| Author | Message | ||
| Maryann |
Hi Chyna, Now that I started on the line of thought in last nights post and you responded with your thoughts, I'd like to continue;-) Val....It is VERY hard to have a uniform meaning to a word or phrase!!! I do know that this is very important to George, so that is why I have tried to get a discussion going on SIN that will clarify things to him. Back to the SIN V SINS: Even when one tries soooo hard to say what is in their mind, they sometimes DON'T get the it OUT quite right:-) Chyna.....Yes, Jesus DID die for ALL sin!!!!!!! Absolutely! Now, at the moment that you are saved, you believed, right? Your sin/sins were completely paid for 2000 years ago, right? The only requirement for your salvation is to BELIEVE, right? You believe right now, I believe right now, right? Our sin/sins are GONE and we are completely sinless in "GOD'S" sight, right? I am not real Bible literate as yet but I can't think of a place where it says that we are to believe and re-believe and re-believe and continue to strive for our salvation, right? (If there is a place that says that, please let me know;-) That issue of belief was already taken care of when we believed at our salvation, right? You said: "pppps, maryann, those verses about running are about our part of salvation." I must respectfully disagree with that. I DON'T believe those verses are PART of our salvation. Our salvation was complete at Calvary. I don't believe ANY of those "running" verses are PART of our salvation! THEY ARE *BECAUSE* OF OUR COMPLETE AND FINNISHED SALVATION THAT "IS" OURS *BECAUSE* WE "BELIEVED!" Therefore, in my understanding, our SIN, the sin of un-belief, the only sin that can come between us and our Lord is gone and we are now spiritually alive!;-) What about the daily things that we do that are part of our "STILL" sinful, carnal nature? Will the fact that you or I will sin today keep us out of heaven? Absolutely not! Will you or I harbor an angry thought or envious thought today? Most likely. We are still sinners in this sinful human shell! We WILL still be sinners till the Lord comes. We are forgiven sinners though!;-) Should we go out and deliberately sin that grace may abound? Absolutely NOT! The Holy Spirit is now in us to guide us and our job is to follow His promptings. So, John 3:16-18 is very clear that the only thing we have to do to be saved is to BELIEVE. That means to me that the only sin that will keep a sinner out of heaven is the SIN OF UN-BELIEF. Peter did a real nasty sin when he denied the Lord! That didn't keep him out of heaven. He still believed in the Lord! His sinful, carnal, human nature got the best of him. Let me remind you that I am in no way trying to justify the sins that we do daily and say that because of grace it is okay!!!! We are to strive daily, we are to crucify the flesh daily. If the sins that I'm refering to as SINS rather than SIN, were to be completely overcome in this life, then anyone that that completely overcomes in this life could have climbed up on the cross and died for this whole world. (I'm not saying that you said that, I'm just commenting;-) I guess I have to cut this off but will revise John 3:16 first: For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that who ever runs the race to the finish by overcoming all sins in their life like anger, lust, envy, pride will not perish, but have everlasting life. Though all sin was paid for at the cross, it sure seems obvious to me that the correct reading of John 3:16 names only one sin that WILL keep you out of heaven and that is un-belief, and there is a difference to us as FORGIVEN sinners, between the SIN of un-belief and the SINS that reek out of our sinful carnal natures. Because if the sins of our carnal natures were expected to be totally erradicated from us, no one would make it to heaven. I don't think any one human since Adam was sinless;-) I hope you come back and discuss this as I really am enjoying the back and forth with you:-) A forgiven sinner........Maryann | ||
| George |
O.K. Now I will let all of you in on a little secret and in doing so will explain my need to make things as simple as possible. It is my basic belief that everything is like an equation, it has to balance. What ever is on one side has to be balanced by something on the other side. If you don't agree that is o.k. but just try to work an algebra equation where both sides can't be made to equal. Lets use left and right as another example. If you are standing at the equator looking north and there is only left, just try and take two steps to the right. You can't do it. You can eventually get to the place you would have been had you been able to take those two steps to the right. But look how much trouble it would be, you would have to walk 27 thousand miles to the left to get there. See how much easier it is when things balance, and you have a right as well as a left? You can cut out millions of steps to the left and just take two to the right. This works with about any thing, up/down, in/out, right/wrong. Yes right/wrong, if there were no wrong we wouldn't be here as there would have been no sin. What, you may ask does this have to do with me and getting to heaven? Hang in there and I will get to that soon. If I remember things right when you have a problem in algebra you have an unbalanced equation, when you have solved