What is salvation?

[Robert]

Thanks for those quotes. No question that sin separates us from God and hides His face, Isa 59:1.

And that is why you need a Savior because you were born sinful and hence separated from God. You are by nature lost....Your performance just proves it....Even now you are failing to fully live Christ's life....Hence, if you were under law you would have to die the 2nd death....As far as the law is concerned there's no difference between your performance and a porn star living for his flesh....Sin is sin....

[Robert]

Isa 59:1 Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

[Robert]

Then are all saved?

Yes, all have been saved in Christ....Everyone has a new humanity "in Christ" right now....Christ has done it all...even the life you currently enjoy...the food you eat...but He will not force this gospel on you therefore if you are mentally able He requires you to give Him permission to account you perfect in Himself....

[Robert]

Quote:

God was in Christ reconciling the human race to Himself in the doing and dying of Christ....The law has been legally answered without doing away with it.

Excellent Excellent. Now please ... I hope someone is not going to come by and state that Robert believes that the law was done away with. Please tell me we are better than that.

The law hasn't been abrogated, instead I died to the law in humanity of Christ....The law only has jurisdiction over a person as long as they are living, but I am dead killed by the law itself....Since I am dead the law is satisfied with me....It can't touch me.....

Rom 7:6 But now, by dying to what once bound us [the law], we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

See under law everything you do is out of fear and/or hope of reward. Both egocentric reason and hence polluted with self. Hence the fruits are self-righteous...filthy rags....But under grace I am no longer in fear of the law because it is finished with me....It can't touch me because I have already died....Now I can grow in the Spirit..I can become more like Christ...not out of compulsion...out of fear...but because I have salvation in Christ....

[karl]

Rom 7:6 But now, by dying to what once bound us [the law], we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

See under law everything you do is out of fear and/or hope of reward. Both egocentric reason and hence polluted with self. Hence the fruits are self-righteous...filthy rags....But under grace I am no longer in fear of the law because it is finished with me....It can't touch me because I have already died....Now I can grow in the Spirit..I can become more like Christ...not out of compulsion...out of fear...but because I have salvation in Christ....

Do you believe everyone who ever lived is dead to the law, Robert? Is all of humanity serving in this new way of the Spirit?

I haven't been seeing that sort of graceful serving all around me, for some reason. There are a few isolated instances. I'm not saying that nobody is serving in this new way of the Spirit.

By the way, why would Paul call it a "new" way if it is, in fact, the "old" way (from the foundation of the world?)

It is really confusing, to me.

[Robert]

Do you believe everyone who ever lived is dead to the law, Robert? Is all of humanity serving in this new way of the Spirit?

Christ, as the 2nd Adam, took our humanity and it died to the law in His body.....In Him the world has been reconciled to God. Those who can exercise faith, either directly or through indirect revelation, need to accept it....Then they begin serving in the new way of the Spirit.....

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

Then are all saved?

Yes, all have been saved in Christ....Everyone has a new humanity "in Christ" right now....Christ has done it all...even the life you currently enjoy...the food you eat...but He will not force this gospel on you therefore if you are mentally able He requires you to give Him permission to account you perfect in Himself....

ALL are saved? And NONE lost?

[Robert]

Originally Posted By: Robert

Yes' date=' all have been saved in Christ....Everyone has a new humanity "in Christ" right now....Christ has done it all...even the life you currently enjoy...the food you eat...but He will not force this gospel on you therefore if you are mentally able He requires you to give Him permission to account you perfect in Himself.... [/quote']

ALL are saved? And NONE lost?

Read what I said again....

[karl]

Originally Posted By: karl

Do you believe everyone who ever lived is dead to the law, Robert? Is all of humanity serving in this new way of the Spirit?

Christ, as the 2nd Adam, took our humanity and it died to the law in His body.....In Him the world has been reconciled to God. Those who can exercise faith, either directly or through indirect revelation, need to accept it....Then they begin serving in the new way of the Spirit.....

