If Calvinism is true....

[Van]

Yes, just like Pharaoh.
Yes, while we have overcome the world in Christ, we still are being conformed to the image of Christ. We must pick up our cross and follow Him each day. The more we become like Christ, the more effective we become as ambassadors of Christ, with the ministry of reconciliation.

 

[Ormly]

Yes, just like Pharaoh.

So God hardened Pharaoh's heart and the heart of the Jews because of unbelief. Thats good. . Is unbelief something from the freewill of man? If so then what confines of God would be placed upon it and why would you suppose He would limit belief in Him?

Yes, while we have overcome the world in Christ, we still are being conformed to the image of Christ.

How does that happen? By what means. . . . otherwise it just so much shallow talk?

We must pick up our cross and follow Him each day. The more we become like Christ, the more effective we become as ambassadors of Christ, with the ministry of reconciliation.

And what cross is that that requires death to something? What is the "something to be crucified" that is implied here?

 

[JimfromOhio]

God's divine hardening (intervention) BOTH WAYS because all circumstances can turn or don't turn people to God. People may despise it instead of embracing it. Romans 9:18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. God uses the sinful world to accomplish His own purposes (Romans 8:28), however, they are NOT His desires. In this sinful world, we are to respond like Joseph did to enemies (his brothers) who sold him into slavery, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” From the Book of Job, we see that God is in complete control. Satan had neither the power nor the authority to do anything without the permission of God.

One side of the coin is that perseverance experiences may be viewed as coming from God to bring out the BEST in us (See: Gen. 22:1-2, 15-18; Hebrews 11:17).

On the other side of the coin, perseverance expriences attempts to tempt us and trials to bring out the WORST in us (see: James 1:13-14).

The person who really loves God is not the person who loves God because of what he gets, but the person who loves God because of who He is. There is a verse in the Bible that God promises that there won’t be anything so bad happen to me that I am not able to bear it. God does everything--He governs everything. Faith is accepting God's Will. There is confusion between the determined Will of God and a Christian's responsibility as a Christian.

 

[Ormly]

The person who really loves God is not the person who loves God because of what he gets, but the person who loves God because of who He is. There is a verse in the Bible that God promises that there won’t be anything so bad happen to me that I am not able to bear it. God does everything--He governs everything. Faith is accepting God's Will. There is confusion between the determined Will of God and a Christian's responsibility as a Christian.

Since "self" is to be denied, don't you believe you have overlooked something concerning God's sovereignty and how the cross is related to it?

 

[JimfromOhio]

Since "self" is to be denied, don't you believe you have overlooked something concerning God's sovereignty and how the cross is related to it?

Self-deny basically means the Holy Spirit convicts a person to repent his/her pride by "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Humility is discipleship, "And anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whosoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:38-39). I always believed that the Holy Spirit converts and Christians disciple which means giving up has to do "self". We can look at grace as 'costly grace' as opposed to 'cheap grace, ' which means 'Grace without price; grace without cost, ' or "grace without discipleship.'

 

[Ormly]

Self-deny basically means the Holy Spirit convicts a person to repent his/her pride by "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Humility is discipleship, "And anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whosoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:38-39). I always believed that the Holy Spirit converts and Christians disciple which means giving up has to do "self". We can look at grace as 'costly grace' as opposed to 'cheap grace, ' which means 'Grace without price; grace without cost, ' or "grace without discipleship.'

In other words, you don't know. And yet you are so emphatic. How do you do that without being convicted . . . . by the Holy Spirit?

 

[JimfromOhio]

In other words, you don't know. And yet you are so emphatic. How do you do that without being convicted . . . . by the Holy Spirit?

It appears based on your many posts that you are assuming that I don't know and that I am not a true Christian. I don't like sarcasms because when I am serious and you responded with mocking comments. Sarcasm's aim is to belittle someone, and to laugh at their expense as "cutting" with it.

To respond to your comment, I don't know from flesh point of view whether the doctrines I follow are 100% true unless I allow the Holy Spirit to convict my heart to follow certain doctrines. I am 49 years old (been a Christian over 30 years), I have learned so much about doctrines since I was a teen. To this day, I never met a Christian who agrees with my beliefs 100% and I also have not met a Christian who I agree with their beliefs 100%. Including my own wife, my parents and even my Christian mentor.

 

[Van]

Is unbelief something from the freewill of man? We are conceived in unbelief, and some never hear the gospel and die in that state of unbelief. Others, hear the gospel but either reject it in whole or in part, and this rejection is according to their will, provided they were not hardened beforehand and had what little spiritual ability they had taken away.

