What's Wrong With Reformed Theology/Soteriology?

[renniks]

Yet Judas was a non-believer. If he had been a believer in Christ, he would not have betrayed him. Your argument is just a straw man. Churches contain believers and unbelievers, those born again and those not, wheat and tares.
TD

I have no reason to believe that Judas was not saved... He taught the gospel, and was a follower of Jesus...as far as we know he simply fell into temptation. Jesus said we must remain in him... Or be cast into the fire.

 

[BNR32FAN]

I thought I answered that twice before. But here it goes:
The people who don't abide in Christ are those like Judas the son of perdition. Those who do abide in Him are true believers. All true believers have the spiritual wisdom to take heed to all the warnings of scripture. So then, very simply, the command "abide in Me" is the desire and commitment of every true believer in Christ. The unbeliever is the one who doesn't heed the warning because he has no spiritual wisdom to maintain a vision of the importance of doing so. They are caught up in the deceitfulness of sin and practice a love for sinful pleasures instead of a love for God. Such people have "no root in them."

So, when Jesus said "all whom the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will not cast out," he is talking about the true believer who has been gifted spiritual wisdom from God. Such people have the wherewithall to abide in Christ as He commanded, because they have the Spirit moving them to do so. Therefore, don't confuse spiritual wisdom with natural common sense, they are not the same.
TD

How can someone be in Christ if they are not elected to salvation and incapable of believing the gospel?

 

[BNR32FAN]

1 Cor. 2:6-16 where Paul is talking about the gospel he preaches.
Rom. 8:7 where Paul is talking about the faith that pleases God.
2 Cor. 4:4 where Paul is talking about people who are blind to it.
1 Jn. 5:19 where John says that the world is under Satan's control
These among many others show us that a person can't believe in the gospel (and doesn't even want to), unless God does a supernatural spiritual work in that person enabling them to believe.
TD

Then the Corinthians didn’t believe the gospel? Paul said they are in Christ Jesus.

 

[tdidymas]

I believe in predestination. The predestination of Gods plan for mankind, not the person.

I asked myself that question 30 years ago when I had my first debate on the subject.

Calvin had good intentions but he never could figure out that it's Gods plan for mankind that is predestined not the person.

In other words, predestination does not refer to the person being chosen but rather the purpose for which the person was chosen.

It says "in love He predestined us to adoption as sons." "Us" are the individuals predestined.

But by claiming some kind of "corporation" idea that it's a mere plan, and not an actual predestination of individuals, you effectively make predestination NOT predestination.

I get your idea, that you think God elected everyone in general, but no one in particular. But this makes predestination ineffective, and thus not predestination.

I just disagree with your interpretation. I think the scripture clearly says that individuals are predestined. This meets well with Paul's idea he conveys in Rom. 9 where he is talking about God having special mercy on individuals of His choosing. To claim it's just a plan doesn't fit the context.
TD

 

[renniks]

How can someone be in Christ if they are not elected to salvation and incapable of believing the gospel?

They can't. I can give you the Calvinist answer right from John Piper:
"There is a kind of attachment to Jesus that is not a saving attachment. There is a kind of union with the vine that is not a saving union. And therefore if those get cut off they are not compromising the doctrine of eternal security, because they were never saved in the first place."

Yeah it didn't convince me either.

 

[renniks]

This meets well with Paul's idea he conveys in Rom. 9 where he is talking about God having special mercy on individuals of His choosing. To claim it's just a plan doesn't fit the context.

You totally misunderstand Romans 9 then.
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."
Do you know where Paul got that?
Exodus 33, where Moses wins an argument with God.
17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

Nothing unconditional about it. Paul was saying that God chose to have mercy on the Israelites, in order for the plan of salvation to be completed. Has nothing to do with individual salvation.

 

[tdidymas]

So you get saved twice? You have to be regenerated in order to be regenerated?
"For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed--a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." Romans 1:17

I think your logic is bad here. If faith is righteousness (that is, belief in the gospel), then a person must be righteous first before exercising such faith. Therefore, God has to make them righteous to enable them to live by faith.

