The Bible teaches repentance unto confession, not confession unto repentance

[CadyandZoe]

He commands having the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My math teacher always said, "prove your answer." Show me where James commands faith. He doesn't. He is speaking about those who claim to have faith.

He commands having His faith without sinning.

He commands having His faith with good works.

He commands repenting of having dead faith and do the works of God.

He doesn't command anything. He invites those who claim to have faith to live according to the faith they confess. And he doesn't speak about "good works" as you suggest.

James talks about the "perfecting" of faith or the "completion" of faith. He argued that Abraham's faith was "perfected" with his works. The concept behind "perfection" is the concept of "maturity" or "completion", which is illustrated with the example of an acorn and a pine tree. The acorn is a potential pine tree and remains a pine tree throughout the growth process, but once the pine tree has grown to its full height, the pine tree has been "perfected" or "completed" or "matured."

In other words, faith is like the acorn and faith carries with it an expected set of actions. And when faith has resulted in these actions, faith is completed or made whole. In this way, James argues that Abraham's works were the perfection of Abraham's faith. Our faith, also, should result in a particular set of actions that are closely associated with our faith.

James isn't commanding faith or works. He simply argues that works should accompany faith if it is genuine faith.

No unbeliever could have said it better.

Your insults are masking the truth. A common mistake that Bible students make, which can lead to all kinds of false doctrines and bad teachings is approaching the text from the wrong standpoint. To force the text to answer my questions is fraught with much danger and missteps. A good Bible student will approach the scripture wanting to know and understand the question being answered by the Bible.

So, you don't read the Bible to have your mind changed according to the word and will of God.

I read the Bible to understand what the apostles and prophets intend for me to know. If I force a text to answer MY question, I distort the author's intent.

You read the Bible to have your own word and will confirmed.

Prove your answer.

Of course not. Your mind about it all is already made up on your own.

Prove your answer.

The only reason there are any debates about God's words, is when people don't believe them as written.

Or, what they believe is written isn't actually written.

God says any faith alone without works is dead and cannot save nor justify any man with Him.

Okay. I agree with James.

Then certain Christians say their faith alone saves and justifies them.

The slogan "faith alone" isn't a call to inaction as you seem to think. The slogan "faith alone" assumes James' warning concerning "works" and it assumes repentance also. Christian faith includes the fear of God, which logically leads to good works. But the slogan "faith alone" is a call to seek justification by means of orthodoxy rather than orthopraxy. The call of the apostles is to live according to belief in God rather than a set of rules.

Bear in mind that Paul is also speaking the truth when he says that justification is granted by faith apart from works.

You can bury the simple truth in pretty speeches and long winded scholarship all you wish.

I speak in long speeches to those who have screwed things up so badly that simple answers wouldn't help.

All of James is a rebuke against people of faith still sinning and not doing the will of God. It's against your gospel of believing to be saved without first repenting of sinning.

James speaks to the man weak in faith that his sin will be forgiven him and that we should confess our sins to one another. If James believed that true Christians don't sin, then he wouldn't ask us to confess our sins to each other or that we should seek the prayer of a righteous man if our sin is the result of weakness.

James reserves his rebuke for rich people who refuse to pay wages to employees.

The only debate is a lost one made by Christians that preach their own mind and will against the Bible.

My argument with you is over the erroneous teaching you write based on mistaken notions you hold.

The Bible says we can ensure we never sin and fall from the faith of God, and you say don't do that.

Prove your answer.

After paragraphs of meaningless scholar-speak, you conclude with your doctrine of having faith alone, and forbidding adding any works of virtue and godliness to it.

If that is what you think I said, then I miscommunicated. But if you want to know, I interpret your false accusations as irrational excuses to ignore what said.

 

[CadyandZoe]

I won't repent to be like you. Neither in mind nor deed.

Well, that's what I thought but I wasn't going to say it.

Bible repent is to do.

Prove your answer. Even upon a cursory review of how the term "repent" is used, one will find a mental attitude followed by an action. To repent is to adopt the attitude of God or his son Jesus Christ with regard to any condition or situation. What follows from that mental attitude is a particular action in keeping with repentance. John the Baptist calls such actions "fruits" of repentance. Luke 3:8

Perhaps you forgot when I told you that the Christian faith includes both repentance and the fruits of repentance. Those who have been taught to repent without fruits of repentance have not properly learned the Christian faith. But your claim that "faith alone" means "faith apart from repentance" is not true. Your claim that repentance of sin means "absence of sin" is also not true.

