Major Camps of thought

Reformed Theology teaches that God chose who He would save before creation, and then without any contribution from mankind, saves those He predestined to save, irresistibly causing them to trust in Christ and just as certainly preventing anyone else from trusting in Christ. Once God saves us, we are always saved, we cannot lose our salvation. But many that backslide, were never saved in the first place.

The Arminian Theology says God chose before creation those He foresaw would trust in Christ, essentially nullifying election before creation, and then says we are able to place our trust in Christ, and these then are the one's God saves. However, if we should stop trusting in Christ, and we are able to stop trusting, we fall away from salvation. So we are only secure in our salvation once we physically die.

A third group adds works to faith and says we must be water baptized if possible but God can make exceptions.

A fourth group, holds a hybrid view of soteriology, they believe Christ died for everybody, sharing the Arminian belief, they think once you are saved you are always saved, sharing the Reformed or Calvinistic belief, they believe we come to faith, and are not so corrupted by Original Sin, that we cannot understand the milk of the Gospel.

I am sure I have not quite presented the various views correctly, but hopefully you will get the general idea.

zerocipher said:

So what exactly are the major camps of thought when it comes to Soteriology?? The only thing that I really know about it is that is about salvation.

Click to expand...

Hmmm. Not really an easy question. There are two major camps and then subdivisions of those camps. You have your calvinists and arminians.

Then there are issues within soteriology, such as foreknowledge and freewill/predestination. To really get familiar with the subject I suggest two books.

Predestination and Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom

and

Divine Foreknowledge: 4 Views

These will bring you up to speed pretty fast.

This issue is primarily about how exactly God goes about saving men. Yes we have faith, but what role does God play in that? What role does man play in that. The universal goal of all the groups is to come up with a system that gives God all the glory in man's salvation, and gives man all the blame in his condemnation. Thus there are sharp disputes over how much freedom man really has in the whole process. If he has too much freedom, then does that mean he get's credit for his own salvation? If he has too little, can he really be blamed for not believing and being condemned? This is where the debate starts and it spreads in many directions from there.

Hope that helps.

Salvation is accomplished by the almighty power of the triune God. The Father chose a people, the Son died for them, the Holy Spirit makes Christ's death effective by bringing the elect to faith and repentance, thereby causing them to willingly obey the Gospel. The entire process (election, redemption, regeneration) is the work of God and is by grace alone. Thus God, not man, determines who will be the recipients of the gift of salvation.
The Five Points of Calvinism are easily remembered by the acrostic TULIP An Estimate of:
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Total Depravity (Total Inability)

Total Depravity is probably the most misunderstood tenet of Calvinism. When Calvinists speak of humans as "totally depraved," they are making an extensive, rather than an intensive statement. The effect of the fall upon man is that sin has extended to every part of his personality -- his thinking, his emotions, and his will. Not necessarily that he is intensely sinful, but that sin has extended to his entire being.
The unregenerate (unsaved) man is dead in his sins (Romans 5:12). Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel (Mark 4:11f). This is why Total Depravity has also been called "Total Inability." The man without a knowledge of God will never come to this knowledge without God's making him alive through Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5).
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Unconditional Election

Unconditional Election is the doctrine which states that God chose those whom he was pleased to bring to a knowledge of himself, not based upon any merit shown by the object of his grace and not based upon his looking forward to discover who would "accept" the offer of the gospel. God has elected, based solely upon the counsel of his own will, some for glory and others for damnation (Romans 9:15,21). He has done this act before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 1:4-8).
This doctrine does not rule out, however, man's responsibility to believe in the redeeming work of God the Son (John 3:16-18). Scripture presents a tension between God's sovereignty in salvation, and man's responsibility to believe which it does not try to resolve. Both are true -- to deny man's responsibility is to affirm an unbiblical hyper-calvinism; to deny God's sovereignty is to affirm an unbiblical Arminianism.
The elect are saved unto good works (Ephesians 2:10). Thus, though good works will never bridge the gulf between man and God that was formed in the Fall, good works are a result of God's saving grace. This is what Peter means when he admonishes the Christian reader to make his "calling" and "election" sure (2 Peter 1:10). Bearing the fruit of good works is an indication that God has sown seeds of grace in fertile soil.
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Limited Atonement (Particular Redemption)

Limited Atonement is a doctrine offered in answer to the question, "for whose sins did Christ atone?" The Bible teaches that Christ died for those whom God gave him to save (John 17:9). Christ died, indeed, for many people, but not all (Matthew 26:28). Specifically, Christ died for the invisible Church -- the sum total of all those who would ever rightly bear the name "Christian" (Ephesians 5:25).
This doctrine often finds many objections, mostly from those who think that Limited Atonement does damage to evangelism. We have already seen that Christ will not lose any that the father has given to him (John 6:37). Christ's death was not a death of potential atonement for all people. Believing that Jesus' death was a potential, symbolic atonement for anyone who might possibly, in the future, accept him trivializes Christ's act of atonement. Christ died to atone for specific sins of specific sinners. Christ died to make holy the church. He did not atone for all men, because obviously all men are not saved. Evangelism is actually lifted up in this doctrine, for the evangelist may tell his congregation that Christ died for sinners, and that he will not lose any of those for whom he died!
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Irresistible Grace

The result of God's Irresistible Grace is the certain response by the elect to the inward call of the Holy Spirit, when the outward call is given by the evangelist or minister of the Word of God. Christ, himself, teaches that all whom God has elected will come to a knowledge of him (John 6:37). Men come to Christ in salvation when the Father calls them (John 6:44), and the very Spirit of God leads God's beloved to repentance (Romans 8:14). What a comfort it is to know that the gospel of Christ will penetrate our hard, sinful hearts and wondrously save us through the gracious inward call of the Holy Spirit (I Peter 5:10)!
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Perseverance of the Saints

Perseverance of the Saints is a doctrine which states that the saints (those whom God has saved) will remain in God's hand until they are glorified and brought to abide with him in heaven. Romans 8:28-39 makes it clear that when a person truly has been regenerated by God, he will remain in God's stead. The work of sanctification which God has brought about in his elect will continue until it reaches its fulfillment in eternal life (Phil. 1:6). Christ assures the elect that he will not lose them and that they will be glorified at the "last day" (John 6:39). The Calvinist stands upon the Word of God and trusts in Christ's promise that he will perfectly fulfill the will of the Father in saving all the elect.
This description of the Five Points of Calvinism was written by Jonathan Barlow who acknowledges that not all those bearing the name "Calvinist" would agree with every jot and tittle of this document.

http://www.reformed.org/calvinism/index.html

zerocipher said:

So what exactly are the major camps of thought when it comes to Soteriology?? The only thing that I really know about it is that is about salvation.

Click to expand...

And w/in the camps Van listed there are some big divisions. For instance, Spurgeon's soteriology is in no way like Jonathan Edwards'. Edwards was all about a religious experience and seeing if you were truly converted by your experience and self-examination. He would tell people that God hate them and that they should do all they could to please God in a natural state (say your prayers and leave off sinningand think about your sins in order to arouse godly sorrow) and maybe he would have mercy on you. Spurgeon said that we should come to Christ irrespective of our experiences and emotions and he would do the saving.Anyone who trusted Jesus could rest assured they had eternal life.

"T.U.L.I.P." is an acronym for the five scriptural points of the doctrine of salvationwhich was the result of the Synod of Dordt in the 1618. The reason for this synodwas to address the 5 points of doctrine which the Arminian Remonstrants presented to theReformed Churches of Europe.The acronym stands for:T. Total Depravity
U. Unconditional Election
L. Limited Atonement
I. Irresistable Grace
P. Perserverance of the Saints (believers)Additionally:
God's Sovereignty
Reprobation
Here is a list of scripture proof texts that lead to the rejection of the Arminians':
TOTAL DEPRAVITY

Genesis 2:16-17 Adam's death for disobedienceRomans 5:12 That same death passes upon usEphesians 2:1-3 Necessary for us to be quickened who were deadColossians 2:13 Necessary for us to be quickened who were dead Psalm 51:5 David a sinner from conception onwardPsalm 58:3 Wickedness from birthJohn 3:5-6 New birth necessary to enter kingdomGenesis 6:5 The thoughts of man's heart only evil continuallyGenesis 8:21 The heart evil from youthEcclesiastes 9:3 Hearts are filled up with evilJeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all elseMark 7:21-23 Evil acts come from a depraved heartJohn 3:19 Men love darkness rather than lightRomans 8:7-8 The mind is set against God and cannot please him.1 Corinthians 2:14 Unregenerate cannot understand spiritual thingsEphesians 4:17-19 dark understanding & hardness of heartEphesians 5:8 We also were once darknessTitus 1:15 The unbelievers very minds and consciences are corruptJohn 8:44 The will of the unbeliever is to do devil's willEphesians 2:1-2 following the prince of the power of the air2 Timothy 2:25-26 captured by the devil1 John 3:10 children of the devil1 John 5:19 world in the power of the evil oneJohn 8:34 everyone who sins is slave to sinRomans 6:20 slaves to sinTitus 3:3 slaves to sinful passions2 Chronicles 6:36 true of entire human raceJob 15:14-16 man cannot be cleanPsalm 130:3 nobody could stand if the Lord marked iniquityPsalm 143:2 no living man is righteous before LordProverbs 20:9 none can say they made their heart cleanEcclesiastes 7:20 not a just man on earthEcclesiastes 7:29 not created that way, but fellIsaiah 53:6 all have gone astray and each has gone astrayIsaiah 64:6 even righteous deed like a polluted garmentRomans 3:9-12 all are under the power of sinJames 3:2, 6, 8 unable to bridle any passion1 John 1:8, 10 if we say we have no sin we are self-deceivedJob 14:4 impossible to bring a clean thing out of an uncleanJeremiah 13:23 Cannot change ourselvesMatthew 7:16-18 a bad tree cannot bear good fruitMatthew 12:33 Must make the tree good for fruit to be acceptableJohn 6:44 No one can come apart from being drawnJohn 6:65 Coming must be granted by the fatherRomans 11:35-36 We cannot give a gift to God1 Corinthians 4:7 If you are different, it is because God made you that way2 Corinthians 3:5 We are not sufficient of ourselves (this deals with Paul's call to the ministry primarily, of course)2 Timothy 3:7-8 never able to come to a knowledge of truthTitus 1:12-13 Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. Titus 1:15-16 even their mind and conscience is defiled... reprobateJames 2:10-11 offense in one point of the law renders one guilty of the entire lawJames 3:12 no fountain can bring forth both salt water and fresh.Psalm 22:29 none can keep alive his own soul

UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION

Deuteronomy 10:14-15 God set his heart in love = chosePsalm 33:12 God chooses his own heritagePsalm 65:4 Chosen to dwell in his courtsPsalm 106:5 God's chosen onesHaggai 2:23 God chose ZerubbabelMatthew 11:27 Only the one the Son chooses know the FatherMatthew 22:14 Many are called, but few are chosenMatthew 24:22, 24, 31 days shortened for the elect the elect cannot be deceived gathering of the electLuke 18:7 God will vindicate his electRomans 8:28-30 Called according to God's purposeRomans 8:33 These (28-30) are God's electColossians 3:12 God's chosen ones1 Thessalonians 5:9 God has destined us to obtain salvationTitus 1:1-2 to further the faith of God's elect1 Peter 1:1,2 the exiles who were chosen and destined1 Peter 2:8,9 some stumble because they were destined to, but others are a chosen race who have been called.Revelation 17:14 Those with Christ are called and chosen and faithfulMark 13:20 God did the choosingEphesians 1:4 It was done before the foundation of the worldRevelation 13:8 God chose people, not just a planRevelation 17:8 God chose people, not just a planRomans 9:11-13 God's choice not based on anything creaturelyRomans 9:16 Not based on man's will or man's exertionRomans 10:20 God found by those who did NOT seek him1 Corinthians 1:27-29 God chose the foolish, weak, low and despisedspecifically so that no flesh could boast that ANY PART of their salvation was from them.2 Timothy 1:9 not by our works, but because of his own purposeEphesians 1:11-12 Works are the result not the cause of electionEphesians 2:10 Works are the result not the cause of electionJohn 15:16 Apostles did not choose Christ, but he chose.Acts 13:48 Those who were ordained believed.Acts 18:27 Those who believed did so through gracePhilippians 1:29 Granted to us to believePhilippians 2:12-13 God wills his pleasure in us1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 Because chosen, the word came in power of Holy Spirit and not just words of men.2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 God chose them from the beginning to be saved.James 2:5 God has chosen the poor to become rich to faith

Election is NOT salvation, but is unto salvation (Romans 11:7, 2 Timothy 2:10; etc)Exodus 33:19 God's mercy based on his willDeuteronomy 7:6-7 (esp. 7) chosen-ness not based on something good in the chosen.The doctrine of election is really the biblical doctrine of the sovereignty of God as it applies to the doctrine of salvation.Deuteronomy 7:6 God chose the nation of Israel for no good thing in the nation.Luke 6:13 Jesus chose disciples whom also he named apostlesJohn 17:16 A group of men belonged to the Father and he gave them to ChristActs 9:15 Paul was also a chosen vessel, as were the other apostlesExodus 33:19 God will be gracious to whom he pleasesDeuteronomy 4:37 chosen-ness based on being belovedJoshua 11:20 Decisions of the wicked are result of God's hardeningJob 23:14 God does that which he has appointedPsalm 65:4 The man is blest who is chosen to enter God's houseJeremiah 1:5 God knew Jeremiah before he was formed in the wombMatthew 20:16 external call not the same as electionMatthew 25:44 The kingdom prepared for some people from foundation of the world2 Timothy 1:11 Paul appointed a preacher, an apostle, a teacher2 Timothy 2:10 Paul endures all things for the elect's sake2 Timothy 2:19 The Lord knows them that are hisHebrews 2:13 Behold, I and the children God gave me - applied to ChristJohn 17:2 Christ gives life to those who were given to him by the FatherEphesians 1:5 God predestinated us to adoption according the good pleasure of his will.

