Are those who are in Arminian Churches to

[Reformingstudent]

be considered as our "Brothers and sisters" in Christ, even if they worship a false Jesus other than the one set forth in scripture? Not meaning to sound hard, but was just wondering.
And if they do have a faulty view of Christ and of His righteousness or of the idea of justification by faith alone, how are they being sanctified and should they be held up as examples for us to follow?

here's an example: Joe Brown is a Pentecostal, he has a lot of what the world looks upon as good works, he goes to church, tithes, tells others of Jesus and lives a so called clean life. By all outward appearance he maybe one of the best looking Christians around. people look up to him as an example of what a Christian should be. Christians envy him because he is so good.
What's wrong with that I wonder? for one thing, Joe may have an outward show of righteousness and may be able to keep it up for a long time, however, true Sanctification is an inward process that takes time, and some times God allows us to fall to remind us that it is all of Him, not us. even our santification is of grace. We have too many people admiring good ole Joe, and giving him praise for what he is doing instead of giving all the glory to God who is the one who makes a difference between some and others who are being formed into His image.
I don't look upon those who seem to be more righteous than I am, because I know that God is still working on me and isn't finished yet. I'm not sure about the other guy. for all I know he maybe a wolf in sheeps clothing

Blessings

Tom

 

[Scott Bushey]

Tom,
I hear you. Do you think that those in Arminian assemblies are practicing orthodox Arminianism intentionally? I mean, we (the refomed) know they are Arminian (essentially), but the majority of these Charasmatics have no idea what Arminianism is and if taught what they were would run as the house were on fire.

 

[Reformingstudent]

Sanctification: By Grace Alone

By Rev. Dr. David P. Scaer

Luther placed justification, the doctrine of God's free grace in Jesus Christ, at the heart of his theology. Man is saved not by anything he does or could hope to do, but by what God has done once and for all in Jesus Christ. Since the Reformation, God's accepting the death of Christ in place of the sinner's death has been the hallmark of Protestantism and more specifically of Lutheran churches. Salvationis sola gratia and sola fide. God justifies the sinner purely out of His grace through faith without works. Just as no one raises himself from the dead, so no one makes himself a Christian. God, who brought Jesus back from the dead, alone brings believers to Christ and declares them righteous. Lutherans hold that justification is monergistic, a Greek derivative, which means that a thing has only one cause. God alone converts Christians. He alone justifies believers. This principle also applies to sanctification. He alone makes us holy. God is the cause and content of our sanctification.

Traditional Roman Catholicism shares with Lutheranism a monergistic view of the general plan of salvation. God alone sent His Son into the flesh (incarnation) and sacrificed Him for the world's sin (atonement); however, the certainty of individual salvation is made dependent on the level of believers' personal holiness. Sanctification requires cooperating with divine grace in doing good works. At the center of this system is a doctrine of sanctification which holds that man cooperates with God for the certainty of salvation. There is no place for the total justification of sinful humanity as God's completed activity in Christ. Man cooperates with God in becoming holy and so sanctification is defined in ethical terms, which can be measured.

A majority of other Protestant denominations agree with Luther's monergistic doctrine of justification, but like Roman Catholics they see sanctification, the working of the Holy Spirit in Christian lives, in synergistic terms, another Greek derivative, which means that a thing has two or more causes. Believers are required to play a part in developing their personal holiness by living lives disciplined by the Law and by special ethical regulations set down by the church. Christians can and must cooperate with God's grace to increase the level of personal sanctification. Cooperation, a Latin derivative, is a synonym of synergism, and also means two or more things or persons working together. As a rule most Protestants agree with Luther that God alone justifies sinners and initiates the work of sanctification, but many differ in holding that believers are responsible for completing it. They oppose the Roman Catholic view that pilgrimages, novenas, penance and masses as good works; however, they agree with Catholicism that man cooperates with God in his sanctification to attain personal holiness.

God alone justifies, but sanctification is a combined divine-human activity, which even though God begins, each believer is obligated to complete. In this system, the Gospel, which alone creates faith, is replaced by the Law which instructs in moral requirements and warns against immorality. Justification by grace is seen as a past event and the present focus is on man cooperating with God to reach a complete sanctification.

