Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Seems like you, I and Blade have the same understanding

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Excellent points...

I have always found that the two laws can be broken down to a single law... The second was more of a repeat in case anyone didn't get it.. (clarification is important..)

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

For we are made in the His image...And in loving one another we are also loving Him...

And to h**e one another is also to h**e Him...

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Without a moral reference - good and evil, right and wrong, love and h**e, and the freedom to choose, love would mean nothing. We are not here to love each other, we are here to love God as He loves us, and from that love all other love flows and is nourished. As much as God wants us all to love Him, He did not intend for it to be easy. Considering the eternal magnificence and infinite glory of God, we must prove we are worthy of Him. That is why He came in the flesh to show us the true meaning of love and give us the chance we would never have had.

rumitoid

Blade, I think you misspoke in your enthusiasm. This is not possible and goes against the NT: "we must prove we are worthy of Him." That is impossible by our unaided will and nature. It is the covering blood of Christ that makes us worthy, and nothing else. When the father looks at us--by Christ's life, death, and resurrection--he sees his only begotten son. Amen? Catholics believe we can make ourselves worthy by works

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

You just made me think of a funny scene from one of Mel Brooks' movies, The History of The World, Part II, where Moses came stumbling out from returning down off the mountain, carrying the Commandments on Three Tablets and he says, "I have here these 15 Comman..." and just then he drops one of the tablets which shatters into pieces, so he stutters for a second, and then continues on, saying, "...10 Commandments from God!"

If you've never seen it it is up there with Monty Python's "In Search of the Holy Grail."
The unfortunate thing is, for too many people, this is the only lesson in religion they have ever had. Many didn't even understand the jokes in these movies.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

The covering blood of Christ forgives us our sins, it is up to us to be worthy of that. And, it isn't through works, it is simply through giving our heart, mind, body and soul to God through Jesus.

Muslims believe they each have two angels, one to keep score of their good deeds, and one to keep score of their sins. When the Muslim dies physically, he must wait until the angels tally the scores. If his or her good deeds outscore the sins, they are off to paradise. If the sins outscore the good deeds, they go to hell.

rumitoid

I see it may be semantics, yet "proving worthy" of salvation seems off. Wh**ever giving, by my understanding, of "our heart, mind, body and soul to God through Jesus" is and only is by spirit and grace, not proving our worthiness somehow. Maybe I am misreading what you said.

TommyRadd Loc: Midwest USA

Hey Kyle,

Incidentally, I just got a video from Amazing Polly, wherein compares l*****ts and their unique definitions of morals, with cults.

I think this video does a good job of exposing irrational responses from cultist, and therefore confirms my contention that these Trinitarians are reacting to me like l*****ts. Which is because l*****ts act like cultists and vice versa.

But I don't think l*****ts are the only ones who could be found guilty of the belligerence she uses for examples.

I think this phenomenon she’s touched on explains, in general, why it is so hard to have rational conversations with some people; it's because they are responding from a cultist fixation with the cult's artificial morals; and any affront or questioning of their morals is itself immoral! And that’s why that’s all the evidence they need to reject an alternative view.

Sound familiar? Catch my drift?

Check it out and tell me what you think...

https://youtu.be/kGkNUt5GOPI

TommyRadd Loc: Midwest USA

When satan comes as a roaring lion, he doesn’t quote scripture that clearly say what he believes, he quotes something, sure, not denying that, but, then he explains away God’s words, one way or another, with a private interpretation.

Which one of us does the works of the devil? You Trinitarians don’t quote the first commandment, in context as the Jews understood it, as the highest of importance, rather, you cite ancillary verses and say your private interpretations of those make the first commandment to mean three, not merely one.

“44You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn't stand in the t***h, because there is no t***h in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father. 45But because I tell the t***h, you don't believe me.” Jon 8:44-45.

I, on the other hand, read the scriptures, hear the word of God, believe it, and teach it; that it means absolutely one, just like it says, and just like Jesus and all Jews, understood it.

So, once again, your words work against you. If not, please quote the “it is written again” scripture that defines God as “three persons in one essence” that settles and establishes what you believe is the immutable expression of the elusive Trinity doctrine.

I really feel bad for you, Rose, you're like a Saul of Tarsus, thinking you do God a service. One day it’s going to hit you, one way or another.

How is it that you can’t see that the scriptures I quote aren't used to "bolster" my beliefs (as if my beliefs were something not actually stated in the Bible, or clearly taught by the apostles)? The t***h is, I use the scriptures to express my beliefs. I'm really surprised any Christian doesn't see the difference. They say “In a time of universal deceit — telling the t***h is a revolutionary act.”

