What exactly is the kingdom of God? Who is going there? How are we getting there?? Christians, that's who. People who are redeemed by the grace of Jesus, by His sacrifice. You can claim that the KoG is a seperate thing, but salvation leads to the Kingdom of God, be it the future one we long to go to, or just the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives now. The ONLY way to get to the Kingdom of God, to experiance it, is to recieve salvation...through Christ's death on the cross.
The kingdom of God is everything that Jesus preached. I didn’t say the kingdom of God was separate from salvation, I said, salvation is just a part of the gospel of the kingdom of God. As I said, the new birth is a means to an end. The end is the kingdom of God.
I'm familiar with Paul's crusade against the 'Judaizers'...but I think you neglect the fact that this message is pertinent to anyone who is hung up on 'rules and regulations'. It's the same principle...people say 'to be saved you must do x', while the actual fact is that to be saved, its completely what Jesus does for us.
No, it doesn’t pertain to anyone who abides by rules and regulations. You are simply taking the passage our of context. Paul is addressing a specific issue, the Mosaic Law. You are applying the passages way more broadly than Paul did, therefore it’s out of context. Especially when Paul himself said that going good deeds is seeking eternal life. Your understanding of Ephesians 2:8 contradicts Paul’s words in Romans 2:7-10. Since the Scriptures don’t contradict themselves, your understanding of Ephesians 2:8 must be incorrect.
[8] For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
(Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)
The problem is that you didn’t post the entire passage. As I said before Paul is dealing with the works of the Mosaic Law.
Ephesians 2:8-17 ( KJV )
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
This shows that Paul is speaking of the Mosaic Law. That is why proof texting is not a good method of discovering the truth of Scripture.
By saying that salvation comes through ANYTHING other than grace from God, a gift, from beginning to end; is to in effect say that we must do something to accomplish it. Which is works.
Not to accomplish it, but to maintain it. The words come from Jesus Himself.
John 14:21-24 ( KJV )
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
Luke 13:23-27 ( KJV )
Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them,
Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:
Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.
But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.
Strive to enter in, that sure does indicate that something must be done.
Revelation 3:4 ( KJV )
Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white:
for they are worthy.
They are worthy, the ones who weren’t worthy defiled themselves. So, that means those who obeyed His commands were worthy.
Read the opening words of Jesus to each of the Seven churches in Rev. 2-3. He opens to each address with, I know your deeds.
Revelation 20:11-12 ( KJV )
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and
the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
What about Paul?
Romans 2:5-10 ( KJV )
But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of
God;
Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:
But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;
But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:
There are plenty more .
Besides, don't you think if being baptised was essential to salvation that in passages like the one above, they might just mention it?
Not at all, as I said the issue was between faith and the Mosaic Law. No one was questioning baptism, they questioning salvation by faith “without” keeping the Mosaic Law.
If it was that important, I'm sure all the 'salvation' passages would have it, but they don't. John 3:16...no baptism, John 11:25...no baptism, Romans 3:20,25,28...no baptism, Titus 3:5...no baptism. They all speak of believing in Christ, believing that Jesus had died for our sins, in our place, but they do not put any condition upon it other than belief and love in Him.
Not at all, as I said baptism wasn’t the issue so there would be no need to mention it. The writers were not writing a how to manual. They were either recording the events of Jesus life or teaching the churches on specific issues.
Suppose you took a dismantled a car and while putting it back together, you and your friend disagree on how to rebuild the carburetor. You give your method and your friend gives his. As you debate back and forth do you recount the entire process of rebuilding the car each time you speak or do you simply speak of the carburetor? Well, surely you are not going to recount every aspect of rebuilding the car every time you express yourself to your friend. Well, likewise, If Paul is arguing with the Judaizers that keeping the Law is not necessary he’s not going to say, and ‘you need to be baptized’, every time he expresses himself. Nobody talks like that, so why would anyone expect the NT writers to write like that?
No, they knew that baptism was necessary and they didn’t argue like Christians today do. They took Jesus words, “He who believes and is baptized shall be save”.
You see the proper method of understanding the Scriptures is to build one piece upon another. We see that Jesus said we need to baptized, therefore we say, OK, a Christian must be baptized, then when we see John 3:16, whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life’, we know that that means we must believe and we must be baptized. Likewise when we see Paul’s word , in Romans 10 we know that we must also confess Jesus Christ as Lord. That is how one builds doctrine.
