Your judgmental opinion of me, is simply not based in reality. And that you try to pretend that you are not teaching....
= """ be saved to keep the Law,"""" , when in fact you are, is just very unfortunate.
You may think that, but it's actually slanderous for you to claim I'm teaching Christians need to keep the Law of Moses. I have *never* said that! You are a false witness.
See, You presented The Cross of Christ as this.... (your quote)
"""""God (He) would forgive man if he was willing to return to the standard of obedience God requires.""""
And that is a lie.
God makes no bargain with a sinner, to then save them.....so your Legalism is showing its Cross rejection, Randy Kluth.
Salvation is a GIFT, not a "your willing to return" Swap for Grace.
You seem unable to comprehend that giving Eternal Life as a free gift does not nullify the need for our repentance in order to be saved. Our repentance is not "earning" our Salvation. Rather, it is meeting the conditions necessary for us to receive that free gift.
If someone, on the other side of a river, says, "I have a free gift for you here on this side of the river," you just have to cross the river first." You cannot say that crossing the river is "earning" the free gift. It is just meeting the condition necessary for getting that free gift.
In the same way the Bible absolutely requires *repentance* if one is to receive Christ for Salvation. It is not "earning" Eternal Life, but rather, meeting the conditions necessary for receiving Eternal Life *as a free gift.* We must give up our own life or self-autonomy in order to receive his own spiritual life, lordship, and Salvation.
But you wish to avoid *repentance* altogether, falsely thinking that *repentance* is a form of "earning Salvation." As such, you avoid all responsibility with respect to righteousness, which the Bible *absolutely requires.*
This makes you an antinomian in principle. And it renders you anti-biblical theologically. Your wish to promote sloppy grace drives you to neglect what "repentance" really means in a biblical sense.
And this is the whole reason I created this post, because that it what I experienced in my Lutheran upbringing--a false sense of repentance and grace. True grace requires that we *repent* in order to receive Christ. We must deny ourselves in order to receive him and his free gift of righteousness. He earned it for us, but we must take that gift, meeting the standards he requires. And clearly, he required *repentance.*
We cannot imitate Salvation--we must receive it from Christ--we cannot do it even if we believe he gave Salvation to us. He hasn't really given it to us if we hold onto our own ways while claiming we believe in his Salvation.
We may recognize that we could not and cannot produce Salvation apart from receiving it from him. He is the one who alone has earned our Salvation. But we still need to receive it. We still need to give up our own ways to receive his ways--something only he could and did do.
This was part of the fundamental Gospel message that the Bible says he came to bring! I have nothing more to say on this, unless you address this fundamental biblical requirement to *repent.*
You define *repentance* as turning from doubt in Christ's forgiveness to belief in Christ's forgiveness. How shallow! It is not pure *belief* that saves, but true *repentance,* turning from our own ways to Christ's ways.
Unless we choose to become *like Christ,* we have not shown true repentance according to 1 John 2, as I already quoted to you. But you ignore all of my points, wishing only to spout your same statements over and over that simple *belief* saves us.
And we are told that *belief* alone is practiced by demons, which accomplishes nothing--not even if we wish to believe Christ forgave us. Forgiveness does come at a price, even though only Christ earned Salvation for us. We must repent of our own ways in order to accept his ways. Have fun "believing" in Salvation going your own way!
