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Paul was not saved by faith

BigSodaExposer said:
Baptist love that verse because all it involves is believing and doesnt include repentance. Or does it?

Lets roll back and look at the context

Acts 16:29-31 "
Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."

Kneeling down with fear suggest Godly repentance. Kneeling is an act of submission. It could be he sensed a supernatural event in his neck of the woods when God shook the prison at midnight?

James 4:6 says God resist the proud but gives grace to the humble. You can't therefore come to God in the state of a wicked perverted heart. That is the rule for everyone is it not? Yet....Did Paul come to God in this state? No he did not. Therefore he was chosen... Mathew 22:14 "For many are called, but few are chosen."
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Repentance is changing your mind about who Christ is. I contend the jailer was asking how to be physically delivered from the mess he was in. He was going to be put to death for his prisoners escaping and Paul answered about his spiritual needs instead.
 
BigSodaExposer said:
Rather, the divine was revealed to him. He was chosen by God. Did this make getting saved by faith null and void for him?
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Actually when you look closely at how Paul was confronted by Christ, Paul had two choices:
(1) believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God speaking to him directly in Hebrew and telling him to repent or

(2) imagine that that vision was purely delusional and walking away from Christ.

That Paul became utterly fearful indicates that he believed that Jesus was in fact God speaking to him. Therefore he addressed him as "Lord". To the monotheistic Pharisee Saul, "Lord" meant "LORD" (YHWH) -- his God.
 
gr8grace3 said:
Repentance is changing your mind about who Christ is. I contend the jailer was asking how to be physically delivered from the mess he was in. He was going to be put to death for his prisoners escaping and Paul answered about his spiritual needs instead.
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Or it may appear that the jailer witnessed a miracle and it scared the hell outta him.

Gods Power tends to work that way sometimes. A jailer came scrambling out of the darkness to be saved. How much Divinely Active Allegory was in play in that exercise?
 
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TOG said:
My point exactly. It doesn't have anything to do with Paul being saved either. Now that we have that cleared up, why do you think Paul wasn't saved by grace through faith?

The TOG​
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Because his heart was wicked. A heart full of evil. When Christ visited him it made his heart pure. I dunno if that occured in seconds...nano seconds...minutes..weeks..or months after. But the handshake was made by God to Paul. And then Paul got saved by grace through faith in Christ.

But thats got be a scary thing to be going along and then ZAP...a light and your sight is removed. So Paul was scared. At least at first? Again...maybe the process occurs very fast. The FEAR of God breaks the perverted heart. Paul was taken from haughtiness and made low.

The best biblical example of the saving process IMO occurs in Luke 23:39-43 "39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."


The above passage carefully demonstrates the saving process. 1. Dost not thou fear God? (Repentance) 2. And we indeed justly: for we receive the due reward of our deeds. (Like admitting he was a sinner Romans 3:23) 3. He publicly confessed Jesus was lord with his mouth and believed Jesus was the son of God and had divine power and authority (Romans 10:9 without the resurrection obviously)
 
Malachi said:
Actually when you look closely at how Paul was confronted by Christ, Paul had two choices:
(1) believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God speaking to him directly in Hebrew and telling him to repent or

(2) imagining that that vision was purely delusional and walking away from Christ.

That Paul became utterly fearful indicates that he believed that Jesus was in fact God speaking to him. Therefore he addressed him as "Lord". To the monotheistic Pharisee Saul, "Lord" meant "LORD" (YHWH) -- his God.
Click to expand...
And that is exactly why Jesus did not say,"I am Jesus Christ" He described Himself only as Jesus. Because Paul already believed in a Christ or Messiah, He just didn't believe that it was the "criminal" Jesus.
 
BigSodaExposer said:
Baptist love that verse because all it involves is believing and doesnt include repentance. Or does it?

Lets roll back and look at the context

Acts 16:29-31 "
Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."

Kneeling down with fear suggest Godly repentance. Kneeling is an act of submission. It could be he sensed a supernatural event in his neck of the woods when God shook the prison at midnight?

James 4:6 says God resist the proud but gives grace to the humble. You can't therefore come to God in the state of a wicked perverted heart. That is the rule for everyone is it not? Yet....Did Paul come to God in this state? No he did not. Therefore he was chosen... Mathew 22:14 "For many are called, but few are chosen."
Click to expand...
When I heard the Gospel and responded to that, I had a wick perverted heart. I did not change my heart before. God changed my heart so I could see.
Saul's heart was not as wicked as mine. Saul believed in his heart that he was doing the will of God when he tried to stop the Gospel. He believed that Jesus and his followers were false prophets leading his people away from Yehovah. He was so sincere that it took God doing an unusual and amazing act in order to convince Saul that he was wrong.
At least that is how I see it.
 
This post is really making me think more about the Godly fear and repentance of Paul, even if very quickly it all occurred to him.


Whats interesting is. The heart goes from negative to positive that it can discern and be serious. There are many stories of people who bottom out and the heart correction also occurs (but not from a visitation like Pauls case), in this correct state they reach out to God and get saved.
 
