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Discussion Forum : Scriptures and Doctrine : Salvation?

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 Salvation?

All is death without Him. Bring your dead soul into union with Him, and He will give you eternal life. -Robert Murray McCheyne

For many people in our churches these days, salvation is all in their minds. This will result in their missing heaven by eighteen inches, because God’s salvation has never gotten down from their heads into their hearts, where Christ can become their life. They know the verses, but they do not know Him; whom to know is life eternal.
It is little wonder then that many are disillusioned with Christianity. They have yet to realize that salvation is not a plan, not in scripture verses, not in ordinances and not in a scheme of theology. Salvation is not a decision and not a pronouncement of an evangelist, a pastor or a teacher. We shouldn’t wonder that Christianity is not “working” for some people. God’s purpose is not simply to give us a ticket to heaven.
-Paris Reidhead (Finding the Reality of God pg.19)

Salvation is not what Jesus did for us, but Salvation is Jesus. He was our sacrfice and became our salvation! Our union with Christ is what makes us a Christian, not our accepting or believing of Scripture, but that can lead us into union with Christ.


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 2003/11/18 18:37Profile
almondBranch
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Joined: 2003/10/6
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Tralee, Ireland

 Re: Salvation?

Quote:
Salvation is not what Jesus did for us, but Salvation is Jesus



We have just been talking about that in the bible study some of the saints in my town have on a Tuesday night. One of the key things that I believe the Lord was bringing to light tonight was "He who has the Son has life, and he who has not the Son has not life". Its as simple as that, not he who confesses to the statement of faith of our church or he who assents to our creed, but [u]he who has the Son[/u]. I grew uo in a christian family and all my life believed in the doctrines of the bible that any evangelical would beleve in. but it wasn't untill I was 19 years old that I "had the Son".

On christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.


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Stuart

 2003/11/18 18:44Profile
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 Re:

Quote:
Its as simple as that, not he who confesses to the statement of faith of our church or he who assents to our creed, but he who has the Son. I grew uo in a christian family and all my life believed in the doctrines of the bible that any evangelical would beleve in. but it wasn't untill I was 19 years old that I "had the Son".


AMEN! I was so humbled in the last 3 months when God has been dealing with me and this doctrine. There is such a mis-conception about this doctrine in evangelical circles.

Yet, among the people of God there were certain truths considered to be essential to the faith. These we call “fundamental truths.” And those who accepted these truths were genuinely and wonderfully born of God! However, when their children grew to adulthood, these beliefs were being adulterated. Many thought: If you merely believe in the fundamentals—that is, if you say, “yes, these basic doctrinal propositions of Christianity are true”—you can assume you are saved.
When the third, fourth and fifth generations—where we stand today—the gospel has been increasingly obscured. What we find today in Christian circles is this: If you will say, “Uh-huh,” to these few questions you are hereby declared “saved.”
-Paris Reidhead (Finding the Reality of God pg.45)

He (Christ) has joined himself to us and we have received Him. Salvation is not from Him, salvation is in Him. He wants to be in you—to be your life. This is the testimony of the Word. Can you say, “Christ the Lord is my salvation?” That truth was clear to David, who exclaimed in Psalm 27:1, “The Lord [Jehovah] is my light and my salvation.” You see, Christ is not our Savior because He is in heaven. He is our salvation when He lives in us.
-Paris Reidhead (Finding the Reality of God pg.37)


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 2003/11/18 18:53Profile
Chosen7Stone
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Joined: 2003/7/21
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 Re: Salvation?

In June 2003, I made the move from South Florida to North Florida. I know that may not seem like much to many of you, but for me it was moving away from a place I had lived in all of my 18 years at the time...460 miles away to a place, Tallahassee, located in "The Bible Belt". As if college enough weren't a wonderous new experience on many levels, all of a sudden there were hundreds of Christian peers.
Being a not-quite-two-year-old Christian myself, all I could think was, "Wow! Instant friends!"
You know, in a sense, I was right. I was right in that I did have a lot of automatic friends as a result of the common bond in Christ, and I was right in assuming that it should be easy since for a Christian, Christ is obviously all-consuming.
Dictionary.com defines "the Bible Belt" as "those sections of the United States, especially in the South and Middle West, where Protestant fundamentalism is widely practiced." Everyone here "grew up Christian."
And at first I was shocked when I'd often hear, "Oh, you're a Christian, too? Awesome! You want to go drinking with me this Friday night?"
Some people wear Christ's name like a banner over their life, and in the shadow of that banner live as the heathens that they are. I am appalled by the number of times I've had to explain to people, "Your soul is not a family soul or a group soul. Just because your family is Christian doesn't mean you have an automatic ticket to heaven." Or, "Just because you read the Bible or go to church weekly doesn't mean you're Saved."
If they read the Bible, how is it not clear to them that this is not Christianity, but merely a fabricated image of it, hardly close in semblance to begin with?
The only thing that comes to mind is Matthew 13:15...they've heard so much and seen so much.
God has blessed me with a testimony that makes it easy for me to empathize with those who are so deep in their sin they hardly realize they're drowning, but how do I witness to someone who has grown up in the church? How do I witness to someone who already KNOWS why Jesus died on that cross, yet still doesn't realize it intimately? :cry:


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Mary M.

