OSAS : Gnostic Heresy

[Christian Soldier]

What are some other examples of Jesus teaching parables that don't need to be taught, that He teaches in vain, because the lesson doesn't need to be learned, because the lesson He is teaching in the parable can never occur, and where He depicts God as doing something that He will never do? Is this the only one? "Interesting". "Convenient".

Dumb Sheep like you and me, need to be frightened into submission. The parable was given to instill the fear of the Lord into us. Us dumb Sheep never do anything willingly, we always need the whip or the cattle prod to force us into submission.

There are many parables, which were given in figurative or metaphoric language. I can give you a list if you need it but I'm sure you're already ware of this fact.

 

[GracePeace]

Don't believe either of us, because no man was actually involved. The "man" was used to teach us a different lesson, forgiveness of our fellow servants was not the point of the parable. The parable actually speaks about how God saves His children from their sin and casts the Devils children into hell. The Devils children pretend to be Gods children but they are exposed because they don't have Gods Spirit indwelling them.

It's foolish to suggest that someone can receive the Holy Spirit and then chase the Holy Spirit out. It simply can't happen, unless the person is more powerful than God Himself, and that's the only way to cast out the Holy Spirit. In other words, it's impossible

The parables Jesus teaches have elements corresponding to reality.

Agreed?

The King, Jesus says, corresponds to God.
The King forgiving the servant, Jesus says, corresponds to God forgiving a disciple of His.
The King rescinding His forgiveness because the servant did not forgive, Jesus says, corresponds to God rescinding His forgiveness of a disciple who does not forgive.

According to you, however, none of these things are real, have any reality to which they correspond, because they are impossibilities.

Again, where else does Jesus do this--vainly teach parables that do not need to be taught, because they can never occur, or depict God doing what God cannot and will not ever do? Wouldn't Jesus be falsely representing God, saying God can rescind forgiveness, if what you're saying is true?

Isn't it true that Ezekiel said God can forget righteousness (Ez 18:24)--and because faith, by which we are forgiven and justified, is counted as righteousness, that this parable depicts what would be the result of God forgetting righteousness in the New Covenant?

Do you affirm that God can forget righteousness, and how does that dynamic take shape in your "system" in the New Covenant--or do you think God changes, is not "the same yesterday today and forever", and no longer forgets righteousness?

 

[GracePeace]

Dumb Sheep like you and me, need to be frightened into submission. The parable was given to instill the fear of the Lord into us. Us dumb Sheep never do anything willingly, we always need the whip or the cattle prod to force us into submission.

There are many parables, which were given in figurative or metaphoric language. I can give you a list if you need it but I'm sure you're already ware of this fact.

Which parables have no correspondences with reality?

 

[GracePeace]

Dumb Sheep like you and me, need to be frightened into submission. The parable was given to instill the fear of the Lord into us. Us dumb Sheep never do anything willingly, we always need the whip or the cattle prod to force us into submission.

There are many parables, which were given in figurative or metaphoric language. I can give you a list if you need it but I'm sure you're already ware of this fact.

Are you saying the Holy Spirit is insufficient to lead and empower a person to do God's will, and they need the written lies of Jesus to scare them into doing God's will?

New creatures, born of God, need to be scared into obedience? I thought you believed otherwise.

How many Christians throughout history (including in places like China, today) do you think did not have the Scriptures? They weren't even compiled until long after the Church was founded. Without the lie of Matthew 18, were they incapable of being scared into submission, and did they go to hell, like Matthew 18 warns, because they didn't have the lie of Matthew 18 to scare them?

 

[Christian Soldier]

Even though the King, representing God, in the parable, says "I forgave you all that debt". Past-tense. Forgave.

Not sure why you're pretending not to understand my point : God didn't turn a forgiven person over to tormentors, God RESCINDED His forgiveness, so the guy was no longer forgiven. Do you believe God can do that, like Jesus says, or do you have unbelief in Jesus's Words?

I believe in Jesus' Word. But I don't agree with your interpretation of it, because it would mean that God changes His mind and we know He never does.

 

[Christian Soldier]

Do you really need to have it explained to you that Jesus tells parables to teach lessons about reality? You're saying there is no reality to which this parable corresponds, but, again, this would be a complete severance from Jesus's habit, so I and all other reasonable people reject the notion.

I can't accept your interpretation, because it doesn't align with who God is.

 

[Christian Soldier]

The parables Jesus teaches have elements corresponding to reality.

Agreed?

