I'm not sure why you're asking me the question above. My contention is that water baptism is not salvific, not that a born-again person ought to neglect to be baptized. In other words, though water baptism plays no part in a person being saved, it is something a new convert to the faith ought to do, signifying their new life in, and union with, Christ.
Is repentance needed for salvation?
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How are famous preachers sometimes affected by sin?
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I'm not sure why you're asking me the question above. My contention is that water baptism is not salvific, not that a born-again person ought to neglect to be baptized. In other words, though water baptism plays no part in a person being saved, it is something a new convert to the faith ought to do, signifying their new life in, and union with, Christ.
Any firm stance that may be "offensive" to them, any message against the mainstream narrative, you know what I'm talking about. You shouldn't be asking me what they're disapproving if what you shared with me is true, that they who're disobedient disapprove of your obedience. Jesus promised to bring division. Some folks on this very forum don't even believe sin exists, if you preach to them the basics that Jesus died for our sins, they're gonna get upset.
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If I'd known what exactly you had meant, I wouldn't have asked for clarification.
I asked you only what you meant; I was not, in doing so, indicating ignorance on my part about the attitude of those disobedient to God toward those who aren't.
You seem very unnecessarily defensive...
On matters concerning divine truth, yes.
I see.
Hi, where does the Bible say we ought to be Baptized in WATER?
Note: I have been water Baptized
Matthew 3:13-17
13 Then came Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.
14 But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of you, and you come to me?
15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Allow it to be so now: for thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he allowed him.
16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
John 1:26
26 John answered them, saying, I baptize with water...
Acts 8:35-38
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
36 And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what hinders me from being baptized?
37 And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
38 And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.
*Sigh* Do you mean you want an explicit statement from Scripture saying something like, "All Christians should be baptized with water"?
If so, I should like to know why. It is a clear and obvious inference drawn from the Bible verses I gave you that baptism, both of Jesus himself and of early Christians, was performed with water. As far as I'm concerned, I need nothing else to persuade me that such baptism is, at least, well in keeping with God's word.
Originally my point was that children of God are meant to struggle with sins for a lifetime, not only our own, but others' as well. There're always those who compromise on LGBTQ, who silence your voice, who criticize your practice, that you're a "fundemantalist" gone too far. If you had truly confronted those apostate leaders you described, you'd have known such a struggle better than I do, you said you're well acquainted with those demons, you'd understand that we suffer for Christ's sake more often then we rejoice for Christ's sake. I'm not complaining or rebuking you, I'm just wondering, that if this is the price we must pay for fellowship with God. After all, Jesus carried his cross on the road to calvary alone, all his disciples had forsook him at that point; also, in the days of Noah, no one was with him except his family of eight, and the end times will be like the days of Noah.
But we aren't meant to struggle with our sin for a lifetime. A crucially-important part of the effect of Christ's Atonement for our sin was our liberation from both sin's penalty and power.
Romans 6:6-11
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
No truly born-again person ever HAS to sin. They have been set free from the power of sin by their spiritual union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. In order to begin to experience this truth in daily living, however, the born-again person has to start doing what verse 11 commands them to do. This is done, though, in tandem with Paul's command given in verse 13. Together, verse 11 and verse 13 form the core of our "way of escape" from any and all sin.
When I've suffered in obedience to God's will, there is joy, and confidence, and even rest because I know God is pleased with me. So long as He is, I am content, and even happy, whatever antagonism may come at me from others.
The "price" is offset entirely by the knowledge that in my obedience to God I have preserved fellowship with Him and pleased Him.
Hebrews 12:2
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 13:5-6
5 ...he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
6 So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
Forgiveness of sin is NOT absence of sin. Just take a look at the Israelites delivered from Egypt, they were disobedient and grumpy, none of them made it to the promised land except Joshua and Caleb. Throughout church history, there had always been sound teachings about sin, people understood the original sin in human nature, they understood the seven deadly sins of envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth and wrath, it was embedded in the basic Christian worldview. These days this is rarely preached from any pulpit, this understanding is lost, people believe that we were all born sinless, the original sin was either imaginary at the beginning or it was all wiped away by the blood of Christ. However, the concept of sin remains, this world is evil, society is dysfunctional, so what is wrong? This is where deception slips in with erroneous diagnosis - it's our own shame, guilt and inhibition; it's the oppressive patriarchy and white privilege; it's consumerism and carbon emission; it's injustice against marginalized groups; it's the tyrannical government and beaurocracy; and the list goes on. Christ died for our sins, but misunderstanding of sin leads to false repentance and false christs, and they are rampant, which you've had firsthand experience.
