You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?[a] 4 Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? 5 So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?
If you can't see the difference between faith and works shown here, I don't know what to tell you. And take note, he says that we receive the Spirit by having faith. Calvinism reverses this and says we have to have the Spirit to have faith. The contrast between faith and works is as plain as day and so is the order of salvation.
Context. Works of the Mosaic Law. Not works of the Law of the Spirit.
Romans 7:14-8:8
"For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind of 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."
But this is exactly what Arminian soteriology asserts: while the sinner is still in the flesh, still unregenerate s/he pleases God.
Two laws. A person is either a slave of sin or a slave or righteousness. There is no middle ground and no third option of independence or autonomy. I received the Spirit by the law of the Spirit, not the law of sin and death.
Context.
You've missed it.
Those to whom the epistolary were written had and continue to have the law of the Spirit at work in them and it is by
that law we are saved.
You neglected to render the opening of Galatians in its proper context even though Paul was conisistent and quite explicit the old law cannot save but the new law can and does. We are saved by grace through faith and this salvation that is by grace and through faith
is not of our own. It - the whole package not just the salvation and not just the grace and not just the faith; the whole kit and caboodle - is a
gift from God and He is creating us in His Son for good works He planned in advance for us to perform.
Not a single causal reference to human volition, especially not the sinfully dead slave's will/choice/volition/faith/belief or mind of flesh that
cannot please God.
Arminians remove faith's inherent connection to works when Augustine, Luther, Calvin and the rest understood our salvation by faith alone necessarily begets works. The two cannot be extricated from one another so there is no sinful faith that is never acted upon, never voiced, never committed to before God saves.
When you find such an example in scripture you post it.
Otherwise, the Arminian soteriology is a salvation absent any explicit causal report of volitional agency
and a salvation absent any explicit precedent example in the scriptures. The
only way a volitionalist can ever make his case is through eisegetic inference.
And so far every single one of you Arms has demonstrated that fact and proven my posts correct.
So
think! Something very specific is asked of you. Proof-texting won't resolve the failure. Eisegesis won't solve the failure. Ad hominem, goal post moving, onus shifting, red herrings, straw men and tu quoques will not resolve these failures. You just tried to prove faith isn't work and failed. You failed because you quoted a passage about the law of sin and not the law of the Spirit by which we are made free of the law of sin
so we can, will, and do believe.
So either try it again with a properly exegetied text, or concede the point.
