatia
Post Number: 65
Registered: 6-2010
| | Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 2:43 am: | |
Collen,
1. we already before have understanding that salvation is by faith alone; only that I said that faith do not abolish Law
2. Law was known to Abraham, and to Egyptians, before that was GIVEN to Israel on Sinai, that is plain from Bible, not by individual reading of one verse, but that one verse is very interesting conclusion by God himself. |
Grace_alone
Registered user
Username: Grace_alone
Post Number: 1772
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 7:01 am: | |
Goran, "Law was known to Abraham, and to Egyptians, before that was GIVEN to Israel on Sinai, that is plain from Bible, not by individual reading of one verse, but that one verse is very interesting conclusion by God himself."
What law were you referring to, and will you please support your answer with Scripture?
 Thanks,
Leigh Anne |
Patallen
Registered user
Username: Patallen
Post Number: 88
Registered: 7-2010
| | Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 8:29 am: | |
Written law was given 430 years AFTER Abraham. When the Bible states that Abraham kept all of God's commands, decrees, etc., these were verbal commands or dreams instructing Abram what to do and Abram obeyed.
Examples: God spoke to Abraham. Genesis 12:1 reads, "The Lord had said to Abraham, "Leave your country..."
Genesis 13:17 "Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you."
God speaking through a vision. Genesis 15:1 reads, "After this the word of God came to Abram in a vision...."
Genesis 17:1, 11 reads, "When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said....(vs 11) You are to undergo circumcision and it will be the sign of the covenant....."
Abraham was referred to as God's friend (James 2:23). Friends love to talk to each other, share and please each other.
Pat |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 1371
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 11:21 am: | |
Ah... I think you're not talking about the Ten Commandments at all. Isn't that right Goran? You're simply saying "law" is meaning anything that God tells a person to do, right?
In case you are refering to the Ten Commandments though, have you read what Moses told Israel just before repeating those Ten Commandments to them?
"The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive." Deuteronomy 5:2,3
(In the chapter before, Deuteronomy 4:13, Moses again referred to the covenant made between Israel and God, saying: "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.")
In case you were wondering though, we in the New Covenant are not lawless. God writes His laws on our hearts though the Holy Spirit. We don't have to examine our behaviour though. The Holy Spirit works His will in us! Yea!!!!! |
Gorancroatia
Registered user
Username: Gorancroatia
Post Number: 66
Registered: 6-2010
| | Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 11:34 pm: | |
You are not discerning beetween covenant and everlasting measure of righteousness.
First,see this:
1. Gen 20:1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
Gen 20:2And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She [is] my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
Gen 20:3But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou [art but] a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she [is] a man's wife.
and again, the same thing was also with Egyptians; you can find it yourselfs in Gen.
GOD made known His commandment about adultery to Abimelech, and also to Pharaon in other case. That do not mean that God has made the COVENANT with them, but they were subjected to Gods measure of righteousness.
2. Second, if you prefer Romans, there is plain statement there:
Rom 2:13(For not the hearers of the law [are] just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
Rom 2:14For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.
We see here that Gods Law is by nature known to men. Can it be plainier than this?
Confusion is when we try to give away with adventism that we become fanaticaly against the Law. (and yes Law is 10 comm).
On the other hand, all of us in our daily living do keep Gods Law. Even, state legislatives are based on the Gods Law. We do not steal, rob, cheat, kill, worship idols, envy will lead us to take other peoples possesion by criminal act. We do not do that, or if we do, we can end up in jail. Even FA which declare that every day is the same, do worship on sunday. So, we are keeping the Law, but can have disputes on which day we should worship and etc.
It is funy to say that we are not under the 10 comm. because we all are, even if we are not believers.
(Message edited by GoranCroatia on August 29, 2010) |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11623
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 - 4:40 pm: | |
Goran, unbelievers ARE under the curse of the law. That curse was the POINT of the law--to reveal what sin was and to instruct Israel that to break the law means they must die.
But keeping the law couldn't make them right with God. They were going to die with or without the law, Romans 5 explains. Death reigned in all men because Adam sinned (Rom 5:14). They had to have some way to be freed from DEATH--the legacy of all humanity since Adam. No law would be part of that freeing.
Only a perfect Sacrifice of human blood could free us from death.
God's "law" is NOT the Ten Commandments. To be sure, God gave the Ten Commandments, but God's LAW existed before creation, and it included the "laws of everything": physics, biology, life, death--God Himself is the SOURCE of law. It is this attribute of God that is known to the Gentiles of Romans 2:14. God reveals Himself so that all men are without excuse (Romans 1:18-20).
