Spinoff: Law vs. Grace?

Faith & Science Conversation
465

Well Dale as much as I enjoy our conversations you have no bearing whatsoever on any choices I make. Eventually , unless I’m gone from here or some other similar event, I’ll end up posting about the errors of OSAS. It will be after I have the time to do it for the congregation I’m physically involved in. All of my long posts in here that I start as a thread comes from things being copy and pasted or generated based off other work. Whatever the arguments are, I’ve most likely have come accessed it many times when debating this in person, online, or when reading a book, listening to a podcast, or hearing it in person by a speaker. It’s a fairly old debate. First book I ever read about this subject was after hearing a pastor debate another pastor about it and that was roughly 17 years ago or so.

Though it also depends on if BL continues to be a site that goes beyond just the overlap of science and faith. I can’t really tale. But I’ll cross that bridge after I cross the others. Then if possibly I’ll share it here. If not, it’s ok because it wont be made for here.

466

It is quite clear that the Bible teaches both God’s absolute sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Arguments against once adopted, always adopted invariably discard some scripture because it is intellectually unacceptable, insisting proudly that we must be able to comprehend God’s inscrutable omnitemporality, his ‘timefulness’, rather than to humbly apprehend some of it.

467

You are still appealing to authority, your own or someone else’s, and not scripture (and there is a lot above in this conversation). Let’s have a real discussion instead of something canned. (And I’ve been a Christian longer than you’ve been alive. :grin:)

468

I never discuss if someone’s experience was real or not real, or if there salvation is real or not real. I’m confident that when the time comes I’ll be able to present my argument and defend it from scripture. There are very few subjects that I am confident I am 100% right in without any doubt after studying it and debating it. Everyone feels that way about something. For me this is one such subject. But it’s all fruitless discussion until everyone involved has the time to debate it. Which is the point of many of my posts. Not to debate it, but to state that not everyone agrees. Then mention some resources and let people check it out.

At the moment the the majority of my free time using social media is reserved for other places. When it comes to the hours and hours I’m willing to spend to go through and select the scriptures I’m wanting to use it’s mostly reserved for disciples at my local congregation and then disciples online from the same denomination around the world. It’s only after those that I pour work into other things at the moment.

469

You could have read this whole thread in the time that you’ve spent talking about not reading it. Okay, that’s an overstatement, but the pertinent parts you sure could have.

470

That is not a factor in Maggie’s testimony, because the facts are empirical. Just read it, for goodness’ sake. Or not.

471

I read her account. It’s has no weight to anything being discussed. I’m not sure how the leap was made by you. I believe God answers prayers. But I don’t see the relevance of the story she put forth and OSAS.

Reading the thread is not the issue. It will takes hours and hours to respond to everything. I just don’t have the time or desire. I think in the long run instead of a subthread s out grace and law I can just do a post abs line out a handful of verse and interpretation. It’s why I’ve not went all out with conditional immortality yet. Saving it for a thread when I have the hours free to do it. I’m heading to the bank, then back to a job, then to watch Psycho Goreman with my fiancée and then night kayaking. Talk to y’all later.

472

There is an intimate connection between God’s sovereignty in providence and our becoming his children. I am kind of amazed that it is not implicit to you. And once he has signed the adoption certificate, so to speak, who is going to erase his hand?

473

I agree with the first statement. I don’t agree with the implications of the second within the debate of OSAS.

474

We are called joint heirs now. Check this out and tell me what or who is going to reverse any of the facts: The Christian’s Confidence & Eternal Security, a list (it’s a single page).

475

Funny enough the very first one is usually let of my argument. How ironic.

Ezekiel 11:14-21
New American Standard Bible
Promise of Restoration

14 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 15 “Son of man, your brothers, your relatives, your fellow exiles, and the entire house of Israel, all of them, are those to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Keep far from the Lord; this land has been given to us as a possession.’ 16 Therefore say, ‘This is what the Lord God says: “Though I had removed them far away among the nations, and though I had scattered them among the countries, yet I was a sanctuary for them for a little while in the countries where they had gone.”’ 17 Therefore say, ‘This is what the Lord God says: “I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries among which you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”’ 18 When they come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it. 19 And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 so that they may walk in My statutes, and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God. 21 But as for those whose hearts go after their detestable things and abominations, I will bring their conduct down on their heads,” declares the Lord God.

