Advanced Christian Salvation Theory

@eladar said
Anyone can call himself or herself a Christian, there is no qualification.

Of course a Black Liberal man can call himself a White Conservative woman, but that doesn't make it true. Some people are right about calling themselves Christians and others are not.

The 'qualifications' were established over 700 years ago and have not changed:

"There is no salvation outside the Church." [Augustine, De Bapt., IV, c.xvii.24] "He cannot have God for his father who does not have the Church for his mother." [Cyprian, De Cath. Eccl. Unitate, vi.] "... there is one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and outside this Church there is neither salvation nor remission of sins ..." [Boniface VIII unan sanctum, 1303] The same doctrine is upheld by Pope John Paul II: only through the Gospel can man be saved, and only the Church may interpret the Gospel to man [Veritatis Splendor, Encyclical Letter, 1993].

@moonbus said
Of course a Black Liberal man can call himself a White Conservative woman, but that doesn't make it true. Some people are right about calling themselves Christians and others are not.

The 'qualifications' were established over 700 years ago and have not changed:

"There is no salvation outside the Church." [Augustine, De Bapt., IV, c.xvii.24] "He cannot have God for his ...[text shortened]... , and only the Church may interpret the Gospel to man [Veritatis Splendor, Encyclical Letter, 1993].

So are you saying that if a man decides he is a woman, it is not true? You do not support trans rights?

@moonbus said
@BigDogg

What happens if I don't follow the beliefs?
The worst possible outcome.

You don't get to call yourself a "Christian."

What happens if I DO follow the beliefs?
The best possible outcome.

You get to call yourself a "Christian."

How does one effect the change?

Continuous effort and reminders, possibly in the company of like-mi ...[text shortened]... , not merely to convince oneself of the truth of some propositional content as a cognitive exercise.

Yeah, good catch. Change "follow the beliefs" to "hold the belief" [singular intended].

@moonbus said
Of course a Black Liberal man can call himself a White Conservative woman, but that doesn't make it true. Some people are right about calling themselves Christians and others are not.

The 'qualifications' were established over 700 years ago and have not changed:

"There is no salvation outside the Church." [Augustine, De Bapt., IV, c.xvii.24] "He cannot have God for his ...[text shortened]... , and only the Church may interpret the Gospel to man [Veritatis Splendor, Encyclical Letter, 1993].

Protestants are generally considered Christians. They would take issue with that 'official' definition.

@bigdogg said
Protestants are generally considered Christians. They would take issue with that 'official' definition.

Christianity divides on a number of fault lines. This divisiveness is one of the essential, not merely incidental, characteristics of the religion(s) which go by the name of "Christianity." Catholic and Orthodox consider Protestants and Anglicans heretics and schismatics (i.e., failed Christians), and Mormons not any sort of Christians at all.

The error of Protestanism is two-fold.

First: Protestants think they can have the Bible without the process which canonized the Bible. But it won't work: if you reject the Catholic hierarchy of bishops, you cannot fall back on the Bible, because it was the Catholic hierarchy which, at the Council of Nicea in the 4c., decided which 'books' (scrolls) to canonize and which to declare apocryphal.

Second: the Bible is merely a snapshot, frozen in time at the 4c. Whereas, the Holy Spirit continues to reveal the will of God to man through continuous revelation in the form of Ecumenical Councils (from which Protestants have excluded themselves). Protestants 'took issue' by absenting themselves from Apostolic Succession, thereby cutting themselves off from the continuing revelation through the medium of Ecumenical Councils.

</history lesson>

@moonbus


Are you saying a person seeking salvation dare not come forward to trust Jesus until he has become thoroughly conversant on all historical aspects of the Council of Nicaea?

The night God became real to me by calling on the Lord Jesus I didn't know anything about Nicaea. I am not anti-history. But you can be puffed up with all kinds of history of doctrines and organizations and totally miss the living Person.

I say reading the Bible regularly for spiritual nourishment should not be neglected for the sake of knowing all about Constantine, hierarchy, and Nicaea.
You can save yourself years of strife by learning the taste of the Holy Spirit in the word of God and loving the Lord Jesus.

He can spend some time reading about history. But to grow spiritually one should not neglect spending quality time feeding his innermost spirit by taking in the pure word like milk, confession of sins, and asking the Lord Jesus to each day fill your heart more and more.

There be some time learn some history of councils. Eating, drinking, and feeding on the Spirit of Christ and the living word of the New Testament should be higher priority. The Christian life is about an "organic" union of our spirit with the Spirit of Jesus. And that being strengthened and made more intimate.

