Understood.
I wouldn’t be surprised at just about anything that people might think they can “surmise” from isolated verses in the Bible.
Incorrect. I agreed that those Pharisees perished in their sins. I do not agree with your use of this passage to prop up a Gnostic gospel of salvation by belief in dogma contrary to the teachings of Jesus and Paul. That simply is not what Jesus said. I can say to a man standing on the edge of a tall building, “if you step forward you will die.” It most certainly does not mean that everyone stepping forward will die from doing so.
But Jesus did not say that the tax collector was saved by his understanding. That is a distortion of the meaning of the parable.
If it does then it is for God to say according to what HE understands is important not according to your conclusions or beliefs. But I think you have badly misunderstood things and made much more of theological opinions than any significance they may actually have. Indeed you sound exactly like the Pharisee in Luke 18 to me thinking you are saved because of what you think you understand.
even those who will say “Lord, Lord, did we not preach the gospel in your name?”
even those who will say “Lord, Lord, did we not serve the needy in your name?”
even those who will say “Lord, Lord, did we not sing your praises every day in church?”
even those who will say “Lord, Lord, did we not believe the correct doctrines taught in your word?”
Nothing justifies an entitlement to salvation. Nothing!
No. You cannot get around Paul’s explanation by making it specific in that way. It is still legalism no matter what law you are using to obtain justification. Just because it is a law of Buddhism doesn’t mean it isn’t legalism. Just because it is a law of ChuckM doesn’t mean it isn’t legalism. Paul makes this quite clear in his contrast with the opposite of legalism “a righteousness based on faith,” which he says does not even ask who goes to heaven or who goes to hell.
You confuse faith with religion and belief in dogma. Jesus never uses the word faith in that way. He certainly never says that to be saved you just have to believe the right things. On the contrary, what he says contradicts this. He says, “with men this is impossible.” If it was simply a matter of believing a set of dogma then that would have been His answer to the man asking what he must do to be saved in Matthew 19. The problem with the man in Matthew 19 is that he was asking the wrong question. Asking what you can do to obtain eternal life has no answer because there is nothing you can do to obtain eternal life. That will never be an accomplishment of any human being – EVER!
Trying to make legalism specific to good works and to make dogma somehow so important that believing such things can do what good works cannot, doesn’t fit anything which Jesus said. Take Matthew 25:31-46 the one place where Jesus speaks of eternal punishment. Far from being unimportant, he considered good works to be the most important thing and no mention of beliefs in dogma was made at all. So twisting this into a gospel of salvation by correct dogma is preposterous. Good works is definitely more important but even that is not enough because the kind of entitlement we see in the Pharisee of Luke 18 will poison any good works one may do.
Matthew 7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
The most we can say is to clarify that Jesus is talking about judging others and not about judging things for yourself. To be sure we should think and study the word of God so we can make our own judgements about what is the right thing to do.
This all sounds very complicated. Jesus simplified for us what we need to know in order to live within the Will of God. If we love God with our entire being and love our neighbor as ourselves, we automatically obey the Law and fulfill any and all other requirements to live right with God; and our fellow man. The only caveat is that we must truly love ourselves which can be a serious issue with many individuals today. And because all people are made in God’s image, everyone is our neighbor. No exceptions.
Jesus, himself, seems to save judgment speeches for those listeners who live from a self-centered perspective and disregard social justice. These people believe they are righteous and live in God’s favor because they earned the privilege, while everyone else is of lesser value and under God’s judgement because they don’t measure up to their idea of God’s standards. They see God’s judgment as punitive retribution for all those “other people”. However, Jesus turns this understanding upside down and affirms God’s grace is for everyone, and especially the very people the ‘in crowd’ thought was ‘out’. And as a little shocker, just maybe the ‘in’ crowd’s idea of judgement is best suited for themselves and not the ‘other guy’. Jesus taught a lot about not assuming who was “in” and who is “out”. Inclusion always supersedes exclusion. Under the Grace of God, everyone is “in”.
I will not let you hide behind “you can’t prove a negative.” I know the Garden story is not historically true just like I know the Timor myth where the first humans walked out of a vagina in the ground it not true.All one should have to do is read the garden story to know its not a historical narrative. Does it speak of some deeper truth about the state of mind and sin in his relationship to God? That we can discuss but I won’t seriously hold a conversation with a person defending the historicity of the garden story anymore than I would a person defending the historicity of Cindarella’s glass slipper or Jack’s beanstalk.