So let’s break this down.

He says this is to all of Israel. To all those there and exiled, to everyone of them God will gather them and soften their hearts and put a new spirit inside of them.

So each and every single Israeli alive at that time was given a new heart and spirit. So my question is in the next few chapters do we read of any of them that commit sins? Does any of those who praise him brought out of exile with their new hearts sometime later on end up questioning God and sinning or commit false idol worship or did they all remain righteous?

The same can be said for chapter 36. For a fact repeatedly we read that god saved them all and cleansed them, snd then sometime later we see the same people called evil and many are destroyed in various ways.

These versus support that the salvation of the body is a kit the body as a whole, not the individual.

I’ll get to the others later on.

476

This is just above, post 460:

477

God’s promises to the OT nation of Israel can largely be appropriated by individual Christians today. Or maybe you’ve never heard that, in your years.

478

No worries. Over the next few weeks I’ll spend some time to tackle one or two verses in that list in the order they are in essentially.

1 Like
479

…that you should make a big deal about an OT reference to a stony heart, when the idea of a hard heart is all over the NT.
 

And it’s not like stone can choose to soften itself or the dead choose in their free will to infuse life into themselves.

And you were dead in trespasses and sins…
Ephesians 2:1

480

I started with the first verse in the list of verses you showcased as evidence in the link you shared. I made no more of a big deal out of than the link. I just showed how it was a reference to the entire body, and not the individual.

We do choose to soften and harden our hearts. As we are tested, we can make choices that make us worse or better.

Acts 16:14
New American Standard Bible
First Convert in Europe
14 A woman named Lydia was listening; she was a seller of purple fabrics from the city of Thyatira, and a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.

This verse does not prove or disprove OSAS.

It states what all Christians believe. That God searches the hearts of mankind. Those pursuing his righteousness will be drawn near to God. While those pursuing evil he will turn a deaf ear towards.

1 Corinthians 6:16-20
New American Standard Bible
16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

This is another great set of verses to support my view as a biblically based view. In 1 corinthians 6 it compares Christians, the body of Christ , as a bride. As in a marriage. It says the one who joins with God is one with him.

Then immediately in the next chapter, 1 corinthians 7, it talks about marriage. But it also talks about divorce and remarriage. It brings up justifiable causes for divorce. So those verses can definitely be used to illustrate the just causes that God has to divorce from his bride. If the individual is not faithful, but adulterous towards God you will be divorced from him and cut out.

Being “unbought” is essentially the same as being put away which the Torah mentions as the result of some marriages.

481

I’m sorry, but I think that’s my point? And it was God’s providence that put her there and then, where and when, so that she could hear. (Remember that she was traveling.)

482

Who bought you?* And someone is going to steal you from God? Who is powerful enough?
 

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9

 

*And at what cost?!

…the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
Acts 20:28

483

Again.

Saying God plays a roll in searching out the hearts of believers is something everyone believes and accepts as Christians. It’s irrelevant to what is the part on the Christians behalf on what they are supposed to do.

Also again what I’m doing is looking at the verses being portrayed in the link and placing them in their proper context.

The link used the verses from 1 corinthians 6 about being married to Christ and being one with Christ and said well who can then change that. Well, the same as in any marriage. The same as in the very next chapter tying into that one.

Believers can be divorced from God by becoming unfaithful. By being adulterous and pursing other things as our husbands will break out covenant with God. He will “divorce” those who choose it.

Jeremiah 3:8-10
New American Standard Bible
8 And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and prostituted herself also. 9 And because of the thoughtlessness of her prostitution, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. 10 Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,” declares the Lord.

That’s the thing about context. It puts scripture into its proper place.

484

Okay, what about the contexts of “The Lord opened her heart…”, “bought with a price” and “God’s special possession”? Talk to me about NT context, not OT divorce.