Difficulty Reconciling

[GracePeace]

I dont know what happened to you, but i can explain something that might seem to fit.

A.) God our Father gives us "handfuls on purpose"...

Undeserved special favors. Special Graces that are unexpected good fortune, that came "Out of the Blue"/

He does this to help up realize that He is Good to us, because God is good all the time........and not because we earned it.

When we can see ourselves as little children who are being picked up by Jesus and hugged and blessed, ... because He loves to do this.. then we are starting to understand our Heavenly Father's relationship with us.

Its like THAT.

I'll take it!

 

[LoveYeshua]

I thought that that was very plainly true, but God told me I was trying to repay Him for my sins by all of my obedience, so I'm trying to not transgress by doing good (as odd as that may sound lol).

friend, it simply mean you did good under a false pretense in the eyes of God. God wants us to do good certainly but not for us personally. I know you should continue to do as much good as you can around you I am certain of this. the sins of all the world, Jesus had on his shoulders and paid the price, with his sacrifice, he is the lamb of God. Us, mere humans cannot do what Jesus did but we can do good for the right reason, motivated by love for one another.

Blessings.

 

[GracePeace]

friend, it simply mean you did good under a false pretense in the eyes of God. God wants us to do good certainly but not for us personally. I know you should continue to do as much good as you can around you I am certain of this. the sins of all the world, Jesus had on his shoulders and paid the price, with his sacrifice, he is the lamb of God. Us, mere humans cannot do what Jesus did but

The confusing thing was He was with me the whole time, but, later, said I was wrong.
Peter was shown the vision, and was corrected by that vision, though God had been with him the whole time.

we can do good for the right reason, motivated by love for one another.

Blessings.

The Bible does talk about being "constrained" by "the love of Christ".

 

[ScottA]

I have difficulty reconciling some verses in John.
How do you all reconcile the following verses?

1. On one hand, it seems like all we need to do to have eternal life is to believe in Jesus.

John 3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 6:29Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent. ... 35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. 36“But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. ... 40For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
68Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.

2a. On the other hand, it seems like mere belief is not enough, but, at bare minimum, one must deny oneself/not indulge in sin to the point of confessing faith in Christ (by adding "confession" to "faith", the "faith" required cannot be defined as "faith alone", but "faith... plus...")....

John 12:42Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; 43for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

2b. In the same chapter that seems to define "drinking" and "eating" as "believing" (to have eternal life), He defines the eating and drinking as "doing the works of the One Who sent you".

John 4:32But He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” ... 34Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.
6:56Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me.

2c. There are other passages that seem to teach the same (have to keep God's commands--both speaking and acting as He commands--to have eternal life) : here, eternal life, the Spirit, God's love, is only for those who keep Jesus's commands (both "believe" and "love one another").
John 12:49For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.
John 13:17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
John 14:21Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
John 15:10If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love... 12This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17This I command you, that you love one another.
1 John 3:23This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. 24The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

Reconciling I can help with. But you have piled on too much. I can see how that would make things confusing. Perhaps you could list just two passages at a time, and be more concise?

 

[GracePeace]

Reconciling I can help with. But you have piled on too much. I can see how that would make things confusing. Perhaps you could list just two passages at a time, and be more concise?

For the time being, actually, I'm "over" the question.
Thanks.

 

[face2face]

No intention to butt heads.....however, ......

is it really necessary to run by employing a condescending blame game f2f?

The problem seems to be a lack of understanding, both in interpreting the Word of God and in general communication. You give the impression of knowing something, but when challenged, it's clear that your grasp is limited. Perhaps you are someone who is always learning, yet never arriving at a true understanding of the truth?

 

[quietthinker]

The problem seems to be a lack of understanding, both in interpreting the Word of God and in general communication. You give the impression of knowing something, but when challenged, it's clear that your grasp is limited. Perhaps you are someone who is always learning, yet never arriving at a true understanding of the truth?

You are clearly unaware (unless it is deliberate) of your condescending attitude f2f!

 

[face2face]

You are clearly unaware (unless it is deliberate) of your condescending attitude f2f!

It's a rebuke quiet to your persistent ignorance, which at times you seem to delight in.

Maybe no-one has ever had the fortitude to tell you.

Are you a learning person? Can you be lead into the Word to find truth? Can you ask wise questions of it to learn truth?

Every time I've tried you resist, avoid, cast a stone etc.

Time is running out quiet

F2F

 

[quietthinker]

It's a rebuke quiet to your persistent ignorance, which at times you seem to delight in.

Maybe no-one has ever had the fortitude to tell you.

Are you a learning person? Can you be lead into the Word to find truth? Can you ask wise questions of it to learn truth?

Every time I've tried you resist, avoid, cast a stone etc.