 2003/11/18 22:12Profile
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 Re:

Quote:
but how do I witness to someone who has grown up in the church? How do I witness to someone who already KNOWS why Jesus died on that cross, yet still doesn't realize it intimately?


I think this following advice from Paris Reidhead would be a good prescription to the problem of 'gospel hardened' people in the bible belt.

"Paris Reidhead said these wonderfully wise words: If I had my way, I would declare a moratorium on public preaching of 'the plan of salvation' in Amercia for one to two years. Then I would call on everyone who has use of the airwaves and the pulpits to preach the holiness of God, the righteousness of God and the Law of God, until sinners would cry out, 'What must we do to be saved?' Then I would take them off in a corner and whisper the gospel to them. Such drastic action is needed because we have gospel-hardened a generation of sinners by telling them how to be saved before they have any understanding why they need to be saved.
Don't use John 3:16. Why? Because you tell a sinner how to be saved before he has realized that he needs to be saved. What you have done is gospel-hardened him."


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 2003/11/18 23:51Profile
sdb
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 Re: salvation

I can't exactly remember, but I think it was Ravenhill who said that being "saved" was so cliche, everyone today is "saved"---what we should be asking "Is Christ in you?"

 2003/11/19 0:42Profile
philologos
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 Re:

Quote:
I can't exactly remember, but I think it was Ravenhill who said that being "saved" was so cliche, everyone today is "saved"---what we should be asking "Is Christ in you?"


...and its corollary "are you in Christ?" "am I in Christ?". The Bible tells me wonderful things about 'being in Christ' but it doesn't tell me that I am in Christ; it can't, that is the prerogative of the Holy Spirit.

This is why Tozer was so scathing in his denunciation of 'logical deductions drawn from proof texts'.

In the late 1950s, A. W. Tozer wrote about what he called "the error of textualism," which has its counter-part in today's "wordism." This is what he said:

"The error of textualism is not doctrinal. It is far more subtle than that and much more difficult to discover, but its effects are just as deadly. Not its theological beliefs are at fault, but its assumptions.

"It assumes, for instance, that if we have the word for a thing we have the thing itself. If it is in the Bible, it is in us. If we have the doctrine, we have the experience. If something was true of Paul it is of necessity true of us because we accept Paul's epistles as divinely inspired.

"The Bible tells us how to be saved, but textualism goes on to make it tell us that we are saved, something which in the very nature of things it cannot do. Assurance of individual salvation is thus no more than a logical conclusion drawn from doctrinal premises, and the resultant experience wholly mental." (Man: The Dwelling Place of God, A. W. Tozer, page 18, copyright 1966 Christian Publications, Inc., Harrisburg, PA.)

I'm not sure where I got this from originally, so if I got it from here, my apologies. Perhaps it will bear repeating. Tozer originally wrote this almost 50 years ago; things in evangelicalism have not improved in that time.


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Ron Bailey

 2003/11/20 10:57Profile
-David
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 Re:

"...and its corollary "are you in Christ?" "am I in Christ?". The Bible tells me wonderful things about 'being in Christ' but it doesn't tell me that I am in Christ; it can't, that is the prerogative of the Holy Spirit."

Rom 6:10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

Rom 6:11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Rom 6:12 ¶ Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,(NASB)

-David

 2004/1/15 22:45Profile
philologos
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 Re:

Hi David
I have only just noticed this one. I think I understand your point. This admonition is directed to a specific group of people namely 'us', but 'us' is not anyone who happens to find this letter lying around. It is referring to those who have been baptised into Christ Jesus

It is also addressed to those who 'know' that our old man was crucified with him etc,(Rom 6:6); this knowing is ginOskO, which is "knowledge grounded on personal experience" and to those 'having known that Christ being raised etc' (Rom 6:9) This 'having known' uses 'eidO' which really means perceive. It is the knowing of revelation.

So to those who
1. have been baptised into Christ Jesus,
2. and who have the knowledge, founded on personal experience, that our old man has been crucified with Christ,
3. and who have seen inwardly, by revelation, that Christ being raised dieth no more etc

...to those, Paul writes, "reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God..."

to quote Tozer again this must not be a logical deduction drawn from proof texts but the consequence of a living personal encounter with Christ.


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Ron Bailey

 2004/1/21 10:27Profile
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 Re:

Quote:
have only just noticed this one. I think I understand your point. This admonition is directed to a specific group of people namely 'us', but 'us' is not anyone who happens to find this letter lying around. It is referring to those who have been baptised into Christ Jesus


When we are batized into Christ Jesus we become part of His body. We died with Christ and He raised us [i]with[/i] Him, but the [i]in[/i] is the subsitution and our accepting and vicariously being effected by that subsitution. But our end result is:

[b]Ephesians 2:5-6[/b] - made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

we have [i]been[/i] raised with Christ but our life is [i]still[/i] hidden in Christ.

[b]Colossians 3:1-3[/b] - Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Christ lives in us, but when we are raised to heaven to meet Christ in the air then we will be in Christ.

[b]1 John 3:24[/b] - Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.


hmmm what about this verse:

[b]1 John 4:15[/b] - If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.


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 2004/1/21 15:04Profile





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