@divegeester
Is there something here that should cause me alarm Divegeester ? Let's go through it.
Sonship, for three years I’ve been asking you if I have to believe in the trinity doctrine to be saved and for three years you have been refusing to give me a straight yes or no answer, because you claim that there isn’t one. I’ve told you for three years that I don’t believe you.
For years I have told everyone to look first to
Romans 10:9,10. Sometimes I quoted verses 9 through 13. But the essence on most basic salvation has been the following:
That if you confess with your mouth, Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth man confesses unto salvation." (Rom. 10:9,10)
Divegeester continues:
Here is a copy/paste from the statement of beliefs from the website of your own church sect:
The link is to a book published called
The Beliefs and Practices of the Local Churches written by some co-workers in response to attacks against Witness Lee and mostly churches in the Southern Califorina area of the United States. The year should be about 1978.
”In order to be saved, one must have a living faith in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
I see no problem in that statement and my recommending for many years here
Romans 10:9,10.
DIvegeester's continues the quotation.
Every genuinely saved one has what the Bible calls the “common faith” (Titus 1:4), which includes what we must believe in order to be saved: we must believe that the Bible is the complete divine revelation wholly inspired by God;
When
Paul wrote those words to his colleague
Titus the cannon of the New Testament had not even been assembled yet. The only "Bible" Titus had was the Old Testament Scriptures or the Tanakh.
I don't think Paul was excluding
Titus from being saved or not sharing
"the common faith" because the Bible had not been totally completed yet in both canons.
When the first Jews became saved Christians, there was only the Old Testament as a Bible. So I do not think the co-workers meant here that Peter, James, John, Mary, Martha and other first century believers had the books of
Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Revelation with other not yet WRITTEN books of the New Testament canon to be "the complete revelation". The complete canon of 66 books had not been yet completed.
But they got saved, didn't they ? So I think the paragraph can be exploited to make an unrealistic point.
My opinion is that people have received the Lord Jesus Christ without even knowing how many books there are in the modern Bible. And I would encourage a seeking person that the Bible is indeed God's word.
I would not hold over them a requirement that they must know the names of the 66 books of both the Old and New Testament and have absolutely NO questions or doubts about something written in the Bible.
Salvation is in the living Person of Christ. And if Paul had MEANT to make inspiration of Scripture mandatory then he would not have written the apostolic instructions in this way -
"That if you confess with your mouth, Lord Jesus, and believe in you heart that God has raised HIm from among the dead, you shall be saved."
He would have added that one could not be saved unless one held to a doctrine of inspiration of 66 books of the Bible (some of which had not yet been written when he penned the
Roman epistle).
This is of course not an encouragement to disbelieve the rest of the Bible. It is not an encouragement to regard all of the Bible as not inspired by God.
At the same time
The Beliefs and Practices of the Local Churches as a booklet, speaking defensively to those imagining that we were NON-Christians, would understandably take care to emphasis that once the initial common faith was secured growth, fellowship, and maturity would surely reflect what Christians are generally known for - accepting the whole Bible as the inspired word of God.
I think the paragraph is being expoited by Divegeester.
that there is a unique Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God incarnated to be a man; that Christ died on the cross for our sins, shedding His blood for our redemption; that on the third day He was bodily raised from the dead; that He has been exalted to the right hand of God and made the Lord of all; and that He is coming again for His own and to set up His kingdom on earth.”
The phrase "doctrine of the trinity" does not appear in the paragraph. To be fair the publication does say -
"that there is a unique Triune God".
My opinion is that I have seen people be saved without knowing very much about creeds or deeper discussions about the nature of the Three of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
I think many knew that in coming to Jesus they were coming to God. They were not conversant on the Nicene Creed or many different theological presentations in a mostly doctrinal way.
They grew to become more familiar with all that is written in the Bible. But to be born again they just received the Lord Jesus. They may have some idea that God sent His Son. But to expect all who asked Jesus to forgive them or become their Savior were conversant on "the doctrine of the Trinity" I think is unrealistic.
And I do not mind in the least if Divegeester "REPORT ME IN" if he thinks because I state my thoughts on this paragraph to the authors.
Anyone want to report Jack Wilmore to the co-workers? Go ahead. Just make sure you quote my ENTIRE post and not a portion.
Here's a
Contact Form. Identify yourself, your email, your complaint or notification and let my brothers know what you think.
https://www.localchurches.org/contact/
I appreciate the co-workers publishing this apologetic in DEFENSE of the would be cult fighters.
Calling out Sonship on the trinity and salvation
29 Nov '18 22:06
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