Time is running out quiet

F2F

What you actually mean f2f is that because I don’t jump through your hoops and dance to your tune, you apply and load your projections onto me.
Herein is your condescension manifest…and slippery it is!

 

[GracePeace]

What does it mean to "believe in Jesus?"

That is a good question.
If we believe in Jesus, what do we believe?
Wouldn't we, of necessity, believe He will lose none but give them eternal life and raise them up on the last Day?

If so, how would you say that people fail to abide in Him and are cut off--and how would you reconcile that reality with the statement that Christ will lose none?

In 2 Chronicles 32:21, the prophet had prophesied provision to the besieged city of the Jews, and a Jewish man had expressed doubt, and the prophet said that, because of his doubt, he would see it with his eyes, but he would not partake of it--ultimately, the man was killed in the stampede that resulted from the provisions, so he saw it but did not partake.

So, also, it may be that "the faith" includes this element that "Christ will lose none", and abiding in Him, and His words in us, would, of necessity, include this affirmation. It may be, also, that men are given a window of time, of mercy and grace, to come around to this conclusion (just as Peter, new to the faith, still believed he had to keep the dietary Law, and believed on Jews could be saved--both were corrected, as the Spirit led him into truth in His timing, not immediately, when he was given the vision and went to eat with and preach to Cornelius).

So, being that I believe God can forget righteousness (Ez 18:4), and that "faith is counted as righteousness" (Ro 4:5), when someone irretrievably falls away (some fall away in a retrievable manner--eg, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle to the Galatians) from the faith (perhaps inclusive of this doctrine that "Christ will lose none"), God forgets their righteousness of faith (there're many proofs for this dynamic in the NT), it retroactively becomes that they never partook of Christ--such that they do not "lose faith", preserving the promise that Christ will lose none (because Christ, retroactively, never said He would keep them--ie, because God forgot their righteousness of faith, it never happened, and Christ never said He would keep them).

Thus, it remains true that Christ loses none, but, because of their unbelief, they behold the provision but do not partake of the provision.

You may argue, "Yes, but doesn't Hebrews 3 also teach that men can fall away from the faith, into unbelief, due to actual sins, which have the effect of hardening their heart--that sin, itself, disobedience, can lead to unbelief? Because faith is completed by works, thus faith that is incomplete, that is not completed by works corresponding with that faith, itself, results in unbelief? Don't we have to do works to keep our faith?"

Sure, however, Christ also says, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing [good]."
The "job" of a branch is to RECEIVE from the Vine... and only then will it have the inward substance needed to manifest outward signs of inwardly abiding substance. The end times will be dangerous because men will have a form of godliness but denying its power. God doesn't want us to have an outward appearance of a relationship with Him, or else what are our good works leading men to? Our good works are meant to bring others into relationship with God... but if we ourselves lack that relationship, how can we bring others into it? Then we merely have a superficial godliness but without the inward power/substance.
Therefore, believing Christ will not lose us may be an aspect of the faith that causes us to abide in Him, and then have the inward substance and power to outwardly bear fruit that brings others into that same connection we ourselves have through faith.

So, in this sense, I have come around to agreeing with the Monergists, though, obviously, not on the same bases as the Monergists--I've become "Oddly OSAS".

 

[Behold]

If so, how would you say that people fail to abide in Him and are cut off--

No one is "cut off", once they are born again.
You can't stop being "born again", but you can exist in a cult that teaches that you can be "cut off".
And a person can be water baptized, and believe they are saved, and actually they are just water baptized and religious.
Hell is filled with these, and thousands of them died today, and found out that the water didnt "wash away their sin" and trying to "be like Jesus" wasn't God's Salvation.

 

[GracePeace]

No one is "cut off", once they are born again.
You can't stop being "born again", but you can exist in a cult that teaches that you can be "cut off".
And a person can be water baptized, and believe they are saved, and actually they are just water baptized and religious.
Hell is filled with these, and thousands of them died today, and found out that the water didnt "wash away their sin" and trying to "be like Jesus" wasn't the answer.

John 15 says if we don't abide we will be cut off and thrown in the fire--1 Jn 2:28 says this warning applies to the "little children" (immature believers) he writes to.

 

[soberxp]

I have difficulty reconciling some verses in John.
How do you all reconcile the following verses?

1. On one hand, it seems like all we need to do to have eternal life is to believe in Jesus.

John 3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 6:29Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent. ... 35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. 36“But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. ... 40For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
68Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.

2a. On the other hand, it seems like mere belief is not enough, but, at bare minimum, one must deny oneself/not indulge in sin to the point of confessing faith in Christ (by adding "confession" to "faith", the "faith" required cannot be defined as "faith alone", but "faith... plus...")....

John 12:42Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; 43for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

2b. In the same chapter that seems to define "drinking" and "eating" as "believing" (to have eternal life), He defines the eating and drinking as "doing the works of the One Who sent you".