John 5:24

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

This order of salvation is repeated over and over again in Scripture.

It says "has passed" - that means that passing from death to life comes first, then believing. And yes, that is the order repeated in scripture.
TD

 

[tdidymas]

I believe in predestination as it is taught... that those who are in Christ are predestined to do Good works. That those who believe in Christ are destined for eternal life.

Ok, I fully agree with this statement. However, your agenda is to deny that God predestines us to eternal life, and this is why you say "destined for eternal life" as opposed to "predestined." Yet it says "in love He predestined us to adoption as sons." This predestination includes faith, righteousness, good works, and eternal life, and everything else that goes with the full package of salvation (i.e. the full gospel).
TD

 

[tdidymas]

You totally misunderstand Romans 9 then.
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."
Do you know where Paul got that?
Exodus 33, where Moses wins an argument with God.
17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

Nothing unconditional about it. Paul was saying that God chose to have mercy on the Israelites, in order for the plan of salvation to be completed. Has nothing to do with individual salvation.

Paul is applying that to individual salvation in the context of Rom. ch. 9 & 10. He often does that when quoting OT scripture. To claim that it has nothing to do with individual salvation doesn't fit the context.
TD

 

[BNR32FAN]

1 Cor. 2:6-16 where Paul is talking about the gospel he preaches.
Rom. 8:7 where Paul is talking about the faith that pleases God.
2 Cor. 4:4 where Paul is talking about people who are blind to it.
1 Jn. 5:19 where John says that the world is under Satan's control
These among many others show us that a person can't believe in the gospel (and doesn't even want to), unless God does a supernatural spiritual work in that person enabling them to believe.
TD

“because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:7‬ ‭NASB‬‬

This just says that we cannot subject ourselves to the law of God it doesn’t say we can’t believe the gospel.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:3-4‬ ‭NASB‬‬

This says that satan has blinded people from the gospel which I don’t deny but it still doesn’t say that they can’t believe the gospel. These people are blinded by their lust for sin and refuse to accept it because they desire sin rather than seeking God. But that goes for everyone. Everyone was blinded by satan at some point in their life. Some choose to believe the gospel and some don’t because they prefer their sinful ways.

I still think that Paul’s message to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 is evidence that even those who are still in the flesh can believe the gospel. He specifically says they are in Christ and they are still in the flesh. So they may not be able to understand all that is spiritual but they are obviously not blinded from the gospel to the point of not being able to believe it.

 

[tdidymas]

Sorry I didn’t see 1 Cor 2 which I’ve already explained the context of that verse. The Corinthians believed the gospel but they boasted about who they followed.

“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:14-16‬ ‭NASB‬‬

This does not say that the natural man cannot believe the gospel. Let’s look at what Paul says in the very next verses.

“And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not mere men?”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭3:1-4‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Now we’re the Corinthians unbelievers?

“But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭1:30‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Apparently Paul was not saying that these Corinthians who were carnal in nature were incapable of believing the gospel.

No, he is not saying they are unbelievers and incapable of believing the gospel. In fact, if he thought they were, he would not be saying these things. The fact that they were believers (at least some of them), Paul is explaining the difference so that they can understand their practice to be falling short of God's glory. This is the reason for his explanation.

So when he says "are you not mere men," he is not claiming they are "mere men" literally. He is using this expression to mean that they are acting like mere men, acting like unbelievers. People who are self-centered, greedy, prideful, conceited, envious, and all sorts of other wickedness that comes out of the natural human heart.

So the warning that they are sinning is intensified by his explanation that spiritual people should be thinking very differently than natural people, because spiritual people have wisdom given to them from God that natural people don't have. All natural people have is what they have learned in the world through worldly pleasures and pressures, and feelings of the heart, and such things.

This should have shaken them up at least for them to realize their need to live by faith in the God who works His will through individuals. And for the true believer, it indeed does shake them up to repentance from carnal practices, because they have the Spirit of God giving them wisdom to understand it. But those without the Spirit will not listen.

So then, comes the general principle of Paul's teaching about who gets saved and who doesn't, and then how it applies to the Corinthian believers in their Christian walk.

