Obviously they are being dishonest because in their man centered view, the unrighteous require zero help from God. They are their own workmanship.
Did Jesus Die on The Cross for The Just/Elect/Saved Whose Names Are Written in The Book of Life OR
- Thread starter MerSee
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All the seed of the Serpent hate God as much as their spiritual father does. And evil hearts cannot make good choices. Bad trees cannot bear good fruit.
Listen carefully to what Jesus said the Serpent's children:
Matt 12:34-35
34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.
NIV
Then also compare the above with this passage:
Jer 13:23
23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin
or the leopard its spots?
Neither can you do good
who are accustomed to doing evil.
NIV
It's not in man's power or any creature's power to change our nature -- our essence -- what we ARE. We cannot become something we ARE NOT! God cannot even change what he is!
This is taught in scripture and is thought by many to be the First Law of Logic, i.e. the Law of Identity.
A few comments:
- Rom1:16 in looking at this with some more precision, IMO it simply tells us:
- The Good News from God:
- Is Power from God
- The purpose of this Good News from God / Power from God is Salvation
- (which is paralleled by Righteousness from God in 1:17)
- This Good News from God / Power from God for the purpose of Salvation is for the benefit of all (Jews & Greeks) who believe [it].
- IOW:
- It's really just a general statement of fact
- It benefits whoever believes it
- I normally don't do analogies but this is like a free-flowing pure water public drinking fountain that anybody can freely drink from. All they have to do is be thirsty and take a drink (John4 Jesus re: living water).
- It doesn't say how one comes to believe it.
- So we go to other Scriptures
- The Good News from God:
- Acts2:37:
- Pierced to/stabbed in the heart is idiom we can all understand. It's emotional distress.
- All that's in this verse in context that stabbed them was what they heard from Peter as he explained the sign from God that the resurrected Jesus Christ now at the right of God had received the Holy Spirit from God and per prophecy was pouring the Spirit out on men.
- So, Peter is giving the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Jesus is with him pouring out the Spirit to substantiate what Peter is proclaiming as he draws from Scripture from God that his audience trusted.
- Anything other than this is imported / eisegeted unless proven by other Scripture.
- It seems God is doing an awful lot of work and having His proclaimer do an awful lot of work if all that had to be done by God is to give people a new heart or resurrect them or ??? so they could believe.
All this antagonism and disagreement seems to be centered around how an unbeliever believes:
- @Cameron143 and I think @Magenta say that God must circumcise the heart of the unbeliever so they can believe.
- @Rufus seems to think God must resurrect the dead/unbeliever so they can believe.
- I don't agree with either of the above and think the Word of God (Good News) and/namely the Spirit of God (which are paralleled in Prov1:23) can be received and believed by anyone ready to hear and learn from God.
- I'll let anyone else who cares to explain their own view do so and anyone can correct me where I'm wrong about their view.
- I'm happy to go through any Scripture one verse/small section at a time that anyone thinks substantiates their view.
Yes we would agree on that! Can you answer this question for me: The verse you have quoted in 1 Cor 1:30, and surrounding verses where these Corinthians are the chosen ones, the elect of God. 100% saved.
Why does Paul say to these same Corinthians in 1 Cor 6:9-10 for example to not be deceived, that if they live like this they won't make it to the kingdom of God? Why warn people about things like that if its already done for them, they are already the elect, so there is no risk of them falling away. The warning passages arent something to be taken very seriously in calvinism as they would only apply to the false professing ones not the truly elect ones. Even though the letter is clearly written to the elect ones!
While I believe much of this is very good, you have no explanation for how someone who is opposed to God suddenly is ready to hear from God. And this is the crux of the matter for me. How does a person go from Romans 3 to Acts 2:37? The idea that it is simply a change of the mind and doesn't incorporate the entire person being changed, in my understanding, is inconsistent with what is recorded in Acts 2:37.
Confusion....
Seeing and exposing one error that is truly an error, and then countering it with another error.
Confusion....
It always comes down to the fact that to some, the natural man is nowhere near as bad as what Scripture describes. The fact that the Bible describes the natural man as a slave to sin, taken captive to the devil's will, means nothing to them... that no man is righteous means nothing to them, that no bad tree can produce good fruit means nothing to them. Man of his own natural resources is capable of saving himself. No supernatural intervention is required. They might as well say Jesus was not needed after all because we can do it all by ourselves!
Good way of putting it! And they are too proud to acknowledge that they were helpless, without power and in dire need of being rescued by God! PRIDE -- perhaps the deadliest sin of all (Prov 16:18). Augustine famously said:
It was Pride that turned angels into devils; it is Humility that makes men as angels.
And what is pride if not an excessive view or opinion of oneself by which a person has a grandiose belief in his own abilities (Jer 9:23-24) whereby the person places trust in himself instead of in God.
Now that I have you here for a moment....since you generally have sound spiritual insights, I'm wondering if you have ever come to terms with difficult passages like Prov 16:1, 9; 19:21; Job 23:13-14; Ps 110:3; Jer 10:23, etc. ? The common theme in these passages is the intersection where the sovereignty of God's will and man's meet. Have you ever given serious contemplation to these kinds of passages? And if so, would you mind sharing your insights? But if you haven't...don't feel badly about that either. These are not easy passages to reconcile.
I have some general ideas of my own but I would like to hear from you and even from others as to how they understand these passages.
