What's Wrong With Reformed Theology/Soteriology?

[Woke]

Let me put it this way.
Before the foundation of the world God knew he would make man and he would fall in sin. He made a plan that His Son would die for our sins as the perfect sacrifice, as sin debt that we could never pay.

Paul plainly said we are predestinated unto the adoption of children. When we are saved we have become that predestinated plan.

The manner in which we are saved is the predestination, not that God chooses who will be saved.

This is what Calvin failed to realize. He threw out the red flag, Rom. 10:13.

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Correct. One other point though. God doesn't have to predestine salvation for him to know who will choose to follow him. God sees the future. He knows who will follow because of that. That is in no way predestination. If I knew you would die tomorrow, my knowledge of it is not the causal effect.

Scriptures indicate God knows the future, not because he always makes it happen. Also, personal experiences of people God has contacted proved that to them.

The reason so many doubt or deny that is because God has not personally shown them, and there are so many misunderstandings about what people who have had such experiences are telling them. Sites like this show how many misunderstandings there are.

 

[renniks]

Actually I believe it's both Israel, who God continued to have mercy and on in spite of their disobedience, and the gentiles who would come to believe because of Israel's disobedience. But yes, it was an expansion of God's mercy, you could say, although it was his plan all along. Calvinists seem tosee it as a narrowing of God's mercy to only certain individuals.

I believe Paul said that in reference to God’s calling of the Gentiles who were not pursuing it as he stated later in the same chapter in verse 30.

“What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭9:30-32‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Hence: “it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭9:16‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Verses 15 & 16 were about God’s calling, not election to salvation.

 

[renniks]

says "has passed" - that means that passing from death to life comes first, then believing. And yes, that is the order repeated in scripture.
TD

Whoever hears my word and believes has passed to life. Order: 1.hear 2. Believe 3. Passed from death to Life.

 

[renniks]

[
Who is us? Whoever believes. Once again you read it backwards.

Ok, I fully agree with this statement. However, your agenda is to deny that God predestines us to eternal life, and this is why you say "destined for eternal life" as opposed to "predestined." Yet it says "in love He predestined us to adoption as sons." This predestination includes faith, righteousness, good works, and eternal life, and everything else that goes with the full package of salvation (i.e. the full gospel).
TD

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

Again, after you believe, you become one of the group predestined for eternal life.

 

[renniks]

Ahh so when Jesus said

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away” what He really meant is that these branches were “not really” in Him at all? And when He says anyone who doesn’t remain in Him they were really in Him either. Just like when the scriptures says God desires all men to repent and be saved and that none should perish it doesn’t really mean all men or that none should perish but instead only some men. Or my personal favorite that God’s “righteous judgement” is inflicted on those who are incapable of repentance and belief despite Paul saying it is the result of their stubbornness in Romans 2. That’s an awful lot of scriptural acrobatics to come to those conclusions.

Calvinists must be great dancers. They sure do some strange gyrations.

 

[BNR32FAN]

It means what it says, it just might not mean what you think it means. It's only nonsense to someone who refuses to understand its original meaning, and instead uses their natural reasoning and cultural legends and ideas inserted into the meaning of the text. I hear your frustration, but we have to face the fact that the scripture is much like a different language to be learned. This is what Paul was talking about in 1 Cor. 2 when he says "spiritual thoughts with spiritual words."
TD

I’m sorry friend but I can’t accept this as truth. Not when the early church teachings make so much more sense of it without having to twist verses out of context and deny what is clearly being said. Calvin’s theology was refuted 1400 years before he was born by Iranaeus. His theology makes so much more sense than Calvin’s, probably because he came right behind the apostles, and it doesn’t paint God out to be this unloving and unjust monster who says inny minny miny mo choosing less than half of the entire popular of all time for salvation and burning all the rest in the lake of fire for all eternity when He has the means to save everyone by irresistible grace according to John Calvin. That’s not my God. My God does love the WHOLE world. My God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die so that the WHOLE world can be saved. My God has called to ALL MEN. Unfortunately as a result of their own stubbornness many choose to reject His calling and thus are deserving the righteous punishment of God.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Correct. One other point though. God doesn't have to predestine salvation for him to know who will choose to follow him. God sees the future. He knows who will follow because of that. That is in no way predestination. If I knew you would die tomorrow, my knowledge of it is not the causal effect.

Scriptures indicate God knows the future, not because he always makes it happen. Also, personal experiences of people God has contacted proved that to them.

The reason so many doubt or deny that is because God has not personally shown them, and there are so many misunderstandings about what people who have had such experiences are telling them. Sites like this show how many misunderstandings there are.

It is good to examine the beliefs of others and why they believe them so that we can test our own beliefs and get other perspectives on God’s word.

 

[renniks]

. Those people are doomed because of their evil deeds, and God is just in dooming them.
3. God ordains what comes to pass because He is wise enough to control circumstances in spite of the devil and his children who refuse to do God's will.