LIMITED ATONEMENT

The issue of the atonement is not the WORTH of it. The death of Christ is of infinite worth. When we use the term "limited" we are referring not to the value of the atonement, but to the scope of it. Some Calvinists have therefore preferred not to use the term"limited atonement," realizing that all but universalists limit the atonement either in respect to its intention or in respect to its power. If it is limited in respect toits intention, then it does not apply to all men. If it is limited with respect to itspower, then it does not apply to all men. If it is limited with respect to its power,then it does not actually save, but merely makes salvation a possibility. Now I haveno problem with the term, because it fits the acrostic TULIP quite nicely. Nevertheless,a lot of ink has been wasted attacking and defending this particular doctrine when,in fact, the attackers often did not understand what they were attacking, but simplybristled at the idea of anything pertaining to Christ being "limited." The issue inthe doctrine of limited atonement is: Who did Christ actually redeem, anyway? 1. Christ came not merely to enable men to be saved, but actually to save them.Matthew 1:21 He shall save his people from their sinsLuke 19:10 Christ came to seek and to save what was lost 2 Corinthians 5:21 he was made sin for usGalatians 1:4 Christ gave himself to deliver us.1 Timothy 1:15 Jesus came to save sinnersTitus 2:14 He gave himself for us to redeem us.1 Peter 3:18 Suffered to bring us to God2 Corinthians 5:14-15 Christ died for all who die to sinEphesians 5:25 Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.Acts 20:28 Christ purchased the church with his own bloodIsaiah 53:6 The Lord has laid our sins upon ChristEphesians 1:7 We have actual redemption Hebrews 1:3 Sins are actually purged.2. As a result of Christ's work, his people are reconciled to God, justified,given the Holy Spirit who regenerates and sanctifies them. All these blessings were actually secured by Christ.Romans 5:10 we were reconciled by the death of God's Son2 Corinthians 5:18-20 God reconciled us to himself by ChristEphesians 2:15-16 Christ abolished enmity of ordinances and reconciled us to God by the cross.Colossians 1:21-22 Christ reconciled us by the body of his flesh through deathHebrews 2:17 he made reconciliation for the sins of his people.1 John 2:2 Christ is propitiation for sin1 John 4:10 his Son the propitiation for our sins.3. Christ secured righteousness for his peopleRomans 3:24-15 Redemption secures justificationRomans 5:8-9 Justified by his blood1 Corinthians 1:30 He is made to us wisdom, righteousness,sanctification & redemption.Galatians 3:13 Christ made a curse for usColossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the power of darkness.Hebrews 9:12 blood of Christ obtained eternal redemptionHebrews 9:15 death is redemption of transgressions1 Peter 1:18-19 redeemed ... with the precious blood1 Peter 2:24 he bare our sins4. Christ, by his atonement, secured the gift of the Spirit, which includes regeneration and sanctification and all that is involved with them.Ephesians 1:3-4 all spiritual blessings based upon being chosen in ChristPhilippians 1:29 even suffering "given" to us in behalf of ChristActs 5:31 God gives repentance and forgivenessTitus 2:14 Christ gave himself for us - to redeem and purify.Titus 3:5-6 Washing of regeneration and renewing of Holy SpiritHebrews 10:10 Sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ Ephesians 5:25-26 Christ gave himself for the church to sanctify and cleanse it.1 Corinthians 1:30 wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and righteousness from ChristHebrews 9:14 Christ's blood purges our conscience from dead works Hebrews 13:12 Jesus' blood sanctifies his people1 John 1:7 Christ's blood cleanses us from all sin5. Jesus laid down his life for his sheep. They are those who are made to hear his voice (i.e. obey his voice) and follow him.John 10:11 the good shepherd gives his life for his sheep (by implication: not for wolves or goats.)John 10:14 he knows them and is known by themJohn 10:15 lays down his life for his sheepJohn 10:16 other sheep which he must bring - they too shall hear his voiceJohn 10:26 his detractors did not believe because they were not of his sheepJohn 10:27 his sheep hear his voice and follow himJohn 10:28 the sheet shall never perish6. Jesus, in his high-priestly prayer, prayer not for the world but for those given to him by the FatherJohn 17:9 Christ prayed for those given to him out of the world (cf.v.6)John 17:20 Christ prayed also for those who would believe on Christ7. Paul traced all the blessings which the saints inherit (including redemption)back to the fact that they were chosen in the eternal counsel of God. (Ephesians 1:3-12)Ephesians 1:3-4 all spiritual blessings (and redemption is a spiritual blessing)are ours based upon God choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world ...to sanctification as well as justification.Ephesians 1:5 God predestinated us to adoption according to the good pleasure of his willEphesians 1:7 Our redemption is secured by his blood -as also forgiveness of sins.- Jesus was sent into the world by the Father to save the people that the Father had given him. None of them shall be lost.John 6:35-40: And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.


IRRESISTIBLE GRACE

(Efficacious call/regeneration/irresistible grace)The gospel extends a call to repent to everyone who hears its message (Acts 17:30) It promises salvation to all who repent and believe. Yet, because men are dead in trespasses and sins, men do not respondto the gospel call. Men, of themselves, are both unwilling and unable savinglyto respond to the gospel call. No amount of external pleading, bargaining, threatening,or promising can cause blind, dead, deaf, rebellious sinners to bow the knee to Christ.Such an act is totally contrary to man's nature. There is, for the elect, an inward call by the Holy Spirit attached to the outward call of the gospel. This is sometimescalled regeneration, being "born again or from above,"a new creation, etc.For the purpose of our acrostic it is called "irresistible grace."
50 passages that teach Irresistible Grace:John 1:12-13 born (again) not by man's will, but God'sJohn 3:3-8 flesh begets flesh -Spirit begets Spirit wind/Spirit blows where it willTitus 3:5 according to his mercy - washing of regeneration1 Peter 1:3 Begotten according to God's mercy1 Peter 1:23 Born of incorruptible seed by Word of God1 John 5:4 Born of GodDeuteronomy 30:6 Lord himself circumcises our heartsEzekiel 36:26-27 The Lord gives anew heart and enables by his SpiritGalatians 6:15 Nothing we can do avails - only becoming a new creatureEphesians 2:10 We are created unto good works2 Corinthians 5:17-18 We are new creations - old passed, new comeJohn 5:21 The Son quickens whom he willEphesians 2:1,5 Quickened who were deadColossians 2:13 dead in sins; quickened by ChristMatthew 11:25-27 hid from wise - revealed to whom Christ willLuke 10:21 same as aboveMatthew 13:10-11 Given to some to understand - others are hardened.Luke 8:10 same as aboveMatthew 16:15-17 flesh and blood did not reveal -special blessednessJohn 6:37 all the Father gives shall comeJohn 6:44 No man can come except the Father draw him; and Christ will raise upJohn 6:45 everyone who has learned (been disciple) from the Father comesJohn 6:64 Jesus knew from the beginningJohn 6:65 no man can come1 Corinthians 2:14 natural man cannot know spiritual thingsEphesians 1:17-18 God gives spirit of wisdom - eyes of the understanding enlightened.Acts 5:31 Jesus gives repentance to IsraelActs 11:18 God has also granted repentance to the GentilesActs 13:48 As many as were ordained to eternal life believedActs 16:14 The Lord opened Lydia's heartActs 18:27 believed through grace Ephesians 2:8-9 faith a gift of godPhilippians 1:29 it is given to us to believe2 Timothy 2:25-26 God may give repentance to the acknowledging of the truth! Previously captive to devil at his will Romans 1:6-7 the called of Jesus Christ = beloved of GodRomans 8:30 predestinated then called then justified then glorifiedRomans 9:23-24 prepared for glory, then called.1 Corinthians 1:1 called to be an apostle by God's will1 Corinthians 1:9 called by God the faithful1 Corinthians 1:23-31 not may wise, etc.Galatians 1:15-16 Paul called when it please GodEphesians 4:4 Those in the body called in hope2 Timothy 1:9 called according to his purpose and graceHebrews 9:15 called; receive the inheritanceJude 1 sanctified - persevered - called1 Peter 1:15 calling - holy1 Peter 2:9 called from darkness to light1 Peter 5:10 called to eternal glory2 Peter 1:3 given us all things ... hat calledRevelations 17:14 those with Christ are called, chosen, faithful Isaiah 55:11 God's word accomplishes what he pleasesJohn 3:27 nothing received except from heavenJohn 17:2 gave eternal life to as many as thou hast givenRomans 9:16 not of him that willeth or runneth1 Corinthians 3:6-7 it is God who gives increase1 Corinthians 4:7 who makes you to differ? cannot glory!Philippians 2:12-13 God works in you both to will and to doJames 1:18 of his own will begat he us1 John 5:20 Son of God gave us understandingJohn 17:6 Christ manifested himself to those the Father gave him out of the world.2 Timothy 3:15; Hebrews 4:12-13; Hebrews 10:16; Hebrews 12:2; Hebrews 13:21

PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS

This doctrine has sometimes wrongly (by both advocate and enemy) been referred to as"once saved always saved." That is a very poor way of looking at it, however. In reality, what the doctrine teaches is that the elect are kept in faith bythe Spirit of God. It does not teach that if we quit believing (trusting)Christ that we are still Christians. This doctrine does not teach that all whoprofess Christ are certain of heaven. Rather, it teaches that all true believerswill continue (though there may be periods of doubting, etc) in faith - and because they persevere they are secure. Neither is this doctrine identicalwith assurance. Many may be true Christians who still lack assurance of God's loveand others may have a false assurance who are really not God's children at all. This hardly "exhausts" the texts that demonstrate that believers are kept bythe power of God unto salvation, but it should be enough to demonstrate that the doctrineis drawn from Scripture and not simply used as a cloak for lasciviousness (though there maybe some who use it that way,
it will condemn them in the judgment).
Isaiah 43:1-3 whom the Lord redeems he also keepsIsaiah 54:10 the kindness of the Lord shall not depart from his covenant peopleJeremiah 32:40 God will not depart from his people and will not permit them to depart eitherMatthew 18:14 Jesus seeks and restores the wandering sheep and it is not the will of God that one should perishJohn 3:16 believers will not perishJohn 3:36 believers have life - unbelievers have wrathJohn 5:24 He who hears and believes shall not come into condemnationJohn 6:35-40 no wise is the believer cast outJohn 6:47 the believer has everlasting lifeJohn 10:27-30 they (the sheep) shall never perishJohn 17:11 Jesus' prayer for the Father to keep believersJohn 17:12 none lost but the one Scripture said would be lostJohn 17:15 Proper understand of "keep" is "keep from evil."Romans 5:8-10 if justified, how much more shall we be saved.Romans 8:1 There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ JesusRomans 8:29-30 whom he foreknew ... he also glorified.Romans 8:35-39 nothing can separate us from the love of God1 Corinthians 1:7-9 Christ shall confirm you unto the end1 Corinthians 10:13 God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to withstand2 Corinthians 4:14-17 we do not henceforth live to ourselves but to ChristEphesians 1:5 predestined unto adoption, not just justificationEphesians 1:13 sealed with the Holy Spirit of promiseEphesians 1:14 earnest of our inheritance as purchased possessionEphesians 4:30 we are sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemptionColossians 3:34 when Christ appears, we shall also appear1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 God will faithfully preserve us blameless unto the coming of Christ2 Timothy 4:18 God will preserve us to his heavenly kingdom -from every evil workHebrews 9:12 Christ has obtained an eternal redemption for usHebrews 9:15 those who are called will receive the promise of the inheritanceHebrews 10:14 by his offering he has perfected the sanctified foreverHebrews 12:28 we receive a kingdom which cannot be moved [present active participle]1 Peter 1:3-5 our inheritance is reserved for us, for we are kept by the power of God unto salvation1 John 2:19 If they had been of us, they would not have departed from us1 John 2:25 the promise of God is eternal life1 John 5:4 whatever is born of God overcomes the world1 John 5:11-13 those who have the Son may be certain of eternal lifeJude 1 those that are sanctified are also preservedJude 24,25 God is able to keep us from falling2 Timothy 1:12 God keeps what is committed to him against that day2 Timothy 2:21 we are prepared for good works2 Timothy 4:7 Paul's history - he kept the faith.Titus 3:8 those who believe should be careful to maintain good worksPhilemon 21 Paul's confidence in Philemon's obedienceHebrews 2:10 Christ bring many sons to Glory (not merely justification).Hebrews 2:14-15 the devil destroyed as the one with power of death and thus God's children deliveredHebrews 3:6 we are demonstrated to be of the household of God only as we hold unto the endHebrews 3:14 See Hebrews 3:6Hebrews 6:9-12 perseverance accompanies salvationHebrews 6:17-20 God's counsel, by which we are chosen is immutable (see Ephesians 1:11)Hebrews 7:25 Jesus saves us to the uttermostHebrews 10:22-23 we have assurance that we will hold fast to our profession because God is faithfulHebrews 10:39 we are not of those who draw back. i.e. those who draw back are a different set1 Peter 2:12 encouragement to good works that will glorify God1 Peter 2:15 Such good works are God's will (see verse 12)1 Samuel 12:22 God will not forsake his people
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

Acts 2:23 Christ was delivered by God's determinate counsel and foreknowledgeActs 4:27-28 Herod, Pilate, Gentiles and people of Israel gathered to do whatever God's counsel determinedMatthew 10:29 God's determination of minute details of providencePsalm 103:19 God rules over all thingsDaniel 4:35 God does whatever he will - none can stay his hand or question his willIsaiah 59:1 God's hand is not shortened that it cannot saveExodus 15:8 The Lord reigns for ever and everDeuteronomy 10:17 God has no regard for personsDeuteronomy 32:39 God kills, makes alive, wounds, heals and none can deliver1 Samuel 2:6-8 God makes poor, makes rich, brings low, lifts up, pillars are the Lord's1 Chronicles 29:11 All in the earth and heavens is the Lord's1 Chronicles 29:12 riches and honour come from the Lord - his hand rules over all2 Chronicles 20:6 none is able to withstand the power and will of the LordJob 9:12 God does whatever he will and none can question himJob 36:22-23 God lifts up by his power and none can say he has worked iniquity.Psalm 10:16 The Lord is king forever and everPsalm 22:28 The Lord is the governor among the nationsPsalm 47:8 God reigns over the heathen; he sits upon his holy thronePsalm 66:7 He rules by his power foreverPsalm 75:7 God exalts one and puts down anotherPsalm 115:3 God has done whatsoever he pleasedPsalm 135:6 whatsoever the Lord pleased - that did heEcclesiastes 9:1 all things are in the hands of GodIsaiah 40:23 God brings princes to nothing and judges as they were vanityIsaiah 45:7 God creates light, darkness, peace, evil; he does it allJeremiah 10:10 The nations shall not abide the indignation of the LordJeremiah 18:6 Israel is as clay in the hands of the potterJeremiah 27:5 God's gifts given to whom it seemed good to him to give them.Lamentations 3:37 A human cannot say something will come to pass unless decreed by God.Daniel 2:21 It is God who gives wisdom and knowledgeMatthew 11:25 God hides truth from some and reveals it to othersMatthew 20:15 God is free to do with his own as he willLuke 10:21 God hides truth from some and reveals it to others because it seems good in his sight.John 19:11 Even Pilate's power came from GodRomans 9:19 None is able to resist the will of GodRevelation 4:11 All creation for Christ's gloryJob 23:13 God does whatever he desires and no one can turn him from it.