it it is balanced. Check this out; 2(8-4x4-12+sq.root of 71)+x=6 When I start working this out and I come to the sq. root of 71, I have to stop as I don't know how to do sq. root so I will never know what x is. Lets make this aa simple as we can. Throw out everything after the 2 and before the +x and see what we have; 2+x=6 that's easy x=4 so 2+4=6 Why would we what to do it the hard way. Now lets look at the salvation equation; Me(+justification+new covenent-old covenent+sanctification+Christ- devil)-x=salvation. Lets work this out. Oh crud I can't, I don't know what the new covenant is, I am not sure what the old covenant is, and what is sanctification? There are three kinds of memory, long term, short term and one not many think about, working memory. We all know what long term and short term memory are. What is working memory? It is what makes us able to play A against B while considering C and then apply it to D with out losing track of any of them. Now for the little secret. My working memory ain't very good. I can figure out what A has to do with D but what does B and C have to do with them? Also I can figure out how C apples to D but what the heck am I going to do with A and B? Now, that leaves me in big, BIG trouble. Not only do I not know what some of the things in the salvation equation are, but I couldn't figure out how to apply them if I could. Now what? I either figure out how to work the long equation which I have just told you I can not do, or I throw everything out after ME and before -x and see what we have left; me-x=salvation. Well that's easy, me-sin=salvation. You can't get more simple than that and you can't be more right either. All we have to do now is figure out how we get me-sin? That is easy too, it is just me+Christ, and that equals salvation. Simple right? If it was that simple all God would have to have said is, you+me=heaven. Well He said a lot more than that, and one of the things seems to be that sins are still stirring around in the equation some where and doing damage. They either can keep us out of heaven or perhaps they will make heaven less than it could have been. Which one it is does not matter for this exercise. What does matter is if we want to get there or want it to be all it can be, we should figure what these sins are so we can take care of them. Now finally we get to the reason for this whole thread and the concept behind it. If it is as it seems to be, and, we want our heaven to be all it can be, do we have to make a list of all the sins we could commit and be sure we don't do them? (legalism) Or can we simply say, "Don't go against your conscience (beliefs) and you have them all covered." If you get the concept, please post it back to me in 50 words or less, in your own words, then we can get on to the ideas of a false conscience or no conscience at all. George | ||
| Patti |
George, In 50 words or less: Your equation will never balance. Jesus paid it all. God bless. Patti | ||
| George |
Patti, I never said He didn't. Remember I said, 'Me+Christ=Salvation.' By Me I don't mean my works, I mean just my person. Now what do we do with the rest of the Bible? George | ||
| Patti |
I am going to get really nitpicky with you, George. Please do not be offended, but I do not concur with your equation. I think it should read Christ (alone) = salvation. As for the rest of the Bible, it all points us to Christ. Everything in the Bible is either law or Gospel. The Gospel points us to the perfect righteousness and infinite mercy of Christ; the law points out our weaknesses and makes us feel our intense need of a Savior. Either way, we are directed to Jesus Christ as our full, complete and all-sufficient Savior. Grace and peace always, Patti | ||
| Valm |
Geroge, Respectfully this is not math; it will never balance into a neat little equation. You can not control it like you do the principles of math or the variable in a scientific endeavour. George, Can I balance out the equation of making love with my husband, or breast feeding my children, of comforting my boy at night when he has a night mare? Do I expect something in return or do I feel like I have to do something more to balance the equation of the joys I feel? Can I quantify love? Can I keep tally marks on who loves or shows more love? Can I assume that when my hausband neglects my car who has one tire on a banana peel or habitually leaves the milk on the counter in the morning that he loves me less than I him? Am I the better of the pair or do I do somethings that are worse? Does he loose unconditional love for me if I break my marital vows and he wishes a seperation? Do I loose my freedom in marriage by being bond to the vows that protect its sanctity? We are talking relationships here. These things do not fit neatly into packages of right/wrong black/white. They don't make sense all of the time. That does not mean I wait for them to make sense to continue my committment to them. George, it will never fit into an equation any more than those deep feelings of love we have for our familiy. It will start to make sense once you take the plunge. Valerie | ||
| George |
Patti, Would you agree with this? If I want to be saved I must ask Him? George | ||
| Patti |
