What is wrong with Calvinism ?

[John Mullally]

I take that to be you think they were once saved, and that is the purpose of my reply: Take notice of what is written in Jude about judgment on the ungodly:

3 Beloved, although I made every effort to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt it necessary to write and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed—ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. 5 Although you are fully aware of this, I want to remind you that after Jesus had delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, He destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling—these He has kept in eternal chains under darkness, bound for judgment on that great day. 7 In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.8 Yet in the same way these dreamers defile their bodies, reject authority, and slander glorious beings. 9 But even the archangel Michael, when he disputed with the devil over the body of Moses, did not presume to bring a slanderous charge against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” 10 These men, however, slander what they do not understand, and like irrational animals, they will be destroyed by the things they do instinctively. 11 Woe to them! They have traveled the path of Cain; they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam; they have perished in Korah’s rebellion. 12These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted. 13They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.14Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about them: “Behold, the Lord is coming with myriads of His holy ones 15 to execute judgment on everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of every ungodly act of wickedness and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners.” 16 These men are discontented grumblers, following after their own lusts; their mouths spew arrogance; they flatter others for their own advantage. Hebrews 10:19-39 and 2 Peter 3:1-7
But you, beloved, remember what was foretold by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ 18 when they said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow after their own ungodly desires.”
19These are the ones who cause divisions, who are worldly and devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God as you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you eternal life.22 And indeed, have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; and to still others show mercy tempered with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.

Sorry this is so long, but necessary, the scriptures also teach that one must endure to the end to be saved, otherwise they were never saved, Matt 24:13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Matt 10:22 and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Heb 3:14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Heb 10:39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Rom 2:7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; Luke 8:15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. And I will close with Jesus own words to those in John 8 which would be great if you read this whole chapter when you can: 8:31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

2 Peter 1:5-11 provides the conditions by which we can know that we will never stumble.

2 Peter 1:5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. 10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.​

 

[John Mullally]

I know. . .that's what "speaking from their reference points" means.

He was warning his people about false prophets. Is it material to the audience whether false prophets think concerning Christ died for them? Rather, its important to know the false prophets deny Christ and to know that Christ died even for these evil ones.

 

[iwbswiaihl]

2 Peter 1:5-11 provides the conditions by which we can know that we will never stumble.

2 Peter 1:5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. 10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.​

True, but its one thing to stumble its another to think one sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption becomes lost. And again, that's if I read your other post right.

 

[Clare73]

He was warning his people about false prophets. He was not identifying with the false prophets. He was not going to evangelize them. If he was speaking from their reference point it would be clear.

"They have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" - what does that sound like to you?

That sounds like Matthew 12:43-45 to me, as well as common experience; e.g., where a religious education can give the knowledge of Jesus Christ and cause one to live a moral life which keeps one from the pollution of the world, but cannot give one a love of the truth and God's word, nor sanctify and save one.
And Matthew 12:43-45, where reformation is not regeneration, as in the case of the false prophets, and the wheat and the tares.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If it's the truth, let it sting.

Well, bless yer lil' ole' heart. . .no sting.

Regeneration --> faith --> remission of sin (salvation) --> justification (declared righteous) --> sonship

are in reality close to simultaneous, but for order of effect, they are stated as occurring above,
it all beginning where Jesus says it does in John 3:3-8, with the rebirth by the sovereign will of God the Holy Spirit before the unregenerate can even see anything spiritual (Romans 8:7-8; 1 Corinthians 2:14), much less receive and believe.

Agreed entirely, and by the sovereign act, or sovereign WORK, of God. Unbidden and unexpected by the recipient of his grace. Entirely of Grace, not by the will of man.

 

[John Mullally]

True, but its one thing to stumble its another to think one sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption becomes lost. And again, that's if I read your other post right.

I think Hebrews 6:4-12 should be taken as a warning.

 

[zoidar]

Your Luke reference isn't quite like the other two: it is not saying "will die" but "was dead", which is quite a different thing. And there are a multitude of references, of which I expect 309690[/URL]]@Clare73 will soon show you some more, but here's one for starters:

Ephesians 2:1-10, in which verse 1 says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,"

Be dead in sins is like the relation with God is dead and one will die in one's sins, unless one repents. Be dead in sins, means one is lost instead of saved, unrighteous instead of righteous. It's just not describing whether being dead in sins means one can submit or not. That's not the subject of the text in Ephesians 2:1-10.

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),
— Ephesians 2:4-5

What does it say? When we were dead in our relation to God, heading for judgement, God made us alive. How? When we had a dead relation with God we repented and we got born again and we got a living relation to God, now heading toward heaven.

It doesn''t bring up the subject if someone can submit or not. Maybe you can or maybe you can't submit being dead in sin, but it's not something that is brought up in that text.

"Unable to respond" is not the point. Unable to "submit", unable to "please God", is directly from Romans 8.

