Not By Works

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

VCO

Senior Member
Oct 14, 2013
11,995
4,615
113
I agree, the whole underlying argument ..................Christ's death was necessary BUT NOT sufficient.
I hope you mean HIS DEATH, AND RESURRECTION, AND GRACE IS SUFFICIENT?

2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
 
Jul 17, 2019
227
179
43
I accepted the simple reality that one is one.

All of God's intelligent beings accept this reality.

Do you have a point to this?
Salvation is all God, all we do is accept it is all of God

hope this clears up everything
 
Jul 17, 2019
227
179
43
Not quite, because HE said "Sufficient", which means NOTHING YOU CAN DO WILL ADD TO YOUR SALVATION. Your phrase leaves room that you can add to your Salvation:

2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=sufficient

sufficient

adjective & determiner
adjective: sufficient; determiner: sufficient
  1. enough; adequate.


 
Dec 12, 2013
46,515
20,401
113
Faith is not measured in weights and tonnage .... faith is simply taking your stand where God takes His stand.
Not only that, but it is dealt in measure to men and it only takes a LITTLE to move mountains.......even less to be born from above eternally!!
 

mailmandan

Senior Member
Apr 7, 2014
25,458
13,397
113
58
You are avoiding the question. Regardless of the object, how much belief must one have in the "object" of our belief?

If you don't know, just say so but don't change the question.

Are you saying 100% as in perfect. This sounds like a works salvation demand.
I answered yout question and did not avoid it. Either we are trusting 100% in Christ as the ALL-sufficient means of our salvation or else we are 100% lost. What are you trusting in for salvation? I’m trusting 100% in Christ.
 

Eli12

Active member
Jul 3, 2019
144
70
28
Bible repetedly says that works don't bring any salvation ... BUT Bible repetedly says that without works nobody can be saved. There's not need to separate both of them: "grace" and works. I think people who exagerate one aspect is just because that person is not living according to the other statement of the Scriptures: some people have not enought faith and some others want to live their own free life without doing what they are supposed to do to demonstrate their appreciation for God's mercy ... Both are important, because even if we can be saved only because of mercy, the person who use it to abuse of his liberty is unrespecting the mercy of God and the value of Jesus' blood.

Jud 1:4 (YLT) for there did come in unobserved certain men, long ago having been written beforehand to this judgment, impious, the grace of our God perverting to lasciviousness, and our only Master, God, and Lord--Jesus Christ--denying,
5 and to remind you I intend, you knowing once this, that the Lord, a people out of the land of Egypt having saved, again those who did not believe did destroy
 

VCO

Senior Member
Oct 14, 2013
11,995
4,615
113
I would like to know the difference between sufficient and enough, please

GRACE is SUFFICIENT, where the word enough, leaves room for works to be added in my opinion, and it is supported by the GREEK TENSE which is PRESENT TENSE, nothing like the English Present Tense.

The Greek Present Tense
The present tense can either be continuous/ongoing or undefined.

IT NEVER ENDS.

Whereas ENGLISH words in the Present Tense is just NOW, leaving room for stopping to LOVE GOD in the Future.

You have to have that GREEK TENSE, to interpret it correctly. ENGLISH is a POOR LANGUAGE to translate the Bible into, because the BIBLE in the ENGLISH VERSIONS on have 3 Primary Verb Tenses, whereas the GREEK has 6 Primary Verb Tenses. That is why I consider using the English word enough, totally insufficient.
 

Eli12

Active member
Jul 3, 2019
144
70
28
It was said TO PAUL: “My grace is sufficient for you". I don't think that applies to everybody, as neither what was told about him before:

Act 9:16 (ESV) For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name."

Living without works is not suffering at all. Jesus talked about following him, sufferings included ... How different would have been the whole history of christianity if works would have been put apart!!!
 

DJ3

Member
Jun 22, 2019
88
21
8
I answered yout question and did not avoid it. Either we are trusting 100% in Christ as the ALL-sufficient means of our salvation or else we are 100% lost. What are you trusting in for salvation? I’m trusting 100% in Christ.
So a person must be 100% perfect in both the amount of trust and "object" of said trust. You set an impossibly too high bar to reach. Even the Pharisees did not expect such effort from mere men.

Only Christ is perfect and even He had to learn submission and so must we.
Only Christ is perfect and even He had to be obedient and so must we.

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him ----Hebrews 5:7-9

This scripture and many others had no place in the Bible if salvation comes before our submission. We may debate on what needs to be obeyed but not the need to obey

Salvation void of our obedience is absurd.
 
U

UnderGrace

Guest
GRACE is SUFFICIENT, where the word enough, leaves room for works to be added in my opinion, and it is supported by the GREEK TENSE which is PRESENT TENSE, nothing like the English Present Tense.

The Greek Present Tense
The present tense can either be continuous/ongoing or undefined.

IT NEVER ENDS.

Whereas ENGLISH words in the Present Tense is just NOW, leaving room for stopping to LOVE GOD in the Future.

You have to have that GREEK TENSE, to interpret it correctly. ENGLISH is a POOR LANGUAGE to translate the Bible into, because the BIBLE in the ENGLISH VERSIONS on have 3 Primary Verb Tenses, whereas the GREEK has 6 Primary Verb Tenses. That is why I consider using the English word enough, totally insufficient.
Enough is an "indefinite pronoun" not a verb.

Insufficient is an antonym of enough.........I would then state that "enough" synonym for "sufficient"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sufficient
Sufficient definition is - enough to meet the needs of a situation or a proposed end. How to use sufficient in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of sufficient.
 
U

UnderGrace

Guest
GRACE is SUFFICIENT, where the word enough, leaves room for works to be added in my opinion, and it is supported by the GREEK TENSE which is PRESENT TENSE, nothing like the English Present Tense.

The Greek Present Tense
The present tense can either be continuous/ongoing or undefined.

IT NEVER ENDS.

Whereas ENGLISH words in the Present Tense is just NOW, leaving room for stopping to LOVE GOD in the Future.

You have to have that GREEK TENSE, to interpret it correctly. ENGLISH is a POOR LANGUAGE to translate the Bible into, because the BIBLE in the ENGLISH VERSIONS on have 3 Primary Verb Tenses, whereas the GREEK has 6 Primary Verb Tenses. That is why I consider using the English word enough, totally insufficient.
As well do have different verb tenses when verbs are combined with auxiliary verbs.

There are three main verb tenses in English: present, past and future. The present, past and future tenses are divided into four aspects: the simple, progressive, perfect and perfect progressive.
There are 12 major verb tenses.
 

DJ3

Member
Jun 22, 2019
88
21
8
Yes we believe in Christ Jesus for His gift of salvation knowing that He bore all our sins on the cross and paid a debt we could never pay! :)
Okay then you agree that we must do at least the work of faith that reaches this level. I am not labeling faith as a work of merit, just a work of faith.
 
U

UnderGrace

Guest
Okay then you agree that we must do at least the work of faith that reaches this level. I am not labeling faith as a work of merit, just a work of faith.
Well I agree with the caveat that it is not meritorious... scripture does call it the work of obedience, being obedient to the Gospel.
 

Eli12

Active member
Jul 3, 2019
144
70
28
Rev 14:13 (ESV) And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Blessed indeed," says the Spirit, "that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!"

What will happen if some people have not works, labors, deeds to "follow them"?
 
U

UnderGrace

Guest
How much of BDF argument is based on the confusion between English vs Greek, and verb tenses?
None, the argument is the refusal to accept the tense, there are plenty of Bible interlinears online and information that explains the tenses.