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No, it's not. But as I showed you from God's word, both the penalty and power of sin are already dealt with by Christ at the cross. His shed blood has cleansed us from the stain of our sin and his cross holds powerless our "old Self," the person we are apart from God, rebellious, selfish and fleshly. Read Romans 6.
Yes, but the New Covenant Christian is living in a circumstance with God that is very unlike what any OT Jew lived in. For one, the New Covenant Christian is constantly and permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit who gives to the born-again Christian the life of Christ in all its wonderful depth, and richness, and power. No Jew enjoyed such a thing - and it often showed in how they behaved, as in the case of the complaints they raised during their Exodus from Egypt.
??? Original sin? Is such a thing actually taught in Scripture? We are all inheritors of Adam's sinful nature, a nature disposed to rebellion toward God and pathological selfishness, but we don't bear Adam's sin. Adam's sin is his own, just as our sin is our own.
All sin is deadly because it rises from the same wicked sin-nature we all possess as descendants of Adam that is "not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be" (Romans 8:5-8). As the apostle James wrote, if we sin in one point, we are guilty of all (James 2:10). In other words, when we "break a link" in the "chain" of God's law by stealing a cookie from Grandma's cookie jar, the chain is broken, not just the link. And so, God says in His word that a proud look is just as much an abomination that He hates as murder is (Proverbs 6:16-19). There aren't, then, "seven deadly sins" that are greater in their sinfulness than all other sins. God hates every sin, which is why Jesus died for all of them, not just "the seven deadly ones." (Hebrews 9-10:22)
I've not heard this sort of thing preached from any pulpit before which I've sat. As you say, though, unrepentant sinners outside of the Church are self-justifying, refusing to acknowledge their sinfulness. This has always been the case, I think.
Yes, sin doesn't always appear to be what it is - especially when it is of the passive sort where one simply doesn't do the good they know to do. (James 4:17)
And I've argued that this requires a correct understanding of sin. If there's no sin, then there couldn't be penalty or power or "stains" of sin.
Holy Spirit is not necessarily burning in every temple, many lack the oil to sustain the flame, that's why this exodus analogy is still relevant.
Yes, it's that sinful nature, that's what I'm talking about, Rom. 5:12. If there's no original sin, then there's no need for salvation - or repentence. When you read the core gospel messenge of "Christ died for our sins" in 1 Cor. 15:3, original sin is presupposed in that statement.
The seven deadly sins are NOT seven individual, separate sins, they are seven categories of ALL sins, it's a necessary teaching tool for us to grapple the concept and gravity of sin. If you just preach that sin is disobedience to God, God hates all sins, all sins are deadly, nobody would understand it, and it could be easily distorted into disobedience to any governing authority, to any immoral, corrupt leaders, because their power and legitimacy come from God, they are God's ministers, disobeying them is disobeying God. We know that couldn't be further from the truth, sin is exposed in the Torah, the OT law. Without the law we wouldn't have known sin, Paul addressed that in Rom. 7:7 - "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet."
But sadly, law is often viewed as sin in most protestant churches, we're taught all the time that we are living in the "dispensation of grace," we're "under grace, not law", OT laws are obsolete, even though Jesus clarified that he came to fulfill not to abolish the law. Without the law, there must be other means to expose sins, we wouldn't have known what "covetousness" means, it's an antiquated word to most people, that's where the seven deadly sins fit in. This is a historical fact, sir, it's not me being argumentative or making stuffs up or defending a doctrine or something out of a ulterior motive.
That's inside the church as well, Christianity in America is degraded into "therapeutic moralistic deism". Sound teaching about sin is lost, that's why we've got all those misconceptions of sin I listed. Ignoring this problem doesn't make it disappear.
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Yes, Christians should have a good, biblical understanding of what God means by "sin," or "transgression," or "iniquity," but no one ever became more like Christ by focusing on these things, or harping on them to others. The goal is to be more like Jesus; it isn't to be less sinful than we were. The difference here is what one's spiritual "gauge" is: The infinite holy perfection of Christ on which we've set our sights and toward which we're moving all the time, or our own sinfulness from which we're trying to distance ourselves but on which we have our eyes fixed, like Lot's wife, as we depart it. I follow the apostle Paul's recommendation in choosing which "gauge" I'll use:
Philippians 3:12-14
12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
??? We don't have any "oil" of our own; we certainly don't sustain the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. He comes to helpless sinners (Romans 5:6; Ephesians 2:1-3; Titus 3:3) and makes them "new creatures in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17) entirely by his own divine power. Those who become his "temple" can contribute nothing of their own to the maintenance of his presence within them. He has promised never to leave nor forsake his own (Hebrews 13:5b), but his faithfulness in doing so is generated from within his own holy, divine nature, not from their efforts to be holy.