Thank you! I will have to come back to this post later today because I'm at work and unable to look up passages and post at the same time on my phone... But I will say that even Jesus' will in His humanity did not always align with God's will yet He submitted to God's will in all things. These people who exalt the capabilities of the natural man then in essence make the natural man as great as Jesus... As if the natural man was not wretched pitiful poor blind and naked.
When are you going to get over this hump and move on to greater things to understand that God wants understood?
It seems that those people who get caught up in that one truth about the depravity of man, never seem to grow an inch, and keep harping, day after day, on the depravity of man without end. Never growing into knowing the many thousands of other doctrines God wants us to learn before we get taken out of time and space on this earth.
Man in his natural state is depraved? OK. Now move on!
Calvinists in forums have become like someone stumbling upon a hermit who has dug a hole in a hill next to the road, and stays in the same place all the time, warning those passing by about how man is depraved.
Ok! Man is depraved!
What comes next after God's New Creation in Christ is established? The same depravity?
It a trap to keep some held back from maturing in Christ!
Good observation and question. My statement purposely deserved this.
Firstly, and primarily, my simplest answer in overview without all the Scripture actually posted at this point (hopefully you'll recognize where I'm drawing from) is:
- The Word of God and Spirit of God remain active in the world. Proclaimers are being sent and the Spirit is convicting/convincing. And since they are both inextricably interrelated, then they each and both have the power to do what they are doing. And the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. I think He laughs in derision against any man who thinks otherwise.
- Precisely how God gets through to men I have some thoughts on (see below) but I remain open to discussion from Scripture.
- Rom3 seems all inclusive but it is being written by someone who is not or no longer is included, and the Scriptures Paul draws from distinctly identify the fools/wicked who say there is no God while also identifying God's people, so not all are fools who say there is no God. I see no way of going down through history in the Bible and coming up with all men being the God rejecters Paul seems to speak of. Generally speaking, sure, but not in the absolute sense even though at times in history things were worse than at other times. Some men do not reject the knowledge of God that He has made clear in all men.
- Acts2:37 I think this is simply what it says it is and it's not the transition you may think it is if you see Rom3 differently than I just explained. Acts 2 is men who believed God existed and who were expecting Messiah and transitioned into belief that Jesus is Messiah based upon work the resurrected Messiah / the Spirit was doing among them along with some of their countrymen sent by God to proclaim the Gospel to them.
- The Gentiles:
- Men have consciences and that conscience is God created and God given and the work (singular) of God's law is done in men to varying degrees. Man's conscience can be extremely strong in some if not many. And orientation to conscience however strong or weak, if the standards are from God's standards, then the orientation is to righteousness and one of the things the Spirit is convicting of is righteousness which is correlated by Christ to belief in Hm.
- FWIW, I actually think this orientation is much more important Biblically than many seem to care to discuss.
- Life experience & desires coupled with an awareness of God's existence can and do combine and result in knowing there is something better for us, and coming to the point where we know it is not found in the things in this world. As some are discussing in this thread, many men are seeking meaning elsewhere. It's not a rare phenomenon.
- Along with man's conscience, his reasoning abilities though infected as his conscience is, are still functional to the degree God is perfectly and intimately aware of. The hardening of the heart is a process based in continuing rejection of God and I don't see it as automatic for all men. I've read from and spoken to men who through reasoning came to faith in Christ. Please notice I said "came to..." This is not meant to be isolated from my "Firstly" statement above. None of these points are to be isolated from what God is doing to make His Son clear to men.
- And so on... Always much to discuss.
- Men have consciences and that conscience is God created and God given and the work (singular) of God's law is done in men to varying degrees. Man's conscience can be extremely strong in some if not many. And orientation to conscience however strong or weak, if the standards are from God's standards, then the orientation is to righteousness and one of the things the Spirit is convicting of is righteousness which is correlated by Christ to belief in Hm.
Have you never sung the old hymn: Come, Thou Fount of every blessing
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wand’ring from the face of God;
He, to save my soul from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
2
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind my wand’ring heart to Thee.
Teach me, Lord, some rapturous measure,
Meet for me Thy grace to prove,
While I sing the countless treasure
Of my God’s unchanging love.
3
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love:
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it
With Thy Spirit from above.
Rescued thus from sin and danger,
Purchased by the Savior’s blood,
May I walk on earth a stranger,
As a son and heir of God.
What you fail to see is God's people are a work in progress. It's called Sanctification.
They hymn above is grounded solidly in scripture since this is what sheep are prone to do: STRAY! ("All we like sheep have gone astray...") This is why God has given us the Good Shepherd who watches over us, and when anyone strays, he "leaves" the rest of the flock to seek the wanderer and bring back. For he will never lose even one!
So, yes, Calvinists take these kinds of passages seriously. We understand the three tenses of salvation.
I suppose the Reformed also misunderstand that when we were in Adam, we were enemies of God when He reconciled us (Rom 5:10)? But even so...we still harbored nice, kind thoughts about him, right? No one really hates God, right?
What do you suppose happened to Adam and Eve when they sinned? How were they separated from God? Why did they hide? Why did they feel the need to cover themselves? What is the source of their shame and fear? Did they have these emotions before? What changed that they experienced them now? Did God change or did something in them change?
We obviously disagree on the severity of the effect sin had on mankind. I'm just trying to find out why. Thus, my questions.