Originally Posted by lioncub

1. This letter ("Romans") and all of the other epistles after Acts were written to "saints". That is, those who were already saved ! What relevance, therefore, does the above scripture have for the unsaved ?

They were written to fledgling saints, people who had just left paganism, were surrounded by it on a daily basis, were tempted to backslide, and therefore, needed their faith to be reinforced.

neither did we believe in our hearts that God had raised Jesus from the dead, and yet were saved !!

"If Christ is not raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins" (1 Cor 15:17). The death and resurrection of Jesus are the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Without believing in them, you cannot be a true Christian.

SLE

Amen ED! Only though JESUS Christ is there Salvation!


Act 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

This is MY LORDS GOSPEL!
1Co 15:3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
1Co 15:4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:



Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

2Ti 1:10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:


Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.


1Co 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
1Co 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.


Heb 9:15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.


Heb 9:16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
Heb 9:17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.


Heb 9:20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.

Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Eph 1:7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

Col 1:14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

We accept what He alone did for us and Him into our heart [Spirit] as LORD! There is no other way!
Thank You LORD JESUS CHRIST my LORD and Master forever more !

Originally Posted by lioncub

I agree, an often overlooked scripture which explains salvation in a very simple way. Peter doesn't say repent and give your heart to the Lord or confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that Jesus was raised from dead.

Look at Acts 2:36 - "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." One cannot possibly be saved without repenting, confessing that Jesus is Lord and believing that He was raised from the dead.

SLE

Originally Posted by RJ

When God puts someone in my life that has not been saved and inquiring I usually go through Romans 10:8 -13 with them.

Also, if I find someone that is not sure about their salvation that, it isn't clear that they have ask the Lord to come into their life, I use these same verses and say: "Let's do it again for the first time".

This will be very helpful and I could identify with your story as well, thank you.

And to point out a comment I made out earlier toward the OP, I was mistaken and the words He had used were not exact to what I had thought. I was referencing to the story where the disciples were making a complaint because someone was teaching about Jesus that was not one of them.

As for the quotations you've selected, not one of them supports your argument to my understanding. Perhaps you could enlighten me, but I reasoned the message in Corinthians 15:1 does not conflict with these figures of speech in anyway. These phrases are not saying anything conflicting with the Scriptures, as I will point out below. Neither does anything in Galatians 1:8, as the message of Jesus is the message of the Gospel, merely advertising Jesus is not in conflict with this and nothing that has been used for your complaint conflicts with it as I pointed out. I will go on with the rest of your passages, but only if you invite me to.

However I point to Luke 11:8 and Luke 11:9, so I say if you ask for Jesus Christ to be one with you, will you not receive Jesus? Of course inviting Jesus into your heart is the answer. It means to live with Jesus always, it means to accept him as one with yourself. So how can this be wrong? And I say everyone should remember 1st Corinthians in the story of One Body, Many Parts. So because someone does not function by the same means that you do, this is irrelevant, because if you are one with Christ then you are part of His church and therefore you are saved.

What it sounds like to me is that you're saying we should not reason or think about the message within our Bible nor speak about it but for reciting the words in it phrase for phrase. I don't think that's a healthy philosophy.

Personal relationship: A personal relationship is any kind of relationship between two or more people that is shared on a close level. Seek Jesus out like you would a father or a mentor, treat him as one, that's the advisement. Is this wrong?

Be baptized for the remission of sins: Well purging yourself with an acceptance of that personal relationship does undo the sins of your past, at least upon your own conscious and certainly in the eyes of God.

Come to Jesus to get your sins forgiven: You said "your sins were forgiven 2000 years ago" Not if one continues to live for sin. Living through Jesus does clear your name, as is exampled by the sinners who were cleared by becoming disciples of Christ.

Come forward and receive Jesus: You said that this invitation is not in the Bible, but you have done nothing to explain how using this phrase to invite unbelievers is wrong. 1st Corinthians 14 basically goes into detail about this, explaining the necessity of speaking certain ways to invite non-believers.

Again, I ask you to consider at least that you are annoyed about something merely because you do not understand how it can be applied, but if you do understand and these things are sinful I would hope you go further to share this knowledge with me.

Originally Posted by spirit1st

We Give All we have and are to the LORD at SALVATION! He MUST be lord of our lives 100% !Because He is already!

