Why can't Salvation be mutual?

[Dondi]

Christ's answer that the stones would cry out was a reference to the fact that the Scriptures must be fulfilled. Zech. 9:9 The problem with this line of thinking is that it makes God reactionary. He reacts to what men do instead of men doing what He wills. That would make Him to be mutable and having to constantly change His methods and His mind, so to speak. He wills it to be done this way but men refuse so He must seek another way of getting it done. It also goes against His infinite knowledge and wisdom. If He knows the best possible way to accomplish His purpose and will why would He make it contingent on man's puny will? I never read in the Bible god sayng I hope you will or even I wish you would but He always says I will and usually follows it with you shall. No maybes, mights or hope so's. See Ezek. 36:22-31 for an example.....

When I read the history of the Old Testament I see the hand of God working to bring Christ into the world at the perfect for-ordained time to accomplish His purpose of grace to chosen sinners. From the first gospel proclamation in Gen. 3:16 to the time when Joseph was espoused to Mary, God was working to bring Christ into the world. He is still working to bring the world to its expected end and it will not happen until He brings it to that point. All that God has done and is doing is perfectly planned and wisely worked out by the Sovreign of the universe.

Have you never read Deuteronomy 30:19?

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:"

Looks like a choice to me.

It was God's will from Judah's line come the Messiah. When Onan, Judah's son, refused to propagate with his late brother's wife, Tamar, according to levirite marriage tradition and spilled his seed on the ground, God killed him.

So how was Judah's line preserved? Well, it should have fallen to Judah's youngest son, Shelah, to take Tamar as wife, but he was too young at the time and Judah planned on giving Tamar to him when he grew up. However, Tamar disguised herself as a harlot and went into Judah herself, and ended up having twins by Him.

One of these twins was named Pharez, the one with the scarlot thread. And if you look at the lineage of Jesus in Matthew 1, you will see that Pharez is the ancestor of Jesus.

Now was it not God's will that Onan provide the lineage for Judah to preserve the Messiahnic line? And that by Onan's trangression of disobeying he was killed. But wonders of wonders, how God worked around the issue and the line of Judah was preserved. Not exactly how God planned, but His purposes were fulfilled nonetheless.

Well, this is the type of thing I am talking about. We mess up, but God makes a way of fixing things according to His purpose, despite our mistakes.

He is going to have His will done. It is more difficult when we don't obey, but He'll get it done regardless.

 

[Easystreet]

I did not miss the fact that you mentioned that they heard your buddy preach the gospel. The gospel saves not dead people.


The last time I read the Bible - Just a few minutes ago - Jesus is still Savior. Did not see anyone else’s name in the Bible that qualifies for that position.

These dead people from the past - their sermons are not winning people to Christ. You got it all wrong my friend. (southern genre)

People hear the gospel, they believe, and are saved. People don't run out and get a book by any dead or living Christian and get saved in their name. NO, lost people don't have a clue about Philosophical Calvinism, Arminianism, or any other ism that has attached itself onto Christ.

You know Paul and Peter won a bunch of folk to Christ. There is my proof that I believe correctly. Let me tell you folks I know I am right because Paul and Peter did it. We aren’t doing anything but I believe like they do and rest in them. Glory to them and their work - they did enough for me.

See how foolish that is. If that is my confidence I am in trouble.

Here is the real deal. You and I are to be witnesses Now - they are dead and gone. What you said is like a son relying on his Preacher Dad's faith. My dad is a preacher or was one. So, you will still bust Hell hard and fast if you don't believe. I think I have made my point.

 

[mlqurgw]

Have you never read Deuteronomy 30:19?

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:"

Looks like a choice to me.

I cannot fault you for using the same method that Christ used in dealing with the Pharisees, especially since you probably consider me to be like them, reading but missing the message. Of course I can say the same.
Deut. is a repetition of the Law. The Law was a conditional covenant of works by which God makes promises conditioned on obedience. Rather than being a declaration of the will of God it is a declaration of what it is to be righteous. The conditions are set forth and declared openly but they never met them. God both commands and enjoins them by reason of obedience is life. Obedience and faith are the most reasonable things in the world but man isn't reasonable when it comes to spiritual truth. God setting it forth as a choice puts it in contrast and like a diamond set against a black background, makes their disobedience all the more plan. Unregenerate man's choice is always disobedience because he loves darkness rather than light. This passage is not proof of salvation being by the choice of man but a declaration and proof that man always makes the wrong choice.

It was God's will from Judah's line come the Messiah. When Onan, Judah's son, refused to propagate with his late brother's wife, Tamar, according to levirite marriage tradition and spilled his seed on the ground, God killed him.

So how was Judah's line preserved? Well, it should have fallen to Judah's youngest son, Shelah, to take Tamar as wife, but he was too young at the time and Judah planned on giving Tamar to him when he grew up. However, Tamar disguised herself as a harlot and went into Judah herself, and ended up having twins by Him.

