No denomination I know of says we are saved by intellectual assent to some clear (or even unclear) statement(s). All the ones I know of think more in terms of trust. It’s usually still trust in some proposition, however, such as: “I repent from the idea that I can save myself. From now on I rely solely upon the grace of God in Christ Jesus to save me.” (I made that up as a kind of generic example.) This kind of "conversion", by itself, is still a matter of switching concepts. The only practical ramification it has is to relieve us from the burden (and/or arrogance) and the uselessness of trying to earn heaven.
On the car radio today, I heard a preacher speak of trusting Christ “for your eternal salvation.” Even that is still just a concept to be embraced. I trust Christ. That is my concept.
"Saving faith" means trusting God not only regarding my final destination, but with my here and now, my every hour and every day, entrusting to Him my soul and my body, my time, treasure, and talent, sacrificing to Him all my own conveniences, preferences, attitudes and ambitions, for Him to do with me whatsoever He will, however and whenever He will. Faith is to put myself and everything under my control at His disposal. Faith is the trust that He is a good God Who knows best what is good for me, both for me to do and for me to experience, right now and tomorrow and always - even if I don't want to - and that He will never give me more than I can bear, and that when my own strength runs out He will lend me His, and that He loves me (the Cross, the Cross!) even if all appearances are to the contrary. And that He will bring me safely to the other side of death. Faith, in short, is a lifestyle. You can live and move and breathe outside of communion with God, in which case everything you do, even just breathing, is spoilt, broken, and misshapen, or you can live and move and breathe in communion with God (i.e., by faith), and then every breath can be an act of holiness.
There’s nothing mysterious about what makes faith saving. It’s not some inscrutable decree of God’s. Nor is salvation something that follows as a result of faith, or as a reward for it. No, the very phrase, “saving faith” is actually a tautology. It’s redundant. To be faithful is to live in and with Christ His own Life ( = to be holy) and that's also what salvation is. To be faithful is to be saved, and to be saved is to be faithful.
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2 days ago
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Strangely enough, East and West agree that faith is a gift. We also agree that it is a gift that we receive by the grace of God. But then we fall into all kinds of speculation about what a “gift” implies, and what “grace” really is. The result is that for some the importance of the gift becomes not what is given, but our acceptance of it, and for others, grace becomes some kind of a substance which God doles out depending on our behavior.
This is why we Lutherans are so devoted to “sola Scriptura”. You see, the Gospel of the Kingdom, which our Lord proclaimed, and which St. Paul calls “the power of God for Salvation”, is irrational and illogical. God foretold it through the Prophet Isaiah, who wrote (Isaiah 43), “19 Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
20 The wild beasts will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21 the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise.”
We have heard these word so often that we forget that God turned all of the natural laws upside down when He created His Kingdom. Our Lord Jesus did the same thing, when He said, (Matthew 11) “5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” Finally, in Isaiah 55, after God offers us His food without money, He says, “’8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.
‘9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”
Therefore, Lutherans believe that when God reveals something in Scripture that is contrary to our reason, we must believe Scripture. That is what “sola Scriptura” means.
Anastasia, I am sorry to take up so much space on your blog, but I need to finish this in a separate posting, because of space limitations.
Scripture, as opposed to human reason, teaches that faith is a gift that we receive without accepting it. As we read in Colossians 2, “13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” If you are dead, you are unable to accept anything. But in raising us from the dead, (Colossians 1) “13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Similarly, St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 “ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, …” Neither in these, or any other passages in Scripture is it written that God needed our help or cooperation to save us. Just as He did not ask Lazarus whether He wanted to be raised from the dead, so He raises us from the dead; just as we were born into this world without being asked to cooperate, so we are born into the Kingdom of God without any help from us.
Anastasia, I am sorry to take up so much space on your blog, but I need to finish this in a separate posting, because of space limitations.
In raising us from the dead out of the waters of Baptism, God sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, as our Lord promised in His Final discourse with the Apostles. He is One who gives us faith, Who continues to keep us in the faith, Who comforts us, Who intercedes for us, and Who gives us His many gifts. Even though this is clearly taught in the New Testament in over a dozen passages, East, West, Lutherans, and other Protestants believe things about the Holy Spirit which Scripture clearly does not teach. But we all agree that we could have no faith, know nothing about God, or our salvation, without the Holy Spirit.
