Understanding God’s election

[Magenta]

Circumcision of heart was not a new concept, just as obedience and love and faith were not new concepts. Your TULIP blindness doesn't allow you to realize this.

Wrong. It has been mentioned often. Funny thing, too, it is a Biblical truth that we do not circumcise our own hearts. This
is explicitly spelled out in Scripture. Perhaps you missed it being so busy pontificating in your usual hypocritical style.

But the free willers like to think they do they work of the Holy Spirit on themselves. You know? Raise themselves
to new life, circumcise their own hearts, unblind themselves, open their own ears. Quite amazing, really.

 

[Magenta]

Circumcision of heart was not a new concept, just as obedience and love and faith were not new concepts. Your TULIP blindness doesn't allow you to realize this

Rufus has addressed this topic with you several times. Anyone can ascertain this by searching his post stream using circumcision
as the key word. Many many many posts come up. Jeepers. You guys were just at each other about it over the weekend.

 

[Magenta]

Deuteronomy 30:6~ The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
Quite disturbing really, the ease and frequency with which some here lie.

 

[Rufus]

Deuteronomy 30:6~ The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
Quite disturbing really, the ease and frequency with which some here lie.

FWs don't care much for this passage, since the fulfillment of the Greatest Commandment depends solely on God's irresistible grace.

 

[studier]

Now, look who's desperate. You pull a dated posted of mine that was written in an entirely different context than the unilateral conditions of the New Covenant. In my most recent exchanges with Mem that challenged him to read 4 chapters in the OT that pertain to NC promises, I never mentioned TULIP -- or for that matter the Doctrines of Grace.

You remind me of the evil one who dishonestly twisted scripture when he tempted Christ in the wilderness. Likewise, you have pulled an old post of mine out of context to try to discredit my recent exchanges with Mem. The apple Shirley doesn't fall far from its tree, does it?

So, you don't agree with TULIP or as @PaulThomson says, LOUPI? And you don't think I and/or others know this about you especially after 10,164 posts? TULIP/LOUPI is baked into you so deeply that I doubt you can see or say anything apart from it. The view you express re: mankind at times is actually staggering.

 

[PaulThomson]

PaulThomson said:
If their is no faculty of faith innate in humans, how can humans believe anything at all before being saved.

Define "anything at all".

A hindu child goes to the kitchen tap and turns it on believing water will come out into their glass. A muslim man looks at His watch and believes it is 3:00 pm because his watch shows him that is the time. An atheist woman receives an engagement ring and believes he boyfriend when he says that he loves her. Their belief is not possible?

 

[PaulThomson]

So, I guess you are very dependent on God's common grace, then. It seems to me you have no mind to quit receiving God's life-giving, life-supporting grace that keeps you alive every second of every day. In fact, it certainly appears that you are living proof of the biblical doctrine of Compatibilism. God has made you willing [to live] in this day of his power; for you, too, want/desire what God's will is for you at the moment. God doesn't force anyone to do anything against their will. All the actors on God's world stage are willing players, playing the roles God has assigned to each of us.

Thanks for playing...

Is a person who suicides receiving God's irresistibe grace to breathe?

 

[PaulThomson]

First of all, how did the "lies" (i.e. the misconceptions Job and his 3 friends had about the Law of Retribution) get into the Book if they weren't inspired? I have long acknowledged that these four were dead wrong on this particular issue! But you have taken the words of any of these four men much further than this particular issue: You have totally dismissed everything they have said simply because because they were wrong on this one issue. And this, sir, is the fallacy of composition. You are assuming that these four had ALL their theology wrong, which is why you cannot accept their take on the human condition.

The writers of the Bible were all inspired to record what they wrote. The actors in the Bible were not all inspired to do what they did. Was Jephthah in Judges 11 inspired to dedicate His daughter to perpetual virginity, or as perhaps you believe, to slay his daughter as a sacrifice to God? No. But Jephthah's vow, his decision and his deed is recorded by divine inspiration.

 

[studier]

PaulThomson said:
If their is no faculty of faith innate in humans, how can humans believe anything at all before being saved.


A hindu child goes to the kitchen tap and turns it on believing water will come out into their glass. A muslim man looks at His watch and believes it is 3:00 pm because his watch shows him that is the time. An atheist woman receives an engagement ring and believes he boyfriend when he says that he loves her. Their belief is not possible?

It's actually astounding to have to go to this level, but this is where that traditional eventually has to take us with some.

