----- Original Message -----
Sent: August 17, 2004 22:50
Subject: [TruthTalk] Christians'
authority over nature
It's a closed circle Lance.
Noone comes to the Father unless they come through Jesus who is the door
and
noone comes to Jesus except it
is given him by the father (Jn 6:65). IOW the Holy Spirit gives spiritual life
(quickeneth), and without the work of the Holy Spirit noone can even see the
need for it (Jn 14:17). All spiritual life begins and ends with God. He
reveals truth to us, lives within us, then he enables us to respond to that
truth.
Amen! God's covenant is fulfilled in Jesus (the
obedient Israelite).
'those who come to Him have been drawn by the
Father' Could you kindly tell me what this passage means to you?
God's covenant (via Abraham) is unilateral and,
not bilateral.
jt: God's covenant (via
Abraham) is Jesus and those who come to Him have been drawn by the
Father.
I don't see anything
"unilateral" in all the gospels. Counting the cost is a scriptural
principle. judyt
In a message dated
8/16/2004 12:16:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
The above is TFT's
"incarnational teaching" Yes Jesus is the sacrifice for all time but
God is a Covenant God and Jesus is given as a Covenant to the
people. Covenant agreements involve the fidelity both parties and we
enter the process of salvation so that we might overcome as He overcame.
Yes it is all His grace, and it is all His power - but we have our part in
the process if we have repented from dead works so that we may serve the
Living God. I'm not satisfied with a "form of godliness" are
you?.
What about the fellow in Ro 2:12-16? The text
presents one who is not a hearer of the law -- of any law. But
he instinctively fulfills the law and with that activity, can be saved by
Christ. The text does not present one who has accepted Christ
as his personal savior or held himself obedient to an ethical code of some
sort.
jt: The fellow in
Romans 2:12 is a New Covenant believer a person who has God's law
written upon the tables of his heart by the indwelling Spirit as Per
Jeremiah 31:33. A gentile who was not raised under the Jewish
law. The book of Romans is addressed to: "All that be in Rome
beloved of God, called to be saints" IOW it is to God's people in
Rome.
Scripture everywhere teaches that God cares more for the condition of
the heart than anything. Somewhere in this "inwardness" is the
image of God spoken of in Genesis.
jt: I agree about
the condition of the heart being important to God. However,
scripture also teaches us that the human heart is deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9); this is not the image of
God. Jesus is the image of God. He said "If you have seen Me you
have seen the Father" and it is not until we are conformed to His image
(which is the purpose of salvation) that we return to the image of God
spoken of in Genesis.
Grace and
Peace,
Judy