"JUSTICE TOWARD THE WICKED"(Reprobation)

Psalm 7:11 God is angry with the wicked every dayPsalm 11:5 God hates the violent oneGenesis 6:5-7 God's determination to destroy the wickedGenesis 19:13 God's destruction of the wicked is on account of their wickednessDeuteronomy 31:17 God's anger is kindled against the evil doer because he is wicked1 Samuel 3:14 Eli's house shall not be cleansed with sacrifice or offering foreverPsalm 81:11-12 God gives people up to walk in their own counsel - hardeningIsaiah 6:9 Hearing without understanding and seeing without perceivingIsaiah 6:10 Judicial hardening of non-responsiveIsaiah 29:9-12 Lord has closed the eye of those he will punishJeremiah 6:30 Reprobate silver is rejected - so these are rejected by God.Jeremiah 7:16 Do not pray for the reprobateHosea 5:6 The iniquity of the people is such that God has withdrawn from themMatthew 13:14-15 Isaiah's prophecy fulfilled in not understanding God's kingdomMark 3:29 Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is never forgivenJohn 10:26 They believed not because they were not of Christ's sheepJohn 17:12 The son of perdition was lost in order to fulfil ScriptureRomans 9:21-22 some vessels are fitted for destruction by the potterRomans 11:7 the rest were blinded (literally hardened)2 Thessalonians 2:11 God will send strong delusion, causing the wicked to believe a lie, so that they might be damned.Jude 4 men ordained to condemnationIsaiah 19:14 The Lord led Egypt astrayExodus 9:16 Purpose of Pharaoh being raised upProverbs 16:4 God created the wicked for the day of evilLuke 8:10 parables spoken so that some will not see and thus be hardenedPsalm 28:5 God will destroy those who refuse to understand his word

- Compiled by Richard Bacon

One of the Camps, Reformed Theology accepts the idea that we were either saved or dammed from all eternity for all eternity. With this premise in mind, they looked at scripture and voila, they found their doctrine in the vague verses of God’s word. Below is a typical list where they find that all men, all the time are unable to understand spiritual things, the doctrine of Total Depravity. But as we shall see, not one of the verses, when considered contextually actually supports the mistaken premise.

TOTAL DEPRAVITY

Genesis 2:16-17 Adam's death for disobedience
Adam died spiritually when his eyes were opened, he was corrupted and because God is Holy, he was spiritually separated from God. Later he also died physically. The verse does not say whether the separation, spiritual death, resulted in total spiritual inability of Adam.

Romans5:12 That same death passes upon us
Yes, every person is conceived “in Adam” separated from God due to our unholiness, we are “dead in our sins.” The verse does not say whether the separation, spiritual death, results in the total spiritual inability of all mankind.

Ephesians 2:1-3 Necessary for us to be quickened who were dead
This passage (Ephesians 2:1-7) teaches that all mankind is dead in our trespasses and sins. Because of our separation from God we live according to the ungodly influences of the world, Satan, and the lusts of the flesh. Because of our corruption, of being “in Adam” we were by nature children of wrath, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. But, Paul says, speaking of born again believers in Christ, when we were dead, living under the influence of our corruption, that God made us alive, reuniting us with God (together with Christ), and so this sovereign act by God alone saves us, when He spiritually places us “in Christ.” This passage does not say whether the separation, spiritual death, resulted in total spiritual inability, but only teaches we are saved by God’s grace and not by our spiritual ability, being dead we could do nothing to save ourselves.

Colossians 2:13 Necessary for us to be quickened who were dead
This passage (Colossians 2:8-14) makes the same point as Ephesians 2:1-7, except it adds the manner by God unites us with Christ, when God spiritually baptized us into Christ’s death, where the circumcision of Christ is performed, our sins are forgiven, and we arise “in Christ” a new creation, born again. This passage does not say whether the separation, the spiritual death of separation from God, had resulted in spiritual inability.

Psalm 51:5 David a sinner from conception onward
This verse makes the same point of being conceived in a separated from God state due to unholiness. Spiritual inability is nowhere to be found.

Psalm 58:3 Wickedness from birth
This verse makes the same point of being conceived in a separated from God state due to unholiness. Spiritual inability is nowhere to be found.

John 3:5-6 New birth necessary to enter kingdom
This verse makes the same point as Colossians 2:8-14, and adds that rebirth in Christ is necessary to enter the kingdom of God. Because we are made holy in Christ, our unholiness that resulted in our separation from God is washed away by the washing of regeneration. Spiritual inability is nowhere to be found.

Genesis 6:5 The thoughts of man's heart only evil continually
This verse, taken out of context, actually seems to support spiritually inability because if we are continually always thinking evil thoughts, we could not think about the spiritual milk of the gospel. But let’s look at the verse more carefully; God is looking at man, not at an individual, but at mankind. And because of the corruption, mankind is continually thinking evil thoughts. So the idea is that because mankind is under the influence of the world, Satan and the lusts of the flesh, and because the nature of all mankind is corrupted, then in the aggregate mankind’s thoughts are continually evil. But what the verse does not say is that every individual is constantly thinking evil thoughts. This is demonstrated by looking down only three verses to Genesis 6:8, where Noah found favor, demonstrating that individuals did think about God and doing what is right on occasion. Noah demonstrates that some men do have limited spiritual ability.

Genesis 8:21 The heart evil from youth
Yet another example of the corruption of being “in Adam” with the intent of mankind’s aggregate “heart” being evil. But spiritual inability is nowhere to be found.

Ecclesiastes 9:3 Hearts are filled up with evil
Another example of the corruption of mankind. But if you look back to verse 2, notice some men are striving to pursue the righteousness of the Law, again demonstrating limited spiritual ability in an unregenerate state, for by the Law no flesh is justified – made holy.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all else
Yet another verse demonstrating our corruption in Adam, our heart, our core character is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick or wicked. But spiritually inability is nowhere to be found.

Mark 7:21-23 Evil acts come from a depraved heart
This passage actually supports limited spiritual ability. In verse 18 Jesus asks His disciples if they are also lacking in understanding. This shows that Jesus had an expectation that they could understand some spiritual things. Jesus then explains the spiritual truth that we are defiled by what comes out of our corrupted heart, not by eating the wrong food. Thus the passage demonstrates that Jesus thought His disciples could understand His truths, demonstrating that some people have limited spiritual ability.

John 3:19 Men love darkness rather than light
Other men of course have no ability, they love darkness and reject the light. So this passage supports the spiritual inability of some people, but also supports in verse 21 that some men have the limited spiritual ability to practice the truth.

Romans 8:7-8 The mind is set against God and cannot please him.
This passage compares the unregenerate man to the regenerate born again believer indwelt with the Spirit of Christ. In verse 6 we see that we have the ability to set our minds on the flesh – ungodly influence – or on the Spirit of Christ within us – Godly influence. So born again folks who have the Spirit of Christ can set their minds on the Spirit, but folks who are not indwelt cannot set their minds on the Spirit of Christ. Now if the unregenerate set their minds on the flesh, and are therefore under ungodly influence, they are hostile toward God, for it (the flesh) does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, being corrupt. And those who are in the flesh, meaning “in Adam” cannot please God by subjecting themselves to the Law, for by the Law no flesh is justified. In verse 9, the limited spiritual ability of the unregenerate is contrasted with the enhanced spiritual ability of those indwelt with the Holy Spirit. What this passage teaches are two truths, the indwelt can set their minds on the Spirit of Christ and the unregenerate cannot, and two if the unregenerate set their minds on the flesh, they cannot please God. What the passage does not say is whether the unregenerate can set their minds not on the flesh but on spiritual milk such as the gospel of Christ. That truth is revealed next.

1 Corinthians 2:14 Unregenerate cannot understand spiritual things
Contrary to the assertion, this passage (1 Corinthians 2:14-3:3) proves the unregenerate, the unsaved can understand spiritual milk but cannot understand spiritual meat. In 1 Corinthians 3:1 we see that the spiritual ability of the “babes in Christ and men of the flesh (just regenerated newborns and unregenerates) are the same. Limited by a lack of understanding of spiritual meat. Note in verse 2 that Paul gives the babes in Christ the same spiritual milk he would give to men of the flesh, proving limited spiritual ability of the unsaved.

Ephesians 4:17-19 dark understanding & hardness of heart
This passage provides an excellent explanation of how folks who love darkness are blinded from the truth, and are the kind of people Jesus described as the soil beside the road in Matthew 13:19. So just as Jesus did, Paul in Ephesians refers to this subset of mankind, and what Reformed Theology does is claim that everyone is in this group, never mind Matthew 13:20-23 which describes several other groups who have spiritual ability to various degrees.

Ephesians 5:8 We also were once darkness
Yes, everyone conceived “in Adam” is corrupt – darkness – but this does not equate with total spiritual inability, only with limited spiritual ability due to the corruption and separation from God.

Titus 1:15 The unbelievers very minds and consciences are corrupt
Yes, when we were dead in our sins, we were unholy, defiled, and unbelieving. However, in this state some have the ability to profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him. Sounds like the kind of people described as rocky soil in Matthew 13:20-21, people with the ability to receive the milk of the gospel with joy, but do not put their heart-felt faith in it, instead they have a rootless faith that God does not credit as righteousness. He will say on that day, I never knew you.
So to repeat, we find scripture supporting limited spiritual ability, but denying total spiritual ability of all unregenerate men.

John 8:44 The will of the unbeliever is to do devil's will
Yet another passage (John 8:42-47) that demonstrates limited spiritual ability of some men. Here Jesus explains why some people do not understand the words of Jesus. It is not because they cannot physically hear. No, it is because they are under the influence of Satan, his world and the lusts of the flesh, and because they love darkness they have turned away from the light of Jesus. In verse 47, Jesus refers to people being “of God” meaning under the influence of God, people who believe in God and are seeking God; and also of people who are not under the influence of God, who do not actually believe in the Father, because if they did, they would believe in the Son, because He sent the Son.

Ephesians 2:1-2 following the prince of the power of the air
This passage (Ephesians 2:1-7) teaches that all mankind is dead in our trespasses and sins. Because of our separation from God we live according to the ungodly influences of the world, Satan, and the lusts of the flesh. Because of our corruption, of being “in Adam” we were by nature children of wrath, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. But, Paul says, speaking of born again believers in Christ, when we were dead, living under the influence of our corruption, that God made us alive, reuniting us with God (together with Christ), and so this sovereign act by God alone saves us, when He spiritually places us “in Christ.” This passage does not say whether the separation, spiritual death, resulted in total spiritual inability, but only teaches we are saved by God’s grace and not by our spiritual ability, being dead we could do nothing to save ourselves.

2 Timothy 2:25-26 captured by the devil
Yet another passage that demonstrates our corruption does not result in total spiritual inability. Note that through the revelation of God, the careful witness of Titus, the unregenerate may come to their senses, meaning that they are not so corrupt to not have senses able to understand they need to repent. And also that they are able, repeat ABLE, if they come to their senses to escape the snare of the devil. Also note that it is God who grants repentance. But the verse does not say how God grants repentance. Through supernatural alteration of the core character of the unregenerate? That idea has not been seen in any scripture. By the revelation of God, providing the information upon which we understand we need to repent and trust in God? Yes, that is how this verse suggests God grants repentance.

1 John 3:10 children of the devil
This describes those placed in Christ as children of God and those who are still in Adam and under the influence of Satan, the world and the lusts of the flesh, as children of the devil. Spiritual inability is nowhere to be found.

1 John 5:19 world in the power of the evil one
Yet another verse that describes those who are in Adam as being under the influence of the Satan, and the world. Spiritual inability is nowhere to be found.

