But where the
Gentile is not necessarily rejecting Christ if he does not "believe"
in him, this was not so for the Jews. To the Jew to not believe in
Jesus was to not receive him, which was to reject him, which is to reject the
right to become a child of God. This passage is terribly
misunderstood and misappropriated when it is torn out of its specifically
Jewishcontext and made to be representative of all humanity. The Calvinists are
as bad about doing this as you Arminians. They use verse 13 to bolster
their doctrine of predestination -- in other words, people do not come to
Christ by being born into a Christian family or by their free-will, but only by
a sovereign act of God. And so, Izzy, if it makes you feel any better, their
error is as grievous as yours :>) Bill, the error is yours. God does not have one method
of salvation for Jews and a different one for the gentiles. All true
believers are descendants of Abraham; not just those born Jews. Gal:328
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man,
there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
We are saved by “believing”
in Christ, which is our choice—belief is never forced upon us: Luke 8:11"Now the
parable is this:the seed is the word of God. Acts 15: 11"But we believe that we are saved through (AA)the
grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are." ________________________________________________ I John 3: 1See how great a love the Father has
bestowed on us, that we would be called
children of God; and such we are For this reason the world does not know us,
because it did not know Him. BT: The world does not know God. Hence
the world does not know its ontological status in Christ; nor does it know us
who do know and affirm that status. But their not knowing cannot negate the
reality of who they are in Christ. The world believes a lie, Izzy. Our vocation
as Christians is to confront that lie with the truth. Bill, this
scripture was written to BELIEVERS, not to the lost who are NOT in
Christ. Theology which claims that everyone is saved, in Christ, don’t
need to repent and obey, etc, is truly a lie against God’s word.
But such will not prevail; His word will endure. Izzy, do you know if there is a way that
you can set your email program so that it will allow others to change the font
and color when responding to you? I think it must have something to do with
your settings, as I do not have problems reformatting over anyone else. Bill Bill, I believe
that if you repent of your erroneous theology the Lord may rebuke the demons
from your computer. I cannot help you in any other way than to give you
that advice, as apparently my computer (and theology) will not bow to yours. J Izzy (PS Switching from plain text to HTML might
help in the meantime.) |
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