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No person can come to Christ by their own freewill !
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ThatDumbChicken
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Of course. We cannot create our own faith without understanding what our faith is in. Christ woos us. The kindness of the Lord leads to repentance. Few respond. But to suggest that God decides beforehand who will be saved goes against everything taught in the NT.
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When a person is being drawn by God or Christ its the equivalent of giving them both repentance and faith to believe on Him.10
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You can’t create faith at all. It is a gift from God as per Ephesians 2.
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Yes, He most certainly did. Are you so married to your doctrine that you can't even allow yourself to acknowledge something as obvious as this?
The concept is clearly there. Did you not read the passage?
Mark 2:16 Mark 2:16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? 17 When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Jesus relates "they that are whole" with "the righteous" and "they that are sick" with "sinners". That means the righteous are spiritually whole in the sense that they are saved and their sins are forgiven and they have been made clean spiritually by the blood of Christ. And sinners are spiritually sick in the sense that they need spiritually healing in the form of being saved and having their sins washed away that only the physician, Jesus, can do for them.
Hello? That means Jesus is a physician in a spiritual sense and sinners are sick in a spiritual sense. And you deny that sinners are spiritually sick. Jesus said they are.
Being dead in sins means someone is separated from a personal relationship with God. It has nothing to do with what someone is or is not capable of doing. Jesus indicated that sinners are spiritually sick and sick people are able to recognize and acknowledge their condition when it is shown to them and they are able to humble themselves and acknowledge that they can't heal themselves and need the physician to heal them.
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Don't lie. I was obviously talking about your doctrine, not the gospel. If you can only resort to lying like this, then it shows that you have no confidence in your doctrine and you have to resort to extreme measures like lying about me in order to try to make your own doctrine look better.
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That is not taught anywhere in scripture. If that was the case, scripture wouldn't ever talk about anyone resisting the Holy Spirit, but it does.
Acts 7:51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
God's drawing can be resisted.
Tell me, why would God be pleased with someone for having faith if He gave it to them? Hebrews 11:6 says without faith it is impossible to please God. So, that means He is pleased with someone when they show they have faith. In your view, no one does anything to get faith because you think God gives it to them. If He gave people saving faith then there would be no reason for Him to be pleased with someone for having faith. It would make more sense for Him to be pleased with Himself for giving it to them, if anything, but He would have no reason to be pleased with someone for having faith if that faith didn't come from their own decision to believe.
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That is not what Ephesians 2 says. Ephesians 2:8-9 indicates that salvation is the gift of God and it comes by way of God's grace through faith. That lines up with Romans 6:23 saying that eternal life is the gift of God since salvation and eternal life are basically the same thing.
Why does Hebrews 11:6 say that without faith it is impossible to please God if we can't create faith at all? Why would our faith be pleasing to God if it isn't faith that comes from us and instead comes from Him? That makes no sense.
If God gives people faith rather than people making a decision to believe, then why was Jesus amazed at how much faith the Roman centurion had?
Matthew 8:5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” 7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” 8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
If faith comes from God then Jesus surely would have been aware of that, so why would anyone's faith amaze Him if that was the case. He would not be amazed by anyone's faith if it came from God. That makes no sense.
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It’s ALL a gift. Grace is unmerited favor (or, in every day terms, He gave you something you didn’t deserve). In and of itself, it is not a gift, it is the way God treats you. Faith is the gift in that verse that God gives you. He gives it to you as a gift, not because you earned it. That’s what that means.
Hebrews 11 is the Walk of Faith of the Old Testament believers. God was already at work in their lives which is why they had faith.
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No, it is not. Faith is the act of willingly putting one's trust in Christ as their Lord and Savior. Tell me how it could be possible that God would be pleased with someone's faith (Hebrews 11:6) if it came from Him? Tell me why Jesus was amazed at the faith of the Roman centurion (see Matthew 8:5-13) if his faith was given to him? Would Jesus have been amazed by faith that came from God? No, of course not. That would be ridiculous, since He Himself is God. He would not be amazed at the faith that He gave to someone.
No, that is not what that means. Assume for the sake of argument that all people have free will. If someone uses their free will to choose to humble themselves before God while acknowledging that they are a lost sinner who can't save themselves and they put their faith in Christ to save them and forgive their sins instead and God then saves that person, is that a case of that person earning their own salvation? No, of course not. They just humbly acknowledged that they can't save themselves and need Jesus to save them, so what did they do to earn their salvation? Nothing. They just did what God commands all people everywhere to do (repent - Acts 17:30).
Also, you noticeably didn't address my question about the Roman centurion and why Jesus would have been amazed by his faith if God gave it to him. Please answer that question, also.
Nowhere does it indicate that obeying God's command to repent would be a case of earning our own salvation if it's a choice that God requires you to make. Paul said we are saved by grace through faith and not by works that we could boast about. So, faith is not a work since it is differentiated from works. Faith isn't something we can boast about. Only works are.
Are you trying to suggest that Hebrews 11:6 no longer applies? Why did you not address my question? Why would God be pleased by someone's faith if He gave it to them? Please answer the question.
Also, you did not answer my question about why Jesus would be amazed by the Roman centurion's faith if it was given to him by God. Please answer that question, also.
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@Spiritual Jew
Thats not God drawing someone, not even close, thats an example of mans natural enmity and hostility towards God, its to be expected. Stephen called them uncircumcised heart and ears, thats unregenerate. Their carnal mind is just what scripture says it is against God Rom 8:7
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Thats not God drawing someone, not even close, thats an example of mans natural enmity and hostility towards God, its to be expected. Stephen called them uncircumcised heart and ears, thats unregenerate. Their carnal mind is just what scripture says it is against God Rom 8:7
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
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In what sense were the Jews that Stephen was rebuking resisting the Holy Spirit then?
As for Romans 8:7, even the babes in Christ that Paul rebuked in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 had carnal minds, so you can't use that verse to support your doctrine since even Christians can think carnally while at the same time they have faith in Christ. So, a carnal mind doesn't prevent someone from being able to believe in Christ.
Tell me, how is it that no one has any excuse for suppressing the truth while refusing to glorify God as God while being thankful to Him, as Paul wrote about in Romans 1:18-21? How do you reconcile that with your doctrine when you try to say that the unregenerate are totally depraved and hostile towards God? In your view how can such people not have any excuse for suppressing the truth, glorifying God and being thankful to Him?
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I just explained that to you. The unregenerate sometimes get angry at the preaching. Stephen called them insulting names Acts 7
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
They just resisted his preaching, has nothing to do with God drawing them. You just impose that meaning on it.
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ThatDumbChicken
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Then why celebrate it? If Babe Ruth steps up to the plate to pinch hit for me & hits a home run, would anyone celebrate me?
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Why would I assume for the sake of argument that all men have free will when you are not willing to assume for the sake of argument that salvation belongs to God, that it is His to give to those He chooses, HOW he chooses?
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David Lamb
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Saved sinners don't ask other Christians to celebrate them. Rather, all the praise and glory for a sinner being saved goes to God, and in particular to the Saviour, Jesus Christ. Paul reminds the Christians at Ephesus how they had been saved:
“1 ¶ And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 4 ¶ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:1-10 NKJV)
Paul doesn't tell the Ephesians that they should celebrate each other. No, it was God Who brought it all about: God made them alive, raised them up, showed them His grace and kindness, saved them, and even prepared good works for them to do now they had been saved.
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