Man's inability

[pcwilkins]

Is it just/fair for God to give commands that He knows man cannot keep?

 

[Antman_05]

God is fair and just. so whatever He does means its fair and just even if we don't like it.

 

[cygnusx1]

If a person deliberately loses their ability to pay a debt , it amplifies the debt but , the choice to forgive and grant mercy is Solely upon the one who is owed the debt and He does demand a full payment .

 

[pcwilkins]

After the discussions in other threads, I'm surprised that nobody is voting 'no'. Some people have consistently said that it would be unjust of God to command us to repent and believe if we cannot do it. That was why I initiated this poll...

Peter

 

[Lockheed]

Right... you nailed it on the head pcwilkins. Perhaps they've just not considered it yet.

 

[Free Gracer]

I fail to see how we can maintain that God is just for holding someone responsible for something that they infallibly can not do.

Merely saying, "That since God is only just, and what ever He does is just, therefore if God holds someone responsible for something that they absolutely can not do, it must be just!" will not suffice.

I remember hearing, I think Jon talk about logic and reasoning. Let us reason though this.

Would I be just to command my 5 year old daughter to fly an airplane and punish her when she does not?

Apart from any Reformed leanings and theological background, if your wife told you she was going to throw your 5 year old daughter into a 500 degree oven as punishment for not obeying the command to fly an airplane, what would you say to her?

I assert that you would call the police, the CPA, and those men in the white jackets.

Antonio

 

[CoffeeSwirls]

But does your daughter have a moral obligation to fly an airplane? And do you, even though you are her father, have the right to expect her to do so?

 

[Philip dT]

Wrong question. "Just" in who's eyes? Can we as humans judge what is just and what not? Do we try to weigh God's actions from our own limited insight as to what is right and what is wrong?

If we say: God should be like this or that...

or

If God does this, then He cant be a God of love, etc

then we put God in a box. God wants to be God. He can do what he wants.

God is love, but He is a judge at the same time, and He is fair, but He is sovereign at the same time.

 

[pcwilkins]

I fail to see how we can maintain that God is just for holding someone responsible for something that they infallibly can not do.

Three questions; are we commanded to keep all of God's commandments?

And are we able to keep all of God's commandments?

And will we be punished if we fail to keep all of God's commandments, and are found outside of Christ?

Peter

 

[Philip dT]

Three questions; are we commanded to keep all of God's commandments?

Yes

And are we able to keep all of God's commandments?

Yes in Christ. Being in Crist is fulfilling all the commandments

And will we be punished if we fail to keep all of God's commandments, and are found outside of Christ?

Yes

 

[Free Gracer]

I have been created in God's image, and that image has not been fatally marred. For I can, although imperfectly, reason and judge. Not to mention that I possess the Spirit of God, who helps me to discern as well. The question was posed, "Is it just to give commands that he knows that man cannot obey?" This question CAN be thought about reasonably. It was in my response to it that I endeavored to use my God-given faculties of reason and conscience to do so. That is what brought me to my illustration of the 5 year old girl, where, by the way, no one has attempted to answer my question, only merely ask questions in response. The question still stands, however, waiting for a reasonable answer. Remember, putting away all preconceptions of theology, how would you react to your wife throwing your daughter in a 500 degree oven because your daughter was commanded to fly an airplane, do her own laundry, clean the storm drains, pay the bills for her clothing, food, and shelter; yet could not, by her constitution, fulfill the commands?

Now I may be wrong about this, but I reckoned this had to do with the command to believe in Jesus for eternal life.

Now many of the laws and commands of Scripture can be obeyed by those who are not regenerate.

Rom 2:14
for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves
NKJV

Tax collectors love with agape love (Matt 5:46), fathers, being evil, give gifts of love (Luke 11:11-13).

In reply to this, man is able and does obey commands that are in line with God's righteousness. That is why I am here inferring that you are talking about the command to believe in Jesus for eternal life, which Calvinists whole-heartedly state man cannot do. Then it is in this precise doctrine that we should give attention.

Calvinists have admitted that man can act right, thus obeying God's righteous standards. (If they deny this is true, then they deny reality) But there is one command inparticularly that they insist that man cannot obey, and that is the command to believe in Christ for eternal life.

The state of being 'just' is not merely the dispensing of punishments deserved. It also has to do with that which is right and fair.

According to Calvinism, Christ did not even die for those people in whom God has required to believe in Jesus, those whom cannot, for they will not receive the benefit of a sovereign imposition of regeneration in order to do so; and more importantly, God didn't make any provision for them, for God's love for the "world" only means Christ's death for the elect.

The unelect reprobate's state of affairs:

1)Christ did not die for them
2)They are required to believe something that they infallibly can not do
3)Will be sent to hell, for not doing something that they could not do.
4)This is because God is just.

It doesn't add up. God, who is love, will condemn men to an eternity of hell for, in essence, not obeying a command to believe in Christ, where, they absolutely, infallibly could not.

How can Someone, who as to His essential being is love, do something like that? The fact of the matter, there is no love here. Listen to R.C. Sproul:

"If some people are not elected unto salvation then it would seem that God is not all that loving toward them. Further, it seems that it would have been more loving of God not to have allowed them to be born. That may indeed be the case." (R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God)

What love is this?

Antonio

 

[Lockheed]

I have been created in God's image, and that image has not been fatally marred. For I can, although imperfectly, reason and judge.

