Comm
This statement is not entirely true. I mean the term "unmerited"! I have never liked the expression as its can lead one into thinking we have "unconditional" love and favour...which is clealry not Scriptual.
Faith is not passive! Heb 11:1,6
By grace through faith
- Thread starter Prentis
- Start date
-
Welcome to Christian Forums, a Christian Forum that recognizes that all Christians are a work in progress.
You will need to register to be able to join in fellowship with Christians all over the world.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Comm
This statement is not entirely true. I mean the term "unmerited"! I have never liked the expression as its can lead one into thinking we have "unconditional" love and favour...which is clealry not Scriptual.
Faith is not passive! Heb 11:1,6
Not really. We do not become 'worthy' first, and then receive it. God's Word shows that none of us are worthy, for that would be to apply the idea that we 'earned' in order to receive it.
When the unbeliever trapped in all the world's woes begins to look to God through His Son, and repents in asking forgiveness and direction from Him, believing on Him by Faith, THAT's when God's unmerited favor is bestowed.
For some others, those of His elect chosen ones, His Grace is often bestowed upon them before... they even ask. And those really do show the greatest principle of God's unmerited favor. Apostle Paul was a primary example of that, since he was on the way to Damascus with a letter of authority from the Jews to hunt down Christians.
Im not saying that I'm cofused about the op. I mean in the sentence favor is the subject, that we are God's favorites for no reason. I don't think about that at all actually so it is a new concept or misconception for me.
We do not have to become worthy of it first.
But as I said, the servant must be OR become worthy. Some people have cried out to God and dedicated themselves and seeked and THEN received his filling. Others just received it by his power. But though the details of our race and what it looks like is different for all, what is the same for all in our race is that we must be or become worthy of what the Lord has given us and give him glory with it.
We must learn to be faithful.
And that's after... we have come to Christ and believed on Him, not before, except for His elect chosen ones.
Comm,
Our involvement in salvation is very limited in many respects. Consider Rev 3:21. Its about active obedience which will guarantee a victory over personal sins; over the world and its temptations; over trials of life which we all endure.
Insight
Also, I expect Noah rarely (if ever) talked about grace! And yet he found it! Certainaly men like Yancey no very little about the subject, thou they write their many books.
How do you interpret those whom our Lord Jesus spoke of in John 17? How do you account for Christ's Divine intervention with Saul (Apostle Paul)?
We were all dead in our sins. I agree that God does choose who will be saved. Obviously He chooses some for special purposes.
2 Thessalonians 2:13 (NKJV)
13 But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth,
Otherwise we would all still be dead in our sins.
This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. 1 Tim. 2:3&4
This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, [fn]for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers. 1 Tim. 4:10
Won't work Jiggy.
Matthew 13:40-42 (NKJV)
40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Hey Prentis, can I just clarify a few things here??
Are you saying that grace is given as a free gift initially, but then if we don't 'shape up' we loose our salvation??
Now, I totally agree that once our hearts have been regenerated we then desire to walk with Jesus, that process of sanctification going on until we meet him face to face.
But I cannot agree that our continuing salvation is dependant on us being good. Because even saved as we are, we stumble and fall all the time. We know that works has no part in our salvation...that they are proof of it and something that we know is good...for others and for giving glory to God, but nothing more. If our continued salvation rests with us and what we do, doesn't that land squarely in the 'works' camp...as it's something we do...not what God does for us??
We 'shape up' because we're saved, not to continue to be saved.
I hope you're right Jiggy. I can't lose!
Alas, the warnings are still there.
Matthew 25:41-46 (NKJV)
41 Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
BTW Jiggy, eternal and everlasting are the exact same Greek word. Do you believe eternal life ends?
See, I htink there are many coined phrases in Christendom that we've added meaning to that isn't there.
We don't 'get saved' in an eternal sense. It says many times things like endure to the end and you WILL be saved. We are saved now in the sense that now, God gives us a new heart and we are saved from our own corruption. But we must actively walk away from this. There is no such thing as getting an assured salvation. God says, if a righteous man turn from his ways on the last day of his life and does evil before the Lord, all his righteousness will be forgotten.
The desire to be able to say 'I'm eternally saved!' and 'I have attained' is purely human, not from God. Paul himself says 'not as though I had already attained (Christ), but I press on', and 'WOE is me if I do not preach the gospel'.
The Gospel of Jesus is not a gospel of free pass, it is a gospel of power to overcome.
Of course, the Lord is merciful, and if we are humble and confess our weaknesses, he forgives us. But that is only the first step of the gospel, to start doing what is right, and become humble and repentant, so that in our wrongs we cry to God for forgiveness.
But Christianity calls to faith that indeed, if we obey Christ, we can do all things through him. He can live through us and make us as him. If man CONTINUE in the way that is right, he will be saved. It is required of stewards that they be faithful.
Thanks for your reply Prentis! I understand better now....not sure I agree, but I get where you're coming from!
I don't think that once we are saved we can then act as we choose and ride grace all the way to the gates! But I do believe that once a person is saved, he then belongs to Jesus. There are cases of 'Christians' turning from Jesus...but I think we must question if they were ever truly saved...plenty people confess with their mouths but simply do not live it out. Then there are true Christians who go through rough patches. I believe that God will always draw them back to him. God says that he has elect those he foreknew. Do we really think that if God predestined us to be his children before the world began, that we can foil his will in regards to our lives just through stubbornness?
