Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
According to you the gospel is NOT the power of salvation to all who believe because believing is not enough.
Please provide the verses which you think that obedience is a requirement for salvation.
ROMANS 5:1 JUSTIFIED BY FAITH
- Thread starter DougE
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According to you the gospel is NOT the power of salvation to all who believe because believing is not enough.
Please provide the verses which you think that obedience is a requirement for salvation.
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Prepare yourself for some wild Bible blender smoothies.
God's Truth
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The gospel is about how we have to repent of our sins and have faith that Jesus' blood shed on the cross washes them away.
Acts 20:21 I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
Acts 26:20 First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.
Thanks! I'll take you up on that. (Although, as I said before, I wonder if God just wants me to leave the question as a whole alone for now. And also I wonder If I am making a mountain out of a molehill...but here goes...)
I have found myself humbled and reminded of the saving power of faith and Christs's blood upon studying verses such as Romans 1:16-17 and Romans 5:9 and reading the verses you point out above. All true! However, what I don't see in the Bible is a an explicit explanation of what it means when one believes. What sort of event is this? Is this always fundamentally different from continuing to believe and deepening one's belief with and through God? I also don't see a total deconstruction of its effects. Does being saved by God's wrath, for example, always refer to the final judgement?
Perhaps I have failed to see certain connections between verses. I know that some of my questions are rather nuanced or maybe even hair-splitting. But when it comes to talking about justification, I don't see a path that avoids a lot of nuance. In addition to trading verses back and forth, people can get into differences in translation and the issue of who is being addressed in each verse or epistle. I don't really buy all of that discussion. It seems too academic and intellectual for the discussion of essential Christian truths. And amidst all the debate, I feel myself turning away from it and asking God to take me in His arms and help me with what really matters. I mean, this is not abnormal, right?
So at the moment, unless someone can show me a better answer, all I can say to others is that it is God alone who saves and that they must believe, but, due to the risk of leading them astray, I can't give them further knowledge.
God's Truth
New member
Jesus saves us all on his own.
Jesus tells us who he saves.
He tells us what to do to be saved too.
Jesus saves those who get his teachings and obeys them.
God's Truth
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John 6:53 Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Who has done this and do you know how to do this?
Who has done this and do you know how to do this?
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
The primary meaning of the Greek word translated "repentance" is "a change of mind."
The gospel, which comes in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction (1 Thess.1:5), is what results in a person changing his mind about God and believing that the Lord Jesus died for their sins and that He rose from the dead.
Only those who "resist the Spirit" do not have a change of mind and do not believe the gospel which results in salvation.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
You missed what He said about the "flesh" later in the same discourse:
"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (Jn.6:63).
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
It is called being "born again" or being "born of God."
Here is how that happens:
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God...And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you" (1 Pet.1:23,25).
"He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created" (Jas.1:18).
When that happens a person knows that the things revealed in the Bible about the Lord Jesus Christ are true:
"And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life" (1 Jn.5:20).
Once a person is born again he receives eternal life which is in Christ Jesus (1 Jn.5:11) and he will never perish:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (Jn.3:16).
God's Truth
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We have to change our mind about sin.
We have to do what Jesus says.
We have to repent of sins or die and perish.
Luke 13:3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.
God's Truth
New member
I miss nothing.
The flesh profits you nothing is what Jesus said to those who thought they had to LITERALLY EAT HIS FLESH.
Jesus is explaining literally eating his flesh will do nothing for you.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
A person has to first realize that he is a sinner and in need of a Savior. That is what the gospel is all about--That Christ died for our sins.
You still refuse to acknowledge the truth of what Paul wrote here:
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Ro.1:16).
According to your mistaken ideas the gospel saves no one because it takes more than believing the gospel in order for anyone to be saved.
God's Truth
New member
Everyone has to believe that we have to obey Jesus.
For thousands of years people were taught about obeying God the Father, and since Jesus came, we are taught that we have to obey Jesus now to get to the Father.