I don't see these categories established in God's word, or used by any of the writers of the New Testament in their teaching on the matter of sin...
All sin, iniquity or transgression is, at bottom, selfishness that manifests in rebellion toward God. Out of this selfish rebellion toward God all sin arises. This isn't difficult to understand. And warding oneself against unbiblical distortions of what constitutes rebellion toward God is best accomplished simply by being a careful student of God's word. Most folks want someone else to do the thinking for them, to tell them what the Bible says, however, and it is for this reason they are susceptible to abuse by the "expert" or supposed "spiritual authority."
Well, what does God's word actually say?
Romans 7:4-6
4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Romans 8:1-2
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
Galatians 3:22-27
22 But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
23 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.
24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.
25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
And so on.
There is nothing more certain, more reliable, when it comes to recognizing whether or not a thing is sin than the conviction and illumination of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16). Working in tandem with God's word, the Spirit shines a light on hidden motives, self-deceptions, secret resentments, and so on, exposing regions of our inner life that the law does not, and cannot touch. Jesus pointed at this inner life and how the Mosaic Law didn't deal with it in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. He talked of the man who hated his brother being guilty of murder, and of the man who lusted after women in his heart being an adulterer. Jesus condemned the wanton divorcement that was going on among the Jews, allowed by the letter of the law for the most trivial of reasons. Except in the case of adultery, he said, a man who divorced his wife was guilty of making her an adulterer, and would himself be one, too, should he remarry. Jesus was pointing out that God's desire for His people was not the keeping of the letter of the law, but the fulfillment of the spirit of the law that was aimed at their heart, not at mere outward conformity to the rules, as in the case of the Pharisees.
Yes, moralism is rampant in the North American church. And in some cases, it has degenerated into full-blown TMD. But the answer isn't to begin to bang away on the drum of sin, but to lift high the holiness of God and Christ and define carefully and repeatedly what holiness is. Again, no one ever became more like Christ by being focused on sin.
Tenchi, I thought you weren't agreeing that Jesus said that He must be baptized to fulfill all righteousness.
Maybe I don't remember and it's a couple of days ago. So if you don't remember either, just let it go.
I was curious, IF I understood you correctly, as to what the reason is that YOU think Jesus had to be baptized.
Just because I would pay attention to your reply.
You think I like to focus on sins? Yes, to be more like Jesus, that's the goal, but WHICH Jesus? “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand." Now these false christs and prophets are rampant, if you don't really know him, his dual nature of God and man, his roles of both servant and Lord, his judgement of sin and his forgiveness of sin, you'd be comforming to a false Jesus. I'm sure you know him very well, but most other folks don't, they lack the four pillars of Christian worldview - creation, fall, redemption and glorification, IN THAT ORDER.
Then what's the parable of ten virgins about? Where did their oil come from? Why didn't the Lord provide sufficient oil for all ten? Why was it their responsibility to prepare and replenish their own oil in the lamp?
Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:17-20)
You shall not murder - wrath;
You shall not commit adultery - lust;
You shall not covet - envy;
He who exalts himself shall be humbled - pride;
the love of money is the root of all evil - greed;
He who does not work, neither shall he eat; - sloth;
If you find honey, eat just enough—too much of it, and you will vomit. - gluttony;
Although we both abide by the principle of Sola Scriptura, we both understand that the bible as God's word is the highest authority, historically the church, specifically the Catholic church is the highest authority, God's authority was delegated to the church first and then to the bible, and most folks were illiterate, the sole source of their spiritual knowledge was received through word of mouth; I've personally debated with some of them, they took the credit of compiling and traslating of the bible on the church. Nowadays it's not much different, we still rely on sound teaching, and horizontal communication with other brothers in Christ is equally important as vertical communication with Christ himself.
These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children ... (Deut. 6:6-7)
“Do you understand what you are reading?” ... “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:30-31)
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Don't you think we should learn to crawl before we learn to walk? Isn't it written that we are fed with milk before we can digest solid meat? How can our righteousness surpass the Pharisees when our righteousness doesn't even reach their level?
The answer, as I mentioned above, is a basic Christian worldview - creation, fall, redemption and glorification, IN THAT ORDER. Anything that deviates from this worldview is questionable. I don't know about you, but when I read a book, I tend to read the synopsis of that book first, to get a grip on its message and narrative. If I just dive in, chances are, I'll get lost and clueless. I think the bible makes no exception, its core message and narrative is this worldview.
