frumanchu said:My belated birthday present to you
Why thank you, frumanchu. What a nice gift!
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How do Calvinists know that they are saved?
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Why thank you, frumanchu. What a nice gift!
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Dondi said:
You're welcome
In response to your edit...
ETA: I would add something important here. While it is good to count your blessings and reflect on God in the past, it is more important to do what God would have you do NOW. For we build on our faith with what we have done for the Lord lately. It is a dynamic, not a static relationship. We can't go on the strength of past glories. For we must look forward when we are plowing. That is the real test of our faith.
I totally agree. Our past experience is by no means an excuse not to diligently seek and obey Him and to continually work with the Spirit in renewing our minds and being increasingly conformed to the image of Christ.
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Yes. Dondi.
As frumanch mentioned we did discuss it.
They do have an asurance of salvation.
I presented a specific scenario and this is how we discussed it with frumanchu.
In Romans 10:9,10 one believes in his heart that Christ rose from the dead (believes the he can hear him) and verbally convesses him that he is Lord (Master over all including own life) and that results or will result in salvation.
Calvinists see that if one believes with his heart that Christ resurrected, he is the elect one.
Later on the Calvinist is not certain of his salvation for whatever reason, he is not sure if he is one of the elect.
What would I (a non-Calvinist do?).
I would look back at the moment when I asked Christ into my heart, since I know that he will not turn anyone down.
What would a Calvinist do?
He would look back at the momement when he asked Christ into his heart, since he knows that the one that believes that Christ resurrected and can hear his prayer, is an elect one.
Thanks,
Ed
As frumanch mentioned we did discuss it.
They do have an asurance of salvation.
I presented a specific scenario and this is how we discussed it with frumanchu.
In Romans 10:9,10 one believes in his heart that Christ rose from the dead (believes the he can hear him) and verbally convesses him that he is Lord (Master over all including own life) and that results or will result in salvation.
Calvinists see that if one believes with his heart that Christ resurrected, he is the elect one.
Later on the Calvinist is not certain of his salvation for whatever reason, he is not sure if he is one of the elect.
What would I (a non-Calvinist do?).
I would look back at the moment when I asked Christ into my heart, since I know that he will not turn anyone down.
What would a Calvinist do?
He would look back at the momement when he asked Christ into his heart, since he knows that the one that believes that Christ resurrected and can hear his prayer, is an elect one.
Thanks,
Ed
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Edial said:Yes. Dondi.
As frumanch mentioned we did discuss it.
They do have an asurance of salvation.
I presented a specific scenario and this is how we discussed it with frumanchu.
In Romans 10:9,10 one believes in his heart that Christ rose from the dead (believes the he can hear him) and verbally convesses him that he is Lord (Master over all including own life) and that results or will result in salvation.
Calvinists see that if one believes with his heart that Christ resurrected, he is the elect one.
Later on the Calvinist is not certain of his salvation for whatever reason, he is not sure if he is one of the elect.
What would I (a non-Calvinist do?).
I would look back at the moment when I asked Christ into my heart, since I know that he will not turn anyone down.
What would a Calvinist do?
He would look back at the momement when he asked Christ into his heart, since he knows that the one that believes that Christ resurrected and can hear his prayer, is an elect one.
Thanks,
Ed
I don't see much difference between the Calvinist and non-Calvinsist. At least not in the reassurance of one's salvation.
But you did bring out one important point in regards to Romans 10:9,10, and that is confessing the Lord Jesus is not just a matter of acknowledgement, but rather an affirmation that Jesus Christ is Lord of our life.
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Agreed neither of these groups can have absolute assurance of where they will spend eternity since the possibility always exists that they will fall away for their faith in the future proving that they either lost their salvation or never saved to begin with. The question is are either of these systems in agreement with scripture?
Is John telling his reader that they can be absolutely sure of their eternal destiny or is he telling them something else? In this context what exactly does know mean?
Does this passage address what it means to make Christ the Lord of ones life?
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nwmsugrad said:
So are you saying we can never be sure?
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." - I John 5:11-13
It seems pretty clear to me what's being said here. If we have the Son, we have life. If we don't have the Son, we don't have life. That is our assurance. That is how we know we have eternal life.
No, but you can find it elsewhere, as you have pointed out.
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Oh yes.Dondi said:
Without this it can be not much different from the belief of demons who know (seen) that he resurrected.
Thanks,
Ed
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But all will fall now and then.nwmsugrad said:
If you think that sanctification is a stright graph up, it is not so, since there are trials and tribulations. One goes up, up, down, up, down ..., but in the end he is "up there" where God led him to be.
"Loss of salvation" is a term that is coined from definitions and not Scriptures.
If one can lose salvation, (and all fall) how many times Christ can be sacrificed?
nwmsugrad said:
Greek for "know" means exactly that. "To know" not only intellectually, but personally, intimately.nwmsugrad said:
Romans 10:9,10 does not address what it means to make Christ the Lord of one's life. It just says to do it.nwmsugrad said:
Your text below is just one of the applications of it.
Luke 14:26-33 (NASB95)
26 If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
30 saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish.
31 Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
32 Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
33 So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
"Giving up" possessions, hating parents, own life is in a context that the Christ is pre-eminent in one's life - over all the possessions and the loved ones.
Some people are using these verses to have others give up their possessions and some are justifying their improper behavior towards their own parents with such verses as well.
But that's people.
Thanks,
Ed
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No, as you point out: If we have the Son, we have life. If we don't have the Son, we don't have life. That is our assurance. I base my assurance on the promise of God not some subjective test. That is how we know we have eternal life. Our two groups do not understand this truth. Arminian: If we stop believing (sometimes redefined as if we stop working) we will lose our salvation meaning that the word eternal needs to be removed from Johns writing. Life is not eternal until one endures and can no longer lose it. Our Calvinist would acknowledge that you are correct and that everyone that has the son has eternal life they simply dont believe it is possible to be sure that one actually has the son until one endures to the end. They correctly understand that everyone who believes is saved they just do not think it is possible to know for certain that one has believed. They hope they have believed but are really not sure. They incorrectly look at the other tests in I John as conditions that must be met in order to have assurance. They see 1 John 5:13 as the purpose statement in the book when the purpose statement is actually found in I John 1:3-4 where we would expect to find it.
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nwmsugrad said:
That's not accurate, as I have labored to point out here and in other similar threads. The Westminster Confession of Faith devotes an entire chapter to the issue of personal assurance, and states quite plainly the Reformed position that "such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God: which hope shall never make them ashamed."
Actually, anybody who's had an English class in high school knows that a standard method of writing is to state your purpose in the beginning AND to restate it at the end:
"...And we are writing these things so that our/your joy may be complete." 1 John 1:4 (ESV - emph added)
"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." - 1 John 5:13 (ESV - emph added)
These are one in the same.
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nwmsugrad said:
Since I've already referenced the WCF:
II. This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probably persuasion, grounded upon a fallible hope; but an infallible assurance of faith, founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God; which Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption.
III. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto.... ~WCF, XVIII, ii-iii
III. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto.... ~WCF, XVIII, ii-iii
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