 

[PaulThomson]

God needs faith!? Really? What is his faith in? Why would all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful God require faith? Don't you know what the biblical definition of "faith" is?

Heb 11:1
11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
NIV

So...what precisely is God hoping for, and of what is He so certain that he does not or cannot see?

I explained the differences between common and saving grace. Common Grace is generally bestowed upon all mankind.

Matt 5:45
45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
NIV

And,

Heb 1:3a
3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
NIV


Common Grace, as described above, is apparently efficacious. The text doesn't say that "He gives the sun an opportunity to rise on the evil and the good, or that he gives the rain the opportunity to fall to the earth.

Saving Grace, on the other hand, is given only to God's elect, and is just as efficacious. Eph 2:8 reads For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Paul didn't write the above to the world. He wrote it to one of Christ's churches!

Also, since God is a covenant God, who sovereignly enters into covenant relationships with whom He wills, we should rightly inquire as to where is the Redemptive Covenant in scripture that He made with all men w/o exception? God's unconditional covenant with Abraham does not promise that Abraham would become the [spiritual] father of all men w/o exception. But it does promise that he would become the spiritual father of all NATIONS (i.e. all men w/o distinction).

Therefore, the core difference between Common and Saving Grace is that the former is general and applies to all men in the universal sense, whereas the latter is particular and applies only to God's chosen people (i.e. all men w/o distinction).

I do have good news for you, Rufus. When you finally hit the wall of truth at 1,000,000 miles an hour propelled by your zeal for Calvinism, it will not be Christ who lied to you, by you who lied to yourself. And there are many ex-calvinists who have deconstructed from their Calvinism, but have kept and deepened any devotion to Christ they had, and have transitioned to a healthier view of both God and man and a more fulfilling faith.

I pray you will be one of those.

 

[Magenta]

It's actually astounding to have to go to this level, but this is where that traditional eventually has to take us with some.

What is actually astounding is equating believing your watch tells the right time with a non-believer accepting
supernatural claims about God and Jesus Christ. The depths of depravity you guys go are certainly telling...

 

[Rufus]

So, you don't agree with TULIP or as @PaulThomson says, LOUPI? And you don't think I and/or others know this about you especially after 10,164 posts? TULIP/LOUPI is baked into you so deeply that I doubt you can see or say anything apart from it. The view you express re: mankind at times is actually staggering.

TULIP wasn't "baked into [me] so deeply during the exchanges I had with Mem re a few OT passages I challenged him to read. Learn to read already.

 

[Rufus]

I do have good news for you, Rufus. When you finally hit the wall of truth at 1,000,000 miles an hour propelled by your zeal for Calvinism, it will not be Christ who lied to you, by you who lied to yourself. And there are many ex-calvinists who have deconstructed from their Calvinism, but have kept and deepened any devotion to Christ they had, and have transitioned to a healthier view of both God and man and a more fulfilling faith.

I pray you will be one of those.

And I have bad news for you: You came up empty again on why God would need to have faith. Oh...wait...is his faith in mankind? God trusts in mankind, does he? Here's from your favorite OT book:

Job 15:14-16
14 "What is man, that he could be pure,
or one born of woman, that he could be righteous?
15 If God places no trust in his holy ones,
if even the heavens are not pure in his eyes,
16 how much less man, who is vile and corrupt,
who drinks up evil like water!
NIV

Okay...your turn. Go ahead and whip out your standard fallacy of composition retort to tell us that Eliphaz cannot be trusted in anything he says.

 

[Blain]

Everyone let's not badger each other and remember that we are called to love and respect each other, if debates such as this bring out the worst in us we need to take a break and meditate on God's word.
Hebrews 10:24-25

• "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another"

 

[Magenta]

FWs don't care much for this passage, since the fulfillment of the Greatest Commandment depends solely on God's irresistible grace.

It seems to me they do not care very much at all about what Scripture has to say about the natural man. That person, despite all the Bible has to say about him, does not exist in their mind set. They have a corrupt tree bringing forth good fruit even though Jesus said it was not possible. They have the stony ground of the uncircumcised heart growing the Seed of God's Word into faith, which they claim is not a gift. They have the lover of darkness, who is defined as darkness itself which cannot comprehend the Light, who is a slave to sin and suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, of his own accord, by making a moral decision, deciding to believe that which is foolishness to him while incapable of submitting to or even seeking God. But they will say believing your watch tells the right time is astounding. Such poppycock!

