So then Christ doesn't pay for everyone's sins.
At least someone will admit it.
No one claimed that Christ paid for everyone's sins whether they receive the payment in faith or not, atoned for everyone, saved everyone, etc.
That's universalism, something no one in this entire thread is arguing.
Christ's death covers the sin of those who receive the sacrifice through faith (Rom 3:25), not the sins of everyone in the world. He is the covering sacrifice for the sins of the whole world (I John 2:2) but that sacrifice is only received by faith (Rom 3:25).
That is, Jesus Himself offers the payment of sins to all men (by His death on our behalf), but the payment can only be accepted through faith.
Likewise, God offers a pardon to all men through Christ's death. However, us criminals must admit our guilt and accept the pardon (faith) for it to be applied to us. If we reject the pardon, then we must pay the penalty for our sin despite that the pardon was available.
Please reply to the many, many scriptures and legitimate questions that have been brought up in this thread.
Please stop with:
- Comments implying that Christians who hold to Calvinism are spiritually superior: “I assume that Calvinism is the white blood cells.”
- Strawmen arguments: “You've described Pelagianism. It's considered heretical in orthodoxy.” "So then Christ doesn't pay for everyone's sins. At least someone will admit it."
- Directions to a different thread in general (specific post numbers or specific writing that backs a point up are fine):
“I have a whole thread dedicated to arguments about Calvinism.” (Interestingly enough, when another user pointed you to that thread to read one of his posts, your response was ‘???’ and then “Okay. I still don't understand your comment, though. But it's probably not that important.” When he gave the post#.)
“…I directed you to a thread that gave several views of what we actually believe. Yet you won't engage over there. Instead, you hang out over here and assume that the decorators are correct…”
- Comments that no one (Calvinist or not) disagrees with, often ignoring the question that was actually asked:
“God's justice glorifies Him.”
- Comments dismissing others’ questions or replies as strawmen, without any further explanation of why you believe them to be strawmen or explaining what you actually believe:
“All straw men, my friend.”
- Deflections complaining that someone answered too thoroughly, or not thoroughly enough, or didn’t address a point, or addressed too many points, etc:
“…Here's the issue. You are throwing too much stuff out at once. There nobody who wants to take the time and go through each bullet point and respond to it….”
- Ignoring the answers/scripture people reply with and dismissing it with the assertion of your belief:
“What was the motivation for all of this? Hard to say, I know. But we do know that without faith, it's impossible to please God, and those in the flesh cannot do so.
- Moving the goalposts from what you asked in your original question to something else entirely:
Moving, "Do you believe that the unregenerate, who is 100% in the flesh, can do anything pleasing to God??” to “Since the thread is concerning salvation primarily, that is my main thrust of the discussion, not if people can do nice things that God liked.” in order to dismiss all the scripture that showed examples of unregenerate man doing stuff God found pleasing.
Or, moving the goalpost from 'Did Christ die for all men' to 'all sins being covered for all men' when I Jn 2:12 and other verses showed the affirmative to Christ dying for all men.
- Simple verse pastes (where no one disagrees with the verse) without any explanation as to the context or why the verse promotes your own view vs. someone else’s. (Ironically, when others post verses with context, explanations, and other info you often accuse them of taking the verses out of context.):
Post #134 which is just a paste of Rom 8:5-9. A simple reading of the passage and its context shows that Paul is speaking to believers about walking by the spirit, and that the passage does not ‘prove’ that unregenerate man cannot choose God (faith) as another user requested.
Etc.
This discussion is not going to be profitable if nearly every time you reply it is to claim someone believes something they don't, dismiss any scripture and context others have shown without scripture/context of your own, give a flippant, short answer that deflects from the scripture given to yet another philosophical interpretation or bare assertion, or simply assert that a scripture can't mean what it says because you disagree with it.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm a busy mom with a house to clean, a toddler to feed, a different site that I volunteer moderate so it doesn't devolve into flame wars, and a lot of other things on my to-do list. Having to repeat the same scriptures and clarifications over and over, only to have them dismissed by someone deliberately re-wording them or ignoring them, is frustrating.
I enjoy debate that conforms to the general guidelines of supporting or countering views in a civil manner. I am happy to engage with legitimate queries or scriptural counterarguments. In future, however, I will be ignoring gotcha questions, strawmen, the re-wording of phrases, deflections, and requests to respond to things that have already been thoroughly presented unless a relevant scriptural counter-argument is made.
