Election and evangelism

Ron Gurley

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God spiritually draws/calls ALL to a decision to accept or reject Him and His gracious Provisions for salvation.

Matthew 9:13
But go and learn what this means:
‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’
for I did not come to CALL the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 22:14
For many are CALLED, but few are chosen.” (by ACCEPTING!)

John 6:44
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me DRAWS him;
and I will raise him up on the last day.

1 Chronicles 28:9...King David to his wise son upon passing his kingdom
“As for you, my son Solomon,
know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind;
for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts.
If you SEEK Him, He will let you find Him; but
if you forsake Him, He will reject you.

Deuteronomy 30:19
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,
that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.
So CHOOSE LIFE in order that you may live, you and your descendants,

John 3:36...John the Baptizer on Jesus: CHOOSE
1. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; (BELIEVER)
but
2.he who does not obey (TO BELIEVE IN!) the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God abides on him.” (UN-BELIEVER)

John 1...CHOOSE!
11 He came to that which was His own, but His own did NOT receive Him.
12 Yet to all who DID receive him,
to those who BELIEVED in his name, he gave the right to become "children of God"
13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but "born of God"

Revelation 3:20...CHOOSE!
Behold, I stand at the door and knock;
if anyone hears My voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me
 
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RDKirk

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Per Romans 10:10, the centurion's faith was "justifying"... yet only the centurion turning around and professing his faith & evangelizing, preaching the Gospel and telling others of the miracle would have been "saving"

Salvation derives from professing one's faith, which I equate with evangelizing

Oh, no, oh, no!

There is a difference between being an evangelist and being a witness.

"Evangelism" is telling people what Jesus did for them.
"Witnessing" is telling people what Jesus did for you.

We all as Christians have an obligation (Leviticus 5, repeated in Acts 4:20) to be witnesses of what Jesus has done personally for each of us (because none of us living today can be a "witness" of what Jesus did on earth, as "witness" is defined in scripture). We are obligated to speak of what we have personally experienced with Jesus.

But nowhere in scripture is even witnessing identified as being necessary for salvation. We can't say that one is not saved until after one has been a witness. And we certainly can't say that of evangelism, because not everyone is called to evangelism.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Ephesians 4

The explicit scriptural model we see for evangelism is that an evangelist is called by the Holy Spirit to that office, trained in the Gospel by teachers in the Body of Christ, commissioned to an evangelistic mission by shepherds in the Body of Christ, and then held accountable by the Body of Christ.
 
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ToBeLoved

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Oh, no, oh, no!

There is a difference between being an evangelist and being a witness.

"Evangelism" is telling people what Jesus did for them.
"Witnessing" is telling people what Jesus did for you.

We all as Christians have an obligation (Leviticus 5, repeated in Acts 4:20) to be witnesses of what Jesus has done personally for each of us (because none of us living today can be a "witness" of what Jesus did on earth, as "witness" is defined in scripture). We are obligated to speak of what we have personally experienced with Jesus.

But nowhere in scripture is even witnessing identified as being necessary for salvation. We can't say that one is not saved until after one has been a witness. And we certainly can't say that of evangelism, because not everyone is called to evangelism.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Ephesians 4

The explicit scriptural model we see for evangelism is that an evangelist is called by the Holy Spirit to that office, trained in the Gospel by teachers in the Body of Christ, commissioned to an evangelistic mission by shepherds in the Body of Christ, and then held accountable by the Body of Christ.
Good point. Difference between an evangelist and a witness.
 
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GodsGrace101

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We all stumble from time to time, but we come back in repentance. By “living a life of sin” I presume a life where you are well aware of the consequences, but you care not and continue to sin. No, this means you are not saved. This is what James was saying with regards to saving faith as opposed to demon faith and dead faith, as well as what Jesus was saying with the parable of the sower.
Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound? If you do, you never died to sin and this means you never had saving faith to begin with.
Again, I do not mean stumbling and getting up in repentance. I mean conscious sinning and not caring about the consequence or remaining unaware of it due to a hardness of heart, despite hearing it.
Agreed.
:)
 
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[Staff edit].