John 8:34 everyone who sins is slave to sin
Here we have another vague verse being used to support the premise of total spiritual inability of all men all the time. But the passage teaches no such thing.
If we sin, and are not “in Christ” where we are made holy in spite of our sins, we are consigned to separation from God due to our unholiness. Thus we do not belong to God, but are “owned” by sin, we are the property of sin, a slave of sin. But if Christ, the Son of God, makes you free, you are free forever. Reformed Theology tries to use this concept of being owned by sin, as meaning being unable to set our unregenerate minds on God’s revelation, but that is nowhere taught in scripture, and certainly not in this passage.

Romans 6:20 slaves to sin
Yet another verse demonstrating that while we were in Adam, our unholiness separated us from God, and being unable to reconcile ourselves with God, we were slaves to sin, free from righteousness, but owned not by God but by sin. Spiritual inability is nowhere in the passage.

Titus 3:3 slaves to sinful passions
Yet another verse demonstrating that while we were in Adam, our unholiness separated us from God, and being unable to reconcile ourselves with God, we were slaves to sin, but owned not by God but by sin. Spiritual inability is nowhere in the passage. God had mercy on us and saved us not on the basis of deeds we had done, but through the sacrifice of Christ. We are removed from our slavery to sin, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Now we are in Christ, a child of God, set free by the Son. John 1:9-12 teaches that after we receive the gospel, we are given the right to become children of God, so after we receive the gospel with our limited spiritual ability, we undergo the washing of regeneration, the circumcision of Christ, and arise in Christ a new creation, born again by the will of God.

2 Chronicles 6:36 true of entire human race
What is true is that all men, saved and unsaved sin. Spiritual inability is nowhere found in the passage.

Job 15:14-16 man cannot be clean
Simply another verse that presents the truth that we must be born again in order to be made holy and blameless. We are conceived in sin, and as long as we are in Adam, we are separated from God due to our unholiness. Spiritual inability is nowhere in the passage.

Psalm 130:3 nobody could stand if the Lord marked iniquity
Since we are sin, no one can stand before God if God kept track of our sins, rather than forgiving them because of the propitiation of Christ. Spiritual inability is nowhere found in the passage.

Psalm 143:2 no living man is righteous before Lord
Yet another verse presenting the truth that we are all sinners, having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual inability. Like many other verses in this list, this verse is just padding, making the case overwhelmingly that we all sinners with various degrees of spiritual ability. However, none of the verses have actually demonstrated that the corruption in Adam results in total spiritual inability of all men all the time. Have you noticed?

Proverbs 20:9 none can say they made their heart clean
This verse clearly makes the case that we can do nothing to make ourselves holy. However, we can understand that we are not holy and that when we trust in Christ, God has promised that we shall never perish but have eternal life. Spiritual inability is nowhere to be found in the passage.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 not a just man on earth
Yet another verse presenting the truth that we are all sinners, having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual inability. Like many other verses in this list, this verse is just padding, making the case overwhelmingly that we all sinners with various degrees of spiritual ability. However, none of the verses have actually demonstrated that the corruption in Adam results in total spiritual inability of all men all the time. Have you noticed?

Ecclesiastes 7:29 not created that way, but fell
Yet another verse presenting the truth that we are all corrupt, having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual inability. Like many other verses in this list, this verse is just padding, making the case overwhelmingly that we all sinners with various degrees of spiritual ability. However, none of the verses have actually demonstrated that the corruption in Adam results in total spiritual inability of all men all the time. Have you noticed?

Isaiah 53:6 all have gone astray and each has gone astray
Yet another verse presenting the truth that we are all sinners, having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual inability. Like many other verses in this list, this verse is just padding, making the case overwhelmingly that we all sinners with various degrees of spiritual ability. However, none of the verses have actually demonstrated that the corruption in Adam results in total spiritual inability of all men all the time. Have you noticed?

Isaiah 64:6 even righteous deed like a polluted garment
Yet another verse presenting the truth that we are all sinners, having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual inability. Like many other verses in this list, this verse is just padding, making the case overwhelmingly that we all sinners with various degrees of spiritual ability. However, none of the verses have actually demonstrated that the corruption in Adam results in total spiritual inability of all men all the time. Have you noticed?

Romans 3:9-12 all are under the power of sin
Paul’s point in this passage is that we all sin, and since even one sin would make us unholy, we can do nothing to earn our freedom from our slavery to sin. No one seeks God by the works of the Law, for we have all turned to corruption. But apart from the law, we can seek God through faith in Christ. Thus this passage teaches limited spiritual ability and total spiritual inability is nowhere to be found.

James 3:2, 6, 8 unable to bridle any passion
Here yet again, the unsaved are contrasted with the saved, the unregenerate with the regenerate, salt water with fresh water, if we are born again we produce good fruit, if we are not born again we cannot produce what the born again produce, just as fig trees do not produce olives. But are inability to not sin, does not equate with an inability to know we are sinners and to seek the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

1 John 1:8, 10 if we say we have no sin we are self-deceived
Yet another verse presenting the truth that we are all sinners, having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual inability. Like many other verses in this list, this verse is just padding, making the case overwhelmingly that we all sinners with various degrees of spiritual ability. However, none of the verses have actually demonstrated that the corruption in Adam results in total spiritual inability of all men all the time. Have you noticed?

Job 14:4 impossible to bring a clean thing out of an unclean
Yet another verse presenting the truth that we are all sinners, having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual inability. Like many other verses in this list, this verse is just padding, making the case overwhelmingly that we all sinners with various degrees of spiritual ability. However, none of the verses have actually demonstrated that the corruption in Adam results in total spiritual inability of all men all the time. Have you noticed?

Jeremiah 13:23 Cannot change ourselves
But we can trust in Christ to change us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual inability is nowhere in the passage.
Matthew 7:16-18 a bad tree cannot bear good fruit
The inability to produce good fruit if we are not born again, does not equate with the inability to trust in Christ.

Matthew 12:33 Must make the tree good for fruit to be acceptable
Yet another verse having nothing to do with spiritual inability, all it says we judge who is born again by the fruit produced by the person’s life. More padding!

John 6:44 No one can come apart from being drawn
That is true, and we are drawn by our understanding of God’s lovingkindness, again demonstrating our limited spiritual ability to understand the revelation of God.
John 6:65 Coming must be granted by the father
If God does not allow someone to come to Christ, they cannot come to Christ, such as Judas. But since God desires all men to be saved, in general grants the opportunity to come to Jesus to all men. Spiritual inability affects some people such as Judas, but limited spiritual ability is the norm taught in scripture.

Romans 11:35-36 We cannot give a gift to God
This passage demonstrates that we can do nothing to earn our salvation, like a wage, for salvation is by the grace of God through our faith in Christ, which God credits as righteousness. God does it all.

1 Corinthians 4:7 If you are different, it is because God made you that way
This says if we trust in Christ, it is because of God’s revelation, we received the gospel message. Spiritual inability is nowhere found in the passage.

2 Corinthians 3:5 We are not sufficient of ourselves (this deals with Paul's call to the ministry primarily, of course)
Yes, we are inadequate unholy sinners needing to be saved. But Spiritual Inability is nowhere found in the passage. After we are saved, all our ministry gifts come from God.

2 Timothy 3:7-8 never able to come to a knowledge of truth
Again this passage (2 Timothy 3:1-7) deals with a subset of mankind, people among the believers who are not born again, unwilling to fully trust in Christ. So this verse supports limited spiritual ability of some men, and total spiritual inability for all men at all times is demonstrated a false doctrine by the passage.

Titus 1:12-13 Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
Apparently the person who compiled this list did not actually read verse 13, which clearly demonstrates the Cretans can be sound of faith through severe reproof.

Titus 1:15-16 even their mind and conscience is defiled... reprobate
Yes, when we were dead in our sins, we were unholy, defiled, and unbelieving. However, in this state some have the ability to profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him. Sounds like the kind of people described as rocky soil in Matthew 13:20-21, people with the ability to receive the milk of the gospel with joy, but do not put their heart-felt faith in it, instead they have a rootless faith that God does not credit as righteousness. He will say on that day, I never knew you.
So to repeat, we find scripture supporting limited spiritual ability, but denying total spiritual ability of all unregenerate men.

James 2:10-11 offense in one point of the law renders one guilty of the entire law
As Paul also says in Romans, since we all sin, by the Law no flesh will be justified, but apart from the Law, we can place our faith in Christ. Spiritual inability is nowhere found in the passage.

James 3:12 no fountain can bring forth both salt water and fresh.
Yes, the unsaved, the unregenerate cannot produce fruit pleasing to God, but they can trust in the finished work of the cross. Spiritual inability is nowhere found in the passage.
Psalm 22:29 none can keep alive his own soul
Yet another verse having nothing to do with spiritual inability. This verse presents the truth that everybody physically dies, the prosperous and those dying of starvation or illness, we all go down to dust.

In sum, Total Depravity, the concept of total spiritual inability of all men at all times, has been demonstrated to be a false doctrine by the very passages used to support it. The Soteriology of Reformed Theology cannot stand up to study. The advocates post up a ton of verses, many having little or nothing to do with topic, to bury opponents. The other petals of the TULIP except Once Saved, Always Saved also do not stand up to study.