"Unable to respond, unable to submit" We mean the same thing.

For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 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.
— Romans 8:6-8

Yes that is the way it is. The worldly man has his mind on the things of the flesh until he repents and gets a mind of the Spirit. There you have it again. The mind of the flesh is death, meaningly you are lost, not saved, dead in your relation to God and will die in your sins.

Contraire. . .

But "let the dead bury their own dead" (Matthew 8:22) is. . .where, in the context of the whole NT, the first dead is spiritual and the second dead is physical.

They are dead in sin. The meaning explained.

Likewise, in the context of the whole NT, spiritual rebirth--born again, is not born again from spiritual life, but from spiritual death (Colossians 2:13), complete spiritual disability (Romans 8:7-8; 1 Corinthians 2:14).

Of course it's born again from spiritual death, meaning going from lost to saved, unrighteous to righteous, heading from judgement to heading for heaven. Like I wrote to Mark Quayle, the texts aren't discussing if we are able or unable to submit/respond. They are explaining that we are dead in our relationship to God and heading for judgement, unless we repent and get life through the Spirit, leading to heaven.

I have already written about Romans 8 to Mark above.

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
— 1 Corinthians 2:14

That is true about the common man. He doesn't understand or accept the things of the Spirit until he repents and receive the Spirit. Then he can accept and understand.

You can be unsaved and be a natural man and still believe in Christ death and resurrection. So that can't be what Paul talks about in 1 Cor 2. The natural man has to get the Spirit to know God, and be saved. I think that is Paul's point.

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
— Colossians 2:13

This is what happens after repentance, you are made alive (No longer dead in sin).

That's what regeneration (re-birth) means (John 3:3-8), from spiritual death and blindness to spiritual life and sight.

When one repents one is born again and can see, understand, accept the kingdom of God.

 

[RickReads]

No, I did not say your regeneration occurred before you heard about Jesus. And I would appreciate if you could show me where @Clare73 said it, since you are wrong about me saying it. I also would appreciate if you would stop mischaracterizing Calvinism. You must have really been a poor representative example of Calvinism, to be talking in such a way.

I kinda overlooked this earlier. Apparently, you don't understand Calvinism any better than you understand Arminianism. Maybe you should sit down before you read the quotes.

Calvinist, R.C. Sproul, writes: “The Reformed view of predestination teaches that before a person can choose Christ his heart must be changed. He must be born again.” (Chosen By God, p.72, emphasis mine)
Sproul adds: “A cardinal point of Reformed theology is the maxim: ‘Regeneration precedes faith.’ Our nature is so corrupt, the power of sin so great, that unless God does a supernatural work in our souls we will never choose Christ.” (Chosen By God, pp.72-73, emphasis mine)
However, not all Calvinists agree:
Calvinist, Charles Spurgeon, explains: “If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man, being regenerated, is saved already, and it is an unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach Christ to him, and bid him to believe in order to be saved when he is saved already, being regenerate.

You are special Mark. I normally won't repeat myself and I already threw these wrecking balls earlier in this thread.

 

[iwbswiaihl]

John 3:5-8 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit. 7Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” This is absolutely true! Its the application that has been stated wrong. In context, he goes to the application: 16For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. 18Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

 

[John Mullally]

And in Matthew 12:43-45, where reformation is not to be confused with regeneration, as in the case of the false prophets, and the wheat and the tares.

Whenever I hear the term regeneration, I think of Reformed. Its their term for the "new birth". The rest of us see Salvation as including the new birth.

However, not all Calvinists agree:
Calvinist, Charles Spurgeon, explains: “If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man, being regenerated, is saved already, and it is an unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach Christ to him, and bid him to believe in order to be saved when he is saved already, being regenerate.

Apparently some Calvinists see Salvation as including regeneration.

You are special Mark. I normally won't repeat myself and I already threw these wrecking balls earlier in this thread.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The atmosphere of the churches makes the doctrine "eternal separation from God" seem plausible. Something about the doctrine creates an atmosphere that violates the concept of Romans 8:38-39.

It's rather unique, I must say.

I'm still a bit mystified by your comment, that Calvinism has this "blinding aspect" in that kind of case. I mean, it is not a particularly Calvinistic view, that of "eternal separation from God". I remember hearing that one for the first time in Bible college, where someone was claiming that Hell was not a place, but rather, "eternal separation from God". I disagree wholeheartedly that it is only that. I'm not at all sure that it is even quite true, even apart from the other things that are true about that place and that state, since, at least to my thinking, if God was to withdraw his hand entirely, the person would altogether cease to exist

I'm not sure there are many Calvinists that hold to that notion, though I suppose it is possible some do.

 

[iwbswiaihl]

I think Hebrews 6:4-12 should be taken as a warning.