To the contrary, the revelation required to understand and believe the Gospel is a matter of supernatural enablement. Fallen man is completely tainted by sin so that his very nature and thinking requires regeneration for him to even understand Spiritual things. Surely, in the natural revelation man can see that God exists and be responsible for not worshiping Him, (Rom 1), however in order for that same man to recognize his error and turn from it, a supernatural change is required.

As God promised Adam, "you will surely die", Adam did really die when he partook of the fruit. This death is seen in Adam's recognition of guilt and attempt to cover his shame. In dying Adam did not completely lose the "Image of God", but it was certainly distorted ever sense.

The fact, however, that you were created in the image of God in no ways adds credibility to the idea that you therefore have a will free from any external influence or complete autonomous from the plan and purposes of God.

Not to mention that I possess the Spirit of God, who helps me to discern as well.

If we're talking about regenerate man, yes, he does in fact posess the Spirit of God by the grace of God. Yet unregenerate man does not as Romans 8:7-9 explain, unless one has the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them, they cannot obey God.

The question was posed, "Is it just to give commands that he knows that man cannot obey?" This question CAN be thought about reasonably. It was in my response to it that I endeavored to use my God-given faculties of reason and conscience to do so. That is what brought me to my illustration of the 5 year old girl, where, by the way, no one has attempted to answer my question, only merely ask questions in response. The question still stands, however, waiting for a reasonable answer. Remember, putting away all preconceptions of theology, how would you react to your wife throwing your daughter in a 500 degree oven because your daughter was commanded to fly an airplane, do her own laundry, clean the storm drains, pay the bills for her clothing, food, and shelter; yet could not, by her constitution, fulfill the commands?

The problem here is that you view the 5 year old has not the ability to do the things you claim, yet man does... by Total Depravity we mean not that man is created without the ability but rather has willingly given that ability away into slavery.

Mankind, therefore, is not like a 5 year old. "God made men upright", Scripture tells us, "but they have sought out many devices." Men were made good, but in the fall they became willing slaves to sin. Your analogy therefore is unconnected to the concepts being discussed and only serves to present a strawman position.

Now I may be wrong about this, but I reckoned this had to do with the command to believe in Jesus for eternal life.

The command, rather, is to repent. "God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,", that is to turn from their sinful ways. I realize that this may come as a shock to you, seeing that you're a 'free gracer' who denies that the Gospel contains such a command, however you'll find it in Acts 17:30.

The "repentance" demanded by God is for sins and the purposeful rebellion spoken of in Romans 1 wherein men suppress the truth and seek gods of their own making. But this is not all of the story. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ explains that God commands perfection: "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." This is the final summation of the Law, righteous perfection.

Now, as Paul explains (again in Romans) "all have sinned" and "there is none righteous, no not one". The reasons there is "none righteous" is because none of us can actually obtain the status of righteous perfection demanded by God's Law. So while a person can, at any given time, obey the Law of God in some manner, they are in other ways in direct rebellion against it, be it in thought or in deed. Thus, as James writes: James 2:10 - "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all."

Now many of the laws and commands of Scripture can be obeyed by those who are not regenerate.

Rom 2:14
for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves
NKJV

It is questionable if Rom 2:14 is speaking of the unregenerate, yet for the sake of argument, we'll proceed without debate on this.

[qutote]In reply to this, man is able and does obey commands that are in line with God's righteousness. That is why I am here inferring that you are talking about the command to believe in Jesus for eternal life, which Calvinists whole-heartedly state man cannot do. Then it is in this precise doctrine that we should give attention.[/quote]

Again, in stating this you forget that the Law is not indivdual laws but a whole unit. Again James explains this, "...whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all."

The moment a person looks upon another lustfully they have broken the whole law, end of righteousness.

Calvinists have admitted that man can act right, thus obeying God's righteous standards. (If they deny this is true, then they deny reality)

You have yet to prove that "reality" consists of man being able to keep God's righteous standards. Scripture expresses that God's righteous standard is nothing short of sinless perfection, that said, there was only one man, the God/Man who did in fact attain to this standard.

Everyone else may keep individual laws but in so doing they simply acknowledge there is a creator and are ever more guilty for breaking others.

But there is one command inparticularly that they insist that man cannot obey, and that is the command to believe in Christ for eternal life.

This is untrue. Since your minor premise is a strawman, that Calvinists believe men can "obey God's righteous standards", your major premise is faulty.

It is not simply that man cannot "obey the command" to believe in Christ for eternal life, as if that was the only "work" that men had to do to be saved, rather it is that man is an enemy of God, unable to please God and unseeking of the true God.

Again, Romans 1 explains that men know God exists and yet have rejected Him for gods of their own making. This is a result of the fall, (dare you say otherwise?), and as a result of the fall they are handed over to a 'depraived mind' by their Creator. Therefore, the result of this is found in Romans 3, men do not seek God nor do they obey God. It is not a matter of them being created without the ability, like a person born without legs being asked to run, rather it is more like a person with working legs who willingly uses a wheelchair.

The state of being 'just' is not merely the dispensing of punishments deserved. It also has to do with that which is right and fair.

Who made man the judicator of what is "right and fair"? Paul explains that "in Adam" the whole world was condemned. (Rom 5:12) And "in Adam all die". It is this federal relationship by which we fell in Adam and are thus thrust into this world unwilling, not just unable, to do that which pleases God. Thus God justly and rightly can condemn to hell whomever He chooses on the basis that, given the same exact circumstances, they would have responded just as Adam did.

Or is it your position that God somehow unfairly allows death to afflict babies and innocents?

In your view, why do people die if it is not because they were represented by Adam in the fall? Do you not recognize that death is a judgement of God?