BigSodaExposer said:
hahaha Reba. I dunno I'm trying to make sense of it I really am. The bible says not to ask dumb questions but this is not a dumb question. This is important to my understanding of salvation and trying to teach people how to be saved.
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You didn't ask a dumb question. What was, perhaps, dumb was making a declarative (or was it imperative?) statement like the one you began this with.
 
gr8grace3 said:
But God can come to us in our state of a wicked perverted heart.
Romans 5:8~~New American Standard Bible
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world?
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Christ gave himself a onetime sacrifice for ALL people.

Romans 5:8 doesnt seem to fit this though. Sinners is what we are...by default. Its only through faith are we made righteous to God. Abraham's faith was counted for righteousness. So was Sara's and Abels, and Noahs. All flesh is below 100 percent righteousness and each of us are at different levels. Faith is the sin buffer and through it we achieve 100 percent righteousness. The bible says the only way we TODAY (not Israel only) can me made righteous is through faith alone in the finished works of Jesus Christ.

When someone is truly saved the handshake is made. They then have the veil removed and can see the truth. The narrow path (way). They then can choose to walk by the spirit toward the narrow path, or to walk backward by the flesh. But once can't see the correct way before. They reason everything with flesh mind reasoning. As we walk toward the light of the world (Christ)...the light grows brighter (bigger) and the world grows smaller (dimmer).

Those truly in Christ are constantly being molded by the spirit. changing to be made more like Christ. Why then are there so many that go to a brick and mortar church yet never seem to change? Do they really know Jesus?

Why this is important is the fear and repentance aspect to being saved. There are many that teach you can live like the devil and still get saved. Once the handshake is made.......its an eye opening life changing experience. But the thing is...did the handshake actually get made with you. Has your awareness increased? Mine did.... And I see the truth more and more everyday. Its a painful truth sometimes...even disgusting. But truth nevertheless.

Why are so many self proclaimed "christians" still out fornicating and stealing and living on pride? Do they not know the difference of righteousness and unrighteousness?
 
BigSodaExposer said:
Why are so many self proclaimed "christians" still out fornicating and stealing and living on pride? Do that not know the difference of righteousness and unrighteousness?
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No believer stops being a sinner. The progression of captivity is the only real question. Thought to word to deed is the path that sin takes. But none of us are removed from the first step, that of having evil thoughts, which defile us. We can try to excuse such internal evil, but there are no excuses available. We are all provided ample opportunity to have our senses exercised with evil thoughts.

And many fall in the progression of that activity, left unchecked. In many ways the proof of the Gospel resides in anti-proof. Internal evil is an anti-proof. And and exercise that all of us are guaranteed one way or another.
 
BigSodaExposer said:
Christ gave himself a onetime sacrifice for ALL people.

When someone is truly saved the handshake is made. They then have the veil removed and can see the truth. The narrow path (way). They then can choose to walk by the spirit toward the narrow path, or to walk backward by the flesh. But once can't see the correct way before. They reason everything with flesh mind reasoning. As we walk toward the light of the world (Christ)...the light grows brighter (bigger) and the world grows smaller (dimmer).
Click to expand...
:)
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face.
And the things of this earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.
 
I might speculate that what the original poster was observing is a bit of unfairness in how Saul was saved as compared to others who may or may not be.

And that is where Divine Directive shows us only His Superiority in all such matters.

There is only our retrospective sight of what happened, but God can not be forced by formula into doing the same equally as unto Saul for others.
 
smaller said:
No believer stops being a sinner. The progression of captivity is the only real question. Thought to word to deed is the path that sin takes. But none of us are removed from the first step, that of having evil thoughts, which defile us. We can try to excuse such internal evil, but there are no excuses available. We are all provided ample opportunity to have our senses exercised with evil thoughts.

And many fall in the progression of that activity, left unchecked. In many ways the proof of the Gospel resides in anti-proof. Internal evil is an anti-proof. And and exercise that all of us are guaranteed one way or another.
Click to expand...

James 1:15 is a great example. Lust to Sin to death. I use a bank robbery as an example. 1. You lust for money and to be rich so you scheme a way to rob and not get caught (This is iniquity) 2. phase 2 is the actual transgression when I hold someone up and rob them this is the sin manifested. 3. death might occur by something random like the plan failed and I have a shootout with cops and they kill me. Even if I do not get caught the iniquity continues as I continually tell lies to try and hide my sin that God knows about.

I wonder at what point it truly gets evil. According to Jesus in Mathew 5:37 anything other then yes or no comes from evil. That is a very sobering truth. That means that most comedy is actually wicked.

Jehovah is a righteous judge. No one makes us sin, we do it. But it does feel like Satan is an unfair/unbalanced tempter. But according to 1 Corinthians 10:13 Satan is not allowed to tempt us beyond our means...and God always provides a way out. In other words, we always have a choice not to sin.
 
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