John 4:32But He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” ... 34Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.
6:56Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me.

2c. There are other passages that seem to teach the same (have to keep God's commands--both speaking and acting as He commands--to have eternal life) : here, eternal life, the Spirit, God's love, is only for those who keep Jesus's commands (both "believe" and "love one another").
John 12:49For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.
John 13:17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
John 14:21Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
John 15:10If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love... 12This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17This I command you, that you love one another.
1 John 3:23This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. 24The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

You should eat the tree of life, Jesus Christ is the tree of life,the way of life.
Love the word of God and love others as yourself is the first Command,

So you should not eat the knowledge of good and evil in the world.only eat the word of God is good.

 

[GracePeace]

You should eat the tree of life, Jesus Christ is the tree of life,the way of life.
Love the word of God and love others as yourself is the first Command,

So you should not eat the knowledge of good and evil in the world.only eat the word of God is good.

Sound advice.

 

[Behold]

John 15 says if we don't abide

Here is how you "abide". "IN" = Christ.

Notice, the context of "abiding", is to be "IN"... Christ... as that is the only way you can "abide".

So, how do you get "IN" Christ?

You have to become "ONE" with Him... and that is not you trying to be a good little boy, or good little girl.

A.) to "abide IN Christ".. .is to be born again as "IN Christ", "one with God".

That is how you "abide" there. = "IN" Them.

Jesus explains it like this........to abide you "MUST be born again".

 

[GracePeace]

Here is how you "abide". "IN" = Christ.

Notice, the context of "abiding", is to be "IN"... Christ... as that is the only way you can "abide".

So, how do you get "IN" Christ?

You have to become "ONE" with Him... and that is not you trying to be a good little boy, or good little girl.

A.) to "abide IN Christ".. .is to be born again as "IN Christ", "one with God".

That is how you "abide" there. = "IN" Them.

Jesus explains it like this........to abide you "MUST be born again".

Christ is the Word; it is logical, then, that He states, "He who feeds on Me abides in Me and I in him", "If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you... If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love... This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you", and, "And this is His command : that we believe in the Name of God's Son, and love one another" : when someone does not abide in His Words, they cease abiding (eg, Galatians 1:6, 3:1, 5:8), so this is a call to faith and to acting in faith (eg, "How would I behave if I believed He would never lose me?"). If we contradict His Word in thought (ie, unbelief), or word and deed (acting or speaking like what He said isn't true), then that is not abiding in Him.

 

[Behold]

If you keep my commandments,

If you keep Moses's commandments, or if you keep Christ's commandments you are just a commandment keeping religious person.
Hell is filled with them, and thousands more of them died and went to hell today.
= Water baptized, commandment keeping, religious......but LOST.

So, again..

The context is.......to be "IN" = Christ........and keeping commandments has nothing to do with it, nor does water baptism.

You are not informed, regarding what it means to be born again, as a "new Creation" "IN Christ" and that is what you are arguing about words that you don't understand, and you will continue to do it.

 

[GracePeace]

If you keep Moses's commandments, or if you keep Christ's commandments you are just a commandment keeping religious person.

God's command is that you believe in the Name of God's Son and love others (1 Jn 3:23); John teaches that by doing this command we will abide in Him and be supplied with His Spirit / eternal life (1 Jn 3:24) that is "in His Son (1 Jn 5:10, 11).

You're telling me John is incorrect, and this is the way to hell fire.

Who should I believe, do you think?

 

[Behold]

God's command is that you believe in the Name of God's Son and love others (1 Jn 3:23); John teaches that by doing this command

You dont realize that this verse is teaching 2 things, and not just one?

Notice 1.) Believe and 2.) Love.

Those are not the same, regarding abiding......"IN" Christ.

Notice......>if you love your neighbor as yourself, and if you love everyone, but you have not "believed in Jesus" then all your love ends up with you, in Hell.
Why?
Because Salvation is God provided, not based on your loving anyone.....but only based on The Cross Of Christ where God "so LOVED the word"........= You, and me.
Understand ?

Also, if you have believed, and are born again, and you dont LOVE, as you should, then you are still born again, but you are going to have to be shown and taught some things about "love" that is God's Love, that is agape' love.

You're telling me John is incorrect, and this is the way to hell fire.

Read what i posted, previously and find your answer.

 

[GracePeace]

You dont realize that this verse is teaching 2 things, and not just one? Notice 1.) Believe and 2.) Love.

Correction : what this teaches is that believing and loving are a singular command ("Command", not "commands"), so that instances of a believer failing to love are also instances of that believer denying Christ ("He who does not provide for his family... has denied the faith.", etc, etc, etc).

Read what i posted, previously and find your answer.

We'll have to agree to disagree.