According to Calvinism, Christ did not even die for those people in whom God has required to believe in Jesus, those whom cannot, for they will not receive the benefit of a sovereign imposition of regeneration in order to do so; and more importantly, God didn't make any provision for them, for God's love for the "world" only means Christ's death for the elect.

Here you mistake the remedy with the ailment. Believing in Christ is not one more command that men fail to accomplish... rather it is the solution to the problem of sin. Thus Christ died to save His people from their sins (Matt 1:21) and actually does accomplish that feat.

Rather than a "sovereign imposition", regeneration is a actual emancipation rendered on undeserving and rebellious sinners.

By grace God supernaturally reconciles His enemies to Himself through the blood of Christ actually atoning for their sins, not potentially atoning for them if they're smart enough to believe some historical facts.

Here, then, is where we differ: God does not regenerate those who were smart enough, with-it enough, or spiritual enough to understand the Gospel... instead God truly graciously and supernaturally saves His enemies from their death, resurrecting their spirits in regeneration, something they could never do for themselves.

You seem however to believe that Adam had the right idea... all man needs is a bigger fig leaf... Christ is that fig leaf and if man just applies it properly he can hide behind it. Thus your grace is not "free", but rather purchased by some mental assent to historical facts.

The Bible however presents a much more dramatic and simply amazing gracious portrait of God, who knowing that nothing man could do would cover the shame and guilt of his sins slew a Lamb and covered him graciously. Thus
Christ's death actually saves, it doesn't make people saveable, but actually accomplishes what it is He intended for it to do.

The unelect reprobate's state of affairs:

1)Christ did not die for them
2)They are required to believe something that they infallibly can not do
3)Will be sent to hell, for not doing something that they could not do.
4)This is because God is just.

Rather, the affairs of the unregenerate man:

Rom 8:7-8


because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Eph 1:1-3
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest


​

Thus Paul is correct in saying "all have sinned" and "there is none righteous, no not one". The solution is not "believe in Jesus and God will then make you alive", rather, as Paul puts it:

Eph 2:4-6


But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,


​

"But God", it is God who acts to save us from Adam's plight by having "made us alive". This is not in response to something we do, but purely by grace.



Thus to turn your 4 points into truth we have to alter them a bit:

The unelect reprobate's state of affairs:1)They are required perfectly obey God's Law
2)They are guilty, guilty, guilty (as are we all) of not doing so
3)Will be sent to hell, for not obeying God's Law, something that they could do but in Adam chose not to do.
4)This is because God is just.

It doesn't add up. God, who is love, will condemn men to an eternity of hell for, in essence, not obeying a command to believe in Christ, where, they absolutely, infallibly could not.

Of course it "doesn't add up" since it is based on a fallacious premise. People will spend an eternity in hell for rebelling against God, believing in Christ is the REMEDY to that problem and it comes as a gift of God's grace to undeserving, rebellious enemies of God.

How does your god "free will" add any credibility to God's justice? All that happens is that you trade in true grace for something that turns faith into currency by which grace is bought.

How can Someone, who as to His essential being is love, do something like that?

Justice is also essential to His being, thus God justly and righteously condemns whomever He chooses and never asks you if it is ok. By the way, where WERE you when He created Adam?

The fact of the matter, there is no love here. Listen to R.C. Sproul:
If some people are not elected unto salvation then it would seem that God is not all that loving toward them. Further, it seems that it would have been more loving of God not to have allowed them to be born. That may indeed be the case." (R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God)

Why not post the rest of that portion as to show what Sproul was really saying rather than quoting him out of context? Surely you are able to deal with Sproul's reply? Or is it too difficult to adequately represent what others believe therefore you choose the strawman?

What love is this?

Indeed, what kind of love is it that pursues and saves wretched, unwilling, rebellious enemies?! It's the love of God!

 

[Free Gracer]

The following 4 posts are my response to Lockheed...

 

[Free Gracer]

Lockheed, I appreciate the time and energy you took in responding to my post. I would like to respond myself.

To the contrary, the revelation required to understand and believe the Gospel is a matter of supernatural enablement. Fallen man is completely tainted by sin so that his very nature and thinking requires regeneration for him to even understand Spiritual things. Surely, in the natural revelation man can see that God exists and be responsible for not worshiping Him, (Rom 1), however in order for that same man to recognize his error and turn from it, a supernatural change is required.

Here it seems you are using your conclusion of Total Inability to prove your doctrine of Total Inability. I believe in man's depravity. This is clearly taught in the Scriptures. Total Inability (TI from now on) is not really the doctrine of depravity, but a supposed fruit of it.

Depravity is universal, the heart is corrupt, and everything man does is tainted with sin. "The Scripture has concluded all under sin" (Gal 3:22). Man has a serious problem, yes. Because of man's spiritual condition, we are said to be God's "enemies", under the "condemnation" and "wrath of God". The natural man is "aleinated from the life of God". and "guilty before God". I really don't see much of a problem with what Calvinism teaches about the depravity of man, but rather what it teaches the supposed fruits of depravity is.

Lets take your statements one by one.

1) Supernatural enablement required. What kind of enablement does one need to receive a gift? The Bible declares salvation and eternal life as a gift. A gift is merely received to be possesed. Jesus offers a gift, and men receive that gift by believing in Him for it. What Scripture can you cite, that explicitly states that man is inable to believe in Christ for eternal life? What Scripture can you produce that states that man cannot receive the free gift that God offers to all?