And if you pay special attention to 6: 4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age— 6and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame.7For land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is tended receives the blessing of God. 8But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless, and its curse is imminent. In the end it will be burned. **Pay special attention to what is said now in context with the above verses:** 9Even though we speak like this, beloved, we are convinced of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation. 10For God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown for His name as you have ministered to the saints and continue to do so.

Heb 10:39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Context is all important.

 

[RickReads]

Apparently some Calvinists see Salvation as including regeneration.

Quite shocking to me when he says it is ridiculous to preach Christ to a man under Calvin's regeneration.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

Ah yes, love. God loves "without partiality" and He loves absolutely everyone. Always has and always will, so what about the people who were the inhabitants of the Promised Land that God’s children were about to take over. The Promised Land was inhabited by the Canaanites, the Sidonians and the other descendants of theirs, the Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and the Hamathites? Also the Philistines, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Jebusites, the Elamites, the Kerethites, the Pathrusites, the Casluhites, and the Caphtorites? There were probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in these nineteen tribes.

Exodus 23:23 “For my angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, Jebusites...And I will destroy them completely.” Love in action!

How about the Egyptians? What did God do to them?

Exodus 14:17 “And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they will charge in after the Israelites. My great glory will be displayed through Pharaoh and his troops, his chariots, and his charioteers.” Hebrews 11:29 “….they [Pharaoh and his troops, his chariots, and his charioteers] were all drowned.” I guess Pharaoh should have taught his men how to swim before taking on God.

Jeremiah 49:37 “The enemies [of the Elamites] will chase them with the sword until I [God] have destroyed them completely.” The love of the sword.

Eze 25:16 “Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will raise my fist of judgment against the land of the Philistines, (the Kerethites, Pathrusites, Casluhites, and the Caphtorites.) I will wipe out the and utterly destroy the people who live by the sea.” Lots of lovin going on here.

Psalm 11:5-6 “The LORD tests the righteous, but His soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Let Him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.” More love comin down in rain of hot coals and scorching wind.

Psalm 21:8-10 “You [God] will capture all your enemies. Your strong right hand will seize all who hate you. You will throw them in a flaming furnace when you appear. The LORD will consume them in his anger; fire will devour them. You will wipe their children from the face of the earth; they will never have descendants.” No kids to love forevermore.

What I believe, is that God's nature is still one of love. However, before time began, He fixed the plan as to whom could gain salvation, giving a fair plan, that those who would act with a nature similar to His own would gain redemption. Yet He found that man did not respond with "like nature":

Gen 6:6-7 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."​

So, unfortunately, many would perish. But that does not stop God from trying to redeem His creation.

John 15:24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.
​

God has a desire, a willingness to save, but man often forfeits His desire.

Luke13:34 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!​

We see God also did these works before the Canaanites, and Egyptians (take the following quote from my website Answers to Difficult Questions | Everybody Matters Ministry):

So why did God get Moses to attack Canaan? We all know God is love so what was he doing initiating combat? To understand this situation we have to go to the source scripture. Scripture mentions God hated their customs, and I am not talking about dress standards. So what were their customs, what was so terrible about the Canaanites that they had to be destroyed? Well they believed in a God who required children to be thrown alive into burning fire, as a sacrifice to appease their god, note what Moses said of them from God's very mouth.

"‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. " Lev 18:21
​

Note what he says after directly after these passages

"'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. Lev 18:24-25
​

See more on Molek So they were a fairly nasty people, but should God not have tried to save them from these practices rather than destroying them to clean out the bad teaching. Well he did, he parted the red sea allowing his people to escape from Egypt. But it has to be asked did the sinners know this? Well this is what a prostitute said to the spies who went into Jericho,

Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, "I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt... Jos 2:8-10
​

So clearly all the people knew what had happened to the Egyptians.

At other times after this God threatened to bring disaster on nations if they did evil. But as we see with Nineveh it was always with the aim to get them to do what is right and just. After proclaiming Nineveh would be destroyed for its evil ways.

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. Jon 3:10
​

Note again the two fold purpose of God from the following example where God bought the Babylonians against Israel.

They turned their backs to me and not their faces; though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline. They set up their abominable idols in the house that bears my Name and defiled it. They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin. Jer 32:33-35
​

Again the word discipline might seem harsh, why do people need discipline. But God said he had taught these people again and again not to commit abominations, and yet they sacrificed their children's own lives to please false gods. Yet despite actually being told by God, and being told a sensible thing, they still wanted to do evil.​

 

[Mark Quayle]

It was caused by the way Misput structured his post. the reply didn't even pick up his remarks.

Good. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Well, I`m a kidder. Since my health has improved in recent months my sense of humor has returned to me and I haven't been trying to keep it in check because it's been a long road.

I think I have represented Arminianism pretty well. I`m not sure what you think the deficiency is.
Maybe ur crazy

Lol, fair enough. Maybe I am crazy.

