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Because the Administrator suggested we take this discussion to this forum, here is the continuation.

4 hours ago, runewell said:

Actually, I did answer a question, maybe not all of them and not to your liking.

That is the usual cop-out for one who avoids answering.  But let me try to give you the benefit of the doubt and explain even further.

Your position (as I understand it -- feel free to correct any of the following statement) is:

  1. You don't need to do anything to gain salvation.
  2. Christ has done it all for you.  He paid the price.
  3. There is nothing within man to be able to gain salvation.
  4. No work we do has anything to do with salvation.
  5. To claim that we do need to do any work does ... something... bad???  So, when Mormons talk about ordinances or any kind of work, we're diminishing the power of the Atonement.

At the same time, you say:

  1. We need to accept Christ as our Savior to gain salvation.  
  2. We need to love God.  
  3. We need to come to Christ.  
  4. We need to show our gratitude for His Great Work -- the Atonement.

Why do you not see this second list as "works"?  How is this any less a list of "works" than saying we need to repent? <=== First question

If you truly believe there is NOTHING that man can do to gain salvation, then that second list is also null and void.  Thus the logical conclusion is that you shouldn't even need to be aware of Christ at all to gain salvation.  He paid the price already.

If he paid the price already, then anyone going to hell is double dipping.

Why would God double dip on the suffering?  Is that just?  To require double the suffering? <=== Second question

NOW will you please explain what you mean by "I am Saved"?  I had asked that question earlier.  You have ignored it. <=== Third question

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Ok, let's see if @runewellwould rather discuss this one:

So, @runewell, let's start with you reading the context to which that quote was given.  You can find it here:

https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/35554_eng.pdf?lang=eng

The entire context can be found starting on page 37.  The actual quote can be found on page 39.  If you don't want to read all 3 pages, you can just read the bottom of page 39 under the section "Christ’s Atonement makes forgiveness possible to those who have faith, repent, and obey God." to start the discussion.

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Specifying a "condition" while saying stating no "condition" is placed upon it is a tad ironic, don't you think?

Condition: Repent (work, something that is required of you) and accept

BUT no one puts a condition on it? :exclam:

If there truly is no condition, then an individual does not have to "accept" or "repent" -- it is simply given. But then again, this is just rehashing what has already been shared and ignored.

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OK, let's suppose we get past this initial stage.  We repent of our sins and accept Christ's forgiveness.  Christ did all the work, we are essentially flipping on a switch, allowing it to happen.  You say it is works, I say it isn't, in either case it needs to happen.

Now what is required of us beyond that step? 

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6 minutes ago, runewell said:

Great you just hijacked the thread :)

Okay, I think I should start another thread for that BY quote... but it actually falls into the general discussion on this thread too... so, unless it gets too much in the way, let's keep the Saints discussion on here too, is that ok with you?

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Quote

To be Saints indeed requires every wrong influence that is within them, as individuals, to be subdued, until every evil desire is eradicated, and every feeling of their hearts is brought into subjection to the will of Christ (DBY, 91). It requires all the atonement of Christ, the mercy of the Father, the pity of angels and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to be with us always, and then to do the very best we possibly can, to get rid of this sin within us, so that we may escape from this world into the celestial kingdom (DBY, 60).

 

OK here goes:

In order to be a saint (non-biblical definition) requires every evil desire to be eradicated.  

If we could get rid of all the sin in us, we wouldn't need Christ's atonement.  

Therefore we cannot get rid of all the sin in us.  If we could, Christ was wasting his time on the cross since it would just be a waiting game until we were perfect.

 

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9 minutes ago, runewell said:

You say it is works, I say it isn't

False. Rather, YOU say that we say it is works. You are working hard to frame the argument in a way that you can dispute it with your poor Biblical understanding.

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3 minutes ago, runewell said:

 

OK here goes:

In order to be a saint (non-biblical definition) requires every evil desire to be eradicated.  

If we could get rid of all the sin in us, we wouldn't need Christ's atonement.  

Therefore we cannot get rid of all the sin in us.  If we could, Christ was wasting his time on the cross since it would just be a waiting game until we were perfect.

 

You really need to read the context to which that quote is given.  I linked to it above.  It completely answers that confusion you have.

