godrulz said:
Hebrews talks about apostasy. I think this book may be Pauline.
The books message as well as its audience is proof that it is not written by Paul.
The following is an excerpt from a difinitive article on the subject by Bob Hill...
Hebrews was not written by Paul. This is maintained by most conservative scholarship.
Rotherham states it rather bluntly:
The one point which for myself remains firmly settled is the purely negative one: that whoever wrote this Epistle it was not the Apostle Paul. In holding fast to this conclusion, I find myself in excellent company. Professor Peake says: “Nothing is so certain with respect to the authorship as the negative conclusion that it was not written by Paul . . . . These differences not only preclude Pauline authorship; they show conclusively that Paul can have nothing to do with the Epistle directly or indirectly. It is in no sense a Pauline Epistle, and only in the loosest sense can it be spoken of as Pauline in theology.”
I do not think it is necessary to know who wrote Hebrews, but it is important to rule out Pauline authorship. This is essential to understand this epistle when we see the concepts presented by the writer. It would be presumptuous to say this epistle is Pauline in any sense unless it could be shown that the theology is the same as that of the Pauline Epistles.
2:3 How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.
From this key passage, we see, “salvation . . . was confirmed to us by those who heard”, the most important portion of scripture against the Pauline authorship. If Paul received his gospel from “those who heard,” how could he write Galatians 1:1,11,12,16; 2:2?
Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead), 11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. 16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, 2:2 And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run, or had run, in vain.
No one confirmed salvation to Paul. Christ solely and directly revealed the gospel to him.
There is a difference between genuine free will and response to God and legalism.
This sentence makes no sense. Having a genuine free will and the issue of legalism have nothing to do with one anther except that both legalism and grace are both meaningless apart from a free will, but that's a different topic for another thread.
Salvation is moral/metaphysical (do not misunderstand what I mean), not metaphysical. i.e. it is not an irreversible change in our constitution.
If I understand this correctly (which I'm not sure that I do), it is quite wrong.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
It is relational and involves love (volition). Relationships must be freely entered into and maintained or they are causative/coerced.
No they aren't! Please get the Calvinism out of your head. I am not advocating anything that even remotely smells of Calvinism. I agree that our relationship with God is freely entered into but the Gospel of Grace is, in a nutshell, that our relationship with God is not maintained by us but by Him. That's the whole point and the reason I can confidently say that you cannot teach what you are attempting to teach without being legalistic.
An OT 'believer' is not inherently different than a NT 'believer' as to their wills, intellect, emotions. David was not 'born again', but had a relationship with God. It is arbitrary to say David could have apostasized, but Clete cannot possibly do so. David was not saved by legalism anymore than a NT saint is. The faith that saves all men must continue. It is not punctiliar.
History betrays you on this point. If David had not continued in God's law he would have been cut off just as Saul had been. Saul was promised an ever lasting kingdom but lost it because he rebelled against God. Don't think for a moment that David was any different.
And it is not arbitrary in any sense for me to say that I cannot apostatize. I have made a quite convincing argument based on Scripture. I would hardly call that arbitrary; it's not like I'm making this stuff up as I go.
It is a lie to tell someone they are saved just because they received Christ as a child if they are now a Satan worshipping atheist.
Then Paul was a liar and we should all go and rip anything to do with the Gospel of the Mystery which Paul preached out of our Bibles.
This is false assurance based on false doctrine.
I have shown that it is not. You have shown your desire to gratify your flesh by presenting a works based gospel which is wholly consistent with that Gospel given to Israel, namely the Gospel of the Kingdom which was based upon observance of the law (i.e holy living, continuous repentance from sin, maintenance of one's covenantal responsibilities etc. etc.). You obviously don't see it, but you are up about a foot past your eyeballs into legalism. Doesn't it ever puzzle you why you never can seem to get victory of the sin in your life?
There will be no impetus to repent, renounce the lie, and return to their first love.
You couldn't be more wrong. And you should know as well as anyone that I am not soft on sin. If Caledvwlch was a member of my church, I would expel him from our congregation and turn him over to Satan. I am not suggesting that there is no consequences for our sin, in fact I've said just the opposite. But fear of the consequences is not the impetus to repent any more that your threat of going to Hell is.
Maybe we should all get soundly saved, and then party and presume on His grace.
Should we therefore sin that grace may abound? God forbid!
Sound familiar? It should...
Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
By the way, verses 11-14 are the key to having victory of sin. It is the only key. A key, which you have put away in favor of “an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body,
but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.”
If you say it is impossible for a believer to do so, you need to see into the minds and hearts of some of your Christian friends and leaders. Genuine believers can lead a double life and dabble in sin.
Legalism! Don't you get it? To one extent or another, we ALL do this, all of us! That is we all do it in our flesh. But our flesh has been crucified with Christ and no longer has any effect upon our relationship with the Father in heaven. We have been made new creatures IN CHRIST. Our righteousness is no longer ours but His and His alone.
It is another problem to tell someone they are saved now even though they do not believe based on their former belief. Why should they come to Christ if we tell them they are actually a believer because they said they believed in the past?
I didn't say he was a believer, I said he was saved. And a clear understanding of just what it is that Christ has done for him, in spite of himself, is the greatest impetus toward repentance that there could ever be. With the removal of the law, so fear was also removed. Love is now the only remaining motive. You are attempting to resurrect fear and thereby the law with it. I say, keep the law on the cross where Jesus crucified it and let love do its ministry. Which do you suppose is the more powerful, love or fear?
God is not mocked. There should be evidence and ongoing faith to claim one is a believer.
Never a clearer message of legalism has ever been said.
Resting in Him,
Clete