"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17)

Paul labored that Christ the living Person who was imparted into the believers would be FORMED, take shape, grow, and develop in them. That little seed of another life must be watered to grow in our hearts.

"My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ be formed in you." (Gal. 4:19)

@sonship said
Are you saying a person seeking salvation dare not come forward to trust Jesus until he has become thoroughly conversant on all historical aspects of the Council of Nicaea?

The order in which the credibility of the the Bible faded away for me:

1. The Book of Revelation.
2. The whole self-appointed Paul & all his books thing.
3. The Gospel of John.
4. Corporate, technocratic, self-sanctified mythology-consolidating activities such as the Council of Nicaea.

@sonship said
@moonbus


Are you saying a person seeking salvation dare not come forward to trust Jesus until he has become thoroughly conversant on all historical aspects of the Council of Nicaea?

The night God became real to me by calling on the Lord Jesus I didn't know anything about Nicaea. I am not anti-history. But you can be puffed up with all kinds of history of doctri ...[text shortened]... b]"My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ be formed in you." (Gal. 4:19) [/b]

No, of course one is not required to know the history to internalize the message. But woe to him who would try, in an Internet forum, to persuade someone to adopt his religion without knowing the history of how its arcane doctrines came to be. Because how they came to be is part of what they are.


How characteristic that you should use the phrase 'come forward'. I have attended one of Billy Graham's 'events' where coming forward, literally physically walking up to the pulpit, to declare Jesus is very much what is expected and encouraged. It is characteristic of Protestant denominations to lay great emphasis on a personal conversion experience, the more vehement, the more psychologically intense, the better.

Whereas Catholic and Orthodox traditions put more emphasis on the mass, the liturgy, communion, confession, and so on.

At the other end of spectrum, you have Quakers, who sit around in a circle and if someone wants to say something, he does. No church, no priest, just people gathered in his name. That is probably much closer to what the original Essene communities were like in Judea during Jesus's time than anything else we know as Christianity today.

@fmf said
The order in which the credibility of the the Bible faded away for me:

1. The Book of Revelation.
2. The whole self-appointed Paul & all his books thing.
3. The Gospel of John.
4. Corporate, technocratic, self-sanctified mythology-consolidating activities such as the Council of Nicaea.

Thanks for that 'confession'. An honest statement from an honest seeker.

Here's why I am not a Christian:

1. Nothing in the Gospels suggests that Jesus thought of himself as founding a new religion, separate from Judaism. When he said 'I am come not to break the law, but to fulfill it,' the law he meant was the Torah, no other. Nor is there any suggestion that Jesus expected his teaching to be carried on in written form. 'Go forth and make disciples of all men,' cannot have meant 'make them believe stuff'; it can only have meant, show them how to live as I do, loving God and my neighbors as myself.

2. Jesus taught no doctrine, no intellectualized claptrap. None. Nada. Nix da. Jesus came to rustics, whores, illiterate peasants, the poor in spirit; he did not expect them to know any doctrines about transubstantiation or the trinity or homoousios or Apostolic Succession or whatever, nor did he teach any such things. He said to love God and love your neighbor as yourself; that's it. The whole edifce of Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant, and especially the intellectualized posturing (e.g., sonship), is so not Jesus.

@moonbus

You have some comments that I will address a bit randomly.

1. Nothing in the Gospels suggests that Jesus thought of himself as founding a new religion, separate from Judaism.

Jesus saw Himself establishing a "new covenant" which had been predicted WOULD be established in the Hebrew Bible.

"For this is the blood of the covenant , which is being poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matt. 26:28 See Jer. 31:31).

"And similarly the cup after they had dined, saying, This is the new covenant established in My blood, which is being poured out for you." (Luke 22:20)

The "new covenant" also involved God taking the kingdom of God from Israel and giving it to a new nation for the producing its fruit for God.

"Therefore I say to you that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and shall be given to a nation producing its fruit." (Matt: 21:42)

Jesus warned that to try to place Him exactly into Judaism was like pouring new wine into old wineskins, to the damage of the old container.

"And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the wineskins, and the wine is ruined as well as the wineskins; but new wine in put into fresh wineskins." (Mark 2:2)

Though He was Israel's Messiah trying to place His teaching exactly into Judaism was also compared to sewing a patch on and old garment.

"No one sews a patch of unfulled cloth on an old garment; otherwise, that which fills it up pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made." (Mark. 2:21)

moonbase,

When he said 'I am come not to break the law, but to fulfill it,' the law he meant was the Torah, no other.