Lutherans recognize that Christians as sinners are never immune to the Law's moral demands and its threats against sin, but in the strictest sense these warnings do not belong to Christian sanctification, the life believers live in Christ and in which Christ lives in them. In Roman Catholic and some Protestant systems, the Gospel brings the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, but is replaced by the Law which sets down directives for Christian life and warns and threatens the Christian as Christian. Law, and not the Gospel, becomes God's last and real word for the believer. So Christianity deteriorates into an implicit and eventually coarse legalism and abject moralism. Jesus faced this understanding of an ethically determined concept of sanctification among the Pharisees. Holiness was defined in terms of fulfilling ritual requirements. Sixteen centuries later for similar reasons, Luther raised his protest against medieval Catholicism. At times, the New Testament uses the words sanctify and sanctification of God's entire activity of God in bringing about man's salvation. More specifically it refers to the work of the Holy Spirit to bring people to salvation, to keep them in the true faith and finally to raise them from the dead and give them eternal life (Small Catechism). All these works are also performed by the Father and the Son. Since God is not morally neutral and does not choose to be holy, but He is holy, all His works necessarily share in His holiness. The connection between the Holy Spirit and sanctification is seen in the Latin for the Third Person of the Trinity, Spiritus Sanctus. The Spirit who is holy in Himself makes believers holy, sanctifies them, by working faith in Christ in them and He becomes the sources of all their good works.

Sanctification means that the Spirit permeates everything the Christian thinks, says and does. The Christian's personal holiness is as much a monergistic activity of the Holy Spirit as is his justification and conversion. The Spirit who alone creates faith is no less active after conversion than He was before.

Our Augsburg Confession recognizes those things which keep society and government together as good works, but strictly speaking, they do not belong to a Christian's personal holiness and have no necessary relationship to justification. Unbelievers can do these works as can Christians. The works of sanctification are, strictly speaking, only those which Christians can do. They find their source, content and form in Christ's offering of Himself for others and are given to Christians by the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who is sent into the world by the Son. Sanctification is a Trinitarian act. God dwells in the believer in order to accomplish what He wants. The petition of the Lord's Prayer that "God's will be done" is a prayer for our own sanctification.

The Spirit who assisted Christ during the days of humiliation to do good to others and to offer Himself as a sacrifice to His Father is the same Spirit whom Christ by His death, resurrection and ascension gave to His Christians. Jesus, in requiring that we love God with our whole being and our neighbors more than ourselves, was not giving us an impossible goal to awaken in us a morbid sense of sinfulness. Nor was He speaking in exaggerated terms to make a point, but He was describing His own life and the life of His Christians who live their lives and die in Him. Like Christ, Christians trust only in God and sacrifice themselves for others. Sanctification not only defines the Christian life, but in the first and real sense it defines Christ's life. Jesus Himself loved God with everything which He was and had and made us His neighbors by loving us more than He loved His own life. Sanctification is first christological, that is, it is Christ's own life in God and then our life in Him. His life did not follow a system of codes, a pattern of regulations or list of moral demands and constraints and restraints.

Just as Christ's life had to do with self-giving, our sanctification has to do with presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. Our sanctification finds its closest point of contact in the earthly life of Jesus who gave Himself for us. Christ's giving of Himself is in turn an extension of Father's giving of His Son, "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." The sending of the Son as a sacrifice reflects the Father's eternal giving of Himself in begetting the Son, "begotten of His Father before all worlds." So the Christian doctrine of sanctification draws its substance from atonement, incarnation and even the mystery of the Holy Trinity itself. This self-giving of God and of Christ take form in the lives of believers and saints, especially those who are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel and martyred. On that account St. Paul sets himself and his companions in their sufferings as patterns of sanctification for those to whom they preached the Gospel.

As magnificently monergistic as our sanctification is, that is, God works in us to create and confirm faith and to do good to others, we Christians are plagued by sin. In actual practice our sanctification is only a weak reflection of Christ's life. Good motives often turn into evil desires. Good works come to be valued as our own ethical accomplishments. Moral self-admiration and ethical self-absorption soon replace total reliance on God. The sanctified life constantly needs to be fully and only informed by Christ's life and death or our personal holiness will soon deteriorate into a degenerate legalism and barren moralism. God allows us Christians to be plagued by sin and a sense of moral inadequacy to force us to see the impossibility of a self-generated holiness. Our only hope is to look to Christ in whom alone we have a perfect and complete sanctification. "He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30).

The Rev. Dr. David P. Scaer is a professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind.

 

[Reformingstudent]

[quote:eef43b55de][i:eef43b55de]Originally posted by Scott Bushey[/i:eef43b55de]
Tom,
I hear you. Do you think that those in Arminian assemblies are practicing orthodox Arminianism intentionally? I mean, we (the reformed) know they are Arminian (essentially), but the majority of these Charismatics have no idea what Arminianism is and if taught what they were would run as the house were on fire. [/quote:eef43b55de]


In the words of my favorite teacher, R.C. Sproul, Now THAT'S a good question. :bigsmile:
Not sure, I have seen many in the Charismatic/Pentecostal churches who have seen the truth, but still refuse to believe it. To see truth and ignore it is sin. Not all as I am sure as you do, that there are some in these churches like I once was who, by God's grace was brought to the truth.
Are we to think of all of them (any who call themselves Christian, whether, R.C, Charismatic, Pentecostal or what have you) as our brothers in the "common" faith? I am not sure I would go that far.
But, I am here to learn.