Every Christian who is not a full blown universalist believes most of humanity is going to hell in a hand-basket. Every Christian believes in the doctrines of election and predestination. Every Christian who is not a heretical open view theist believes God knows the eternal destination of every individual who has ever lived. So your critique of Calvinism above, if you wish to maintain it, applies to your own theology as well. The only difference is in the details of choices, and one theology recognizes that the free will of God trumps the free will of man, while the other has to deal with the problems of the free will of man trumping the free will of God. So, the God you serve willingly ties his own hands and just watches and hopes for responses, or can he hope people will respond knowing the exact number that will respond? So you see it boils down to who has the freest will, and I say the most wise God has the freest will logically possible. As for luck, there is no such thing, there is mathematics though.
 
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Everyone disagreed with Augustine, except those that agree with Calvin, who lived in 1,500 AD...a rather mean person, BTW - very mean.

Clearly it would be more helpful if you read more history before drawing such conclusions. Everyone did not disagree with Augustine. He would not be recognized as an ECF if that were so, his writings would have been burned and disregarded by the RCC. Further he wrote more than any ECF that I am aware of, or to the best of my fallible knowledge, and wrote more on the doctrine of the Trinity than any other ECF that I am aware of, Athanasius probably behind him. St. Augustine is recognized as a theological giant, even among theological giants. Further, there is an Augustianian order, three Augustianians that come to mind are Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. As for Calvin being mean, thank God he can and does save mean people. But I do not believe Calvin was a mean person, no mean person could write so extensively as he did, the scope of his theological writings is in the tens of thousands of pages throughout the whole of his life. His translated commentaries on Scripture consist of some 22,455 pages, obviously he loved Scripture, which is the Word of God, and devoted himself completely to serving and loving God. Allow me to provide a broader perspective from a brief article:

"1. From an early age, Calvin was a precocious student who excelled at Latin and philosophy. He was prepared to go to study of theology in Paris, when his father decided he should become a lawyer. Calvin spend half a decade at the University of Orleans studying law, a subject he did not love.

2. Calvin wrote his magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, at the age of 27 (though he updated the work and published new editions throughout his life). The work was intended as an elementary manual for those who wanted to know something about the evangelical faith—“the whole sum of godliness and whatever it is necessary to know about saving doctrine.”

3. Calvin initially had no interest in being a pastor. While headed to Strasbourg he made a detour in Geneva where he met the local church leader William Farel. Calvin said he was only staying one night, but Farel argued that it was God's will he remain in the city and become a pastor. When Calvin protested that he was a scholar, not a preacher, Farel swore a great oath that God would curse all Calvin's studies unless he stayed in Geneva. Calvin later said, “ “I felt as if God from heaven had laid his mighty hand upon me to stop me in my course—and I was so terror stricken that I did not continue my journey.”

4. Calvin was a stepfather (he married a widow, Idelette, who had two children) but had no surviving children himself. His only son, Jacques, was born prematurely and survived only briefly. When his wife died he wrote to his friend, Viret:

I have been bereaved of the best friend of my life, of one who, if it has been so ordained, would willingly have shared not only my poverty but also my death. During her life she was the faithful helper of my ministry. From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance.

5. During his ministry in Geneva, Calvin preached over two thousand sermons. He preached twice on Sunday and almost every weekday. His sermons lasted more than an hour and he did not use notes.

6. Around 1553, Calvin began an epistolary relationship with Michael Servetus, a Spanish theologian and physician. Servetus wrote several works with anti-trinitarian views so Calvin sent him a copy of his Institutes as a reply. Servetus promptly returned it, thoroughly annotated with critical observations. Calvin wrote to Servetus, “I neither hate you nor despise you; nor do I wish to persecute you; but I would be as hard as iron when I behold you insulting sound doctrine with so great audacity.” In time their correspondence grew more heated until Calvin ended it.

7. In the 1500s, denying the Trinity was a blasphemy that was considered worthy of death throughout Europe. Because he had written books denying the Trinity and denouncing paedobaptism, Servetus was condemned to death by the French Catholic Inquisition. Servetus escaped from prison in Vienne and fled to Italy, but stopped on the way in Geneva. After he attended a sermon by Calvin, Servetus was arrested by the city authorities. French Inquisitors asked that he be extradited to them for execution, but the officials in Geneva refused and brought him before their own heresy trial. Although Calvin believed Servetus deserving of death on account of what he termed as his “execrable blasphemies”, he wanted the Spaniard to be executed by decapitation as a traitor rather than by fire as a heretic. The Geneva council refused his request and burned Servetus at the stake with what was believed to be the last copy of his book chained to his leg.

