Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
Your post said that "to deny the Lord who bought them" must refer to an essential item of the faith. The Lord's work on the cross which is the ground on which we stand when we appear before God is an essential item of the faith. To say that this is the sole ground on which we stand before God is an essential item of the faith. To say that the Lord broke down any middle wall of partition at the cross so that both Jews and Gentiles could be one is an essential item of the faith. To say that our stand before God or our blessing from God or our experience of God requires something in addition to this blood is to deny this essential item of the faith. This is what I said in my post which you dismissed because "it doesn't deny an essential item of the faith"? It is your post that presumed to address mine and didn't.
I added these quotes from the gospels and Acts because if you agree with Jesus that "If you have done it to the least of my brethren you have done it to Me" then you have to agree that everything WL did to the brethren he did to the Lord as well. I added the verse in Matt 5 because you might agree with the previous point but feel that "it is not that serious" as to rise to the level of a false teacher. Matt 5 makes it clear to me that the way we treat any saint can be as serious as hellfire and damnation.
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I think that you are juxtaposing disparate ideas here. And I think that Unto is generally correct.
If doing something, or refraining from such, is to do it to the Lord or to refrain from doing it to the Lord, that is a matter of obedience. It is a matter of failing to do as commanded. That is very different from denying the Lord.
The former demonstrates our lack of faith (Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief).
The latter concerns a misdirection to something other than Jesus. To deny the Lord.
If you are correct, then we are all in trouble because I assume that none of us have change available to give to every beggar on the street. If the bar is that high, do you feel you have the right to choose (or discern) which one God is calling you to help and which is to be left alone? It seems that your Matt 5 passage would suggest that you cannot know and therefore are constantly at risk for failing, and therefore denying the Lord (layering in your "deny the Lord" thinking).
Seems we have moved from one kind of extremist view to another. Everything must be so precise. Yet another barrier to oneness. The oneness of the Spirit is insufficient because we are now pointing fingers at those who fail to be entirely righteous all the time, therefore are denying the Lord (the One Lord).
Rather than just see through the added sacrament of the LRC's ground, we get a different "must" added-on.
I think that the reference (I think by Paul) to the simplicity of the gospel is too often missed. I am not saying that it is like some think
— just a ticket to streets of gold. But some of this new stuff that is created by sticking different things together as if there is no way to avoid it simply being true (even though nothing says it is) just goes way too far.
But the gospel really is simple. Believe in Christ. Obey. And at the top of obey is love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And the parable that helped describe "neighbor" should make it clear that neighbor is not just other believers because to a Jew a Samaritan was not a follower of the true God. Jesus used the example of an outsider being a neighbor to one of the chosen.
People like Lee come along to add more rules. It seems spiritual, but it is really burdens that even they cannot bear.
Seems that this linking of Matt 5 to denying the Lord is yet another burden that no one can bear. And it is not written in that manner. I don't think you are trying to do that. Your purpose is sound
— find the problems with Lee and/or Nee. But the consequences seem (to me) to go way beyond that and add a complication to the gospel that is not really there.