Is this your understanding of what Paul is teaching in this passage?
TD

 

[tdidymas]

Not according to Romans 2

“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God. For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭2:4-16‬ ‭NASB‬‬

How many times does Paul have to say ALL for it to actually mean ALL?

Is your point about the term partiality? Do you notice that it says "Jew" and "Greek" in reference to the term? So the term is in regard to ethnicity in this case.

But what other point do you see in here? Is it that a person gains eternal life by means of his personal works of righteousness? That eternal life is a reward for that righteousness and is not a free gift? Is this your point?
TD

 

[BNR32FAN]

You totally misunderstand Romans 9 then.
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."
Do you know where Paul got that?
Exodus 33, where Moses wins an argument with God.
17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

Nothing unconditional about it. Paul was saying that God chose to have mercy on the Israelites, in order for the plan of salvation to be completed. Has nothing to do with individual salvation.

I believe Paul said that in reference to God’s calling of the Gentiles who were not pursuing it as he stated later in the same chapter in verse 30.

“What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭9:30-32‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Hence: “it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭9:16‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Verses 15 & 16 were about God’s calling, not election to salvation.

 

[BNR32FAN]

They can't. I can give you the Calvinist answer right from John Piper:
"There is a kind of attachment to Jesus that is not a saving attachment. There is a kind of union with the vine that is not a saving union. And therefore if those get cut off they are not compromising the doctrine of eternal security, because they were never saved in the first place."

Yeah it didn't convince me either.

Ahh so when Jesus said

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away” what He really meant is that these branches were “not really” in Him at all? And when He says anyone who doesn’t remain in Him they were really in Him either. Just like when the scriptures says God desires all men to repent and be saved and that none should perish it doesn’t really mean all men or that none should perish but instead only some men. Or my personal favorite that God’s “righteous judgement” is inflicted on those who are incapable of repentance and belief despite Paul saying it is the result of their stubbornness in Romans 2. That’s an awful lot of scriptural acrobatics to come to those conclusions.

 

[BNR32FAN]

No, he is not saying they are unbelievers and incapable of believing the gospel. In fact, if he thought they were, he would not be saying these things. The fact that they were believers (at least some of them), Paul is explaining the difference so that they can understand their practice to be falling short of God's glory. This is the reason for his explanation.

So when he says "are you not mere men," he is not claiming they are "mere men" literally. He is using this expression to mean that they are acting like mere men, acting like unbelievers. People who are self-centered, greedy, prideful, conceited, envious, and all sorts of other wickedness that comes out of the natural human heart.

So the warning that they are sinning is intensified by his explanation that spiritual people should be thinking very differently than natural people, because spiritual people have wisdom given to them from God that natural people don't have. All natural people have is what they have learned in the world through worldly pleasures and pressures, and feelings of the heart, and such things.

This should have shaken them up at least for them to realize their need to live by faith in the God who works His will through individuals. And for the true believer, it indeed does shake them up to repentance from carnal practices, because they have the Spirit of God giving them wisdom to understand it. But those without the Spirit will not listen.

So then, comes the general principle of Paul's teaching about who gets saved and who doesn't, and then how it applies to the Corinthian believers in their Christian walk.

Is this your understanding of what Paul is teaching in this passage?
TD

Again?!! Geez when do the scriptures mean what they actually say?!! Every time there’s a scripture that refutes Calvin’s doctrine the excuse is ALWAYS the same. The passage does not actually mean what it actually says. All men doesn’t mean all men, the world doesn’t really mean the whole world, in Christ doesn’t really mean in Christ, now men of flesh doesn’t really mean men of flesh. This is all nonsense.

 

[tdidymas]

"We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction.

God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass
I guess you disagree with John Calvin and the westminster confession and just make it up as you go along?

I think you're taking this statement out of context and making the worst of it that you can make. I think that's a cynical approach, and slanderous to what the statement is trying to say in its context.

It has to be true that God has certain purposes to choose not to save some people. The argument against this idea is not new, as they said the same to Paul, which he addressed in Rom. 3:5-6 "But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?"