Jesus explained in the sermon on the mount (Matt 5-7) that the law which those who will be justified must "do" is NOT the Ten Commandments but the much deeper heart obedience which can only happen when a person is born of the Spirit. We don't have "heart obedience" by wanting to please God and then doing the law. Paul condemns this sort of thing, and even Isaiah said our good deeds are as filthy rags.
It is only the actual presence of the Holy Spirit that can give us the heart of Jesus. He gives us Himself, and we begin to "do" the law when we submit to Him and surrender to Him our desires and temptations and weaknesses and feelings of revenge and control.
Those Gentiles of Romans 2:14 were not doing by nature the Ten Commandments; they were doing God's law of loving one another and acting with compassion and justice because they believed in the power of the God who revealed Himself to them through what has been created (see Romans 1:18-32 again). They were honoring God without any attention to written commands. They were simply responding to the God who was revealing Himself to them.
Goran, we have to read the words of the Bible without interpreting them. Galatians tells us the law was temporary, and we are to cast out Mt. Sinai and the bondwoman because her children have no share at all in the inheritance.
Unbelievers are under the curse of sin which the law revealed in clear words. Believers are NOT under the law--see Romans 3:21-26; Romans 4-5; Romans 7:1-7; Romans 8; Galatians 3 and 4; Phil. 3:8-11; 2 Cor 3:4-18.
Believers live by the Spirit who makes the entire word of God alive and pierces them to the heart. We don't look to, answer to, or measure ourselves by the law when we are born again. Instead, we are under the intimate and personal tutelage of the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin that is completely outside the commands of the Ten Commandments. He disciplines us (Hebrews 12:1-12) and teaches us.
The law was a shadow (Heb. 10:1); Jesus is the REALITY.
Colleen |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 1378
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 - 8:13 pm: | |
Goran; do you believe that a person can only be saved (or partly saved, where Jesus "makes up the difference" like cults teach) if he/she keeps the law? (Any law/laws) If so, how do they know they're "keeping" it/them? I've heard of people who think they're sinless and others who are "striving" toward perfection.
Since Isaiah 64:6 says that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," how can we "strive" toward perfection/keeping the law. Like Colleen said, the Holy Spirit changes lives and hearts. If our focus is on the law, then we are constantly looking at ourselves to see how we're doing. That's impossible because our "righteousnesses are as filthy rags" like Isaiah says and we're looking through sin-tainted glasses! |
Gorancroatia
Registered user
Username: Gorancroatia
Post Number: 67
Registered: 6-2010
| | Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 - 11:34 pm: | |
Answers:
"Those Gentiles of Romans 2:14 were not doing by nature the Ten Commandments; they were doing God's law of loving one another and acting with compassion and justice because they believed in the power of the God who revealed Himself to them through what has been created (see Romans 1:18-32 again). They were honoring God without any attention to written commands. They were simply responding to the God who was revealing Himself to them."
How they did that before they have been in "deeper heart obedience which can only happen when a person is born of the Spirit." ?
10 comm. do not have must "do" they have must "donts". Like: Do not do that, and God will do rest.
Galatians, are talking to Gentiles that thay dont have to come under Sinai covenant, because there is now a new covenant.
Person will be saved by Jesus and Spirit will teach a person how to please God, not to be saved, but because that every thing that is created is created for Gods pleasure and glory.
10 comm. is a form for sinful world, and when all become new than there is other form of Gods will, but the esence of Gods Law is to akcept God suprememacy over our life.
We are not called to keep the Law, but the righteousness of Law will be writen on our heart by the Spirit of God, if we call Jesus to save us.
New testament is plain when say that no murderer or etc. will be saved. Even in Galatians sais that:
Gal 5:18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Gal 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Gal 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 1385
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 10:17 am: | |
Goran; do you believe that when a person accepts Christ that ALL their sins; past, present and future are forgiven? |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11638
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 5:52 pm: | |
Good question, Asurprise. Goran, the Bible does not say the "righteousness of Law will be written on our heart by the Spirit of God."
Rather, Romans 3:21-22 says: "But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe."
This verse says the righteousness written on our hearts is apart from the law, and it is literally "the righteousness of God". Moreover, it says this literal "righteousness of God" was witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets. The Law and the Prophets foreshadow and foretell the miracle of God writing His Own Personal Righteousness on our hearts. It is not the Law God writes on our hearts. It is HIMSELF.
Paul says he suffered the loss of everything of value to him so he could "gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith."