Finally, in Greek there are two words; one which means “faith” and another that is usually translated as “little faith.” These words are used a total of 245 time in the New Testament. Only in one place, Hebrews 11:1, is there anything like a definition of what faith is: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This is obviously not an all encompassing definition. But the fact that it is used so often without saying what it really is leads me to believe that everybody knew what the word meant. The differences among us have to do with how we receive it and what it does. One of the irrational, illogical aspects of the Gospel is the unlimited mercy of God, by which He saves us in spite of the fact that we believe something wrong. As our Lord said in Luke 12:10 “And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” You see, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is driving Him out of our hearts, where He has come to live and give us faith. All other sins, awful as they are, do not separate us from the love of God.
Peace and Joy!
George A. Marquart
George, as I said, you are always welcome on this blog. I do enjoy your comments and think it likely that others do, too.
Um... did I say anything about accepting the gift of faith? I didn't intend to. I only spoke of having it.
But while we're at it, is there thought to be a difference between accepting faith, which Lutherans tell me we do not/cannot do, and not rejecting it, which Lutherans tell me we can do? If so, what is that difference?
We can certainly agree faith is a gift. Also that God does not dole it out depending upon our behavior; that would make it not a gift at all, but earned. Where we appear to disagree is whether faith is something active or passive.
I'll respond to some other points in another comment.
Hello again, George,
The Orthodox do not find anything in the Christian faith irrational, unless you mean it in the same sense that pi is irrational; viz., not able to be pinned down. Or even properly imagined Certainly God cannot be comprehended. This is not really because our intellects are too small, although that is also true, but fundamentally because He is God, absolutely unique, incomparable to anything or anyone else, unparalleled, having nothing even remotely analogous to Himself. This leaves us with no intellectual toehold, no way to peep through the crack, no way to extrapolate, even.
But we don't find this or anything else in Christianity irrational in the sense that it contradicts reason. (on the contrary, that God should be too high for human reason to reach is entirely reasonable; otherwise what sort of a god would that be?)
You mentioned several passages about miracles, but it is not irrational that God, who created the world in the first place, should make rivers in deserts or cause the blind to see. If He could do the one, He can certainly do the others. What would be irrational would be thinking the Creator couldn't do "miracles."
It is not irrational, since He is Love, that He loves us. Incomprehensible, yes; irrational, not at all. In fact, the more we grow in love the more we understand that it is the only thing that IS ultimately rational.
Faith as defined in Hebrews 11:1 is far from irrational. In fact, just the contrary; it means faith is the perfecter and enlightener of the intellect, because it makes evident, obvious to us, the things that are otherwise unseen. Well, it doesn't exactly make them evident; rather, it IS the obviousness ("evidence" in King James English) of the unseen. And it IS the things hoped for, is their very essence ("substance" in the KJV) in another mode of being called faith. It already IS, for example, communion with God, eternal life, forgiveness of sins, infinite love - all the things hoped for.
We suspect that any theology that ends up irrational in the sense of being illogical has broken down somewhere. God has created us rational beings and does not expect us to be sub-rational. He doesn't expect us to accept nonsense. Proper Christianity only seems irrational to the secular mind; this, because Christianity has a different sort of mind, a logic all its own, namely, the logic of love.
I'll have just a bit more to say in a third comment!
Dear George,
I've often heard Lutherans compare spiritual birth with physical, but it seems to me inappropriate. In the New Testament, the flesh and the spirit are more often contrasted. Hence, this comparison is not, by itself, a good argument.
It's true, of course, that babies are baptized; there's a stronger argument. They aren't able to give what we commonly think of as consent. They can't, so far as we can demonstrate, reject it either.
Nevertheless, at some point in their lives they either, well, reject the Faith or they don't, which amounts to accepting it, unless someone can show me any difference. And He who grafted them into Himself is perfectly able to cut them off from Himself afterward (John 15:2). The seed of the Word, even if "received with joy" can afterward fail to take root or be crowded out by thorns and weeds.
Yes, it's wonderful that nothing can separate us from the love of God, including sins and mistaken belief, unless we, in effect, refuse to be forgiven (blaspheme Holy Sprit). Alleluia!
Peace and joy right back at you.
Anastasia Theodoridis said...
George, as I said, you are always welcome on this blog. I do enjoy your comments and think it likely that others do, too.
“From George: Thank you, and as my Russian friends say, “Slava Bogu,” or “Glory to God.” I hope you will be able to distinguish between your original writing, and my response. Unfortunately the way the blog site works, it does not accept colors, different fonts, underlining or italics.
Um... did I say anything about accepting the gift of faith? I didn't intend to. I only spoke of having it.
“From George” I do not recall you doing so, but it is something my Roman Catholic friends believe. It is also associated with the belief in free will.
But while we're at it, is there thought to be a difference between accepting faith, which Lutherans tell me we do not/cannot do, and not rejecting it, which Lutherans tell me we can do? If so, what is that difference?
