If you are not member of the original Church or Group that Jesus Christ had built on 33 AD, are you not saved?

MrIntelligentDesign

Active member
If you are not member of the original Church or Group, "the Church", that Jesus Christ had built on 33 AD, are you not saved, or still saved?
 
Typically one would think that if you found the apostles' institutional, orthodox Church and you believed in the apostles' Christianity, you would want to join it if you had the opportunity.

Augustine commented that there were many sheep outside of the Church. There is no dogmatic rule in Catholicism or Orthodoxy that membership in the Church is mandatory absolutely for everyone under all conditions for salvation, since judgment is God's.

You are raising the issue of apostolic succession as it relates to salvation. As I understand it, for Luther, apostolic succession was like window dressing, and it did not matter much whether a Church like the Lutherans had it or not. Most Protestants like Calvin share that view.
 
Augustine commented that there were many sheep outside of the Church.

There is no dogmatic rule in Catholicism or Orthodoxy that membership in the Church is mandatory absolutely for salvation, since judgment is God's.

Typically one would think that if you found the apostles' institutional, orthodox Church and you believed in the apostles' Christianity, you would want to join it if you had the opportunity.
You never get the message and system of the Bible, to counter stupidity and counterfeits in religions, like Christianity.

God required two system to work at once: One system: God the God head as in Heaven, Second System: the Church as the Body as seen on Earth. These two requires for the salvation of any person. If one of the system is wrong, then salvation is wrong. Did you get?
 
You never get the message and system of the Bible, to counter stupidity and counterfeits in religions, like Christianity.

God required two system to work at once: One system: God the God head as in Heaven, Second System: the Church as the Body as seen on Earth. These two requires for the salvation of any person. If one of the system is wrong, then salvation is wrong. Did you get?
There are hints in the Bible along the idea of apostolic succession, like the OT Remnant system. The idea would be that there would always be an ongoing remnant of people who had right faith. The Israelite rulers persecuted the prophets, for instance, but there were still people loyal to those prophets.

For Luther, the concept of Apostolic succession does not seem very important. He and other founding Protestants did not try to trace a line of Christians who carried on the specifically Protestant faith through 14 centuries of institutional Christianity. Luther was an Augustinian by training, and his idea was that he was sharing Augustine's ideas, but I don't think that he showed that Augustine agreed with Luther against the Roman Catholic role of Popes and bishops. Maybe Luther's idea was that the Pope was bad, but that his fight with Rome wasn't so sharp that he rejected the Catholic community. That is, Luther didn't feel a need to look for a nonCatholic "Remnant" because he may have thought that however bad the Pope was, it didn't represent an apostasy out of communion with the faithful Christian community. For instance, Luther once said that he would rather drink Eucharist "blood with the Pope" than drink symbol-only juice with the more "radical Reformers."
 
There are hints in the Bible along the idea of apostolic succession, like the OT Remnant system. The idea would be that there would always be an ongoing remnant of people who had right faith. The Israelite rulers persecuted the prophets, for instance, but there were still people loyal to those prophets.

For Luther, the concept of Apostolic succession does not seem very important. He and other founding Protestants did not try to trace a line of Christians who carried on the specifically Protestant faith through 14 centuries of institutional Christianity. Luther was an Augustinian by training, and his idea was that he was sharing Augustine's ideas, but I don't think that he showed that Augustine agreed with Luther against the Roman Catholic role of Popes and bishops. Maybe Luther's idea was that the Pope was bad, but that his fight with Rome wasn't so sharp that he rejected the Catholic community. That is, Luther didn't feel a need to look for a nonCatholic "Remnant" because he may have thought that however bad the Pope was, it didn't represent an apostasy out of communion with the faithful Christian community. For instance, Luther once said that he would rather drink Eucharist "blood with the Pope" than drink symbol-only juice with the more "radical Reformers."
I do not care about Luther or Pope, they are the same humans like me. What I care is the two systems in the Bible that are needed for salvation. If one of the system is wrong, the person will probably go to Hell..
 
