Yesterday at 09:37 PM Lotar said this in Post #108
How is making a choice adding to his His will.
I didn't say you were adding to His Will. If anything your position purports that you add to, or complete, Christ's sacrifice.
I am adding nothing, too make a descision, is not a work.
See, now, this is the only way to make your argument work. To say that something isn't a work,
that is. Let's do a quick test. You believe Christ died for all people, right? So, Christ dies and salvation is available, right? So, here's this thing, salvation, sitting out there because Christ died, right? Are
you saved because Christ died? Look closely now. I
didn't ask if you
could be saved because Christ died. I'm asking, are
you saved because He died? Was there anything else that had to happen for
you to be saved? If so, then you added to His sacrifice and therefore His sacrifice was incomplete unless, of course, it is your belief that Christ's sacrifice was never intended to save the individual. So, I guess I should ask, "do you believe that the purpose of God sending His Son was so that
you, specifically, would be saved or do you think that God wasn't so concerned with our specific salvation but rather just making it
possible for us to be saved?"
I would not have made the right descision if it had not been for the Holy Spirit.
Wait, didn't God give everyone the grace to make the choice? What is it
about you that makes you so much more compliant to the work of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit didn't "make" you choose God right? Did the Holy Spirit give you more help than it gives someone that doesn't choose Christ?
But there was never any time at which I could not have rejected it. Just because God knows what will happen, doesn't mean He is exerting his control over us.
Lotar, this is getting a bit monotonous. Either it was the goal of the Holy Spirit to bring you to faith and
that's why you have faith or the Holy Spirit goal was just to try to bring you to faith and it would have been perfectly okay with Him if you didn't choose Christ. You can't have it both ways. Either the work of God is intended for a specific purpose, your salvation, and He will make sure that comes to fruition, or, He leaves the choice up to you and that means that it is not God's greatest desire that you be saved because there's a possibility that you won't be. You're talking about God like He's some impotent or uncaring Creator. Everything God does He does for a reason. If it is His Will that a person be saved then that means that He will bring that about. What is it that you think God does? Do you think He's just sitting up there in Heaven saying, "Oooohh, I sure hope Lotar makes the right decision?" Come on!! We're talking about God here. He's not like us. He doesn't say, "It's My greatest desire for this to come to pass,
and I sure hope it does." No. If it is God's greatest desire for something to come to pass then He makes sure it does. End of story. If something does not come to pass then it wasn't God's greatest desire for it to come to pass. He's not like us. He is sovereign. We are impotent. Nothing comes to pass just because it's our will that it come to pass. The things that we
try to bring about are subject to so many things that we don't even have a hand in. That's not how God's decisions work. If He makes a decision for something to come to pass, it does. That's just who He is. He doesn't answer to us. He brings about His decreed Will.
"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:1-2).
I don't know what it is that you think this verse supports but there is NOTHING in Romans that supports what you're saying. You would do much better to pick a different book. Romans is, without a doubt, the book that is used most often to support my position.
The bible never says man as a whole is evil. It does say that we are predisposed towards evil.
Lotar, please, research the position that you are so adamantly arguing against. The reformed view is
NOT that fallen man is as bad as he can get. The reformed view is that fallen man does not make any decision based on their faith in God. Do you think that they do? Do you think that heathens do anything because of their faith in God? If not, it's sin. Sorry if you don't like to hear that but it's true.
Romans 14:23
for
WHATEVER is not from faith
IS SIN.
Nothing that an unsaved person does is because they have faith. Nothing. Therefore, it's sin.
Haven't you ever met a non-christain who was moral.
What good do you think being "moral" is going to be? Will that non-Christian stand before God and say, "Hey, I was
moral, even Lotar says I was?" If something is done for any reason other than a person's faith in God and His Law then it is sin. If a non-Christian saves my child from a burning building you can best bet that I'm going to be eternally thankful. But if the non-Christian did it for any reason other than faith in God, it was a sinful action. That is the Word of God.
No man is perfect, but we do make the right choices from time to time. We have the free will to do good or evil.
As a saved person you have the ability to make decisions that are motivated by your faith in God (right choices) and decisions that are motivated by your flesh (wrong choices). An unsaved person has no faith in God. Therefore, everything they do is motivated by their flesh (wrong choices).
BTW, I hope you mean Oh My Gosh, maybe you shouldn't use that abreviation, since it stands for taking the Lord's name in vain.
Well, thanks for sharing that.
I would really like to hear a verse that makes that distinction
Well, it takes a bit of study and discernment which you might not be inclined to do but I'll give you verses that show a basic difference:
His decreed Will - This is God's eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His Will, whereby, for His own glory, He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass (
Westminster Shorter Catechism). This is the Will of God that is referred to in Eph. 1:11:
Ephesians 1:11
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of
His Will
His perceptive Will - This is God's commands, His instruction given in Scripture, concerning how people should believe and behave. This is spoken of in the following:
Romans 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
Will of God.
Ephesians 5:17
Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the
Will of the Lord is.
Colossians 1:9
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of
His Will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
1 Thessalonians 4:3-6
For this is the
Will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.
Man is not righteous, but he is capable of making righteous decitions. Haven't you ever seen people who weren't christians do the right thing?
It's not the action that makes it righteous or unrighteous Lotar. That's what I've been trying to tell you. It's the motive. If their motive is sinful then their action is not righteous. Everything an unsaved person does is done with an unrighteous (anything other than faith in God) motive and is therefore sinful. It sounds like you don't take issue with what I'm saying but with whether or not the Bible is right about every motive of an unsaved person.
Our relationship with Christ is often described as a marriage.
Sorry man but that's a pretty weak basis for making a point.
(cont.)