Faith or Predestination

[Si_monfaith]

We are brought up to feed, dress and take care of ourselves, which is good in lots of ways, so begging for pure sacrificial charity from anyone is not desired. This desire seems to go back to our needed survival instinct which gives value to eternal life, but it would also result in self-awareness, self -concern, independence, and to some degree selfishness.

So these desires are not given by God according to Philippians 2:13?

 

[Si_monfaith]

It is not God stopping Himself from doing something good, but the definition of Godly type Love which does not allow God to force it on a person and still be Godly type Love. Godly type Love cannot be made to be just instinctive to humans since that would be a programmed robotic type of Love and if God force man to take this Love (or else go to hell or something like that) it would not be Loving on God's part noe would the person being forced really receive Godly type love for themselves.
Man is not developing this Love, Learning this Love, paying for this Love, or ever deserving of this Love, but it does come automatically as a gift to humans who humbly accept God's pure sacrificial gift of Love in the form of forgiveness "...he who is forgiven much Loves much...".


Who is like Saul/Paul?
Who is so zealous for the truth they could be convinced to murder the innocent?
Who is so wise in the OT scripture and stands blameless in their own eyes before God?

Yes, Saul/Paul had a special calling, but it was going to take a huge opportunity to really provide an alternative to believing all he had been taught by wise men, the true religion he was following at the time, and the pride he had accumulated.

Saul/Paul could have easily been swayed by his pride to believe he had experienced heat stroke, fallen for his horse and been blinded by the sun with a nightmare of a memory. This alternative could have been developed in the days waiting, but the other alternative was to believe he was big time wrong and Christ was the Messiah.

Saul/Paul could not stop what God/Jesus did no the road, but after getting to Damascus Saul/Paul could have chosen not to accept what happened as truth.

but the definition of Godly type Love which does not allow God to force it on a person and still be Godly type Love. Godly type Love cannot be made to be just instinctive to humans since that would be a programmed robotic type of Love

So God did not show Godly type Love on Paul on the road to Damascus? Was it a programmed robotic type of Love that which was shown to Paul?

 

[Phantasman]

The scriptures show that Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin and offer reconciliation between God and man, forgiveness, and eternal life to sinful humanity. How does God indicate in His word this gift of salvation and grace is applied to one's life?

I believe that according to the Bible a person is saved by trusting Jesus Christ as their Savior in faith and believing the gospel message that He has paid for the sins of the world, including their personal sins, risen from the grave in victory over sin and death offering forgiveness and eternal life to all who believe.

According to the Calvinistic theology as expressed in TULIP people are so (Totally depraved) that they have no ability to believe the gospel. God predestines, based on no condition (Unconditional election) on the part the person. God selects some people, but not all (Limited atonement), regenerating them and causing them to believe the gospel by (Irresistible grace).

So what do others think the message of the scriptures says about receiving salvation? Is it faith or predestination?

Faith first in the word (small w=knowledge of the Father). Jesus spoke the Fathers words, not his own. Through his words we see the love of the Father towards us and reflect it towards others. The works are the physical actions that show this faith and love within us. It is a cycle that continues, beginning in and as Christ.


Jesus said:
"Become earnest about the word! For as to the word, its first part is faith; the second, love; the third, works; for from these comes life. For the word is like a grain of wheat; when someone had sown it, he had faith in it; and when it had sprouted, he loved it, because he had seen many grains in place of one. And when he had worked, he was saved, because he had prepared it for food, (and) again he left (some) to sow. So also can you yourselves receive the kingdom of heaven; unless you receive this through knowledge, you will not be able to find it."-Secret James

 

[bling]

If creation of man is a problem because of unconditional election, the same problem exists in conditional election. How? If God knows beforehand who will not believe in Him, why should He go ahead and create them?

You do not understand time being relative to God (time over the last 100 years has been experientially shown to be relative and nothing has shown time to not be relative). We have no problem believing God sees everyone at the same time and can process his reaction to it, but seeing everything at the same time throughout all of time is difficult.

In God’s time frame there is no “beforehand” as it relates to man it is all the present.

