Yes, it does. You remain in denial Doug.
I really appreciate the fact that you know my heart better than I do. It is a comfort to me that you are there for me, to feel what my heart feels, and tell me what I how I should respond to it. It gives me great confidence that I have you here to tell me what is in my heart.
Not at all. If you were standing at the gates of heaven right now Doug and Jesus asked you why He should let you into heaven, what would be your exact answer. Your answer to this question will demonstrate what you have placed your faith in/what you are trusting in for salvation.
My answer will be the same now as it has been since I was 14: "Your Son promised that if I am in Him He will give me His righteousness, and take me to live with Him in the mansion He built for me in your home. I am not worthy to be here, but I trust in His promise, and His willingness and ability to fulfill it."
Like I said. You turn repentance into moral self-reformation. Thank you for proving my point. In regard to receiving salvation, repentance is a change of mind and the new direction of that change of mind is faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. (Acts 20:21) After David sincerely repented for his grave sins of adultery and murder, God forgave him and continued to bless him and maintain him as king. David was still a man after God's own heart, even though he messed up big time and David still faced certain consequences for his actions.
People can repent of certain other things after they are saved. In Luke 17:3,4, we read - Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” Repentance here is not in regard to obtaining salvation. This brother is already saved. We turn from darkness to light and receive remission of sins when we place our faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. (Acts 26:18)
SMH, repentance has NOTHING to do with "moral self-reformation". Repentance, as you said, is turning to a new direction. But if we walk into a mud pit and turn around, we are still covered in mud. And there is nothing we can do to clean ourselves. Only God can clean us. But He will not do so until we have turned and walked out of the mud pit onto His straight and narrow way.
It's "lip service" for those who fail to accomplish God's will in order to become saved. (Matthew 7:21-23; John 6:40)
Precisely. If you do not do what God commands, your "confession" of Him is only lip-service. As He says, "Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?" You can call Him "Lord" all day long, but if you don't do what He says, then He isn't really your Lord, and all you have is lip-service. But if you do what He says, then you are wise, and He really is your Lord, and He will give you what He promised to give to those who are His.
There is divine influence or direct operation of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a person when confessing Jesus as Lord. This confession is not just a simple acknowledgment that Jesus is the Lord (even the demons believe that), but is a deep, personal conviction from the heart that Jesus is that person's Lord and Savior. Surrender to Christ in faith and not works righteousness. Simply believing in our head (and not in our heart) that God raised Him from the dead does not result in righteousness and simply giving "lip service" to the words "Jesus is Lord" not by the Holy Spirit is not unto salvation.
Correct. But again, you can have the "deep personal conviction from the heart that Jesus is Lord" and still not do what He says, and this person is no different than the person who has a simple head acknowledgement. It is the actions that Jesus says make the difference.
If it is absolutely required for salvation, then it's supplemental to the gospel of Christ that is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that BELIEVES.. (Romans 1:16)
Wrong! It is only supplemental if it was added by man, and not commanded by God. He is the one who authored the Scriptures, not me, and not Paul, and not Peter, etc. And God is the one who said that repentance results in forgiveness, and that confession of Jesus results in salvation, and that baptism in water is the point at which the Holy Spirit removes our sins. That makes it part of His Gospel, not any kind of supplement.
Either Christ is an ALL-sufficient Savior or else He is an IN-sufficient Savior. You can't have it both ways. Christ's finished work of redemption is sufficient and complete to save believers. (Romans 3:24-28) No supplements needed.
That is not what we are discussing. We are discussing how that all sufficient salvation is received. We agree that there is NOTHING that we can do to save ourselves, or to add to Jesus' work of salvation. What we disagree on it how it is received. You think that just because a person "believes in his heart" that salvation is received; and then all "works" come afterward. But Scripture says differently.
It is simply the point at which it is signified but not procured. Sins are removed when we believe/place our faith in Christ for salvation. (Acts 10:43; 26:18) Your faith remains in water baptism for salvation and not in Christ alone.
Wrong again. My faith is in Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the man in whom was the full deity of God. It is He whom I obey, and it is He whose promises I trust.
Yet you add works to faith, so it becomes faith and works.
No. Faith without works is not really faith. It is not faith plus works. It is a living, active, work producing faith, or else you don't really have faith.
Yes, it is. In Mark 1:15, Jesus said - "repent and believe the gospel." In Acts 11:17, Peter said - "If therefore God gave them the same gift (Holy Spirit) as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ" and in verse 18 Peter referred to this as repentance unto life. In Acts 20:21, Paul said - "repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." It's disturbing and disappointing that you cannot understand this.
Dan, what disturbs and disappoints me is that you seem to think that each passage of Scripture is full and complete in itself. And that if one passage of Scripture says what you want to believe, then it really doesn't matter what other passages of Scripture say on the subject, that one passage is enough. This results automatically in eisegesis. You MUST include in your doctrine EVER SINGLE PASSAGE of Scripture that deals with the topic at hand. This means that you must interpret Acts 10 and 11 through Rom 6, Col 2, 1 Pet 3, etc. And those passages tell us that salvation is actually received during water baptism. Not "Spirit baptism" (which has only occurred twice in all of history), and not in "belief only" (which has never resulted in salvation being received, even once).
