To those who disagree, what did Paul mean when he said Abraham is father of all believers (Rom 4:11-16), that the church is comprised of one olive tree containing both wild and natural branches (Rom 11)? What promises was Paul referring to in Galatians 3:16 when he said that these did not refer to Jews but to Christians? Did God make one special set of promises to Jews and another special set of promises to Christians? Is their no organic unity between these promises? To which of these promises, if any, was Peter referring in Acts 2?

Why do we hold that the Old Testament is authorotative and binding on the church? If it pertains only to the Jews we might as well throw it away.

Derek wrote:
Preacher
Yes I was complaining because I have run out of room before and couldn't continue.
Yes I did read them.
R.C. Sproul (actually his son more than him) has some good information on homeschooling. Too bad they are baptising babies to merit grace.

But if there is one doctrine which is clear and concise, and runs like a golden thread throughout the whole of Scripture, it is the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God and His divine decrees.

You can effortlessly beat down an Arminian argument because the Scripture references which oppose their views are too numerous to list.

But if you believe that knowledge of the Divine can only come from the Divine, if you know that it must be revealed by God and not by flesh and blood, then you must also know that all our Scripture quoting will not convince the Arminian. It must be revealed to him by God, for it breaks down that most stubborn of human vices - the primacy of the human intellect.

Within man runs this deep yearning to be able to do something, even a little something, towards salvation. Even if it is as seemingly insignificant as clinging to the concept of free will.

Moderator Alpha wrote:
"Only one post at a time per thread (allow for alternate users)."
There is an undocumented exception to this policy that after one hour another post will be accepted in the same thread without an alternate user's post.

In the New Testament we are told that the Church is the true Israel.

Peter refers to the Church in very Old Testament language; royal priesthood, holy nation etc.

Old Testament Israel is often referred to as the Church, eg, the church in the wilderness.

Israel, the Old Testament church is the olive tree, consisting of natural branches, some of which are cut off and replaced with wild branches. As Christians, we are therefore grafted into Israel.

Paul goes out of his way several times to painstakingly explain that being a Jew is nothing, but being a Christian is everything, for only the Christians are heirs of the covenant promises. If you are Christ's (ie, a Christian) then you are children of Abraham and heirs according to the promise.

These are irrefutable Biblical truths telling us plainly and simply that the Old church was Israel and the New church is comprised of believing Jews and non-Jews.

This means that if you are a Jew and not a Christian you do not belong to the true Israel, therefore, Christians are Jews and non-believing Jews are Gentiles.

The Lone Wolf wrote:
aka For God So Loved the World
aka Devastating Truth

Though it is necessary to have a correct understanding of the essential truths of the gospel in order to be saved, a correct understanding is not enough to be saved. Even if people understand the gospel and affirm or assent to its truth, they may still fall short of saving faith. The devil knows the gospel is true, but he hates it with every fibre of his being. There is an element of trust in saving faith. It involved personal reliance and dependence upon the gospel.
Trust involves the will as well as the mind. To have saving faith requires that we love the truth of the gospel and desire to live it out. We embrace with our hearts the sweetness and loveliness of Christ.

Mat 18:3
Rom 10:5-13
Eph 2:4-10
I Thes 2:13
James 2:14-26

Please first read the history of the Reformation, the utter demonic corruption of Rome and the struggles of the forerunners of the Reformation, the Reformers and those who came after them.

I sense many of you do not fully understand Rome, how she came about and how slender the thread of true Christianity was during the Dark Ages.

Without the Reformation we would not have had the Bible, in all its languages and for all to read.

Without the Reformation we would not have the open road to God's Throne nor peace with God.

Without the Reformation we would not have a true idea of Christian worship.

Without the Reformation we would not have a right standard of Christian holiness.

How can you trust in a God who changes His mind?

How can you depend on a God who says he will make all things good, but who can't even save whom He wants to save?

How can you read the Bible and still come to the conclusion that Satan is more powerful than God?

And finally...

What sort of churches teach that God sends His Son to save people, but that even after He has saved them the devil can snatch them away.

The whole Bible is covenantal, for God always and only deals with men through covenant. There is clearly one over-arching covenant of grace which is introduced after the fall and which finds its culmination in Revelation. The essence of that covenant is found in the words, "I will be your God and you shall be My people, and I will dwell with you."

It is only because your dispensational view of the whole has distorted your view of the parts that you constantly portray a wrong and deficient theology.

If one changes one's mind, then one's previous thoughts were imperfect. You cannot change what is perfect without it becoming imperfect. If God were to change His mind, then He would have to admit that what He was thinking before was wrong. God inhabits eternity. We inhabit chronological time. He is infinite in all things. We are finite or limited in all things. Therefore when God speaks to us about Himself He can only do so in words and ways which we can understand and relate to.

