Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Of course and that is why I quoted this verse:
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Ro.1:16).
ECT Mid Acts Dispensation salvation #1 salvation #2
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Of course and that is why I quoted this verse:
Interplanner
Well-known member
Eph 2:8. This (faith) is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God...
More often then not, the word of your testimony as to what you believed that saved you, is clear.
As for this understanding of yours that faith is a gift; we will just have to agree to disagree.
You're in the family, brother.
That's a good enough start.
Yours in Him.
Interplanner
Well-known member
It is 'scary' to realize that even our faith might be a workmanship feature, that we were not even able to believe.
But it is true. We are that dead.
But it is true. We are that dead.
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
So the Lord creates man knowing that only those to whom he gives this supposed gift of faith will not perish.
But that makes no sense because He is not willing that any should perish?:
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet.3:9).
When He withholds this supposedly "gift of faith" from some then He knows that they will perish.
So if you are right then it cannot be said that the LORD is "not willing that any should perish."
You are buying into that system that asserts that is so, due to its failure to solve for that through the Scripture.
The issue is that man is not the issue simply because he is unable to be. He is short of the glory of God.
Thus, man's believing or not, is not the issue.
All man has is his volition on one hand.
And his sense of a need for self-preservation!
As the Scripture says, and they knew that they were naked, and sought to cover themselves.
Volition and self-preservation hand in hand.
Man's volition - his will to believe a thing as true or not, tells him, in his fallen state, that "this Christ stuff sounds like a bunch of baloney...."
A self-portrait of his own tendency to fabricate a thing.
While his sense of self-preservation pokes its two cents into the equation.
The dread of "what if its not; what if the wages of sin is death!!!"
Some decide to believe. Some do not.
Just as some decide not to drink and drive and others do not.
And a million other such volition for or against self-preservation decisions.
Thus, the Hebrew writer's assertion in Hebrews 11:
1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2. For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
6. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
7. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
17. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18. Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:
19. Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
In this, one aspect of the glory of the Lord is in the fact that we are not even able to believe Him.
That we have to decide to, against our own nature.
This has ever been man's struggle - was I right to have believed, or not.
Thus, why many a man throughout history has been known to have wrestled with this very issue as their last issue, as death headed their way - what if I was wrong?
The answer is still the same.
Hebrews 11:
1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2. For by it the elders obtained a good report.
Interplanner
Well-known member
Hopefully the last question will be "Did Christ sacrifice for me?"
"I am so glad that Jesus loved me...
Jesus loved me, Jesus loved even me..."
--Irish hymn
"I am so glad that Jesus loved me...
Jesus loved me, Jesus loved even me..."
--Irish hymn
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
So the Lord creates man knowing that only those to whom he gives this supposed gift of faith will not perish.
But that makes no sense because He is not willing that any should perish?:
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet.3:9).
When He withholds this supposedly "gift of faith" from some then He knows that they will perish.
So if you are right then it cannot be said that the LORD is "not willing that any should perish."
Interplanner
Well-known member
Some things will simply not resolve Jerry, like how both man and God's nature were in Christ.
The point of eph 2:8 (and the antecedent is clearly the faith) is that a person should be humble. Not take credit for faith.
It stops our world to realize that even that is a gift. That's how God can use us when we are empty and have nothing.
The point of eph 2:8 (and the antecedent is clearly the faith) is that a person should be humble. Not take credit for faith.
It stops our world to realize that even that is a gift. That's how God can use us when we are empty and have nothing.
There is no taking credit in admitting against one's own inclination not to, to acknowledge 'you're right; I have no answer, I believe...'
Faith is not believing a thing is, rather; faith is deciding to believe that it is.
Psalm 27:
10. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.
11. Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.
12. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.
13. I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14. Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
In the above, David decides to believe the LORD over his very real anxiety.
He decided to focus on the promise in the face of doubt about his ever seeing it.
Hebrews 11:
1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2. For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
6. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
This is an issue of the will. Of volition. Of deciding to believe things not seen.
13. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
They had believed to see. This is not "seeing is believing." Rather, not seeing and yet deciding to believe.
This idea that faith is a gift, is foreign to the Lord's own understanding.
John 20:
28. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.
29. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
2 Peter 1:
19. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
Acts 8:
36. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?
37. And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Notice he does not say to him "don't worry about it; you've been given the gift of believing." Rather; he requires it of him.
Note that here again - Acts 16:
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.
Acts 8, again:
37. And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
What must he do? Exercise his volition; his will to either believe that a thing is true, or not true - exercise it to believing that what he has just been told about Who he just read about - that Isaiah was speaking of the Christ - is true.
There is a condition here - the condition that one believe.
1 Thessalonians 2:
13. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
The Word is then able to work effectually - in you that believe.
Romans 1:
16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Interplanner
Well-known member
It is both, because Eph 2:8 says that from one angle it is a gift. The reason for saying that is given elsewhere--that no one should boast. If you can boast about your faith, you've missed the point.
We're saved by "GRACE" through faith. Therefore, we have nothing
to brag about. It's by God's Grace that we're saved.
Interplanner
Well-known member
Faith meant the absence of ceremonial or dietary works. But there were works: Christ's alone.
"Elsewhere"? Its the next passage.
If MAD is anything, it is about the details your school was always negligent in.
It's the very next passage - in verse 9.
And the issue throughout is the issue of salvation - of the gift of salvation by grace (the Cross) that Paul is asserting is accessed, that one is offered access unto, by faith.
Ephesians 2:
4. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, [by grace ye are saved;]
6. And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7. That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9. Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Interplanner
Well-known member
I don't have a school.
Yes it is the next line: that faith should not be boasted in. But other passages are longer about boasting like Phil 3 or Rom 3 (the end). He took on a subtle one here--that a person might boast about their faith as though it was a work. Many times in Paul faith is only the absence of ceremonial or dietary "works." Because Christ's work was everything necessary.
Yes it is the next line: that faith should not be boasted in. But other passages are longer about boasting like Phil 3 or Rom 3 (the end). He took on a subtle one here--that a person might boast about their faith as though it was a work. Many times in Paul faith is only the absence of ceremonial or dietary "works." Because Christ's work was everything necessary.
Come on, precious brother of mine in the Lord - all have a school "of thought." All are "a school" of thought.
But admittedly, I am looking at these things, or try to, from a meta level.
That is where one approaches a thing, not simply looking at it, but from a step back a bit further, to where one also sees oneself looking at what one is looking at.
Form there, one is able to see where one is approaching looking at things from to begin with - able to see one's own impact on what one is attempting to look at or see.
"But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man" 1 Cor. 2:15.
It is a plain wherein one is able to see the impact his own looking at a thing has on what he is looking at.
And its lens - this higher level lens - is and must be allowed to be, the Scripture alone.
"For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God," 1 Cor. 2:11.
1 Cor. 2:
11. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Paul asserts these things he is writing of were revealed unto his spirit by the Spirit of God.
He then relates to what end and how that took place:
13. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
He then returns to the issue that these things neither originate in man, and that, because they do not, they appear foolish unto him.
Also, that man is also unable to know them outside of the very means by which they were revealed unto Paul's spirit:
14. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
They are spiritually discerned.
And what this "spiritually discerned" is, also, has to be properly defined.
It is that complex, at first.
Only afterwards all that is solved for - and "not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth;" is it then a simple matter from then on.
Interplanner
Well-known member
STinking verbosity. if there's boasting, it's bad theology.