The main reason I know my salvation is assured, is because that it's not dependant on me. The only reason I can say that I will be saved at the end is because I know it is Christ's strength, his righteousness, his sacrifice that is placed on the scales, not my own. That was the whole point of it all....the whole point of his death, of our becoming 'born again'. It's all about Jesus, not about us. We already had our chance, and blew it in the garden. From here on out my salvation rests solely on Jesus, and as I'm completely his, and I know that he is in me, no matter how I stumble and fall, not matter how I struggle, fail or succeed, it's still all about him! So while I live my life for him, spending every moment trying to get closer to him, in the end it's got nothing to do with my actions and everything to do with Christ's. If I stand before God at the end and say "well yes, Jesus gave me a pat on the head and nudged me off on the right track, but then the rest was me!"....you do see the problem, yes? If I instead say "I have nothing to offer you, but the work of Jesus, whom I love"....you see how that works? It can't be about me and what I do...it has to be Jesus. Sure, I will spend my life trying to reflect God glory...I'll spend my life fighting sin and trying to be more like Christ...I'll tell others about him and do my best to live a life he would approve of, but it's entirely in response to what Jesus has already done for me....that being...my assured salvation!!
The way is narrow, we may walk on it for a while and fall away. Man never was 'eternally saved', so there is no way we can question whether he was 'saved' or not. He had been saved, just as those who are in Christ were, only he didn't persevere. Christ never speaks of the assurance of glory, only the hope of it. We have a Lord to attain and be conformed to!
The Lord says 'abide in me and I in you'. We are to be in Christ, and ABIDE there, yes, that is up to us.
God loves all, he did not pick us to be his children because he 'loves us more'. We were chosen that we might shine his light and do his works. If a man only knows the law, he is held accountable by the Lord to be obedient in that. If a man has a revelation of Christ Jesus, he is held accountable to be obedient to the revelation. Otherwise God loves those who received more, more. But God is not a respecter of persons.
If we have been called by the Lord we should fear Him, knowing we have received favor and must answer as to what we did with it. Burrying a talent and saying 'there, I have the talent, I'm saved' is a dangerous path to tread. We are to bear fruit with what God gives, otherwise we are unfaithful servants, and will be cut off and cast out.
The grace of God is a tool, an empowering so that we can be like him and do what pleases him.
The Lord says 'abide in me and I in you'. We are to be in Christ, and ABIDE there, yes, that is up to us.
God loves all, he did not pick us to be his children because he 'loves us more'. We were chosen that we might shine his light and do his works. If a man only knows the law, he is held accountable by the Lord to be obedient in that. If a man has a revelation of Christ Jesus, he is held accountable to be obedient to the revelation. Otherwise God loves those who received more, more. But God is not a respecter of persons.
If we have been called by the Lord we should fear Him, knowing we have received favor and must answer as to what we did with it. Burrying a talent and saying 'there, I have the talent, I'm saved' is a dangerous path to tread. We are to bear fruit with what God gives, otherwise we are unfaithful servants, and will be cut off and cast out.
The grace of God is a tool, an empowering so that we can be like him and do what pleases him.
Ducky your refusal to deal with all of the scriptures makes it obvious that this discussion has become futile, to continue would warrant an in depth look at the Hebrew and Greek texts of which seems to exceed the range of your comprehension level.
Hope you mature and grow in the knowledge of Christ. God bless
Respectfully, I disagree. The grace of God is not just a tool...it is everything. Jesus did not suffer death and isolation from the Father just to give us the ability to work towards God's throne. Jesus died to take all our sins away...to propitiate...the one action took away the Father's wrath that was directed against us. The Bible says that that wrath is removed...not hovering, ready to come back...but gone.
[21] For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)
[9] Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. [10] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. [11] More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
(Romans 5:9-11 ESV)
[16] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
(Ephesians 2:16 ESV)
[19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. [21] And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, [22] he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, [23] if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. (Colossians 1:19-23 ESV)
Paul here says "if you continue"... The form of this phrase in Greek (using the Gk. particle ei and the indicative mood of the verb epimenō) indicates that Paul fully expects that the Colossian believers will continue in the faith; no doubt is expressed.
Nevertheless, the statement does show that faithfulness to the end is essential in the Christian life...I would not debate that...what I'm saying is this: for a person who is truly saved, who has truly had their heart renewed...it is their desire to live and walk with Christ always. It comes hand in hand with the assurance of salvation. It's like the showing of a persons deeds...their fruit. Works will not get us salvation, but they show we are already saved. Following the scriptures and walking that line will not get you salvation, but once we are saved, we desire to do what Jesus demanded of us...and we do it from joy, not necessity. The whole deal is this....once saved we follow Jesus and live for him in faithfulness....not because we have to, but because we get to...and therein lies the joy!
ps....you know it suddenly occurred to me that probably our resulting lives are not that different....we both live for Jesus....the difference is...and I feel it's rather huge...is that I do it from joy...not from concern I may loose what was given freely.
Similar threads