2) Regeneration is necessary to understand the deep things of God, yes (let me explain)! .....The Calvinist must use his deductive reasoning skills and illegitametly transfer concepts from one passage to the next in order to "prove" that man cannot believe the gospel (where in fact the major testimony of Scripture makes it clear that man can and does believe the gospel apart from an imposition from God).

You alluded to 1 Cor 2:14

1 Cor 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
NKJV

A Calvinist reads this verse like this : "But the natural man does not receive Jesus Christ, for He is foolishness to him; nor can he receive Him, because He is spiritually discerned." All Calvinists, whether they admit it or not, have to read the verse just like this if they are using it to teach their doctrine of TI.

The context is clearly things, not Jesus Christ. This is infallibly determined by simply reading the chapter. Things are what is being discussed in 1 Corinthians 1:9-15. The word things occurs at least once in every verse. Those who have received "the Spirit which is of God" can know spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:12). And how does one receive the Spirit?

Gal 4:6
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"
NKJV

God gives the Holy Spirit to his sons that they might have spiritual understanding; he doesn't give His Spirit to "alien sinners" that they might be able to believe in Christ for eternal life. And how does one become a son of God? John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name."

The Calvinist would have us believe that because the natural man cannot understand spiritual things, he cannot receive Jesus Christ. Receiving spiritual things and receiving Jesus Christ are two different things.

Paul (in 1 Cor 2) is not referring to the gospel that is to be preached to all mankind, but to "the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our [the believer's] glory...the things which God has prepared for them that love Him...the deep things of God...the things that are freely given to us of God...which the Holy Spirit teaches...[which] are spiritually discerned."In contrast to those deeper spiritual truths which can only be understood by God's children through His Spirit, the gospel can be understood by sinners.

3) A supernatural change is needed for repentance... no! : repentance occurs in both the regenerate and unregenerate.

All of Ninevah repented, Jonah 3:5, "from the greatest to the least of them." "Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it." (Jonah 3:10). Ninevah at this time had over 120,000 people (Jonah 4:11)! Do you think that they were all saved? My guess is that not many of them were saved at all, it any. Jonah didn't come there preaching the gospel, but commanded them to repent or have their town destroyed. You see, repentance is the condition of preventing or stopping the temporal discipline and judgement of God. This is what happened here: they repented and God relented from His judgement He was going to inflict on the city.

The problem here is that you view the 5 year old has not the ability to do the things you claim, yet man does... by Total Depravity we mean not that man is created without the ability but rather has willingly given that ability away into slavery.

Mankind, therefore, is not like a 5 year old. "God made men upright", Scripture tells us, "but they have sought out many devices." Men were made good, but in the fall they became willing slaves to sin. Your analogy therefore is unconnected to the concepts being discussed and only serves to present a strawman position.

Here is the bottom line. The 5 year old cannot do what she is commanded, no matter what. She never could from birth! Yet she has been commanded, and will be held responsible for something that, from birth, she is infallibly inable to do. How come this is, somehow, a strawman analogy?


--------------------5 Year Old----------------------- Reprobate

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Command: ---------Pay your way-------------------- Believe in Christ

Ability:-------------no ability from birth---------------no ability from birth

Held responsible:----Yes------------------------------Yes

Punished?-----------Yes, 500 degree oven-------------Yes, hell

Punisher just? -------No-------------------------------???

There is a direct corrolation in each facet of my analogy; between it and the Calvinist's doctrine. The Calvinist cannot and will not answer the implications of it. From man's birth and from the 5 year old's birth, they couldn't do what they were commanded. No one has answered my question yet. Just alot of posturing and him-hawing.

How is it that man, at his birth, willingly gives it away into slavery? Do you mean Adam or everyone? I didn't give anything away; according to Calvinism, I am BORN that way, inable to even receive a free gift that God tells all Christians to offer, as ambassadors of Christ, to the whole world.

The Canons of Dort : "Therefore all men are conceived in sin [these men, 1 by 1 individually gave the ability away?] ... they are neither able nor willing..."

Men, from Cain and Abel on, where born with no say, no chance, no ability, and will burn in hell for eternity (this for the glory of God, no?) for some far-fetched assumption of responsibility; for not assuming something they most assuredly and infallibly were inable to do. This is not beautiful, this is heinous.

Lets make a side note here as well. Calvinism seems to deny that there is any soul winning or persuading men as to the gospel. Why do it when they are unable to hear and respond apart from sovereing regeneration and Irresistable Grace imposed? If one must be regenerated and then made to believe, the gospel really doesn't have a part in the new birth; preaching it seems pointless (men can't understand, are unable to hear and respond). There is no persuading of convincing the unregenerate sinner and it really would be a waste of time to do so.

Yet Paul expended himself for Christ doing exactly that, disputing and persuading in the attempt to win people to Christ. As soon as he was converted, Paul "confounded the Jews...at Damascus proving that this is very Christ..."(Acts 9:22). Everywhere he went Paul "disputed...in the synagogue...and in the market daily..." (Acts 17:17). The last chapter of Acts tells us that even under house arrest in Rome, Paul was still at it: "...there came many to him, ... to whom he expounded... persuading them concerning Jesus..." (Acts 28:23).

Paul says:

1 Cor 9:19-22

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law(not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

This was but a waste of Paul's time if men couldn't become persuaded as to the gospel! Paul was winning them!

The command, rather, is to repent. "God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,", that is to turn from their sinful ways. I realize that this may come as a shock to you, seeing that you're a 'free gracer' who denies that the Gospel contains such a command, however you'll find it in Acts 17:30.

The Gospel of John has as its express, written purpose, that of evangelism. The only book in the whole bible that can say that.