T IS A GREAT THING to begin the Christian life by believing good solid doctrine. Some people have received twenty different "gospels" in as many years; how many more they will accept before they get to their journey's end, it would be difficult to predict. I thank God that He early taught me the gospel, and I have been so perfectly satisfied with it, that I do not want to know any other. Constant change of creed is sure loss. If a tree has to be taken up two or three times a year, you will not need to build a very large loft in which to store the apples. When people are always shifting their doctrinal principles, they are not likely to bring forth much fruit to the glory of God. It is good for young believers to begin with a firm hold upon those great fundamental doctrines which the Lord has taught in His Word. Why, if I believed what some preach about the temporary, trumpery salvation which only lasts for a time, I would scarcely be at all grateful for it; but when I know that those whom God saves He saves with an everlasting salvation, when I know that He gives to them an everlasting righteousness, when I know that He settles them on an everlasting foundation of everlasting love, and that He will bring them to His everlasting kingdom, oh, then I do wonder, and I am astonished that such a blessing as this should ever have been given to me!
"Pause, my soul! adore, and wonder!
Ask, 'Oh, why such love to me?'
Grace hath put me in the number
Of the Saviour's family:
Hallelujah!
Thanks, eternal thanks, to Thee!"
I suppose there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrine of free-will. I can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the doctrines of sovereign grace. Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that God has never let me act as they have done! I have thought, if God had left me alone, and had not touched me by His grace, what a great sinner I should have been! I should have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived into the very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any vice or folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very king of sinners, if God had let me alone. I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Divine grace. If I am not at this moment without Christ, it is only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and that will was that I should be with Him where He is, and should share His glory. I can put the crown nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty grace has saved me from going down into the pit. Looking back on my past life, I can see that the dawning of it all was of God; of God effectively. I took no torch with which to light the sun, but the sun enlightened me. I did not commence my spiritual life—no, I rather kicked, and struggled against the things of the Spirit: when He drew me, for a time I did not run after Him: there was a natural hatred in my soul of everything holy and good. Wooings were lost upon me—warnings were cast to the wind—thunders were despised; and as for the whispers of His love, they were rejected as being less than nothing and vanity. But, sure I am, I can say now, speaking on behalf of myself, "He only is my salvation." It was He who turned my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I can in very deed, say with Doddridge and Toplady—
"Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o'erflow;"
and coming to this moment, I can add—
"'Tis grace has kept me to this day,
And will not let me go."
Well can I remember the manner in which I learned the doctrines of grace in a single instant. Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see the grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul—when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man—that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God. One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, "I ascribe my change wholly to God."
I once attended a service where the text happened to be, "He shall choose our inheritance for us;" and the good man who occupied the pulpit was more than a little of an Arminian. Therefore, when he commenced, he said, "This passage refers entirely to our temporal inheritance, it has nothing whatever to do with our everlasting destiny, for," said he, "we do not want Christ to choose for us in the matter of Heaven or hell. It is so plain and easy, that every man who has a grain of common sense will choose Heaven, and any person would know better than to choose hell. We have no need of any superior intelligence, or any greater Being, to choose Heaven or hell for us. It is left to our own free-will, and we have enough wisdom given us, sufficiently correct means to judge for ourselves," and therefore, as he very logically inferred, there was no necessity for Jesus Christ, or anyone, to make a choice for us. We could choose the inheritance for ourselves without any assistance. "Ah!" I thought, "but, my good brother, it may be very true that we could, but I think we should want something more than common sense before we should choose aright."
First, let me ask, must we not all of us admit an over-ruling Providence, and the appointment of Jehovah's hand, as to the means whereby we came into this world? Those men who think that, afterwards, we are left to our own free-will to choose this one or the other to direct our steps, must admit that our entrance into the world was not of our own will, but that God had then to choose for us. What circumstances were those in our power which led us to elect certain persons to be our parents? Had we anything to do with it? Did not God Himself appoint our parents, native place, and friends? Could He not have caused me to be born with the skin of the Hottentot, brought forth by a filthy mother who would nurse me in her "kraal," and teach me to bow down to Pagan gods, quite as easily as to have given me a pious mother, who would each morning and night bend her knee in prayer on my behalf? Or, might He not, if He had pleased, have given me some profligate to have been my parent, from whose lips I might have early heard fearful, filthy, and obscene language? Might He not have placed me where I should have had a drunken father, who would have immured me in a very dungeon of ignorance, and brought me up in the chains of crime? Was it not God's Providence that I had so happy a lot, that both my parents were His children, and endeavoured to train me up in the fear of the Lord?
John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it, too, of a good woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of election, "Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards." I am sure it is true in my case; I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to accept that great Biblical doctrine. I recollect an Arminian brother telling me that he had read the Scriptures through a score or more times, and could never find the doctrine of election in them. He added that he was sure he would have done so if it had been there, for he read the Word on his knees. I said to him, "I think you read the Bible in a very uncomfortable posture, and if you had read it in your easy chair, you would have been more likely to understand it. Pray, by all means, and the more, the better, but it is a piece of superstition to think there is anything in the posture in which a man puts himself for reading: and as to reading through the Bible twenty times without having found anything about the doctrine of election, the wonder is that you found anything at all: you must have galloped through it at such a rate that you were not likely to have any intelligible idea of the meaning of the Scriptures."
If it would be marvelous to see one river leap up from the earth full-grown, what would it be to gaze upon a vast spring from which all the rivers of the earth should at once come bubbling up, a million of them born at a birth? What a vision would it be! Who can conceive it. And yet the love of God is that fountain, from which all the rivers of mercy, which have ever gladdened our race—all the rivers of grace in time, and of glory hereafter—take their rise. My soul, stand thou at that sacred fountain-head, and adore and magnify, for ever and ever, God, even our Father, who hath loved us! In the very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup; long ere the echoes awoke the solitudes; before the mountains were brought forth; and long ere the light flashed through the sky, God loved His chosen creatures. Before there was any created being—when the ether was not fanned by an angel's wing, when space itself had not an existence, when there was nothing save God alone—even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen. Their names were written on His heart, and then were they dear to His soul. Jesus loved His people before the foundation of the world—even from eternity! and when He called me by His grace, He said to me, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."
Then, in the fulness of time, He purchased me with His blood; He let His heart run out in one deep gaping wound for me long ere I loved Him. Yea, when He first came to me, did I not spurn Him? When He knocked at the door, and asked for entrance, did I not drive Him away, and do despite to His grace? Ah, I can remember that I full often did so until, at last, by the power of His effectual grace, He said, "I must, I will come in;" and then He turned my heart, and made me love Him. But even till now I should have resisted Him, had it not been for His grace. Well, then since He purchased me when I was dead in sins, does it not follow, as a consequence necessary and logical, that He must have loved me first? Did my Saviour die for me because I believed on Him? No; I was not then in existence; I had then no being. Could the Saviour, therefore, have died because I had faith, when I myself was not yet born? Could that have been possible? Could that have been the origin of the Saviour's love towards me? Oh! no; my Saviour died for me long before I believed. "But," says someone, "He foresaw that you would have faith; and, therefore, He loved you." What did He foresee about my faith? Did He foresee that I should get that faith myself, and that I should believe on Him of myself? No; Christ could not foresee that, because no Christian man will ever say that faith came of itself without the gift and without the working of the Holy Spirit. I have met with a great many believers, and talked with them about this matter; but I never knew one who could put his hand on his heart, and say, "I believed in Jesus without the assistance of the Holy Spirit."
I am bound to the doctrine of the depravity of the human heart, because I find myself depraved in heart, and have daily proofs that in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. If God enters into covenant with unfallen man, man is so insignificant a creature that it must be an act of gracious condescension on the Lord's part; but if God enters into covenant with sinful man, he is then so offensive a creature that it must be, on God's part, an act of pure, free, rich, sovereign grace. When the Lord entered into covenant with me, I am sure that it was all of grace, nothing else but grace. When I remember what a den of unclean beasts and birds my heart was, and how strong was my unrenewed will, how obstinate and rebellious against the sovereignty of the Divine rule, I always feel inclined to take the very lowest room in my Father's house, and when I enter Heaven, it will be to go among the less than the least of all saints, and with the chief of sinners.
The late lamented Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable text, "Salvation is of the Lord." That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.
"If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day."
If one dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant ones be lost, so may all be; and then there is no gospel promise true, but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will be an infidel at once when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will love me for ever. God has a master-mind; He arranged everything in His gigantic intellect long before He did it; and once having settled it, He never alters it, "This shall be done," saith He, and the iron hand of destiny marks it down, and it is brought to pass. "This is My purpose," and it stands, nor can earth or hell alter it. "This is My decree," saith He, "promulgate it, ye holy angels; rend it down from the gate of Heaven, ye devils, if ye can; but ye cannot alter the decree, it shall stand for ever." God altereth not His plans; why should He? He is Almighty, and therefore can perform His pleasure. Why should He? He is the All-wise, and therefore cannot have planned wrongly. Why should He? He is the everlasting God, and therefore cannot die before His plan is accomplished. Why should He change? Ye worthless atoms of earth, ephemera of a day, ye creeping insects upon this bay-leaf of existence, ye may change your plans, but He shall never, never change His. Has He told me that His plan is to save me? If so, I am for ever safe.
"My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impress'd on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace."
I do not know how some people, who believe that a Christian can fall from grace, manage to be happy. It must be a very commendable thing in them to be able to get through a day without despair. If I did not believe the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men the most miserable, because I should lack any ground of comfort. I could not say, whatever state of heart I came into, that I should be like a well-spring of water, whose stream fails not; I should rather have to take the comparison of an intermittent spring, that might stop on a sudden, or a reservoir, which I had no reason to expect would always be full. I believe that the happiest of Christians and the truest of Christians are those who never dare to doubt God, but who take His Word simply as it stands, and believe it, and ask no questions, just feeling assured that if God has said it, it will be so. I bear my willing testimony that I have no reason, nor even the shadow of a reason, to doubt my Lord, and I challenge Heaven, and earth, and hell, to bring any proof that God is untrue. From the depths of hell I call the fiends, and from this earth I call the tried and afflicted believers, and to Heaven I appeal, and challenge the long experience of the blood-washed host, and there is not to be found in the three realms a single person who can bear witness to one fact which can disprove the faithfulness of God, or weaken His claim to be trusted by His servants. There are many things that may or may not happen, but this I know shall happen—
"He shall present my soul,
Unblemish'd and complete,
Before the glory of His face,
With joys divinely great."
All the purposes of man have been defeated, but not the purposes of God. The promises of man may be broken—many of them are made to be broken—but the promises of God shall all be fulfilled. He is a promise-maker, but He never was a promise-breaker; He is a promise-keeping God, and every one of His people shall prove it to be so. This is my grateful, personal confidence, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me"—unworthy me, lost and ruined me. He will yet save me; and—
"I, among the blood-wash'd throng,
Shall wave the palm, and wear the crown,
And shout loud victory."
I go to a land which the plough of earth hath never upturned, where it is greener than earth's best pastures, and richer than her most abundant harvests ever saw. I go to a building of more gorgeous architecture than man hath ever builded; it is not of mortal design; it is "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens." All I shall know and enjoy in Heaven, will be given to me by the Lord, and I shall say, when at last I appear before Him—
"Grace all the work shall crown
Through everlasting days;
It lays in Heaven the topmost stone,
And well deserves the praise."
I know there are some who think it necessary to their system of theology to limit the merit of the blood of Jesus: if my theological system needed such a limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I dare not allow the thought to find a lodging in my mind, it seems so near akin to blasphemy. In Christ's finished work I see an ocean of merit; my plummet finds no bottom, my eye discovers no shore. There must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ, if God had so willed it, to have saved not only all in this world, but all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed their Maker's law. Once admit infinity into the matter, and limit is out of the question. Having a Divine Person for an offering, it is not consistent to conceive of limited value; bound and measure are terms inapplicable to the Divine sacrifice. The intent of the Divine purpose fixes the application of the infinite offering, but does not change it into a finite work. Think of the numbers upon whom God has bestowed His grace already. Think of the countless hosts in Heaven: if thou wert introduced there to-day, thou wouldst find it as easy to tell the stars, or the sands of the sea, as to count the multitudes that are before the throne even now. They have come from the East, and from the West, from the North, and from the South, and they are sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob in the Kingdom of God; and beside those in Heaven, think of the saved ones on earth. Blessed be God, His elect on earth are to be counted by millions, I believe, and the days are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be multitudes upon multitudes brought to know the Saviour, and to rejoice in Him. The Father's love is not for a few only, but for an exceeding great company. "A great multitude, which no man could number," will be found in Heaven. A man can reckon up to very high figures; set to work your Newtons, your mightiest calculators, and they can count great numbers, but God and God alone can tell the multitude of His redeemed. I believe there will be more in Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I answer, because Christ, in everything, is to "have the pre-eminence," and I cannot conceive how He could have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions of Satan than in Paradise. Moreover, I have never read that there is to be in hell a great multitude, which no man could number. I rejoice to know that the souls of all infants, as soon as they die, speed their way to Paradise. Think what a multitude there is of them! Then there are already in Heaven unnumbered myriads of the spirits of just men made perfect—the redeemed of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues up till now; and there are better times coming, when the religion of Christ shall be universal; when—
"He shall reign from pole to pole,
With illimitable sway;"
when whole kingdoms shall bow down before Him, and nations shall be born in a day, and in the thousand years of the great millennial state there will be enough saved to make up all the deficiencies of the thousands of years that have gone before. Christ shall be Master everywhere, and His praise shall be sounded in every land. Christ shall have the pre-eminence at last; His train shall be far larger than that which shall attend the chariot of the grim monarch of hell.
Some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say, "It is so beautiful. It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men; it commends itself," they say, "to the instincts of humanity; there is something in it full of joy and beauty." I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated with falsehood. There is much which I might admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will just show what the supposition necessarily involves. If Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He intended to save those who were lost before He died. If the doctrine be true, that He died for all men, then He died for some who were in hell before He came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins. Once again, if it was Christ's intention to save all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed, for we have His own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His blood. That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption. To think that my Saviour died for men who were or are in hell, seems a supposition too horrible for me to entertain. To imagine for a moment that He was the Substitute for all the sons of men, and that God, having first punished the Substitute, afterwards punished the sinners themselves, seems to conflict with all my ideas of Divine justice. That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction for the sins of all men, and that afterwards some of those very men should be punished for the sins for which Christ had already atoned, appears to me to be the most monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed to Saturn, to Janus, to the goddess of the Thugs, or to the most diabolical heathen deities. God forbid that we should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just and wise and good!
There is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist, I answer—I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me, do I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it. But far be it from me even to imagine that Zion contains none but Calvinistic Christians within her walls, or that there are none saved who do not hold our views. Most atrocious things have been spoken about the character and spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for the man himself I have a reverence second to no Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitefield and John Wesley. The character of John Wesley stands beyond all imputation for self-sacrifice, zeal, holiness, and communion with God; he lived far above the ordinary level of common Christians, and was one "of whom the world was not worthy." I believe there are multitudes of men who cannot see these truths, or, at least, cannot see them in the way in which we put them, who nevertheless have received Christ as their Saviour, and are as dear to the heart of the God of grace as the soundest Calvinist in or out of Heaven.
I do not think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I do believe, but I differ from them in what they do not believe. I do not hold any less than they do, but I hold a little more, and, I think, a little more of the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few cardinal doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North, South, East, or West, but as we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something about the North-west and North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal points. The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. For instance, I read in one Book of the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Yet I am taught, in another part of the same inspired Word, that "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free-will. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.
It is often said that the doctrines we believe have a tendency to lead us to sin. I have heard it asserted most positively, that those high doctrines which we love, and which we find in the Scriptures, are licentious ones. I do not know who will have the hardihood to make that assertion, when they consider that the holiest of men have been believers in them. I ask the man who dares to say that Calvinism is a licentious religion, what he thinks of the character of Augustine, or Calvin, or Whitefield, who in successive ages were the great exponents of the system of grace; or what will he say of the Puritans, whose works are full of them? Had a man been an Arminian in those days, he would have been accounted the vilest heretic breathing, but now we are looked upon as the heretics, and they as the orthodox. We have gone back to the old school; we can trace our descent from the apostles. It is that vein of free-grace, running through the sermonizing of Baptists, which has saved us as a denomination. Were it not for that, we should not stand where we are today. We can run a golden line up to Jesus Christ Himself, through a holy succession of mighty fathers, who all held these glorious truths; and we can ask concerning them, "Where will you find holier and better men in the world?" No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who have called it "a licentious doctrine" did not know anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under Heaven. If they knew the grace of God in truth, they would soon see that there was no preservative from lying like a knowledge that we are elect of God from the foundation of the world. There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the immutability of my Father's affection, which can keep me near to Him from a motive of simple gratitude. Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one thing naturally begets the other. Of all men, those have the most disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion, who believe that they are saved by grace, without works, through faith, and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Christians should take heed, and see that it always is so, lest by any means Christ should be crucified afresh, and put to an open shame.

