Is faith a gift that only God can give us? (Note: I have an answer, but I would like input).

ViaCrucis said:

Well, yes, seeking is a work. And the Apostle tells us quite plainly that nobody seeks for God. Seeking after God is a product of faith.

It is impossible to seek for God unless one believes in Him.

For example, I'm not seeking for Zeus or Odin, I don't believe in them. I do seek after God, in faith.

-CryptoLutheran

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That's backward. Christ draws all. John 12:32

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isaiah 55:6-7

Look, we have to do something in order for God to pardon us! God doesn't do it for us.

Jeremiah 29:12-14
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.



James 4:8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

There it is again. We have to draw near to God.

Luke 11:9-10
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

It's the same old Calvinist error that says God has to seek himself. It's silly. The whole Bible says otherwise. No one could be punished for not seeking God if that were the case.

zoidar said:

Sometimes people meet Jesus i dreams. Those who seek will find. In the end it's for God to decide who He lets into his Kingdom. Let's pray for this people. BTW it's said that there are 100 million or more Christians in China today. That's like 10%. I almost think that's more than here in the "Christian" country Sweden.

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High estimates of Christians in China are, as you say, 100 million. The vast majority of these do not belong to the Three-Self churches (government administered) so it is impossible to enumerate the exact numbers. Of these Christians there are a lot of cults - some such as the Mormons which come from outside of the country and some which are native to China. These cults are, most assuredly, not Christian, although they mask themselves as being Christian. The leaders of these cults typically use dreams and visions as part of their teaching.

What do you make of Psalms 14 and 53, as well as Romans 3, which quotes those Psalms? The statement is quite explicit - there are none who seek God.

renniks said:

That's backward. Christ draws all. John 12:32

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isaiah 55:6-7

Look, we have to do something in order for God to pardon us! God doesn't do it for us.

Jeremiah 29:12-14
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.



James 4:8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

There it is again. We have to draw near to God.

Luke 11:9-10
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

It's the same old Calvinist error that says God has to seek himself. It's silly. The whole Bible says otherwise. No one could be punished for not seeking God if that were the case.

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What do you make of Psalms 14 and 53, as well as Romans 3 which quotes those Psalms? The statement is quite explicit - there are none who seek God. The verses that you quoted about seeking God were addressed to believers, not unbelievers. It is assuredly desirable and necessary for a believer to seek God.

Jesus is the good shepherd who goes out and seeks the one lost sheep of the 100 in order to bring it safely to His fold. The sheep is incapable of seeking the Shepherd.

bbbbbbb said:

What do you make of Psalms 14 and 53, as well as Romans 3 which quotes those Psalms? The statement is quite explicit - there are none who seek God.

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Really? Let's see. Who is David talking about:
The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.

4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?

They devour my people as though eating bread;
they never call on the Lord.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.

7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Why is David complaining about people not calling on the Lord if they're incapable of doing just that? David is talking about what a fool does, an evildoer.

And Paul does the same thing:
What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that
What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.

He's making the point that we all have sinned and that we need to have faith, not that we can't!

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

If all are justified why aren't all saved? Because most don't choose to have faith!

renniks said:

Really? Let's see. Who is David talking about:
The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.

4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?

They devour my people as though eating bread;
they never call on the Lord.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.

7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Why is David complaining about people not calling on the Lord if they're incapable of doing just that? David is talking about what a fool does, an evildoer.

And Paul does the same thing:
What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that
What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.

He's making the point that we all have sinned and that we need to have faith, not that we can't!

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

If all are justified why aren't all saved? Because most don't choose to have faith!

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Psalm 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds;
There is no one who does good.
2 The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men
To see if there are any who understand,
Who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good, not even one.

4 Do all the workers of wickedness not know,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread,
And do not call upon the Lord?
5 There they are in great dread,
For God is with the righteous generation.
6 You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted,
But the Lord is his refuge.

7 Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores His captive people,
Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.

Who is God describing? Who are the "sons of men"? Who are all? Does God designate any exceptions here?

bbbbbbb said:

Out of curiosity, do you think that God has chosen some for salvation among the hundreds of millions of Chinese people who will never be baptized, much less even hear the name of Jesus Christ?