If they thought the garden story was literal history, yes they were wrong on that. It doesn’t mean their interpretation or the main point they were making by appealing to a story that formed part of they background knowledge and convention is wrong.
God-breathed doesn’t mean inerrant to me. I also feel if God wanted us to have an inerrant Bible and went through the trouble of making a perfect original version, why did he allow it to become lost leaving us with only erroneous copies of copies of copies of copies. But I suppose his ways are not my ways.
Vinnie
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The key to understanding why we know genesis 1-11 is not literally true comes down to two reasons.
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The story is not written with a historical or biographical narrative. That’s why you can’t find any other books except for psalms and revelation with a similar writing style. You can say there is no difference, but that’s just lack of contextual analysis. Like I showed you with the book of Jonah. Jonah was clearly a real prophet, and was the person picked because of his real life choices to be placed into a fictional piece of work where he’s the main chapter.
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In addition to seeing it in scripture as not literal we have other ways of knowing it’s not real because of science. Humans and dinosaurs did not live at the time. The earth is not flat. The sun does not revolve around us. The stars are not angels. Everything did not suddenly pop into existence fully formed. The four rivers don’t wrap around that way. Snakes don’t talk. Giants with angelic parents don’t roam the earth. There was no global flood. Science directly undermines and contradicts all of those things.
You asked me do I believe in Adam, Noah and others. Yes I believe in them. Just like I believe in Jonah. I believe they were all focused on real people who we picked and used for a historical fiction. A mythological tale.
Take Abraham Lincoln. I believe in him. I believe 100% he existed. When I watched the 2012 film, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter“ I watched it knowing that it’s a historical fiction. They used Lincoln a real person, in a fictional tale where he battled vampires.
When I read the journals of Theodore Roosevelt‘s pre-presidency life about hunting in western USA I know that it’s a combination of truth, and hyperbolic tales, to create a better reading experience. Such as no Hunter came toe to toe with a 9 foot tall hairy upright primate who uses knocking on trees to communicate with others and leave behind really big footprints.
Hyperbolic statements are not hard to pick up. But literalist constantly tried to force them to be real. If someone said to me “ I watched a horror film last night and it was so scary my subconscious forced my eyelids to shut so hard that despite scratching bat the skin I could not get them to open back up and thought i was going to have to rip them off just to be able to see again”‘ I know what they
are saying is not literal. It’s hyperbolic. I also know that to them , the film was scary.
There are a few books you can read to get a better grasp on this.
- John Walton’s Lost World Series.
- Richard Elliott Friedman‘s Commentary on the Torah.
- Various writings by Scott McKnight on genesis.
In addition to this there are some
Great podcasts that dive into literary analysis.
- Tim Mackie’s The Bible Project.
There are some other books out there’s a well that although not Bible specific, does a great job of showcasing how mythology works.
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Joseph Campbell‘s “ A Hero With A Thousand Faces”.
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Works by John Bucher such as “‘Storytelling for Virtual Reality” and his various podcasts and blogs.
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Do you believe in the inspiration of Scripture? Why?
Do you believe the Holy Spirit to be God? Why?
So when the Lord said “Therefore I say to you that you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that Ego-Eimee, you will die in your sins…” (John 8:24),
…what did the Lord mean here then?
Or, did Jesus not mean “I am Jehovah”? Did He mean something else.
So, is it your belief that the Pharisees rejected Jesus as Jehovah, and thus they would perish in their sins, but this wouldn’t apply to Jehovah’s Witnesses, or…
…or do you have a different understanding? What is your understanding of John 8:24?
I would agree on the “entitlement” part. And it is Jesus who saves.
But people are saved by faith, justified before the Father by faith - in the right kind of faith that was produced by Christ Himself, as the Author and Finisher of one’s true faith (Heb 12:2)…
…or do you believe otherwise? So if a pagan in any country, once being told who Jesus is, and what He did, if they reject the Lord Jesus, is it your belief they would still be saved from their sins?
It is the Father who justifies (Romans 3), but the tax collector had a different viewpoint of himself before a righteous God than the Pharisee, and it was the Lord Jesus who said that the tax collector went away justified.
Did the tax collector have a different viewpoint of himself than the Pharisee who had a different viewpoint of both himself and the tax collector?