You might think about it like this: “if there is a prior time in God’s time frame to deciding to not create a limited free willed person, than God would know all the possible choices that person could make but not the free will choice the person did make, since they will never exist. As soon as God does decide to make a person that person is born, lives, makes free will choices dies and goes to heaven or hell, so there is no turning back and redoing history since the history of that person exists from the beginning of time (God deciding to make the person). God cannot change history.

 

[bling]

So God did not show Godly type Love on Paul on the road to Damascus? Was it a programmed robotic type of Love that which was shown to Paul?

What? God only has Godly type Love which he extends to everyone, but that type of love is pure charity and people will not accept God's love as charity, so the transaction of true Love is not completed.

 

[bling]

Do you want to say, " I stop obeying satan" OR "It is not me but His grace that is with me that resists satan according to 1 Corinthians 15:10"?

You cannot keep from eventually sinning under your own power (this was true of Adam and Eve also). But if I am going to be held accountable for my sins I have to be able to keep from doing any of my sins at any particular time (which does not mean I can be sinless). Are you accountable for your sins?

 

[Marvin Knox]

I am not a Calvinist.

What do you like to call yourself?

Do your believe the 5 points of Calvinism?

You have espoused all of them in this thread if I am not mistaken.

You may like to call yourself something other than Calvinist. But for the purpose of this discussion you would likely be considered one by most here.

If you don't want to be considered a Calvinist then stop asking rhetorical questions meant to elicit responses which you can then critique and just go ahead and tell everyone what's what.

Where you have made definitive statements about what you believe IMO you have said some incorrect things. Most of them have sounded distinctly Calvinist, particularly regarding so call limited atonement.

Predestination doesn't include selection of individuals? Rom 8: 29.

Of course it does.

Predestination in that verse includes the selection of those He foreknew (whatever you happen to consider that word to mean exactly). Those are individuals.

Man is either ruled by sin or grace (Rom 5:21).

And your point?

If Jesus' work justified in and of itself - then you and I for whom Christ died would have been saved from conception on and not need to exercise saving faith to be justified before God.

Rom 5: 9: "being now justified by his blood"
Rom 5:10: "we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son".
The meaning of faith is assurance. Faith does not justify us. His works does.

We are justified through faith and without faith we are not justified.

The work of Christ at Calvary forms the basis of our salvation. But it is not the entire requirement for salvation.

As I said, we are not justified by Jesus' work in and of itself. If that were true then you and I and everyone He died for would have been justified from the split second He finished that work.

Secondly, your statement: "not need to exercise saving faith". Reply: We don't produce faith, His grace does (1Timothy 1:14). We don't exercise faith, His grace does (1 Corinthians 15:10).

I did not say that we produce faith ourselves apart from His grace. I have consistently said otherwise.

We do exercise faith. Whether we obtained that faith by grace or worked it up out of ourselves is a moot point.

His grace cannot repent from sins, believe the gospel, and confess a trust in the work of Christ for salvation. Grace is not a person.

So you reject limited atonement?

That is correct. I do not believe in limited atonement as usually taught by modern day Calvinists.

I do not believe that Christ died for only a portion of mankind. I believe He died for all mankind and, indeed, bore the sins of the entire world.

Now - if you meant by limited atonement that only some will have the work of His atonement applied to their lives through faith and be saved from the wrath to come while others will not - I would tell you that I believe that - just as Calvin and millions of other Bible believers believed it before me.

 

[SBC]

Lol. You just supported everything I said with your so-called rebuttal.

Hammster said: ↑
We cannot choose to believe.


Nonsense. You are not naturally born believing anything.

When you believe NOTHING, at some point you CHOOSE what to believe -

That is not support of what you said, it's disagreeing with what you said.

God Bless,
SBC

 

[Marvin Knox]

In God’s time frame there is no “beforehand” as it relates to man it is all the present.

Then why does He say there is - as shown in these verses and in many others?

"...we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:10

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." Jeremiah 1:5

"....He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him...." Ephesians 1:4

 

[Jennifer Rothnie]

If God has made it possible for anyone to receive the gift, then His gift is irresistible, you agree?

