Doug Brents
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By grace we do indeed receive God's riches, and we receive them at Christ's expense. But grace is not just God's riches.
Requirements to receiving salvation
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Ezra
Well-known member
what would you call it?
Doug Brents
Well-known member
The focus of post #55 was on faith, not grace, but grace is nothing more than an undeserved gift. It is just a way of saying God gave us something that we did not earn. There are many gifts that God gives that are undeserved, salvation being only one. God's riches, adopting us as His heirs, giving us power, giving us life, and many other things are forms of His grace.
Mercy is His not giving us a punishment we deserve.
Grace is His giving us a good thing we do not deserve.
ImCo:
There was only one requirement for salvation from sin and that was that the individual put his faith, by his free will in YHWH as his GOD and saviour before becoming a sinner and becoming enslaved by sin, and without proof of HIS Divinity but only because he wants, hopes for, the life GOD is offering to become his kind of life and will fulfil GOD's purpose for our creation, to whit, the heavenly marriage.
Such a decision was promised by GOD to ensure the salvation and redemption from the legal and natural consequences of choosing to be sinful in HIS sight and enslaved to sin because no matter how evil we might become, HE could always bring us back to our first free will decision to have faith in HIM. We refer tor this promise as our election to salvation and the heavenly marriage.
Once the person leaves his first faith by rebelling against a command of GOD, the steps in the salvative, redemptive process are out of the person's control and must be supplied by the will of GOD, not by the person's will or decisions at all until he is holy and trustworthy.
Doug Brents
Well-known member
As has been said many times, faith is not a passive, mental assent. Faith REQUIRES action. Faith is also not blind or "without proof". There are so many proofs in Scripture, and so many proofs in nature, that to doubt God requires more faith than to believe in Him.
I have no idea what religion this comes from, but it is completely foreign to Biblical doctrine.
Ezra
Well-known member
yet in all that you say Grace is not just God riches ? you left the important part at Christ expense
Doug Brents
Well-known member
Not sure what you are getting at.
It is certainly completely different from the ordinary interpretation of the Bible...
Faith must be made by a free, uncoerced, will with no taint of sin which is enslaving and coercive.
All FREE means is uncoerced:
IF GOD set it up so HIS new creation had no coercion or constraints upon their choices, forcing them to choose anything, they had free will.
The Elements of a True Free Will Choice:
1. A Free will can't be coerced:
Nothing in their created nature could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all genetics...
Nothing in their experience could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all, cultural or familial experience...
Nothing in their understanding or knowledge of reality could FORCE them to choose good or evil, love or hate.
In other words, they had to be completely and truly ingenuously innocent.
[Ref: definition of ingenuous: [URL]http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ingenuousness[/URL] as: 1. Lacking in cunning, guile, worldliness; artless. 2. Openly straightforward or frank; candid.
2. Consequences must be known but not proved:
The person must understand the full consequences of their choice or it is a guess, not a true choice. “What will happen if I choose left or right, the red pill or the blue pill?” must be answered in full detail.
But "PROOF" of the nature of the consequence would compel or coerce the person to choose what was proven to be the best for them. If the answer “death here,” “life there,” was proven, which would you choose? The weight of knowledge would destroy the effect of a true ‘free will’ choice.
If it were proven you would die if you went left, are you truly free to choose to go right? No, you are forced by your knowledge to go right. Therefore they must know, but without proof for their faith based choice, the nature of the consequences of their choice.
Only then are they following their own desires, their deepest hope in the nature of reality, defining the reality they most hope to enjoy.
Peace, Ted
Doug Brents
Well-known member
There have only been 2 people in all of human history who have met that condition: Adam and Eve.
This is complete and total drivel. There is no force involved in seeing evidence of disaster and choosing safety. There have been many examples of people seeing direct evidence of disaster and choosing it instead of choosing safety. They KNOW they are going to die, but choose to go the way that ends in that death. And when we look at Scripture, we see repeated examples of God giving evidence for the choices He commands (good and bad) and encouraging the good choice. But the people continually choosing the bad choice.
Yes, that opinion is shared by the majority but I contend it is based upon exegesis, that, is putting preconceived notions, specifically our creation on earth and not before the creation of this physical universe ...
and what most call proof is mere interpretation.
The force is the force of self preservation...if we knew for sure YHWH was divine and that if we dissed HIM we would end in eternal torment, what kind of person would choose to diss Him? No one, that is the kind of person who would choose to reject YHWH as their GOD knowing the truth about the consequences.
It means that those who are condemned already, Jn 3:18, must have:
1. known HE was divine,
2. known they would end in hell if they did not bow to HIM as their GOD and saviour, yet
3. rebuked HIM as a liar and a false god anyway.
WoW!!!