8. Within Geneva, Calvin's main concern was the creation of a collège, an institute for the education of children. Although the school was a single institution, it was divided into two parts: a grammar school called the collège and an advanced school called the académie. Within five years there were 1,200 students in the grammar school and 300 in the advanced school. The collège eventually became the Collège Calvin, one of the college preparatory schools of Geneva, while the académie became the University of Geneva.

9. Calvin worked himself nearly to death. As Christian History notes, when he could not walk the couple of hundred yards to church, he was carried in a chair to preach. When the doctor forbade him to go out in the winter air to the lecture room, he crowded the audience into his bedroom and gave lectures there. To those who would urge him to rest, he asked, “What? Would you have the Lord find me idle when he comes?” - SOURCE
 
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Ron Gurley

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James 2:22 (NASB)....FAITH/BELIEF go hand-in-hand with WORKS!!
22 You see that (spirit-led) FAITH (/BELIEF) was working with his (Abaham's) WORKS,
and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; (matured)
 
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[Staff edit].

Without saving faith who will repent? Without saving faith who will confess? Without saving faith who will obey? Answer: nobody. The kind of faith that saves, is a free gift from God, it is nothing we can conjure within ourselves. The kind of faith that saves, is foolishness to them who do not believe. So the only sinners truly obeying (in a way that pleases God), are those already monergistically regenerated, and by the Spirit leading through a regenerated faith responding to the amazing grace of God, with awareness of the mercies of God poured on them leading to repentance and obedience to the glory of God alone.
 
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GodsGrace101

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[Staff edit].

Foreknow does not mean that God called us because He foreknew us.
He foreknew who would choose Him, and thus, we are called to be like His Son Jesus --- this is from the beginning of time; God's choice to form us, those who believe, in the form of His Son, NOT to call us because He foreknew us.

Romans 8:28 NASB
28And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

You'll notice that things work together for the good to those who love God. We have to LOVE GOD FIRST, in order for us to be called according to His purpose. If we don't love God, He can do nothing for us. Because we love God, Jesus helps us through the Holy Spirit to remain in the form which God decided from the beginning we should be likened to, His Son. HIS PURPOSE is to make us like His Son.

Romans 8:29 NASB
29For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;


Again, those whom God FOREKNEW (would choose Him) He predestined, not to be saved, but to be in the likeness of His Son, as above. Jesus is the firstborn of the many brothers He will have.

Romans 8:30 NASB
30and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.


Again, those whom God predestined to be in the form of His Son...
The predestination is not in who will be saved, but that the saved will be in the form of God's Son...Genesis 3:15
These God called by nature, Romans 1:19-20 before Jesus,
and with His word after Jesus, John 3:16

Those who respond to the call of God will be justified, and those who are justified will also be glorified at the end of life.

1. God, from the beginning of time, knew Jesus would have to save the world.
Genesis 3:15

2. His will was for us is to be in the likeness of His Son.
Romans 8:29

3. It is our choice to respond to the call of God.
John 3:16
 
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GodsGrace101

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[Staff edit].

God is not a respecter of persons:
This is good. It means that God gives to each one of us the chance, the opportunity, the possibility, of becoming saved and spending eternity with Him. He does not arbitrarily decide who will be saved and who will be damned as calvinists believe.
Romans 2:11 There is no partiality with God.
Acts 10:34 God is no respecter of persons.
Galatians 2:6 God does not show personal favoritism.
 
