Does Election necessarily mean Rejection?

[Allinall]

Now think about this for a minute.
Did Jesus pay for your sins?
The payment required is to spend an eternity in Hell for every sin committed.
Jesus had to do literally that. Hell will not come into existence until God creates the new heaven and new earth. But He had to suffer the equivalency of an eternity in Hell for all my sins.
So how did Jesus pay for our sins? It began in the garden of Gethsemane.

Payment for sin is not an eternity in Hell.  That is the cost of dying in your sin and effectively rejecting Christ.  The penalty for sin is death.   Death is separation, both physically and spiritually.  Jesus experienced both on the cross.  

People view it as meaning He paid for everyone’s sin. That is not possible. The payment only needs to be made once. That is why Jesus could not have paid for the sins of every single person on earth. If Jesus paid the penalty then it wouldn’t be paid again. Even Hindus, Muslims, Satanists, or atheists would never have to go to hell because Jesus can’t take the suffering back.
He paid for the sins of all that God gave him.

God, fortunately, did not quantify the amount of the payment for sin.  Rather, He qualified it.  Only the shedding of preordained innocent blood would suffice.  Such blood would come only from His Son.

You're reasoning, which is good.  However, your reasoning isn't.  

[Petro]

Backtracking a bit here, so excuse me, but something very interesting dawned on me not long ago.  The bible does say that God chose me to salvation.  This is very explicit.  The words used are dependent upon a knowledge planned - a knowledge of what He would do, not what I would choose.

Allinall,



Precisely, and Eph 1:4-5, make this point clearly.

Then you said;

As God has sovereignly selected those who are saved by His choice, so He has sovereignly expected those whom He has called to come to Him in obedience.  The work is His.  The obedience is ours.  As I have said, I was chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, and I made a choice that had eternal consequence.

This is good, I agree with everything you have said, but please don't disappoint me, by your answer to the question I now ask:

What was the choice you made??

And, Please don't tell me it was to; believe............

Eph 1:13.......

Blessings,

Petro

[Royo]

I think we all agree that salvation is a free gift from God, and cannot be earned. But the one to whom the gift is being offered may choose to accept that gift, or reject it.
Jesus died upon the cross to provide this free gift of salvation. As is represented by the 2 thieves on the cross, some will reject the gift, while others will choose to receive it.
God, in His foreknowledge of what choice each of us would make, then does a work to call each of us whom He foreknew would choose to receive the gift of salvation, and gives us a measure of faith to be able to believe the truth of the gospel.
Once we see the truth, and believe Jesus died for our sins, we then choose to ask Him to be our Lord and Savior. And thus we are born again.
There are many scriptures, (many already quoted), that expand on this truth, but none will take away from this simple basic truth.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not parish but have everlasting life." [John 3.16].
"Whoever believes". Those 2 words say, without a doubt, that the choice is ours to make. Knowing the ones who will choose to "believe", He then does a work in us. He first makes us aware of our need for Him; and then sees to it that we hear the truth of the gospel; and then gives us a measure of faith to be able to believe the gospel.
So, yes, many are right when they say He does the work; but it is we who must CHOOSE to believe. And it is because He already KNEW that we WOULD choose, that He does the work in us.
It would seem to me that God's way is not complicated; it is we who sometimes make it complicated. But that too is something we CHOOSE to do. Life is full of choices for man to make, everyday. Praise God He made the CHOICE of salvation a straitforward simple thing to choose about. "Whoever believes." Much else about scripture may seem at times complicated, but John 3.16 is pretty straitforward.
As to why man may choose not to believe, now there is a topic that would generate lots of discussion.
God bless you all.  Roy.

[Allinall]

What was the choice you made??

I truly believe that it was the one choice God demands of us in every command - to obey.  

[aw]

Hey guys,

Have we not entered into the realm of paradox?

aw

[Petro]

What was the choice you made??

I truly believe that it was the one choice God demands of us in every command - to obey.  

Allinall,

Amen, again, I am not disappointed...........Praise the Lord.

The choice can never be "to believe", it can only be to obey the command, because of trusting; in fact it is trusting the Words of Jesus, who spoke the Words of God  the Father.

Foreknowledge is Gods business, Notice, what the Word says in the greek;

Eph 1
11  in Him, in whom also we have an obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to [the] purpose of Him who all things works according to the counsel of His will,  12  for to be us to [the] praise of his glory; who have fore-trusted in the Christ:  13  in whom also ye, having heard   the word  of the truth, the glad tidings, of your salvation- in whom also, having beleived, ye were sealed with Spirit of promise the Holy  14  who is [the] earnest of our our inheritance, to [the] redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory.

