The obedience that Christ rendered, God requires from human beings today. (COL 282)

Those only who through faith in Christ obey all of God’s commandments will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his transgression. They testify to their love of Christ by obeying all His precepts. (6BC 1118)

“If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword." These words are true. Exact obedience is required, and those who say that it is not possible to live a perfect life throw upon God the imputation of injustice and untruth. (1MR 369)

The tempter's agency is not to be accounted an excuse for one wrong act. Satan is jubilant when he hears the professed followers of Christ making excuses for their deformity of character. It is these excuses that lead to sin. There is no excuse for sinning. A holy temper, a Christlike life, is accessible to every repenting, believing child of God. {DA 311}

Let no one say, I cannot remedy my defects of character. If you come to this decision, you will certainly fail of obtaining everlasting life. The impossibility lies in your own will. If you will not, then you can not overcome. The real difficulty arises from the corruption of an unsanctified heart, and an unwillingness to submit to the control of God. {COL 331.2}

The commandments of God are exceeding broad, and the Lord is not pleased to have His children disorderly, to have their lives marred by defects and their religious experience crippled, their growth in grace dwarfed, because they persist in cherishing hereditary and cultivated deficiencies in wrong habits that will be imitated by others and thus be perpetuated. If the grace of Christ cannot remedy these defects, what then constitutes transformation of character? {TMK 157.4}

Hey MM,

If Jesus was telling the truth when he said that we would be judged by the same criteria we set for others then you might want to lighten up a little! You could be in real trouble!



scott

Did Jesus set up a standard other than "turn from your evil ways and live"? Does Jesus require something other than obeying His teachings?

Does Jesus turn the other cheek or does He keep a record of all wrongs to make sure He gets His ounce of flesh for every violation against Him. Does Jesus say, "You slap me in the cheek and I'll not hit you back right now, but I've got a big club I'll get you with later called eternal death! You'll get what you got coming to you"?

Does 1 Corinthians 13 tell us that love keeps no record of wrongs?

scott

Does Jesus teach that we should keep turning the other cheek because He can't get Scott to stop slapping people? Or does He teach that if Scott starts loving Him, he will also start loving His creatures and stop slapping them?

Jesus teaches forgiveness. He also teaches repentance. He also teaches confessing and forsaking our sins. He teaches the slappee to turn the other cheek, as He teaches the slapper to stop slapping.

Tom says you believe that obedience is a good thing. Why can't you get yourself to agree that Jesus teaches us to obey? Rather, your posts tend toward the "disobey and still live" teaching. I'm not convinced that Tom understands your teaching, because his claims on that point contradict your words.

Love keeps no record of wrongs. Is that because love ignores the wrongs? Or is it because love corrects the wrongs? I believe the latter.

What about you? What kind of love is it that you believe in? Love that is blind, or love that transforms?

Hi Arnold,

I believe that love keeps no record of wrongs and that the goodness we see in Jesus reveals that love which has the power to transform our lives.

The threat of the club doesn't have the power to make us obedient!

You can command love until the cows come home, but it won't change the heart.

Obedience under duress is not obedience at all!

scott

Is a transformed life a disobedient life? In my system of belief, transformation and obedience always go together.


Then why is it that you always link obedience with the proverbial club? Of all the people active here, you seem to be the one looking at the club most often.


Here's God's promise:
The need of a change of heart is old hat to God, and to those who study the OT. Only dispensationalists and poor scholars think this is a new invention.

But it seems that somewhere in the translation, something was lost. In the OT version, receiving a new heart and spirit from God always included His promise to "cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them."


True. And disobedience with a smile and warm fuzzies is still disobedience.

In your idea of Jesus, does he want you to stop sinning before you die, and does He have to power to make it happen?

Hi Arnold,

Have you ever met a man that has stopped sinning? When I meet one I'll change my theology.

God has this life and 1000 years after this life to heal us from the devastation of sin before He integrates earthlings fully into the rest of His heavenly family. Only a few misguided Adventist expect to see a generation of sinless individuals before the 2nd coming and they don’t get this idea from any good biblical exegesis I’ve seen.

Our righteousness is in Christ. Perfection is a Greek concept, but maturity is a Hebrew concept. We are perfect at any stage of development just like a baby is perfect even though he messes his pants and can't understand quantum physics. Perfection is a journey with God not a journey too God. In God’s kingdom if you aren’t perfect right now you aren’t saved. If you aren’t growing in Christ, maturing through His Spirit, you aren’t born again!

Of course Christ has the power to give us a frontal lobotomy and kill the natural man, but He chooses to take sin away one step at a time as we give it up. God is patient! God isn't the problem, we are! He transforms us through a natural process that we are involved in through our free will. Until the day God completes His work in us He doesn't hold our sins against us and considers us perfect in His love.

scott

Why is your theology guided by sight? We live by faith, not by sight.


Does it take that long to follow Jesus?


So what are your answers to my two questions? You wrote a lot of response, but no answer. If I try to interpret it, you and Tom will probably say I'm wrong and not understanding what you said. Why not just speak clearly and settle it? Yes, no, I don't know, maybe; take your pick.