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28 minutes ago, runewell said:

OK, let's suppose we get past this initial stage.  We repent of our sins and accept Christ's forgiveness.  Christ did all the work, we are essentially flipping on a switch, allowing it to happen.  You say it is works, I say it isn't, in either case it needs to happen.

Now what is required of us beyond that step? 

Okay, this is about faith versus works.  An age-old discussion among Christians.

There's a difference in faith/works discussions between Protestants vs, say, Catholics and Protestants vs Mormons.  The difference is that Mormons believe not only in Salvation but also Exaltation - the 2 are different things.

So, if we're only talking about Salvation - then we are saved by the grace of Christ's atonement.  We can't possibly do so ourselves.  But, we have to first ACCEPT Christ's atonement.  In LDS belief, we make a COVENANT to be worthy of Christ's Atonement and be born again.  This is symbolized by the ordinance of Baptism through the principle of Repentance.  You may consider this as "work".  Born Again Christians would say baptism is work - not necessary for salvation - when they do believe that one must be Born Again - which is some kind of act saying such (which is still some kind of work they just don't call it such).

Baptism (and being Born Again), is of course, an active state not a passive state such that saying you are Born Again and then you go out and murder some old guy on Facebook Live would put into question whether you are truly Born Again.  In the same manner, we renew our Baptismal Covenants every single week and try to keep those covenants all throughout our lives as part of our acceptance of Christ as our personal savior and gain salvation through his Atoning Sacrifice.  We continue to repent if we do something contrary to what we promised in our covenants.  It's an active thing - we accept Christ as our Savior by making that covenant, we mess up breaking the promises we made, so we repent of that mistake and we continue on all of our lives - all of this is part of ONE entire act of Acceptance of the Atonement of Christ.

So... it really doesn't matter if you call it work or whatever... ALL Christians believe in the ACT of having to ACCEPT Christ's Atonement through Repentance and be Born Again to be Saved.

Now, Mormons also believe in Exaltation.  This is something one can attain after one is Saved.  The LDS believe that there are 3 degrees of glory that we may attain through our Works.  This is something that needs further study so I'm not going to go into it here other than to let you know that when Mormons talk about Works (anything beyond keeping our Covenants at Baptism), they usually mean for Exaltation rather than just Salvation.

Edited by anatess2
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17 minutes ago, runewell said:

OK here goes:

In order to be a saint (non-biblical definition) requires every evil desire to be eradicated.  

If we could get rid of all the sin in us, we wouldn't need Christ's atonement.  

Therefore we cannot get rid of all the sin in us.  If we could, Christ was wasting his time on the cross since it would just be a waiting game until we were perfect.

We do not believe that we are able to rid ourselves of sin.  Christ's atonement is the only way we can do that, it is through his grace that we are even able to become better people.  In fact, without Christs atonement, we would become like Satan (literally):

Quote

7 Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more.

8 O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more.

9 And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who beguiled our first parents, who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness.

(2 Nephi 9: 7-9)

Also, if you pay attention to verse 7, you can see that even if we were to pretend that we could rid our own evil desires, we would still need the atonement of Christ.  If I lived a 100% perfect life and never made a single mistake even once, I would still only be able to be saved by Christ because of the fact that it is His power that could resurrect me and bring me back into His presence.

Regardless of how you look at it, we believe that only 'through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved'.

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1 minute ago, runewell said:

I wish you would explain it to me.  

Ahhh @runewell!  That's being lazy, man!

But that's ok, I know this thread is flying so you're probably having to read a bunch of these posts.  So okay, I'll explain it to you.

That quote by BY that you posted is part of an entire topic about Christ's Atonement and our Salvation.  To be Saints, we COVENANT to do exactly what the quote says - to subdue the natural man within us.  It does not mean that you first have to succeed at wiping out evil before you can become a Saint.  Rather, you become a Saint when you covenant to wipe out evil.  This is the same covenant that shows that you ACCEPT Christ as your Savior (you can't really accept Christ as your savior if you don't promise to fight evil, you see?) and that it is through His Atonement that every Saint will gain Salvation.

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4 minutes ago, runewell said:

I wish you would explain it to me.  