“From George” Obviously even Lutherans believe that people can “come to faith.” So the question is whether we can cooperate in this process or not. Lutherans insist, with Scripture, that not only can we not, but we do not want to, because the natural person is an enemy of God, and, as Scripture says, “dead in his sins.” “Not rejecting faith” is not an option for the person who is an enemy of God. But let us be clear, I am writing about the “inception of faith”, like Time Zero of the Big Bang of our new creation. Once the Holy Spirit has made us children of God, we revel in our faith and live out our lives in thanksgiving to our merciful God.
We can certainly agree faith is a gift. Also that God does not dole it out depending upon our behavior; that would make it not a gift at all, but earned. Where we appear to disagree is whether faith is something active or passive.
“From George” Since we are not totally sure how to define faith, maybe we could agree that it causes action in the child of God? We all agree that faith without works is “dead” (in spite of Martin Luther’s opinion of the Epistle of St. James), or more properly, no faith at all.
Peace and Joy!
George
I'll respond to some other points in another comment.
May 11, 2010 9:49 PM
Hello again, George,
The Orthodox do not find anything in the Christian faith irrational, unless you mean it in the same sense that pi is irrational; viz., not able to be pinned down. Or even properly imagined Certainly God cannot be comprehended. This is not really because our intellects are too small, although that is also true, but fundamentally because He is God, absolutely unique, incomparable to anything or anyone else, unparalleled, having nothing even remotely analogous to Himself. This leaves us with no intellectual toehold, no way to peep through the crack, no way to extrapolate, even.
But we don't find this or anything else in Christianity irrational in the sense that it contradicts reason. (on the contrary, that God should be too high for human reason to reach is entirely reasonable; otherwise what sort of a god would that be?)
You mentioned several passages about miracles, but it is not irrational that God, who created the world in the first place, should make rivers in deserts or cause the blind to see. If He could do the one, He can certainly do the others. What would be irrational would be thinking the Creator couldn't do "miracles."
It is not irrational, since He is Love, that He loves us. Incomprehensible, yes; irrational, not at all. In fact, the more we grow in love the more we understand that it is the only thing that IS ultimately rational.
Faith as defined in Hebrews 11:1 is far from irrational. In fact, just the contrary; it means faith is the perfecter and enlightener of the intellect, because it makes evident, obvious to us, the things that are otherwise unseen. Well, it doesn't exactly make them evident; rather, it IS the obviousness ("evidence" in King James English) of the unseen. And it IS the things hoped for, is their very essence ("substance" in the KJV) in another mode of being called faith. It already IS, for example, communion with God, eternal life, forgiveness of sins, infinite love - all the things hoped for.
We suspect that any theology that ends up irrational in the sense of being illogical has broken down somewhere. God has created us rational beings and does not expect us to be sub-rational. He doesn't expect us to accept nonsense. Proper Christianity only seems irrational to the secular mind; this, because Christianity has a different sort of mind, a logic all its own, namely, the logic of love.
I'll have just a bit more to say in a third comment!
“From George” What I meant to make clear, and obviously failed, is that God’s way of salvation is one that human reason could never deduce, because it is so far beyond our way of thinking. Maybe I should not have used the word “irrational.” I meant it in its literal sense – contrary to human reason. For instance, bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of God - unthinkable! We only know it and believe it because Scripture speaks of it. And “being born again of water and the Spirit”? Remember how much trouble Naaman had with the concept of dipping himself in the Jordan to cure his leprosy? That we can understand, but to make a new creature? When we see a baby emerging from the waters of baptism, does that baby look or act differently? We would not know that we have witnessed a miracle unless we had learned it from Scripture. The Holy Spirit does not reveal this to every Christian in some private revelation apart from Scripture.
Peace and Joy!
George
Dear George,
I've often heard Lutherans compare spiritual birth with physical, but it seems to me inappropriate. In the New Testament, the flesh and the spirit are more often contrasted. Hence, this comparison is not, by itself, a good argument.
“From George” Our Lord Himself made the comparison when He spoke with Nicodemus. What is reborn, or made a new creation, is “body and soul” but “by the Spirit;” that is, the Holy Spirit. This is precisely how St. Paul speaks of it in Romans 8, “9 But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.” He is not saying that we no longer have any bodies, but that the whole human being, body and soul, are alive “in the Spirit.”
It's true, of course, that babies are baptized; there's a stronger argument. They aren't able to give what we commonly think of as consent. They can't, so far as we can demonstrate, reject it either.