You say over and over that false teachers need to be called out; I do agree. So here we go again...

Once again, your choice of words points back at you. If you aren’t actually the one who merely uses the Bible to only “bolster” your preconception that “God is a Trinity of three persons in one essence”, please quote the passages that expressly state that doctrine. That’s the only way in which it would thereby establish it as a biblical teaching, rather than a private interpretation.

What if the salvation of my soul depended on you quoting for me the scripture that actually spells it out? But instead, after many requests, after asking how many times, you can only think to reply with how lost and evil I am for questioning it and searching out the historical development of it, and finding it was a late development? What if my salvation is depending on you, oh enlightened one, to quote for me where the Bible settles the final form of the “Trinity in three persons of one essence”?

Wouldn't the apostles have preached (openly proclaimed) it as often and as adamantly as Trinitarians like you do, if it was necessary for salvation?

It is written:

“13For, "Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher?” Romans 10:13-14?

If the name of God is “Trinity,” who then in the Bible ever called on his (their?) name? And who in the NT Bible ever openly proclaimed “Him” to be “them” as in “God in three persons in one essence”? And if they didn’t, how can anyone have believed it? So then, how could anyone in the book of Acts have been saved if it was never openly proclaimed (preached) to them, like you are trying to preach to me, that unless we (them and I) believe in your man-made construct I can’t be saved?

Again, it is written:

“6I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different "good news"; 7and there isn't another "good news." Only there are some who trouble you, and want to pervert the Good News of Christ. 8But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you any "good news" other than that which we preached to you, let him be cursed. 9As we have said before, so I now say again: if any man preaches to you any "good news" other than that which you received, let him be cursed.” Galatians 1:6-9

If the Bible says for me to call anyone, even an angel from heaven, cursed, who preaches a different gospel than the apostles, and you can’t show that you preach the same exact gospel as the apostles, am I to believe you over the Bible, when Paul is so clear? And you say I’m the arrogant one for daring to question and denounce your sacred cow that you can’t show was once openly proclaimed in the Bible?

Now who is preaching a false gospel, Rose? You want me to reject Galatians 1:6-9, and listen to you and your ad hominem attacks against me instead, when the apostle says to call you accursed? Put up or shut up. Quote where the apostles openly declared “three persons in one substance” or deal with the fact the apostle explicitly says, no, commands, that you are the one to be called accursed!

“We ought to obey God rather than man!” Acts 5:29

“...Let God be true and every man a liar...”! Romans 3:4

Do you have any idea how many of the original Jewish Christians would have never been saved because their Jewish background would have caused them to have been utterly appalled to interpret the preached word of God through pagan categories of thought like Trinitarians resort to? How is it you can’t see that no one would have been saved by merely the preaching in the book of Acts if it was critical to believe, not what the first commandment says, but what Trinitarians of the fourth century would say it means? It's just not in the book of Acts where salvation was preached to the world beginning with the Jews. Imagine how many early Christians, all the way up to 325 AD, didn't know they needed to confess that "God is three co-equal persons in one essence" to be saved.

And I guess you’d be happy to know that once they settled on that formulation they went about arresting and putting to death people like me who didn’t accept it. You did know that little inconvenient fact of the Trinity development’s history, didn’t you? With the formulation of the Trinity as you know it and express it, the slaughter of the dissenters, like me, commenced. Or maybe you’re like the l*****t minions who were never told about the atrocities done in the name of socialism...it’s comparable to the time of the ones who formalized the formula “three persons in one essence”. Maybe that’s why I despise it so, it truly is the doctrine of murderers.

We may not know the numbers of early Christians who didn’t know anything like the Trinity of the fourth century, but we know that one of the original perpetrators, Tertullian, said the majority of believers in his time were very resistant to it because it was, for them, too much like adopting the world's plurality of gods.


“The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God.” - Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Chapter 3.


Poor simpleton majority, the legacy of the woeful inadequacy if the linguistically challenged apostles, who never had the benefit of the development of the Trinity of the fourth century. Would to God the apostles could have been resurrected during the fourth century so the platonistic-Christians could have taught them the proper way to explain what God is. Those poor, ill prepared apostles and their poor, unenlightened disciples.

Those poor early Christians never had the benefit of the Three Cappodicians (I won't call them fathers, like trinnies do), who put the capstone (no pun intended), on the formulation of the Trinity, by incorporating the Hellenistic concept of persons. Even Tertullian wasn’t aware of their coe******y as would finally be expressed in the fourth century. For example, Tertullian would say,

“For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father.” Tertullian, Against Hermogenes, Chapter 3.


