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Hi KD, please elaborate a bit. Thanks!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
--David
p.s. - I love your avatar
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Hello St Worm.
We are only ever chosen in Christ.
Also, people like to quote John Calvin. However, Calvin had Michael Servetus burned alive for a disagreement over their beliefs.
Michael's last words were, “O God, save my soul; O Jesus of the eternal God, have mercy on me.”
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What cane first, redemption or law?Actually, on the contrary,, Scripture testifies of man first taking action whereby God then dwells within them.
"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:23).
Paul obeyed the vision from Jesus before the Holy Ghost had filled him.
In Acts 8, some had yet to receive the Spirit when they believed or accepted the gospel.
Granted, I believe God regenerates a person when they believe and Christ then comes to live within them. The believer then has to continue to abide in Christ and His righteous good ways.
But the point is that God does not have to fill an individual or regenerate him in order for them to have faith.
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I don't read links. Otherwise I'd just post a bunch. Please be courteous enough to reply.
I see where the issue is now. So let me try this.Assuming that we take things with the only biblical evidence we can that there is no middle ground between faith and sin and therefore people who aren't saved by God's irresistible grace can't help but sin, yes. Getting angry at something that happens necessarily isn't reasonable emotion.
So who can be saved? With man this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible."But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in."
"You" implies responsibility; responsibility implies freedom; freedom means they have the choice not to do this, either directly in the moment with their choices or by being responsible for their characters. If God hasn't predestined people to be saved, it is his will that people aren't saved; you can't be angry at what follows your will (anger is precisely the emotion that results form one's desires and intentions being thwarted), here to not be saved.
Where does it say that the jailer was regenerated?Paul and Silas never told the jailer to wait for regeneration so as to be saved. They simply said believe on Jesus and he would be saved. It would seem that if what you say is true, then we would clearly see at least one case of this happening. But we don't. Which means you are making it up or adding this type of belief to the Scriptures. Nowhere does the Bible say we are regenerated first before we have faith. Granted, regeneration follows faith. For one cannot enter the Kingdom of God without being born again. So I see it as a one time event. Having faith in Jesus for real in desire for Him to be your Savior also results in regeneration immediately after.
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I see where the issue is now. So let me try this.
I would hope that you and I can agree that man is sinful and is deserving of God's wrath. God is not obligated to show grace to anyone, for that would nullify grace. So if God chooses to show grace to just one person, He is not being unfair. Everyone who sins still gets what he deserves. The only one treated unfairly (unjustly) is the Son who bore sins that aren't His. So whether it's one, a million or a billion, it doesn't change anything. Sinners still get what they deserve.
So who can be saved? With man this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.
He's not blaming the Pharisees for not saving them. The Pharisees have no power to save them.It isn't possible for God to be illogical by not predestining people to be saved and then blaming Pharisees for not saving them when it's solely up to his power to save. Being illogical isn't a qualification of omnipotence. I also just see no reconciliation between things like being angry and someone being unable to do otherwise with the target behavior in question.
He's not blaming the Pharisees for not saving them. The Pharisees have no power to save them.
Let's say you are correct. Do you honestly believe you can keep someone out of the kingdom? And on the flip side, can you put someone in the kingdom?Note the "you" used multiple times, again. Someone who says "you do this" (referring to shutting the Kingdom to people) with anger by logical exclusion can't be the person who says "I do this" (shutting the Kingdom). It's you or I, and to claim the "you" is really a manipulation by the "I" (i.e., God using Pharisees to shut the Kingdom) simply wouldn't fit with anger in this passage. You don't get angry at the puppets whose strings you've pulled.
Hello StWorm.Well, the website address you posited above is not the correct answer. This is however
"As many as had been APPOINTED TO ETERNAL LIFE believed"Why did you feel you needed to turn to an anti-Calvinist website to answer that simple question
Though I didn't disagree with everything it said, the "meat" of their answer amounted to little more than, "we can't really believe that's what St. Luke actually meant, can we?"
They go on to say: "Why not assume the more mundane statement that these Gentiles were really eager in their hearts to have a share in eternal life, in contrast to the Jews who chafed at the good news?"