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I can only confess what has already been said in Scripture, that we have been predestined in Christ to salvation, that is God's word to us, and it is Gospel, good news, that we aren't the agents of our own salvation, God in His mercy is. God is our Savior, the One who freely comes down to rescue us, and bring us to salvation by Himself.

I don't believe that God picks and chooses who will and will not be saved. I do believe that God is truthful when He says that He has chosen us in Christ from before the foundation of the world, not on the basis of anything we would do, but wholly and entirely by His loving kindness toward us in Jesus. The love with which He loves the whole world, and wills that all be saved and that none should perish, is the love with which He loves us, chooses us, calls us, and saves us. And He accomplishes this by Himself, at work in His own word: So that wherever the Gospel is preached and the Sacraments administered there God is present in His grace to save us, give us life, and sustain us.

As it is written, "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4); even as it is always written that Christ has the word of life eternal (John 6:68), this is He who had said earlier, "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in them" (John 6:56), for He is Himself the true Bread of life that has come down from heaven (John 6:35), being that He is Himself the very Eternal Word of God made flesh (John 1:14), who gives Himself, His own body and blood, and His very word to our salvation, to make us alive in Him and alive to God the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of this the Apostle can say to the Romans that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17). That it is the word, the Gospel, that gives faith, because God's word is not dead letter, but rather living and effectual (Hebrews 4:12)--it is alive and causes to happen what He sets His word to do, (Isaiah 55:11).

It is on this account that the ancient St. Cyprian could say, "Outside the Church there is no salvation". Not because Cyprian means to say that salvation is about belonging to a certain organizational structure, but because the Church is where Word and Sacrament are, it's where the word is preached, where Christ is present, the Church is the organ through which Christ Himself brings His word to all nations.

So what of those who have never heard? What of those who may have heard, but who heard wrongly? What of those whose only exposure to Christianity is a heretical form of Christianity, or have never heard the Gospel but only false gospel(s)? What of infants who are not baptized? What of children who die in miscarriage or abortion?

And we could keep asking those sorts of questions ad nauseum. But the only thing we can say is this: That "God is the Savior of all people, especially of those that believe" (1 Timothy 4:10), He is the One who "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4). Who "so loves the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that whosoever trusts in Him shall not perish but have life everlasting" (John 3:16) And so on and so forth--God's word to the world lost and perishing is the Gospel, and we believe that Gospel, confess that Gospel.

What if God should save every last person in China who never believed in this life--well what of it? Glory be to God. How might He do that, or would? How could we possibly know?

What if, in the end, God shall save all and hell, in fact, is completely empty? Well then, let's rejoice, glory be to God for His wonderful marvelous grace that He has shown us in Jesus Christ. Does this mean our confession was in vain, of course not--we have confessed the truth.

Being a Christian isn't about being part of a special club that gets paradise privileges, it's about believing in and following Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran

renniks said:

That's backward. Christ draws all. John 12:32

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isaiah 55:6-7

Look, we have to do something in order for God to pardon us! God doesn't do it for us.

Jeremiah 29:12-14
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.



James 4:8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

There it is again. We have to draw near to God.

Luke 11:9-10
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

It's the same old Calvinist error that says God has to seek himself. It's silly. The whole Bible says otherwise. No one could be punished for not seeking God if that were the case.

Click to expand...

What every single passage you quote has in common is that it is directed toward the people of God. Ignoring that context is why you are mis-using these Scriptures in this fashion.

You're right, Christ does draw all to Himself. And He is the One who does that.

The unregenerate don't draw themselves to Him, He draws them to Himself.

-CryptoLutheran

bbbbbbb said:

Psalm 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds;
There is no one who does good.
2 The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men
To see if there are any who understand,
Who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good, not even one.

4 Do all the workers of wickedness not know,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread,
And do not call upon the Lord?
5 There they are in great dread,
For God is with the righteous generation.
6 You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted,
But the Lord is his refuge.

7 Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores His captive people,
Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.

Who is God describing? Who are the "sons of men"? Who are all? Does God designate any exceptions here?

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Lol. God: " No one wants to listen to me."

Some sects: "God says we are incapable of listening to him."
Backwards Bible reading.

ViaCrucis said:

What every single passage you quote has in common is that it is directed toward the people of God. Ignoring that context is why you are mis-using these Scriptures in this fashion.

