Calvinism Refuted

[Hammster]

I am sorry. I should have let you folks know that I was being sarcastic. I just thought it was obvious. My bad!





Ps 119:128 Therefore I esteem all [thy] precepts [concerning] all [things to be] right; [and] I hate every false way.



Pr 16:25 There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof [are] the ways of death.



A religion or a movement that finds it necessary to substitute new meanings for terms or read their own theology into passages and ignore and reject context in the process are embarking on a false way. If you must pigeonhole a term like "firstborn" into the very narrow definition of preeminience, when in Jewish thought the firstborn in a family is the preeminient one, you are guilty of this very thing.



The Lord chose to use the word firstborn because the context in Romans leading up to V 29 was the "sons of God", who were born of the Spirit of Christ into the family of God. The word firstborn indicates preeminence but if he would have used the word "preeminence", it would not have necessarily conveyed the thought of "firstborn" which the context demands.



The fact of the matter is that Jesus Christ is the firstborn son of God from the dead at the resurrection of his body. You must deny this plain statement from scriptures several more times than just in Ro 8:29 to reach your position that God did not intend to convey the thought that he was actually the firstborn son of God from the dead.



To accept Jesus Christ as being the firstborn from the dead like the scriptures say would be to admit that you are mistaken and in error on several of your doctrines like ecclesiology and Pneumatology and other things. It would cause you to approach the scriptures in a whole different way than with your rigid presuppositions and allow it to teach you with the words that are used instead of with concepts and ideas that you are approaching it with now.



The whole issue of our disagreement is over the person and work of Jesus Christ so it does not surprise me to find us disagreeing on his position in the family of God as the firstborn son of the Father. It had been said that he would become flesh and dwell among us, give his life's blood for the world and give authority to anyone who would receive him by simply believing on him to be the sons of God. The birth as sons would not be according to the fleshly birth; it would not be by blood, nor by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by God. Jesus Christ was the first man who participated in this birth. His body lay in the tomb, lifeless, until the Spirit of God, who is life entered into it and raised it from the dead. It was a different kind of birth than his fleshly birth when he recieved his physical body from Mary, but, according to God, it was a birth.



Jesus Christ said to Nicodemas; "except a man be born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ was in every point a man and I have already quoted verses where God says it. He had been preaching the kingdom of God was at hand. His resurrection was the beginning of that kingdom.



The preeminient doctrine in scripture is Jesus Christ. It is not pre-election. One could hope that some of you could be rescued from these errors.

What has anyone said that would indicate that we don't think that Jesus came in the flesh? He was the God/man.

It seems that you keep wanting to make a separation of the Godhead that is more than what the scripture would indicate. I amy be wrong on this point, but that is what it seems to me. Yes, it says that God raised Jesus from the dead. But Jesus also said He would raise Himself from the dead.

And just for clarification, where do you think Jesus was between death and resurrection?

 

[drstevej]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times]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 all of 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 ... 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. (Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography: 1, The Early Years, Banner of Truth, pp. 164-165).[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times]

George Whitefield said, "We are all born Arminians." It is grace that turns us into Calvinists. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 2, p. 124).[/FONT]

 

[drstevej]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times]I would rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended, than a universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody, except the will of men be added to it. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 4, p. 70)[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times][/FONT]

 

[JDS]

To JDS, the firstborn among theologians.

Exodus 4:22 and Psalm 89:27 both speak of firstborn. In Exodus , it speaks of Israel. Is Israel the first nation, or the one God found preeminent?

In Psalm 89, it is talking about David, and foreshadows Christ. Is David firstborn? Not only was he not the first king, hewlett wasn't even the firstborn son.

The history of humanity since the flood is that families became nations. Read the table of nations in Ge 10. The nation of Israel would never have been in existence without the direct intervention of God and the faith of Abraham through whom this nation was born. And yes, this nation is the firstborn nation because of the miraculous way in which the barren Sarah concieve a child after the physical possibilities were past. God repeated the miraculous birth in Isaac and Jacob for emphasis and this nation was in every sense the firstborn. No other nation came into existence in this manner. Read Rom 4 and please do not let the significance of the typelogy of the scriptures escape you and willfully insert your head in the sand.

Salvation is of the Jews!

 

[JDS]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times]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 all of 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 ... 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. (Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography: 1, The Early Years, Banner of Truth, pp. 164-165).[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman,Times]George Whitefield said, "We are all born Arminians." It is grace that turns us into Calvinists. (Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 2, p. 124).[/FONT]

You have missed the memo!

Salvation is not defined by Spurgeon or Whitefield and they had it wrong.