“From George” “as far as we can demonstrate.” That is exactly what I was writing about before. But we believe certain things that “we cannot demonstrate” to be true, only because we learn of them in Scripture. Otherwise we would not baptize babies. As to what they can or cannot do, I do not know. All I know is that Scripture tells us that our Lord commanded His Apostles to baptize.
Nevertheless, at some point in their lives they either, well, reject the Faith or they don't, which amounts to accepting it, unless someone can show me any difference. And He who grafted them into Himself is perfectly able to cut them off from Himself afterward (John 15:2). The seed of the Word, even if "received with joy" can afterward fail to take root or be crowded out by thorns and weeds.
“From George” Our argument about “accepting” the faith dealt with one who has not been reborn of “water and of the Spirit.” To be reborn means that we now can have “the mind of Christ”, we can want to do the will of God, and we can therefore “accept,” if you will, the faith that is already in us. No, we rejoice in it and thank God for it, not as if we are doing God a favor, like “OK, OK, I’ll keep it.” If we allow that babies have faith (by grace are you saved, through faith, and I do not see the Apostle saying, “unless you are a baby.”), then, when they grow up, they can only reject it, because you cannot accept what you already have. Unless you believe that they do not really have faith until they consciously accept it. I suspect that this is where we run into the matter of sanctification and salvation as separate concepts. Life in the Kingdom of God was never intended to be lived in isolation. Each person has parents, relatives, friends, teachers, fellow members of a particular congregation, and priests. These are all intended to provide each member of the Kingdom; that is, the Church, with the means for growing in the faith, or, as Scripture calls it, to be sanctified. The process varies with each individual, as Scripture says, concerning the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Cor. 12 “11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills.” But the person who has fewer gifts of the Spirit is still as much a child of God as the one who has an abundance, and therefore has saving faith even while the faith grows in strength.
Yes, it's wonderful that nothing can separate us from the love of God, including sins and mistaken belief, unless we, in effect, refuse to be forgiven (blaspheme Holy Sprit). Alleluia!
Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν
George
Hi, George,
I'm putting youre comments in short lines, hoping to differentiate them from my replies...
Obviously even Lutherans
believe that people can
“come to faith.” So the
question is whether we
can cooperate in this
process or not. Lutherans
insist, with Scripture,
that not only can we not,
but we do not want to,
because the natural
person is an enemy of
God, and, as Scripture
says, “dead in his sins.”
“Not rejecting faith” is
not an option for the
person who is an enemy
of God. But let us be
clear, I am writing about the “inception of faith”,
like Time Zero of the
Big Bang of our new
creation.
Once the Holy Spirit
has made us children of
God, we revel in our
faith and live out our
lives in thanksgiving
to our merciful God.
I think this position does not take the whole of Scripture into account. Specifically, St. Paul says in Romans 1 that unbelievers, Gentiles, do the “things of God” – and do them “by nature,” too. He also tells the Corinthian Christians they are still carnal, *sarkikos*, a synonym for *psychikos*.
So Orthodox Christianity does not draw the lines where Lutheranism does. Orthodoxy says a person can come to faith with, if not by, his own assent. There are a couple of things this does NOT mean, however. One thing it does not mean is that man can save himself. Faith doesn’t save. It’s only the means through which God’s Grace saves. God alone does the saving. Another thing we do not mean is that there is any credit in this assent, or that faith is any part of a bargain or transaction to secure salvation. For you, I think salvation is earnable in principle, just not in practice, whereas for us, salvation is not earnable even in principle. I like to compare it with church attendance: you don’t need to earn the right to show up on Sunday morning. You don’t need a ticket, and if you had one, it wouldn’t be good toward anything. Salvation is like that: free. Pure gift.
Since we are not totally
sure how to define faith,
maybe we could agree
that it causes action
in the child of God? We
all agree that faith
without works is “dead”
in spite of Martin Luther’s opinion of the Epistle
of St. James), or more
properly, no faith at all.
Not quite. Faith is the motivation but not the cause of action; it’s what renders an action just instead of sinful – any action, even eating and breathing. You do these (however imperfectly) either for and in communion with God or for your isolated, cut-off self.
In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, some of the goats also had done glorious works, even miracles. But without faith. Others had faith that was real in some sense; they had called Jesus “Lord,” which can only be done by the Holy Spirit, but their faith was sterile, “dead”, like that of the demons.
More in another comment!
What I meant to make clear,
... is that God’s way of
salvation is one that
human reason could
never deduce, because it
is so far beyond our way of thinking.
Amen to that.
Maybe I should not have
used the word “irrational.”
I meant it in its literal
sense – contrary to human
reason.