I have emboldened, key words in this passage of scripture, that others may consider them..

aw,

Nothing is a paradox in as much as the things which are freely given to us from above, we need to embrace the truth, and believe the word, it is only when we believe people who do not have the truth, that doubts arise and soon we come to this conclusion, that the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom are out of our reach, Jesus said;  Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables;

A good example of this, is the discussion we have been having in the post "Jonah"in the apologetics forum; the sign given by Jesus to an unbelieving evil and adulterous generation, was that of the prophet Jonah's being in the belly of the great fish, three days and three nights being as His own three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, unbelievers conclude and use this passage to argue, Jesus never died, since according to them Jonah did not die himself, as you see,  believers agree with unbelievers, and their ability to see this great truth is clouded by unbelief, inthat Jonah, died and arose from the "pit" to go on to preach the Words of God at Nineveh.

And to their own consternation, proudly proclaim Jonah was a true Christ type, yet when one looks closely at this mans life, it is a wonder that anyone would make such claims about him, since almost everthing that can be said about Jonah is un-christ type.

Here is the same passage of Ephesians in the KJV;

11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
12  That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
13  In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
14  Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Please note in the verses above I have given, that give an order to salvation.

If ever there is a formula, this is it, according to the good Word of God.

No one receives anything from above, unless it is given to them, God has ordained that by the foolishness of preaching men will be saved, and so here in Ephesians, men must first heard the preaching of the gosple of grace, those who come to a perfect understanding of it do so,(because God has given hearing and undertsanding), after considering all their options, they place their trust (at this point it can hardly be said yet they  have  believed to the saving of the soul in the Words of Christ.

Thereby believing God, they are not saved yet, but it is a step in the right direction, in that trusting,  because the word says they, fore-trusted in Christ, there is a willingness to  obey that commandment to repent given to all men everywhere, and God the Holy Spirit who knows the heart of men, and is leading them to draw that confession out of their lips, (when it comes) gives them the faith to believe in the blood of Christ shed for them at the cross.  

The result is the baptism in the Holy Spirit, or the sealing of the Holy Spirit, which ever you prefer.

Either way it is actually the indwelling of the Spirit of God, given as a possession until the redemption of the purchased possession.

This is why;

Belief can never be the result of salvation.

It is the cause of Salvation.

That we might be to the praise of His Glory.

Allinall,


The natural man, has no faith to believe, but even in his state of death he can trust, when and if God gives hearing to hear and understanding to understand the things of God, this is done well in advance of man coming to a state of trust.

And trusting will produce obedience. This is true.

You may a calvinist, but just don't know it, after all..

God Bless,

Your Brother in Christ,

Petro

[Petro]

I think we all agree that salvation is a free gift from God, and cannot be earned. But the one to whom the gift is being offered may choose to accept that gift, or reject it.
Jesus died upon the cross to provide this free gift of salvation. As is represented by the 2 thieves on the cross, some will reject the gift, while others will choose to receive it.
God, in His foreknowledge of what choice each of us would make, then does a work to call each of us whom He foreknew would choose to receive the gift of salvation, and gives us a measure of faith to be able to believe the truth of the gospel.
Once we see the truth, and believe Jesus died for our sins, we then choose to ask Him to be our Lord and Savior. And thus we are born again.
There are many scriptures, (many already quoted), that expand on this truth, but none will take away from this simple basic truth.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not parish but have everlasting life." [John 3.16].
"Whoever believes". Those 2 words say, without a doubt, that the choice is ours to make. Knowing the ones who will choose to "believe", He then does a work in us. He first makes us aware of our need for Him; and then sees to it that we hear the truth of the gospel; and then gives us a measure of faith to be able to believe the gospel.
So, yes, many are right when they say He does the work; but it is we who must CHOOSE to believe. And it is because He already KNEW that we WOULD choose, that He does the work in us.
It would seem to me that God's way is not complicated; it is we who sometimes make it complicated. But that too is something we CHOOSE to do. Life is full of choices for man to make, everyday. Praise God He made the CHOICE of salvation a straitforward simple thing to choose about. "Whoever believes." Much else about scripture may seem at times complicated, but John 3.16 is pretty straitforward.
As to why man may choose not to believe, now there is a topic that would generate lots of discussion.
God bless you all.  Roy.

Roy,

Allow me to excersize your thought processes.

Choose to trust or obey is not the same thing as choose to believe.

And ,neither of these trust, obey, believe can be produced by the natural man.

Consider these verses;

Eph 1
3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4  According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5  Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
8  Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
9  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
10  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Note verse 4; He chose us that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

Again at verse 5; Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself,

With these promises, comes the enabling to accomplish these things, in sinners, they must hear, understand, and believe, and all of the above are a gift of God, according to the good pleasure of his will.