The impossibility of this happening is why we contend that this choice by HIS creation to form their eternal relationship with HIM by a faith choice to accept to HIM as their GOD and savior or to reject HIM as a liar and therefore a false god must have occurred by/for everyone BEFORE HE gave the proof of HIS divinity and eternal power, that is, the creation of the physical universe which we all saw, Job 38:7 with Rom 1:18-20...
Do you mean just like the revelation of the divine suffering human Messiah was a new concept contrary to the doctrine of the theology of the religious experts of the day, the Pharisees??
Do you think that because this is new to you it is totally new? Please reconsider as this is old doctrine, that is just very ignored...
Judaism:
In rabbinic literature, the souls of all humanity are described as being created during the six days of creation (Book of Genesis). When each person is born, a pre-existing soul is placed within the body. (See Tan., Pekude, 3). Tan., Pekude, 3: http://tinyurl.com/cnpetph
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/478734
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3268858?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12340-preexistence-of-the-soul The Rabbis question whether the soul descends to earth at the moment of conception or after the embryo has been formed (Sanh. 90a).
https://www.encyclopedia.com/enviro...nacs-transcripts-and-maps/soul-jewish-concept
Catholicism:
The Wisdom of Solomon 8:20(NEB): As a child, I was born to excellence and a noble soul fell to my lot; or rather, I myself was noble, and I entered into an unblemished body ......
(JB): I was a boy of happy disposition. I had received a good soul as my lot, or that, being good, I had entered an undefiled body.
as per Matt 13:36-39...
Bible:
In Jeremiah 1:5 we read, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible sums it up well:
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee,.... Not merely by his omniscience, so he knows all men before their conception and birth; but with such a knowledge as had special love and affection joined with it; which we think implies a personal relationship with a living being not mere knowledge about as per:
Matthew 7:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’
23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Obviously He knew all about them but He did not have a personal relationship with them as GOD suggests HE had with Jeremiah, a relationwhip only possible if Jeremiah existed at that time.
Paul says in Ephesians 1:4 that "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:"
2 Timothy 1:9 ...who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind: The disciples question suggests that they believed in the pre-existence of the man's spirit.
1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was BORN blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. [Healing a man born blind was one of the 3 miracles the Rabbis contended could only be performed by the Messiah.]
How does it make sense that the disciples ask if the man was born blind due to his own sin, if they did not believe in the pre-existence of the spirit/person able to sin before their birth on earth? Notice Jesus did not chastise them for making an error about his creation but only about the reason for his suffering.
I personally don't think this is a "knock you over the head" proof verse of pce but it was enough to sway Origen, the Father of Modern Theology, even though his Christology was pretty wacky.
Doug Brents
Well-known member
Not sure what you are getting at here. Adam and Eve were the only two humans that existed before the Fall. That being the case, they are the only two who were ever "completely and truly ingenuously innocent".
EVERY human has "diss"ed God. That is the effect of the Fall. When you read through Scripture, God shows us both the carrot (Heaven) and the stick (Hell). No one has any excuse, because the grandeur and splendor of God has been made evident in the world around us.
Ahhh, but we did not exist before creation. Only God is eternal (having no beginning and no end). Satan knew God. He stood in God's presence in Heaven, yet he defied God and tried to force God to accept him as part of God, and for this he was cast out of Heaven and will be condemned to Hell for eternity. This happened after the creation (Satan is a created being). So Satan is proof positive that your logic here is flawed.
Doug Brents
Well-known member
ROTFL, no, there are numerous prophecies of the "divine suffering human Messiah" in the OT that were misunderstood by the religious experts of Jesus' day (and still are in some cases).
And the Pharisees have been shown in Scripture to have misunderstood and perverted God's word all through Jesus' ministry. I would not use them as "proof" of anything other than false doctrine and error.
Again, rabbinic literature is not Scripture, and so is not something to be taken as TRUTH.
Catholicism is not a "Christian" religion; it is papist. So nothing they have to say is valid in this discussion.
This passage does not speak of Jeremiah having been created at the beginning of time. It says that Jeremiah was known by God before he was formed in his mother's belly (at conception). It says before he came forth (was born) he was sanctified (set apart). None of this references back to creation.
These passages point to the fact that God had the plan for the salvation of man (because He knew that we would fall) from before He created any of the universe. They do not point to our souls being created all at once during the creation of the universe.
Their question makes perfect sense if you consider that they were asking if God was punishing him from birth for sins he was going to commit during his life. God is eternal, and as such can see what a man will do during his life even before he is born.
If you are only thinking of the earthly rebellion in the garden then of course. But the fall, the Satanic rebellion, had already happened before they were put in the garden as the serpent came to the garden with evil intent.
Were Adamand Eve alredy sinful when they were sown (Matt 13:36-39) into th efarden? maybe...they are called `rm naked , but the same word `rm is used to describe the serpent's being cunning in evil. Curious no? Also, when their eyes were opened to their sin, their nakedness, they saw only the nakedness they had before they ate. Being naked is a strong metaphor in the bible to refer to being sinful. And if they were not sinful aready why were they given a command because we know that the law is only given to the sinful, NOT to the righteous or the innocent:
1 Timothy 1:9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers etc... Romans 3:20... rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
Curious, eh? What should we make of all this?