John 20:30-31

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
NKJV

The gospel is often called the gospel of belief, for the word and its cognates appear about 99 times. Throughout the Gospel, John explains how one may obtain eternal life. Not once did the word repent or any of its cognates show up in any of the gospel expressions in the whole book. Not once does the word "repent" or any of its cognates show up in the book whatsoever.

Now we are faced with a predicament here. John was an original Apostle of Christ, and this is one of the last books written in the canon, most say around 90 A.D.

Did John know what the condition(s) were for eternal life? (rhetorical)

We are faced with these possibilites:

1) John was trying to deceive his audience.

2) John knew that repentance was a necessary condition but failed to include it in his gospel.

3) John was misinformed as to the gospel and was only sharing what he knew.

4) Repentance is not necessary.

In light of the fact that the GoJ is the only book in the whole bible with the express, written purpose of evangelism, how could he not even mention repentance if it were necessary?

If you were reading a book entitled "Significant Medical Procedures for the Heart" and you couldn't find "open heart surgery", you would wonder why it wasn't there, no? Here we have John expressing the way to eternal life, yet consciously ommitting any reference to repentance whatsoever! It wasn't like he didn't have opportunity. He talks about John the Baptist, wherein the synoptics all have him preaching repentance. Here is the first opportunity, yet he remains silent on the doctrine.

I submit that the reason that John did not include any reference to repentance whatsoever was because he did not view it as necessary to his message of eternal life.

 

[Free Gracer]

John is not quiet by the way, concerning repentance, he uses it some 8 times in his book of Revelation. So it is not like he is unfamiliar with the doctrine.

BTW, I was tempted to machine gun fire dozens of Scriptures that give the condition for appropriating the free gift of eternal life (faith in Christ for it), but I have opted not to. The fact of the matter is that there is not one Scripture in the whole of the Bible that matches repentance with eternal life. But we know that there are dozens that pair faith/believe with eternal life.

It is not simply that man cannot "obey the command" to believe in Christ for eternal life, as if that was the only "work" that men had to do to be saved, rather it is that man is an enemy of God, unable to please God and unseeking of the true God.

Rom 8:8
So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
NKJV

Here we find that as a consequence of man being "in the flesh" he cannot do anything good that is fundamentally pleasing to God to merit His salvation. The flesh cannot be changed, reformed, trained, or improved unless and until God changes it. But to say because of this a man cannot believe in Christ for eternal life is another thing. There is a way where God is pleased with the unregenerate: when they believe in His Son for eternal life:

1 Cor 1:21
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
NKJV

God is pleased when people believe in His Son for eternal life! Faith pleases him! Where does the Bible, again, say that man can't believe in Jesus for eternal life? Is there some verse that says, "No one can believe in Christ for eternal life until God sovereignly imposes him with regeneration"? Where does it say, in the whole of Scripture, anything explicit, that states that man cannot believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life? It just ain't in there my friend.

Heb 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please Him
NKJV

As a side note, I'm wondering what you think of our friend Cornelius. There are many points here I wish to address. First, what do you make of this:

Acts 10:1-4
"There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, 'Cornelius!" And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, 'What is it, lord?'

So he said to him, 'Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.'"

This man feared God, prayed to God always, and selflessly gave alms to the people. There seems to be a result to this : his prayers and alms came up for a memorial before God. Was he saved at this time? No, as I will point out soon.

Listen to what Luke says the angel said:

Acts 10:5-6
Now send men to Joppa, and send for Simon whose surname is Peter. 6 He is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. He will tell you what you must do [to appropriate eternal life, i.e. believe in Christ for it]
NKJV

Listen to what Peter says that the angel tells Cornelius:

Acts 11:13-15
'Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon whose surname is Peter, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.'
NKJV

This is interesting. The angel tells Cornelius that Peter will tell him the words by which he will be saved. The angel tells Cornelius that Peter will tell him what to do. What are these words, what did Peter tell him to do?

Acts 10:43
"To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins."
NKJV

So, Peter tells him how to be saved; through the power of Jesus, whoever believes in Him will be saved.

Returning to my other point, Cornelius, was not saved, was not regenerate, but his actions were a memorial before God, and God accepted them (not for salvation). Remember:

Heb 11:6
for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
NKJV

Cornelius diligently sought God: "...when the angel...departed, Cornelius called..."

Acts 17:26-27
26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth...so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him...
NKJV

Does God set his hopes on things that are impossible? He knows all things. Why would He waste His time hoping that men might seek the Lord if he knew it was impossible for them to do so? Cornelius falsifies the claim that unsaved men can't and don't seek God!

Rom 3:11
There is none who seeks after God.
NKJV

There are three things wrong with the use of this phrase by the Calvinists to prove the truth of TI:

1)the design of the passage is not to teach man's inability

2)nothing is said about anyone not being able to seek God

3)and the fact that seeking God is not the same thing as believing in Christ for eternal life.

Look at the whole list:

Rom 3:10-18

"There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one."
13 "Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit";"The poison of asps is under their lips";
14 "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness."
15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace they have not known."
18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
NKJV

First of all, what the Calvinists seem to forget is that Paul, in establishing the universal guilt of Both Jews and Gentiles (Rom 3:1,9), quotes from the Old Testament to give weight tp his arguments, not to charge each individual of the human race in particular with every indictment, nor to teach the inability of the unregenerate man to believe on Jesus Christ. There is a difference between establishing the universal depravity of man and charging individual men with sins. As we have just seen, Cornelius and "all his house" feared God (Acts 10:2). A Calvinist author, Donald Grey Barnhouse, states correctly : "Now we must not think that this passage is accusing every member of the human race of having committed all of these individual sins". An equally important observation is that nothing is said in the phrase in question (Rom 3:11), or the verse, or context about anyone not being able to seek God, although that is how every Calvinist reads it.