And this from 2 Corinthians 5:21: "[God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Again, we do not get the righteousness of the Law; we receive and become the righteousness of God. This does not mean we become obedient. The Bible NEVER says we become perfectly obedient. That is a false teaching. Rather, it says we receive God's own righteousness--Jesus Himself is credited to our account.
The indwelling Holy Spirit makes our spirits alive, and we are eternally alive with God's resurrection life. He Himself lives in our mortal bodies when we are born again, and His own righteousness is thus written on our hearts. It has nothing to do with obedience or behavior.
Our new Life and new hearts will have new desires and loves, and we will begin to do things more in line with reality and biblical truth--but these things are the RESULT of salvation. They are NOT "righteousness".
When we are saved, we have God's righteousness imputed to us. After that, we produce fruit--but the fruit is not righteousness.
Only God is righteous and holy.
Colleen |
Gorancroatia
Registered user
Username: Gorancroatia
Post Number: 68
Registered: 6-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 11:09 pm: | |
ok. than Galatians 5:21 is wrong. We christians can murder peoples in past, present and future.
Good news !
(Message edited by GoranCroatia on August 31, 2010) |
Skeeter
Registered user
Username: Skeeter
Post Number: 971
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 8:33 am: | |
If you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in your life there is NO way you could even consider "murdering" anyone. Although Jesus said if we hate our brother we have murdered him in our heart... but to actually, physically murder someone to take their physical life and take them away from their loved ones... NO !
OK... someone give Goranctoatia a better answer, cause I am just feeling kind of stunned by his reasoning. :-( |
Clintonc
Registered user
Username: Clintonc
Post Number: 66
Registered: 10-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 10:52 am: | |
GoranCroatia,
You are missing the work of the Holy Spirit, which is fully God just as much as God the Father and Son. The Holy Spirit guides us in what is right and wrong. The Spirit teaches us and leads us in the right way. I don't know why we all feel the need to have written out word for word every little thing we should and shouldn't do.
The Holy Spirit is sufficient! This is a big part of the New Covenant. Not the letter, but by the spirit.
I love what Mark Martin said when people would say to him "Oh, you're just giving people a license to sin!" He would reply "Well, you've been sinning for years without a license. Why are you now concerned for those who don't have one?" |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 1386
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 11:11 am: | |
Goran; before a person is born again, all that person can do is sin. Every thought is tainted with sin, their motives are selfish, ect. They don't have a choice. It's only after a person is born again (born/filled of the Spirit) that they have a choice at all. As SDAs we didn't understand this. We just had the "TRUTH!"
So if you're just looking at the law and trying to follow it, the Bible says your righteousness is as filthy rags - Isaiah 64:6. Therefore your best efforts to keep it are sin. For example, if a person hates someone, but doesn't kill him; Jesus said that person still has committed murder. When a person is born again, the Holy Spirit comes into the person's heart and starts working; but the person HAS BEEN SAVED from the moment he/she accepted Jesus. (Ephesians 2:8,9; 2nd Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5) Again, most SDAs don't have any idea of the work of the Holy Spirit, - I know I didn't. All they "know" is that they have the "truth," from Ellen White.
Goran; it isn't me that said a believer's sins, past, present and future; have been forgiven. Notice what the apostle John said in 1st John 2:12. "I am writing to you, little, children, because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake."
John couldn't have written that to the believers if their sins - past, present and future - weren't forgiven. By the time they got the letter, they would each have committed several more! (And also Paul couldn't have said that a believer HAS BEEN saved (see those verses earlier in this same post) or that a believer has been SEALED with the Holy Spirit when they believe - Ephesians 1:13,14 - if a person's sins weren't forgiven, past, present and future.
Goran; when Jesus died, He died for the sins of the WHOLE world - sins clear back to Adam and Eve and sins clear forward to the end of time.
Goran, how many of your sins were future when Jesus died? All of them. Jesus paid for them back then and all you have to do is accept His free gift. If you say; "oh, goody! Now, I can go murder and steal and lie!" then you don't understand grace and the work of the Holy Spirit.
(Message edited by Asurprise on September 01, 2010) |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11647
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 12:57 pm: | |
Goran, have you asked Jesus to be your Savior and Lord? Have you agreed to give up trying to be sure your life is obedient and submit to Him as Your Savior and Substitute?
If not, the reality of God writing HIMSELF on your heart will make no sense. God doesn't give us details to explain to us how our lives will be better if we accept Him; He gives us His word, and He asks us to TRUST HIM. Saving faith is not something we generate ourselves. It is a gift from God.
