From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: Humanism (personal experience)
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 17:16:19 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: IBM Research

In article <LJMORLY.93Jan5125542@polaris.utu.fi>, ljmorly@polaris.utu.fi (Laura Johanna Manninen) writes:

|> 
|> >Perhaps your [David Harwood's] sect of Christianity doesn't think Christians
|> >are required to believe Jesus is God.  And Laura has also
|> >posted, that everyone has his/her own free will to believe
|> >or not to believe.  (But why is she so eager to get me
|> >to believe, then???  Perhaps I'm already saved!)
|> 
|> I didn't mean that those who don't believe would be saved. 

Then you're being very misleading in claiming we're free to
believe or not.  If a policeman says "you're free to go"
that's contradicted if you're going to be arrested if you do go.

The context was that David Harwood claimed that I was giving
an ignorant misinterpretation of Christianity in claiming that
the Christian position was that one must believe in Jesus
to be saved.  He argued that the true meaning was that one
must lead a righteous life in the pattern of Jesus.

While this may be true of David's particular sect of Christianity,
I still don't think it's true of Christianity as a whole,
in particular Evangelical Christianity including Messianics.
(I certainly don't want to get in the middle of a debate
as to whether the DH view or the LM view is "true" Christianity.)

And your own words above seem to confirm what I wrote earlier
about the Christian position.

|> 
|> Acts 4:12: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other 
|>             name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
|> 
|> Our *own* works have nothing to do with salvation.
|> 

And they confirm it again here.

|> Ephesians 2:8-10: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith
|>          -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not 
|>          by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship,
|>          created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
|>          advance for us to do."
|> 
|> Thus we have to be obedient to God, so that we would do the works he 
|> has prepared for us. In Matthew 7:21 Yeshua says:
|>  
|>          "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the
|>           kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father
|>           who is in heaven."
|> 
|> I would like you to join us, because I see hell wide open in front of you.
|> (See e.g. Dan 12:2, Brachot 28b)
|> 

And again here.  You see --- you're not just "a Jew who believes in Jesus". 
You believe in hell.  You believe Paul's contention that salvation
is "not from yourselves".  (Notice how Paul's quote is contradicted
by the quote from Jesus which you appended.) That's what I've been calling "the
Christian position".  Are you a Jew at all, by the way?  Why are
you a Messianic rather than, say, a Lutheran?

|> BTW I'd like to know what is your concept of repentance ? (Or anyone 
|> else's ?) Rob L once said something like "one's path of repentance 
|> usually includes charity", which seems to me a misunderstanding of the
|> whole issue. 
|> 

Repentance is turning back to righteousness.  It means
facing the errors of one's ways and taking practical steps
to cure them.

-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598