 

[Jackson129]

Its ok to disagree about things. I look at it this way biblical truths such as Jesus being the son of God and dying for our sins are universal across denominations. Because they are undisputed biblical facts. So the mere fact there is an argument about what an interpretation is means both are not biblical truth or fact. only your interpretation. You ain't saved or not saved cause you think you know when the rapture is or isint. Ect ect

 

[Blain]

I wrote a poem recently that I hope will steer us in rememrance of love I know it should go to the poetry section but I feel it is needed
In the sacred scrolls of time, love and forgiveness unfurls, woven with the threads of agape—the purest form of love that transcends all understanding.

In the quiet of the dawn, when the world is still and the heart is open, a gentle whisper shall echo through the soul, a call to embrace the boundless love that flows from the divine. This love, agape, is a river of compassion, an endless wellspring that nourishes the spirit and heals the wounds of the past.

a time when hearts hardened by sorrow shall be softened by the touch of divine grace. In this sacred moment, forgiveness shall bloom like a garden in spring, each act of mercy a fragrant blossom that perfumes the air with hope.
the world shall witness a transformation, where love becomes the guiding star, leading humanity toward a horizon of peace and unity. Agape love shall be the foundation upon which new bridges are built, spanning the chasms of division and discord.

In the light of this , the power of forgiveness shall be revealed as a force that liberates the soul from the chains of resentment and regret. It shall be a gentle balm, soothing the heart and restoring the bonds of kinship and community.
a future where agape love is the heartbeat of the world, its rhythm a symphony of compassion and understanding. In this divine harmony, forgiveness shall flow freely, a testament to the enduring power of love to heal and renew.

Thus, is inscribed in the annals of the heart, a timeless reminder of the transformative power of love and forgiveness, and the promise of a world where agape reigns supreme.

 

[BillyBob]

Col 3

Speaks to men who have already been saved. In parts of this chapter they are referred to as God's elect, the New Man, those that will join Christ in glory.
Then they are told – therefore, as the elect of God – do these things out of love and thankfulness.....
Please notice that they are not told do these things to become renewed – they are told do these things because they have been renewed!

 

[Mem]

With all due respect, sir, you're the one who is obsessed with the TULIP assumption. I never mentioned TULIP. Rather, I pointed you to four specific chapters to read in the OT. But somehow, you twisted those four chapters to mean an adoption of the assumption of TULIP. Why don't you just read those four chapters and then get back to us with the requirements that need to be fulfilled by mankind.

I did read them, thoroughly, as you so graciously requested, before even replying with the reply that you replied to. If you can grasp it, Isreal is representative of a microcosm of the entirety of world, and as those chapters speak toward the uniting Judah with Joseph, in Christ, it also informs us about Christ bringing both Jew and Gentile together as one, as speaking toward the macrocosmic scheme of things as God's plan to "buy the field". We are blessed because Jesus' sacrifice, sent in interest of Israel, bought salvation for the world and the Gentiles benefit just as much for the abundance of His Grace. The grace you've been shown is no more or less "common" than that shown to the world. You just can't see past the TULIP because you're holding it so closely.

 

[Rufus]

It seems to me they do not care very much at all about what Scripture has to say about the natural man. That person, despite all the Bible has to say about him, does not exist in their mind set. They have a corrupt tree bringing forth good fruit even though Jesus said it was not possible. They have the stony ground of the uncircumcised heart growing the Seed of God's Word into faith, which they claim is not a gift. They have the lover of darkness, who is defined as darkness itself which cannot comprehend the Light, who is a slave to sin and suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, of his own accord, by making a moral decision, deciding to believe that which is foolishness to him while incapable of submitting to or even seeking God. But they will say believing your watch tells the right time is astounding. Such poppycock!

Yeah...but you gotta look at the bright side with these FWT advocates: At least they have faith. Sadly, it appears, though, that their faith is in mankind for the most part. The sons of men are deep down God loving, God-honoring, God-seeking , virtuous, pious, humble and perhaps even worthy of God's love and salvation. Mr. Studier broke the mold recently, though, when he claimed that pre-conversion Paul, the Persecutor and Hater of Christians, nonetheless really loved God in his own way. That post of his is a keeper if no other reason than to show how far over the edge FWs are willing to go to support their false, humanism-oriented gospel. But there's more good news for them as well: THEIR kind of faith is certainly not a gift from God! So...at least they got that right.