If you can't see the contradiction in the two statements you just gave there, I give up!
So according to you: God ordains their evil deeds, and then punishes them for the very deeds he ordained them to do. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If God ordains even what the devil and every evil man is doing, there is no "in spite of" to talk about. It makes God the only real sinner.

 

[renniks]

It's because you don't understand that many in the churches are not saved. This is what the parable of the wheat and tares is talking about.
TD

But that isn't what we are talking about. Quit diverting to scriptures that aren't even in the conversation. Jesus flat out said people that were once in him could leave and be thrown into the fire.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Actually I believe it's both Israel, who God continued to have mercy and on in spite of their disobedience, and the gentiles who would come to believe because of Israel's disobedience. But yes, it was an expansion of God's mercy, you could say, although it was his plan all along. Calvinists seem tosee it as a narrowing of God's mercy to only certain individuals.

Yes I agree the Jews still have mercy even despite the temporary hardening of their heart by God.

 

[renniks]

Paul is applying that to individual salvation in the context of Rom. ch. 9 & 10. He often does that when quoting OT scripture. To claim that it has nothing to do with individual salvation doesn't fit the context.
TD

It certainly does fit the context. The problem is, Calvinists just pull out part of the chapter, and ignore the overall context, which is God bringing salvation to the whole world through his salvation plan that started with Abraham.

 

[Woke]

Actually I believe it's both Israel, who God continued to have mercy and on in spite of their disobedience, and the gentiles who would come to believe because of Israel's disobedience. But yes, it was an expansion of God's mercy, you could say, although it was his plan all along. Calvinists seem tosee it as a narrowing of God's mercy to only certain individuals.

See Romans 11:25-26
God turns his attention again to Israel as a national people after the last gentile has been accepted into Christ's church.

 

[BNR32FAN]

I think you're taking this statement out of context and making the worst of it that you can make. I think that's a cynical approach, and slanderous to what the statement is trying to say in its context.

It has to be true that God has certain purposes to choose not to save some people. The argument against this idea is not new, as they said the same to Paul, which he addressed in Rom. 3:5-6 "But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?"

Considering the whole context of Romans, I see Paul saying:
1. God intends to judge the world according to His divine justice, and it His pleasure to do so, and furthermore He has the right to do so.
2. The fact that man is unrighteous shows that God is righteous in judging men.
3. It answers the objection that God would be unjust if He condemns people who can't do right by virtue of their bondage to the pleasures of sin, that God is right in holding them culpable.

So, I think your objection to the statement above is your hostility toward Paul's clear teaching that God has the right to make some people for honor and some for dishonor. It seems to me you are confused between what God ordains of His own will in the spiritual realm, and what man does in the natural that is against His will.

So in analyzing the statement:
1. It's God's pleasure to doom to destruction those people who are wicked and deserving to be doomed, since the wages of sin is death.
2. Those people are doomed because of their evil deeds, and God is just in dooming them.
3. God ordains what comes to pass because He is wise enough to control circumstances in spite of the devil and his children who refuse to do God's will.
4. If God chooses not to save some, but wants to exact His justice on them, He is perfectly right to do so.
5. God having mercy on some does not negate His justice on those he doesn't have special mercy toward. God is just either way, since He "is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

So, beside your cynical attitude to this statement, I can't see how your point is valid, if you align your thinking with what scripture clearly teaches.


I think you missing an important point. Not all "disciples" of Jesus are true believers, according to the parable of the wheat and tares.
TD

Consider this, would it be just for God to command that all men fly to Alpha Centauri otherwise they will all burn in the lake of fire for all eternity, then He provided a spaceship capable of carrying everyone but only allowed 1/3 of the population to board the ship and He just randomly picked the lucky ones who are permitted to enter the ship and just left all the others to figure it out on their own? Would that be a just punishment or even a just commandment for those who were not permitted to board the ship?

That’s basically Calvin’s theology in a nutshell.

 

[BNR32FAN]

See Romans 11:25-26
God turns his attention again to Israel as a national people after the last gentile has been accepted into Christ's church.

Yeah I’d like to find that last Gentile and shake him up a bit and say HURRY UP AND REPENT ALREADY!! EVERBODY IS WAITING FOR YOU SO WE CAN ALL GO HOME!! Lol

 

[BNR32FAN]

Paul is applying that to individual salvation in the context of Rom. ch. 9 & 10. He often does that when quoting OT scripture. To claim that it has nothing to do with individual salvation doesn't fit the context.
TD

But it does fit the context when you consider verse 30.

Now God has turned to the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, and the Jews who did not attain righteousness even tho they pursued it thru the Law, hence not according to he who wills or he who runs but according to God’s mercy.

 

[tdidymas]

“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,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:7‬ ‭NASB‬‬

This just says that we cannot subject ourselves to the law of God it doesn’t say we can’t believe the gospel.