When it says we accept Jesus Christ Into our heart {spirit] We accept by faith , He is Lord of our Lives!

When we believe , We believe He is the Son of God and lord of all and want to obey Him 100%

He is the Only Begotten Son of God!Meaning HE came out of the Father! In the Flesh He was the Son of God ,from Gods SEED! but In His Spirit ,He was Always a Part of GOD!

Abraham had to be Willing to Give to GOD ,What HE loved Most on Earth! His Son!

The rich man had to be willing to give up what He loved Most , His money!

We must be willing to give to the LORD what we Love Most!

Amen! Like the early Christians, we should be talking discipleship. Jesus asked his followers to Forsake All (Luke 14:33) and sell their possessions (Luke 12:22-33) and come and follow him.

Luke 12:34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

When we believe , We believe He is the Son of God and lord of all and want to obey Him 100%

Amen! Preach it brother! (John 14:21)

Originally Posted by will

Don't single out a verse without bringing in the context. Let's start from verse 5:
5 Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.”[a] 6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’”[b] (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’”[c] (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,”[d] that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

The part that I bolded above tells us the context of verse 9, the apostle Paul was summarizing the message that we (saints, Christians) proclaim. Proclaim to whom? the unsaved.

So that part of the passage is indeed for the unsaved.

Make sense?

How can one be saved according to Romans 10:9 without being baptised in water for instance ?

Mark 16:16 "He that believes and is baptised shall be saved, he that does not believe shall be damned"

Where does it say about "spoke in tongues" in John 3:16?

Believing (verse 16) is part of salvation and is not an end in itself. One cannot take one aspect of salvation and exclude all other aspects. Jesus spoke to the same person in John 3:5, and told him that a man must be born again. In verse 6, Jesus makes a comparison between being born of the flesh and being born of the Spirit. Jesus was telling Nicodemus that he must receive the Holy Spirit !

For example, the apostles were already saved before they receive the Holy Spirit at the day of the Pentacost. See the way Lord Jesus pray to God the Father about these disciples in the gospel of John 17:6-12.

Jesus was praying to the Father and I cannot find in the text where it says that the disciples were saved. The disciples received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. And they spoke in tongues too !

1Co 15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.



1Co 15:14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

He had to raise from the Dead before Anyone was saved!

Eph 4:5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
Joh 1:33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.

Peace be unto you


I would bet that we could clear up this whole mess with a show of hands?

What do you say?

Who is saved and knows it for a fact?

Who knows for sure that they have the Holy Spirit residing inside them?

What was the process that led you to this point of salvation?

Is it truly possible that there are so many different ways to get saved?

Are we all going to be okay in the end, or are some of us taking a real risk?

Originally Posted by Bible Guy

• Invite Jesus into your heart This doctrine is not in the Bible
• Believe Jesus died for your sins and be saved Faith in the resurrection is missing
• Come forward and receive Jesus This invitation is not the gospel in the Bible
• Give your heart to Jesus."This is a false gospel that will not bring eternal life
• Come to Jesus to get your sins forgivenYour sins were forgiven 2000 years ago.
• Be baptized for the remission of sins No. Baptism does not remove sin
• Life is in the blood of Jesus."No. Eternal life is by faith in the resurrection
• Personal relationship with Jesus."This phrase is not in the bible. What kind?
• God elects those whom He saves." This false doctrine is not in the Bible.

Invite Jesus into your heart - Rev 3:20 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

I actually agree with point two, but you have to have both sides, he died for your sins AND he rose again, not just one OR the other.

Come forward and receive Jesus - Mat 10:32 "Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
Mat 10:33 "But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.

Give your heart to Jesus - Mat 22:37 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'
Mat 22:38 "This is the great and foremost commandment.

Come to Jesus to get your sins forgiven - Only if we confess and repent
Matt 4:17, Luke 13:3

Baptized for remission of sins - agree with you on this one, doing it doesn't take away sin, but Jesus did it, so why shouldn't we.

Personal relationship with Jesus - Joh 14:9 Jesus *said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
Joh 10:4 "When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
Joh 10:5 "A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers."

Agree with you on the last point also - However not everyone is saved.

Mat 7:22 "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'
Mat 7:23 "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

There are hundreds more verses for ALL of these points. These are but a few examples. I'm not sure who told you these weren't in the Bible.