Not really, George. Salvation is at God's impetus, not at our own. Salvation is HIS work. It is a gift from first to last. "No man can come to the Father unless the Spirit draws Him." Even our wanting to be saved is a gift from God; we cannot even want to be set right with God without God first drawing us to Him. We cannot even discern the Gospel, the accomplished fact of our salvation, without the gift of the Holy Spirit. The faith by which we are enlightened and comprehend God's great saving act in Jesus Christ is a gift. The power that sustains us in this blessed assurance that the grace of God in Christ is truly sufficient is a gift. The righteousness by which we can stand boldly before the throne of grace is a gift--the gift of Christ's perfect life that is credited to those who believe. There is not one particle of salvation that is our own making. It is all the work of Jesus Christ. Faith is trusting that He is worthy, that His life and death are fully sufficient for our salvation, that He is faithful and will keep His promises to us, that He will never allow anyone to snatch us out of His hands. What a refereshing and liberating thing the Gospel is! We do not have to worry about our salvation. We do not have to be our own Savior. We can live as humans, knowing that our eternal destiny is safe in the hands of the One Who, for some reason I do not understand, chose to sacrifice Himself for the redemption of mankind. Worthy is the Lamb to receive riches and honor and power and glory forever! Amen. | ||
| George |
Don't anyone be offended by what I say here. I should have said none of my long post was open to comment except the paragraph at the end of post as all of that was by way of explaining the way I think. Right or wrong it don't matter because that is the way God made me. What I find fascinating and maddening is your steadfast refusal to see the concept presented in the paragraph below, or to see there is a concept there at all. You like to tell me to take the plunge and then I will see it all clearly. But you can't get me to believe you would stand on a foggy cliff and jump, because when the fog clears you might see only rocks and then it is to late. You also can't get me to believe you didn't have this Grace thing pretty well figured out before you jumped away from SDAism. I have known what Grace is longer than some of you have been born. What I want to do now is figure out exactly what sin is to see if I want that Grace. What!!!! Am I speaking some peculiar kind of language here no one can understand. I thought it was the language of salvation. I should want to be a Former SDA and be so blind I can't see what someone is saying. No I think I would rather go back to being an non Christian or non anything. At least then, I would be able to see what people are saying. One last time, see if you can understand what I am saying in the paragraph below. I am not trying to teach you anything against the Bible. I just want to know if my idea has merit and so far you haven't got the slightest idea what I am talking about. "Now finally we get to the reason for this whole thread and the concept behind it. If it is as it seems to be, and, we want our heaven to be all it can be, do we have to make a list of all the sins we could commit and be sure we don't do them? (legalism) Or can we simply say, "Don't go against your conscience (beliefs) and you have them all covered." George | ||
| George |
Patti, "I don't know about your God but, my God ain't never going to slap none of that salvation stuff on me unless I ask Him to." And you can take that to the bank any old day you want. George | ||
| Patti |
As you wish, George. But He did slap it on Saul/Paul. And He did "slap it on" me. Stopped me right in my SDA tracks. I was not looking for the Gospel; I would have never found it on my own. I repeat, "No man comes to the Father unless the Spirit draws Him." HE sought me out, and not the other way around. There is an old hymn that I have always loved that pretty much sums up my feelings: "I know not why God's wondrous grace To me He has made known, Nor why, though unworthy, Christ in love Received me as His own. But I know Whom I have believed And am persuaded that He is able To keep that which I committed Unto Him against that day." I don't know why God revealed Himself to me in the Gospel; all I know is that He did, and there can be no turning back. All I can do is trust in His ability to deliver me as He has promised. Salvation is God's work. All we can do is respond to the promptings of the Spirit and to acknowledge that the doing and dying of Jesus Christ are fully sufficient for us. May God truly bless you this day and always. Patti | ||
| Valm |
George, I am in Patti's camp. George, once you are basking in the glow of grace all of those other things (sins) won't be a problem anymore. Yea, you will slip up sometimes. But you say to yourself "I really made a mess of things" and get back on track. If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. That is somewhere in the Bible but don't know off hand. What that means to me is that I don't deliberately go into sin. That is unthinkable for me. But if I am conscious that I really booboo up then I confess and he will cleanse me. If I am not conscious I believe he forgives me anyway. Now you might say what if I committ a sin and don't realize it? I've heard that one before. And if that is a question to you here is how I would answer it. Lets take an example of parenting small children. My first born started