Hmm, interesting that Tertullian himself didn't fully yet believe in the full-blown, man-made Trinity. And interesting that his Trinity was only an “economy,” that is, a temporary affair, not the situation of the eternal Trinitarian godhead, so alas, even Tertullian was lost according to Trinitarian standards.

All those souls who were never saved because they were preached something falling woefully short of the formulation “three coequal persons in one essence.”

I think I’ll stand with the apostle Paul and count those who preach a different, perverted gospel from that the apostles preached to be the ones who are cursed, and in need of prayer.

Rose42

And how does one give their heart to Christ? Its one thing to admire His teachings and give intellectual assent - even other religions do that. Is is another thing entirely to be driven to your knees and beg forgiveness knowing you are worthy of only hell. To be overcome with your sin and need to be saved and overwhelmed by how Christ sacrificed Himself to save us - taking on God’s wrath, shedding his blood, dying and rising on the third day. No other religion has a God who loves us like that.

Not suggesting you’re not saved. Repentance is seldom mentioned in being a s***e (doulos) to Christ.

TommyRadd Loc: Midwest USA

Hey Rumi,
I wonder if you have any idea how your statement “and nothing else” sounds like that of the Gnostics. Before Augustine, the Gnostics were the main ones saying their works didn’t also play a part in their salvation. The great majority of prominent early writers, spoke of the necessity of good works as being the proof of salvation. These good works don’t just passively come over us, we have to actively walk according to the Spirit. In fact, it was probably one of the most universally spoken of positions!

Notice the words “walk” and “work” in these verses:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” Romans 8:1

“If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.” John 8:39

“He [Abraham] is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision.” Romans 4:12

The only place in the Bible where “faith” and “alone” are mentioned in the same verse is this one:

“You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected;“ James 2:22

That saying “worked with” is the Greek word sunergos which is the root of our word synergy. Thus synergy is biblical, monergy is unbiblical.

Also, Jesus said we must overcome even as he overcame in Rev. 3:21, and etc.

Look at how God came to Abraham. He called him to come out and go to in Gen 12, and only after he had done this was his faith counted for righteousness in Gen 15.

And on and on I could go...



I highly recommend a book on this subject called “Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up” by David Bercot

TommyRadd Loc: Midwest USA

Why not Mark 12:29-34 which gives more explanation into the meaning?

“One of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together. Knowing that he had answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the greatest of all?" 29Jesus answered, "The greatest is, 'Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one: 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. 31The second is like this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." 32The scribe said to him, "Truly, teacher, you have said well that he is one, and there is none other but he, 33and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." 34When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." No one dared ask him any question after that.“ Mark 12:29-34

It’s a rhetorical question, I know the answer: it’s harder to make the first commandment of no effect when it is actually explained that the Lord our God is one “He”, and “there is no other”, as opposed to the contrabiblical “three persons in one substance.”

Rose42

One has to look beyond the early writers. The bible is whats relevant. Works don’t save us it is faith. Without it nothing matters. You again misrepresent scripture.

Davis Bercot not only thinks Sola Scriptura is a myth but to correctly interpret the bible one has to go to the early church fathers (100-325 AD from his website). Thats ridiculous. He promotes a lot of false doctrine.

This explains it better than I can if anyone is interested - its on how we’re saved.

https://www.gty.org/library/bibleqnas-library/QA0004/are-we-saved-by-faith-or-by-works

TommyRadd Loc: Midwest USA

I never said everything David Bercot believes is true, I qualified that by saying “on this subject”, but of course you only hear what you want to hear. You do the same with the scriptures, and because I don’t, you accuse me of being wrong. Once again, pathetic.

And once again all I did was quote scripture that states what I believe and once again the quoted scripture, to you and your way of thinking, is twisting the scripture.

“One who says, "I know him," and doesn't keep his commandments, is a liar, and the t***h isn't in him.” 1 John 2:4


And I’m still waiting for you to quote scripture that says “God is three persons in one essence”.

Rose42

Then why bother bringing him up? You place undue importance on the writings of those men just as he does.



Uh-huh. And what commandments are applicable to what you said? We are justified by faith not works. Works is the fruit of faith. Thats what James explains. There are two kinds of faith - one that produces godly works (faith that is alive) and one that does not - like the faith demons have which is dead. They know Christ died for us. Their faith is dead and produces no godly fruit.

It was Abraham’s belief that made him righteous. Galatians 3



That has been addressed by multiple people. You choose to ignore t***h.