Mike Winger's "Why I think Calvinism is Unbiblical"

[NEWTOCHRISTIANITY]

@maxamir : And if not, then how do I become saved?

 

[Evmur]

Please read John 10 where Christ declares He lays down His life for His sheep and then confirms that some were not His sheep.

Everyone limits Christs atonement. The Scriptures limit it in scope but it seems like you limit in sufficiency.

The Scriptures declare that Christ gave His life as a ransom for all but Christ Himself said that He gave His life as a ransom for many. Logically, all can not mean every single person without exception because many does not mean all and therefore it can only be concluded that Christ gave His life as a ransom for all of the many which are His elect.

1Ti_2:6 who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,

Mat_20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
Mar_10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

Therefore, people should not be asked if they have chosen God but whether God has chosen them for it is the doctrine of predestination which limits salvation to those He has chosen that most humbles man and puts the fear of God into him.

Those who die in their sin will know for all eternity that God never chose them and instead eternally and justly hated them.

This is what I object to

You quote the scripture and then you quote the workings out of these scriptures by scholarly men and hold both up as the received truth of equal value

Human logic is not an adequate interpreter of scripture, this is just the fault I find with Calvin.
Logically he would seem to be correct.

But all this is based upon a false assumption that Predestination and [especially] Election concerns salvation per se. It does not [imo] it applies to being the elect [chosenj] people or family of God in the earth. It excludes nobody from being saved.

Abraham was chosen but Lot also was saved.

 

[Evmur]

you are right, God uses the foolishness of Gospel preaching to grant saving faith to His people who humbly recognise that the faith given to them through which they are saved is a gift of God's grace and not something in which they can boast.

So then you were saved by your humility, not only so but you were very wise and prudent to recognise that salvation is by faith.

 

[Evmur]

It should be the desire of every Christian to love all and therefore also desire for all to be saved but the Scriptures reveal this is not the will of God who alone knows all He loves and has chosen to save. Christians do not know who God has chosen and therefore are called to reflect the love shown to them even while they were enemies of God to all even those who are their enemies.

Grace is particular only to those who are saved and is not to be confused with God's good providence to all which only serves to make the wicked more accountable unto their greater judgement.

there ya go again

first the scripture then the scholarly workings out by human logic which you hold as equal truth.

See, when I read Paul "I would oh Agrippa that all men were as me apart from these chains" I see no limitation on God's part but see only Agrippa held back in bondage.

We haven't even begun to think about Federal Headship whereby God holds some men [leaders] more accountable than others.

 

[Evmur]

You fail to realise that the good news includes that God is perfectly good in His holy justice which is the foundation of the cross and not mercy which is only given because justice is satisfied in Christ who laid down His life for His sheep and not the goats.

Christ's sacrifice is sufficient and efficient only for those He draws unto Himself by grace alone through faith alone. His sheep come from all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues throughout the whole world without distinction and not every person without exception as you seem to assume.

It was only at the cross where Christ propitiated the sins of His people and rose form the dead for their justification but the reason He is coming again includes His good judgement against the rest of the sins of this world which were not paid for at the cross which is what Paul preached to the Athenians.

Act 17:30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
Act 17:31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."

The good news of the Gospel involves lovingly telling people that salvation has been secured in Christ for those He has chosen and warning them of the repercussions of dying in their sin without His indescribable gift as did John the Baptist below.

Joh 3:36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

The great misfortune with any falseness of doctrine is you get snagged upon it, it acts like a lasso that throws you and pins you down and you can't move on to greater light.

You are stuck as though in a groove, you spend your whole life on this one point of doctrine, trying to prove it. It's just like the sacramentalists spending their whole life trying to prove the efficacy of sacraments.

You are in that groove because God wants you to learn it. Then you can move on.

You don't ever think of the Rapture or the 1, 000 year reign of Christ on earth with His saints ... if you did you would know that the sheep and goats of Matt. 25. are neither of them the church.

 

[John146]

Then according to you, Christ failed and was unable to save those who are now in Hell.

What did Christ mean when He said "It is finished"?

It is finished. Jesus satisfied God’s required payment for sin for the whole world and whosoever would believe would have the blood of Jesus applied to them.

1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

 

[HeIsHere]

Then according to you, Christ failed and was unable to save those who are now in Hell.

