My personal conviction as a christian is this, the Bible is the
written word of God, and is good for teaching and correcting.
Anyone who claims to speak the word of God, be it sourced from own
experience or spirit or ghost or extraterrestrial or whatever they
call it, but offer a different interpretation with what the Bible
says, is not from God.
Pls note that the verses quoted below are verses that are being
taken from all over the Bible piecemail together, what is needed is
to go to each and everyone of them and read them in their own
context, which are really all talking about different things.
....From there, the mystic heart is seen in the letters of the
apostles: Paul reached the divinized state of losing his "self": I
no longer live, but Christ lives in me! (Gal. 2.20) James wrote
that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of Lights,
in whom there is no variation nor shadow of turning. (Jas. 1.17)
Peter proclaimed that Christ even descended to hell to liberate
imprisoned souls, (1 Pet. 3.19) and John understood the most
sublime truth of God's essence: God is Love! (1 Jn. 4.8,16). This
is only the beginning. Every century has been influenced by
Christian mysticsfrom apostles and martyrs, Church Fathers and
Desert Mothers, to monks and nuns of religious orders, to the lay
mysticsmen and women and boys and girls in every century, in every
denomination, in every walk of life.....
here is the full verse of Gal 2:20
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live
by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me."
and Gal 2:15-21 is about Justification by by grace through faith in
Christ Jesus.
Gal 2:15-21
15 We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile
sinners,
16 yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but
through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ
Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by
works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be
justified.
17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we ourselves
were found to be sinners, is Christ then an agent of sin? Certainly
not!
18 But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I
prove myself a transgressor.
19 For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to
God.
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I
live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me.
21 I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were
through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.
James 1:17 (read in context 1:11-17) focus is on our attitude
when handling temptation
1Peter 3:19 (read in context 3:14-22) is about suffering for
righteousness sake, and verse 19 is part of the same sentence that
spans from verse 18-20 which with verse 21,22 is about the death
and resurrection of Christ.
1 John 4 should be read in the entire chapter and not as 2 half
sentences.
the whole chapter is this, that God manifest His love for us by
giving to us, His Son that we might live through Him (received
salvation), not because we had love God, but God first loved us,
and if God so loved us, we ought to also love one
another.
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent
his only Son into the world, so that we might live through
him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and
sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one
another.