I don’t understand the last part here - “which he says does even ask who goes to heaven or who goes to hell” - how is this related to “a righteousness of faith”?
Not sure what you’re writing here.
What is faith?
I believe rather more than that about the Bible. I think the inspiration of God is everywhere in writings and films. I believe the Bible is the word of God, written by God, with history and human authors as his writing instruments. Why? That is my conclusion from reading it.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not in the Bible but it is the view of God which embraces all of the Bible not requiring us to discount or throw anything away.
John 8:21 Again he said to them, “I go away, and you will seek me and die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.” 22 Then said the Jews, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” 23 He said to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.” 25 They said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Even what I have told you from the beginning. 26 I have much to say about you and much to judge; but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him. 27 They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father. 28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me. 29 And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.” 30 As he spoke thus, many believed in him.
God came to the earth in the human being Jesus in order to heal the breach between God and man making possible a relationship with God which could overcome the problem of the self-destructive habits of sin. But this required them to hear what Jesus was teaching. This is obvious. But it was not about believing a set of dogmas. There is no such thing in Matthew 25:31-46. It is about changing their relationship with God, which Matthew 25:31-46 is very much about. Remember John 5: 39-40. It is not about believing doctrines you think are taught in scripture but a relationship with God Himself.
Yes and faith is not believing in a set of dogmas and thinking that by doing so you are entitled to salvation. Faith is about writing the law of God on your heart and doing what is right for its own sake without expecting rewards. The “right kind of faith” is not the defined by the right list of dogams to believe in – the right kind of faith, described in the epistle of James and by Jesus in the gospels and Paul in his epistles is one which treats fellow human beings as if they were God Himself knocking at your door.
It is not the doctrinal beliefs of the tax collector which justified him, but his desire to change. Salvation is not a get out of jail free card. Salvation is a change from the self-destructive habits of sin into righteousness. “You must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”
TYPO: “which he says does NOT even ask who goes to heaven or who goes to hell”
Romans 10:6 But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
No, I think you have the 2nd sentence wrong. It is indeed impossible, for a person in their trespasses and sins do not and cannot do the will of God, and God grants repentance. People cannot come to faith in Christ apart from the Father drawing them, granting repentance, and giving the gift of faith. It is impossible indeed.
But the Lord gave the right, correct answer to the rich young ruler, the answer being “KEEEEP the commandments…”
If a person was not a sinner, never sinned, kept God’s law PERFECTLY - then they would be justified. Romans 2 says so.
The rich young ruler asked “What Good Thing shall I do to obtain…eternal life?”
The rich young ruler was trusting in his efforts of doing “a good thing”
And the Lord gave the correct answer, being “If you KEEP it - then you got it.”
So did the rich young ruler keep Gold’s law perfectly, or did he needed a Savior?
Let me ask you, did the rich young ruler walk away? Why did he walk away? What happened?
Is your understanding of Matthew 25:31-46 to imply “You did good works - you’re going to heaven…okay, you folks over there, you did not, you guys ain’t going…” ?
Why are you using this ‘isolated passage’ by itself to explain that right beliefs are not necessary to have a right faith?
“Not judging things for yourself” - I don’t think I understand what you meant here.
Did you ever see a person that ‘looked menacing’ on a sidewalk, like swinging his fists in the air, and then you decided to go to the other side of the street?
Have you ever avoided a dark alley? Why?
You mean 'love God perfectly and fellow man" by obeying God’s law perfectly?
Who has done this, other than Jesus?
Well, wait a minute, do not ‘religious people who refuse to trust in Christ’ think along these lines?
Read Romans 2, and it shows that Jews who judge Gentiles do not themselves obey God’s law perfectly.
God’s grace is for everyone - for those who trust in Jesus in their Savior.
If they don’t, then no grace for them.
When God justifies the sinner, it is a just justification. If He does not, if He justifies sinners with an unjust justification - if He let’s sinners go, then He is not a righteous judge.
Please read Romans 1 through 3 when you have a chance.
I asked a question since you made a statement, that statement being “we now know that [the garden story] not to be true…”
I read the ‘garden story’ and I believe it to be true. What proof do you have to make the statement “we now know it not to be true”, other than your opinion?
Whoa! Wait! So…if God-breathed something, if He produced it, it is not perfect?
So when God inspired the Scriptures - there were mistakes? God made mistakes?
You and I definitely have different beliefs.