If what you mean by "works based" grace is one does works in one does works to merit grace then show the first post where I said one can work to merit grace. What I have said over and over that God's free gift of grace/salvation is CONDITIONAL, it comes with precondition of obeying God and those that meet the precondition in obeying God are the ones that recevieving the free gift. If grace were UNconditional then all men would universally be saved
Titus 2:11. Since all men will not universally be saved PROVES God's free gift of grace is CONDITIONAL. And from cover to cover the Bible gives many examples of men working to meet the precondition (obedience) that GOD places upon His free gift yet NOT THE FIRST TIME is man's obedience ever said to have eraned God's free gift. So any argument that the work done in obeying God's will somehow merits God's free gift has NO BIBLICAL BASIS, it not even couched in any logic or reality.
By what you are saying here, then, Grace (in our context, the grace of salvation) is given as a result of a precondition (in your narrative: 'obedience'). Then you contradict yourself by saying that grace is a free gift, and not earned.
You also have yet to show how it is even remotely possible for the dead to do an alive thing, such as obedience.
You have no basic understanding of salvation for you rather listen to men as Martin Luther and John Calvin than Jesus Christ. Again, you do not understand simple concepts as free gifts coming with conditions and meeting the preconditions does not, cannot earn the free gift.
Listen to what Christ has to say for a change ,
John 6:27
"
Work not for the food which perisheth, but for the food which abideth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him the Father, even God, hath sealed."
I don't remember if it is you or not, but there have been others, to whom I have tried to explain how I arrived at Reformed Theology. I do not defend it because I am entrenched in it, but because I came to it from a viewpoint resembling yours, but for one huge difference. As originally an Arminian-leaning Freewiller, I have always believed in the [Biblical' Sovereignty of God and slowly realized the many logical implications of Sovereignty, having been forced into that understanding by experiencing my utter inability, my weakness of the flesh, and by the undeniable love of Christ.
I've been a Christian, and, I believe, truly regenerated, long before I can remember, growing up a missionary kid. But I did not know Calvinism, except by caricature. It was only after I had already come to it by hard experience and many tears and LONG years of Bible study before I found out that what I had come to believe was so much like Calvinism / Reformed Theology.
Meanwhile, to your point in the verse, I repeat, we do as believers, WORK. I have never said otherwise. If we must see it as earning, even then we must work --but it is not earning, except in the sense of qualifying, as in passing a test --showing ourselves approved-- not CAUSING.
--Jesus clearly said to WORK for the meat that endures unto eterna life meaning no work = no eternal life. Those who continue to insist no work at all is involved in becoming saved have taken sides with Luther against Jsus Christ.
--Jesus said eternal life is something He "GIVES" meaning it is a free gift. But if eternal life is a free gift Christ "GIVES" then why did Christ says to "WORK" for eternal life? Because eternal life is a CONDITIONAL free gift and one must WORK to met the prconditions God has placed upon that free gift and one work one must meet is the work of believing. Christ also made the obedient works of repentance (Lk 13:3), confession (Mt 10:32-33) and submitting to baptism (Mk 16:16) necessary to becoming saved and living faithful unto death (Rev 2:10) a necessary condition to maintain the promise of eternal life. And not the first Luther support can ever prove meeting the precondition of obeying God's will eanrs the free gift of etenal life.
Here you imply again that we WORK to earn salvation, then turn around and deny it. There is, you know, a huge difference between 'condition' and 'pre-condition'. Again, "GRACE" is free --not earned. You pervert the whole Gospel with this nonsense. You sequence salvation backwards. It does not depend on anything I must do. It CAUSES what I must do.
Calvinists, at least the ones I have dealt with, rewite the Bible and try to put savlation BEFORE one meets the necessary preconditions of obeying God. They try and have one receive the gift of eternal life BEFORE meeting the necessary preconditions in doing the works of beleiving repenting confessing and submitting to baptism.
I do not know your religious background but Baptists have been caught time and time again in trying to pervert the Greek word "eis" to mean "because" then pervert Acts 2:38 in saying one receives the free gift of salvation(remission of sins) BEFORE one ven meets the necessary precondition of obeying in repenting and be baptized. Utter nonsense.