What did Christ mean when He said "It is finished"?

God does not fail.

 

[cv5]

Why do you feel so sure the tribulation didn't take place already?

I should have posted these passages together. My bad.....
So yes, the tribulation culminates by the ultimate dramatic theodicy. The Second Coming.
Israel MUST ASK (***of their own free will***) CHRIST TO RETURN ("speak to the Rock") before He comes......the Second Coming.

Hos 5:15
I will return again to My place
Till they acknowledge their offense.
***Then*** they will seek My face;
In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

The entire 12th chapter of Zechariah is wholly rooted in the time of the 7 year tribulation,
as evidenced by the much-repeated term "in that day"....the DOTL.

Zec 12:9
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
Zec 12:10
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
Zec 12:11
In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
Zec 12:12
And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;
Zec 12:13
The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;
Zec 12:14
All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

 

[FollowerofShiloh]

I am beyond myself in reason to understand this concept that "if man has ((free will)) he is able to thwart God and His plan."

Satan, who is more powerful than any man had free will and the Fallen Angels and they could never and still cannot thwart God from His Plan. If Satan, an Angel, more powerful than every human being that ever lived combined cannot stop God, then how can a single person stop God and His Will?

The stupid "is real" with some people.

 

[Magenta]

If a person sys that

salvation belongs to Hi and

it is hard to take what you say seriously when you can not even spell correctly.

Eh?

 

[Magenta]

I am beyond myself in reason to understand this concept that "if man has ((free will)) he is able to thwart God and His plan."

Satan, who is more powerful than any man had free will and the Fallen Angels and they could never and still cannot thwart God from His Plan. If Satan, an Angel, more powerful than every human being that ever lived combined cannot stop God, then how can a single person stop God and His Will?

The stupid "is real" with some people.

I do know what you mean and yet because God does desire everyone to repent and come to a knowledge of the truth, with man's will being naturally bent away from God it does mean that some will refuse to submit, and yet the other side of that is that all along it has been God's plan to destroy those who do not acknowledge who He is. So God's will is not thwarted after all regardless of the final income of each and every individual.

 

[FollowerofShiloh]

I do know what you mean and yet because God does desire everyone to repent and come to a knowledge of the truth, with man's will being naturally bent away from God it does mean that some will refuse to submit, and yet the other side of that is that all along it has been God's plan to destroy those who do not acknowledge who He is. So God's will is not thwarted after all regardless of the final income of each and every individual.

Amen!

Look at all of the times kings in Israel rejected God and God would replace them.
God would have replaced Jonah had he not Prayed: He's clearly entangled by seaweed and drowning and before he dies he prayed in his mind.
5 The waters closed in over me to take my life;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
6 at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord my God.
7 When my life was fainting away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you

So God will just replace anyone not willing. It's not going to Stop God from having His Will done. If someone does not want to do it then God will find one who will and it will get done.

 

[Inquisitor]

the book of Romans is the greatest exposition of the Gospel in which the righteousness of God is revealed against the evil of sinful man for the salvation of those God loves in Christ who are circumcised of heart and not of the flesh.

I will correct what you stated.

The letter to the Romans is an exposition of why Israel failed to achieve righteousness.
While the Gentiles did achieve that righteousness.

Romans 9:30-31
What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, but the righteousness that is by faith; however, Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.

Romans 10:3
For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

Romans 11:7
What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened.

You failed to understand the narration of Paul in Romans.

The question then follows; how did you not understand what the subject of Romans was?

I think I know why and I have noticed this with Calvinists.

 

[Inquisitor]

I don't remember hearing about huge wars with demon armies anywhere in Jewish recorded history.

And of course, everybody knows that this did not occur either:

Rev 9:5
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
Rev 9:6
And in those days [THOSE FIVE MONTHS] shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

God suspends death for five months (while they are in torments of pain - this occurring BEFORE the mark of the beast is imposed) as a MERCY to the earth dwellers. Why? So that they recognize the dire implications of this:

Rev 14:9
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:11
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Eternal torment in the lake of fire. The five months where death is suspended is a FORETASTE of existence in the lake of fire.
These five months are a dire warning by God Who can suspend death itself as He desires.

And yes, I take this literally......because I actually understand the book of Revelation, what is going on, when and WHY.

At last, we have someone who can explain the book of revelation!