You are advocating for the doctrine of "go and sin no more" as if Jesus meant to say, "Go and never experience a moral failure." This is also false.

Resolutions are for childish hearers only, and not doers of the word.

The phrase "doer of the word" isn't commending those who keep all the rules. It is recommended that one should learn the wisdom that underlies the rules.

By repenting of lusting within first, while doing righteousness without.

In my view, one can repent of lust as long as "repent" means "change my mind about it." To repent of lust is to admit that lust exists and that it should define me or guide my actions. Once I have repented of lust, I am in a position to perform the "fruits" of repentance, which include the avoidance of temptation and sinful acts.

Give me a break already.

I understand your frustration, which I take to be the source of your false accusations and insults.

God doesn't care about your 'attention' to His words, but obedience.

That is what a Jewish man once said to me. He said, "God doesn't care about my faith or what I think. All he cares about is whether you have obeyed him." I couldn't talk him out of his myopic point of view. Paul knew about this kind of thinking, which is why he penned Romans chapter 10, where he points out that even Moses taught that God was interested in our faith.

By everything I have seen from you, all the Bible is to you, is just 'worthy' of your attention.

Of course. That is to be expected. In order to "see" me in action, you would need to follow me around all day for about a week. But all I can do is explicate the scriptures and correct your mistaken notions. You are free to do otherwise. And you are not required to believe what I believe simply because I say it.

 

[CadyandZoe]

Of course not.

Then why did you cite them? Try citing or quoting passages that DO support your opinions. How about that?

Do business with God? You mean bargain with Him and His word, to change here and there to do business with you.

No. That is not what I mean by "doing business with God." The expression means "give to God what he is due." The expression comes from various teachings of Jesus wherein God is pictured as "the master". One such example comes from the Parable of the Talents.

That's the result of ministering continued sinning in life, without any hope of repenting of lusting and sinning altogether.

I doubt you have ever read me telling others to continue in sin. This is your habit of accusing people of doing things they didn't do. To this I I say, "go and sin no more."

Explicate? You really do believe a show of words works to impress people.

No. Many years ago people accused me of arrogance because I used "big" words. I have since learned that big words help a person be concise and to the point. I weighed whether I should create longer posts or speak clearer and with fewer words. I chose the latter. The Bible exhorts us toward excellence and so I chose to strive for excellent writing.

 

[Ghada]

I'll offer some things I believe the Bible teaches in response to your teachings. If you don't agree, and can show me by the Bible how my take isn't correct, then I'll be glad for it. Perfecting the teaching of the Bible is all the matters.

I'll take it point by point to say more focused on each.

"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."

True. But you were speaking of conforming to Jesus Christ's life. Renewing the mind in the knowledge of the Lord is only while living His life with a pure heart, not while sinning in life against Him.

Sinners that seek to renew their minds by the Bible, only gain book knowledge at most, unless they obey the Book and repent of sinning.

And some unrepentant sinners only seek to renew the Bible, to be conformed to their own minds and faith.

 

[Ghada]

Rom 7:20-25

Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;

but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

The above to me describes the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit lusting against the flesh.

Exactly. Both Romans 7 and James 4 is about doubleminded sinners, that need to repent and be converted into the pure religion of Jesus Christ. Rather than wasting time in a sinners' religion of our own making, we must repent to walk only after the Spirit, and not after the flesh anymore.

Romans 7 like James 4, is condemning doublemindedness toward God, not commending it. And Paul is certainly not speaking of himself, when penning the letter from God to His people in Rome.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

God is the one saying 'I' and 'Me' in Romans 7, not Paul. God is the one that perfectly knows the hearts and minds of the faithful and the unfaithful alike. Paul sometimes speaks as a man in error, and says so. God here is the one speaking as a man of double heart.

He is describing hearers of His word that only have a change of mind about sin and righteousness, but not having a heart changed from sinning to doing His righteousness.

 

[Ghada]

Haven't had time to follow every detail but this discussion in some ways seems to me like a chicken and egg kind of argument, kind of like two sides of a coin.