God reveals Himself and His faithful promises to us through His word, but if we insist on analyzing the words and refuse to take them at face value, we rationalize away the miracle of TRUTH.
Goran--God is asking you to trust Him. He's asking you to submit your mind to His word and to give up your "right" to analyze His word so you understand it. Ask Him to help you read the Bible without an Adventist or other manmade system coloring your understanding. Ask Him to teach you with His own Spirit what He knows you need to know as you read.
Surrender to God your "understanding" and submit to His word and to His Spirit. God is faithful; He will not leave you confused.
Confusion is not from God; it is always an evidence that deception is clouding your understanding. Satan specializes in confusion. God's truth clarifies--but only when we surrender our beliefs and identities to Him. Unless we are willing to lose what we love—even if that "thing" is our intellectual understanding and our worldview—we remain conflicted.
God really is asking you to trust Him and to trust His word. Ask Him to give you faith to believe what is true, and to reveal His truth to you.
With prayers for you,
Colleen |
Gorancroatia
Registered user
Username: Gorancroatia
Post Number: 69
Registered: 6-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 11:02 pm: | |
So, you gays said that Spirit will not lead me to killings. So the Spirit will keep me from doing sin. Spirit will than fulfill the Law for me and not I myself.
Thanks. You are truly converted me that Law is not abolished.
I now thanks to you gays understand that (Rom 7:14) For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. So, only if I asked Jesus to be my Savior I will not commit murder or any other sin like adultery etc.
Thanks! You are top of me and I cant measure with you great enlightening. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11653
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 02, 2010 - 7:46 am: | |
Correct, Goran--because in His Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5 though 7), Jesus explained that adultery is not just a physical act; if you even have a lustful thought, you have committed adultery and broken the law. If you even become angry with your brother, if you insult him or call him a fool...you have committed murder and broken the law.
Yes, we are carnal and sold under sin, and the law is spiritual, condemning us even for our thoughts and instinctive desires. We are condemned for having fleshly responses internally.
There is no person ever to live on earth except our Lord Jesus who avoided even sinful fleshly desires. The law was not given to show us how to be good but to show us, as JEsus pointed out, that we CANNOT avoid sin. Period. It is not possible for us to avoid sin. The law does not bring our flesh under control (Col 2:20-21).
Only if the Lord Jesus is our Savior can this happen—and it happens because the Holy Spirit comes to us and dwells in us. When we accept Jesus' blood as our payment for our completely hopeless sinfulness, we receive the perfection and righteousness of God making our dead spirits alive.
When we accept Jesus, we literally have God IN Us. He changes our perceptions and gives us new hearts. He changes us from self-gratifying, control-seeking, arrogant and judgmental slaves to sin and give us the power to yield to Him when we're faced with temptation. He gives us the insight and ability to surrender to His power and His will instead of driving ourselves crazy fighting with sin.
We can't win the battle with sin. We can only surrender to the One who has defeated evil and accept His power to change our impulses at the moment we are tempted. Instead of having willpower to avoid sinful acts, we now have the strength of the Holy Spirit and the love of our Perfect Sacrifice to surrender to Him when we feel out-of-control or powerfully tempted.
We surrender to Him instead of struggling with lust or anger. We surrender to Him instead of lashing out defensively. Love covers a multitude of sins, and He who loves His neighbor has fulfilled the law (Romans 13:8).
Love as Jesus explained it—loving one another as He loved us—which means being willing to lay down or lives for His sake so another can be saved—is utterly impossible for humans, and the law will never help us love. Only God is love, and only when God is in us and has given us His Spirit and a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone can we love.
I know you're angry with us right now, Goran, but we understand this anger, for we felt similarly before we took the words of Scripture literally and allowed the Lord Jesus to show us Himself.
I am praying, Goran, that you will meet Jesus in a powerful new way and be overwhelmed by His mercy and grace. I am praying for you to experience the miracle of being made alive to God in Christ Jesus and thus dying to sin (Rom 6:1-11).
Colleen |
Gorancroatia
Registered user
Username: Gorancroatia
Post Number: 70
Registered: 6-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - 11:25 pm: | |
Thank You Colleen,
I was cynic and apologise. I felt like you avoid argumentation. Your last post is one short and good explanation of Gospel.
I think that we can say : New Covenant absorb the Old, Mercy is overtaking, so Law is not abolished but overcome. Something like that.
By the way I recived new Proclamation! yesterday and enjoy reading it like always. It is full of Jesus. It was on Web early but I like it more when paper is in hand, even woke up today early at 4:45 in the morning and read it (without intention of will).
Stay well. |
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All finished on the cross?