We don’t go through the Scriptures saying well, it doesn’t say this or it doesn’t say that, That doesn’t lead to truth.
And yes, while Paul does speak often against relying solely on Mosaic Law, let's not forget who his primary audience is...gentiles. The greeks and the Romans who Paul was sent to preach to would not have had deep roots within Jewish law. They were pagans, and while Mosaic rules were probably not a problem for them, they, just as we do, still had things they were accustomed to...rules, rituals. Paul was teaching them to let go of everything but Christ.
Again, you’re going beyond Paul. Paul went to both Jew and Gentile. However, as I said, it was the Judaizers going behind Paul to the Gentile converts telling them they needed to be circumcised in addition to faith in Christ. That is why he addresses works so much.
Acts 15:1 ( KJV )
And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said,
Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.
Galatians 3:1-3 ( KJV )
O foolish Galatians,
who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
Here is something to think about. Notice you only have Paul teaching about works. Many Jewish believers, even after being saved , continued to keep the Law. You don’t see any of the apostles preaching to the Jews that keeping the law is sin, nowhere. Paul himself went to the festivals.
As far as Rom 2:5-10 being (according to to my view) a contradiction of his own words, well...no it's not. A christian...that is, one who is saved, still has the choice to quench or greive the Holy Spirit. They can sit in their cosy church pew and do nothing to further the Kingdom. Are the still saved? yes, but their works and fruit are not rich. This passage talks of the rewards we will recieve for being diligent worker for the Kingdom. It does not refer to works that will get us into the kingdom. And it also talks of those who are not saved, and they indeed will be judged by two things: they do not have Christs blood covering them, and without that they will have to answer for the deeds, the works they do. The Bible does speak of both rewards for the righteous, and punishment for the wicked. Both are dealt with in terms of who deserves more, and who deserves less. For the wicked it tells that those whos sins are few, their stripes will be few. And for the righteous we are told that whoever does well will be given more.
Look at the passage in context. The reward for doing good is eternal life. How can you say those deeds don’t pertain to salvation? The ones who don’t do good only have indignation and wrath to look forward to.
Uhmmm. The passage you are talking about here is in Ephesians. As in, it was to the Ephesian Church. The Ephesian church was located in Asia, or todays Turkey. It was a pagan city and was rife with the occult and black magic (Acts 19:19). These people were probably Greek people who were also under Roman rule. They would have know Greek culture and proabably Roman culture as well, but proabably didn't have a clue or care less about Mosaic Law. Why on earth would you assume (and assumption it is, because it doesn't say any different) that this passage is addressing a peoples who were under Mosaic Law??
It’s not an assumption, it’s right there in the text. It’s likely that the leadership at this church was Jewish.
Acts 19:1-8 ( KJV )
And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth,
Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples,
He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.
And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.
Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.
When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.
And all the men were about twelve.
And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
When Paul went into Ephesus he spent 3 month in the synagogue. His initial converts would have been Jews. It would be a lot easier to establish a leadership with Jew since they were already well versed in the OT Scriptures.
The text of 2:8 and continuing shows us that Paul was speaking of the Mosaic Law
Ephesians 2:7-18 ( KJV )
That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
The Law of commandments is the Mosaic Law.
There is further support. Notice Paul tells the Gentiles that they have been brought into the covenants of promise.
Ephesians 2:11-13 ( KJV )
Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
But now in Christ Jesus
ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
He refers to the Gentiles as you who were afar off. Then He says this in contrast.
Ephesians 2:17-19 ( KJV )
And came and preached peace to
you which were afar off, and
to them that were nigh.
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners,
but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
He says that the Gentiles should be fellow citizens with the saints. The saints here is a reference to the Jews as they are contrasted with the gentiles. He opened his letter this way.
Ephesians 1:1 ( KJV )
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
So, not only were there Jews in this church it was likely that the leadership was Jewish.
If I assume, you do as well. Although I don't think repeating the Bible is making an assumption:
[For God So Loved the World]
[16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16 ESV)
You hang an aweful lot on that one passage (John 3:5), when 'water' may or may not mean actual water baptism. It is much more likely that He is speaking of being washed clean...as that's what water does. The Bible is full of imagery like this...or perhaps we should imagine the Jesus is actually a lamb?