Not so.

No we certainly should not sin, and that should be our serious and sincere aim,

Your 'should' gospel is not the 'must' gospel of God commanded in the Bible.

Serious and sincere aims can be seriously and sincerely wrong. God's mark is obeyed or disobeyed. He justifies or condemns accordingly.

But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:

 

[Ghada]

but on the other hand "IF we sin we have an Advocate".

This is true. It is possible for born sons of God can make themselves bastards of disobedience to the Father. But the longsuffering of God is to even allow bastards to repent and come to Him like all the world.

Not all sin is willful....."if I do that which I do not want to do it is no longer I who sin but sin living in me." ie, that seems to be saying sin is not being imputed to us unless we sin willfully.

It's not possible to do something knowingly, but not willfully.

 

[Ghada]

Iniquity is part of our very nature as human beings

Only by doing it, not by being born that way, otherwise the false accusers would be right about God being the tempter to sin, because He 'made us that way'.

Christ is not the Maker of sin, whether in flesh or grass.

The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

It's not sinful nor sinning to be mortal, whether a man, a whale, a tree, or a kumquat.

Some Sinful Christians go so far as to blame their body for sinning with it. Do you think your flesh is accountable for what you do in it?

 

[Ghada]

but we are called to put it off like a garment, ie, not to walk in it, but to put on and walk in the new man.

This is true, by first repenting of our sinning and becoming newborn converts to Christ, with all things now being of God, and nothing of the old sin and Satan remaining in nor with us.

We then walk that way with a pure heart and life.

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are transformed instantly in the inner man when we come to faith in Christ, but outwardly the reality is that this takes time to grow in and take ground in,

Instantly inward and outward. We are sanctified in heart and life all at once by the Spirit. Our heart and life is circumcised and cut away in one fell swoop by the sword of Christ. But that is only for them that obey the command of God to all men everywhere: repent of our sinning. (Acts 17)

The commandment to repent of sinning is so we won't be judged and condemned by God in the resurrection. The gospel good news, is that if we do repent of sinning against God, then we not only will be resurrected unto life, but can also walk in His light on earth.

The impossibility of man is not to cease from sinning, but to do so without the circumcision and Spirit of Christ.

We don't come to Him 'as we are' in order to get 'gradually better'. That's man's religion, not God's.

We don't 'take ground' by repenting of unrepented sinning. We become instantly good ground within and without, by repenting of sinning and coming to the light to walk therein with Jesus.

Progressive Christianity for unrepented sinners, is not the pure religion of Jesus Christ. In His religion we begin all of God and keep it that way.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

We know that whosoever is born of God is sinning not; but he that is begotten of God is keeping himself, and that wicked one is touching him not.

 

[Ghada]

and there is that different members of the body receive different measures of grace and faith in the beginning as well (some more, some less). It's important that we be growing...we need to be running the race so as to win it......as it is an upward call....we need to be somewhere on that narrow path and moving forward, ie, growing in an upward direction,

That is only possible while sinning not with a pure converted heart to Christ.

So long as the ground we are walking and running on remains holy ground in Christ Jesus, then we are walking and running upwardly to heaven.

not losing ground.

Sinning against Him is not 'losing ground', but being out of the race completely.

 

[Ghada]

"Lord have mercy on me, a sinner."

And so you agree the only way to have light in you, is by having sin and saying so.

And the only way to walk in darkness is by not having sin, with no need to say so.

No man having sin is in Christ Jesus, in whose body is no sin.

 

[Ghada]

Romans 7 certainly was Paul speaking of himself while in the faith.

Romans 7 is about being double hearted with the faith, not being faithfully in the faith.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

No double minded sinner of a corrupted heart writes for God in the Bible. Only holy men of God.

If Paul or any other prophet and apostle ever found themselves at any time in such a wretched state of playing the disobedient bastard with God, then it certainly wasn't while writing His words to His people.

 

[Ghada]

You misunderstand entirely about who are the children of God.

Those who repent of sinning and come to Christ, to be made newborn sons of God with all things now being of God.

And walking and growing that way.

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

No sinful child of disobedience is in Christ Jesus, in whom is no sin.

 

[Ghada]

Not a single child of God or a lost sheep will remain lost and unsaved.