I don't know; but I warn you that doing so will never make you more like Christ (Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Hebrews 12:2-3).
Remember, Matthew 25:1-13 offers an analogy, not a literal event. Is the Church, are all the members of it, actually female? There aren't any males waiting with lamps for the bridegroom's appearance, after all... Is every Christian to go about carrying a first-century lamp full of oil? Will Jesus reject any who don't have one full of oil? Who is the seller of oil? Where do we find him?
Fortunately, Jesus gives us the point of his analogy about the Ten Virgins:
Matthew 25:13
13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Jesus doesn't make any comment on gender, or the kind of lamp, or the sort of oil in them, or where to find the seller of oil. He indicated that the point of his story was to encourage his audience to "Watch therefore" for his return, remaining properly prepared for it.
Why is it each individual's responsibility to watch, and be prepared, for Christ's return? Why shouldn't it be? Christians aren't prisoners, or puppets; they must freely choose to know and serve Christ, waiting expectantly for his return.
I'm not sure what you're point is in quoting this passage. Are you offering it in contradiction to the ones I cited?
When did Jesus speak the things in the passage above? Before or after Calvary?
In what covenantal context did he speak about the "Law and the prophets"? Old or New?
To whom was he speaking? Jews under the Old Testament Covenant, or born-again believers?
Did Jesus perfectly fulfill God's Law? Yes, he did. What did this mean for Jews under the Old Covenant whose ancestors had demonstrated for millennia that they could not properly keep the Mosaic Law?
??? This hardly establishes what I asserted - correctly - was absent from Scripture. Again, nowhere does any writer of the NT speak of "the seven deadly sins." None of the writers ever categorize sins in this way. That you've managed to squeeze commands of God into this "deadly sins" framework doesn't at all oblige anyone else to do the same. And, again, no sin is more deadly than any other, in God's economy of things. Every sin, "big" or "small," required a blood sacrifice. Every sin is worthy of eternal hell.
??? I don't think this at all. No centralized human institution, governed by fallible men, prone to terrible corruption, as the R. C. church has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be, can be invested by God with His supreme authority, standing above His word, even. As the apostle Paul wrote, the Bible is entirely sufficient to guide believers in all matters of Christian doctrine and practice (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Hebrews 4:12; Psalms 119; 1 Peter 2:2).
Not so. The earliest Christian believers had access to the Tanakh and very early on the letters of the apostles were distributed among the first Christian churches, which we read about in Acts. In fact, there was likely quite a forest of such letters passed around among the churches, copied and copied again, slowly, over time, coalescing into a select few letters that the earliest believers settled upon as the canon of the NT.
??? You've debated with the members of the Early Church? Interesting...
Through a very organic process of selection, the Early Church, not any particular Council, settled upon the canon of the NT. The Councils merely acknowledged what the members of the Early Church had already chosen as the widely-recognized and used text of the NT. Were it not for the pressure of heretics like Marcion, it might have been that no Council would ever have formally-recognized what the Early Church members had settled upon as the NT canon.
Those who have "put on Christ" (Romans 13:14; Galatians 3:26-29) and are thus clothed in his perfect righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 1:30), have a righteousness that far, far, far exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. These are the "born-again" (John 3:3-8), who have become "new creatures in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17), the righteousness of Christ imputed to them (Romans 4:21-23) and have thus become acceptable to God (Ephesians 1:6) in a way no Pharisee ever was.
No, the answer is a real, heart-level transformation worked by the Holy Spirit in the repentant sinner. No worldview can serve as surrogate for the Spirit's life and work in the born-again person.
With the Divine Guide, who is the Holy Spirit, there is no getting lost in God's word.
John 14:26
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 16:13
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
1 Corinthians 2:10-16
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Just to be clear: I'm not thinking of you in an adversarial way. Rather, I'm just offering thoughts in response to your comments, throwing God's truth into the "pot" of conversation and letting the results be what they are. I haven't any particular agenda I'm pursuing in our back-and-forth, nor any interest in "winning" a debate, so I hope you won't feel assailed by my posts.
And I explained to you that you can’t be more like Christ without knowing the REAL Christ from the fake ones, and that requires a correct understanding of sin. Who’s the real Christ? My lord and savior who died for my sins. What’s sin? Disobedience to God. Who’s God? To most people, the government, an idol, or a curse word, anything but the creator of heavens and earth. That’s why we must know God’s character so we can see it manifest in Christ.