If the below is dispensationalism speak, may the Lord have mercy for its adherents.
AMR
Lol - good one, bro.
Now that was funny...
Though you did mispell "grant" in your post right above that one
If the below is dispensationalism speak, may the Lord have mercy for its adherents.
AMR
I think that your lack of rightly dividing the word of truth requires you to have the "now and not yet distinction".Salvation, more traditionally understood, versus the punctiliar notion of being born again, refers to the entire Golden Chain of redemption: foreknowledge, predestination, calling, regeneration, faith, repentance, justification, union to Christ, adoption, sanctification, and glorification.
Hence, the now and not yet distinctions often used in Scripture. There is the sense of our being saved during our walk of faith along with the sense given in the promise made, that we are now saved. Emphasizing one or the other too much leads to despair and doubt in the one case, antinomianism in the other.
AMR
Well done! Correction made.Lol - I was in mostly in agreement with you on the knowledge, assent, trust...til that last sentence.
No.
Again, more reading into my words without warrant. Rather than being so strident and very incorrect, try seasoning your words with some tentativeness, as in, "If I am reading you correctly, you seem to think salvation is a process." This is the reasoned manner for situations where general things are being discussed absent clear declarations.
Salvation, more traditionally understood, versus the punctiliar notion of being born again, refers to the entire Golden Chain of redemption: foreknowledge, predestination, calling, regeneration, faith, repentance, justification, union to Christ, adoption, sanctification, and glorification.
Hence, the now and not yet distinctions often used in Scripture. There is the sense of our being saved during our walk of faith along with the sense given in the promise made, that we are now saved. Emphasizing one or the other too much leads to despair and doubt in the one case, antinomianism in the other.
AMR
The same as anyone else, via the opening of my ears by the Spirit such that I was now able to hear the Good News: Romans 3:23; 6:23; 8:1; 10:9; 10:13.Hi and how do we then become saved , with verses only !!
Is it by John 3:5 !
Or by Rom 10:9 !
Or by Eph 2:8 !
How were you SAVED ?
dan p
There is theology and there is faith. I don't think we have to have the same theology, but if our faith is based on wrong theology, then I believe we are better off not having faith at all.
Where have I intimated what you claim of me? Please do not put words into my mouth.
My post made many years earlier in response to another member herein has been deleted with the past database updates, but it bears repeating:
Nowhere in Scripture are we admonished to remain at the milk level of our understanding of our faith. In fact, we are explicitly told to study and prove out that which we believe.
Theology and practice are separable only verbally and are inseparable for salvation. There are two basic questions in life: “Who is Jesus?” and “Who is God?” We all know how easy it is to create pictures and images in our minds, which turn out not to have any basis in reality. This is especially easy when dealing with something transcendent (like God) or seemingly paradoxical (like Incarnate Christ): there has to be some foundation against which we can check our interior life, so that we do not create some sort of idols or false ideas in the idol factories of our minds and then go worshipping them.
There are many that sincerely believe this or that, but sincerity is never the test of the validity of one's belief. Sincere people around the world have constructed idols from their beliefs and worship them. There are many herein that eschew any sort of appeal to the theological inclined that have preceded us, thinking that they are able to discern complex doctrines by simply reading the Scriptures, never testing what they have concluded against the community of the saints, or wrongly assuming anything men have written outside of the Scriptures is unworthy of study or consideration. Very few can lay claim to a solitary achievement of mastery of the complexities of doctrine—that is why we read the works of such persons preceding us while checking them against the Word of God. Taking every word captive for the glory of God (2 Cor. 10:5) means just that...learning from others, digesting the meat of their words while casting aside the bones.
The study of God, theology as taught in Scripture, is every Christian's calling in order that we may prove out our beliefs, be ready to defend them, and not bring shame to God. Every true believer is a theologian.
Looked at from another direction, if our view of God is wrong, no amount of good works can erase the idolatry we have erected in our heart. So, both go together: faith (theological growth in progress) and praxis (life). One guides, corrects, and balances the other. What if our faith is in something we have imagined? What if we have created an intellectual idol? The Scripture's theology is the guarantor, the check point, and the touchstone, that our faith is legitimate.
Thus, theologians, whether formally trained practitioners or the devoted believer as a student of Scripture, are something like grammarians than like scientists or detectives. Such theologians show us from Scripture how to think, and how not to think, about God, and thusly how to talk about Him. What we should say, and what we should not say. Such theologians do not control what we may say; they simply indicate the rules of intelligible speech.
Finally, gathering up all our studies of God's theology will result in a systematic viewpoint. Systematic theology is a fence that guards our exegesis from error. If our systematic theology actually comes from the organic unfolding progressive nature of Scripture, then it will not be a straight-jacket, but rather the fence that keeps the children from going out into the dangerous road.
AMR
Heaven, when do we go there?
Concerning all who die prior to Christ's return, the Bible teaches that at the moment of death the human spirit (soul) departs its body to one of two possible destinations: Heaven or Hades (Luke 16:19-31; Phil. 1:19-26; James 2:26; Rev. 6:9, 20:4). Those who reach Heaven do so based not upon their own good works, but upon the work of Christ in their behalf—His righteous life and atoning death—and upon their God-given faith in Him (Mark 10: 45; John 1:12, 3:16; Rom. 3:21; Eph. 2:8-10).
The saints in Heaven (Abraham’s bosom)—fully aware of their surroundings and delighted by its manifold blessings per their walk of faith (Heb. 12:22-24)—eagerly await their Lord's return at the end of the age, when Our Lord will consummate their redemption by raising them from the dead with new, glorified, resurrection bodies just as He now possesses, and by creating for them a glorious new world in which they will forever live together with Him (Luke 20:27-40, John 5:28, 1 Cor. 15, Phil. 3:20-21; 2 Pet. 3:13).
Those who enter Hades (Sheol in Hebrew) do so based upon their own evil works, especially upon the evil work of suppressing the truth that God made known to them through nature, the Law, and the Gospel, the Gospel being God's only provision for the forgiveness of sin and the acquisition of eternal life (John 3:19,36: John 5:29; Acts 13:46, Rom. 2:8; 2 Thess. 1:8; Rev. 20:12).
In Hades the lost are in the torments of eternal punishment, deprived of God's every life-giving blessing, conscious of God's abiding wrath, and subject to the positive pains of divine retribution all according to their particular sins. Also, to the extent that they may be aware of it, the lost are tormented in this intermediate state of prison by anticipation of the Resurrection and the Day of Judgment, when Christ will send them—body and soul—into Gehenna (Hell), the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt. 8:29, Mt. 10:28, 25: 41; Mark 9:48, Luke 16:19-31; 2 Thess. 1:9; Rev. 20:14) where they will remain forever afterwards suffering unending punishment.
AMR