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GodsGrace101

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I'm not entirely familiar with all of those terms... especially "elect" & "sanctification-holiness".. a quick BLB Strong's search suggests "elect = faith / belief => righteous justification":

Rev 17:14 = "they that are with Him [Christ] are called, elect & faithful"

1 Tit 1:1 = "Paul, a servant of God, and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect"
Rom 10:10 = "with the heart a man is faithful unto righteousness, and with the mouth profess unto salvation"​

Once someone believes & becomes justified before God, they receive the Holy Spirit which keeps them holy-sanctified:

1 Pet 1:2 = "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in holiness-sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience & sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ"

CONCLUSION (???):
  1. If you choose God, God chooses & "elects" you
  2. God knows ahead of time who will choose Him

FREE WILL (??):

I think Calvinism is more accurate on this particular issue. Not even the elect, those who wind up eventually choosing God, were able to choose God on their own sinful fallen selves, e.g.
  • 1 John 4:10 = "not that we loved God, but that He loved us"
  • John 6:44 = "no man can come to me unless the Father who hath sent me draw him"
However, exactly that has been happening since the Crucifixion:
  • John 12:32 = "when I am lifted up, will draw all men unto myself"
So, in principle, humans cannot even choose God without Divine assistance in the form of "Calvinistic spiritual regeneration" (as it were)... but, in practice, all humans have been receiving exactly such Divine assistance since the Crucifixion.

If so, then sinful fallen humans do not natively possess independent autonomous "free will". However, God has been gifting humanity with a "Calvinistic spiritual regenerative boost" (as it were) for the past 2000 years. And, being "spiritually augmented", Divinely assisted humans are capable of free will.

I understand that free gift of Divine assistance, in the form of "Calvinistic spiritual regeneration" (so to speak), as Grace.

If so, Grace is the prerequisite first of many steps towards Salvation. It has been a free gift to all humanity since the Crucifixion. What about Salvation?
  • Rom 10:10 = Justification by Faith in Jesus Christ, Salvation by professing that Faith [= evangelizing]
So, I offer that you could state:

Salvation by Grace through [actively] professed Faith [Eph 2:8 + Rom 10:10]​
Elect only means to choose.
Most of the time, when the NT speaks of election, it is speaking of Israel as being the chosen nation through which salvation will come to all the world.

We do have free will. From the beginning of time God gave us free will.
Did Adam and Eve not have the free will to eat the forbidden fruit?
Deuteronomy 1:19
Galatians 5:13
John 7:17
Revelation 3:20
and more...

Revelation 17:14
We are called and chosen and faithful. All men are called: See Romans 1:19-20 God has always made Himself known. See John 12:32
Jesus will draw all men to Himself.

But our being chosen depends on our response. We respond with faith in our Lord and by being faithful to Him.
Titus 1:1 God's elect would be the Body of Christ, the believers

Your conclusions are correct.
Your idea of professed faith is also correct. Faith is action, it's a doing not just a believing. If you have faith that the escalator will take you up, you will get on it.

Man is not totally depraved as calvinism teaches. If he were, God would not "draw" man to Himself, He would have to "force" man to Himself.
Free will comes into play again. That is one big decision that must be made. Do we have free will or not?? If you believe that we have free will, then total depravity does not even require discussion. (since we are free to choose God).
 
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GodsGrace101

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@Erik Nelson Act 13:48 states that those that were predestined to eternal life believed. Thus, you must be elect to believe and not the other way around.
John 10:26-27 says that those that were not part of the flock did not believe, not the other way around.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says that we have been saved by grace and not our own doing.
The conclusion I draw is that we should all be justly punished and go to hell. However, because He is loving, He predestined, by grace, the elect to be saved. Not by any merit or doing, but by His perfect will alone, which is unknown to us in this regard. But we are also commanded to evangelize, so that the elect may hear the gospel and believe in it, as seen in Acts 13:48.

@DeaconDean You said that the elect are chosen on basis of forseen faith. However, the verses I mentioned above suggest that faith is the result of election, not vice versa. Thus it is unconditional election, by His perfect will alone.
How is God loving if He predestines some to go to hell?
 
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frater_domus

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How is God loving if He predestines some to go to hell?

Technically, all people deserve to go to hell, for God is just and all others fall short. If just one person gets saved, it is only according to His mercy. All God does is for His glory, even if we don't get it. Divine things go above our head, so to speak.
 
  • Agree
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Micah888

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The kind of faith that saves, is a free gift from God, it is nothing we can conjure within ourselves.
Saving faith -- according to Scripture -- comes from (1) hearing or reading the Gospel and (2) by the convicting and convincing of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual gift of faith is given to some Christians after they are saved.