How about supra-rational?
Our Lord Himself made the
comparison when He spoke
with Nicodemus.
Okay, I worded that badly. There are comparisons. Yet it is a mistake to perceive spiritual reality in physical terms. That’s what Nicodemus was doing when he asked how a person could re-enter his mother’s womb. Jesus is trying to show him that spiritual birth is of a different order. Not the same.
Our argument about
“accepting” the faith
dealt with one who has
not been reborn of
“water and of the
Spirit.” ... when [babies]
grow up, they can
only reject it, because
you cannot accept what
you already have.
George, this is the very first time anybody has explained this to me in a way that actually makes sense. Not that I can fully agree, but at least I now think I can understand what you’re talking about. You can’t “accept” what you already have. Duh. Right.
A lot of the question here has to do with whether we are discussing babies or adults. In the case of a baby, as I think we agree, he is going to have to come to terms later with what he has been given, either embracing it (if you don’t like the word “accepting,”) or rejecting it, or doing nothing, which is tantamount to rejecting. In the case of an adult, he is going to have to have faith enough to approach Holy Baptism even before he is regenerated in its waters. You don’t baptize an adult without his consent.
Abraham was never baptized, hence, never regenerated. There was no new birth in the Old Testament; that only came with Christ. Yet Abraham is the model of faith.
But the person who has
fewer gifts of the Spirit
is still as much a child
of God as the one who
has an abundance, and
therefore has saving
faith even while the
faith grows in strength.
Alleluia! We only need faith the size of a mustard seed, provided we make the most of whatever faith we have.
From Anastasia: I think this position does not take the whole of Scripture into account. Specifically, St. Paul says in Romans 1 that unbelievers, Gentiles, do the “things of God” – and do them “by nature,” too. He also tells the Corinthian Christians they are still carnal, *sarkikos*, a synonym for *psychikos*.
From George: But St. Paul makes it abundantly clear that this “doing of the things of God” is of no value with regard to their salvation. His argument is that whatever this “natural” law is that is written in people, it is entirely different from the Law that has been revealed to the Jews. “Sarks” and “psyche” are synonyms? Did you mean “antonyms”? Regardless, all Christians, Orthodox, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic, believe that becoming a child of God and a citizen of His Kingdom, does not make them perfect in this life. Lutherans have coined the phrase “justus et peccator,” (sorry, Latin was more prevalent in the West, leading, incidentally, by itself to a host of problems with the East) to describe this condition. In other words, “perfect” as far as the Kingdom is concerned, because nothing impure can enter it, but sinful inasmuch as we still live in this world.
From Anastasia: Not quite. Faith is the motivation but not the cause of action; it’s what renders an action just instead of sinful – any action, even eating and breathing. You do these (however imperfectly) either for and in communion with God or for your isolated, cut-off self.
From George: I will not quibble about cause or motivation. As to the rest of it, you are beginning to sound just like a Lutheran.
From Anastasia: In the case of an adult, he is going to have to have faith enough to approach Holy Baptism even before he is regenerated in its waters. You don’t baptize an adult without his consent.
From George: How people come to faith is still a mystery. Just like the matter of the moment of consecration, when the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of our Lord, we might not want to spend too much time trying to define it. In Acts 2 we hear Peter say, “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.” But then, in Acts 10, a strange thing happens, “44 While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.” As to baptizing an adult without his consent, unfortunately those who have been inspired by the devil to believe that they should make disciples with the sword, have brought much harm to the church by doing precisely that.
Continued in the next posting.
From Anastasia: Abraham was never baptized, hence, never regenerated. There was no new birth in the Old Testament; that only came with Christ. Yet Abraham is the model of faith.
From George: “Regenerated” simply means that he became a child of God, which he obviously did. God “reckoned” him his faith as righteousness as, St. Paul says, he does to us. Salvation is from God, and He is able to provide it in any way He chooses, inasmuch as He is the author. Baptism is His gift to us, but, as He showed us in the thief on the cross, He can regenerate simply by His will, even to make sons of Abraham out of stones, if He wants to. With regard to Baptism and the Holy Spirit, indeed something new happens after the Resurrection of our Lord. He spoke of it in John 7:37-39, “On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’” He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” Obviously the Spirit “was”, because He is a Person of the most blessed Trinity. But He had not come to all believers as He did at Pentecost and after that.
Finally, Anastasia, it is clear to me that whatever we may disagree on, it is not anything that is fundamental to the faith, or will cause us to be on the wrong side when the goats are separated from the sheep. In that I find much joy.
Peace and Joy!
George A. Marquart
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