 

[Hammster]

The history of humanity since the flood is that families became nations. Read the table of nations in Ge 10. The nation of Israel would never have been in existence without the direct intervention of God and the faith of Abraham through whom this nation was born. And yes, this nation is the firstborn nation because of the miraculous way in which the barren Sarah concieve a child after the physical possibilities were past. God repeated the miraculous birth in Isaac and Jacob for emphasis and this nation was in every sense the firstborn. No other nation came into existence in this manner. Read Rom 4 and please do not let the significance of the typelogy of the scriptures escape you and willfully insert your head in the sand.



Salvation is of the Jews!

Acts 17:26 And He made from one man EVERY NATION

So God made every nation, including Israel. Israel is not the first nation God was responsible for making. But it was the preeminent nation, or firstborn.

Plus, I don't see why Jesus being preeminent is such a problem with you.

 

[JDS]

Acts 17:26 And He made from one man EVERY NATION

So God made every nation, including Israel. Israel is not the first nation God was responsible for making. But it was the preeminent nation, or firstborn.

Plus, I don't see why Jesus being preeminent is such a problem with you.

Do not pick and choose!

26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; (This is boundaries)

Why?


27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

 

[student ad x]

What is this????

Is this an attempt to hi-jack the thread and divert it away from "Calvinism Refuted?"

Nope it asks the poster to look at himself before criticizing others.

It is precisely this kind of judgmental self serving general statement that derails.

Now, back to Calvinism, which is still un-refuted. Lots of shots at strawman Calvinism, but the real McCoy still stands.

Speaking of mirrors, strawmen and removing the beam from one's own eye.... a Pate sighting.

 

[student ad x]

You have missed the memo!

Salvation is not defined by Spurgeon or Whitefield and they had it wrong.

You asserting something, as several of us have witnessed, does not make it truth.

 

[Hammster]

Do not pick and choose!



26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; (This is boundaries)



Why?





27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.

30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Nice try, but I wasn't picking and choosing. The point for our discussion is the nature of firstborn in regards to Israel.

But since you brought it up, I will address it.

You seem to think that we think that man has an inability to believe in God. Not so. Man has no desire to believe in God. The lack of desire is the deadness of which we speak. So, in one essence it is an inability because man cannot create that desire for God in himself. It must come from God. So God does call every man, and has places every man in a place where he might seek after God. But not every man will because not every man will want to, thus not every man has the ability.

 

[drstevej]

You have missed the memo!

Salvation is not defined by Spurgeon or Whitefield and they had it wrong.

So sad they did not have you to set them straight, all they had was the Bible. Maybe they would have had significant ministries had they known you.

 

[archierieus]

This is the definition for the word.

With many words in Greek, the inflected definition often differs from the general dictionary definition. The definition you quoted states that, in fact. It is different in certain tenses. The one you were referring to applies to the perfect tense as stated in the definition, but this occurrence is not the perfect tense. Therefore, look at the first definition given in the one you quoted.

 

[archierieus]

I am not sure of the distinction you are asserting and the difference it makes. What would be the difference between understand or experience?

In Greek, very often the inflected meaning is different from the general dictionary definition. That is why study tools such as Strong's Dictionary are NOT accurate for understanding a particular occurrence of a word. In fact, it can be dangerous. In the case of this occurrence, we see an aorist, which is distinguished from continuing or progressive action. It is the happening of an event. In the PERFECT tense, by contrast, we have continuing action, an ongoing state of affairs.

You seem to be wanting see and enter to be the same thing. You see means experience, and since entering IS an experience, you make them to be the same.

I am looking at the inflected meaning of the words, and at the fact that Jesus spoke twice about the kingdom of heaven. He DID speak of entering the kingdom of heaven, it IS aorist, that is the happening of an event as opposed to continuing action. Of significance is the fact that Jesus repeated and restated to Nicodemus, each time referring to being born again, each time referring to the kingdom of heaven, each time using the aorist. Therefore, 'see' as the occurrence of an event, that is to have the experience, is reasonably equivalent to 'enter' as the occurrence of the event.

Either way, you can't enter, see, smell taste or touch until the Holy Spirit does something. And there is nothing in the text that would indicate that you have to do something. Rather, something is being done to you.

In the two verses being discussed, 3 and 5, there is no indication beyond the statements about being born again. The only reference is being 'born of water and the Spirit,' nor is there any indication of how the event happens. Such questions would need to be answered from outside those two verses.

Dave

 

[Hammster]

In Greek, very often the inflected meaning is different from the general dictionary definition. That is why study tools such as Strong's Dictionary are NOT accurate for understanding a particular occurrence of a word. In fact, it can be dangerous. In the case of this occurrence, we see an aorist, which is distinguished from continuing or progressive action. It is the happening of an event. In the PERFECT tense, by contrast, we have continuing action, an ongoing state of affairs.