'He that seeketh findeth'.  If you are not willing to read and investigate on your own, with a sincere desire to understand and to cone to a knowledge of the truth, why should @anatess2 or I or anyone else explain it to you.  If you are not willing to study it for yourself, it won't matter if we explain it.

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8 minutes ago, runewell said:

OK, so the majority of the works is more the exaltation phase than the salvation moment?

I seriously don't understand why anyone is still attempting to converse with this fellow. But at least it has been contained to this thread, so I'm not complaining.

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13 minutes ago, runewell said:

OK, so the majority of the works is more the exaltation phase than the salvation moment?

Majority of the work is just to try to get through this mortal existence without messing up big time, man.  It's really no more complicated than that.  Trying to count pennies on what is work and what is not work, what work goes to Salvation, what work goes to Exaltation... it just muddies everything up!  Live a Christian life - work on that.  Christ's Atonement will do the rest.  No need to complicate things.

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3 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

To be Saints, we COVENANT to do exactly what the quote says - to subdue the natural man within us.  It does not mean that you first have to succeed at wiping out evil before you can become a Saint.  Rather, you become a Saint when you covenant to wipe out evil.  

You have to understand, our faiths are much more obvious to us than to the other. 

OK, but Brigham Young's quote is in the past tense.  The requirement of a saint is for wrong influences to be subdued and every evil desire eradicated.  That doesn't agree with some covenant committing to some future state.  Maybe someone could be a saint someday (maybe in the latter days?  :) but not now)

Quote

To be Saints indeed requires every wrong influence that is within them, as individuals, to be subdued, until every evil desire is eradicated, and every feeling of their hearts is brought into subjection to the will of Christ (DBY, 91). It requires all the atonement of Christ, the mercy of the Father, the pity of angels and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to be with us always, and then to do the very best we possibly can, to get rid of this sin within us, so that we may escape from this world into the celestial kingdom (DBY, 60).

 

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2 minutes ago, runewell said:

You have to understand, our faiths are much more obvious to us than to the other. 

OK, but Brigham Young's quote is in the past tense.  The requirement of a saint is for wrong influences to be subdued and every evil desire eradicated.  That doesn't agree with some covenant committing to some future state.  Maybe someone could be a saint someday (maybe in the latter days?  :) but not now)

 

Covenant is not bound by time.  Covenant is an ACTIVE state.  Past, present, future.  You repent for the past, you work on the present, you prepare for the future.  All within your Covenant.  You become a Saint when you make the Covenant.  At that point that you made the Covenant, you have subdued evil.

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2 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Covenant is not bound by time.  Covenant is an ACTIVE state.  Past, present, future.  You repent for the past, you work on the present, you prepare for the future.  All within your Covenant.  You become a Saint when you make the Covenant.

I would think a covenant would be bound by time.  For instance, God made a covenant with Noah that He would never destroy the earth again by flood.

It doesn't seen that a covenant can't very well apply to the past, since God already flooded the earth.  

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4 minutes ago, runewell said:

I would think a covenant would be bound by time.  For instance, God made a covenant with Noah that He would never destroy the earth again by flood.

It doesn't seen that a covenant can't very well apply to the past, since God already flooded the earth.  

For that flood covenant, yes.  For the Baptismal Covenant, it encompasses your entire existence.  Think about it... your Baptismal Covenant wipes clean your past sins, so of course, it applies to the past.

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34 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

LDS folk trying to argue with non-LDS "Christians" about grace/works is very useful.

Anyone who wants an honest examination on this issue should read the writings of the early Church Fathers, or, for a quick summary, the book Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up by David W. Bercot.

From these writings, it appears as though the first century Christians, some of whom were taught by Paul personally, interpreted the book of Romans the way modern day Mormons do.  

A lot of ideas regarding salvation by grace alone, as well as eternal security (the old "once saved, always saved"), predestination, and the idea that baptism is not really necessary for salvation appear to be innovations that were later introduced into Christianity, notably by St. Augustine (who introduced all sorts of questionable doctrine into early Christianity, including that unbaptized infants are doomed).  In fact, first-century Christianity actually devoted much energy fighting these doctrines, which were apparently championed by the Gnostics.

Just more evidence that Mormonism is first-century Christianity, again restored on the Earth.

Edited by DoctorLemon
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