Re: re: No man ever spoke like this man

V: I almost apologized last night for making my post so long. Then I thought, nah, this is nothing for Ed! lol

E: well we certainly agree that they were in error in assuming that doing these things assured them of salvation, but i don't believe the Lord is saying at all that this wrong belief on their part is why they were not saved. He pointed specifically to their "not doing the will of the Father" and to their "practicing lawlessness". Are we reading the same scripture? :)

V: This is the will of the Father:

John 6:40
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

John 6:
28Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

The people in Matthew 7 never believed in Jesus, or his righteousness alone. If they had of, they would be saved. Jesus said he never knew them, so that proves they had never trusted Jesus as their Lord and savior at all.

Any obedience or good works we do after we have come to believe in Jesus, is a result of him saving us. The good works or obedience does not keep us saved, but is evidence we have been saved. And even our obedience and good works after we have been saved, is a result of God's working in us:

Philippians 2:13
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

1 Cor. 15:10
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Jesus tells the people of Matthew 7 they practice lawlessness because they are not covered by the righteousness of Christ, which is the only way we are not all found lawless. James 2:10 says if you break on point of the law, you've broken it all, meaning therefore you are lawless. Jesus kept the law perfectly and so it is only through belief in him, and therefore having his perfect record replace our lawless record that we can be saved.
James 2:10
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

On judgement day, we will all face God just as the people in Matthew 7. If God finds us in Christ on that day, all he will see is the perfect righteousness of Christ.

Colossians 3:
3For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

So it is clear to me the people of Matthew 7 were found lawless because they did not believe in Jesus as their Lord and savior, even though they called him Lord. God was not working in them to will and to work for his good pleasure (Phil 2:13). He never knew them.

E: I do believe that people have a choice in whether they will surrender to the Holy Spirit and be led by the Lord or not and that free will does play into it. This may be our fundamental point of disagreement at the core which leads to disagreements on several other points.

V: I believe people have a choice too of whether they will surrender to the Holy Spirit and be led by the Lord. But where we differ in our beliefs I'm sure, is that I don't believe the natural man will make the choice to surrender to the Holy Spirit and be led by the Lord until the Lord changes the heart of that natural man.

Ezekial 36:26
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.

Anyone is free to come to Jesus if they want to. He will never stop anyone from coming to him.

John 6:37
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

But people are not as free as they think they are. Before God changes our hearts, we are slaves to sin, and cannot free ourselves, and that's why we need Jesus to free us.

Romans 6:
20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

E: Where i believe we agree is that this kind of true intimacy with Him and overwhelming desire to live a life that is pleasing to Him can only arise by trusting in Him and in His righteousness. I don't know if that builds any kind of bridge between our individual ways of thinking :).

V: Yes we agree on that! Tweet