Eph 2:8.9
That verse doesn't get into the issue of whether Church membership is necessary, just the issues of faith vs. works. For Luther by comparison, baptism counted as a "work", but it was still necessary.

Luke 9 seems to go in favor of the idea that acting in a Christian way without accompanying the apostles is not something that the apostles should actively stop:
49. “Master,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in Your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not accompany us.”
50. “Do not stop him,” Jesus replied, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”

However, it doesn't deal with the issue of how necessary it would be for someone to join the Church. For instance, in the Book of Acts, the apostles appointed "overseers" over the Church, but Acts doesn't get into the degree of necessity for people to be in membership under the apostles. One would normally expect that if a person wants to follow the Apostles, then one would consequently want to join the apostles.' organization. Then, if some exception arose, like the person lived too far away to attend Church, the person couldn't be faulted for this. For instance, if you live in Indonesia and there is no apsotolic-rooted parish near you, it's hard to fault you for failing to join it.
 
Orthodox Wikipedia says:
Apostolic succession is the tracing of a direct line of apostolic ordination, Orthodox doctrine, and full communion from the Apostles to the current episcopacy of the Orthodox Church. All three elements are constitutive of apostolic succession. It is through apostolic succession that the Orthodox Christian Church is the spiritual successor to the original body of believers in Christ that was composed of the Apostles. This succession manifests itself through the unbroken succession of its bishops back to the apostles.

The unbrokenness of apostolic succession is significant because of Jesus Christ's promise that the "gates of hell" (Matthew 16:18) would not prevail against the Church, and his promise that he himself would be with the apostles to "the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). According to this interpretation, a complete disruption or end of such apostolic succession would mean that these promises were not kept as would an apostolic succession which, while formally intact, completely abandoned the teachings of the Apostles and their immediate successors; as, for example, if all the bishops of the world agreed to abrogate the Nicene Creed or repudiate the Holy Scripture.

Scriptural References to Apostolic Authority

  • We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. Acts 15:24
  • As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. Acts 16:4
  • Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. Acts 20:28 (Note: this is a clear testimony that the Holy Spirit appointed the Twelve to be "overseers" and "shepherds of the church")
  • As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. John 17:18 (Note: the Bible compares the ministry of Jesus to that of the Twelve)
 
The Orthodox Church however doesn't have a strict teaching that membership in the Church is an absolute requirement for salvation that applies to every person.
 
Eph 2:8.9
Correct, faith to God and His original "Church", built on 33 AD. A person prays to God/Jesus Christ as Head of the Church in Heaven, and the Church, as Body of Christ, hears or locks up (as witnesses) her/his admission of faith on Earth, thus, two system works side by side for the salvation of humans. Both Heaven and Earth do its job side by side, to avoid counterfeits, cults, stupids, and independent churches or self-proclaimed leaders of another church..
 
However it DOES indicate what IS necessary. The peripherals can take care of themselves later.
Eph 2:8-9 doesn't specify that only faith is necessary and that performing works is unnecessary.

Eph 2 says that "it [grace? salvation?] is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast."
Just because grace is not of works does not show that works are "unnecessary." Paul does not specify, "Jesus said to baptize all nations, but you don't need to perform what Jesus said to perform."

Personally I find the Protestant "Faith Alone" term and its explanation confusing, as Protestants who actually consider works necessary. Saying "Faith Alone" is necessary can cause one to think that it means that if one accepts the right "faith," or belief in certain teachings, that one is saved absolutely regardless of whatever "works" one performs or doesn't perform.

However, the unnecessity of works is not what classical Protestantism actually teaches. For Luther, salvation was Sola Gratia and Sola Fide (salvation by grace alone through faith alone), but he still considered it "necessary" to perform what he considered "works," like baptism.
 
