Salvation by Being Good

[Krsto]

Repenting of wickedness doesn't give anyone life. Jesus knew the man was not able to love God and his neighbor without the love of God being shed abroad on his heart by the Holy Spirit. The man asked what he could do, and the question should have caused the man to recognize his own inability to love others as he loved himself.

It's exactly like God asking Adam how he knew he was naked. It was a rhetorical question. He wanted Adam to admit what he had done. This man wanted to know what HE could do to merit God's GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE, and NO MAN is able to do so. Are you so self-righteous that you think you could love all men as much as your love yourself? If that is your claim, you are lying to yourself.

You do a fair amount of speculation regarding what Jesus knew about the lawyer. Funny thing, the lawyer didn't have an issue with loving his neighbor, he just had an issue with who gets included in "neighbor". But tell me one thing, did repentance give life before Christ as seen in the scriptures below, and if so, why not after Christ? Did God somehow make it harder to enter the kingdom by sending his Son?

The King [of Nineveh] said, “Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish." When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." (Jonah 3:8-4:2)

Another Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, wrote, “Say unto them, ‘As I live, said the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live,’” (33:11) and, "If a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life."

But hey, you pick out the one scripture in a long list you think you can argue about and sweep the rest aside. Well played.

 

[glorydaz]

Yes, of course, Christians must remain good or be disqualified, but that says nothing about non-Christians who are not wicked and thus are not in need of repenting, like the Gentiles Paul writes about in Rom. 2:26.

Even Gentiles have the law written in their conscience...they know when they do wrong (and fall short of the glory of God).

Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness,​

 

[glorydaz]

You do a fair amount of speculation regarding what Jesus knew about the lawyer. Funny thing, the lawyer didn't have an issue with loving his neighbor, he just had an issue with who gets included in "neighbor". But tell me one thing, did repentance give life before Christ as seen in the scriptures below, and if so, why not after Christ? Did God somehow make it harder to enter the kingdom by sending his Son?

The King [of Nineveh] said, “Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish." When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." (Jonah 3:8-4:2)

Another Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, wrote, “Say unto them, ‘As I live, said the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live,’” (33:11) and, "If a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life."

But hey, you pick out the one scripture in a long list you think you can argue about and sweep the rest aside. Well played.

Don't get angry. I'm merely presenting you with the other side of the story.

Where do you draw the line on wicked...what is too wicked, and what is good enough?

 

[God's Truth]

Yes, of course, Christians must remain good or be disqualified,

I agree.

but that says nothing about non-Christians who are not wicked and thus are not in need of repenting, like the Gentiles Paul writes about in Rom. 2:26.

All have to repent of sins. There is no one so righteous that has never sinned. There are righteous people, but none who have never sinned.

 

[Krsto]

Rom 15:8* Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:*

Mat 15:24* But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.*

Yes I know and his disciples took his message to the nations - because it applied to them as well.

 

[Truster]

Well I know and you said you're not a brother, as in, you're not a spiritual brother by new birth so that left only one option that I could think of.

You have proved on numerous occasions that you lack the capacity to think. It must be your role in life to spread ignorance.

 

[Krsto]

I agree.



All have to repent of sins. There is no one righteous that has never sinned. There are righteous people, but none who have never sinned.

I don't dispute that but I would dispute that all sins make a man condemned before God. The bible never says that. We repent of all of our sins in order to become more like Christ. Before that, we repent of our wickedness, if we are wicked, to become acceptable to God. It's really quite simple if we just take those scriptures at face value I posted in #14.

 

[Krsto]

You have proved on numerous occasions that you lack the capacity to think. It must be your role in life to spread ignorance.

Remind me again why am I even having a conversation with you?

 

[Krsto]

Don't get angry. I'm merely presenting you with the other side of the story.

Where do you draw the line on wicked...what is too wicked, and what is good enough?

Ahh the inevitable question. This is why the Catholics distinguish between venial and mortal sins. This is why Muslims have an army of Sharia scholars to legislate everyone's every move. This is why the Pharisees couldn't just leave it at "Don't work on the Sabbath" but had to define "work" to mean carrying the weight of a wet fig while carrying the weight of a dry fig was allowed. My answer? If God is convicting you of wickedness you better get right with God. I'm not going to do the job of the Holy Spirit.

 

[God's Truth]

I don't dispute that but I would dispute that all sins make a man condemned before God.

The Bible says that all are condemned until they come to Jesus.

The bible never says that. We repent of all of our sins in order to become more like Christ. Before that, we repent of our wickedness, if we are wicked, to become acceptable to God. It's really quite simple if we just take those scriptures at face value I posted in #14.

All have sinned and fall short. All must repent of their sins, no matter how slight.