The law Paul is talking about is the law of faith. This is how God is pleased, starting with belief in the gospel, then it carries to belief that God is performing His will through our actions. The natural man is the one who cannot understand this law of faith, and is not able to do so, because he has no spiritual wisdom or sight to understand how God works. All he has is his natural feelings, experiences, and common sense. So the gospel just plain doesn't make sense to him. And such people may be atheists, or may be very religious like Pharisees.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:3-4‬ ‭NASB‬‬

This says that satan has blinded people from the gospel which I don’t deny but it still doesn’t say that they can’t believe the gospel. These people are blinded by their lust for sin and refuse to accept it because they desire sin rather than seeking God. But that goes for everyone. Everyone was blinded by satan at some point in their life. Some choose to believe the gospel and some don’t because they prefer their sinful ways.

If a person can't "see" the light of the gospel, they can't believe it. This is further explained in 1 Cor. 2. A person dead in transgressions can't bring himself to spiritual life enough to see light. It takes an act of God to bring a person to that point.

I still think that Paul’s message to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 is evidence that even those who are still in the flesh can believe the gospel. He specifically says they are in Christ and they are still in the flesh. So they may not be able to understand all that is spiritual but they are obviously not blinded from the gospel to the point of not being able to believe it.

Paul is speaking of spiritual truth, as he laid out in ch. 2. Don't confuse natural understanding with spiritual wisdom. People understand and believe the gospel in their heart, without necessarily understanding with their natural minds.

So when infant Christians are acting carnally like the Corinthians, they need correction and instruction, in which those true believers are singled out by their obedience to what is being said, because the Holy Spirit gives them the understanding. Those who don't take heed to the instruction are proven to be mere men, and not true believers.

If you say to a group of people "God loves you" and give instruction on how to become a Christian, it is unreasonable to expect that every single one of them becomes a true believer. Not one missionary will tell you they have a 100% success rate in conversions. You tell people what you believe they need to hear, but it's up to God to make that seed flourish or not.

So, when Paul rebukes them for the sins they are committing and tells them they are carnal, he is not saying they aren't born again, as IMO this is a false conclusion to the message in ch. 3. Paul is telling them that they are acting like carnal men, that is acting like people not born again, and proceeds to tell them that practicing carnality like that incurs judgment from God, such that they would be excluded from the kingdom (culminating in ch. 6).

So those Corinthian Christians who were actually born again took heed to the message of correction, and those who weren't didn't take heed to it. We know for a fact that some didn't, because Clement of Rome wrote 2 more letters to the Corinthians a generation later rebuking them for the same kind of things.

So your idea that an unregenerated person can believe the gospel on his own in his sinful and unregenerated state, just doesn't hold water according to the context of the NT.
TD

 

[tdidymas]

Let me put it this way.
Before the foundation of the world God knew he would make man and he would fall in sin. He made a plan that His Son would die for our sins as the perfect sacrifice, as sin debt that we could never pay.

Paul plainly said we are predestinated unto the adoption of children. When we are saved we have become that predestinated plan.

The manner in which we are saved is the predestination, not that God chooses who will be saved.

This is what Calvin failed to realize. He threw out the red flag, Rom. 10:13.

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Rom. 10:13 is identifying who is saved, that is, whoever calls on Jesus. It is not a description of the chronological process of salvation, which you appear to be trying to make it into.

Predestined to adoption as sons is the process by which God chooses individuals for salvation. If you claim that God has a generic plan but has no individuals in mind to fulfill that plan, then it's no plan at all, it's just a wish.

The church is made up of individuals, and God's predestinating plan is applied to individuals. The same as Rom. 8:29-31. "Whom He foreknew..." is talking about individuals, not some generic plan that includes no one in particular. Your argument just doesn't hold water.
TD

 

[tdidymas]

Whoever hears my word and believes has passed to life. Order: 1.hear 2. Believe 3. Passed from death to Life.

Again, you cannot assume chronology in a word order. "Has passed" is past tense, whereas "believes" is present tense. Therefore, if someone believes, they have already passed from death to life.
TD

 

[tdidymas]

[
Who is us? Whoever believes. Once again you read it backwards.

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

Again, after you believe, you become one of the group predestined for eternal life.

The KJV is a mistranslation. I already explained this to you.
TD

 

[tdidymas]

I’m sorry friend but I can’t accept this as truth. Not when the early church teachings make so much more sense of it without having to twist verses out of context and deny what is clearly being said. Calvin’s theology was refuted 1400 years before he was born by Iranaeus. His theology makes so much more sense than Calvin’s, probably because he came right behind the apostles, and it doesn’t paint God out to be this unloving and unjust monster who says inny minny miny mo choosing less than half of the entire popular of all time for salvation and burning all the rest in the lake of fire for all eternity when He has the means to save everyone by irresistible grace according to John Calvin. That’s not my God. My God does love the WHOLE world. My God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die so that the WHOLE world can be saved. My God has called to ALL MEN. Unfortunately as a result of their own stubbornness many choose to reject His calling and thus are deserving the righteous punishment of God.

My goodness, is this all you can come up with? No scripture, no reasoning to explain how I misunderstand it, just opinion and accusations, proving that your agenda is to oppose it. If this is all you can do now, then I would guess our conversation is over. What do you think?
TD