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Correct, faith to God and His original "Church", built on 33 AD. A person prays to God/Jesus Christ as Head of the Church in Heaven, and the Church, as Body of Christ, hears or locks up (as witnesses) her/his admission of faith on Earth, thus, two system works side by side for the salvation of humans. Both Heaven and Earth do its job side by side, to avoid counterfeits, cults, stupids, and independent churches or self-proclaimed leaders of another church..
My criticism of your question is that it seems to imply that Church membership is strictly and unconditionally one of the requirements for an individual's salvation. ie. if a person does not belong to the Church as a visible institution, then they absolutely cannot be saved until they join it. The Bible doesn't get that specific, as far as I know.

Maybe something can have degrees of importance in determining how a person is judged.
 
Eph 2:8-9 doesn't specify that only faith is necessary and that performing works is unnecessary.

Eph 2 says that "it [grace? salvation?] is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast."
Just because grace is not of works does not show that works are "unnecessary." Paul does not specify, "Jesus said to baptize all nations, but you don't need to perform what Jesus said to perform."

Personally I find the Protestant "Faith Alone" term and its explanation confusing, as Protestants who actually consider works necessary. Saying "Faith Alone" is necessary can cause one to think that it means that if one accepts the right "faith," or belief in certain teachings, that one is saved absolutely regardless of whatever "works" one performs or doesn't perform.

However, the unnecessity of works is not what classical Protestantism actually teaches. For Luther, salvation was Sola Gratia and Sola Fide (salvation by grace alone through faith alone), but he still considered it "necessary" to perform what he considered "works," like baptism.
The best way for you to understand the system that God had done was about Apostle Paul. He talked to God Jesus directly on Damascus, but God had directed Him to His original Group: the Church. He did not say to Paul, that from you, I am making a new group, no.

Thus, one is in Heaven and the other is on Earth in the process and system of salvation, to avoid counterfeits, wrong groups, invented groups, independent group, cults, self-proclaimed leader and pastors, and self-proclaimed stupids who called themselves the church.

The question is: where is now the ORIGINAL Group, "The Church", that Jesus Christ had built on 33 AD? We need to be members of that GROUP or go to Hell, probably.
 
The question is: where is now the ORIGINAL Group, "The Church", that Jesus Christ had built on 33 AD?
Have you heard of the Eastern Orthodox Church?

We need to be members of that GROUP or go to Hell, probably.
Hopefully the Last Judgment will not make that an absolute requirement for every person. The Bible doesn't seem to get into that kind of specific, and my sense is that the Bible is not absolutist on the topic. It encourages joining the Church, but doesn't seem to make institutional membership a stark salvation criterion. It doesn't specifically say, "Everyone who doesn't get baptised goes to H___" or something like that..
 
If you are not member of the original Church or Group, "the Church", that Jesus Christ had built on 33 AD, are you not saved, or still saved?

If you are not member of the original Church or Group that Jesus Christ​

had built on 33 AD, are you not saved?​


We are the original church.

Like our human body cells are replaced by new cells after the older ones die off?

The first church is the same body of Christ, only with replaced cells today.

In that way we are all of one and of the same body.

grace and peace....
 

If you are not member of the original Church or Group that Jesus Christ​

had built on 33 AD, are you not saved?​


We are the original church.

Like our human body cells are replaced by new cells after the older ones die off?

The first church is the same body of Christ, only with replaced cells today.

In that way we are all of one and of the same body.

grace and peace....
Jesus' church teaches
Matthew 24:13
But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Not OSAS
 
The question is: where is now the ORIGINAL Group, "The Church", that Jesus Christ had built on 33 AD?
There was nothing built on 33AD. Your understanding is wrong. A congregation started growing at that time...
We need to be members of that GROUP or go to Hell, probably.
We need to be members of Christ. They were members of Christ. There were many groups but they all followed the same teaching.
1 Corinthians 1:10
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Philippians 3:16
Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
 
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