If salvation ALSO comes from obedience then it is not by grace. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus has kept the law for us so our right standing before God is dependent on what Jesus has done instead of what I do. The gospel is the opposite of your statement....instead the gospel says that my obedience comes from my salvation. As I receive God's grace and trust completely in what Jesus has done for me then I am able to extend His grace, forgiveness, compassion, etc. to others.

http://adam4d.com/done/

Very few of the people in this thread studied Anthropology. On a literature standpoint, read the story of Gilgamesh and countless others. Jesus Christ's story was not an original. I am a believer in a higher power, but when Christ's story copies so many it's hard to think he is All and Everything. As a smart man in Thomas Paine said in Common Sense, published Jan. 10th 1776, " My mind is my own church."

Jesus' story would be a total copy if the book containing it were an ordinary book. The bible contains foreknowledge of humanity that only can be explained by supernatural inspiration. Prophecies from the Old Testament were fulfilled in detail hundreds of years after they were predicted. There are many other historical books which have some of the same kinds of stories in them, but none of them contain these two additional elements - proofs that this book isn't an ordinary book.

So dinosaurs??? It doesn't mention that.

So dinosaurs??? It doesn't mention that. Or what about his relationship with Mary Magdalene? Oops those are in the books of the bible that Diciples so conventionally left out. Just saying....also, the foreknowledge of Christ can be absolutely compared to the "foreknowledge" of Nostradamus. Same predictions and They happened. Is there a religion praising Nostradamus? No, just people with 2000 + years less knowledge than we have now. Take advantage of it.

Um, yes it does.

Sorry apparently free conversation is taking the authenticity of this thread away. Or people of "The Man" don't like hearing others opinions. Guess since I don't believe the same thing, I'm not invited.

Since the topic is "Unity in the Body of Christ: Christian Essentials" and by your comments you would not seem to consider yourself a member of the Body of Christ, then yeah, your comments aren't really pertinent to the thread.

Ah so this is a Christian only no outside opinions thread, typical.

Ah so this is a Christian only no outside opinions thread, typical.

Ah so this is a Christian only no outside opinions thread, typical.

This is the major issue with people understanding "grace" in today's world. According to Genesis 6:8, Noah obtained "grace" in the eyes of God. Did that then mean he was saved without obedience? Could Noah have been saved without God acting first? No... God gave him a plan to follow... and he followed it. Did the fact Noah obeyed nullify his being saved by grace? Absolutely not!

In instituting the law of Moses, God provided information to the COI which would preserve their life - things relate to hygiene, diet, etc. God was of indebted to do so, thus that law came into being because God chose them - by His grace. Yet, the law did the COI no good unless they obeyed it.

Ephesians 2:8 claims that in the New Testament, people are saved by God's grace through faith. A faith pleasing to God, biblically speaking, is a trust in God which compels a person to comply with His requests - that's the illustration repeatedly emphasized in Hebrews 11.

For those of you who claim "obedience cancels out grace", then what you are really claiming is that everyone will be saved. Why? Because even belief in Christ is something a person does - in response to a passage like John 3:16. You cannot harmonize passages such as 1 Peter 1:22 or Ephesians 2:8 with the "grace only" idea.

Very few of the people in this thread studied Anthropology. On a literature standpoint, read the story of Gilgamesh and countless others. Jesus Christ's story was not an original. I am a believer in a higher power, but when Christ's story copies so many it's hard to think he is All and Everything. As a smart man in Thomas Paine said in Common Sense, published Jan. 10th 1776, " My mind is my own church."

Realize what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-20 is vital - we do not have the authority to relax anything which is found in the NT.

It certainly is but you have failed to understand it. Jesus fulfilled the law. He is the only man to ever have done so. It is by his fulfillment of the law that you are saved, not by your own. If you fail to understand that , then you are still living under the old covenant which has grown old and is ready to pass away. Under that old covenant, you will be judged by your acts and there is no person who can satisfy those requirements. If righteousness came by the law, than Christ has died in vain.

You must understand that you are saved by grace alone, not your obedience, or you have missed the entire New Testament. It is an understanding of grace and who you are because of it that will cause you to obey God's laws. It is not your obedience of laws that cause you to be saved.