biting me when he was a toddler, REALLY HARD. I could not figure out why until one day I realized that when I played with his little feet, I would put his toes by my mouth and pretend I was biting them and say UMMM Toe Jam. (OK some of you are saying YUK, I am alittle strange) Well he was just returning the favor!!! He eventually learned not to bite. Would have it been functional parenting for me to punish him? Should have I just betrayed his trust in me and bit him back? NO!!! Would God punish us for a continual and habitual "sin" (if it were) if we had no knowledge, I would say no. He is the ultimate of parents!!!! Now I say I believe this. You may see it differently and that is OK by me. And Patti might have a different belief as well as your sister and Max and Denise and so on. We will not have a consensus on the fine details. Do not let that upset you and let you think it doesn't fit if we can not all specify and quantify exactly what we are talking about. We have a great enough God to cover for the booboos in our perceptions and judgement!! Now there will be the issue of the folks that say hey I live under grace and I will just say sorry and keep on doing what is wrong. Is that a true confession? Hey if my husband says honey I am really sorry I hurt you and then goes right back to doing the same thing with the full knowledge that I will be hurt, I wouldn't consider it a sincere confession, would you? Now you might say well then see that is works. And perhaps in the pure sense of the word it is. I see it this way, would we be happy in heaven if we desired to do evil? Also I see it as in my family relationships, if I broke my marital covenants, could I come back and enjoy the pleasures of my husband; that is unthinkable to me. George, I hope this helps you. No I wouldn't jump off a foggy cliff the odds are too poor. I guess I did some sizing up and found the odds of staying where I was (spiritually) much to painful to not take the plunge. | ||
| George |
Patti, Notice the part where you said: " All we have to do is respond" How do we respond? By saying yes give me this salvatioin. Did God make Saul in to Paul against his will? Or did Saul have to accept God to become Paul? You can't really believe God would slap salvation on people even if they didn't want it. If that was the case then all He would have had to do is slap everyone. End of problem. You still haven't addressed the idea of going against your conscience being what sin is. George | ||
| George |
Val, You said; Yea, you will slip up sometimes. But you say to yourself "I really made a mess of things" and get back on track. If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. That is somewhere in the Bible but don't know off hand. What that means to me is that I don't deliberately go into sin. That is unthinkable for me. But if I am conscious that I really booboo up then I confess and he will cleanse me. If I am not conscious I believe he forgives me anyway." Here you say we can sin after we are saved and we must ask forgiveness, and then God will forgive them. What I want to know is---What happens if they are not forgiven? You can't fall back on the idea that He will forgive you even if you don't ask. If that is the case, what would be the point in your asking and His granting forgiveness? Why go through all the rig-a-ma-row if we will get forgiven anyway? Rather pointless wouldn't you say? The time could be better spent on spreading the Gospel. George | ||
| Patti |
George, You are thinking about salvation in terms of something you do. It is not in my power to convince you otherwise. I can only tell you what I have come to believe: Salvation is a gift, an inheritance, if you will. The New Testament speaks of it as such. We are all children, and we will not come into our inheritance until we are "of age," until this life is over. Whether we believe it or not, the inheritance is there. If we believe it, however, it makes a great deal of difference in how we live here and now. Whether God has given this inheritance to everyone, to only the chosen, or to only those who respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, I do not know. There is evidence to support all of the above in Scripture. It makes no difference to me either way. The important thing is that we can know that this inheritance is ours, right now, even though we cannot see it, even though we had nothing to do with establishing it or earning it. It is a gift. Please forgive me if I am way off track here. You seem to be focused on what we can "get by with" and not lose our salvation. To me this is a non-issue. Our focus should not be on losing our salvation, but on ascertaining it. The "Good News" is not that we can lose our salvation. Certainly no one would consider that good news! The Gospel is the food we are to present to a starving world. I believe that, like the heir to a great fortune, the only thing that we can do to lose our inheritance in Jesus Christ is to flat-out refuse it. "No, thank you, Jesus, I do not need your mercy, I do not need your imputed righteousness." In essence this is what we are hinting at when we say that Christ's salvation is only initial; then it is up to us to complete and maintain it. And I cannot see how anyone who has seen his own extreme sinfulness and the perfection of the Lamb could ever turn his back on such a great mercy. I