The second does not logically follow from the first. There are many reasons a person might refuse a gift.

In the case of salvation through Christ, many refuse to respond in faith for a number of reasons (none of which have to do with the gift being insufficient or their inability to go through the one door God set up for them):

- Obstinance (Rom 10:16-21)
- Satan interfering to snatch the word away from their hearts (Lk 8:12)
- Fear evil deeds will be exposed (Jn 3:20)
- Embracing deceipt and refusing to know God (Jer 9:6)
- Ignorance due to hardness of heart (Eph 4:18)
- Craving sensuality (Eph 4:19)
- Refusal to listen (Jer 13:10, Heb 12:25)
Etc.

Man's unfaithfulness does not mullify God's faithfulness (Rom 3:3-4)

I have frequently engaged with athiests and other self-styled intellectuals on many topics - but after discourse over various matters of science and history, I have found that there always is an underlying issue. It's not the surface issue of veracity that is their stumbling block. Rather, it always seems to come down to things like blaming God for something bad that happened or being hurt by a proclaimed Christian which has made them resistant to the gospel, or not wanting to turn from a favorite sin, etc.

 

[Jennifer Rothnie]

If you read the verses you will see that Faith that saves is given by God. So it follows that we are saved because predestined us to be saved.

As already mentioned and detailed extensively in this thread, faith is *not* the gift in Eph 2:8. Faith and grace are in the feminine gender, 'the gift' in the neuter. There is no way to make faith the gift given the grammar of the Greek. Rather, in the Greek the gift can only refer to the entirety of the clause - that we are 'saved, by grace and through faith.' Salvation is the gift of God, by the grace of God, and received through faith.

The process of salvation is taken as a whole in regards to source, reason, and mechanism. Paul contrasts salvation by grace and through faith with 'works', for man cannot achieve salvation by his own merit.

It's a similar train of thought to Rom 5:18-21. While we were all condemned by the law and sin reigned, the death of Christ brought justification by His own blood. In this grace reigns (the 'by'), through righteousness and through Jesus (the process), to bring eternal life (the 'what').

The process is given in even more detail in Rom 3:22-26: Righteousness is given through faith to all who believe. We are justified by grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God displayed Christ publicly (grace) as a propitiation (atoning sacrifice) whose blood is applied to us through faith.

These and other similar passages are summaries of the gospel; that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We receive Him by faith and are justified, receiving the righteousness of Christ in place of our own sins, and will never perish but will have eternal life. (Tit 3:3-8, Heb 10:22, II Tim 1:9-11, 2 Corinthians 5:21)

We only have the offer of salvation because of grace. Because we could not save ourselves, God the Father in his mercy and grace sent His only begotten Son to die for the ungodly as propitiation, an atoning sacrifice, on behalf of our sins. (Rom 3:25, Rom 5:6-8, Rom 5:15-17, John 12:32, John 3:14-17). Salvation is by grace (Rom 11:6), not works, so that man can never boast. (Rom 6:19-23, Eph 2:8-9, Is 63:4-5, Rom 8:1-4, Acts 13:39, Phil 3:7-9, etc.) How great a salvation is this! It does not come by our merit, but by God's grace. It does not come through our dead works, but through our belief in the Messiah (John 6:28-29, John 3:16). It is a salvation beyond the capacity of man to achieve or offer.

"But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!" Rom 5:15

"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life." Tit 3:4-7

Salvation is through faith; more specifically, through faith in the person and work of Christ who died for our sins. It is through faith that we are justified (Rom 5:1, Rom 3:24-30); through faith that we enter the covenant with Christ; through faith we are reconciled to God and may approach Him (Rom 5:1-11, Eph 3:12); through faith that we have access into the peculiar grace a believer stands in (Rom 5:2); through faith we are raised with Christ and receive the righteousness of Christ imputed to us (Col 2:11-13, Rom 6:4, Rom 3:22, Phil 3:9, Acts 13:39); through faith we are shielded by God's power until the coming of salvation (I Pet 1:5); through faith we inherit what has been promised (Heb 6:12); through faith Christ dwells in our hearts (Eph 3:17), through faith we hold eternal life (John 3:16).