Blessings.



Tom



Blessings.

 

[Scott Bushey]

Is it that they intentionally reject it because of the Arminian position they hold dear or that God has not graced them with the amount of light He has graced you?

Mar 4:8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.


There are always going to be regenerate and unregenerate within our rank and file here on earth. My motto, Teach the teachable and keep my pearls in my pocket! Oink oink!

 

[C. Matthew McMahon]

I am going to ask this on purpose in order to spice up the thread:

Can you believe in a Jesus different from the Bible and still be saved?

 

[alwaysreforming]

Are the Arminians our brothers?

Well, I certainly think so. We were almost ALL Arminians at one point in our lives, before God in His providence graced us with the knowledge of grace more clearly.

I'm not saying that ALL of the Arminians in ALL the churches should be considered our "brothers," but for the most part as long as they believe that they have no righteousness in themselves when standing before a Holy God, and that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins, and that He lived a perfect life in their place, then we should treat them as our brothers. Now some in the Word of Faith movement, and some of the more cultish of the Arminians might be pushing the envelope, but what I've found is that these people just need to keep hearing the Truth preached to them and its our job (and privilege) to do it. My motto is: the best place to start preaching the Gospel, is in the church!

Just keep talking about our depravity and Christ and His perfect completed work. Some of those "brothers" will come around!

 

[raderag]

[quote:6f16fbb28f][i:6f16fbb28f]Originally posted by webmaster[/i:6f16fbb28f]
I am going to ask this on purpose in order to spice up the thread:

Can you believe in a Jesus different from the Bible and still be saved? [/quote:6f16fbb28f]

I think that question is too general. If you are asking if someone can hold a faulty notion of Christ's nature, the answer is a resounding no, but if you are asking about general conclusions that one has reached about His ministry, work, and salvation, then the answer must be yes as their are too many diverse opinions even within the reformed circles. The problem is that sinful man is not capable of grasping Christ nature enough for their theology to represent Christ's nature. On the other hand, if ones theology logically denies Christ nature, there is a problem there too.

 

[Reformingstudent]

[quote:dc6306ef41][i:dc6306ef41]Originally posted by webmaster[/i:dc6306ef41]
I am going to ask this on purpose in order to spice up the thread:

Can you believe in a Jesus different from the Bible and still be saved? [/quote:dc6306ef41]

Personally, I don't think so. If so, than wouldn't the Mormon's, JW's, and other's in cult groups who worship another Jesus be saved? But than again I maybe wrong.

Just my :wr50:

Peace. :biggrin:


Tom

 

[Reformingstudent]

Here's another question, are those in the Word/faith Cult worshipping the same Jesus that you all do on Sunday morning, and if so, would you join them in their worship?

Just a thought.





Peace.




Tom

 

[Scott Bushey]

[quote:6e27be9c38][i:6e27be9c38]Originally posted by Keylife_fan[/i:6e27be9c38]
[quote:6e27be9c38][i:6e27be9c38]Originally posted by webmaster[/i:6e27be9c38]
I am going to ask this on purpose in order to spice up the thread:

Can you believe in a Jesus different from the Bible and still be saved? [/quote:6e27be9c38]

Personally, I don't think so. If so, than wouldn't the Mormon's, JW's, and other's in cult groups who worship another Jesus be saved? But than again I maybe wrong.

Just my :wr50:

Peace. :biggrin:


Tom [/quote:6e27be9c38]


Tom,
Those mentioned groups [i:6e27be9c38]intentionally[/i:6e27be9c38] worship a different Jesus. The majority of present day evanjellyfishes do not even know what -justification by faith alone- is. They do acknowledge that Christ died for sinners, that he and the father are one. That all have sinned and falls short of Gods standard, and that unless they repent, they will (also) likewise perish. It is a shallow understanding. But as I quoted earlier, some have 30%, some 60% and the blessed 100%.

 

[C. Matthew McMahon]

That may be a good question to ask as well -

If yu do not believe in justification by faith alone, can you be saved?

 

[Scott Bushey]

[quote:321490c58d][i:321490c58d]Originally posted by webmaster[/i:321490c58d]
That may be a good question to ask as well -

If yu do not believe in justification by faith alone, can you be saved? [/quote:321490c58d]

Matt,
They don't understand the term, or better put, they never even heard the term. [i:321490c58d]Many[/i:321490c58d] do understand that it is of Christ alone and nothing they do adds to that principle.

