If you don't want to walk by faith and be destroyed like the saved Israelites who didn't walk by faith were, that's fine with me.
Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
- Thread starter LifelongLearner
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If you don't want to walk by faith and be destroyed like the saved Israelites who didn't walk by faith were, that's fine with me.
I haven't stumbled over any. It is you who stumbles because you lift the above text out of context. Go reconcile your verse with something else Paul told Timothy:
2 Tim 1:8-9
9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life — not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
NIV
1Tim 4:16 is talking about "save thyself" in the context of sanctification. Timothy was already a justified believer. (See the chain of salvation in Rom 8:28-30). What Paul is telling his young protege that if he did all the things the apostle exhorted Timothy to do and Timothy in turn commanded others to do those things (1Tim 4:1ff), then Timothy and his hearers would be existentially ensured of his salvation -- a salvation that was started by God and will be completed by Him (Phil 1:6). In short, this was just another way of Paul expressing what he wrote in Phil 2:13, i.e. work out your salvation -- which in Timothy's case he already had.
Completed by him if we guard the deposit, ie, work out our salvation, ie, continue in the teachings/doctrine/faith of Christ
Why do you ignore Gen 3:15? (Rhetorical question,as I know why!) God saved Eve long before she walked by faith! And He saved her by his sovereign divine decree! Evidently, God was determined to save her! (And most likely without her permission.) And both of her subsequent acknowledgments of God are positive proof that whatever God has decreed in eternity will inevitably functionally manifest itself in temporal reality.
Yes, "work out" what was God has already started for us and will complete for us. The text doesn't say "work for" our salvation.
Also, the New Covenant promises of God are unilateral, unconditional in nature. There are no conditions in any of the NC promises for any of God's chosen people to fulfill. Therefore, God's ongoing work in our sanctification in this age is not dependent on our response.
And thank God that that receiving doesn't ultimately depend on our own corrupt volition, for the very next verse which your comrade conveniently omitted states:
John 1:13
3 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
NIV
Yup, absolutely. Genez has allowed the evil one fill his mind with theological rubbish; therefore, as the old adage goes, "Garbage in, garbage out".
No of course it doesn't say to work to earn our salvation; it says to work to keep our salvation.
why does it matter what it was like in Jeremiah's day, if Jeremiah 4 is actually about a soulless race of proto-humans who were not accountable for any sin, thousands of years before Jeremiah's day, an unknowable amount of time before Genesis 1:2?
No, the text says nothing about "keeping" our salvation. Keeping (preserving) the saints is God's work (Jude 1, 14). You truly are ignorant of the unilateral New Covenant promises, aren't you?
And the Verse before says God gave the right to be saved because of what God did. It's not because we created a way to be saved.
But you have taken Verse 13 out of context because everyone knows God is the one who offers the Gift of Salvation. No one said man can create a way to his own Salvation.
Verse 13 is only speaking about where Salvation comes from.
Your post literally has nothing to do with the post and conversation you quoted. You are interjecting something that the conversation is firmly aware of but not discussing because we're already aware of it.
You're truly ignorant of a lot of scripture that clearly states we have to keep ourselves holy and in the faith in order to inherit eternal life.
Verse 13 is extremely relevant to the preceding verse. First of all God gave the right as opposed to anyone having an inalienable right to become children of God! We ultimately become "children of God" by the new birth which has nothing to do with human decision-making! V. 13 actually qualifies v. 12! (See also Jn 3:1-15.) Tell me: Was Issac's birth a natural or supernatural birth? Who decreed Issac's birth: Abraham, Sarah, God or all three?
Also, it's God who qualifies his elect to share in his inheritance (Col 1:12). No saint ever qualified him or herself!
If you were so "firmly aware" of these truths I just wrote, you wouldn't have written the garbage you did.
Jude 1 & 24 don't for starters. So, give me chapter and verse proof that the responsibility persevering in the faith falls on the saints. AND....prove this also from any of the New Covenant promises -- promises to which you appear to be estranged from. Also, you might want to take note of someday that the divine work described in Rom 8:28-29 (chain of salvation) rests entirely on God. Reaching the final phase of salvation (Glorification) ultimately falls on God, not on any of his saints.
I am constantly amazed at your lack of understanding. Do you not even try to understand? How could any one person get things wrong every single time? I guess the odds are just against you.
Makes me wonder if you have ever actually read scripture. Titus 3:5-7 talks about the grace of God and the Holy Spirit being poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Maybe you were working on your umbrella that day!
I'm not interested in proving anything to hardheads. If you can't hear what's plainly written, you won't hear it from me either.