I think this is where we part ways. I know we can dice Paul's letters and even SOP to get everyone reconciled without their participation. I don't buy it. I don't buy the kinda-sorta salvation. It is, but it isn't. We're reconciled, but not really. Not personally.

When you dig deep into unilateral reconciliation it is a salvation of appeasement. Christ dies and this changes God's feelings toward us. In this version of things, it is God Who changes. I'm pretty sure God doesn't agree with this ("I change not.")

God has always been reconciled to us. We are the rebels. He has always pursued us. We cannot be reconciled to Him until we give in to Him. I'm certain this is the way it works.

And so we beseech you, be ye reconciled to God.

[Kevin H]

One thing that we have to remember (and sadly we have a tradition that can make us forget) that the Bible presents God's law from general to specific.

Our tradition of the 2 laws, the moral and the ceremonial does not hold up that well under close study, and certanly not the theory that it was the ceremonial law that was nailed to the cross. It was our sins that was nailed to the cross. That was the ordance against us, not the law. But since we thought it was the law we formed the 2 law theory with some proof texts, but there are other proof texts that ballance out the picture.

What we have is that God's law is self-sacrificing love. No more and no less. However it is fair to ask what is self sacrificing love, so we have the 2 great principles, to love God supreamly and our neighbor AS ourself, where no greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his brother.

To explain this we have the 10 commandaments. In the Exodus 20 version we find 3 thirds. The first third, consisiting of 3 commandaments tellins us how to love God supreamly. The last third, consisting of 6 commandaments tell us how to love our neighbor as ourselves (and pictures the role of the Holy Spirit in changing our lives). The middle third, consisting of one commandament, is a study in righteousness by faith, saying that the only way we can love God supreamly and our neighbor as our self is by fully resting in a relationship with our creator and saveour.

Everything else is simply applicaton of the law. And to the fundamentalist's displeasure and needing them to do a whole bunch of tapdancing, we find that while God's law is abosolute and unchanging, that these applications are not absolute. For example, the laws of the alter (trying to pick one that won't step on toees) the Bible was very strict that alters were not to be built out of stone that had tools touch them, they had to be just regular field stone. But then it allows for stone that tools have touched as long as you don't build it high enought to need steps because of being able to look up the clothes. Soloman gives his priests pants and you have an alter made out of huen stone high enought for steps, each which would have been seen as going against earlier Biblical verses and being directly condemmed as sin. The sin was the imodesty of the outfits and when the priests were able to have trousers maintaining their modesty then they could construct the alters with the worked stone and steps.

Or looking at David and Nathan. Nathan was not only a prophet but the highest prophet, the Lord's messenger. The one who was seen as the earthly reflection of a member of the divine counsel who told humans what was going on in the divine counsel. In his official role of the Lord's messenger, David asked him about building the temple. From his expirence, from his inspiration from the Holy Spirit, he did not see any sin in changing from worshiping God in the tent to the temple. But God then came directly and pointed out something that he missed; Although it would not have been a sin to change from the tent to the temple, it was not a wise thing to do at that time. Both Joshua's conquest of the land and David's had a lot more evangelisism than it did bloodshed. David had many who were raised to worship Baal but who were now worshiping Yahweh.

Now in the ancient Canaanite El religion, El (God) was worshiped in a tent. When the empehsses went from El to El's son Baal, Baal was worshiped in temples. For these new converts from Baal worship, a temple would have been confusing, were they now turning from worshiping God to worshiping God's son? Were they going back to the Baal worship that they were growing up with? Therefore God wanted to give this first generation of converts more time to become stronger Yahwehests.

Althought edited to look like 2 meetings, there are hints in the text that there were actually 3 meetings, the first saying that yes it was ok to build the temple, then the no it is not a good time to build the temple, then probably years later as this generation of converts were growing older, then Nathan could say that David's son could build the temple.

(also another interesting study is reading the different recordings of the Nathan prophecy, how our records agreee and dissagree with each other) But in Nathan's thrifold message we find that the idea of the temple was not wrong, but that it was not a good time due to the different roles of the tent and temple in the lives of the generation of new converts, but as these new converts got settled into their faith and the next generation was raised in the faith, then it became a good time to build that temple.