You're right, Christ does draw all to Himself. And He is the One who does that.

The unregenerate don't draw themselves to Him, He draws them to Himself.

-CryptoLutheran

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Then we are capable of seeking him.... because he seeks every single person.

The people if God? You mean Israel? As if they all listened?
As if there's no fake believers in the church who need to hear that they must seek him?

renniks said:

Then we are capable of seeking him.... because he seeks every single person.

The people if God? You mean Israel? As if they all listened?
As if there's no fake believers in the church who need to hear that they must seek him?

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Yes Israel/the Church--the people of God.

If we were capable of seeking God on our own, and finding Him, then there would be no reason to preach the Gospel to all nations. God isn't found by our trying to find Him, He comes down and makes Himself known to us in Christ, and Christ through the Gospel to all nations, in His Church.

-CryptoLutheran

Bible Highlighter said:

This is simply a misreading of John 6:44. The context of drawing of God the Father to Jesus is verse 45 that says that the person who has LEARNED and HEARD of the Father will be drawn. This suggests that a person who already has a walk with God in that they hear (obey) and learn (study the Scripture) will be drawn to Jesus. So John 6:44 is not a case for God forcing or pulling an unbeliever against their will.

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Hm, I don't know about John 6:44, but I have no problem to admit if I'm wrong about that passage. I don't believe that God is forcing an unbeliver against his will either. What I do believe is that God uses circumstances to show unbelievers the truth of Jesus Christ. That is what I mean by God pulling unbelievers. Of course we Christians if we do what we are supposed to do, we are part in pulling unbelievers. As an unbeliver gets convinced of the truth, he gets convicted of sin and turns to Jesus as his only hope. At least that is how it was for me.

I don't believe an unbeliever can just choose one day to come to Jesus, unless he is drawn, as I described. It may be a personal crisis that makes him turn to Jesus, or maybe a testimony from a Christian or he has read something about Jesus that opens his eyes. I Believe God uses all kinds of means to pull a person. If it doesn't happen this way, how then do you think it happens to a person that has no interest in God or the Bible?

A moment ago you said that there is a part of faith that we choose. Now you are saying that this is not the case because saving faith is a gift from God. Again, faith is by hearing, and hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). The context is about hearing the communicated Word of God (the gospel message). That's where faith begins. It is in hearing the message of faith. If a person receives the message of faith, then they will have faith. God is not going to force a person to believe or force them to be saved (if that is what you are suggesting). Hebrews 11:6 says without faith it is impossible to please Him (GOD). This implies a responsibility on our part to believe or to have faith. God is not going to believe for us. Nor is God going to give us the ability to believe whereas God does not give this ability to others.

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I believe an unbeliever can choose to to come to Jesus, but won't choose it unless he is drawn. I believe God is drawing every man, yet people resist God's drawing. But God leading a person to believe Jesus as he is described in the Bible, won't save him. He needs saving faith, and that is a gift from God, given a person as he hands over his life to God. Again that is how it was for me.

For God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). 2 Thessalonians 2:10 says that the reason why those who perish are perishing is because THEY received not the love of the truth that they MIGHT BE SAVED. So the reason why they are condemned is not because God did not grant them the ability to believe.

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I fully agree with this, but maybe we understand it differently?

ViaCrucis said:

Yes Israel/the Church--the people of God.

If we were capable of seeking God on our own, and finding Him, then there would be no reason to preach the Gospel to all nations. God isn't found by our trying to find Him, He comes down and makes Himself known to us in Christ, and Christ through the Gospel to all nations, in His Church.

-CryptoLutheran

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No one said he doesn't seek us. Or that we do it on our own. It's not an either/or. Those verses applied to the nation of Israel first, who constantly rebelled against him. To say that they only apply to believers is wrong.
God said it grieved him that he created people, because of their wickedness. Which doesn't make any sense if they were incapable of finding him. He also says that he did everything required for Israel to obey, but they didn't. God obviously expects seekers and gets rejected.

bbbbbbb said:

High estimates of Christians in China are, as you say, 100 million. The vast majority of these do not belong to the Three-Self churches (government administered) so it is impossible to enumerate the exact numbers. Of these Christians there are a lot of cults - some such as the Mormons which come from outside of the country and some which are native to China. These cults are, most assuredly, not Christian, although they mask themselves as being Christian. The leaders of these cults typically use dreams and visions as part of their teaching.