can only keep reiterating the battle-cry of the Reformation: Jesus Christ is our righteousness. Our salvation is based upon His work for us, not upon anything that we say, do, act, feel, or think. There are only 2 possibilities, as I said earlier: Either the work of Jesus Christ is totally sufficient for our salvation, or we must add something to it. Either we are saved by the life and death of Jesus Christ alone, or we are saved at least in part by our own work. Christ is either our Savior to the uttermost, or we usurp His authority and try to save ourselves. Only 2 choices. My question is: Do you truly believe that the doing and dying of Jesus Christ fully paid the price for your salvation? (note the adverb "fully") If you do, then your salvation (and your righteousness) is laid up in heaven (not in us) where moth cannot destroy nor rust corrupt. You are in God's hands. God bless, Grace and peace, Patti | ||
| George |
Val, What I have been trying to find out is; Are the sins you are talking about and going against your conscience one and the same thing. George | ||
| Valm |
George, You ask what if they are not forgiven. The Bible says confess and you are forgiven. The Bible says believe and you are saved. There isn't a what if here that I know of. I won't fall back on the you can't be forgiven if you don't ask. I don't believe we can just go on being rotten knowing we are being rotten and expect forgiveness. Some people will disagree with me on that I know and I am not interested in arguing my point on this. Is it a waste of time the act of contrition? NO NO NO. First and foremost while it doesn't do anything for God it does one heck of alot for me. It reaffirms in myself what my values and beliefs are, it sets me more right with myself than with God. It is healing. And the promise God made with us if confess and I forgive. I think that is pretty easy and reasonable. Now George, I am not going Biblical on this because I am not real good at handing down the quotes but I do know what forgiveness does to a person on a psychological and physiological level. It sets their mind at rest, it resolves the conflict in a positive way that both parties can feel good about. It enables the two parties to be at peace with one another when they are on occastion in company of one another. It helps the people around them feel better about the social engagements. .... If I had time I would pull quotes from books I have about the benefits forgivness has on the heart and central nervous system. Forgiveness is just plain old good. I had been really hurt once by a dear friend of mine. It festered away inside me like a wound. She was clear back on the East Coast and here I was in Seattle festering for weeks. Once I wrote her a letter letting her know how hurt I was and also telling her that I was sorry for the hurt I caused her I can't tell you how much better I felt. Now it didn't make us good friends again. The differences we had were not to be reconciled. But I can look upon her and her family with good wishes and regards. The festering was over, I quit preseverating on it. In looking at the situation I could have dug my heals in and said it was all her doing, but that was not healing the energy hole that was draining me over this. I could have said well she should apologize first, that wouldn't have helped me either. That simple act of saying I am sorry and being honest about how hurt I felt (in a noncritical way) was all I needed to get better. Perhaps God in his infinite wisdom knows that we need contrition to heal ourselves. THIS IS SELF CARE GEORGE. I am not doing it for God I am doing it for myself. I don't know if any of this is helping you out or not. But is helping me to clarify my own values. Good luck George. Valerie | ||
| George |
Patti, I have known that salvation is NOT SOMETHING I DO since 1959 and it is not in MY power to make YOU see that. I have said it so mamy ways, it is not what I do, it is what He does, I can't work my way to heaven, Jesus died for my sins so I don't have to pay for them, ALL I have to do is believe, and I will be saved. How many more ways can I say it is NOT SOMETHING I DO? Now, as to my wanting to see how much I can get away with, WHAT HAVE I SAID THAT WOULD GIVE YOU THAT IDEA? I will say again, all I have been wanting to know is, Are all the sins I could posably do, the same as going against my conscience. If they are, this thing is getting easier all the time, as NOT GOING AGAINST MY CONSCIENCE is a lot easier for me to acomplish than KEEPING TRACK OF ALL THE SINS I COULD DO. Is going against your conscience a sin? Is going against your conscience ALL sin? Out of all this thread this is all I wanted to know. It only requires a yes or no answer. Can anyone out there answer this and give me their reasons. All you have to say is YES and give me your reasons for believing that way, or NO and give me your reasons. How hard can this be? George | ||
| Max |
Patti, Thank you for returning to posting. I praise God that you wrote, ^^If we believe it, however, it makes a great deal of difference in how we live here and now,^^ if by that you mean being dead to sin (Romans 6-8). Welcome back. | ||
| George |
Val, Can't you see I am not asking what forgiveness is? I am for asking what salvation is. I am not asking what Grace is. I AM asking in a very narrow context what SIN is. George |