That is certainly a hopeful statement, that I won't splash cold water on. If every child of disobedience repents of their sinning to come and walk with Him instead, then more glory be to God for it.

There are no lost forever sheep of Christ,

Once again, I applaud your optimism, that all men shall repent of sinning to enter the everlasting kingdom of Christ.

2 Peter 1 also says we can ensure we shall not fall unto the end, and so into therein forever by resurrection unto life.

 

[Ghada]

The 'Lost' here is not all the people of the world, but only the children of God spread over the world that God foreknows as his own children.

He first came to the lost sheep of Israel after the flesh. Now He comes for any lost sinner on earth that repents.

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

All people are God's children by creation and birth. He's always been calling His children to obey Him, and to return to Him if they do.

Beginning with Cain.

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

John 11 is speaking prophetically about the future as if it were already reality.

False. He is speaking prophetically for all eternity, if we remain faithful and obedient to Him at the end.

And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

The only thing unconditional about obtaining His eternal salvation, is unconditional repentance and surrender to come to Him and be saved.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

=======================================================================
51 Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52 and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad.

The Testament of God is no more a Jews' Testament by law of Moses.

That nation only was of the Jews. All nations are now likewise called to repentance. It's not the commandment of God to all men everywhere to repent and believe His gospel. (Acts 17)

=======================================================================
Christ was talking about Zacchaeus as a true son of Abraham

True by the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Even as the rich son of Abraham in hell begging for water.

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Christ only aids to salvation the seed of Abraham, another proof of this is in Romans 9

Are you preaching a NT for Israel after the flesh only?

Now, if your speaking of the children of Abraham by faith of Abraham in God, then no problem.

 

[Ghada]

as he believed in Christ and was one of the lost sheep.

There is no believing in Christ without obeying Him. He was child of the law by circumcision, but was not obedient to the law, and so his circumcision was made uncircumcision.

For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.

So it is with the sonship of God, which is by the Spirit and circumcision of Christ, and is made uncircumcision by disobedience to the law of Christ.

The only sons God has are obedient to the Father. The children that disobey make themselves illegitimate.

they are all HIS sheep whom God gave to Christ before time began,

Calvin was a boob for making up this stupidity, in order to try and explain why some men don't repent to be saved by Jesus Christ.

There is no answer for it, because God doesn't even understand why not.

Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

and everyone one of them in their time will believe in Christ and be saved, because God through Christ goes and gets them bringing them back to Himself.

He goes back before the beginning of the world, and gets them? Right.

I've heard this doctrine of personal pride, about being specially selected little lambs before the world ever began.

The only person chosen by God before creation to do anything in creation is the one and only Lamb of God Jesus Christ.

And it was prophesied and assured by God as a done deal beforehand, because God cannot lie, and His Son would not sin in the flesh.

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Now if Christ had not come, then the lost sheep would remain lost, but Christ fulfills the will of God by HIS work, that of all God gives to Christ, none of them will be lost.

Except of course for the sons of perdition that turn from Christ and crucify Him afresh to themselves.

God gives to Christ His believers.

True. Them that repent and believe His gospel are chosen and given by God to come to Him in newness of faith, heart, and life.

The call of God is for all men to repent, and them that hear and do so, are chosen by God to be in Christ Jesus. Many hear, few are chosen.

Calvin's gospel of premade and prechosen souls to be saved is a bigoted offence against the truth God who has no respect of persons in His judgment.

 

[CadyandZoe]

Romans 7 is about being double hearted with the faith, not being faithfully in the faith.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

No double minded sinner of a corrupted heart writes for God in the Bible. Only holy men of God.

If Paul or any other prophet and apostle ever found themselves at any time in such a wretched state of playing the disobedient bastard with God, then it certainly wasn't while writing His words to His people.

Nothing in Romans 7 about being double-hearted.

 

[Lizbeth]

Nothing in Romans 7 about being double-hearted.

Amen, totally agree. Scripture says the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, it doesn't say all sin is literally removed from our flesh (and by flesh I mean the flesh nature/old man). Paul said that in him, in his flesh, dwells no good thing...he didn't say in him is no sin. John said if we say we "have" no sin, the truth is not in us. That doesn't mean we inevitably have to "commit" sin, but it means sin dwells in our flesh (and that is the reason it lusteth against the spirit).