It is not a matter of them being created without the ability, like a person born without legs being asked to run, rather it is more like a person with working legs who willingly uses a wheelchair.

You seem to be equivocating here. First man is inable, and this due to it being the fruit of depravity, now he is only unwilling. You see the germainess of my analogy, so you must change definitions mid-course. Well which is it? Dort says both: "...they are neither able nor willing", Westminster says, "hath wholly lost all ability...".

Reformed authors seem to agree that depravity causes total inability, not the doctrine of total unwillingness.

Seems the man don't have legs after all...

Thus God justly and rightly can condemn to hell whomever He chooses on the basis that, given the same exact circumstances, they would have responded just as Adam did.

Is this not hyposthesis contrary to fact?

Also, I'm just wondering where on earth in the Bible does it say that? Also, didn't God cause Adam to sin?

"We hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things - that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, he decreed... that by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined...there cannot be a greater absurdity than to hold that anything is done without the ordination of God; because it would happen at random. For which reason, [w]e also exclude the contingency which depends on human will, ... that no cause must be sought for but the will of God... I say then, that... the order, method, end and necessity of events, are, for the most part, hidden in the counsel of God, though it is certain that they are produced by the will of God." (John Calvin)

"The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what te end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he has so ordained by his decree." (John Calvin)

"...but since he forsees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed them, they are so to happen ... it is vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events take place by his sovereign appointment" (John Calvin)

"I will not hesitate... to confess with Augustine that the will of God is necessity, and that everything is necessary which he has willed...The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that he should" (John Calvin)

"God wills all things that come to pass. It is within His power to stop whatever might come to pass... God desired for man to fall into sin. I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that God created sin." (R.C. Sproul).

"God's foreknowledge, therefore, is not a reference to His omniscient foresight but to His foreordination... Its not that He merely sees what will happen in the future; rather He ordains it." (John MacArthur)

"...not only ...did his omniscient eye see Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, but He decreed beforehand that he should do so. (A.W. Pink, emphasis
in original)

"As a builder draws his plans before he begins to build, so the great Architect predestinated everything before a single creature was called into existence. (A.W. Pink)

"Plainly it was God's will that sin should enter this world, otherwise it would not have entered, for nothing happens save as God has eternally decreed. Moreover, there was more than a bare permission, for God only permits that which He has purposed" (A.W. Pink)

 

[Free Gracer]

"...He has determined in Himself from all eternity everything which will be" (A.W. Pink)

"Not as much as a fly can settle upon you without the Creator's bidding..." (A.W. Pink)

"Nothing comes to pass contrary to his decree. Nothing happens by chance. Even moral evil, which he abhors and forbids, occurs 'by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.'" (W.G.T. Shedd)

"God, from eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass" (Westminster Confession of Faith)

"The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass" (Westminster Shorter Catachism, asnwer to #7)

"All things, whatever, arise from and depend on the divine appointment" (Loraine Boettner)

"All things turn out according to divine predestination; not only the works we do outwardly, but even the thoughts we think inwardly" (Philip Melanchthon, quoted by Loraine Boettner)

"Even the fall of Adam, and through him the fall of the race, was not by chance or accident, but was so ordained in the secret counsels of God." (Loraine Boettner)

"Whatever is done in time is according to his decree in eternity" (John Gill)

"If God did not foreordain all things, then He could not know the future. God foreknows and knows all things because He decreed all things to be" (David S. West)

---------------


the five points of Calvinism (Edwin H. Palmer):

"It is even biblical to say that God has foreordained sin"

"Although sin and unbelief are contrary to what God commands (His perceptive will), God has included them in His sovereign decree (ordained them, caused them to certainly come to pass)... How is it that a holy God, who hates sin, not only passively permits sin but also certainly and efficaciously decrees that sin shall be? Our infinite God presents us with some astounding truths..."

"All things that happen in all the world at any time and in all history= whether with inorganic matter, vegetation, animals, man, or angels - come to pass because God ordained them. Even sin = the fall of the devil from heaven, the fall of Adam, and every evil thought, word, and deed in all of history, including the worst sin of all, judas' betrayal of Christ - is included in the eternal decree of our holy God... If sin is outside the decree of God, then the vast percentage of human actions...are removed from God's plan. God's power is reduced to the forces of nature ... Sin is not only foreknown by God, it is also foreordained by God. In fact, because God foreordained it, He foreknew it. Calvin is very clear on this point: 'Man wills with an evil will what God wills with a good will..."

"Foreordination means God's sovereign plan, whereby He decides all that is to happen in the entire universe. Nothing in this world happens by chance. God is in back of everything. he decides and causes all things to happen that do happen ... He has foreordained everything 'after the counsel of his will': the moving of a finger, the beating of a heart, the laughter of a girl, the mistake of a typist - even sin"

So we not only have God holding man accountable for something he cannot do, but God caused Adam to sin by the pre-determination of His secret counsels found in the eternal decree.

Rather than a "sovereign imposition", regeneration is a actual emancipation rendered on undeserving and rebellious sinners.

If man is an enemy to God, does not want God, cannot seek God, wants nothing to do with God, what else is it but a "sovereign imposition" to force someone to accept you and love you and take your gift?

By grace God supernaturally reconciles His enemies to Himself through the blood of Christ actually atoning for their sins, not potentially atoning for them if they're smart enough to believe some historical facts.