What do you make of Psalms 14 and 53, as well as Romans 3, which quotes those Psalms? The statement is quite explicit - there are none who seek God.

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I think that the Psalms are describing the authors anger, sorrow and anguish of what he sees among the people. The people have become corrupt, non seeking God.

I'm quoting Renniks about Romans 3:

"He's making the point that we all have sinned and that we need to have faith, not that we can't"

... and that goes for both those under the Law, the Jews and those without the Law, Greek.

renniks said:

No one said he doesn't seek us. Or that we do it on our own. It's not an either/or. Those verses applied to the nation of Israel first, who constantly rebelled against him. To say that they only apply to believers is wrong.
God said it grieved him that he created people, because of their wickedness. Which doesn't make any sense if they were incapable of finding him. He also says that he did everything required for Israel to obey, but they didn't. God obviously expects seekers and gets rejected.

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Is a member of God's covenant people who turns away from Him an apostate that needs to be brought back in, or an unbeliever who was never a member of the people to begin with?

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

Is a member of God's covenant people who turns away from Him an apostate that needs to be brought back in, or an unbeliever who was never a member of the people to begin with?

-CryptoLutheran

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Are you trying to imply that God isn't interested in saving everyone?
Do you think scripture is only written to believers? He died for whosever will, not any group.

renniks said:

Are you trying to imply that God isn't interested in saving everyone?

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I can't even begin to imagine how you managed to get that from what I said, especially considering I've repeatedly stated that God's will is for everyone to be saved over the course of this thread.

Do you think scripture is only written to believers?

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To believers? I mean, for the most part. I can't think of any book of the Bible whose target audience wasn't God's people.

For believers? Also yes, the Scriptures are for us.

Now, the application of Scripture is such that it calls us to be in the world, the Church called to preach the Gospel to the world. But the word is given to the Church, and the Church is the instrument by which the world encounters the preaching of the Gospel.

But no, when the Prophet Isaiah is writing to his fellow Israelites, he's writing to his fellow Israelites, and the word of YHVH which comes to him to be proclaimed, is proclaimed to his fellow Israelites. That said, obviously there are times when God's prophets were given the prophetic word to speak to this or that nation. So, for example, Jonah is called to prophesy to the Ninevites, what he preached to them was obviously for them and to them; but the text of Jonah which talks about this is addressed to the people of God, to believers.

The Bible isn't God's message to the world.
God's message to the world is Jesus Christ and His Gospel

God's message to the world is found in Scripture, because that message is the Gospel of His beloved Son. But the Bible isn't for the non-believing, it's for the Church, it's our Scripture.

The Bible is that collection of writings which the Church has, over the past two thousand years, received and confessed as divinely inspired Scripture; and to be received as the word of God faithfully bearing witness to God's Revelation in Jesus Christ.

The Bible is for the Church, and the Church fed and nourished by the word of Scripture, is then equipped to be present in the world to be the Gospel-preaching instrument of God's kingdom and power among the nations; that is the power of God's salvation which is in Jesus Christ.

He died for whosever will, not any group.

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He died for everyone. Not for any group, and not for whosoever will; He died for everyone.

Jesus Christ died for everyone, even those who will deny and reject Him even until the very end.

There's nobody that Jesus did not die for.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

The Bible isn't God's message to the world.
God's message to the world is Jesus Christ and His Gospel

God's message to the world is found in Scripture, because that message is the Gospel of His beloved Son. But the Bible isn't for the non-believing, it's for the Church, it's our Scripture.

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Yep and all one needs to find his son is in Scripture..so the Bible is for everyone. I really don't know what point you are trying to debate. God calls all, not all respond. That's on them, not God. Faith isn't God believing in himself. We have that choice.

renniks said:

Yep and all one needs to find his son is in Scripture..so the Bible is for everyone. I really don't know what point you are trying to debate. God calls all, not all respond. That's on them, not God. Faith isn't God believing in himself. We have that choice.

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It's not that I disagree that God wants to save everyone, but how do you mean a person can choose faith? I mean if he has no interest in the Bible or God?