Paul said in Romans that if we walk in the spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.......he didn't say that all the lusts of the flesh would literally be removed from the flesh the moment we come to faith in Christ, some things may be and other things require working out. What we are to do is to overcome what dwells in the flesh. God told the Israelites they would conquer their enemies little by little and there was good reason for that in His wonderful wisdom....to avoid the proliferation of the wild beast of pride for one thing....we need the humbling that suffering and having battles to fight forges in us. So that we then can be like the captain of our faith who learned obedience through suffering and thus was able to succour and comfort those who were being tempted, having suffered temptation Himself.

When someone is so hard-nosed and lacking love and grace I know they are not speaking in the spirit of God. Love is the more excellent way which ministers life to the soul in order that it may be transformed, rather than bashing people over the head with a branch from the Tree of Knowledge. I just ask myself, are they speaking in the same tone as the scriptures are written in?

 

[Ghada]

Prove your answer.

Already have proven it by the Bible sufficiently for me to do it. Your choice is your own.

Perhaps you forgot when I told you that the Christian faith includes both repentance and the fruits of repentance. Those who have been taught to repent without fruits of repentance have not properly learned the Christian faith.

The Bible doctrine of repentance is from all sinning at once.

But your claim that "faith alone" means "faith apart from repentance" is not true.

It'[s faith alone without works having anything to do with being saved and justified with God.

If you denounce it, then say so.

Your claim that repentance of sin means "absence of sin" is also not true.

In any case, repenting of sinning to live without sinning, is certainly not true to you by unbelievers.

For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid.

You are advocating for the doctrine of "go and sin no more"

No, I'm preaching it by repeating it.

as if Jesus meant to say, "Go and never experience a moral failure." This is also false.

The Bible doesn't teach human moralism. Nor human relativism with Jesus' words.

The phrase "doer of the word" isn't commending those who keep all the rules.

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

It is recommended that one should learn the wisdom that underlies the rules.

More gnostic non-doing, but plenty of thinking about it.

In my view, one can repent of lust as long as "repent" means "change my mind about it."

God's covenant is not a matter of terms set by the lost sinners.

To repent of lust is to admit that lust exists and that it should define me or guide my actions.

The shoulda woulda coulda gospel. God's gospel is obeyed or go to hell.

Once I have repented of lust,

So, you now preach repenting of lust. Repeating your repent not of lust doesn't sound so great anymore.

I am in a position to perform the "fruits" of repentance, which include the avoidance of temptation and sinful acts.

Now all you need do is preach repenting of lust within first, along with all sinning at once, and you'd actually be preaching the Bible gospel.

Anything less is man's covenant deal making that God rejects.

That is what a Jewish man once said to me. He said, "God doesn't care about my faith or what I think. All he cares about is whether you have obeyed him."

Our works being judged in the end. All works of unrighteousness will be judged the same, no matter what a person believed or thought about themselves at the time.

What we believe and think about ourselves apart from our works, is dismissed by God as personal vanity and idolatry.

I couldn't talk him out of his myopic point of view. Paul knew about this kind of thinking, which is why he penned Romans chapter 10, where he points out that even Moses taught that God was interested in our faith.

Interested? Really? This is all just a matter of personal opinion and spit sharing with you. I've heard some Christians talk about how they 'gift' their faith to God, as though we're the gift to God. Some people think they are God';s gift to man, but high-minded Christians think they are man's gift to God.

Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

Of course. That is to be expected. In order to "see" me in action, you would need to follow me around all day for about a week.

Not at all. I already see it in your writings. I also believe you when you say you still keep sinning from time to time and acting on your unrepented lust. And I'm not interested in following you, nor repenting for you.

But all I can do is explicate the scriptures and correct your mistaken notions.

There you go explicating again. I mean, who talks like that?

 

[Ghada]

Nothing in Romans 7 about being double-hearted.

I no longer argue the normal sense of the Bible against the senselessness of alternative doctrine and definitions.

After hearing from you, I also see how double heartedness is the result of your mind repentance.

The hearers change their minds about sin, but not their hearts from sinning. And so they now know the law of Christ, but don't do it.

Romans 7 is about hearers of the word only, that only changes their minds about sinning with the devil, but not their hearts from sinning against God.