ROMANS 10
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

6But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above,

7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

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.

12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.

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.

18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.

19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.

20 But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.

21But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.
 
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GodsGrace101

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please read my previous posts...

I offer that chosen-ness / election is, in fact, limited... to those who hear & heed the call to Christ... and then are also suitably grateful & appreciative of the Divine honor such represents...

However, all mankind is drawn / called / invited to Christ (John 12:32, Matt 22)...

Scripture does not appear to say, that God "chooses some to damnation". Rather, quite the opposite!

God invites everybody to Christ (Matt 22), drawing all men thereunto (John 12:32)... However, there are certain minimum requirements for gratitude & appropriate behavior (Matt 22)... such that whilst "many are invited / called", somewhat "few[er] are chosen / elected".

Still, God does know beforehand who will choose Him, who will capitalize on God's Grace to acknowledge Jesus Christ and be Saved (1 Pet 1:2)... God does not have difficulty analyzing human psychologies and accurately predicting who will do what... humans don't surprise God or anything
:amen:
 
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GodsGrace101

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@Erik Nelson Act 13:48 states that those that were predestined to eternal life believed. Thus, you must be elect to believe and not the other way around.
John 10:26-27 says that those that were not part of the flock did not believe, not the other way around.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says that we have been saved by grace and not our own doing.
The conclusion I draw is that we should all be justly punished and go to hell. However, because He is loving, He predestined, by grace, the elect to be saved. Not by any merit or doing, but by His perfect will alone, which is unknown to us in this regard. But we are also commanded to evangelize, so that the elect may hear the gospel and believe in it, as seen in Acts 13:48.

@DeaconDean You said that the elect are chosen on basis of forseen faith. However, the verses I mentioned above suggest that faith is the result of election, not vice versa. Thus it is unconditional election, by His perfect will alone.
God is a loving God.
1 John 4:8b

God is not a respecter of persons and gives to each one of us the opportunity to be saved.
Romans 2:11
Acts 10:34
Galatians 2:6

God gives to each of us the opportunity to be saved because He loves the WHOLE WORLD. (and not just those whom you believe are "elected".
John 3:16
1 Timothy 2:4
1 Timothy 2:6 Jesus gave Himself as a ransom FOR ALL

As to your verses:

Acts 13:48
All those who were pre-destined to have eternal life --- through Jesus Christ --- did believe in Him and did, in fact, receive that eternal life.
Those who believe in Jesus will have eternal life.


John 10:26-27
If we are not the sheep of Jesus, we will not hear Him. Only His sheep hear His voice. And who are His sheep? Those who enter through the door (and not any other way). The door keeper will open the door to the shepherd and the sheep will know the shepherd, but they will not listen to a stranger.

"I am the door, if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved..."
John 10:9
It is our choice whether or not to enter into the door, as is plainly stated by the use of the word "if".

Ephesians 2:8-9
This simply states that we are saved by God's grace which falls on everyone.
Romans 5:18-21
Romans 4:16
Romans 3:20-24
20because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
21But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

The conclusion can be drawn that God loves everyone.
God is a loving God and gives to everyone the opportunity to be saved.
That Jesus was given by God's grace as atonement for the whole world.
Whoever wishes to be saved by Jesus need only to believe in Him and follow in His ways.
 
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GodsGrace101

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thanks for that reference :)

Why are you opposed to "foreseen faith" ?

Everybody agrees that God will, ultimately, sort humanity into "sheep vs. goats", yes? God will save some vs. damn others. The sorting hinges upon belief / faith in Jesus Christ + active evangelistic profession of that faith (Rom 10:10). What is the issue so far?

Humans don't surprise God. God knows what people will do in advance. God doesn't say, "oh, wow, wasn't expecting that... but, alright then, nice pleasant surprise from X, move them over into the Book of Life... oh, wow, what the heck, thought for sure Y would make it, total surprise, out the blue, out of left field, never saw that one coming... oh well, have to erase them from the Book of Life"...

The Book of Life isn't full of erasures & smudges & crossed out entries and new entries squeezed into the margins, so to speak.