The King, Jesus says, corresponds to God.
The King forgiving the servant, Jesus says, corresponds to God forgiving a disciple of His.
The King rescinding His forgiveness because the servant did not forgive, Jesus says, corresponds to God rescinding His forgiveness of a disciple who does not forgive.

According to you, however, none of these things are real, have any reality to which they correspond, because they are impossibilities.

Again, where else does Jesus do this--vainly teach parables that do not need to be taught, because they can never occur, or depict God doing what God cannot and will not ever do? Wouldn't Jesus be falsely representing God, saying God can rescind forgiveness, if what you're saying is true?

Isn't it true that Ezekiel said God can forget righteousness (Ez 18:24)--and because faith, by which we are forgiven and justified, is counted as righteousness, that this parable depicts what would be the result of God forgetting righteousness in the New Covenant?

Do you affirm that God can forget righteousness, and how does that dynamic take shape in your "system" in the New Covenant--or do you think God changes, is not "the same yesterday today and forever", and no longer forgets righteousness?

You have made many assumptions which don't make sense.

First of all you assume that the servant in question was forgiven and saved in the begging of the story. That doesn't make sense because, because God doesn't demand that we pay God back for forgiving us and saving us. Forgiveness and salvation are gifts, they were never a business transaction like paying off a bank loan.

That's the first problem with your narrative. The second is, you assume that the other servants are also forgiven and saved. There is nothing to confirm that either. We know that Satan serves Gods purpose, just as every other creature does. We all serve God, either willingly or unwillingly as in the case of unbelievers.

The Devil is Gods Devil, God uses Him to refine and strengthen his People's faith. So we need to understand "wicked servants" in their intended context. Faithful servants are Gods children and wicked servants are the children of the Devil.

 

[Christian Soldier]

Which parables have no correspondences with reality?

Parables are meant to confuse unbelievers. Lets consider what Christ said about parables.

And He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest I speak in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand.’” (Luke 8: 9 -10).

"But when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable. And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that Seeing they may see and not perceive, And hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn And their sins be forgiven them.’” (Mark 4: 10 - 12)

The reason some people do “not understand” parables is that it has “not been given to them” to be able to do so. In quoting Isaiah the intent behind the parables according to Luke and Mark is that in “seeing they will not see and hearing they will not understand.”
To those who "have been given" understanding, they will recognize that everything they have, including their understanding, is by God's grace alone.

 

[Christian Soldier]

Are you saying the Holy Spirit is insufficient to lead and empower a person to do God's will, and they need the written lies of Jesus to scare them into doing God's will?

New creatures, born of God, need to be scared into obedience? I thought you believed otherwise.

How many Christians throughout history (including in places like China, today) do you think did not have the Scriptures? They weren't even compiled until long after the Church was founded. Without the lie of Matthew 18, were they incapable of being scared into submission, and did they go to hell, like Matthew 18 warns, because they didn't have the lie of Matthew 18 to scare them?

I'm saying only God knows what the Holy Spirit does in the lives of born again believers. We simply don't know what He is currently doing, we can only see some of what He has already done in our lives. God is a mystery, He only revealed a tiny little snippet to us about Himself.

I fear the Lord God Jesus Christ, because we have many examples of His wrath and His hatred of sinners. Jesus is the only One who has the power to cast both our body and soul into the lake of fire

Thankfully God is not subject to your idea of how He saves people. God is sovereign, nobody knows who He chose to save and how He chose to save them. The bible never once says that a person must read the bible to be saved, God is not impressed by your pride in your wisdom.

God saves every single one of those He elected to save before He created the world. You have no jurisdiction to put God on trial and demand He explain why He chose some Chinese who lives 5000 years ago, but didn't chose to save good old Johnny boy who used to help old ladies cross the street.

We can't even get our heads around the small things God revealed, so it's foolish to attempt to get into the mind of God to find out how or why He chose His elect before He made the world.

The thief on the cross was saved in the last moments of his life, he didn't have time to study the bible or be baptized. Men have added endless conditions to salvation but God never added a single requirement. Everyone is saved in the exact same way from the begging of time to the end, we are all simply saved by Gods Grace and nothing more. If anyone adds works to Gods grace it is an abomination in His sight.

 

[GracePeace]

I can't accept your interpretation, because it doesn't align with who God is.

Begging the question

 

[GracePeace]

You have made many assumptions which don't make sense.

First of all you assume that the servant in question was forgiven and saved in the begging of the story.

The text is unambiguous. "I forgave you".

What makes it difficult for you is not mysterious--you have theological pre-commitments.

That doesn't make sense because, because God doesn't demand that we pay God back for forgiving us and saving us.