So once again, we need to remember that we have the presentation of God's law of going from a strict general principle to specific and flexable applications.

[Robert]

Originally Posted By: Robert

Christ, as the 2nd Adam, took our humanity and it died to the law in His body.....In Him the world has been reconciled to God. Those who can exercise faith, either directly or through indirect revelation, need to accept it....Then they begin serving in the new way of the Spirit..... [/quote']

I think this is where we part ways. I know we can dice Paul's letters and even SOP to get everyone reconciled without their participation.

Okay...let's look at the opposite...When did you become condemned?

1] When you outwardly sinned

2] In Adam

[Robert]

Originally Posted By: karl

Okay...let's look at the opposite...When did you become condemned?

1] When you outwardly sinned

2] In Adam

Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world [the human race] through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned-- ....18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people [in Adam], so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all [in Christ].

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

ALL are saved? And NONE lost?

[/quote']

Read what I said again....

Quote:

Yes, all have been saved in Christ....Everyone has a new humanity "in Christ" right now....Christ has done it all...even the life you currently enjoy...the food you eat...but He will not force this gospel on you therefore if you are mentally able He requires you to give Him permission to account you perfect in Himself....

That's what you said. Does it ever occur to you that what you meant may be clear to you but the way it comes out may not be so clear to someone else? So rather than jumping to conclusions, one resorts to clarification. Is that fair?

[Robert]

Does it ever occur to you that what you meant may be clear to you but the way it comes out may not be so clear to someone else? So rather than jumping to conclusions, one resorts to clarification. Is that fair?

Okay...let's go one sentence at at time:

1] Yes, all have been saved in Christ....

2] Everyone has a new humanity "in Christ" right now

3] ....Christ has done it all...even the life you currently enjoy...the food you eat...

4] but He will not force this gospel on you therefore if you are mentally able He requires you to give Him permission to account you perfect in Himself....

Where do you want to start?

[Gerr]

Quote:

Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world [the human race] through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned-- ....18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people [in Adam], so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all [in Christ].

NO ONE is arguing that righteousness/justification came/comes through the one Man - Jesus Christ. But the way you are presenting or have presented your case, many are either confused or are understanding you to mean that salvation for EVERYONE happened 2000 yrs ago and nothing more needs to be done. It was all COMPLETED 2000 yrs ago. THAT is clearly not the case. A general amnesty/forgiveness was declared at the Cross, but personal/individual salvation is clearly NOT the possession of the the person/individual until s/he receives it by faith.

[karl]

Okay...let's look at the opposite...When did you become condemned?

1] When you outwardly sinned

2] In Adam

Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world [the human race] through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned-- ....18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people [in Adam], so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all [in Christ].

Well, my friend you have nullified everything. How could death could come upon all men in Adam when Christ had already nullified his condemnation by being the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

I submit to you that it is not a universal thing, but a thing we receive by faith. If you and I were Cain and Able, would you bother with a sacrifice? You're out from under that sacrifice law, aren't you?

[Gerr]

[Woody]

This is not that hard to understand. I think Rob has been very clear unless one is 'looking' for ways to argue about what is not there.

[Robert]

It was our sins that was nailed to the cross.

Yes, but more...we were nailed to the cross.

[Robert]

How could death could come upon all men in Adam when Christ had already nullified his condemnation by being the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

No, it was done in the sense that God foresaw it's completion....The law wasn't satisfied until the cross....

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

I wasn't.

[Robert]

I can't help if you can't see.....Ask God....

[Robert]

I wasn't.

Where did you receive your humanity from? When you answer that keep going back....

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Originally Posted By: rudywoofs

I wasn't.

Where did you receive your humanity from? When you answer that keep going back....

from God. I don't know what else you want me to say.

[Robert]

Originally Posted By: Robert

Where did you receive your humanity from? When you answer that keep going back....

from God. I don't know what else you want me to say.

I mean your sinful life....God didn't create us sinners...that came after the fall....

Having clarified this, where did you receive your fallen life from?

Rob