Mind, culture, and the transcendent: A question

I have. It’s the truth about all of us without exception. We’re all sinners. Hypocrites. Self deceived. Liars. Fools. Naughty monkeys in denial. It’s OK. We couldn’t be anything else.

You may want to read the scriptures, your understanding of who Jesus is, is not correct and therefore you are misled. God foretold the coming of one who would save us from the power of sin. Not only bring forgiveness but deliverance from its power. Isaiah 53 says he would die for our sins and be raised from the dead to make us righteous. This is the Father working salvation for us, not something we could do by good works. Jesus is not a prophet like those in the old testament and definitely not like those of false gods. He is the Only Begotten Son of God. He is the Word made flesh. He is the creator.

His death and the shedding of His blood and His resurrection from the dead brings salvation from sin to all who fully put their trust in Him. The Word of God took on our humanity, He died our death and raised up from the dead for us. All who turn to Him and trust what He did on the cross die with Him, go through judgement with Him and are raised with Him. Our spirit is recreated, born again (not reincarnated). The Spirit of God says we are new creations in Christ, He writes His laws on our hearts, His Spirit lives in us. It is by being in Christ that we are freed from sins mastery over us. As the scripture says, “it is no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me”. What I could not do by trying hard to be good, Jesus did through His death and resurrection. He killed my old self and recreated me in His image and it is Him at work in me, delivering me from the sins of the flesh. That is grace, unmerited favor. We are saved, not by our own works but by the power of His life in us through His resurrection.

A person who tries to please God by trying to do good but rejects Jesus as their only Lord, Life and Salvation, rejects God. The scripture says that the only thing that matters is being recreated anew in Jesus. Jesus is not the way shower, He is the way to the Father. He is not a reveler of truth, He is the Truth and He is Eternal Life. There are not many paths to the Father, there is one, it is Jesus.

If a person reads the bible and has a heart to know the Father they will see this. If they reject Jesus as there Lord and Sovereign Ruler than they reject the way the Father has provided for us to be made safe from sin and the just penalty for our disobedience. Jesus has no association with anyone who claims to be a prophet but doesn’t point to Him as the only Savior and Eternal Life.

You are confused about who the Father and Jesus Himself said He was. Salvation from the power of sin comes only through Jesus. Those who claim to be the way showers but reject Jesus, do not have the Spirit of God in them, they are false prophets.

No matter how many old ladies a person helps across the street or orphans they feed and no matter how much a person gives to the poor, if they reject Jesus as The Lord and only way of salvation, they will be eternally lost.

Thank you for the kind words, which I am sure are well meant. However, I don’t think that we can read one chapter in Isaiah and make sense of it. You have to read the whole lot. And if you do read the whole lot then you find that Isaiah is referring to Jacob, the son of Abraham.
" But you, O Israel, My servant, Jacob, you whom I have chosen, offspring of Abraham who loved Me…and to whom I shall say: ‘You are my servant’ - I have chosen you and not rejected you. " ( Isaiah 41:8-9 )

In Isaiah 52 to 54, the prophet Isaiah is referring to the gentile nations, Romans etc., who had captured, inflicted suffering, even near genocide on the Jewish people. It is prophesized that these gentile nations will be shocked to see that God will save the Jews from their persecution and returned them to their home land, Israel. It also prophesized that God will vindicate the Jewish people for their suffering.

You can find that the very same promises can be found in the Books of Ezekiel (36:6-9 & 15) and Jeremiah (30:8-13).

I would say it is Christian missionaries, who have interpreted the verses as they desired to do so.

My understanding of what is said in the Jewish Torah and in the words of Jesus, is consistent with what the Prophet Mohammad has proclaimed “There is no other God, but God”. God is One. And while I love Jesus, I do not accept him as God. He is a prophet as far as I know and understand.

“We’re all sinners” is a single class. So you would put yourself in with these guys? Independence Day Tragedy: 11-year-old girl raped to death in Lagos - Daily Post Nigeria
They “just sinned”, maybe God punished the girl and as for the mother, if she doesn’t forgive the murderers of her child she won’t go to Heaven. I see A LOT wrong with that. I see a lot wrong with calling one class and all sinners. A LOT WRONG! Those that did the evil deed need to be locked in a cage with hungry tigers.

I have done some wrong actions in my life, which I have regretted and have sought to make amends for, but I have never set out to hurt and harm anyone.

I don’t think that we can put everyone in the same bag and call them all sinners. That helps cover the ones that are evil and give them an out. I am sorry but I will never do that. I call them out, expose them.

Christianity teaches that all of our hearts are sinful, not just those of the ‘bad people’ – that does not mean that we are all as bad as we could be. There but for the grace of God through Jesus go I.

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Not from a scriptural stance though. In christianity, Christ leads people towards God. Other gods are not Yahweh and don’t lead to salvation. Christianity is different from just ambiguous spirituality.

This denies that there are humane and inhumane people.

Sin, which in Greek is “amartia”, means “missing the mark”, not getting it right. And on consideration of the wrong, one sees that it was wrong and has remorse, and wants to make amends.

This a long, long way from those who are inhumane, who have taken steps to deaden their conscience so that they can do harm to others without any consideration, without remorse.

Our hearts are not sinful. We get it wrong sometimes. It doesn’t make sense to say “our hearts are sinful”. Only God is Good, i.e., without blemish, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is tarred with a black brush.

So what about the two thirds of humanity that aren’t even nominally, culturally, ‘Christian’?

Jesus was Jewish so he will teach from inside the Jewish traditions and the way of the Jews. That doesn’t mean that they have or had any exclusive God. God is universal, for everyone, in every culture, in every race, in every tribe. You can see it in many different ways in all religions but the Oneness is the same. There are not many gods. There are only many different ways that people have tried to understand God, to know the Unknowable.

No, it absolutely does not. ‘Not all as bad as we could be’ certainly leaves room for kind acts and love. But those in themselves don’t make us righteous before God.

What makes us righteous before God is our words and actions, how we have behaved, what we have done or at the least tried to do. Thus God judges the wheat from the chaff.
This physical realm is a place of testing. We are not made perfect like angels. We have been given free will and we have been given love. Thus we are tested. What do we do with these?

That means you can earn your way into heaven. That is not what Christianity teaches.
 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

We boast in the work of Jesus on the cross.

That’s not a Christian perspective though. I would have to see someone showcase that using scripture. If that was true, it also completely undermines Christianity.

As for the 2/3rds I would say unfortunately it does not change the gospel. My theology is based on scripture.

As for the what makes us right with God is Jesus. What makes us right with Jesus despite our shortcomings is our faith. What makes our faith real despite not being perfect is by loving God and our neighbors. That’s bearing fruit of the spirit and following true doctrine.

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When we become Christians, our hearts are changed and we are adopted into God’s family now, not in the future. Our words and actions are one of the things that demonstrate that. If we continue to sin and to want to sin, we have good reason to suspect that our hearts have not been changed. There are severe warnings and we are told that we should test ourselves to be sure that we are believers and not ‘mere professors’ or ‘believists’ and hypocrites.

Yes. We are to test ourselves, as already mentioned, and God gives believers tests and trials, too, to strengthen us and to reassure us that we are indeed his children.
 

"My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
      and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
  because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
      and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
 
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!

That’s the sealed Evangelical echo chamber for you.

Perhaps you can show me where Jesus , or the prophets, or the apostles taught a way to the father under the New Testament that was not through Jesus? Then we can maybe decide whose echoing who and what?

As opposed to the sealed echo chamber pot in your head. :grin:

Best sealed.