I beleive that this is a quote out of ignorance of the "Free Grace" position. A man is saved when after considering the evidence and testimony of Scripture about Jesus Christ he is persuaded as to the veracity of the claims, and believes (trusts) Jesus Christ for eternal life.

Faith is not even something active. Faith is the passive result of becoming convinced that something is true. It is being persuaded that something is true. Thus faith is passive! You should read the reformed author, Gordon H. Clarks faith and saving faith. There are times we want to believe something, but can't because we haven't been persuaded, and there are times that we don't want to believe things (like the death of a loved one) but have become convinced that it is true.

Faith in facts saves no one my friend. You are presenting straw men arguments.

Here, then, is where we differ: God does not regenerate those who were smart enough, with-it enough, or spiritual enough to understand the Gospel... instead God truly graciously and supernaturally saves His enemies from their death, resurrecting their spirits in regeneration, something they could never do for themselves.

Your first line here is insulting, and is a blazing hot straw man; and I agree with your second part. But God regenerates those and only those who believe in His Son for eternal life, as the Scriptures give major testimony.

You seem however to believe that Adam had the right idea... all man needs is a bigger fig leaf... Christ is that fig leaf and if man just applies it properly he can hide behind it. Thus your grace is not "free", but rather purchased by some mental assent to historical facts.

Stuffed flannel shirts and pants, gasoline and a match!

I suppose when a beggar, destitute and barren, reaches out his hand to receive a free gift, it is, however purchased. What a travesty of philosophy and reason (not to mention Scripture). This is elementary, friend. A child even can tell that the act of appropriating a gift is not payment for it! It is the Calvinist who must claim so.

Faith in Christ is merely the channel God has used as a means to receive His free gift. Nothing more.

One a side note.

Which do you think would cause God to receive glory?

1) Man not wanting Him, nothing to do with Him. God makes the man love Him by sovereing imposition.

2) God wooing men, and man responding in faith and love uncoerced?

It takes some serious philosophical and logical gymnastics to choose the first.

The Bible however presents a much more dramatic and simply amazing gracious portrait of God, who knowing that nothing man could do would cover the shame and guilt of his sins slew a Lamb and covered him graciously. Thus Christ's death actually saves, it doesn't make people saveable, but actually accomplishes what it is He intended for it to do.

How is causing someone who hates you to love you and accept you against their will "gracious"? That is the height of repugnancy. Is God so in need of man's love that He must cause them to accept Him? This is a "gracious portrait"? It seems fiendishly malevolent! Coerce and irresistably impose Your will on people who want nothing to do with you!

The death Christ died is either a satisfaction for the sins of some men (Limited Atonement) or a satisfaction for the sins of all men withut exception. It cannot be the former because the Scriptures say it was a satisfaction for the sins of the world.

1 John 2:2
And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

John 1:29
"Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

Now this satisfaction for all must either be provisional or actual. Here is is to be noted that the 4 pt modified Dispensationalist Calvinists say that Christ's death was provisional and the 5 pter says that it was actual. I do not at all believe that his death was merely provisional, for then the passages which say it is a satisfaction and redemption and reconciliation must be qualified to mean it is provisionally a satisfaction. Let us not jump to hastily into a false dilemma. There are not just two options : provisional and actual (only for the elect).

The Calvinist believes that the death of Christ is an actual satisfaction but limited to the elect only.

I believe the Bible clearly teaches that the death of Christ is an actual satisfaction and this for the whole world, but it had a limited intent. The intent of Christ's death was to completely satisfy the justice of God in a limited and specific sense. Christ's death has freed God to unconditionally accept those who believe. Its purpose was to remove all barriers to God's acceptance of the sinner. God's justice is now satisfied in the sense that He can now confer acceptance upon those sinners who believe.

The death of Christ was designed to satisfy the justice of God in he sense of freeing Him to unconditionally accept those who believe in Christ. God is not obligated by Christ's death to save anyone. He is freed by it to save whomever He pleases. And from what we read in 1 Cor 1:21, "it pleased God ... to save those who believe."

In John's well-known description of the Final Judgement, we do not even find a reference to sins. Instead we are told, "the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books" (Rev 20:12). To be sure the works of unsaved people contain innumerable sins, but it is still significant that sin per se is not referred to, as I intend to point out in a moment.

Yet even though unsaved people are judged on the basis of their works, they are not condemned to hell on that basis! On the contrary we read, "And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev 20:15). People go to hell, therefore, because they do not have life!

This is precisely what we might have concluded from the theme statement of the Fourth Gospel: "but these are written tha tyou may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and thatbelieving you may have life in His name" (John 20:31). It is also evident in John 5:24 where our Lord states that the believer "shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life". We conclude, therefore, that the possession of life is the critical issue between God and man in terms of eternal judgment. There is no final judgment to determine one’s eternal destiny if he already possesses life.

Sin is not the critical issue. Why not? John's own writings tell us why. Jesus is the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world". Jesus paid it all.

So marvelously complete and full is the sacrificial death of Christ for our sins that it satisfied fully God’s justice and no man is condemned to hell on the grounds of his sins. But by the same token, the cross of Christ does not automatically regenerate men and women. They still need to obtain life and this is available to them on one basis only: faith in Christ.

Thus one can see that the issue at the final judgment is not man’s sin, since Christ has atoned for that in its entirety. Instead, the issue is whether someone can make it into the kingdom of God on the basis of the works they did on earth, apart from the miracle of new birth that comes by faith alone. But as the Lord Jesus informed Nicodemus, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3)."