How about;

Rom 10
4  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
9  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11  For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
13  For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14  How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15  And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
16  But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
17  So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Rom 8
24  For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
25  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30  Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Man is unable to do anything, unless first the God draw him, and only by Gods mercy, love and grace can man hear His voice and respond in a way pleasing to Him.

He saves unbelievers and equips them with everything necessary by faith and believe, what they never could.

Blessings,   Petro

[Royo]

Petro, my brother.
Per your reply #51.
I saw nothing I disagree with. It would seem that it says what I also had said.
God gives us the faith to BELIEVE; once we are born again, He gives us the power to OBEY what He commands all Christians to do to live for Him and please Him. And we are able to TRUST Him because His Holy Spirit lives in us. In all these, it is, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit." [Zech. 4.6].
Love in Christ. Roy.

[Petro]

Petro, my brother.
Per your reply #51.
I saw nothing I disagree with. It would seem that it says what I also had said.
God gives us the faith to BELIEVE; once we are born again, He gives us the power to OBEY what He commands all Christians to do to live for Him and please Him. And we are able to TRUST Him because His Holy Spirit lives in us. In all these, it is, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit." [Zech. 4.6].
Love in Christ. Roy.

Royo,

Amen, It is good to agree......................Praise God.

1 Cor 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.


God Bless,

Petro

[Left Coast]

Petro

Nothing you say, beyond this point, matters, since anything you say from here on, is clouded by your erroneous conclusion, that "Believing is the result of salvation", since it based on
"an intellectual understanding of what you think the gosple teaches."

First of all you misquoted me.
What I said is, “Believing isn’t just having an intellectual understanding of Jesus, it means we have total and complete faith in Him and in His work of salvation.”
All sorts of people know that salvation is only through Jesus. That is an intellectual understanding. No one wants to go to hell. So people want to “join up”. They want to be part of the group that goes to heaven. They may begin to attend a church because they know that is what you do. But their hearts were never changed. I never meant it as an insult to you. What do you think though? Is everyone who claims Christ going to spend eternity with him? I actually thought this was something you would agree with me on.
Now to say nothing I say matters because of one Greek word is an interesting stand to make.
Those four words that you consider so important, after that ye believed, come from one Greek word, pisteuo. It appears 248 times in the bible but only once with those four words.
I have never spent a lot of time on this particular verse so I am not going to claim a perfect understanding.
Usually it is translated believe, believed and believing are also common.
Young’s literal translation does it this way:

Ephesians 1:13  in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth—the good news of your salvation—in whom also having believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise,

Now how do we hear?
Isn’t it because God has opened our understanding. God has to give us the ears to hear.

Matthew 16:16  And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Matthew 16:17  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Luke 24:45  Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

Matthew 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Matthew 13:12  For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Matthew 13:13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
Matthew 13:14  And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
Matthew 13:15  For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them

Deuteronomy 29:4  Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
Proverbs 20:12 ¶ The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them.

Acts 16:14  And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
Acts 26:18  To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

I do not think we can believe until after God has begun His work in us. As soon as He starts His work we are saved. He never fails.

Romans 9:19  Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

The result of that work is faith, believing, repentance, etc. When the change is made we are sealed.
Is this at all helpful Petro?
I would be shocked to find someone accepting this the first few times they hear it.
It took me 2-3 years before I really accepted what I heard, pride was my enemy. But now we are close to the end of time and I think God is speeding things up a bit.
Now you told me I needed to deal with that one verse and I don’t know if I have done a very good job. I can only pray that God has used me.
I did not and would not tell you “nothing you say matters unless you deal with this verse“, I’m not that closed minded.
You do need to deal with some verses though:
The bible says it is Gods commandment that we believe. 1 John 3:23. Is our salvation dependent on keeping Gods commandments?
In addition the bible says it is Gods work that we believe. John 6:29. How can believing be our responsibility?
A two day old baby can’t believe, and yet the bible says we sin as soon as we come out of the womb. Psalms 58:3.
God does judge babies. Deuteronomy 32:25. So babies need a savior also.
It also is clear to me John the Baptist was saved while in the womb. Nobody has come up with any other satisfactory answer for his leaping in the womb. Do you have one? How could an unborn child believe.
In addition to JTB we have Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 1:5  Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

God did his work while he was in the womb. How could that be because of his believing?
You presented a very good question, and I do need to spend more time researching the verse. I feel that I have presented a reasonable solution to your question. I pray for you, that you might be able to understand what I am saying. I don’t think it is a failing on your part I know that I can sometimes be a little confusing.
Is what I am saying new to you? When it was new to me it was hard to get all of my preconceived beliefs out of the way.
I know you pray and I know you study may God always give you wisdom.  