And for what it's worth, I think your sarcasm font was pretty plain in most instances.

The deficiency is in Arminianism, not in your representation of it, although that, shall we say, wasn't exactly well done. But no matter. Arminianism doesn't present a Gospel that is entirely of Grace, and there's the main problem with it. There are many other related problems, but I think that's the most obvious, or easiest to point out.

 

[Mark Quayle]

You should tape your mouth shut and sit down and listen to me.

Now see? I think that was funny! At least, I am not going to claim you really meant it, except in humor! You characterized a frustrated and grumpy individual very well, not to mention a self-important narcissist!

 

[Mark Quayle]

The word "free" means "not under the control or in the power of another" so in order for a man to have free will, his will cannot be under the control or in the power of another. All unsaved people are under the influence of "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.." (Eph 2:2) Romans 3:10-11 states unequivocally that "There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God."

We cannot seek for God, that is why God draws us (actually drags us) to Jesus. John 6:44 "“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day." Man's free will is not free, will not seek for righteousness, will not understand and will never seek for God, ever. Our free will is evil and wicked. Eve had the free will choice in the garden to either choose God's will or her free will. I need not tell you what happened. EVERY time a man sins he exercises his free will, and never God's will.

Believe me here; @Clare73 is not claiming freewill in the sense that most do. She agrees with what you are saying. She is not a "freewiller". I too use the term to mean only that our choices are real, with real, even eternal, results. I am, through the lost time and effort involved in arguing what it means, beginning to think I should not call it that, but the jury's still out.

Anyhow, I thank God you chimed in and I'm pretty sure Clare does too.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I kinda overlooked this earlier. Apparently, you don't understand Calvinism any better than you understand Arminianism. Maybe you should sit down before you read the quotes.

Calvinist, R.C. Sproul, writes: “The Reformed view of predestination teaches that before a person can choose Christ his heart must be changed. He must be born again.” (Chosen By God, p.72, emphasis mine)
Sproul adds: “A cardinal point of Reformed theology is the maxim: ‘Regeneration precedes faith.’ Our nature is so corrupt, the power of sin so great, that unless God does a supernatural work in our souls we will never choose Christ.” (Chosen By God, pp.72-73, emphasis mine)
However, not all Calvinists agree:
Calvinist, Charles Spurgeon, explains: “If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man, being regenerated, is saved already, and it is an unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach Christ to him, and bid him to believe in order to be saved when he is saved already, being regenerate.

You are special Mark. I normally won't repeat myself and I already threw these wrecking balls earlier in this thread.

Funny you think those are wrecking balls. I see no way they differ with what I said. Nor that anything you said defeats them, if that is what you mean.

Quite shocking to me when he says it is ridiculous to preach Christ to a man under Calvin's regeneration.

Fwiw, that isn't what Spurgeon said, nor is it all he said. You misquote it, and take it out of context, in your second post on the matter here. Spurgeon is right, that it is ridiculous to bid someone to believe and be saved if they already are saved and believe. There is no point in preaching two different Gospels.

You may find it amazing that a Calvinist or Reformed believer would say this, but it is altogether possible —and in fact, not unusual— that a person is regenerated during or as part of God's use of the Gospel preached. We like to use time-sequence of events as accurate waypoints for causation, but God does not think that way. If you remember, @clare showed the line of causation, and said something along the lines that time sequence is not the way to assess it.

The heart at enmity with God is unable to choose God, so God changes the heart. This we tend to attribute to human will, but God says it is NOT by human will. He does show us that the change is made by the Spirit of God 'installed' (my word for it) inside us. This IS the regeneration; whether we want to say it is a result of his doing, or it IS his doing, or it is even simply HIM in us, it is God's and not ours. Because, perhaps even simultaneous with all other effects, (i.e. salvific faith, true repentance, the desire for righteousness and all obediences), comes our sealing, our salvation, our imputation of righteousness, and all the rest, (and sooner or later, I should say, even our awareness and self-motivated pursuit of any or all the above), the time sequence as we perceive it and our assessment by our notice of and reactions to events or feelings are of no consequence as to how they happened, or to what caused what. For this, we depend on Scripture.

What amazes me is how desperately one wants to cling to at least some small way that grace is not entirely of God.

 

[John Mullally]

"They have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" - what does that sound like to you?

That sounds like Matthew 12:43-45 to me, as well as common experience; e.g., where a religious education can give the knowledge of Jesus Christ and cause one to live a moral life which keeps one from the pollution of the world, but cannot give one a love of the truth and God's word, nor sanctify and save one.

All unsaved people are under the influence of "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.." (Eph 2:2)

I agree with AVB 2 on this one. These false prophets in 2 Peter 2 having at one time “escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" means for that time they did not qualify as unsaved because they escaped “the influence of the prince of the power of the air” through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.