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Holier Than Thou!

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Holier Than Thou! Introduction Part 3 in this series on "Faith Alone" finishes by examining another often twisted phrase from the book of Isaiah, namely the concept of the infamous "Holier Than Thou." Surely, opponents to the notion of a pure works-based Gospel will call people such as myself, "Holier Than Thou!" They'll say, "You just think you're better than me! You're a 'Holiler Than Thou'!" But this is completely divorced from context and is fallacious. We have learned that the notion of "Faith Alone" is impossible in view of the Greek meaning of pisteuo eis used in the Gospels; we began to look at two bed-rock concepts that underlie the "Faith Alone" conclusion, starting with Isaiah 64:6. Part 3 will continue that examination by looking at the second concept, that of the "Holier Than Thou." As has been mentioned before, these two verses in Isaiah are probably two of the most often-cited, ...
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Righteousness As Filthy Rags?

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Righteousness As Filthy Rags? Introduction This is "Part 2 " of a three- part study into Christian misconceptions on the law, righteousness, and salvation . Part 1 disproved "Faith Alone." We did this by looking at the Greek for "believe in" and discovered that when used in relation to people, then the meaning is "obey unto." We therefore learned that John 3:16 and other verses where "believe in" or "believe on" is used can be understood to mean the following: "That whoseover obeys unto/ commits to/ is faithful to him shall not perish but have age-during life." The Young's Literal Translation puts John 3:16 this way: " for God did so love the world, that His Son -- the only begotten -- He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during. " The proper understanding is that the "faith" is ongoing. The Greek revealed to us in Part 1 demo...
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The Angel of His Presence

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The Angel of His Presence In Christendom, there's a belief that Jesus Christ is "The Angel of the LORD" mentioned throughout the Old Testament. This is one of many feeble attempts to prove that Jesus had a literal pre-earth existence (as either a person of the Trinity, or as God [Modalist], or even-- literally --an angelic being, such as Michael the Archangel as the Jehovah's Witnesses teach). Despite their obvious disagreements, each of these groups would agree that the references to "Angel of the LORD" are references to the "per-incarnate" Jesus. But are they? That's the first question we can ask. Another question we can ask is whether or not being "the" or "an" Angel of the LORD necessarily proves that that person is God Almighty Himself. The simple answer is, "No, it doesn't." Jesus is an Angel of the LORD--I would clarify: the premier Angel --, but this isn't to say that he is God. Ang...
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