Considering the whole context of Romans, I see Paul saying:
1. God intends to judge the world according to His divine justice, and it His pleasure to do so, and furthermore He has the right to do so.
2. The fact that man is unrighteous shows that God is righteous in judging men.
3. It answers the objection that God would be unjust if He condemns people who can't do right by virtue of their bondage to the pleasures of sin, that God is right in holding them culpable.

So, I think your objection to the statement above is your hostility toward Paul's clear teaching that God has the right to make some people for honor and some for dishonor. It seems to me you are confused between what God ordains of His own will in the spiritual realm, and what man does in the natural that is against His will.

So in analyzing the statement:
1. It's God's pleasure to doom to destruction those people who are wicked and deserving to be doomed, since the wages of sin is death.
2. Those people are doomed because of their evil deeds, and God is just in dooming them.
3. God ordains what comes to pass because He is wise enough to control circumstances in spite of the devil and his children who refuse to do God's will.
4. If God chooses not to save some, but wants to exact His justice on them, He is perfectly right to do so.
5. God having mercy on some does not negate His justice on those he doesn't have special mercy toward. God is just either way, since He "is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

So, beside your cynical attitude to this statement, I can't see how your point is valid, if you align your thinking with what scripture clearly teaches.

How can someone be in Christ if they are not elected to salvation and incapable of believing the gospel?

I think you missing an important point. Not all "disciples" of Jesus are true believers, according to the parable of the wheat and tares.
TD

 

[tdidymas]

Again?!! Geez when do the scriptures mean what they actually say?!! Every time there’s a scripture that refutes Calvin’s doctrine the excuse is ALWAYS the same. The passage does not actually mean what it actually says. All men doesn’t mean all men, the world doesn’t really mean the whole world, in Christ doesn’t really mean in Christ, now men of flesh doesn’t really mean men of flesh. This is all nonsense.

It means what it says, it just might not mean what you think it means. It's only nonsense to someone who refuses to understand its original meaning, and instead uses their natural reasoning and cultural legends and ideas inserted into the meaning of the text. I hear your frustration, but we have to face the fact that the scripture is much like a different language to be learned. This is what Paul was talking about in 1 Cor. 2 when he says "spiritual thoughts with spiritual words."
TD

 

[tdidymas]

They can't. I can give you the Calvinist answer right from John Piper:
"There is a kind of attachment to Jesus that is not a saving attachment. There is a kind of union with the vine that is not a saving union. And therefore if those get cut off they are not compromising the doctrine of eternal security, because they were never saved in the first place."

Yeah it didn't convince me either.

It's because you don't understand that many in the churches are not saved. This is what the parable of the wheat and tares is talking about.
TD

 

[Charlie24]

It says "in love He predestined us to adoption as sons." "Us" are the individuals predestined.

But by claiming some kind of "corporation" idea that it's a mere plan, and not an actual predestination of individuals, you effectively make predestination NOT predestination.

I get your idea, that you think God elected everyone in general, but no one in particular. But this makes predestination ineffective, and thus not predestination.

I just disagree with your interpretation. I think the scripture clearly says that individuals are predestined. This meets well with Paul's idea he conveys in Rom. 9 where he is talking about God having special mercy on individuals of His choosing. To claim it's just a plan doesn't fit the context.
TD

Let me put it this way.
Before the foundation of the world God knew he would make man and he would fall in sin. He made a plan that His Son would die for our sins as the perfect sacrifice, as sin debt that we could never pay.

Paul plainly said we are predestinated unto the adoption of children. When we are saved we have become that predestinated plan.

The manner in which we are saved is the predestination, not that God chooses who will be saved.

This is what Calvin failed to realize. He threw out the red flag, Rom. 10:13.

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

 

[Woke]

Please don't get upset that I entered into the conversation between you two. I did so only to present an idea you haven't considered.

You asked the man Charlie you were conversing with why is he here since he already has his mind made up.

Some of us, and he is probably included, are here to teach. The same reason some pastor might take a podium at a church, or someone might write a book on a biblical topic.