God will sort humans into saved vs. damned, never once having been surprised or "thrown for a loop" by any humans' actions. I don't understand the objections
The objection is calvinism. Are you familiar with it?
I wasn't for many years and was very shocked to find some persons could know God and believe in the doctrines of calvin.
 
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GodsGrace101

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Every Christian who is not a full blown universalist believes most of humanity is going to hell in a hand-basket. Every Christian believes in the doctrines of election and predestination. Every Christian who is not a heretical open view theist believes God knows the eternal destination of every individual who has ever lived. So your critique of Calvinism above, if you wish to maintain it, applies to your own theology as well. The only difference is in the details of choices, and one theology recognizes that the free will of God trumps the free will of man, while the other has to deal with the problems of the free will of man trumping the free will of God. So, the God you serve willingly ties his own hands and just watches and hopes for responses, or can he hope people will respond knowing the exact number that will respond? So you see it boils down to who has the freest will, and I say the most wise God has the freest will logically possible. As for luck, there is no such thing, there is mathematics though.
Hi AW
Jesus said the gate is narrow and few are those who find it.
Mathew 7:14

Every Christian does not believe in the doctrine of election and pre-destination the way that you believe it. We are elected, or chosen, by God based on our response to Him who draws all men to Himself. And our response must be to believe in Jesus who saves all those who wish to be saved.
John 12:32
Acts 16:31

God knows the eternal destination of every individual. Because God knows something does not cause it to happen. The knowledge is not the causation. Men make their own decisions, God only knows what those decisions will be, that does not stop you from making your own decision.
Deuteronomy 30:19
Revelation 3:20
Mathew 22:14 Why were they not chosen?? Only because they were not properly dressed with the attire of Jesus.

You make it a choice of God trumping man's free will or man trumping God's free will. It's not easy to reconcile God's SOVEREIGNTY with man's free will. However, it is far easier to reconcile that than to make peace and believe in a God that creates some humans for heaven and creates some humans for hell and bases this on absolutely nothing. How is that a just God when the bible teaches that God is just?
Acts 17:31
because He has fixed a day in which
He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

Isaiah 30:18
God Is Gracious and Just

18Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.


The God I serve does not tie His own hands.
God is almighty and sovereign.
He directs the football game and it will end the way He so wishes and wills it to.
But during each play, each individual will decide HOW to play.
The world is in God's hands,,,this is no reason for Him to be an unjust and unloving God and send some to hell through no fault of their own.
 
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GodsGrace101

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Clearly it would be more helpful if you read more history before drawing such conclusions. Everyone did not disagree with Augustine. He would not be recognized as an ECF if that were so, his writings would have been burned and disregarded by the RCC. Further he wrote more than any ECF that I am aware of, or to the best of my fallible knowledge, and wrote more on the doctrine of the Trinity than any other ECF that I am aware of, Athanasius probably behind him. St. Augustine is recognized as a theological giant, even among theological giants. Further, there is an Augustianian order, three Augustianians that come to mind are Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. As for Calvin being mean, thank God he can and does save mean people. But I do not believe Calvin was a mean person, no mean person could write so extensively as he did, the scope of his theological writings is in the tens of thousands of pages throughout the whole of his life. His translated commentaries on Scripture consist of some 22,455 pages, obviously he loved Scripture, which is the Word of God, and devoted himself completely to serving and loving God. Allow me to provide a broader perspective from a brief article:

"1. From an early age, Calvin was a precocious student who excelled at Latin and philosophy. He was prepared to go to study of theology in Paris, when his father decided he should become a lawyer. Calvin spend half a decade at the University of Orleans studying law, a subject he did not love.

2. Calvin wrote his magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, at the age of 27 (though he updated the work and published new editions throughout his life). The work was intended as an elementary manual for those who wanted to know something about the evangelical faith—“the whole sum of godliness and whatever it is necessary to know about saving doctrine.”

3. Calvin initially had no interest in being a pastor. While headed to Strasbourg he made a detour in Geneva where he met the local church leader William Farel. Calvin said he was only staying one night, but Farel argued that it was God's will he remain in the city and become a pastor. When Calvin protested that he was a scholar, not a preacher, Farel swore a great oath that God would curse all Calvin's studies unless he stayed in Geneva. Calvin later said, “ “I felt as if God from heaven had laid his mighty hand upon me to stop me in my course—and I was so terror stricken that I did not continue my journey.”