"...In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time....for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls." -I Pet 1:3-9

 

[Hammster]

Hammster said: ↑
We cannot choose to believe.


Nonsense. You are not naturally born believing anything.

When you believe NOTHING, at some point you CHOOSE what to believe -

That is not support of what you said, it's disagreeing with what you said.

God Bless,
SBC

Can you choose to believe something you know is a lie?

 

[Jennifer Rothnie]

Faith that saves?

The elect are already saved and justified by the death and resurrection of His Son.

He gives us faith which is an assurance that He has indeed saved and justified us already.

We are saved through faith, not given faith because we are saved. (II Tim 3:15, Eph 2:8, etc.)

"And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit," Eph 1:13

Likewise, we are justified through faith - not before.

"And in Him everyone believing is justified from all things from which you were not able to be justified in "the Law of Moses." Acts 13:35

"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law." Rom 3:28

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" Rom 5:1

 

[Jennifer Rothnie]

Can you choose to believe something you know is a lie?

Strange and seemingly unrelated philosophical question, as Christ's death on the cross is not a lie. Paul mentions a few times that if it were a lie, Christians would be to be pitied; as well as that so many were willing to suffer and die to defend the gospel which was a mark of its truth.

A human can certainly think it's a lie, but that wouldn't make it so.

Strangely enough, humans often do believe things even when they know that belief is wrong - whether due to culture, convenience, preference, the comfort of the lie, etc. And humans frequently refuse to believe something even when there is a preponderance of evidence in which they could put faith in - the flat Earther movement, for example. You can find many flat-Earthers who believe that the Earth is flat, any evidence is made up or a deliberate coverup, etc. and who refuse to believe unless they can 'see' the round Earth for themselves (such as orbiting in space, which few have done.)

But most often, humans do not 'choose to believe' the truths they hold on secondary evidence. 'Choose' is a strange term to use. Rather, they come to a point where they make a judgement call about the pieces of evidence they have seen and whether or not they sufficiently support a theory. They don't just pick a view to believe in, usually, but find themselves persuaded (or not) by evidence. For example, a child doesn't usually 'choose to believe' in germs as if it were a matter of subjective wishful thinking, but might find himself eventually persuaded by testimonies, secondary observation, teachings by those in authority, etc. to believe that germs exist even when he cannot see them.

 

[SBC]

So you are fine with unconditional election.

Define unconditional election - and who it pertains to; God, man?

Thanks,
God Bless
SBC

 

[Hammster]

Strangely enough, humans often do believe things even when they know that belief is wrong - whether due to culture, convenience, preference, the comfort of the lie, etc.

Such as? You didn't give any examples.

 

[SBC]

Can you choose to believe something you know is a lie?

I'm sure some people believes someone loves them, but knows they really don't.
So, that may be possible for someone to lie to themselves, just like they can lie to others.

God Bless,
SBC

 

[Hammster]

I'm sure some people believes someone loves them, but knows they really don't.
So, that may be possible for someone to lie to themselves, just like they can lie to others.

God Bless,
SBC

That sounds more like someone with a mental disorder.

But since you are convinced that someone can believe something they think is a lie, pick one thigk you think is a lie and believe it. Something minor will do.

I'll wait.

 

[SBC]

That sounds more like someone with a mental disorder.

LOL - right. If it doesn't make sense, it's a mental disorder. lol

But since you are convinced that someone can believe something they think is a lie, pick one thigk you think is a lie and believe it. Something minor will do.

I'll wait.

It will be a long wait, since I am not going to play your negative game.
I said something was possible. Which means I think it is possible. period.

God Bless,
SBC

 

[Hammster]

LOL - right. If it doesn't make sense, it's a mental disorder. lol



It will be a long wait, since I am not going to play your negative game.
I said something was possible. Which means I think it is possible. period.

God Bless,
SBC

It will be a long wait because you know you cannot comply.