Local store offers free ice cream cones one day. To receive a free ice cream cone one must do the necessary work, meet the necessary precondition in going to the store and place the order and pick up the free gift. Do nothing and get no free ice cream cone. Yet even doing the necessary work in going to the store and ordering does not earn me the free ice cream cone for they still gave it to me for FREE. The necessary work i did in going and ordering the cone did not in any sense take away from the freeness of the ice cream cone.
obedient work --------------------------- in order (eis)---------------------------receive free gift
go store, order--------------------------------in order------------------------------free ice cream cone
Noah built ark--------------------------------in order-------------------------------salvation of his house
Israel gathered manna----------------------in order-------------------------------free gift nutrition
Naaman dip 7 times-------------------------in order--------------------------------free gift of healing
repent & be baptized-------------------------n order-------------------------------free gift salvation
Again, to have one receive the free gift of savlation BEFORE meeting the necessary conditions of repetnace and baptism creates utter nonsense. If we apply this nonsense of receiving the free gift BEFORE meeting the necessary conditions to the other examples, this means one gets the free ice cream cone BEFORE he even goes to the store and orders it. Noah was saved from a flood that had not yet occurred BEFORE he even built the ark. The Israelites were eating the free gift of manna BEFORE they even gathered it, Naaman was healed BEFORE he did the necessary work of dipping. Again, utter nonsesne.
Again, placing belief and obedience before regeneration is 'nonsense', (to use your word). The dead in sin can do NOTHING to please God. The heart of flesh does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Yet somehow you suppose it is so, inferring from places that do not imply it, that God does some sort of work in them that sort of changes their thinking but no not changing them.
Your examples are fleshly:
BB: "go store, order--------------------------------in order------------------------------free ice cream cone
Noah built ark--------------------------------in order-------------------------------salvation of his house
Israel gathered manna----------------------in order-------------------------------free gift nutrition
Naaman dip 7 times-------------------------in order--------------------------------free gift of healing"
MQ: All these had physical hands, or otherwise the ability to obey the physical requirement. The dead in sin do not.
BB: "repent & be baptized-------------------------n order-------------------------------free gift salvation"
MQ: I suppose you get this from such places as "Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins." Take a good look at prepositions --they are funny things. Useful many ways. You assume causation, because that fits your ideology. You insist on somehow or other causing your own salvation. That is not Grace
The Bible does teach election but not the Calvinism idea of unconditional random election
You attempt to disembowel a strawman, here. Calvinism teaches that with God, there is no such thing as random. He chose whom he chose, not from a pool of possibles, but by predestination --logically, then he CREATED FOR THAT VERY PURPOSE each person he Elected.
The Bible does teach election but not the Calvinism idea of unconditional random election[of certain inividuals over others thereby making God not only culpable for the lost but a repsecter of persons when it comes to salvation. Yet the Bible does teach corprorate election of a group called Christian. Before the world began God foreknew He would have a group that would poosses certain traits (holy & and with out blame, be called sons) and ANYONE who chooses to obey the gosepl can become part of the group thereby become part of the elect.
The BIble does not remotely teach any concept of TULIP. All 5 ideas are read into the Bible.
I have shown God "works" on men through His word, it is by His word that He draws men to Christ when men have been taught, have heard and leanr THEN men come to Christ
John 6:44-45.
"Apart from me you can do nothing" does not teach monergistic salvation. Again such an idea makes God culpable for the lost and a respecter of persons. What it means is without God man cannot save himself by himself. Hence God sent Christ to man and man thru Christ can "save himself (
Acts of the Apostles 2:40;
1 Timothy 4:16) by obeying Christ (Hebrew 5:9). So God's role in man's salvation was to send Christ to man, man's role is to obey Christ and the obedience EARNS NOTHING but simply meeting a necessary precondition to receive God's free gift. So simple to understand but Luther muddles it all up bringing false ideas and confusion to God's simple plan.
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Somehow you envision a supernatural being who rather than being omnipotent is only very powerful, but has granted mere Creatures the ability to make up his vacillating mind for him. Yet you fail to see how you have logically admitted to the authority of mere chance here.
I suppose you like the term, 'Corporate Election', as if it relinquishes one from admitting to God's particular, individual, Election. You will probably protest that you have not done so here, so tell me why you bring it up, as if it logically fits into your proofs.
Since to you TULIP in all five points are unbiblical, then, do you hold to the Five Points of Arminianism? TULIP, after all, is a direct answer to them. Or do you have an even more meandering style than the Arminian Five Points, which already presents a god who 'sort of' does what he does, and needs our help, or depends on causation attributable to mere chance. --Because that's what you've got.
Like me, I hope you become radically more aware of the absolute power and majesty of Christ than you do now. Because the God whose almighty power so tenderly, kindly, patiently, even sweetly, and even through weakness, and his own 'self-infliction' of our sin, shows his absolute control over all things, is OF HIMSELF, and NOT of us; we the recipients of his mercy being IN HIM, by grace. Not works.
AND, AGAIN, DO NOT TAKE THAT TO CLAIM I DON'T BELIEVE WE MUST WORK! (Nor that we have no will, as robots, nor that we do not really choose). We certainly must, but it is a result, not a cause, of grace. Of regeneration.