How do you read the following verses given that the end of the world has taken place.
These passages indicate the end occurs during the third woe.

Romans 11
14 The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is coming quickly.
15 Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ;
and He will reign forever and ever.”
16 And the twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces
and worshiped God,
17 saying, “We give You thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, the One who is and who was,
because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.
18 And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead
to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and
those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”

 

[maxamir]

I see, but then do you think I've been saved?

Only God can give you true assurance.

All I can say from Scripture is if God has humbled you and shown you that you deserve Hell and that you have no righteousness in yourself and can do nothing to save yourself but you are led to cry out to Him to grant you by grace alone, true repentance and faith only in the person and work of Christ, which is evidenced in being made a new person who once hated God and loved sin to now loving God and hating sin and whose hope is not in the temporary things of this world but in eternity with Him, loving His word and sincerely seeking to be obedient to it out of gratitude, then, from such a testimony, I would call you a brother in Christ.

 

[maxamir]

@maxamir : And if not, then how do I become saved?

Humble yourself before your Creator and cry out to Him alone to save you by His grace which was so clearly demonstrated in the person and work of Christ Jesus.

 

[maxamir]

This is what I object to

You quote the scripture and then you quote the workings out of these scriptures by scholarly men and hold both up as the received truth of equal value

Human logic is not an adequate interpreter of scripture, this is just the fault I find with Calvin.
Logically he would seem to be correct.

But all this is based upon a false assumption that Predestination and [especially] Election concerns salvation per se. It does not [imo] it applies to being the elect [chosenj] people or family of God in the earth. It excludes nobody from being saved.

Abraham was chosen but Lot also was saved.

I have given you the plain truth of Scripture but it seems like you continue to reject the clear teaching of sovereign election and by doing so you reject the work of the Godhead and therefore the Trinity in which God Holy Father chose His people and sent His Holy Son to secure their salvation and the Holy Spirit to seal that salvation to them.

 

[maxamir]

So then you were saved by your humility, not only so but you were very wise and prudent to recognise that salvation is by faith.

it was God Himself who humbled me by opening my eyes to His holiness and the offense of my sin against Him which deserved eternal wrath and who showed me Christ who bore my curse and wore my wrath in my stead to pay the price for my forgiveness, guaranteed in His resurrection unto my justification through the faith He had given me by grace alone to receive His perfect righteousness and hope of eternal life.

 

[maxamir]

there ya go again

first the scripture then the scholarly workings out by human logic which you hold as equal truth.

See, when I read Paul "I would oh Agrippa that all men were as me apart from these chains" I see no limitation on God's part but see only Agrippa held back in bondage.

We haven't even begun to think about Federal Headship whereby God holds some men [leaders] more accountable than others.

as I have already explained to you, from God's perspective and His eternal decree as confirmed in Scripture, not all are saved. Therefore the Christian from their perspective within time is to submit to God in all things and seek to reflect the love shown to them in faithfully loving and warning all that there are few who will enter the Kingdom according to God's will rather than deceiving people into thinking that salvation is dependent upon their depraved wills.

People do not fear God today because people such as yourself are either unfaithful in telling people who God is or are too scared to do so.

 

[maxamir]

The great misfortune with any falseness of doctrine is you get snagged upon it, it acts like a lasso that throws you and pins you down and you can't move on to greater light.

You are stuck as though in a groove, you spend your whole life on this one point of doctrine, trying to prove it. It's just like the sacramentalists spending their whole life trying to prove the efficacy of sacraments.

You are in that groove because God wants you to learn it. Then you can move on.

You don't ever think of the Rapture or the 1, 000 year reign of Christ on earth with His saints ... if you did you would know that the sheep and goats of Matt. 25. are neither of them the church.

thank you for proving that the source of your judicial blindness is your false and cowardly dispensational eschatology which seeks to evade the suffering promised to the godly through an unbiblical rapture and hopes to see this world blown up in order to try to quicken the coming of Christ into a carnal kingdom where blasphemous sacrifices are to be reinstated, not realising that Christ is reigning right now in His people and has already handed this world over to the loosing of Satan unto its greater judgement and not in a thousand years time as you falsely presume and are deceived into believing and will prove yourself to be a goat unless God grants you the grace to submit to Him alone and the particular grace He has provided through Christ alone and not the choice of sinful men.