So you do not share the inherited sin from Adam theory? Babies liable to judgement for another's sin and not for reproving GOD themselves? I can't get behind this one at all...the only sin a person is guilty of is the sin they chose by their own free wil to indulge in.
Of course not. No one believes we were created before we were created. But we were probably created before the creation of the physical universe. We call our creation pre-conception existence or pre-earthly life, not creation before creation.
Being created before the creation of the physical universe which all the sons/people of GOD saw and sang HIS praises, Job 38:7, does not imply people are eternal in the least.
What kind of stupidity or mental illness would it take for a person who had seen the proof of GOD's divinity and eternal power, Rom 1:18-20, to then stand up and declare the proof was a lie, to claim that YHWH was a false god and no better than himself? No stupidity works to achieve this at all so it must come down to a mental illness and the mentally ill are not judged as evil and sent to hell, only the wicked, while the ill are cured. And how do we think Satan convinced 1/3 of creation to rebel with him against YHWH if the rebellion happened after the proof had been given so none had an excuse? Weird...
I contend that Satan et al was already fallen and eternally sinful when they saw the proof that YHWH was divine but their sinfulness enslaved their minds so they could never drop the lie as per Romans 1.
If the Scripture said, I knew thee when you were a little child, we would say that Jeremiah existed at that time. If it said, I knew thee when you were in the womb, we would interpret it as saying that Jeremiah existed at that time.
Why then, when the time moves back before the womb, does "I know thee" mean something else, to wit: “I knew about thee"? In the natural use of the word “knew", it is impossible to know someone before they exist, no matter how much you know about them.
You must be careful to not mix up knowing and knowing about. These are two different things.
Proof verses?? No verses prove a doctrine!
I do not offer verses as proof of my suggestions any more than any verse proves any theological doctrine to the point of shutting down all alternatives. I know the alternative historical interpretations and I know they have 4000 years of acceptance which tends to blind people to something new so strongly they can't even countenance it.
I ask only that the references be read, holding sceptical criticism in abeyance for a bit to see IF the words can in fact be interpreted to support my contentions. That is, though it might not be the true interpretation I claim that they CAN in fact be read my way without any tricks or damage to the language…
Repudiating my suggestions of interpretation due to past decisions about the alternative interpretation without recourse to the actual words is mere eisegetics.
The flim flam of exegesis is that for anyone to get the meaning of a verse from the verse without any input from their mindset and unfiltered by existing ideas is on the order of Paul's conversion as a bright light and hearing GOD's voice. Every acceptance of an interpretation of a verse is eisegetic, the fitting of the verse into previously accepted definitions.
Doug Brents
Well-known member
I don't believe so. Satan's revolt, I believe, occurred after creation and after Adam and Eve were in the Garden.
Absolutely not. Adam and Eve turned creation from good to very good (Gen 1:31). They were naked and unashamed (Gen 2:25).
These may have a similar root, but have a completely different meaning, just as under and understand have similarities, but have completely different meanings.
This is an erroneous understanding of these passages. Adam and Eve were not sinful the time when they touched the Tree. Sin is death, and they were not dead until they touched the Tree, because God told them that in the day that they touched it they would die.
No, I do not believe that we are guilty of Adam's sin, but we did receive his sinful nature. We are only guilty of the sin we ourselves commit, and then only at the point when we understand and choose the wrong instead of the right.
No, I believe that our existence begins at conception. I do not believe in any pre-earthly life regardless of what is portrayed in the movies.
Satan was the greatest of all of God's angels: greatest in wisdom, greatest in power, greatest in beauty (Eze 28:11-15). His sin was thinking that his power was equal to God's and that he should be one with God. This is juxtaposed against Jesus who was God but did not consider equality with God to be something to be held onto (Phil 2:6).
Satan was not sinful when He was created and first saw God (Eze 28:15). Satan saw God in Heaven (he was an angel with the ability to see God as He is (Job 1:6).
Doug Brents
Well-known member
I didn't say anything about "knowing about" him. Scripture says that God knew Jeremiah before he was formed in the womb. When was he formed? As he grew from an egg and sperm into a baby. When was his soul created? At the point when the egg and sperm became one (the moment of conception)(some might even say that the moment of conception was even later, when the fertilized egg embedded in the uterine wall).
So I see we are in agreement yet they were considered to be the epitome of Biblical scholarship. Fun eh?
I did not quote these bits to prove anything as you well know so laughing at my lack of proof is disingenuous at best.
I only quoted them to prove that the idea of our pre-conception existence is a widely held belief and an old belief, not something new:
was my intro to my use of these quotes. Do not misrepresent my words again please as it is the only reason I put people on ignore.
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