John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
me.
John 14:23 Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
Jesus accepts those who do right: Acts 10:35 but that in every nation those who fear Him and live good lives are acceptable to Him.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
No one is saying that we shouldn't obey the commandments the Lord Jesus gave us but that is not a requirement for salvation. You still refuse to acknowledge the truth of what Paul wrote here:
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Ro.1:16).
According to your mistaken ideas the gospel saves no one because it takes more than believing the gospel in order for anyone to be saved.
Besides that, if it takes obedience to the commandments to be saved then no one would receive eternal life until at the end of a life which has been obedient. But John makes it known that believers already possess eternal life here and now:
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son" (1 Jn.5:11).
How obedient to the commandments were you when you were saved? Were you living a perfect, sinless life? If not then how could you be saved by your obedience since we read the following?:
"For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal.3:10).
You are deceiving yourself if you think that you kept the commandments good enough to be saved.
Those words were addressed to Cornelius and were in reference to him. But he was not yet saved (Acts 11:13-14).
God's Truth
New member
Jesus says to drink and eat him. We have to eat and drink every day.
No such thing as obeying not having to do with salvation.
I have not refused to acknowledge any scripture.
I have been explaining that scripture to you many times.
Paul was a Pharisee to the old law and the works of the old law being the purification works.
He is saying no more of those works.
He is not saying we are saved by believing we don't have to obey.
The gospel is not, "Everyone, just believe that you only have to believe and do nothing else."
The gospel is, "Everyone, repent and believe that Jesus' shed blood on the cross washes you clean."
We no longer have to do the purification works of the law.
We still have to obey God.
No. We do some things to get saved, and then we keep doing what Jesus says to stay saved.
Jesus says what to do to get saved.
He says to repent of sins and forgive others and to call on him.
That is not so hard is it?
Why do you use scripture which speaks of the old law? I never ever preach the old law.
I am not sure what point you are trying to make. Could you explain more what you mean?
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
If you could only see yourself as others see you!
God's Truth
New member
I live my life through Jesus and only care how God sees me.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
God sees that you don't believe that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.
God's Truth
New member
We have to believe what Jesus teaches.
Faith alone is dead and cannot save anyone.
…unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven; Matthew 18:3.
…unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart; Matthew 18:35.
…unless you repent, you too will all perish; Luke 13:3.
I love it! Jesus' words are true for everyone forever!
He tells us how to make a heart that he will live in.
Due to this forum I have endeavored to open my heart to what justification by faith means. If I was not born again before, I may have been helped by this discussion to be born again now. The blood of Christ and the Word are indeed incorruptible and eternal. I believe that those who truly, deeply believe will have eternal life.
But I would still like to know something more about what others believe regarding the following questions. Can one know whether others are born again and whether oneself has been born again? And if one can know, HOW does one know? The Epistles state that those who are born again true believers show by holiness and their actions that they have believed and have eternal life. A belief in other ways of knowing would arguably open the door to an antinomianism apparently rejected by Luther and many denominations.
There is quite a bit at stake here.
Also, I would like to know what others believe one has to profess and accept to have eternal life. To accept Jesus Christ as one's Lord and Savior is clear--but different denominations obviously have different ideas about essential truths and different doctrines, even though they all believe in being saved and justification by faith.
But I would still like to know something more about what others believe regarding the following questions. Can one know whether others are born again and whether oneself has been born again? And if one can know, HOW does one know? The Epistles state that those who are born again true believers show by holiness and their actions that they have believed and have eternal life. A belief in other ways of knowing would arguably open the door to an antinomianism apparently rejected by Luther and many denominations.
There is quite a bit at stake here.
Also, I would like to know what others believe one has to profess and accept to have eternal life. To accept Jesus Christ as one's Lord and Savior is clear--but different denominations obviously have different ideas about essential truths and different doctrines, even though they all believe in being saved and justification by faith.