Total Depravity
A look at the fallen nature of men.
Total depravity is the extensive ruin of man's nature. Man is made up of two parts primarily: the material (body) and the immaterial (soul). "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10:28. Both the body and soul are corrupted because of the fall. This does not mean that people are as a bad as they can be, but rather, that the effects of the Fall have completely ruined the total being of man. It is not just that man's mind is ruined, or that just his body is ruined, or that just his soul ruined. It means the whole man is corrupted with sin. This would mean that man cannot fundamentally do anything to please God. Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Genesis 6:5 "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." This depravity begins at conception. It does not begin when we do something bad. We are not sinners because we sin, rather, we sin because we are sinners. Psalm 51:5, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Depravity of the heart is completely extensive so that the creature (us), cannot will to do any good. All we do is evil. All we love is ourselves. We suppress God, and exalt ourselves.
1. Fallen man cannot do or work any good:
Matthew 7:17-18, "Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit."
1 Cor. 12:3, "Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost."
John 15:4-5, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."
Romans 8:7-8, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."
2. Fallen man cannot comprehend or apprehend the good:
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."
Ephesians 4:18, "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:"
2 Cor. 3:12-18, "Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ.15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
John 1:11, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not."
John 8:43, "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word."
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:"
1 Cor. 1:18, 21, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God...For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."
1 Cor. 2:14; "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
3. Man cannot have any desire towards the good:
Matthew 7:18, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit."
John 3:3, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
John 8:43, "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word."
John 15:5, "...for without me ye can do nothing."
John 6:64-65, "But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."
Ezek. 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:"
Ephesians 2:1,5, "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved"

Puritan quotes and sayings on Total Depravity:
"Because of the original corruption, the will of man in the state of sin (though free in the actions it performs) is captive and servile in its way of performing them. The will is deprived of the power of willing well and takes the form of willing amiss even when the object of the willing is good." William Ames
"Original sin is a habitual deviation of the whole nature of man, or a turning aside from the law of God." William Ames
"Sin is desire, word, deed, contrary to the Law of God...As the sin of Adam was most heinous, so it could not but draw after itself the most dire effects both in himself and in his posterity." Francis Turretin
"Not only the worst of my sins but the best of my duties speak me a child of Adam." William Beveridge
"Iniquity can plead antiquity." Thomas Adams
"Some talk that the devil hath a cloven foot; but whatever the devil's foot be, to be sure his sons have a cloven heart." Richard Alleine
"Man lost not his faculties but the rectitude of them." Thomas Goodwin
"As long as there are spots on the moon, it is vain to expect anything spotless under it." Thomas Fuller
"Sin has degraded man and made him a beast. It is true, he has the shape of a man, but alas! he is degenerated into a bestial and beastly nature. It is would be better to be a beast than to be like a beast, living and dying like one. It would be better to be Balaam's ass than such an ass as Balaam himself was...But to set this degeneration and degradation of man by sin before you more clearly and fully, I shall deal with it under three headings: a) Sin has made man like a beast, b) like the worst of beasts, c) worse than the beasts." Ralph Venning
"Sin never ruins but where it reigns." William Secker
"The best duties of unbelievers are but white lies." John Owen
"Man's sensitivity to trivia, and his insensitivity to matters of importance, reveal he has a strange disorder." Pascal
"Man is nothing but a subject so naturally full of error that it can only be eradicated through grace. There is nothing to show him the truth, for everything deceives him. The two so-called principles of truth--reason and the senses--are not only not genuine but are engaged in mutual deception. Through false appearances the senses deceive reason. And just as they trick the soul, they are in turn tricked by it. It takes it revenge. The senses are influenced by the passions which produce false impressions." Pascal
"Man's condition is that of inconsistency, boredom and anxiety." Pascal
"The consequences of sin are, first, guilt and the sense of wickedness, second, punishment. Guilt is the obligation of the sinner to undergo just punishment for his fault." William Ames
"Man is debased enough to bow down to beasts and even worship them." Pascal

http://www.apuritansmind.com/TULIP/TotalDepravity.htm

There is one person I am confronted with who makes me qustion my Calvinism (unhyper as it may be.) That person was Gandhi. If a totally depraved person can do as much good as Gandhi, why is it such an impossibility that a totally depraved person (and I realize that by Calvinist definition they could not) would choose our Saviour who has more to commend himself and is more glorious and loving than can be imagained? As a christain I actually don't understand that song that says somethign like "I know I would never have chosen Him. He must have chosen me." But when I look at Jesus, I'm like, how could anyone not choose Him. You really have to blind and corrupt not to(and I realize here are people like this everywhere). But if Gandhi was able to choose his path, why is it that men can't choose Christ?

The question is why would anyone think we are unable to place our trust in Christ when the Bible says we can from Genesis to Revelation. Those who do not listen to the words of Christ, seek first the kingdom of God, are like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand.

No passage, contextually considered, supports the idea of total spiritual inability for all men at all times. Not one. Zero, zip, nada.

SPIRITUAL INABILITY
Can some individuals choose to believe in Christ, because they are drawn by Christ’s powerful and convicting gospel and the testimony of spirit filled believers, or are we all so depraved and blinded by our sinful state that we cannot choose to believe in Christ without being compelled by irresistible grace? People, who accept the doctrine of spiritual inability and bondage to sin, site the following passages of scripture. But, as we shall see, the passages prove no such point. Spiritual inability is an unnecessary doctrine because God grants us mercy based on His sovereign acceptance of our faith and sets us apart (chooses us).


This verse is part of a passage (13:20-27) that warns of punishment, possibly the Babylonian captivity, as a consequence of continuing to sin. In context, this verse teaches that sin has consequences including potentially being trapped in habitual sin.


Jeremiah is making two points here. One, that only the Lord can discern the true heart of man, and two, the heart’s depravity is beyond a manmade cure, only by trusting in the Lord will a man be truly blessed.


This verse says that if you choose not to believe in Jesus, it is because you love evil, not that you are unable to love Jesus.


This verse does not indicate how the Father gives those who come to Christ; it could refer to individual selection and irresistible grace, but that option is unlikely given that Jesus is addressing potential rejection or losing those drawn by the Father. The Father certainly gave to the Son all those who choose to trust and rely upon our Lord because of His salvation plan revealed in His word.


This verse says you cannot accept Jesus unless you listen to God and have been taught by God. To be drawn could mean irresistible grace, or simply knowledge of God based on general and special revelation. In verse 6:45, John explains that those who heard and learned from the prophets are the ones drawn by the Father and given to the son. So no “inner call” is being taught. Note that the passage clearly teaches that we are unable to come to Jesus unless we are committed to God as revealed in scripture. To draw the inference that we are unable to come to Jesus in light of God’s revelation is wrong. Jeremiah also talks about being drawn. In Jeremiah 31:3, he says Yahweh has appeared to him from afar. An alternate rendering says Yahweh has appeared to him from long ago. This appearing I believe refers to God being revealed in Scripture written long ago telling of the promise, telling of the love of God. Yahweh says “I have loved you with an everlasting love” which sounds like a foreshadowing of “For God so loved the world…”. Continuing the message, Yahweh says, “Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” Picture Christ hanging on the cross. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him!





This verse raises the question of how does the Father enable us to believe? Again, in context, those that listen to God through His prophets and learn from God can believe in Jesus.


This passage is saying that Jesus can set us free from our slavery to sin, not that Jesus cannot set us free because we cannot accept him. The doctrine of spiritual inability turns this passage on its head, saying it means the opposite of the author’s clear intent. At the end of the discourse where Jesus tells the Jews who were rejecting Him, that they did not listen to Him because they listened to the lies of the devil, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word (accepts my gospel) he shall never see death.” Jesus is teaching opportunity not futility.


How did God “open her heart”? The answer from the text is that because she was a worshiper of God, having listened to God and learned from God through the words of the prophets and having accepted the One who sent Him, she was enabled to accept Jesus. Simply put, if you reject God your heart will not be open to Jesus ( See 2 Timothy 3:15).


Contrary to supporting spiritual inability, this verse supports the position that missionaries filled with the Holy Spirit, are used by God to explain the gospel so that others will be "sanctified by faith in Me."


This is a typical passage used to “prove” that the bible teaches we cannot place our faith in Christ unless we experience the “inner call” whereby God influences us so we can have faith. But, when you look at the passage, none of that is being taught! Paul is making the case that everyone (Jew and Gentile) is under sin. There is no one righteous (for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God). There is no one who understands who is seeking God by the works of the Law, that the result is judgment and not mercy. Since we are all under sin, none who seek God by works are seeking God effectively; hence no one seeks God by the works of the Law. Corruption has caused us to turn aside from God, because "by the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified." But the solution is at hand; the righteousness of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ for ALL those who believe. (Paraphrase of Romans 3:19-22). In summary, the passage teaches that all have sinned and turned aside from God so through works, no one seeks God, but through faith in Christ we can obtain the righteousness of God.


This verse teaches we cannot lead sinless lives, that we cannot please God by works according to the Law; it does not teach that we are unable to obtain forgiveness through faith by choosing to love God, turning from sin and trusting in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior, which is what we do when we set our mind on God (Spirit) and not on this world(fleshly desires.)


The natural man has great difficulty receiving the word of God, so the Bible says we are to present the milk of the gospel which can be received (1 Corinthians 3:1-2). We are to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help us choose the words so that we can present the gospel clearly and boldly. We are to pray for guidance such that our actions and behaviors present Christ to outsiders, such that we make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:4-6). The milk that the natural man can receive includes laying the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God; clearly indicating the gospel can be received by the unsaved (Hebrews 6:1). In fact the problem is that some of the unsaved, after tasting the good word of God have fallen away, again demonstrating that the milk is the gospel and can be received by the unsaved. Thus 1 Corinthians 2:14 refers to Spiritual meat that can only be appraised by an indwelt believer whose mind is living in the spirit. The passage does not teach that the unsaved are unable to receive spiritual milk, the gospel of Christ.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Total Depravity [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]- - - - - - - - - - - -[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
John Piper & Bethlehem Baptist Church Staff [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]1998 | MINNEAPOLIS, MN--[/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]There is no doubt that man could perform more evil acts toward his fellow man than he does. But if he is restrained from performing more evil acts by motives that are not owing to his glad submission to God, then even his "virtue" is evil in the sight of God. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Romans 14:23 says, "Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." This is a radical indictment of all natural "virtue" that does not flow from a heart humbly relying on God's grace.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The terrible condition of man's heart will never be recognized by people who assess it only in relation to other men. Romans 14:23 makes plain that depravity is our condition in relation to God primarily, and only secondarily in relation to man. Unless we start here we will never grasp the totality of our natural depravity.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Man's depravity is total in at least four senses. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif](1) Our rebellion against God is total. Apart from the grace of God there is no delight in the holiness of God, and there is no glad submission to the sovereign authority of God. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Of course totally depraved men can be very religious and very philanthropic. They can pray and give alms and fast, as Jesus said (Matthew 6:1-18). But their very religion is rebellion against the rights of their Creator, if it does not come from a childlike heart of trust in the free grace of God. Religion is one of the chief ways that man conceals his unwillingness to forsake self-reliance and bank all his hopes on the unmerited mercy of God (Luke 18:9-14; Colossians 2:20-23).[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The totality of our rebellion is seen in Romans 3:9-10 and 18. "I have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is written: None is righteous, no not one; no one seeks for God....There is no fear of God before their eyes." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It is a myth that man in his natural state is genuinely seeking God. Men do seek God. But they do not seek him for who he is. They seek him in a pinch as one who might preserve them from death or enhance their worldly enjoyments. Apart from conversion, no one comes to the light of God.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Some do come to the light. But listen to what John 3:20-21 says about them. "Every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Yes there are those who come to the light -- namely those whose deeds are the work of God. "Wrought in God" means worked by God. Apart from this gracious work of God all men hate the light of God and will not come to him lest their evil be exposed -- this is total rebellion. "No one seeks for God...There is no fear of God before their eyes!"[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif](2) In his total rebellion everything man does is sin.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In Romans 14:23 Paul says, "Whatever is not from faith is sin." Therefore, if all men are in total rebellion, everything they do is the product of rebellion and cannot be an honor to God, but only part of their sinful rebellion. If a king teaches his subjects how to fight well and then those subjects rebel against their king and use the very skill he taught them to resist him, then even those skills become evil. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Thus man does many things which he can only do because he is created in the image of God and which in the service of God could be praised. But in the service of man's self-justifying rebellion, these very things are sinful.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In Romans 7:18 Paul says, "I know that no good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." This is a radical confession of the truth that in our rebellion nothing we think or feel is good. It is all part of our rebellion. The fact that Paul qualifies his depravity with the words, "that is, in my flesh," shows that he is willing to affirm the good of anything that the Spirit of God produces in him (Romans 15:18). "Flesh" refers to man in his natural state apart from the work of God's Spirit. So what Paul is saying in Romans 7:18 is that apart from the work of God's Spirit all we think and feel and do is not good.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]NOTE: We recognize that the word "good" has a broad range of meanings. We will have to use it in a restricted sense to refer to many actions of fallen people which in relation are in fact not good.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]For example we will have to say that it is good that most unbelievers do not kill and that some unbelievers perform acts of benevolence. What we mean when we call such actions good is that they more or less conform to the external pattern of life that God has commanded in Scripture. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]However, such outward conformity to the revealed will of God is not righteousness in relation to God. It is not done out of reliance on him or for his glory. He is not trusted for the resources, though he gives them all. Nor is his honor exalted, even though that's his will in all things (1 Corinthians 10:31). Therefore even these "good" acts are part of our rebellion and are not "good" in the sense that really counts in the end -- in relation to God.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif](3) Man's inability to submit to God and do good is total.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Picking up on the term "flesh" above (man apart from the grace of God) we find Paul declaring it to be totally enslaved to rebellion. Romans 8:7-8 says, "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The "mind of the flesh" is the mind of man apart from the indwelling Spirit of God ("You are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you," Romans 8:9). So natural man has a mindset that does not and cannot submit to God. Man cannot reform himself. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ephesians 2:1 says that we Christians were all once "dead in trespasses and sins." The point of deadness is that we were incapable of any life with God. Our hearts were like a stone toward God (Ephesians 4:18; Ezekiel 36:26). Our hearts were blind and incapable of seeing the glory of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4-6). We were totally unable to reform ourselves.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif](4) Our rebellion is totally deserving of eternal punishment.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ephesians 2:3 goes on to say that in our deadness we were "children of wrath." That is, we were under God's wrath because of the corruption of our hearts that made us as good as dead before God.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The reality of hell is God's clear indictment of the infiniteness of our guilt. If our corruption were not deserving of an eternal punishment God would be unjust to threaten us with a punishment so severe as eternal torment. But the Scriptures teach that God is just in condemning unbelievers to eternal hell (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9; Matthew 5:29f; 10:28; 13:49f; 18:8f; 25:46; Revelation 14:9-11; 20:10). Therefore, to the extent that hell is a total sentence of condemnation, to that extent must we think of ourselves as totally blameworthy apart from the saving grace of God.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In summary, total depravity means that our rebellion against God is total, everything we do in this rebellion is sin, our inability to submit to God or reform ourselves is total, and we are therefore totally deserving of eternal punishment.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It is hard to exaggerate the importance of admitting our condition to be this bad. If we think of ourselves as basically good or even less than totally at odds with God, our grasp of the work of God in redemption will be defective. But if we humble ourselves under this terrible truth of our total depravity, we will be in a position to see and appreciate the glory and wonder of the work of God discussed in the next four points.[/FONT]

GustheMule said:

There is one person I am confronted with who makes me qustion my Calvinism (unhyper as it may be.) That person was Gandhi. If a totally depraved person can do as much good as Gandhi, why is it such an impossibility that a totally depraved person (and I realize that by Calvinist definition they could not) would choose our Saviour who has more to commend himself and is more glorious and loving than can be imagained? As a christain I actually don't understand that song that says somethign like "I know I would never have chosen Him. He must have chosen me." But when I look at Jesus, I'm like, how could anyone not choose Him. You really have to blind and corrupt not to(and I realize here are people like this everywhere). But if Gandhi was able to choose his path, why is it that men can't choose Christ?