One of these twins was named Pharez, the one with the scarlot thread. And if you look at the lineage of Jesus in Matthew 1, you will see that Pharez is the ancestor of Jesus.

Now was it not God's will that Onan provide the lineage for Judah to preserve the Messiahnic line? And that by Onan's trangression of disobeying he was killed. But wonders of wonders, how God worked around the issue and the line of Judah was preserved. Not exactly how God planned, but His purposes were fulfilled nonetheless.

If it had been God's will that Onan provide the lineage then there would have been 15 generations between Abraham and David instead of the 14 that God had determined. Matt.1:17. God did exactly as He had determined to be done to make the lineage of Christ exactly as it was.

Well, this is the type of thing I am talking about. We mess up, but God makes a way of fixing things according to His purpose, despite our mistakes.

He is going to have His will done. It is more difficult when we don't obey, but He'll get it done regardless.

Difficult for who, God? Nothing is difficult for God. Our mistakes are all according to the plan of God. If David hadn't sinned with Bathsheba Solomon wouldn't have been born. If Elimelech hadn't gone into Moab Ruth would have never met Boaz. If the Jews hadn't crucified the Lord of Glory we wouldn't have Savior. I am often amazed at how such small insignificant things change the course of history. Yet they occur according to the perfect, wise and wonderful plan of God.

 

[HypoTypoSis]

The next thing on the agenda of those PCers will be either drowning us or burning us at the stake. Look what they did in history. Murdered people in the name of their Doctrine.

If it were not for our Government being as it is today those of us that Believe the Bible would be treated the same way. PC,ers would evolve back to Murderous tyrants.

Killing believers who they rejected infant baptism and then were baptized in public professing the Lord Jesus Christ.

Put the PC,ers in an environment like that day and we Free Willers are toast.

Excellent point, for sure. But do you think for one second they would even dream of acknowledging this historically proven fact as completely viable in this day and age if instead of our laws today the times were as they were then? Afterall, it was Calvin that relished in using green wood so people would burn slow because they did not believe God's word exactly as he. Can Calvinists even claim there is a diference between their forebears and radical Islamists today in this regard? Doubtful, extemely doubtful.

Free will to freely choose to freely accept a freely given gift.

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Dang! That sure raises a question.

If Calvin was so right then why did he have to force people to believe his ideas by giving them a choice to either believe as he commanded or be burnt with slow burning green wood?

Where's the free will in that? That's not an act of free will. That is coercion and denies the entire concept of a freely given gift that is freely accepted by an act of a free will.

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Thus, it would seem, that

Jesus taught salvation by free will

while

Calvin taught salvation by coercion.

 

[mlqurgw]

This is very amusing, in other words laughable. It isn't even worthy of a thoughtful response. Do you honestly think this convinces anyone? What a joke.

 

[BBAS 64]

Thus, it would seem, that

Jesus taught salvation by free will

while

Calvin taught salvation by coercion.[/quote]

Good Day, HypoTyposis

Just searched all the works of Calvin.....

coercion... zero results

Source please.

Peace to u,

Bill

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Coercion is when someone does something they would not normally be so predisposed to do. It is an act against the free will.

Black's Law Dictionary (Rev 4th Ed) has this to say:

Coercion: Compulsion; constraint. compelling by force or arms.

It may actual, direct, or positive, as where physical force is used to compel act against one's will, or implied, legal or constructive, as where one party is constrained by subjugation to other to do what his free will would refuse. It may be actual or threatened exercise of power possessed, or supposedly possessed.

As used in testamentary law, any pressure by which testator's action is restrained against his free will in the execution of his testament.

Duress and coercion are not synonymous though their meanings often shade into one another.

As to Black's first paragraph, If, for example, drinking beer is against your will and I hold a .45 to your head and give you a choice, drink or die, and you drink you have then done something against your free will free choice nature that you would not have normally done. Why? Because you had no real free will free choice thus you had no real choice in the matter as the coercive nature overrode your free will and you made the only non-free will choice that would allow you live. If you apply the same scenario to salvation the end results are the same, you are saved against your will thus there is no free will act in submitting your will to that of God's will allowing Jesus to save you.

Which brings us to the 2nd paragraph in Black's definition regarding testamentary law. Jesus had to of a free will make a free choice to give His life in a sacrifice for those in which His (last) will and testament bequeathed as His heirs or it would not have been a legally binding contract, i.e. covenant i.e. testament. By the same token, the heirs must also accept just as freely of just the same free will nature that which the testator has bequeathed to the heirs.

Thus, according to the definitions given so far by Calvinites, they are saved against their will.

 

[5pointCalvinist]

First off, let me say that I am a Baptist, who is Calvinist. I think many of you don't quite understand Calvinism and it's doctrines. Let me make it clear first to say you don't have to be Calvinist to be saved. I believe it to be the truth, but it is not essential to know for salvation. Jesus saves all born-again Baptists, Armenians, Calvinists, and others regardles of denomination or theology preference.

