Graycat, that is where you'd be wrong.
I believe in this:
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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.
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So we can see that these passages were not meant to undermine the criminal justice system in Jesus's time, or ours. But once again, abolitionists have taken such quotes out of context and used them to rationalize their contempt for justice.
Some religious people argue that since we cannot create human life we should not take it. If you accept the premises of religion, then not only can we not create human life, we cannot destroy it. We can only destroy the flesh that temporarily houses the immortal soul. What happens to the soul is God's business, no one else's.
So I find all biblical interpretations against the death penalty to be frivolous, at best, because no where does the Bible repudiate capital punishment for murder. In fact, it is the one crime in the Bible for which no restitution is possible. (Num. 35:31, 33) Christians who oppose the death penalty in deserving cases tend to subordinate the justice of God to the love of God. But it is because humans are created in God's image that capital punishment is not only permitted by the Bible, but approved and encouraged as well. (Genesis 9:6)
Paul, one of Christ's disciples, in his hearing before Festus, states: "For if I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying." (Acts 25:11) St. Paul confirms that the civil authority may justly execute wrongdoers for certain crimes.
Christ Himself regarded capital punishment as a just penalty for murder when He said to one of his disciples after he tried to kill a soldier who had come to arrest Jesus:
"...all who take the sword will perish by the sword." (Matt. 26:52) He also recognized the death penalty for people who cursed their parents. (Matt. 15:4)
When Jesus faces Pontius Pilate, Pilate says to Jesus: "Do You not know that I have power to crucify You..?" Jesus replies:
"You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above." (John 19:10-11) Jesus reminds Pilate that the use of the death penalty is a divinely entrusted responsibility that is to be justly implemented. In Jesus Christ's crucifixion, one of the criminals crucified next to Jesus said: "...we receive the due reward of our deeds...Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." Jesus replied:
"Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." (Luke 23:42-43) That pardon did not extend to eliminating the consequences of his crime.
There are a couple passages in Luke which speak directly on Jesus' position on the death penalty:
- "A certain man planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers, and went into a far country for a long time. Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that they might gave him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the vinedressers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent another servant; and they beat him also, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent a third; and they wounded him also and cast him out. then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him.' But when the vinedressers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.' So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others." -Luke 20:9-16.
Jesus states in that parable that the proper punishment for murder is death. Christ also pronounced this judgment on those who rebelled against their king:
- "But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me." -Luke19:27
In the 19:27 parable their king is Jesus. So it is very clear that neither Christ nor His apostles intended to abrogate the God-given responsibility of the state (under Old Testament Law) to protect its citizens and enforce justice by capital punishment.And in Romans 13:3-4, St. Paul states:
- "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil...Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil."
So God has given the state the power of life and death over its subjects to maintain public safety for God established the governing authorities, and it is to them the responsibility of putting those to death who commit capital crimes.
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
Sorry Graycat, but that dog just aint gonna hunt!!!
There are millions that believe the same way I do.