Picture Christ as a barrel of water. God puts you into Christ. He was wet and when you entered Christ you became wet. He had overcome the world, and when you were placed in Him, you had overcome the world, being covered by His blood. I expect you do not know which verses teach about overcoming the world because we are in Christ. Try studying 1 John Chapter 5. Perhaps God will shed some light!

 

[Ormly]

It appears based on your many posts that you are assuming that I don't know and that I am not a true Christian. I don't like sarcasms because when I am serious and you responded with mocking comments. Sarcasm's aim is to belittle someone, and to laugh at their expense as "cutting" with it.

Your remarks to me govern my sarcasm. The inferrance of ignorance have been the biggest factors. I read my Bible I know its message.

To respond to your comment, I don't know from flesh point of view whether the doctrines I follow are 100% true unless I allow the Holy Spirit to convict my heart to follow certain doctrines. I am 49 years old (been a Christian over 30 years), I have learned so much about doctrines since I was a teen. To this day, I never met a Christian who agrees with my beliefs 100% and I also have not met a Christian who I agree with their beliefs 100%. Including my own wife, my parents and even my Christian mentor.

And yet you are so emphatic. You attempt to teach using a pervewrted teaching and refuse to be adjusted and call it the Holy Spirit witness.

Its not. Its someone else's, robbing you of what you have miissed in your thinking..

 

[JimfromOhio]

Your remarks to me govern my sarcasm. The inferrance of ignorance have been the biggest factors. I read my Bible I know its message.



And yet you are so emphatic. You attempt to teach using a pervewrted teaching and refuse to be adjusted and call it the Holy Spirit witness.

Its not. Its someone else's, robbing you of what you have miissed in your thinking..

A person may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant. We may be disgusted with their doctrinal beliefs and often ready to condemn and turn away from them. The best thing I know about my Lord and Savior is that He loves all sinners, including me. He has always love the outcast and for that I am glad because I was once an outcast.

God unconditionally those whoever responded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and repent will receive "faith". The five solas were what the Reformers believed to be the only things needed in their respective functions in Christian salvation. Listing them as such was also done with a view to excluding other things that hindered salvation. This formulation was intended to distinguish between what were viewed as deviations in the Christian church and the essentials of Christian life and practice.

"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what as lost."......."(Many are called, but few are chosen.) The rest of mankind... still did not repent."

 

[Van]

Calvinism is not true because it is unbiblical.

1. If salvation is unconditional, the foreordained result of unconditional election unto salvation, then human thoughts and actions are irrelevant to the outcome. Yes that would be true, but since salvation is conditioned upon God crediting our faith in Christ as righteousness, the whole premise is bogus.

2. If perseverance of the saints is true, then no amount of subsequent sins will separate a person from the love of God. Yes, that is true, but if a person practices lawlessness, that is evidence they were never set aside (thus never a saint). In other words, this is a "have you stopped beating your wife" question where neither yes or no presents the truth.

3. Yes, if limited atonement as defined by Calvinism, is true, and Christ did not die for all men, then all the passages that teach this biblical truth must be made to no effect by the traditions of men.

4. Yes, if irresistible grace is true, and it is not, then all those going to heaven were altered by God such that they could only choose to trust in Christ.

Anyone who has been confronted with Calvinism can add many more of these questions. For example, if irresistible grace is true, then it is not harder for a rich man to enter heaven. Or if election unto salvation is unconditional, why did God say whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life? To deceive us?

 

[Ormly]

A person may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant. We may be disgusted with their doctrinal beliefs and often ready to condemn and turn away from them. The best thing I know about my Lord and Savior is that He loves all sinners, including me. He has always love the outcast and for that I am glad because I was once an outcast.

I don't see you correct in either case.

 

[Van]

Everyone sins, but everyone does not "practice" sin or lawlessness. Jesus said in Matthew 7:23, He never knew those who "practiced lawlessness." So when we strive to practice righteousness, and stumble, we are not practicing sin.

If perseverance of the saints is true, then no amount of subsequent sins will separate a person from the love of God. Yes, that is true, but if a person practices lawlessness, that is evidence they were never set apart (thus never a saint). In other words, this is a "have you stopped beating your wife" question where neither yes or no presents the truth. The practice of sin subsequent to "receiving the gospel" indicates the person's faith was never "credited as righteousness." Born again believers strive to practice righteousness.