Eph 1:1-3
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins...

Quoting Ephesians 2:1-3 does nothing to your point. Dead in the sense that man is alienated from God because of sin. Nothing in this verse states that man cannot believe in Christ for eternal life. This verse teaches depravity, but not TI.

 

[Free Gracer]

Thus Paul is correct in saying "all have sinned" and "there is none righteous, no not one". The solution is not "believe in Jesus and God will then make you alive", rather, as Paul puts it:

Eph 2:4-6

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

"But God", it is God who acts to save us from Adam's plight by having "made us alive". This is not in response to something we do, but purely by grace.

This is a pretext. The context of this passage denies your assertions. You failed to quote the whole passage:

Eph 2:4-10
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

You quote only up to vs 6. Yes God made us alive and by grace we are saved. Read down a little further... Vs 8 starts with an explanatory "gar". What has preceded will be explained by what is to follow.

In vs 8 we have a perfect periphrastic participial construction. It is the perfect participle with the verb of being. Translation into English is rather awkward, but here is an attempt:

For by grace you are in the present state of having been saved through faith. These Ephesians are in the present state of already having been saved by grace through faith. Faith is the divinely appointed channel by which God's gracious act of salvation is appropriated.

Where does it in reality bring us thus far?

1)Man is dead in sins, and universally depraved.

2)Christ died and is the propitiation for the sins of the unregenerate, yea, the whole world.

3)God's justice has been satisfied and the barrier to man's acceptance has been removed.

4)God offers acceptance and eternal life by grace through the divinely appointed channel of faith in Jesus Christ.

God justly and righteously condemns whomever He chooses

Rom 2:11
For there is no partiality with God.

First off, you have made God capricious and whinsical, and showing partiality to those who He has elected (those whom He was partial to by electing in His secret counsels by His eternal decree). And God has specifically chosen those who He will condemn.

You may be able to give a hearty "amen" to Calvin whom you seem to be agreeing with:

"Those, therefore, whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other reason but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children ... whose pleasure it is to inflict punishment" (Institutes, III.XXIII,5)

Secondly, where is the love in your statement?

Indeed, what kind of love is it that pursues and saves wretched, unwilling, rebellious enemies?! It's the love of God!

You mean the kind of "love" that imposes its will upon those who want nothing to do with it? You mean the kind of "love" that forces one to accept You? You mean the kind of love that sends men to hell apart from any chance whatsoever? I don't know from what dictionary you may be reading, but the Calvinist God's "love" sounds more like cruelty to me.

Calvinists are in the rather awkward position of claiming to make a valid offer of salvation to the unelect while denying that Christ's death and provision of salvation is for the unelect and saying that the unelect can't possibly believe the gospel. To add insult to injury, they are claiming this is just the way God, from all eternity, wanted it to be.

This is the God of love, as the Scripture has revealed Him, who desires all to be saved and has made provision for all:

1 Tim 2:3-6
God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all

Antonio

 

[cygnusx1]

The evolutionist emphatically denies the total depravity of man, for the only fall he believes in is an upward one. He is loud in insisting that there is a divine spark of life in the soul of every human being, burning very feebly in some, yet capable of being fanned into a flame if the right influences are brought to bear on it. Others term it a divine "seed" of goodness, a seed which only needs cultivating for the ultimate development of a noble and virtuous character. This is a point-blank repudiation of the teaching of Christ that the human tree is essentially "corrupt." Since the whole system of redemption rests upon the basic fact of man’s total depravity, and since every false system of religion originates in the repudiation of that fact, it is incumbent on us to expose the fallacy of those objections which are commonly made against it.
Some attempt to show that we do not enter this world in a defiled condition. The engaging simplicity, dependence and harmlessness of infants are stressed, and reference is even made to Scripture in support of the contention that they are born in a state of innocence. But this need not detain us very long, for it scarcely presents even an apparent force. Appeal is made to this statement: "And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan" (Ps. 106:38), which simply means they sacrificed their little ones, who had not been active participants in their idolatry. "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil" (Rom. 9:11) is not to the point, for those words refer not to their nature but to a time before they committed any deeds. While in contrast with adults infants possess a relative innocence in that they are guiltless of personal transgressions, yet it is clear that they partake of original sin (Ps. 51:5; 58:3; Prov. 22:15). Scripture never contradicts itself.

Others insist that there is some good in the very worst, that even the most confirmed villains shudder and turn away from certain deeds of wickedness when first tempted to do them. The conclusion is drawn that, deeply buried under the ashes of a life of unbridled crime, the sparks of some power of goodness still remain. But that is to confuse the faint stirrings of man’s moral nature with potential spirituality. Confusion of thought leads people to infer that because there are degrees of wickedness there must be a modicum of good. Because one stage of depravity is lower than another, this does not warrant the denial that the first stage is degraded. The development of wickedness is one thing; the presence of any measure of holiness or virtue is another. The absence of certain forms of sins does not imply any innate purity. It might as well be affirmed that a recent corpse, which is less loathsome, is therefore less dead than one which is far gone in decay and putrefaction.


http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Depravity/deprave_09.htm

 

[Free Gracer]

Dear Cygnusx1,

Thank you for your hefty portion of cut and pasted Red Herring Pizza! Loved it!

Antonio

 

[BBAS 64]

Good Day, Free Gracer

This is the God of love, as the Scripture has revealed Him, who desires all to be saved and has made provision for all:

1 Tim 2:3-6
God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all

Antonio

Are all the underlined "people" the same "people"?

Peace to u,

Bill