Click to expand...

Good post bro!!!

I like the bit I emboldened , which has been going around in my mind since I have been here ....... The point is all Christians think Jesus is so wonderful and satisfying that the ATTRACTION to Christ is very powerful , so powerful that the very thought of turning around and denying Jesus and His Love we view with horror! We are compelled to come to Him and find it difficult to explain why it is not the same with others ....... Total Depravity is the ONLY explanation for this !

The free-will arguement DOES NOT FIT The facts , for if we are to say that we had a simple choice to make , we are saying we had easily , just as easily chosen the Lord Jesus Christ as sin and Satan ......... now that idea is placing Jesus Christ as being NO MORE ATTRACTIVE than Sin and Satan !!!!!! which is the blasphemy of the anti-total depravity pro free-will advocates!

Total Depravity can easily be found , but who here takes the challenge ........ go into GA on this web site and share the Good News!

zerocipher said:

So what exactly are the major camps of thought when it comes to Soteriology?? The only thing that I really know about it is that is about salvation.

Click to expand...

There are at least 3 major camps of thought concerning Soteriology, which are: The Roman Catholic Church; The Reformed; and Arminianism.


The Roman Catholic Church:

The Council of Trent The Sixth Session Celebrated on the thirteenth day of the month of January, 1547.

ON JUSTIFICATION
CANON I.-If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.​

CANON II.-If any one saith, that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly, and to merit eternal life, as if, by free will without grace, he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty; let him be anathema.​

CANON III.-If any one saith, that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without his help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so as that the grace of Justification may be bestowed upon him; let him be anathema.​

[Page 45] CANON IV.-If any one saith, that man's free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema.​

CANON V.-If any one saith, that, since Adam's sin, the free will of man is lost and extinguished; or, that it is a thing with only a name, yea a name without a reality, a figment, in fine, introduced into the Church by Satan; let him be anathema.​

CANON VI.-If any one saith, that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil God worketh as well as those that are good, not permissively only, but properly, and of Himself, in such wise that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of Paul; let him be anathema.​

CANON VII.-If any one saith, that all works done before Justification, in whatsoever way they be done, are truly sins, or merit the hatred of God; or that the more earnestly one strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins: let him be anathema.​

CANON VIII.-If any one saith, that the fear of hell,-whereby, by grieving for our sins, we flee unto the mercy of God, or refrain from sinning,-is a sin, or makes sinners worse; let him be anathema.​

CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.​

CANON X.-If any one saith, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema.​

[Page 46] CANON XI.-If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favour of God; let him be anathema.​

CANON XII.-If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified; let him be anathema.​

CANON XIII.-If any one saith, that it is necessary for every one, for the obtaining the remission of sins, that he believe for certain, and without any wavering arising from his own infirmity and disposition, that his sins are forgiven him; let him be anathema.​

CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema.​

CANON XV.-If any one saith, that a man, who is born again and justified, is bound of faith to believe that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate; let him be anathema.​

CANON XVI.-If any one saith, that he will for certain, of an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance unto the end,-unless he have learned this by special revelation; let him be anathema.​

CANON XVII.-If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.​

CANON XVIII.-If any one saith, that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep; let him be anathema.​

[Page 47] CANON XIX.-If any one saith, that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel; that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor prohibited, but free; or, that the ten commandments nowise appertain to Christians; let him be anathema.​

CANON XX.-If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXI.-If any one saith, that Christ Jesus was given of God to men, as a redeemer in whom to trust, and not also as a legislator whom to obey; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXII.-If any one saith, that the justified, either is able to persevere, without the special help of God, in the justice received; or that, with that help, he is not able; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXIII.-lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the other hand, that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial,-except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXIV.-If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXV.-If any one saith, that, in every good work, the just sins venially at least, or-which is more intolerable still-mortally, and consequently deserves eternal punishments; and that for this cause only he is not damned, that God does not impute those works unto damnation; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXVI.-If any one saith, that the just ought not, for their good works done in God, to expect and hope for an eternal recompense from God, through His mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, if so be that they persevere to the end in well [Page 48] doing and in keeping the divine commandments; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXVII.-If any one saith, that there is no mortal sin but that of infidelity; or, that grace once received is not lost by any other sin, however grievous and enormous, save by that of infidelity ; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXVIII.-If any one saith, that, grace being lost through sin, faith also is always lost with it; or, that the faith which remains, though it be not a lively faith, is not a true faith; or, that he, who has faith without charity, is not a Chris taught; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXIX.-If any one saith, that he, who has fallen after baptism, is not able by the grace of God to rise again; or, that he is able indeed to recover the justice which he has lost, but by faith alone without the sacrament of Penance, contrary to what the holy Roman and universal Church-instructed by Christ and his Apostles-has hitherto professed, observed, and taugh; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXX.-If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to him); let him be anathema.​

CANON XXXI.-If any one saith, that the justified sins when he performs good works with a view to an eternal recompense; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXXII.-If any one saith, that the good works of one that is justified are in such manner the gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose [Page 49] living member he is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life,-if so be, however, that he depart in grace,-and also an increase of glory; let him be anathema.​

CANON XXXIII.-If any one saith,that,by the Catholic doctrine touching Justification, by this holy Synod inset forth in this present decree, the glory of God, or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ are in any way derogated from, and not rather that the truth of our faith, and the glory in fine of God and of Jesus Christ are rendered (more) illustrious; let him be anathema.​

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The Reformed:

Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 11: Of Justification


11:1 Those whom God effectually calleth, He also freely justifieth(Rom_3:24; Rom_8:30): not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them (Jer_23:6; Rom_3:22, Rom_3:24, Rom_3:25, Rom_3:27, Rom_3:28; Rom_4:5-8; Rom_5:17-19; 1Co_1:30, 1Co_1:31; 2Co_5:19, 2Co_5:21; Eph_1:7; ***_3:5, ***_3:7), they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God (Act_10:44; Act_13:38, Act_13:39; Gal_2:16; Eph_2:7, Eph_2:8; Phi_3:9).


11:2 Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification (Joh_1:12; Rom_3:28; Rom_5:1); yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love (Gal_5:6; Jam_2:17, Jam_2:22, Jam_2:26).



11:3 Christ, by His obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to His Father’s justice in their behalf (Isa_53:4-6, Isa_53:10-12; Dan_9:24, Dan_9:26; Rom_5:8-10; 1Ti_2:5, 1Ti_2:6; Heb_10:10, Heb_10:14). Yet, inasmuch as He was given by the Father for them (Rom_8:32); and His obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead (Mat_3:17; 2Co_5:21; Eph_5:2); and both freely, not for anything in them; their justification is only of free grace (Rom_3:24; Eph_1:7); that both the exact justice and rich grace of God, might be glorified in the justification of sinners (Rom_3:26; Eph_2:7).


11:4 God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect (Rom_8:30; Gal_3:8; 1Pe_1:2, 1Pe_1:19, 1Pe_1:20), and Christ did, in the fulness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification (Rom_4:25; Gal_4:4; 1Ti_2:6): nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them (Gal_2:16; Col_1:21, Col_1:22; ***_3:4-7).


11:5 God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified (Mat_6:12; 1Jo_1:7, 1Jo_1:9; 1Jo_2:1, 1Jo_2:2): and, although they can never fall from the state of justification (Luk_22:32; Joh_10:28; Heb_10:14); yet they may, by their sins, fall under God’s fatherly displeasure, and not have the light of His countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance(Psa_51:7-12; Psa_32:5; Psa_89:31-33; Mat_26:75; Luk_1:20; 1Co_11:30, 1Co_11:32).


11:6 The justification of believers under the old testament was, in all these respects, one and the same with the justification of believers under the new testament (Rom_4:22-24; Gal_3:9, Gal_3:13, Gal_3:14; Heb_13:8).

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The Arminians:
http://www.apuritansmind.com/Creeds/TheRemonstrants.htm
http://www.apuritansmind.com/Creeds/ArminianOpinions.htm

Let's review Romans 14:23. John Piper used it out of context to assert "This is a radical indictment of all natural "virtue" that does not flow from a heart humbly relying on God's grace."
In verse 22, we see that the faith in view is our faith, the faith we have as our own conviction. And when we do things that we believe are not according to the will of God, it is sin. So if there were two apples on a table, and I though they were set out for my brother and me to eat, I can eat the apple and it is not sin. But if my brother is unsure whether the apple was set out for him, or for someone else, and he eats it, it is sin, because he might be stealing, which violates God's command.
So the passage supports the idea that faith is our commitment to Christ, our conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and our Lord, our Savior and our God.

Next Mr Piper attempts to alter the plain reading of John 3:21. Some men love the darkness and fled the light so their evil deeds will not be exposed. Jesus contrasts this with people who practice the truth, these come to the light so that their deeds may be manifested or shown as have been "wrought in God." Piper contorts the verse, claiming that the deeds were the work of God, rather that their work which is within the will of God. Silly to say the least. Notice in 1 John 1:6 practicing the truth is contrasted with walking in darkness. Our actions, our thoughts, our deeds are in view, are we walking in darkness or practicing the truth, walking in according to the will of God.

Next, Mr. Piper contorts Romans 7:18 which displays Paul's unregenerate awareness of the corruption of his flesh, that the lusts of the flesh are not within the will of God. But Paul's very awareness, shows that he understood his flesh to be outside the will of God, thus proving the unregenerate man can seek God with pure motives.

The work of the Holy Spirit includes the witness of the inspired word of God, our tutor leading us in an unregenerate state to Christ.

Next Mr. Piper combines a truth about Paul's unregenerate state in Romans 7 with a truth about Paul's regenerate state in Romans 15. Contortion pure and simple.

And finally the contortion is laid bare in point 3 where the truth that unregenerate man cannot submit to God and do good deeds is equated with being unable to understand we are unable to submitt fully to God, because we have learned from the Law, and are thus lead to Christ and the willingness to fully trust in His salvation apart from the Law. People who are "in the flesh" are unregenerate. They cannot set their minds on the indwelt Spirit of Christ because they are not indwelt. They can set their minds on the flesh, and if they do, they are hostile to God. Further, because they are "in the flesh" they cannot do good deeds, good fruit cannot come from a bad tree.

However, what Romans 8:7-8 does not directly address is whether the unregenerate are able to set their minds on the milk of the gospel, are able to understand the milk of the gospel. That question is answered in the affirmative in 1 Corinthians 2:14 to 3:3.

Next, as the contortion continues unabated, our conversion where we are given a new heart, and our depraved heart of stone is removed, is conflated with the subset of mankind that loves darkness, asserting that Ephesians 4:18 applies to all men when if you read the passage only applies to some men.

There is no actual support in scripture, contextually considered, for the false doctrine of Total Spiritual Inability affecting all men at all times.

Another passage used to support the concept of Total Depravity is the parable of the Sower, found in Matthew 13:3-23. But an analysis of the parable indicates:

The reason the people do not understand the seed sown by the side of the road is that evil takes it away. So if you love darkness, rather than light, you will not understand the gospel. Because man’s heart is dull but not inoperative, some see the light, repent and choose to serve God. On the other hand, because of the blinding influence of sin, many do not see the light. These are the people who do not respond to the gospel.

Then we have the people who initially accept the gospel, but whose hearts are like rocky ground, and because these people are not rooted in the Word, their commitment to Christ is superficial and when hardship and difficulty arises, when they actually must give up some of their treasured rocks (wealth, security, comfort) they fall away. Again, indicating choice, and an opportunity to grow in understanding of the true gospel, which includes suffering and hardship because "all who proclaim the name of Jesus will be persecuted."

Finally we have the people ensnared in bad company; who have the gospel choked out of them. But if these new believers get incorporated into a fellowship of believers; people that can disciple them and encourage them and strengthen them, they can choose to hoe their landscape and eliminate the influences that are choking their development as Christians.

In summary, turn from evil, become rooted in the word and form fellowships with other Christians or the seed of the Gospel may not take root. But if we choose to place are faith in Christ, and lean not on our own understanding, God has promised to grant us salvation by grace through faith. We must understand that the concerns of this world, the false appeal of riches or other desires of the flesh can cause us to fall away before the seed of the Gospel takes root. Even after we are saved, we can quench the Spirit by disobedience and become unfruitful. But if we understand the gospel and make a steadfast commitment to Christ, we will bear fruit and become conformed to the image of Christ. And it is up to fellow believers and ourselves to cultivate the lost, from the children in our families to the stranger on the street, teaching, explaining and instructing them to provide an opportunity to grasp hold of the true gospel of Christ through which is salvation. Jesus is teaching us of the necessity of an effective outer call, not that the lost are so helplessly depraved they need a fictitious inner call.

