It's all about love, man (makes hippy peace sign). Once again, my response typifies any church whose traditions focus on piety. Ultimate, every Christian believes that salvation depends on Jesus Christ. That is true across the board, including me. The issue is not who serves as the ultimate source of salvation; but rather, how He conveys that salvation and how we partake of it. It's a long subject so I'm just going to throw stuff out there in no particular order. Salvation is not a get-out-of-hell-free card. Salvation is the on-going process of conforming yourself to the image of Christ. Salvation comes to us when we love both the Lord and our neighbor (as ourselves) and when we avoid evils because they are sins.
Because the Lord is Divine Good and Divine Truth, loving the Lord means loving what is intrinsicly good and desiring truth for its own sake. This opens up the possibility of 'Christ Incognito'. The idea is that if you love what is good and desire what is true, then you are indeed loving the Lord regardless of what name you attach to those attributes.
Loving your neighbor is about just that. In the course of life you are to interact with others from a spirit of charity. Relationships based merely on mutual benefit, bereft of goodwill, do not exemplify true love. Thus the negative golden rule is not truly loving. It is just another way of saying tit-for-tat. Likewise, many people refrain from doing evil simply because of civil penalty, the loss of reputation, or even just to think highly of themselves. Their behavior is actually self-serving and self-aggrandizement. Your salvation hinges on driving evil motives from your heart. To do this you must recognize that some things are contrary to divine order and avoid them because of that.
Because the Lord is Divine Good and Divine Truth, loving the Lord means loving what is intrinsicly good and desiring truth for its own sake. This opens up the possibility of 'Christ Incognito'. The idea is that if you love what is good and desire what is true, then you are indeed loving the Lord regardless of what name you attach to those attributes.
Loving your neighbor is about just that. In the course of life you are to interact with others from a spirit of charity. Relationships based merely on mutual benefit, bereft of goodwill, do not exemplify true love. Thus the negative golden rule is not truly loving. It is just another way of saying tit-for-tat. Likewise, many people refrain from doing evil simply because of civil penalty, the loss of reputation, or even just to think highly of themselves. Their behavior is actually self-serving and self-aggrandizement. Your salvation hinges on driving evil motives from your heart. To do this you must recognize that some things are contrary to divine order and avoid them because of that.