The most compelling Biblical arguement I can give you in defense of Calvinism is the account of Paul's conversion. As we all know (I'm paraphrasing here) Saul was riding on his horse looking to kill Christians. Jesus then knocks him off his horse, blinds him, and then tells him that he is now to serve Jesus instead of persecuting him. Paul constantly refers to himself as a slave to righteousness and Christ. He was not "coerced" in the way you describe it, but he was given faith by Jesus, who initiated the contact. Yes Paul had to make the choice to obey Jesus, but he was given faith.

I could be caught up in semantics with Armenian theology, but I don't see how you could say it coordinates Biblically. Before anyone flames me, most Baptists are not Armenian, but not usually Calvinistic. I go to a Baptist Church that is not Calvinistic in theology, but they believe in free grace.

On a personal note, I relate my conversion to Christianity to that of Paul. Before I was saved I was a wiccan who persecuted Christians and wanted nothing to do with them. I was told the Gospel one day, and God put convicition in my heart of my sinfulness. I then became a Christian. I was not looking for Christianity before that, but now I have been walking with Jesus for six years now. I did not come to faith without the faith given to me from Christ. See Romans 6:23 for more details on what I'm talking about.

I hope that I can clear up so misconceptions about Calvinsim. I don't want people to fight about it though. We need to be coming together, instead of coming up with divisions to divide us.

 

[PETE_]

Advancing step by step, I would remind you that there is a great opposition in man himself to the sweet influences of the Holy Spirit. When the time comes for any one man to be saved, his natural enmity is sure to be on the alert against the divine power, and Satan is certain also to strengthen him lest he should lose his victim. Now, I glorify God in this that thou, sinner, though thou mayst resist and grieve the Spirit for awhile, yet if he comes to thee with omnipotent power effectually to save, thou must yield, for thou, even thou, with all thine enmity, canst not bind the sweet influences of the Spirit of eternal life. It is with many men as I have sometimes seen with a village brook; it has been dammed up for some reason, and the water has become a pool. A heavy shower has by-and-by fallen upon the hills, and the full stream has leaped downward. There stands the dam for a little while, but it trembles as the stream swells. Perhaps the villagers strengthen it, but if the rain continues to fall, the stream increases in volume, and at last, with one noble outburst, down leaps the torrent, and the dam is swept away like a bowing wall. So with our evil nature, when the Holy Ghost comes, with greater and greater power, descending from the hills of God’s eternal purposes, at last sweeps away every remnant of opposition, and on he sweeps in the greatness of his strength. “You deny, then,” says one, “the free-will of man?” Who says that? I never denied it; on the contrary, I insist upon it more than most men. There is no opposition between the doctrine of irresistible grace and the fact of the free agency of man. “How,” say you, “if man be thus irresistibly carried as by storm, how can he be free?” Bethink thyself, man, and answer for thyself. Wert thou never overcome in argument? Didst thou never resist an argument for a time, till at last another reason was given, and then another, and thou couldst not but yield to the overwhelming arguments? Didst thou then prove that thou hadst no reason of thine own? Nay, it proved thou hadst a reason, and therefore could be mastered by arguments fitted to thy reason. If thou hadst been bereft of reason-an idiot-nobody could have spoken of an irresistible argument so far as thou wert concerned, but thy powers of understanding enabled thee to be overcome by legitimate force. So with the will-we do not dream, as some falsely imagine, that physical force is used by the Lord with men’s moral natures, but we teach that there are appeals and persuasions, arguments and forces, which are applicable to the will which, without violating its freedom even in the smallest degree, yet overwhelm it and subdue it to the right and the true, so that the man with full consent yields up himself to the full power of divine love.http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=28311631#_ftn1
http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=28311631#_ftnref1Spurgeon, C. H.

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Taking that Kierkegaardian leap of faith stepping out off of the ledge of the cliff knowing there is going to be nothing but gravity pulling you down below to the deep abyss believing, instead, that you will not fall is not something that God gives.

But giving it increase, yes, that is something the Almighty does.

1 Corinthians 3:6-7, "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase."

We must take that first step believing He will not let us fall.

John 3:15, "That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."

 

[HypoTypoSis]

James 1:6, "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed."

Obviously, if receiving faith was soley dependant upon God's distribution there would be no need for the cautionary passage telling us not to let our faith waver for if God gave it to us then, being from God and thus perfect, wavering would not be an issue.

 

[JPPT1974]

Thus, it would seem, that

Jesus taught salvation by free will

while

Calvin taught salvation by coercion.

Salvation is free only available through
Accepting Christ as Savior & Lord

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Salvation is free only available through
Accepting Christ as Savior & Lord

Actually, "free" is not quite correct, in fact, it is kinduv lopsided for while it may be "free" for us it came at an extreme cost for Him.