 

[raderag]

[quote:3700c6648c][i:3700c6648c]Originally posted by webmaster[/i:3700c6648c]
That may be a good question to ask as well -

If yu do not believe in justification by faith alone, can you be saved? [/quote:3700c6648c]

Well, did Augustine believe in forensic justification?

It seems highly doubtful based on his writing that infused grace merits salvation. So, if the answer is no, then reformers claim an apostate as one of their own. One answer might be that justification wasn't the issue that Augustine was writing about, and that he hadn't really reserached the issue enough to be a heretic. After all, the writing was a polemic against semi-Pelagianism.

Given that most Christians before the reformation didn't understand forensic justification, I would have to say that sola fide is a mark of true doctrine, but not necessary for salvation.

I struggle with this idea and sola gratia, as most evangelicals don't hold to the reformed view of that either.

 

[BobVigneault]

But is there a check list of facts about Jesus that we must demonstrate assent to in order to be saved? We follow the example of our parent believer Abraham.

Rom. 4:24 It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Because of the faith and repentance that has been granted to me I believe that 1. Jesus was raised from the dead, 2. He was a propitiation for my sins, 3. he was raised from the dead and in this I am justified. I will trust God to save me inspite of my vast ignorance of his attributes and the true nature of Christ while I am being sanctified and led into increasing knowlege of Him and His Glory.

 

[raderag]

[quote:39f4eef017][i:39f4eef017]Originally posted by maxdetail[/i:39f4eef017]
But is there a check list of facts about Jesus that we must demonstrate assent to in order to be saved? We follow the example of our parent believer Abraham.
[/quote:39f4eef017]

That is a good question. My view is that where the Gospel is present (death and resurection of Jesus as Godman), there is enough for God to convert a sinner. Where the Gospel and its associtated doctrines are more clearly taught, there are more who are converted.

I was so hardened to sin, that I needed to understand the doctrines of Grace before I could even repent.

 

[Optimus]

:wr50:

interesting question. i would say that the thief on the cross did not know doctrine at all. but if he had time to think about what Jesus told him, he would have realized that he was saved by faith ALONE in Christ ALONE.

 

[C. Matthew McMahon]

Trick question:

Can people be saved apart from believing who Jeus is?

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

[Edited on 4-8-2004 by webmaster]

 

[Optimus]

[quote:e4ad15d88e]
Can people be saved apart from believing who Jeus is?
[/quote:e4ad15d88e]

No, Who is Jeus?

 

[Scott Bushey]

Jeus!

[img:ba3f349ccf]http://www.semperreformanda.com/images/ani_explode.gif[/img:ba3f349ccf]




[Edited on 4-8-2004 by Scott Bushey]

 

[rembrandt]

If they have never heard the truth that is one thing. But for someone to speak out against it when they have been taught it and have had time to contemplate it and give it study, they [i:e20453c4a3]could[/i:e20453c4a3] be a Christian (and God is still working on their heart to come to assent to the truth), but lets keep in mind that WE DO NOT NEED TO CALL OR TREAT EVERYONE WHO [i:e20453c4a3]MIGHT[/i:e20453c4a3] BE A CHRISTIAN A "BROTHER." And those are for discplinary reasons. Why should we call them a brother if they would be excommunicated from the congregation if they taught or even had unrepentant false convictions and they remained in heresy?

I have been developing a view on schismatism... but I'll save that for another thread.

 

[Irishcat922]

Arminians

[quote:5c2d8be7b4][i:5c2d8be7b4]Originally posted by Scott Bushey[/i:5c2d8be7b4]
Is it that they intentionally reject it because of the Arminian position they hold dear or that God has not graced them with the amount of light He has graced you?

Mar 4:8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.


There are always going to be regenerate and unregenerate within our rank and file here on earth. My motto, Teach the teachable and keep my pearls in my pocket! Oink oink! [/quote:5c2d8be7b4]

When I became a Christian I was 15 yrs old and I did not that Christ was God. I was not raised in church, but I believed the gospel as it was presented to my in a small Baptist church. After becoming a Christian i was confronted by a Jehovah witness girl who told me Christ was not God so i started to search the Scriptures to prove her wrong and came to realize on my own that Christ really was God.

So i guess my opinion would be is I would concur with Scott about the seed falling on good soil. When it does it will produce a good harvest. The problem with most people is they won't think or study the scriptures for themselves.

 

[Scott Bushey]

The result must be positive. Those whom refuse (or are not able) to produce fruit are likened here:

Mar 4:7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

Mat 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

Mat 7:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

[Edited on 4-8-2004 by Scott Bushey]