He comes to enact a law of His life. Him living within spontaneously regulates from within by following His indwelling life a highest level of morality, a righteousness which exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Look at more of the passage you refer to.

"Therefore whoever annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whoever practices and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall by no mean enter into the kingdom of the heavens." " (Matt. 5:19,20)

Our brother Paul pioneered into this experience and taught about "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." It is about Christ Himself living within, regulating, empowering, adjusting, leading, and enabling us to walk as sons of God fulfilling the just moral requirement of the law.

"There is now then no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death. For that which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit."

Nor is there any suggestion that Jesus expected his teaching to be carried on in written form.

This is not true. In His resurrection He appeared to John in His exalted state and said to him:

"What you see WRITE in a scroll and send it to the seven churches:
To Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamos and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea." (Rev. 1:11)

As you can see Jesus Christ instructed His disciple John the Apostle to WRITE. And in the end of each letter Jesus says for all who have an ear to hear to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. [The churches represented as golden lampstands there].

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." (repeated seven times starting with (2:7).

Nowhere does He FORBID writing in the four gospels.
And He predicts He will send "scribes" as well as prophets. Are they not to write anything? Scribes write and so do prophets.

"Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city." (Matt. 23:34)

In the Bible's end, through His servant John, Jesus Christ warns of changing what He has commanded to be WRITTEN in the book of Revelation.

"I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this scroll; and if anyone takes away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and out of the holy city, which are WRITTEN in this scroll." (Rev. 22:18,19)

@bigdogg said
Yeah, good catch. Change "follow the beliefs" to "hold the belief" [singular intended].

I suppose that for those such as sonship, Kelly-Jay, and RJHinds, the worst/best possible outcomes are based on a literalist/supernatural interpretation of the Gospels: either your soul lands in a lake of fire forever or heaven forever. Of course, this requires the willful suspension of any common-sense expectation of evidence that such things as eternal souls and such places as heaven and hell really exist, and that the word "God" denotes something other than man's hypostatization of his own eschatological worries.

I pointedly avoided this metaphysical sort of answer in my initial reply to your OP. It was nonetheless meant to be a serious answer. The difference, whatever it is, will be manifest in this life, here and now, without prejudice to whatever comes later (if anything). If it did not make any difference in this life, here and now, it wouldn't be religion; it would be something else.

@moonbus

Go forth and make disciples of all men,' cannot have meant 'make them believe stuff'; it can only have meant, show them how to live as I do, loving God and my neighbors as myself.

Sorry. But this is nonsensical. It sounds like the rationale of one who prefers not to believe what Jesus taught.

Sure, to be witnesses was to be examples, For certain this is a good point.
But they were to be witnesses that observers would BELIEVE things. Including
they would believe that Jesus Christ is raised and alive and available to be
known.

"And He said to them, This it is written [in the Hebrew Bible] that the Christ would suffer and rise up from the dead on the third day, And that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things." (Luke 24:47,48)

John WROTE in the New Testament that we might believe and have eternal life in the name of Jesus. That is being a witness and writing so people would believe stuff. Actually the "stuff" is getting to know Jesus Himself as He is the Holy Spirit.

"Moreover indeed many other signs also Jesus did before His disciples, which are not written in this book.

But these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name." (John 20:30,31)

Moonbase, can you point out where Jesus forbade His disciples to write down anything? I pointed out to you where He commanded John to write in the book of Revelation. I showed you also where He promised to send prophets and scribes and wise men. Why suggest they would not write anything.

Nor should we jump to the opposite extreme that EVERYTHING Christians wrote was to be recognized as canonical. The same process of God's people RECOGNIZING the authentically inspired books not just spiritual books was done by the ancient brothers.

I await you showing a "Thou Shalt Not Write" command uttered by Jesus.
Of course the only way you could find out is by looking at the written Gospels.

@moonbus

2. Jesus taught no doctrine, no intellectualized claptrap. None. Nada. Nix da.

His instructions were that "repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclai9med in His name to all the nations . . ." . All this was based on His death and resurrection. What kind of wishful thinking hopes Jesus wanted this yet His death and resurrection were not a TEACHING to be taught?

"Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age." (Matt. 28:19,20)

That right there entails much teaching as well as being living witnesses.

What is the significance of baptism.
God's nature as Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
Living to observe all that He taught His disciples.

And above all learning, knowing, grasping the He HIMSELF is with the believers all the days through thick and thin to the consummation of the age.

It also involves teaching something about the consummation of the age.