If your views are challenged by what is plainly stated, is that my fault?

Forgiveness and salvation are gifts, they were never a business transaction like paying off a bank loan.

That's the first problem with your narrative. The second is, you assume that the other servants are also forgiven and saved. There is nothing to confirm that either.

It's a story, and Jesus tells us what it means, so we don't have to guess : "So will My Father do to you".
Parables, allegories, and types don't have to 100% match, detail for detail, to carry their message--eg, the Bronze Serpent was destroyed because people worshipped it. Is Jesus letting us know He is going to be destroyed because people are worshipping Him, or were there only a limited number of aspects of the Bronze Serpent He meant to say spoke of Him?

Again, we know what the parable refers to : so will My Father do to you if you do not forgive your brother from the heart.

It's not mysterious.

We know that Satan serves Gods purpose, just as every other creature does. We all serve God, either willingly or unwillingly as in the case of unbelievers.

The Devil is Gods Devil, God uses Him to refine and strengthen his People's faith. So we need to understand "wicked servants" in their intended context. Faithful servants are Gods children and wicked servants are the children of the Devil.

Irrespectively, the servant was forgiven--a fact you have actually gone about to suppress in order to preserve your tradition above the plain text.

 

[GracePeace]

I'm saying only God knows what the Holy Spirit does in the lives of born again believers. We simply don't know what He is currently doing, we can only see some of what He has already done in our lives. God is a mystery, He only revealed a tiny little snippet to us about Himself.

Obviously, your view doesn't pass the scratch test. It's more believable, for all the reasons I've enumerated, that the parable is the genuine article, not a lie that has no actual reality it corresponds to.

I fear the Lord God Jesus Christ, because we have many examples of His wrath and His hatred of sinners. Jesus is the only One who has the power to cast both our body and soul into the lake of fire

Thankfully God is not subject to your idea of how He saves people. God is sovereign, nobody knows who He chose to save and how He chose to save them. The bible never once says that a person must read the bible to be saved, God is not impressed by your pride in your wisdom.

No, I'm saying that is the conclusion from what YOU were saying, and I'm rejecting that.

God saves every single one of those He elected to save before He created the world. You have no jurisdiction to put God on trial and demand He explain why He chose some Chinese who lives 5000 years ago, but didn't chose to save good old Johnny boy who used to help old ladies cross the street.

You're misunderstanding/misrepresenting me.

We can't even get our heads around the small things God revealed, so it's foolish to attempt to get into the mind of God to find out how or why He chose His elect before He made the world.

You are getting soooooo far off topic--off the topic of the parable weve been discussing from Matthew 18.

The thief on the cross was saved in the last moments of his life, he didn't have time to study the bible or be baptized. Men have added endless conditions to salvation but God never added a single requirement. Everyone is saved in the exact same way from the begging of time to the end, we are all simply saved by Gods Grace and nothing more. If anyone adds works to Gods grace it is an abomination in His sight.

This is completely irrelevant.

 

[Hepzibah]

Christian Soldier said:
The thief on the cross was saved in the last moments of his life, he didn't have time to study the bible or be baptized. Men have added endless conditions to salvation but God never added a single requirement. Everyone is saved in the exact same way from the begging of time to the end, we are all simply saved by Gods Grace and nothing more. If anyone adds works to Gods grace it is an abomination in His sight.

The Bible is silent on whether the thief was already a disciple and was being punished for a crime committed prior to this.

 

[Behold]

Begging the question

The Question is...

What DEBT has Jesus paid for you... @GracePeace. ?

 

[RedFan]

I thank you for qualifying your statement with "our human notions of justice".

Gods Justice and ways are infinitely higher than ours. So it's not even possible to draw a comparison between our standard of justice and Gods standard.

Having established that it's not possible, we ought not bother trying to understand it as it will only result in utter confusion and disillusionment.

I agree. But by the same token, we ought not use the word "justice" with its human connotations and meaning to describe what you rightly point out we cannot understand.

 

[GodsGrace]

Then it does not last forever.

You do not tell someone they can keep something forever, unless it is forever.

You tell them instead they can have something as long as they do this or that (meet the standard) You never call something forever that is not forever

How could we be sure what everlasting meant in the NT?
We cannot.

We have to take all scripture AS A WHOLE IDEA....
And if there's any question at all, it's good to go with the words of Jesus.

