Rajk999's various complaints.
I do not intend to engage this heretic constantly. But for seekers who would like replies to these complaints:
People should forgive people for their offences. Thats about all that I am in agreement with. Paul is not in a position to act on behalf of God and forgive people for their sins and neither are you.
When it comes to eternal redemption, no man but God only is in the position to grant forgiveness.
But the apostles are involved in the forgiveness that restores a erring believer from the fellowship of the church. And here's the proof. On the evening of His resurrection when He breathed into the disciples the Holy Spirit, He ordained them also to forgive people in
this horizontal and fellowshipping sense.
"And when He had said this, He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; and whosoever sins you retain, they are retained." (John 20:22,23)
The kind of forgiveness mentioned here is that same restoring forgiveness towards the backslidden brother in the church in Corinth. The church and Paul the Apostle forgave and restored this one to fellowship of the Body of Christ.
Note also that even when he fell out of favor with the church and the Apostle Paul, he still was going to be saved.
" To deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be SAVED ... in the day of the Lord Jesus." (1 Cor. 5:4,5)
In terms of eternity this disciplined brother still had the Holy Spirit and was still to be saved though he was to suffer some destruction.
He was quarantined from horizontal fellowship with the local church. This had nothing to do with his eternal redemption or his possessing the Holy Spirit.
You are mistaken about the nature of the Comforter. Here is what Jesus said:
If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
There are two clauses in this passage. The first involves the normal love of Jesus and keeping His commandments. The second involves the sending of the Holy Spirit to be with the disciples forever.
Of course much love will lead to more saturation of the personality with the Holy Spirit.
Less love or immature loving will restrict the influence of the Holy Spirit. But whether the believer loves little, loves more, loves much, and is growing always in love, the Holy Spirit is sent to them
REGARDLESS and that
"FOREVER".
Of course the Lord Jesus wants the believers to GROW and
"INCREASE" in love towards Him and towards other members of His church.
" And the Lord cause you to INCREASE and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we also to you ..." (1 Thess. 3:12)
See also growth in other aspects of the Christian life
( Eph. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:18; Eph. 2:21; 2 Thess. 1:3 ).
The heretic wants to make spiritual love a binary matter as if one has it or does not.
A more realistic and biblical view is that love for God is meant to
GROW as Christ grows within.
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
The heretic wants also to make this a binary matter. Either you love and obey or you do not. A more biblical and realistic view is that the believer should grow in deeper love and deeper obedience.
" But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and unto the day of eternity. Amen." (2 Peter 3:18)
The disciplined Christian in Corinth needed to GROW in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as the apostolic command states. Every born again person who has the Holy Spirit
"forever" should be growing in the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The heretic's desire to bring all Christians into legal bondage to uncertainty of having the Holy Spirit fails as usual.