4. Calvin was a stepfather (he married a widow, Idelette, who had two children) but had no surviving children himself. His only son, Jacques, was born prematurely and survived only briefly. When his wife died he wrote to his friend, Viret:

I have been bereaved of the best friend of my life, of one who, if it has been so ordained, would willingly have shared not only my poverty but also my death. During her life she was the faithful helper of my ministry. From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance.

5. During his ministry in Geneva, Calvin preached over two thousand sermons. He preached twice on Sunday and almost every weekday. His sermons lasted more than an hour and he did not use notes.

6. Around 1553, Calvin began an epistolary relationship with Michael Servetus, a Spanish theologian and physician. Servetus wrote several works with anti-trinitarian views so Calvin sent him a copy of his Institutes as a reply. Servetus promptly returned it, thoroughly annotated with critical observations. Calvin wrote to Servetus, “I neither hate you nor despise you; nor do I wish to persecute you; but I would be as hard as iron when I behold you insulting sound doctrine with so great audacity.” In time their correspondence grew more heated until Calvin ended it.

7. In the 1500s, denying the Trinity was a blasphemy that was considered worthy of death throughout Europe. Because he had written books denying the Trinity and denouncing paedobaptism, Servetus was condemned to death by the French Catholic Inquisition. Servetus escaped from prison in Vienne and fled to Italy, but stopped on the way in Geneva. After he attended a sermon by Calvin, Servetus was arrested by the city authorities. French Inquisitors asked that he be extradited to them for execution, but the officials in Geneva refused and brought him before their own heresy trial. Although Calvin believed Servetus deserving of death on account of what he termed as his “execrable blasphemies”, he wanted the Spaniard to be executed by decapitation as a traitor rather than by fire as a heretic. The Geneva council refused his request and burned Servetus at the stake with what was believed to be the last copy of his book chained to his leg.

8. Within Geneva, Calvin's main concern was the creation of a collège, an institute for the education of children. Although the school was a single institution, it was divided into two parts: a grammar school called the collège and an advanced school called the académie. Within five years there were 1,200 students in the grammar school and 300 in the advanced school. The collège eventually became the Collège Calvin, one of the college preparatory schools of Geneva, while the académie became the University of Geneva.

9. Calvin worked himself nearly to death. As Christian History notes, when he could not walk the couple of hundred yards to church, he was carried in a chair to preach. When the doctor forbade him to go out in the winter air to the lecture room, he crowded the audience into his bedroom and gave lectures there. To those who would urge him to rest, he asked, “What? Would you have the Lord find me idle when he comes?” - SOURCE
I apologize AW but there's no use in even finishing reading the above.
I'm not here to discuss Augustine or Calvin; I just happened to mention them. I do know enough about them and church history to be sure of what I had written.

Augustine was of Manichaeism and a Gnostic. He came from that background. He was a gnostic also and both sects are heretical.

At its core, Manichaeism was a type of Gnosticism—a dualistic religion that offered salvation through special knowledge (gnosis) of spiritual truth. Like all forms of Gnosticism, Manichaeism taught that life in this world is unbearably painful and radically evil. Inner illumination or gnosis reveals that the soul which shares in the nature of God has fallen into the evil world of matter and must be saved by means of the spirit or intelligence (nous). To know one’s self is to recover one’s true self, which was previously clouded by ignorance and lack of self-consciousness because of its mingling with the body and with matter. In Manichaeism, to know one’s self is to see one’s soul as sharing in the very nature of God and as coming from a transcendent world. Knowledge enables a person to realize that, despite his abjectpresent condition in the material world, he does not cease to remain united to the transcendent world by eternal and immanent bonds with it. Thus, knowledge is the only way to salvation.

Source: Manichaeism | ancient religious movement

The Catholic church thinks highly of Augustine because of his writings and philosophical background. Also, if you know anything about him and you were asked to tell what he taught about a doctrine, you would have to ask: At what point in his life? This is because he did indeed change his mind many times over his lifetime. His ideas were not stable and not to be trusted. At one time he stated that he understood the origin of evil, and then recanted later on in life when he realized there is no answer.

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