• Ellicott's Commentary on the Whole Bible (Matt. 25:46): Everlasting punishment-life eternal. The two adjectives represent the same Greek word, aionios-it must be admitted (1) that the Greek word which is rendered "eternal" does not, in itself, involve endlessness, but rather, duration, whether through an age or succession of ages, and that it is therefore applied in the N.T. to periods of time that have had both a beginning and ending (Rom. 16:25), where the Greek is "from aeonian times;" our version giving "since the world began." (Comp. 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 1:3) -strictly speaking, therefore, the word, as such, apart from its association with any qualifying substantive, implies a vast undefined duration, rather than one in the full sense of the word "infinite."​

source: Definitions-of-the-Greek-Words-Aion--Aionios-and-the-Hebrew-word-Olam - BEACON MINISTRIES.​

 

[GodsGrace]

The Question is...

What DEBT has Jesus paid for you... @GracePeace. ?

Why is Jesus praying to the Father to forgive us OUR DEBT
IF, according to those who believe as you do...
Jesus HAS ALREADY paid our debt??

Why ask for something we already have??

 

[GodsGrace]

How do you know where you there?

How do y ou know Jesus resurrected?
Were you there?
WHY do you believe He was resurrected?
Did you dream it?
Did you watch a movie?

HOW?
I'll tell y ou how EG.
Because THE APOSTLES told you so
and you're trusting the Apostles with your very soul.

So, you see, you are trusting men.
And what they wrote.

Which was chosen for you by the ECFs...
whether you wish to admit it or not.

Again, the roman church destroyed any document that did not agree with them. So I would not trust any document outside of the word of God.

See above.
The Word of God was preserved by the very church you distrust.
The very Word of God that you speak of was taught to others by the Apostles.
How do you think the gospel was spread from country to country?
What were Paul's missionary journeys all about?

Again, Look at the history of the jews and when they used extra biblical test to prove their theories.. They got it wrong.

I have, I have also read what the roman church did to any documents or people that they considered heresy.

the ruler makes history. If Hitler won WW2 the history books would be written to support him and america would be the great evil.

History was written by men, The word of God was written by god. Do not trust anythign else

You mean God left heaven, came here to earth, got a piece of paper and a pen, and began to write down the NT?

I'm afraid, EG, that you're going to have to trust THE MEN that wrote the NT.
Some of whom we don't even know who they are.
Who wrote Hebrews?
No one knows for sure.
So do you NOT read it?

lol.

I give credit to God not men. But thank you.

Nahhh, I will stick with the word of God.

The jews tried to stick with histroy, and because of their history crucified Christ.

thank you but no thank you..

You're in a teaching position in your church.
You're A MAN teaching other men.
Should they not trust you because you're not God?
You're teaching them from something written.

Should they trust you as much as someone that was taught by John or Peter or Paul?
Should they trust you more?
Less?

 

[GodsGrace]

It says they will not bear fruit, it does not say they will lose salvation

Jesus said they would never die, they have eternal life. They will never hunger or thirst. You have jesus contradicting himself. If jesus can not even get his own story straight, I need to walk away. Because my foundation is not any good

Bearing fruit means doing works.
You don't even believe in works salvation, which Jesus definitely believed in.

John says that the branches that do not BEAR FRUIT will be cut off, dried and burned.

Nothing in John 15 about salvation.
Try to listen to what Jesus is stating instead of putting your own words into it.

JESUS said that IF we DO NOT ABIDE IN HIM....
we will be cut off.

John 15:1-6
1“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
2“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
6“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.


Very simple words spoken by Jesus.
Now show us where in the above Jesus mentions anything about being born again or eternal salvation.
He is saying THE OPPOSITE of what you believe.

Abide is an on-going action.
We must ABIDE in JESUS so as not to be thrown away.

The UNSAVED are thrown away....those who DO NOT ABIDE in Jesus.
ABIDE.....
ongoing.

 

[GodsGrace]

Yes, He makes the rules


Salvation is a gift. He is offering it to you. Recieve it in faith. He will save you. And through that gift, perfect you forever while he goes on sanctifying you.

And you can be confident that he who began a good work in you will complete it

Of course.
IF Io ABIDE in Jesus I will be saved.

Right now I can know I'm saved because I'M ABIDING in Jesus.

When I got saved, I did not lose my free will.

This is never addressed by anyone.
Care to give it a try?

Or you can not recieve it in faith. Think it is to easy, you have to do your part. God says it is a gift, but really he means you must earn it. In which case, your not saved.. Because you have yet to repent. And come to God in true faith, You are still trusting yourself To much. You have not become poor in spirit (bankrupt)

EARN
ABIDE
TRUST
BELIEVE
MERIT

Well, we won't agree on this.
Jesus said we must bear fruit,
He said we must abide...

I tend to obey Jesus.