If a person is not of the elect, he is but a natural man, void of the Holy Spirit, and will never believe, accept, repent, confess etc. until he has been regenerated and given the Holy Spirit. Even the elect are born into this world as natural man, void of the Holy Spirit. All of the natural man/woman, who are not of the elect, will never be regenerated. Only the elect will be regenerated and receive the Holy Spirit.Do you realize what you are saying?
You are saying that a person who is not one of God's "elect" can follow God's Word, confess Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in his/her heart that God raised Christ from the dead, and that will only "deliver" the person in this life.
If the person is not "elect", he/she will still find him/herself cast into the lake of fire even though he/she followed God's Word, confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and believed in his/her heart that God raised Christ from the dead.
You are also saying that if a person is "elect", he/she can behave as shown in Rom 1:18-32, thumb his/her nose at God, do things which God considers abomination, never believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and still have eternal life.
You have swallowed a lie from the father of lies!!!
Predestination or free wiil.
- Thread starter RDK
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Re-Read 1 Cor 2:14, The natural man cannot follow God's spiritual commandments, because he cannot discern spiritual things. Only regenerated children of God, that have the Holy Spirit within them, will respond to God's commandments. The inspired word of God is written to his children, not to the natural man who cannot understand them, to tell them how God wants his children to live their lives here on earth. All of the scriptures that use the words, repent, accept, believe etc. are directed to regenerated disobedient children of God, and not to the natural man/woman who cannot discern spiritual things.
My friend, I pray you do you take umbrage of me interjecting into this conversation. I would like to show you what my other friend is saying.
1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.(Ephesians 2:1-6)
It says He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. In the Greek, the word is νεκρός(nekros) which means "dead, without life." Our spirit was dead spiritually, like a corpse is physically. God must first bring us to life(quicken) before we can exercise faith and repentance. The lost person is alive physically, but dead spiritually. The lost person's flesh opposes God, hates, is hostile towards Him, is at enmity(has an ill- will towards God) with Him. Unless God first bring the spirit of a lost person to life, they will never trust in Him.
What do you mean "God must first bring us to life" and "God first bring the spirit of a lost person to life"?
To me, when God brings a person to life, it means the person is "born again".
T
theanointedsinner
Guest
The bible says were are slaves to sin and not free by any means. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 “You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both." You either love the Lord or love Satan. Then Paul reaffirms this is Romans 6 "Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call!" Sin has dominion of the ones who are lost without Jesus.
if we are not free "by any means", then there is no justice in punishing people for sins.
There must be some freedom in our acts and will for us to be reponsible for our acts and will.
I do not believe in free will, but I do believe we will that moves freely. Let me explain this. When someone is locked up in a prison cell, they are confined to that cell, meaning they can not go past the bars that have them confined. Yet, in that cell, they can freely move. The lost freely will within the confines of their fallen nature, but their fallen nature precludes them from coming out from it, just like prison bars preclude the confined prisoners from getting past those bars. Someone has to come in and free them from their confinement. Jesus is the only One who can set the lost free, and this includes their will. Jesus said “I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through."(John 8)
All you have to do is look at the cross to see people freely crucify Jesus. Peter said
“Fellow Israelites, listen carefully to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man thoroughly accredited by God to you—the miracles and wonders and signs that God did through him are common knowledge—this Jesus, following the deliberate and well-thought-out plan of God, was betrayed by men who took the law into their own hands, and was handed over to you."(Acts 2)
Can you tell me, what is the guilt of the prisoner, then? If he is born into prison and cannot get out of the prison, how can God judge him for being in prison and still be loving, good and just God.
I am not sure what response you think this is to my question about guilt and responsibility...
When Adam sinned, we sinned, being in Adam. We were not there, but Adam represented us all, his whole posterity. Its called Federal Headship.
To be eternally punished for being born of a bad father is neither justice nor love.
This is why I cannot be a calvinist, even though I accept many of their teachings about election and predestination.
Adam was our representative, the whole human race, just as Jesus was the representative of the elect of God. Romans 5:12-19 explains this exquisitely.
a) So, again, where is the guilt of the person, in what exactly?
b) Also, where is the goodness, justice and love of God in all that?
Yet we are already responsible in our head Adam prior to conversion; Romans 5. Therefore God is just to punish the sinner, as all are under wrath; Ephesians 2:3, the entire world is guilty; Romans 3, and all are under condemnation; John 3:15ff.