 

[JimfromOhio]

Everyone sins, but everyone does not "practice" sin or lawlessness. Jesus said in Matthew 7:23, He never knew those who "practiced lawlessness." So when we strive to practice righteousness, and stumble, we are not practicing sin.

If perseverance of the saints is true, then no amount of subsequent sins will separate a person from the love of God. Yes, that is true, but if a person practices lawlessness, that is evidence they were never set apart (thus never a saint). In other words, this is a "have you stopped beating your wife" question where neither yes or no presents the truth. The practice of sin subsequent to "receiving the gospel" indicates the person's faith was never "credited as righteousness." Born again believers strive to practice righteousness.

we are still sinners but forgiven sinners when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. 1 John 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. God is very holy and very powerful that I am a forgiven sinner. We are to worship God from our hearts because we are the temple of the living God (2 Corinthians 6:16), that God will search us and try us, and know our thoughts.(Psalm 139:23).

There are two kinds of sinning:

1. Sin on purpose (with a will) Those who were unwilling to pick up the Cross and unwilling to put away their sins as Christ commanded. (Those who proclaimed to be a Christian will probably remain "unsaved" falls in this category).

2. Sin by accident as part of our sinful nature: Those who are in Christ Romans 7:18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Galatians 5:17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

We just need to be looking at our adequacy in the Holy Spirit, which will always be in us. This is God's design, and this pleases Him to do so that we can rely on the Holy Spirit. "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."--Matt. 26:41.

Biblically, Christians are no longer "in the flesh": "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him" (Rom 8:9). The Greek word for "dwells" is okv (oike), which means "I inhabit." "If Christ is in us, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness" (Romans 8:10).

Christians will still sin but how we respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit when we sin. The new creature in Spirit within us as for example Jesus likened the religious Pharisees to a group of dishwashers who clean the outside of a cup while leaving the inside dirty. He said, "Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also?" (Luke 11:39-40). Jesus knew that a person can change his image without changing his act (Matthew 23:1-3). The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.1 Corinthians 2:10-12

 

[Van]

So you agree with me, Great! A person who is striving to practice righteousness is not practicing sin when he or she stumbles and sins. Therefore saints persevere as saints even when we stumble and sin.

 

[Ormly]

Everyone sins, but everyone does not "practice" sin or lawlessness. Jesus said in Matthew 7:23, He never knew those who "practiced lawlessness." So when we strive to practice righteousness, and stumble, we are not practicing sin.

If perseverance of the saints is true, then no amount of subsequent sins will separate a person from the love of God. Yes, that is true, but if a person practices lawlessness, that is evidence they were never set apart (thus never a saint). In other words, this is a "have you stopped beating your wife" question where neither yes or no presents the truth. The practice of sin subsequent to "receiving the gospel" indicates the person's faith was never "credited as righteousness." Born again believers strive to practice righteousness.

Born again believers strive to have the Mind of God in ALL circumstances. Lawlessness [iniquity] is all too often something from presumption from ungoverned desires, even for the good, but not according to the will of God. Manytimes I believe god would say, Hey! You are in my way! Who gave you permission to "Bless"?! I am dealing with that one and you are interfering!

 

[Van]

One of the fruits of the Spirit is faithfulness

 

[Ormly]

One of the fruits of the Spirit is faithfulness

Yes

 

[JimfromOhio]

One of the fruits of the Spirit is faithfulness

Learning from great faiths in the Bible, I saw that circumstances did not control them; it is their reaction to circumstances that determined what kind of people they were and most importantly, how faithful they were. They UNDERSTOOD God's grace. They made decisions they felt it is God's will however, circumstances made them change directions. Many people forget and often try to do their own ways circumstances happens that they never stop and think. Their human minds often see doors closing when ignoring another door opening. This is the concept of Romans 8:28-29 "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."

 

[nobdysfool]

A person may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant. We may be disgusted with their doctrinal beliefs and often ready to condemn and turn away from them. The best thing I know about my Lord and Savior is that He loves all sinners, including me. He has always love the outcast and for that I am glad because I was once an outcast.

God unconditionally those whoever responded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and repent will receive "faith". The five solas were what the Reformers believed to be the only things needed in their respective functions in Christian salvation. Listing them as such was also done with a view to excluding other things that hindered salvation. This formulation was intended to distinguish between what were viewed as deviations in the Christian church and the essentials of Christian life and practice.

"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what as lost."......."(Many are called, but few are chosen.) The rest of mankind... still did not repent."

Amazing how he justifies his sin.