Thread: A question on Christian Scripture.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Help me out guys, I have one problem...I received the HS before I was baptized.

Acts 2:38
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

+1. God works in mysterious ways.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Help me out guys, I have one problem...I received the HS before I was baptized.

Acts 2:38
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So did Cornelius Acts 10. But he also received the HS before hearing words by which he would be saved Acts 11:14, 15 "14. Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. 15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning"

"Receiving" the "Holy Spirit" is not the indication that you've been saved (by receiving I mean have some supernatural manifestation), nor is getting "possessed" and speaking in "tongues" and whatever other manifestation that appears to happen indicative of being saved. And the "gift of the Holy Spirit" isn't the same thing as being baptized in the Holy Spirit like the Apostles and Cornelius were. Similarly, failure to "receive" the Holy Spirit isn't an indication that you are NOT saved. The Samaritans in Acts 8 were saved, yet they had not received the Holy Spirit "14When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. 15When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. 17Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit."

Discussion on Acts 2:38

I don't know that I agree with everything said, but the author does a good job of laying out varying points of view on the topic.

Here's a pretty interesting discussion of those concepts

Originally Posted by kevint

²⁰ knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, ²¹ for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁹ And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;

I set things in this order hoping to show that there may be an end to the need for "prophetic word", perhaps this includes all scripture. Is it wrong to take Jesus' words out of their narrative context and accept them as they are for what they say?

The morning star is imagery from Revelations; and as I understand from replies any sort of enlightened state, state of perfection is reserved for His second coming in the accepted view of the church.

Sin is one of those words that a lot of people demonstrate an aversion for. There is a lot of "judgment" -they feel judged, condemned by those who are telling them they are sinning- Do we need to have a greater understanding of what "sin" means? The apostle did say: "all things are lawful to me" (now it may be that he was referring to the Law of Moses; but he did say All Things)

Is there a state of being; having the mind of Christ, as the scriptures say, that surrenders all things to God, so that your actions are in accord with the will of God- which would be either no sin, or anything that might be seen as sin from the outside, is not sin because it is surrendered to God?

Which is to say the Final Authority, is that witness within the individual, the awareness of God, which is the peace of God.

I would think that the witness within, the awareness, and the peace of God is the result of and not the Final Authority.

Originally Posted by JBHoren

There is absolutely no mention whatsoever of "sin", in all of Genesis 3. Not an allusion, not a hint, not even a whiff. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. It's simply not there.
.

Adam's sin (Gen. 3:1-6) consisted in his yielding to the assaults of temptation and eating the forbidden fruit. It involved in it,

(1) the sin of unbelief, virtually making God a liar; and

(2) the guilt of disobedience to a positive command.

By this sin he became an apostate from God, a rebel in arms against his Creator. He lost the favour of God and communion with him; his whole nature became depraved, and he incurred the penalty involved in the covenant of works.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Help me out guys, I have one problem...I received the HS before I was baptized.

Acts 2:38
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I don't see where you have a problem. Repentance and baptism are the outward signs of an inner condition of having recieved salvation by faith [ believing].

Not unusual at all, the same happened with me.

I'm not saying there was a problem, heck, I'm blessed and know it. It's just that I seem to do things bass-ackwards most of the time & was referring to the order of things.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

I'm not saying there was a problem, heck, I'm blessed and know it. It's just that I seem to do things bass-ackwards most of the time & was referring to the order of things.

Believe me you didn't do anything it's all God's doing.

Being forgiven of God is something you take on faith or accept through faith. I'm not sure how it feels, especially if you must return every day with another list of misdeeds.

(I know that it says if you break one rule you have broken them all, or perhaps one could say there is no relative sense of a greater or lesser crime as there is in man's justice system.)

Something which is a bit more "experienceable" to believer and non- ;is forgiving others; and forgiving yourself. When you forgive; you are acting the way God acts and there is no better way to behave. T or F?

It seems like; with this idea of Salvation, that the belief is, there is a separation between man and God. This seems to be the case.

However; it seems to me(correct me if wrong) That the view from the Church side is that God is separate from us and we must beg him to return. The way it feels from my human being style perspective is that we have separated ourselves from God.

I am pretty sure that it says in the Bible that in heaven, or on the new earth that we will not be the same person as during our earthly life experience....
When you die to yourself, when you adopt the mind of Christ, should I say; if you are truly born again- what is your identity- who are you now?

This of course is way out there. We also have practical matters of daily living. Jesus too most likely had practical matters to attend to- he still had to breathe, drink and eat, all the bodily functions and yes, maybe even work on occasion...

...It is a tangled up

Forget the dirty laundry list, when you screw up admit it, you dont have to re crucify Christ every time, you just have to 'fess up, you dont have to go into details with a lot of sobbing, he knows. Jesus did what he did so you could "come boldly before the throne", its always good to be humble before the master but dont bore him.

There was a separation between God and man but what Jesus did on the cross reconciled us to our Father and creator, by paying the price Jesus gave us free access to the throne of Grace. We are no longer separated, orphaned children without pedigree or without hope, we have" our Father who art in heaven".

To be an "imitator of Christ" we have to forgive as Jesus forgave us, he went so far as to warn us that "if you do not forgive those who sin against you, neither will my Father forgive you." This could very well be exactly what Jesus meant when he said," Deny yourself, pick up your cross. daily and follow me,". Forgiveness is the one doctrine that Christianity revolves around, without forgiveness Christianity would be just another religion like all the others. A dead faith.


As for my identity: I am an imitation of Christ (quite possibly **** poor)until either he comes back or my resurrection, after that I will be who I should of been all along, the best friend Jesus ever had. This is the most prominent reason he has done what he has done, he created us in the beginning to be his friends. This is what sent Lucifer and his cohorts into a tailspin, this is why they came here to screw us up, this is why Jesus did what he did. "No greater love has a man than this, to lay down his life for his friends.". He has proven his friendship.

Do you now see what he has done?

Do you see what he wants from you now?

And some people waste their entire lives wondering about the meaning of life, it is just this simple. God Bless all of you!