Born Agains:- What do you beileve?

by LouBelle 24 Replies latest jw friends

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  XJW4EVR

  DD,

  You will have to excuse me. When I got home last night, I simply forgot that I needed to address this further. I believe that I may have misspoke on this one, so let me attempt to extricate my foot from my mouth. I do not believe in the rapture as it is commonly defined within evangelicalism. I believe that all humanity will be given a spiritual body and with that body they will either experience an eternity with God or eternit apart from Him. There for the rapture and resurrection have morphed into one event. I apologize if I was not clearer before.

  If you mean, "once saved always saved no matter what you do " then there is a problem.

  So, what's the problem? If someone is saved, they're not going to try to sin even more.

  The problem is that the Bible never teaches that grace gives us a license to sin. However, the Bible being written to be applied in the real world, tells that when we do sin we have an Advocate. We can try asll we want not to sin, but we still sin. Maybe not in deed (rarely), but primarily in word or thought.

  Also remember the context of that statement. Gaiagirl had made a statement about someone professing faith in Christ, and then robbing banks, or some such folderol, and invoking the above mentioned statement. The issue is not the momentary falling into sin that makes one's salvation unsure, but rather the continued practice of it. OSAS, is unbiblical, and not what was meant by the Reformed doctrine of the perserverance of the saints.
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  Deputy Dog

  XJW

  The problem is that the Bible never teaches that grace gives us a license to sin. However, the Bible being written to be applied in the real world, tells that when we do sin we have an Advocate. We can try asll we want not to sin, but we still sin. Maybe not in deed (rarely), but primarily in word or thought.

  We agree that the Bible never teaches that grace gives us a license to sin.

  My point (and I believe Paul's in Romans) is that if someone has been chosen to receive God's sovereign grace, that person is safe in the loving arms of God. There is no sin, including license, that can separate us from that love.

  Have you ever thought about how many times you have committed such sin. I think, if we are honest with ourselves, we can see we do it all the time. One could say that simply failing to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, is a form of license.

  Also remember the context of that statement. Gaiagirl had made a statement about someone professing faith in Christ, and then robbing banks, or some such folderol, and invoking the above mentioned statement. The issue is not the momentary falling into sin that makes one's salvation unsure, but rather the continued practice of it.

  Like Paul, I find myself continually doing the very things I don't want to do. I think, I understand what it means to be the chief of sinners.

  I think that a better way to say what I believe we both mean is; someone who wants to continue to sin as if there is no just God, should ask himself if he/she is in the faith.
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  LouBelle

  The thing for me as I walk this path is that getting caught up in doctrine doesn't lead anywhere except trying to prove this or that by means of the bible - the bible is open to millions of interpretation, be it personal or mass.

  I personally will not follow any christian doctrine or fall under any church, I will however follow christ and will do all I can to attain christ consciousness.

  Thank you to those that tried to address the statements. I was curious to see what the replies would say.

  The church I did a stint in was an apostolic church.
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  gaiagirl

  "These are the same guards whom the Jewish religious leaders bribed and promised to handle their superiors in order to facilitate their cover-up of the resurrection."
  
  
  You just answered your own questions. Guards can be bribed, and no doubt were. Paid sufficiently, they may have even HELPED roll the stone away. So no matter how much noise it might make, it wouldnt really matter, would it?
  
  
  Referring to the details of the gospels accounts as "facts" is rather a stretch. While there could have been eyewitnesses alive at the time of the writing of the gospels, whether or not they would be able to overturn a story which everyone wanted to believe is another matter. For that matter, whether they would resist adding to the stories themselves is also a salient point. Out of an original group of people who might have claimed to see the risen Jesus, 20, 40, 60 years later who could confirm or deny if someone 500 miles away claimed that they also had been present. Can YOU positively confirm events from you own childhood, relying ONLY on word of mouth, and with no photographic or printed evidence?

  Or, if you choose to accept the gospels, then why not also accept the accounts, written years after the events themselves, concerning Indiana Jones? There is a LOT more evidence in favor of a historical Indiana Jones than there is in favor of a historical, miracle producing Jesus. Many books have been written detailing his life. Four movies (shall we call them gospels?) detailing various episodes of his adult life, as well as a popular television series detailing his earlier years.
  
  In 178, the writer Celsus wrote about early Christians, and how, even in his day, Christians were editing the bible, much as JWs have done in more recent times.

  "Some of them, as it were in a drunken state producing self-induced visions, remodel their Gospel from its first written form, and reform it so that they may be able to refute the objections brought against it."

  So, based on an eyewitness account, and in barely over 100 years after the earliest gospels had been written, the stories had already been changed from their original form in his day. What makes you think the stories Christians have today are more accurate than the ones available in Celsus day?

  Bottom line is that people don't believe the Jesus stories because they conform to facts or to what is experienced in the real world. They believe the stories because the stories make them feel good about themselves. Ex-JWs who are now "born again" have simply exchanged one set of unrealistic "bedtime stories" for another.
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  XJW4EVR

  "These are the same guards whom the Jewish religious leaders bribed and promised to handle their superiors in order to facilitate their cover-up of the resurrection."
  
  
  You just answered your own questions. Guards can be bribed, and no doubt were. Paid sufficiently, they may have even HELPED roll the stone away. So no matter how much noise it might make, it wouldnt really matter, would it?

  Well, I gues the early disciples were just awash with money. After all Jesus had to borrow the donkey he rode into Jerusalem on, the upper room that he held the last supper in, and even the tomb he was laid in. With all that borrowing, I can see where his disciples had the money to bribe Roman soldiers.