That the Gentiles were "eager" is clear, but my question (in answer to their question) would be this, if the "mundane" understanding is all that St. Luke intended here, why did he write what he did, the way he did? Why would he choose to write something that forces his readers to "bypass" or "overlook" part of what he said to be able to get at his intended meaning
Anything is possible, I suppose, and I would discard it out-of-hand if it was the only place in the Bible that taught such things, but it's not (i.e. Ephesians 1:4-6).
One of my purposes in trying to get you to answer my fill in the blank question was to hopefully move us back towards Hammster's more important and so far unanswered question/point from the previous thread page .. and I see you already went there .. so, terrific
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
--David
Hello StWorm.Hi KD, please elaborate a bit. Thanks!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
--David
p.s. - I love your avatar
People will say almost anything to undermine in any way they can the doctrines of grace as taught by Calvinists.
John Calvin was a man with flaws just like any man - even men of God.
But we should judge so called Calvinism on the scriptural basis or lack thereof concerning it's various doctrines.
Here is a link to a small article about Calvin's role in the matter of the death of the heretic Michael Servetus.
http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/issue02/c_vs_s.htm
Yes, I was busy. But you can explain what you meant.Hello Jason.
You may be to busy to reply properly.
No doubt you have a rosey colored version of history of what you think happened. Whether your version of events in history actually played out of not, there are other documents showing that Calvin was directly involved in his execution. This is not a Christian trait. To have another put to death is evil and wrong for a New Testament saint. That is not an imperfection. It is a showing of their true colors of whether they are of God or not. For we are to pray and to do good even upon our enemies. But believe what you will and associate with a man who has a very shady past.
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How about picking just one of these verses and provide the exegesis that actually that regeneration occurs before one believes. I certainly know that 2 Thess 2:13, Rom 9:11, Eph 1:5,11, Titus 1:1, 1 Pet 1:2 don't say that.,
I didn't say that, but a stronger case can be made for it from Scripture than your theory.
See:
– Ps 65:4
– Prov 16:4
– Mt 24:31
– Luke 18:7
– Acts 15:17,18
– Romans 8:28-30
– Rom 8:33
– Romans 9:11
– Romans 9:15,16
– Romans 11:2
– Romans 11:5-7
- 1 Cor 2:7
– Ephesians 1:5,11
– 1 Thess 1:4
– 2 Thess 2:13
– Titus 1:1
– 1 Peter 1:2
– Rev 13:8
OK, you're still quite confused. Believing is a verb, an action. Faith is a noun, a concept. The action of believing in a concept is the issue. Which you don't seem to believe.Okay, your statement makes no sense. I can say that I believe the gospel. To say that I believe that I believe the gospel makes no sense.
I turned to the website because my time is limited. I turned to the website because the KJV does not always render words as we would understand them today. I turned to the website because Calvin killed a man (Which is not a Christian trait). I turned to the website because there is no indication whatsoever of man either (a) Being forced against His will to believe or (b) Being made so as to be a believe or (c) Being selected by God without consideration of man's free will choice.Well, the website address you posited above is not the correct answer. This is however
"As many as had been APPOINTED TO ETERNAL LIFE believed"Why did you feel you needed to turn to an anti-Calvinist website to answer that simple question
Though I didn't disagree with everything it said, the "meat" of their answer amounted to little more than, "we can't really believe that's what St. Luke actually meant, can we?"
They go on to say: "Why not assume the more mundane statement that these Gentiles were really eager in their hearts to have a share in eternal life, in contrast to the Jews who chafed at the good news?"
That the Gentiles were "eager" is clear, but my question (in answer to their question) would be this, if the "mundane" understanding is all that St. Luke intended here, why did he write what he did, the way he did? Why would he choose to write something that forces his readers to "bypass" or "overlook" part of what he said to be able to get at his intended meaning
Anything is possible, I suppose, and I would discard it out-of-hand if it was the only place in the Bible that taught such things, but it's not (i.e. Ephesians 1:4-6).
One of my purposes in trying to get you to answer my fill in the blank question was to hopefully move us back towards Hammster's more important and so far unanswered question/point from the previous thread page .. and I see you already went there .. so, terrific
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
--David
Yes, Jesus said we will know false prophets by their fruits. For even if Calvin was framed and did not do any of those horrible things, the fact of the matter is that there is documentation that he did (Which means one should not take the chance in associating with man who did potentially have a hand in murdering another).
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