Christ has freed us from "slavery to sin". We still sin in various ways, and until we have a glorified body, we will always have a struggle vs sin. To promote the "inevitabilty of sin", undermines what God reckons as righteousness from faith in a believer. If a believer acts upon faith to please God, and God reckons it to him as righteousness, do we actually have a newly given ability to please God, or does grace just work as a cause for our forgiveness only??

Preaching and teaching that God's grace is always bigger than your sin, removes the believer from the responsibilty of sin and allows a "freedom" which God did not intend for us. The cattle call to sin freely….and still be free, is an all out twisting of what Christ had in mind….when HE says, "Go and sin no more"…why wouldn't he have told them to have three more of what she was having??

Yes, God's Grace is always bigger than our sin, but using sin to teach freedom, is a twisted way of testing the grace of God which neither removes you from the responsibility or consequences of your actions, no matter how free you think you are "in Christ". The antinomian cattle call has begun, and yet it is denied when pointed out so which are you teaching, Freedom without responsibility and accountability…..or freedom with responsibility, consequences and accountability……b/c as long as you "advertise" a free sin theology…..you are teaching pure antinomianism…..and you are accountable for the "irresponsibilty" and consequences of the direction of this ministry and it's authority leading believers to be just as "you are" not as Christ is. Still waiting for you to exhort Holiness and obedience along with those 3 sins…..

I can just hear us now, "JESUS, oh JESUSSSSS, Steve said something stupid, are You going to wash his mouth out this time, like You promised???"

One of the things that irks me in the shoebox is when the pulpit guy "exigetes" (sp?) a passage of scripture that's a difficult passage containing an unsettling message, and the guy tries to "soften the blow" by trying to explain why the message both implicit and explicit in the text a. is a historical curiosity, thus has no applicability to the people of God today; b. does not really mean what a rendering into English by a plain translation from the original languages and sources state it says before you in print on the page; c. several references to other passages that say something different so the hearers won't think God's a monster and won't feel uncomfortable. The thing is, if God's not talking about it at this point in scripture, into the circumstances in which the message was originally received, why's the pulpit-guy talking about it.

The larger picture contains the narrow gate of redemption, grace, mercy (not necessarily in that order), but the backdrop is one of fallen, broken creation shot through with the fissures of and mucked up with the stinking rubble left over from the fall contained, as it were, in a basket of judgment and wrath. Against that, the good news of justification by faith, mercy of God toward those who turn Godward of every tribe, tongue, nation, incarnation of Christ and saving contact with the Living God through him - well, the message of the gospel stands out in stark, glaring relief.

I think sticking to the text and what it contains is a pulpit-guy discipline neglected too often by too many, and it leads to muddy theology. It doesn't take an advanced degree or special club membership or a special hat to practice that discipline. Maybe that's why it's not practiced - it brings no glory to its practitioner.

Guy named Nottle, I think, wrote a good book about the OT law called Grace in the End, if I recall correctly.

I gotta quit going off-topic.

Pax

but I also unserstand "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword"
Was this sword for atheists and cults only? never to strike the carnal, luke warm or Doctrinally deficient Christians?

And Who are the ones that told Jesus "did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?" were they just the cults? Or are they the same ones you want us to embrace as "Brothers?"
How did Jesus embrace them?

Are "Mature Christians" merely Saints who fought so long, that they are tired of the battle and the persecution, and now look for the common grounds to avoid the labor of the purpose?
Are they the ones Jesus tells say “You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first"

If in OT times under the law, the Pharisees and Sadducees were two legitimate divisions of worshipers of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, should they have been left alone and embraced as brothers who just worship differently?
If no, than how is that any different than not embracing all divisions of Christianity?
If yes, than why did Jesus go off on them calling them vipers, white washed tombs and children of the devil?

I would agree in the most literal sense that God's Grace is always effectual and everlasting with regard to salvation. The relationship is secure…even if only on God;s end. However, one's obedience (or lack thereof) certainly has conditions (preceptively) for us to remain in a state of "growth" and good fellowship with God. Would you agree that one can fall out of fellowship with God? Yes, ofcourse. It would be so much easier if God would interact with each of us specifically just as He did Jonah when we rebel vs. His lead (ie, Holy Spirit convictions and scriptural obedience) but that isn't what takes place. We can "resist" and "grieve" the work of the Holy Spirit (in our saved state, preceptively) This is where scripture study, discipleship, church discipline, wisdom from others acts as the vital source of keeping in close fellowship with God. Man's choice to obey in a redeemed state certainly is "conditional" for this to take place. Since we are writing to Christians here, this was the context of my point. It is also true that we never see the phrase "unconditionally loved" used, however I think you can tell from my prior posts that I would never mean to infer that God's Grace for "Salvation" is conditional upon man….It is purely a choice from God before the foundation of the World that had no bearing upon the actions of man. There are verses who's paranthetical warnings indicate a 'mixed" group within the church, some of who's calling is suspect…indicative of a life of faithlessness "after" a profession. We do very little to account for these types, due to a propagation of Neo Grace which isn' too concerned about the accountability of sin to the believer. Sure the "Church" is off our backs…..whew….but now we've gone to the other extreme!

Now that we are past the regenerate state, we have been enabled to obey God, responsible for our obedience since our faculties have been fully restored to keep "fellowship" with God strong. Saying that God didn't truly accomplish a complete work in it's entirety (salvifically speaking) and is "still" working on it, won't fly and is heresy….Catholic salvation, merit by works, would clearly be an example of this.

Ok, that being said….here's something to ponder. Those Scriptures which contain examples of folks warranting paranthetical warnings are missing from our Reformed message. There are people who think they're saved, but are truly not. These people not only do irreparable harm to the flock, they can take down a church, altar theological perceptions, throw off the balance of Biblical teaching…..and I think we have arrived at a pinnacle point where teachers need to be examined by the Word, and held accountable for what they say. We see the warnings everywhere in almost everybook in the NT!! Take the popular church ministires in America…..Joel Osteen, all the Health Wealth Prosperity False Teachers, even our very own reformed camp could do a much better job of rightly dividing the Word and denouncing false teachers, and Politicians, than they are doing! Mammon has a hold on this country….and I see less and less people speaking up about it….lest we lose a few members and stray from the "positve" style message which keeps many of the newbies in our reformed churches from walking away when the meat is preached. We've sold out truth and trusted our own understanding to grow the church sythetically, and substituted Pauline style teaching and preaching for a watered down palatable worldly feel good message!! No wonder the Church isn't strong right now. Who cares if it's not growing in numbers, that's not our concern,….we need to educate, and strengthen the faith of those we already have….stop this relaxed Neo Grace nonsense, and start expecting more trom the involvment of our congregations.

Maybe we shouldn't be comparing so much to these other dynamic and false examples of God "working" so that we feel the need to create our own versions? I say to hell with it. Preach the pure Word, feed the sheep, regardless of how many people want to give $ and become members……don't dumb it down. The true biblical reformed message is actually withering within our own churches. So "few" people want the true Biblcial message, it alarms me how unconcerned those of our highly influential reformed thinkers of our day don't see this happening, you guys out of touch?? Just wanna leave it to "grace" to work itself out?? It won't….it hasn't….and history tells us this.