 

[Krsto]

Even Gentiles have the law written in their conscience...they know when they do wrong (and fall short of the glory of God).

Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness,​

Yes they do and if you'll read a little slower you'll notice they were counted as circumcised, meaning, they were acceptable to God, and they would judge the circumcised who did wickedness and were thus not acceptable to God.

 

[Krsto]

The Bible says that all are condemned until they come to Jesus.



All have sinned and fall short. All must repent of their sins, no matter how slight.

"All have fallen short of the glory of God" does not equal "all stand condemned before God"

 

[God's Truth]

"All have fallen short of the glory of God" does not equal "all stand condemned before God"

John 3:1 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

Romans 11:32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

 

[God's Truth]

"All have fallen short of the glory of God" does not equal "all stand condemned before God"

By the way, you are mixing up two different things that I was talking about.

 

[marhig]

I have come to the conclusion that all that is needed for salvation is repentance from wickedness - if a person is wicked. Most are not.

Faith in Jesus was added to the equation to bring people to repentance by demonstrating God's love and providing a graphic visual to the effect that if one repents he will be forgiven, and then to provide power to overcome sin, whether those sins are wickedness which leads to damnation or other sins that so easily beset us.

Salvation in the scriptures is "restoration to wholeness" and a person that is whole (not wicked) will enter eternal life. All sin causes spiritual death in the hear and now to some degree and so all sin causes lack of wholeness to some degree so all people need salvation to some degree, if we understand what the Greek word sozo means.

We don't "earn" salvation by doing good works, but a good person does not need to receive eternal life because he already has it.

This is the verse that has rocked my Evangelical boat:

Lk. 10:25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
27 He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE."

I agree with much of what you have said, but I don't agree that most aren't wicked, we are in sinful flesh, and as we have grown, we have let sin in and grow. We all have good and bad, but without God we are all under the influence of satan, loving the flesh and this world of sin but most don't realise and they don't know it, and God forgives ignorance, that's why Jesus wants the gospel preached to all. And by being in darkness most tend to put themselves first, as I did before I knew God. We need God through Christ to take us out of the chains of darkness and bring us into his glorious light.

I agree with what you have said about the verses you've quoted, because to do what those verses say, is to live by the will of God, and Jesus said that those who enter the kingdom of heaven, are those who live by the will of the Father, not those of a certain denomination, all those who truly live by the will of God are the body of Christ. But they must believe in Jesus, because he came from God and bore witness to the truth. So anyone truly loving God and living by his will, will know that Jesus is from God and speaks the truth, those who deny him don't truly know God.

John 8

Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

But only God knows the heart of anyone, and we can't judge after the seeing of our eyes and the hearing of our ears, but through Christ by the word of God, by baring witness to the truth not by our flesh, and leave the judging of the heart of others to God.
And Jesus came and showed us the way, he's our perfect example and he showed us how to live before God and how love God with all our heart, our mind, our soul and our strength, and how to love our neighbour as ourselves, he is the way the truth and the life. And no-one comes to the father except through him. So we can't say that we love God and not believe in Jesus, because if we truly love God, then we will know that Jesus speaks the truth.

 

[Nick M]

So what are you going to do with the Sermon on the Mount

I'm not doing anything about it. I deserve to go to hell, but justice has already been served. Krsto = clueless as to what happened 2000 years ago and why.

 

[jamie]

I agree that people can't earn their own salvation without Christ. Works and belief go hand-in-hand. We accept Christ and then we act in accordance with his teachings. We must do BOTH.

Good point. Let's make a list of of the works of the man who died beside Jesus.

Was the man crucified for his works?

 

[God's Truth]

Good point. Let's make a list of of the works of the man who died beside Jesus.

Was the man crucified for his works?

That man obeyed what Jesus teaches. He feared God. He believed in Jesus. He humbled himself. The thief admitted his sins, this is confession; he also admitted he deserved his punishment, that is regret and repentance for his sin. He a acknowledged Jesus before others. He called on Jesus.

 

[Krsto]

John 3:1 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

Romans 11:32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Context my friend, context.

Vs. 20 provides your context for Rom. 11:32. The "everyone" there are the Israelites who didn't believe.

The context for Jn. 3 is a crowd of people who saw with their own eyes Jesus' good works, heard his good teachings, and still accused him of being a demon. THEY would be condemned for not believing, because Jesus also said, "To whom much is given, much is required." Lk. 12:48 People living 2000 years later hearing about this story from some moron who probably doesn't have it right to begin with are not under the same obligation as people standing right there who accused a sinless man of being the worst of humans. If you want to rip these verses out of context so you can use them as proof texts that's your prerogative but I believe God is more merciful than that.

 

[Krsto]

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