You say that there is no proof that baptism, when it occurs, comes after a person being saved? Well, let me show you differently.
That’s because the evidence from Scripture supports it as does the evidence form the early church. I could post a multitude of quotes from the early church showing how they understood water baptism. They considered it the point were one is regenerated.
Firstly, I'd like to show you that the 'true baptism' of salvation is that of the Holy Spirit.
[11] “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
(Matthew 3:11 ESV)
Are you sure? If you look at Scripture you will see that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a manifestation of the Spirit’s power. This is different than the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. However, that is another issue.
[3] And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John's baptism.” [4] And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” [5] On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. [6] And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.
(Acts 19:3-6 ESV)
No where here does Paul say..."now quick, we must away to the river!"
Nowhere? Doesn’t it say it right there in the passage? They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Notice it was “After” they were baptized that Paul put his hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Now, baptism after believing:
[The Holy Spirit Falls on the Gentiles]
[44] While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. [45] And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. [46] For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, [47] “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” [48] And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.
(Acts 10:44-48 ESV)
Clearly the baptism came after the Holy Spirit fell on them. You may doubt that 'just believing' doesn't get you saved, but you must allow that anyone who has the Holy Spirit has salvation.
I didn’t say baptism came before belief. This is the only occurrence recorded in Scripture of this and we know from the context, that God specifically did that to show Peter that Gentiles were to be saved. God gave Peter a vision just to get him to go there. We know from Luke’s words that he is recording a historical event, he is not giving Christian teaching. Peter and Paul raised the dead, do we say that all Christians can raise the dead, no, it is something that was recorded in the Bible.
[35] Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. [36] And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
(Acts 8:35-36 ESV)
The Ethiopian heard, believed, and then was baptized.
[17] So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” [18] And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized;
(Acts 9:17-18 ESV)
Paul believes, recieves the Holy Spirit, and then gets baptised. There are many more...as well as many scriptures which say people believed and were saved...no mention of Baptism.
Why do you keep going to the belief issue? I never said baptism came before belief.
Let me ask you a question, every time you tell someone that you are saved, do you say, I am saved, I believed, I was baptized, I confessed Christ, I am obedient to His commands? I doubt you do. I suspect you simply say I am saved. If you don’t speak that way why do you expect the NT writers to write that way? No, you expect that those you speak to know what it means when you say I am saved. Well, likewise, the NT writers are writing to believers, they assume they know what being saved means. Would go into you church and explain the entire process of salvation to those who are saved? Probably not, so why world you expect the NT writers to?
I agree that we must stick to what the scriptures say. But Romans 6 is not saying that one must be baptized to be saved. It is symbolic. Paul is not arguing that baptism magically destroys the power of sin. Baptism is an outward, physical symbol of the inward, spiritual conversion of Christians. By being submerged it symbolizes that we are 'with' Christ in His death, and by coming up out of the water it symbolizes that we will 'rise' with Him. These are wonderful symbols, and as I’ve said, I do think its good for a Christian to be baptized, but they are just symbols. To say that being baptized saves us would be the same as saying the cross we wear to symbolize Christ’s sacrifice will save us. Symbols have meaning, they don't have power.
I won't get into the rest of your post at the moment, as this one is already way too long!!
As I said, I agree the water does not save. However, as I said before, It is what God does when we go into the water. Think of it like this, if we go into the water God cleanses us, if we don’t go into the water God doesn’t’ cleanse us.
Paul makes the connection between water baptism and the resurrection in Romans 6.
Romans 6:4-5 ( KJV )
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the
likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
The Greek word translated “Likeness” means an image or representation. An image or a representation is visible, it can be seen. So this baptism that Paul is speaking of here is a visible baptism. The only baptism that is visible is water baptism. He says if we have partaken in that baptism we shall be of the resurrection. That directly ties water baptism to the resurrection.
Thayer’s Greek Definitions
G3667 ὁμοίωμα homoiōma Thayer Definition: 1) that which has been made after the likeness of something 1a) a figure, image, likeness, representation 1b) likeness, i.e. resemblance, such as amounts almost to equality or identity