In context, Peter is addressing "Men of Israel" who were guilty of crucifying their Messiah.
Yes, he was. But the message is the same for all humanity. Return to God (not return to the Gospel), because it is in God that salvation rests and to whom we must return. The Gospel was brand new when Peter preached this sermon; none of the listeners had ever heard it before so it could not have been a return to the Gospel that he was commanding.
I agree that it's not return to belief in the gospel. Through repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21) they would be returning to God from being guilty of crucifying their Messiah, and their obedience/works would be the fruit of their repentance. (Matthew 3:8)
No, their obedience/works are not "fruit of their repentance". Their obedience was their faith. Until they took action in obedience their faith was incomplete, dead, and worthless.
Confession is an expression of faith and a confirmation of divine influence by the Holy Spirit. It's not a work for salvation that happens days or weeks after we believe unto righteousness. (Romans 4:5-6)
Correct, it happens WHEN we believe unto righteousness. Righteousness is not received (justification - being declared/accounted righteous) until/unless faithful obedience is done (Jesus is not your Lord unless you do what He says).
The word of faith is in our mouth and in our heart TOGETHER. (Romans 10:8-10) So, confessing with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in our heart that God raised Him from the dead are not two separate steps to salvation but are chronologically together.
Again with the stupidity of this strawman. Of course they are "chronologically together", and so is baptism. There should be no time between these three actions.
Based on your eisegesis you turn confession into a work for salvation just as you do with baptism.
Nope, wrong again. They are works of faith that lead to receiving the gift of salvation from God.
The Holy Spirit is involved in pre-salvation ministry. In Acts 16:14, we read - Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. If there is no additional work, or influence, of the Holy Spirit, then the Lord "opened her heart," is superfluous. While the word is the means of communicating that which is to be believed, the additional unseen work of the Holy Spirit is also necessary. Paul referred to his preaching as being "in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power." (I Corinthians 2:4)
In 1 Thessalonians 1:5, we read - For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit.. There is more involved in coming to saving faith in Christ than merely paper, ink and human intelligence.
Of course. And He may work on all 100 people in a meeting, but only 10 obey, and so only 10 are saved. The other 90 were influenced by Him, and were opened to the Gospel by Him, but they chose to ignore His influence and so remain lost.
For the sake of your biased church doctrine, you remain in absolute denial here Doug. These Gentiles clearly believed, received the gift of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gift of tongues (which is only for the body of Christ - 1 Corinthians 12) and were saved before water baptism. Acts 10:43-47 is crystal clear on that. Acts 10:43 is also crystal clear - Whoever believes in Him receives remission of sins.
Again, "believes" is faith (pistis), and not the intellectual assent you want to make it into. Just giving intellectual assent is the same as "lip-service"; both are completely worthless.
You are the master of irony. To read Acts 10:43-47 any other way than it's crystal-clear meaning is to be blatantly dishonest.
Again Dan, it MUST be read in context with EVERY other teaching in Scripture on how salvation is received. You want to use this event to define the other passages, but they are clear that it is not in "Spirit baptism" that salvation is received. There is only one baptism of relevance in the NT Church (Eph 4:5-6), and that one baptism results in salvation being received (Mark 16:16, 1 Pet 3:21, Acts 22:16), must be done by man (Matt 28:19, and must be received voluntarily by man (Acts 2:38), and MUST be water (1 Pet 3:21, Acts 8:36).
The gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on these Gentiles. (Acts 10:45) Peter asked, Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” The truth is crystal clear Doug. Please stop fighting against the truth.
I am advocating the truth, not fighting it. The truth is that there is NOT A SINGLE PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURE that says that "Spirit baptism" is the point at which salvation is received.
Compare the fact that these Gentiles in Acts 10:45 received the gift of the Holy Spirit (compare with Acts 2:38 - the gift of the Holy Spirit) and this was BEFORE water baptism. (Acts 10:47)
"The gift of the Holy Spirit" is not the indwelling of the Spirit. It is miraculous gifts received during the first century.
No, it's merely signified but not procured in water baptism. As Greek scholar AT Robertson said, "a symbol is not the reality, but the picture of the reality."
It's not the water that does this or the mechanical act of getting water baptized. It is the Holy Spirit that does this when we believe the gospel and are baptized by one Spirit into one body (Ephesians 1:13; 1 Corinthians 12:13) and drink into one Spirit. (See John 4:10,14; 7:37-39) Other verses for you to see (Acts 10:43; 11:17; 15:7-9; 26:18)
As is clear in Rom 6, Col 2, and 1 Pet 3, the Holy Spirit takes this action DURING water baptism. No, it is not the water that does anything; it is faith that includes the actions of obedience to God that brings about the Holy Spirit's action.