Read Ex3:14; Ps102:26-28; Is 41:4; 48:12; Mal 3:6; Rom 1:23; Heb 1:11,12; James 1:17.

His immutability should not be seen as immobility. There is change round about Him, change in the relations of men to Him. But there is no change in His being, His attributes, His purpose, His motives of action or His promises.

Those verses which speak of God changing His mind MUST be seen as anthropomorphisms. For if God changed, in any way, He would cease to be God.

When Luther and the Reformers declared that justification is by faith alone, they realised that it was necessary to give careful definition to saving faith. They defined saving faith as including necessary constituent elements. Saving faith is composed of information, intellectual assent and personal trust.
Saving faith involves content. We are not justified by believing just anything. Some have said that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. That sentiment is radically opposed to the teaching of the Bible. The Bible teaches that it matters profoundly what we believe. Justification is not by sincerity alone. We may be sincerely wrong. Right doctrine, at least in the essential truths of the gospel, is a necessary ingredient of saving faith. We believ ein the gospel, in the Person and work of Christ. That is integral to saving faith. If our doctrine is heretical in the essentials, we will not be saved. If, for example, we say we believe in Christ but deny His deity, we do not possess the faith that justifies.

Your denigration of the Reformers is scary to say the least. I guess you would rather be lost in the mists of Rome.

I have never said that the Old Covenant is still in force. I have however stated that the New is a continuation, an outgrowth and a fulfillment of the old. But I doubt you are able to understand the difference. You then quote Scripture which does not support your dispensational views one iota and expect us to take you seriously.

I am by nature a mild mannered man, but I take serious offence when I hear people taking the great truths of the Bible, which others far worthier than you have bled and died for, and corrupting them with their man-centered so-called theology.

Likewise I am deeply offended at the casual way you take cheap shots at great and learned men of God, mightily used by the Lord to take the Church out of the evil clutches of Rome and to re-establish the truths of the Bible.

I now understand why others on this forum have thrown up their hands and walked away in disgust.

Faith wrote:
Augustine the Heretic was a student of Plato.

Both times the facts were carefully and Scripturally studied and the findings documented. I suggest you read them and look at the relevant Scripture references before laying charges against former men of God.

Pelagius, like all who follow his heinous distortion of salvation, used man as his startingpoint of theology. Instead of seeing man in the light of God, he viewed God in the light of how he perceived men. As he saw men as able to do good and not as seriously affected by sin as Paul said.

As I have stated before, if you want to be Biblical in your theology, start with God as the foundation. The Bible is God's revelation about Himself, and he is most jealous of His Name for it represents who He is.

He said, "I am", meaning, I am who I have always been and will always be. I do not change, therefore you are not consumed.

That covenant contained promises which were spiritual in essence but had physical manifestations. He received Isaac, but saw in that the Christ. He received land but saw in that the heavenly Canaan. He received many descendants but the true fulfillment is in the church.

You only need to read the Spirit inspired words of Mary and Zacharias to see that they saw in the birth of Christ the fulfillment of the covenant promises made to Abraham.

You can see the spiritual nature of that covenant clearly proved by the way its promises were interpreted in the New Testament. Read Rom 4:16-18; IICor 6:16-18; Gal 3; Heb 8:10; 11:9-13.

The unity and continuity of the two covenants is seen that the Mediator is the same, the conditions of faith, the blessings of justification, regeneration and eternal life are the same.

Paul argues in Rom 4 and Gal 3 that the giving of the law did not make the promise of none effect, so that it still holds true in the New Testament. And Hebrews says that God swore the immutability of it Himself so that we might take comfort from that fact.

Do you see Jesus as a lifeguard, who brings the person He is saving partway back to shore, changes His mind and throws him back into the sea?

John made it clear about those who leave the faith. "They went out from us, but they were never of us; for if hey had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us."

If you leave the faith you do not lose your salvation, you were never saved to begin with. Do you not believe God's promise that what He has begun He will complete? All Christians, says the Bible, were gifts which God gave to Christ and no one is able to snatch them out of His hand.

Paul reinforces this when he says that there is nothing you can think of either in this world or the next which is able to seperate you from the love of God.

Our Christian faith rests in the God who is Almighty, never changing, everywhere present and who has ordained every event in time, holding them in the palm of his hand.

There are many things our finite minds cannot understand, and it is the original sin of man to try to fully fathom the mind of God and to know everything as He knows all things.

If there is one promise of God which is not true, or which He is unable to perform, then we cannot have absolute faith in Him.

To those who have the wrong concept of God He says these words;

"You thought thatI was altogether like you, but I will reprove you and set them in order before your eyes." Psalm 50:21.

I have a question, if anyone cares or has time to answer.

Was there a re-creation or an ecological shift after the fall? Many people seem to believe that all animals were created to live forever and that there was no death before the fall. I am sorry, but that makes no sense to me. I believe that God created the present ecological system with its food chains as we see it today.