Danny wrote:Jac! Whatever way we look at it, the fact remains that you have been drawn into the debate. You are now in the arena, and for that I am happy. Now, shall I be the Maxentius to your Constantine, or perhapse vice versa? But alas, brother, we are not at war. We are here to debate, and there are no losers in debate, just enlightened. So to push my absurd analogy further, we are both Constantines!
Well, for a start Leviticus 18:16 renders the hypothetically put question to Jesus obsolete. But I'll go along with it. The celibacy factor is explicitly made by Paul; I was merely reading beneath the verse of No marriage or giving in marriage in heaven as covering, among other things, celibacy. I concede that my original emphasis on "marriage" was hasty and wrongly worded. But the bigger picture I stand by, for now. It is merely a theological question. I am not "arguing with Christ"; I am merely excersising my Christian right in doing theology. I am not questioning Christ: I am questioning out interpretation of the text. I may well eventually totally concede the point, and if and when I do I can sleep easy in the knowledge that I have not "argued with Christ." You do make me smile sometimes, Jac.
No, Lev. 18:16 does NOT render the question obsolete. They were quoting the Mosaic Law, specifically Deut 25:5
- If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.
This is still more proof that as far as God is concerned, marriage ends at death. So now we have Moses, Paul, and Jesus all supporting this rather simple point.
Far from making their question invalid, it grounds it in exactly the same grounding you have. A man is married. He dies. His brother,
by God's command, marries her. This happens seven times. She dies. Who gets her in heaven?
Answer: no one. She is no one's wife in heaven
because there is no marriage in heaven. You can say you aren't arguing with Christ all day long, but you sure seem to be trying to find a way around His words. Jesus says, "There is no marriage in heaven," and you seem to want to say, "Yes, Jesus, you are sort of right. There isn't any marriage except in this or that case. So, really, Lord, to be absolutely technical, there IS marriage in Heaven, contrary to what You said. I know You were well intentioned and all, and really, You weren't trying to be so technical, but really there ARE a few exceptions to Your rule here . . ."
Call that what you want. I call it arguing with Him. If Jesus didn't make any exceptions to His statement, then why should you?
CSLL wrote:This is off-topic, but since you brought up I wanted to say something. I'm so tired of hearing this on the board, Jac. I don't know anyone that believes it takes more than faith to be saved . . . well not that I can recall. Everyone that has written here that is sort-of a regular, and that I have written to personally, believes you are saved by faith, period. But things start to happen that are manifested by faith and the work of the Holy Spirit in people's lives. That's what I've seen discussed, not that you need more than faith to save you. And besides that, there are false "believers" in the church, and we are to be discerning, where possible (it's amazing how many people get "ripped off" by "people of faith"!!); that comes into that discussion too. But everyone knows we're saved by faith alone, it's very easy to understand!
With all due respect, CSLL, if you are tired of discussing it, then perhaps you should just let others discuss it for whom it is an ongoing issue? To the best of my knowledge, we haven't banned the discussion of certain topics . . .
More directly to your point, I didn't have anyone on THESE boards in mind when I made that statement. But I can guarantee you that there are people who believe that faith is NOT enough to save, that you must repent and/or be baptized and/or commit your life to Christ and/or persevere in the faith (lest you lose your "salvation"), etc. They have an Andy's Gospel. They say and man bust believe AND he must repent; he must believe AND he must confess; he must believe AND he must live a life of good works, etc. Sorry, those people don't believe the Gospel. They are calling Jesus a liar. I am NOT saying that they are not saved. For all I know they could have believed the Gospel at some point in their lives and now simply are confused. It happens. But I make no apologies for defending what Paul said was the power of God unto salvation.
Do you think that I had any particular individual in mind when I made the
correct statement that people who say you must do something in addition to faith (i.e., repent, be baptized, confess, maintain faith, etc.) are arguing with Jesus? I assure you, I didn't, and I the only reason I don't take exception to your assumption on this point is that I too am guilty of assuming things that people don't mean.
As to whether or not salvation necessarily leads to good works, that is a pneumatological question, not a soteriological one. It only bears on whether or not a person actually believes the Gospel if it affects their view of assurance, and the vast majority of people are not nearly that nuanced in their initial faith in Christ. I am on record here saying that the belief that salvation necessarily produces good works IS contradictory the the Gospel of Christ, but only as a logical corollary. Plenty of people have trusted in Christ alone and have gone on to make that theological error. That doesn't mean that they didn't believe the Gospel.
If, then, you aren't so tired of discussing this after all and would like to open another thread, I'm always more than happy to talk about the truly Good News of Jesus Christ, that we are saved by grace through faith ALONE and totally apart from any works whatsoever, including repentance, baptism, confession, or even our perseverance in faith and/or good works. And if not, then I am happy to leave it here as well, and rejoice in the fact that we both do believe the Gospel and will, whatever we may disagree on theologically, spend our eternity in the same place serving and praising the same God.
God bless