I am looking at the inflected meaning of the words, and at the fact that Jesus spoke twice about the kingdom of heaven. He DID speak of entering the kingdom of heaven, it IS aorist, that is the happening of an event as opposed to continuing action. Of significance is the fact that Jesus repeated and restated to Nicodemus, each time referring to being born again, each time referring to the kingdom of heaven, each time using the aorist. Therefore, 'see' as the occurrence of an event, that is to have the experience, is reasonably equivalent to 'enter' as the occurrence of the event.







In the two verses being discussed, 3 and 5, there is no indication beyond the statements about being born again. The only reference is being 'born of water and the Spirit,' nor is there any indication of how the event happens. Such questions would need to be answered from outside those two verses.



Dave

I don't seem to understand what you think the significance of see or enter is. You say that the are similar, but you don't seem to be saying what you think Jesus is getting at.

I place great significance on the phrase "born again" or "born from above" and I do see that it implies something being done to you, not something you do. Jesus used this phrase for a purpose to illustrate a point, to paint a picture. If you focus too much on see or enter, you run the risk of missing the forest for the trees.

When my children were born, they did nothing to affect that situation. They had nothing to do with conception, growth in the womb, labor, etc. They just were. Now, after they were born they reacted to it by crying, peeing, pooping, etc. just as you would expect an infant to do. So something acted upon them and they reacted.

Same thing with being born again. Something acts upon us (Holy Spirit) and we react (believe in Him). And much like a newborn has no clue as to what's going on neither do we (v.8).

So the indication of the Spirit working is the phrase "born again" itself.

 

[MamaZ]

With many words in Greek, the inflected definition often differs from the general dictionary definition. The definition you quoted states that, in fact. It is different in certain tenses. The one you were referring to applies to the perfect tense as stated in the definition, but this occurrence is not the perfect tense. Therefore, look at the first definition given in the one you quoted.

The whole of the definition is there for us to see.

 

[JDS]

Nice try, but I wasn't picking and choosing. The point for our discussion is the nature of firstborn in regards to Israel.

But since you brought it up, I will address it.

You seem to think that we think that man has an inability to believe in God. Not so. Man has no desire to believe in God. The lack of desire is the deadness of which we speak. So, in one essence it is an inability because man cannot create that desire for God in himself. It must come from God. So God does call every man, and has places every man in a place where he might seek after God. But not every man will because not every man will want to, thus not every man has the ability.

How would you know what "we" believe in 3 months study. Are you expecting me to accept yours as an expert opinion.

I am sorry, Hammster, but you fellows act as if you are speaking to complete nincompoops.

Listen to yourself! A man does not have an ability to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ??? Great guns man! I cannot say what Ireally think about this lest I get censored. But, WOW! So called intelligent men are advancing this stuff.

 

[JDS]

So sad they did not have you to set them straight, all they had was the Bible. Maybe they would have had significant ministries had they known you.

Significant ministries is your criteria for judgment. It is not God's!

Lu 16:15 And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.

 

[nobdysfool]

Significant ministries is your criteria for judgment. It is not God's!

Lu 16:15 And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.

And of course, Jesus was specifically referring to Calvinists when He said this, is that it?

You are pursuing an agenda, not the Truth.

 

[cygnusx1]

And of course, Jesus was specifically referring to Calvinists when He said this, is that it?

You are pursuing an agenda, not the Truth.

absolutely bro , never do these anti-Calvinists show concern by arguing against several other views , they have a real hang up with God being God.

 

[Hammster]

How would you know what "we" believe in 3 months study. Are you expecting me to accept yours as an expert opinion.



I am sorry, Hammster, but you fellows act as if you are speaking to complete nincompoops.



Listen to yourself! A man does not have an ability to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ??? Great guns man! I cannot say what Ireally think about this lest I get censored. But, WOW! So called intelligent men are advancing this stuff.

First, I in no way expect you to take my views as "expert". I have said many times that I am open to correction on these views. But I do understand the general idea, and I have been studying my bible for years, and I do understand what it says. I, in no way, need to take bits and pieces and try to get my theology to fit scripture. Nor do I need to take plain meanings of scripture and come up with wild ideas to make them fit with the text.

We do not feel that you are a complete nincompoop. A partial one, maybe.

Also, I didn't say man has no ability to believe. I said man has no desire to want God and has no ability to create that desire I himself. Thus, from one viewpoint, it is an inability.
Calvinists don't believe that God is keeping people out who want to come. There just isn't any who want to come on their own.