[Royo]

I do not think we can believe until after God has begun His work in us. As soon as He starts His work we are saved. He never fails.
Quote from Left Coast:
___________________________________________________

You are correct that we cannot believe until God starts His work in us, which begins by revealing to us our need for salvation. But we are not saved until we are born again, which is when the Holy Spirit of God comes to live in our spirit.
Which takes place the moment we ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior.
Love in Christ our Lord. Roy.

[Petro]

Allinall,

You said;

posted by allinall as reply #34
Backtracking a bit here, so excuse me, but something very interesting dawned on me not long ago.  The bible does say that God chose me to salvation.  This is very explicit.

Actually the Apostle tells us at;

2 Th2
13  But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

I suppose in order to understand this verse, one must ask himself; from the begining , of what??

I can't think of any other answer which would clear this question up perfectly than (Eph 1:4), "The Father has chosen us in Him from before the foundation of the world."


Blessings,

Petro

[Heidi]

Royo,
I agree that we are born again when the holy Spirit comes to reside in us. But I don't NECESSARILY  believe that happens when we ask Him into our lives. i asked Him into my life 5 years before i believed or knew that He was real. Only when I had come to the end of myself and knew that i had no more answers did i receive the Holy Spirit. God is the only one who knows our hearts, regardless of what words come out of our mouths. The apostle Paul, of course didn't ask for the Holy Spirit and neither did the disciples. They were CHOSEN.

[Left Coast]

Royo
I agree with you salvation begins when we are born again, and an excellent way of describing that is, He lives within us.
But we cannot do anything to get ourselves born.
There is absolutely nothing that I did to bring my parents together. Once they were together there was nothing I could do to stop the process. I couldn’t reject my birth. God chose the term ‘Born Again’ very carefully. Like our first birth there is nothing we can contribute to our second birth. It isn’t because we are obedient, it isn’t because of our freewill choice, nothing we can do adds to our birth.
By being reborn what do we become?
I think we become an entirely different creature.

2 Corinthians 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

There are other ways God words this important change in our life. And in all cases He makes it clear to me that He does the work.

Deuteronomy 10:16  Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

Can we perform open heart surgery on our selves? God will do it.

Deuteronomy 30:6  And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

Our heart is totally wicked there is nothing good in us, we have a heart of stone.

Jeremiah 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

God gives us a new heart, thus we are born a new creature.

Ezekiel 11:19  And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
Ezekiel 11:20  That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
Hebrews 10:16  This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
Hebrews 10:17  And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

The seventh day Sabbath was a day of total rest. The people could do absolutely nothing on that day. There was the story of the Sabbath breaker who picked up a few sticks. Gods command was to stone him to death.

Numbers 15:36  And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.

When Jesus came the seventh day Sabbath was no longer the Sabbath day. If you have a Greek interlinear you can check this out. In all four gospels almost every bible mistranslates this. Young’s Literal Translation does get it right:

Matthew 28:1 ¶ And on the eve of the sabbaths, at the dawn, toward the first of the sabbaths, came Mary the Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre,

Notice sabbaths is plural. Literally the it was the end of the seventh day Sabbath because it pointed to the way (Jesus) to salvation. The new Sabbath was the next day the day God began His work. The first day Sabbath should be a day of spiritual work.
Don’t we just “receive” Him?

John 1:12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Nope that comes from God too.

John 3:27  John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.
 
There are those that say you must believe in the heart and confess with the mouth. But again that is all from God for the heart to be true.

Romans 10:9  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Proverbs 16:1  The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

It is all in the heart.
There is another idea I am not ready to support yet. Not because I think they are wrong, but I haven’t studied it that much. There are some that teach being born again means that God has given us a resurrected spiritual body.
We have a physical body and we have a spiritual body. When the Lord returns our physical body is resurrected. But when we become saved our spiritual body is resurrected. That is why when the believer dies he goes to be with Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:8  We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Revelation 20:4  And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Revelation 20:5  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Revelation 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

The 1,000 years is not a literal 1,000 years. It is just a term to signify the fulness of Gods time. There is a key to understanding this.

2 Peter 3:8  But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

 
The first resurrection is the resurrection of our spiritual bodies. I am not 100% on this it is new to me.

[Royo]

Left Coast, you seem intent on believing that we do not have to make a CHOICE to BELIEVE to be born again.
If that is the way you see it, so be it. As for what the Greek or some other translation, etc. says, I do not know. I am not a greek scholar, or otherwise. I just read the Word of God and let the Holy Spirit reveal it's truth to me. This is how He showed me to do it many years ago, and it works for me.
Smith Wigglesworth, one of the greatest men of God to live said that he did not even learn to read until his wife taught him, and that then he never read anything but the Word of God.  Not to say that we shouldn't read the works that God has inspired man to write, but just to show that the revelation by the Holy Spirit is sufficient. After all, it was all most early Christians had.
What IS important is that you ARE born again, and a child of God.
Bless you friend as you continue to seek His truth. Roy.