And finally, some use the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, found in Luke 16:19-31 in support of spiritual inability. They say that Abraham would have sent a messenger if the rich man’s brothers were able to listen to the gospel. But, if you study the passage, the opposite truth is being taught. Jesus is saying that those who have reached eternity had a choice, and it was a mistake for them to love the world and serve mammon, rather than God.

The rich man thought his brothers would benefit from a warning, so the one who served mammon thought he had made a choice and his brothers were making their choice. He no longer saw through a glass darkly so his insight is compelling.

Abraham did not send a messenger from the dead because he said they would not listen. The point of the parable is that being forewarned we should not make the same mistake and reject Christ. We should not miss the opportunity while it exists, while we are alive, to listen to Moses and the Prophets and Christ, our messenger from the dead.

To assert that Christ was teaching that Abraham did not send the messenger from the dead, as Christ surely is, because we are unable to listen to the gospel and gladly receive it is bogus. It turns the illustration on its head.

Look at Luke 16:13, Christ is summarizing the illustration of the unrighteous steward, who made friends with the unrighteous by the unrighteous use of mammon (money). His point was that we should be righteous to make friends with the righteous, for you cannot serve God and mammon. Christ was teaching us how to serve God, not that we are unable to serve God. He is saying listen to the prophets and the messenger from the dead; serve God and not unrighteousness. Neither the rich man, nor his brothers were aware of the fate that awaited them because they did not listen to the prophets, instead they chose to serve mammon. In summary, Jesus is teaching that people reject Christ because they are unwilling; they choose instead to go their own way. God chose to raise Jesus from the dead to be a messenger from the dead to penetrate the veil of depravity by the force of His gospel. Teachers of the word should not miss any opportunity to cultivate the lost with the word of God through example, instruction, and prayer such that they will choose to listen to our messenger from the dead.

Another premise used to support Spiritual Inability is that since we are dead in our trespasses, we are unable to respond to the outward call of God. This pushes the analogy past its purpose. "Dead" in context means separated from God, and totally unable through works to bridge the gap and attain life eternal. Lets look at some passages.


Clearly this is using dead in a metaphorical sense, meaning you were spiritually dead in your sins. And being dead implies inability, so it would seem to follow that being spiritually dead implies spiritual inability. But what is the inability? Calvinists say it means the inability to seek or reach out or understand or accept spiritual things such as the gospel of Christ. Because we are spiritually dead, we are unable to believe in Jesus. This view is supported by a distorted understanding of Romans 3:10-11. On the other hand, the implication of being spiritually dead might only apply to the inability to reach God through works because sin creates a separation that we are unable to bridge by works.

Jesus is making several points here, but lets focus on a few of them: It is possible to find the way that leads to life, but it is easier to follow the broad way to destruction. We are depraved but not totally disabled. Although we are dead, we can find the way to life. And the way is through faith and not by works for not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father (and places his or her faith in God and His Christ) will enter the kingdom. Here we see also that those in Christ produce good fruit, which proves they are of God (Matthew 7:18 ).

Here we see that we are neither saved by our deeds of righteousness, nor by our faith alone, but by His mercy and grace. Therefore our faith could be the best we could muster in our depraved state, and still God could accept it, and bless it to our salvation. If our faith only touched our mind, intellectual accent, scripture indicates that is not what God demands, for He judges the heart. Ruth provides an example of a heart-felt commitment. Here is what the lady chose to do and say,

Love can overcome depravity sufficient for salvation because love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things", and love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:7).

Isaiah is speaking about the circumstances of his time, addressing the people of his audience, and so to assert that no one (all of mankind from creation to the end of days) is able to call upon the name of the Lord without help (from an inner call in addition to the outer call) is invalid. Clearly the capability to stir oneself and call upon the name of the Lord at some other time is in view. (See Isaiah 65:8-10 where the Lord refers to my people who seek me.)

Paul makes a compelling case against spiritual inability in this passage. Jews, whose hearts were partially hardened to facilitate bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, could still be moved to jealousy, a natural and depraved reaction that could be used to provide an opening for the gospel which could lead the depraved and partially hard hearted to accept the gospel.

Being Spiritually dead means we are separated from God and unable to reach God by our works. Calvinists extrapolate this biblical truth and say, we are unable to seek God or to want to seek God. However, Romans 9: 16 proves that the unsaved can seek God through intellect (a man that wills) and by works (a man that runs.) So we cannot reach God by our works or our will. God has mercy of those of his choosing and saves them. But the other truth, that some spiritually dead men seek God through works to no available and others seek God through faith is inescapable. Spiritually dead men are able to seek God and some are willing to seek God, and those that seek God through faith and not works find the narrow path that leads to life.

The defense of the Calvinists conception of Spiritual Inability, which has little actual support in scripture, has caused some to bend the Word of God to create the impression that the fallacy is taught by scripture. Here is a typical avalanche of assertions, none valid:

"God’s curse of mankind created spiritual inability (Psalm 50:21, Job 11:7-8 )." First neither of these verses connects the fall with the asserted inability. The unstated assumption is that before the fall we had spiritual ability and then lost it. What scripture actually says is that Adam’s sin brought death (Romans 5:12). If this were in whole or in part spiritual death (loss of Adam and Eve’s indwelt Holy Spirit and corruption of their human spirit due to the separation from God) spiritual discernment would be greatly diminished, but not necessarily eliminated.

Second, Psalm 50:21 says that the wicked (verse 16) thought, through flawed discernment, that God was like the wicked because God had kept silent and silence suggests tacit approval of wrongdoing. But God did not remain silent. So rather than proving the point of total spiritual inability, the verse proves the opposite. In verse 22, God asks those that forget God, to consider that offering sacrifices honors God. Clearly the wayward are being spoken to and the implication is that communication is taking place. Diminished spiritual discernment can be overcome by hearing the word of God, even though it might take several communications for one man plants the seed and another waters. We are sinners, the Law teaches us that we are sinners, and because we are able to grasp our depravity, we are convicted and recognize that we need forgiveness. Which leads us to Christ. Spiritual inability undermines the whole purpose of the Law.

Van said:

SPIRITUAL INABILITY
Can some individuals choose to believe in Christ, because they are drawn by Christ’s powerful and convicting gospel and the testimony of spirit filled believers, or are we all so depraved and blinded by our sinful state that we cannot choose to believe in Christ without being compelled by irresistible grace? People, who accept the doctrine of spiritual inability and bondage to sin, site the following passages of scripture. But, as we shall see, the passages prove no such point. Spiritual inability is an unnecessary doctrine because God grants us mercy based on His sovereign acceptance of our faith and sets us apart (chooses us).

Quote:
Jeremiah 13:23 Can an Ethiopian change his skin, or a leopard his spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.​

This verse is part of a passage (13:20-27) that warns of punishment, possibly the Babylonian captivity, as a consequence of continuing to sin. In context, this verse teaches that sin has consequences including potentially being trapped in habitual sin.

Quote:
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it.​

Jeremiah is making two points here. One, that only the Lord can discern the true heart of man, and two, the heart’s depravity is beyond a manmade cure, only by trusting in the Lord will a man be truly blessed.

Quote:
John 3:19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because there deeds were evil.​

This verse says that if you choose not to believe in Jesus, it is because you love evil, not that you are unable to love Jesus.

Quote:
John 6:37 All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and the one that comes to me I will certainly not cast out.​

This verse does not indicate how the Father gives those who come to Christ; it could refer to individual selection and irresistible grace, but that option is unlikely given that Jesus is addressing potential rejection or losing those drawn by the Father. The Father certainly gave to the Son all those who choose to trust and rely upon our Lord because of His salvation plan revealed in His word.

Quote:
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.​

This verse says you cannot accept Jesus unless you listen to God and have been taught by God. To be drawn could mean irresistible grace, or simply knowledge of God based on general and special revelation. In verse 6:45, John explains that those who heard and learned from the prophets are the ones drawn by the Father and given to the son. So no “inner call” is being taught. Note that the passage clearly teaches that we are unable to come to Jesus unless we are committed to God as revealed in scripture. To draw the inference that we are unable to come to Jesus in light of God’s revelation is wrong. Jeremiah also talks about being drawn. In Jeremiah 31:3, he says Yahweh has appeared to him from afar. An alternate rendering says Yahweh has appeared to him from long ago. This appearing I believe refers to God being revealed in Scripture written long ago telling of the promise, telling of the love of God. Yahweh says “I have loved you with an everlasting love” which sounds like a foreshadowing of “For God so loved the world…”. Continuing the message, Yahweh says, “Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” Picture Christ hanging on the cross. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him!

Quote:
John 6:65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father enabled him.​

This verse raises the question of how does the Father enable us to believe? Again, in context, those that listen to God through His prophets and learn from God can believe in Jesus.

Quote:
John 8:34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.​

This passage is saying that Jesus can set us free from our slavery to sin, not that Jesus cannot set us free because we cannot accept him. The doctrine of spiritual inability turns this passage on its head, saying it means the opposite of the author’s clear intent. At the end of the discourse where Jesus tells the Jews who were rejecting Him, that they did not listen to Him because they listened to the lies of the devil, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word (accepts my gospel) he shall never see death.” Jesus is teaching opportunity not futility.

Quote:
Acts 16:14 One of those listening was a women named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.​

How did God “open her heart”? The answer from the text is that because she was a worshiper of God, having listened to God and learned from God through the words of the prophets and having accepted the One who sent Him, she was enabled to accept Jesus. Simply put, if you reject God your heart will not be open to Jesus ( See 2 Timothy 3:15).

Quote:
Acts 26:18 (I am sending you) "to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me."​

Contrary to supporting spiritual inability, this verse supports the position that missionaries filled with the Holy Spirit, are used by God to explain the gospel so that others will be "sanctified by faith in Me."

Quote:
Romans 3:10-11 As it is written, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.​

This is a typical passage used to “prove” that the bible teaches we cannot place our faith in Christ unless we experience the “inner call” whereby God influences us so we can have faith. But, when you look at the passage, none of that is being taught! Paul is making the case that everyone (Jew and Gentile) is under sin. There is no one righteous (for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God). There is no one who understands who is seeking God by the works of the Law, that the result is judgment and not mercy. Since we are all under sin, none who seek God by works are seeking God effectively; hence no one seeks God by the works of the Law. Corruption has caused us to turn aside from God, because "by the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified." But the solution is at hand; the righteousness of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ for ALL those who believe. (Paraphrase of Romans 3:19-22). In summary, the passage teaches that all have sinned and turned aside from God so through works, no one seeks God, but through faith in Christ we can obtain the righteousness of God.

Quote:
Romans 8:6-8 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in flesh cannot please God.​

This verse teaches we cannot lead sinless lives, that we cannot please God by works according to the Law; it does not teach that we are unable to obtain forgiveness through faith by choosing to love God, turning from sin and trusting in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior, which is what we do when we set our mind on God (Spirit) and not on this world(fleshly desires.)

Quote:
First Corinthians 2:14 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.​

The natural man has great difficulty receiving the word of God, so the Bible says we are to present the milk of the gospel which can be received (1 Corinthians 3:1-2). We are to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help us choose the words so that we can present the gospel clearly and boldly. We are to pray for guidance such that our actions and behaviors present Christ to outsiders, such that we make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:4-6). The milk that the natural man can receive includes laying the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God; clearly indicating the gospel can be received by the unsaved (Hebrews 6:1). In fact the problem is that some of the unsaved, after tasting the good word of God have fallen away, again demonstrating that the milk is the gospel and can be received by the unsaved. Thus 1 Corinthians 2:14 refers to Spiritual meat that can only be appraised by an indwelt believer whose mind is living in the spirit. The passage does not teach that the unsaved are unable to receive spiritual milk, the gospel of Christ.

Quote:​

Second Corinthians 4:3-4 “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.​

Paul, in this passage (2 Corinthians 4:1-15) is teaching that servants of the Lord should not be discouraged, even if all who hear do not receive the gospel. They are not doomed by our poor presentation; they are doomed already. We should pray that we "may proclaim it (the gospel) clearly." The lost are ignorant of the gospel because it is veiled by their depravity, their choice of darkness and their acceptance of the lies of evil. Sin, including rebellion and pride, veils the gospel, so it is a mystery to those who are perishing. But a clear presentation, full of grace, seasoned with salt, will make the most of every opportunity (Col. 4:3-6). The mystery of the gospel is not solved by supernatural mind manipulation; instead the gospel is spread by a combination of natural means (clear and compelling presentation) and supernatural means (believers filled with the Holy Spirit who prayerfully choose their words.) Biblical election affords the opportunity for persistence, we should not be discouraged, because "the grace that is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God." Which of course fulfills God’s purpose and plan.​

Quote:

2 Timothy 2:25-26 Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.​

In this passage Paul tells Timothy, the Lord’s servant, to avoid quarrels and gently instruct, knowing that each potential convert must turn to God on his own and not be strong armed into obedience. God "grants" repentance by revealing His will through scripture and Spirit filled witnesses, which provides the opportunity and direction we turn when we repent. Giving God the credit for repentance and salvation is not saying God individually controls each decision for Christ, but simply acknowledges that God’s grace in sending His Son rightly deserves all the credit.



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Even thought I disagree with some of the things Van says (about Ephesians 1 for example) this is a very good post. Van looks at the verses in context. This is the key to understanding scripture, not trying to cross reference between books and saying "let scripture interpret scripture." We have to try to figure out what teh author of a given book is saying if we are able to follow arguements. This is especially tue in book like Romans and Galatians where Paul's arguements go on for chapters. Pulling out a few verses here and there should only be done when the context is clearly understood.