Or as I like to say: God initiates; sinners cooperate—or not.
No person can come to Christ by their own freewill !
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Or as I like to say: God initiates; sinners cooperate—or not.
Its sad you dont know what you talking about and falsely misrepresenting my beliefs
False, when God initates Salvation, He actually saves. Salvation is 100% of God
Wrong analogy:
Hate to go through this again, but I need to state that the one to be saved is not drowning, instead, they've drowned - dead - dead in/from sin - totally incapable of assisting in any way with their rescue - they, being dependent upon the complete and total mercy of the one doing the rescuing, unable to assist them- they are completely oblivious to their situation/condition.
You can throw all the ropes you want at a dead person and they're never going to be able to grab it.
Spiritually dead doesn't mean a person can't hear and respond to the voice of God. Adam is a perfect example. He and Eve were already spiritually dead when God spoke with them and promised to redeem them
The fleshly person cannot submit to or obey God, explicitly stated in Romans 8. He is opposed to the spiritual things of God. The mind of the flesh is death. The person without the indwelling Holy Spirit is of the flesh. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God. Flesh serves the law of sin and brings forth fruit unto death. There are none good, a Biblical truth which gets mocked. A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit.
The world cannot receive the Spirit of truth, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. The world does not recognize Him. No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. The one who loves God is known by God. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile toward God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
He rescued us from the dominion of darkness says nothing about anything that we did to be rescued...
Exactly - it is all accomplished by Him. We contribute nothing but to be a recipient - while being spiritually dead in sin, He makes us alive.
Christians glorify God for loving humanity so much that He gave His only Son, so that whoever chooses to believe in him as Messiah and Lord shall not perish but have eternal life in heaven. (John 3:16)
You have an unbiblical view that accepting God's gift is meritorious. Confess it and love everyone like God does!
Humans are not robots, programmed by God to be saved or not, which would nullify human agency and thus accountability, making God responsible for sin. So much for glorifying Him!
Enabling is not being forced or robotized. I think you misrepresent deliberately. You sure do it a lot.
Colossians 1 verse 13 ~ He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son.
Colossians 1 verse 13 ~ He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son.
Yup, and I believe the dominion of darkness is death since the Son is life eternal. Therefore, whoever has the Son, has been made spiritually alive; whoever has not the Son, has sin, and is dead.
[Rom 5:21 KJV] 21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
They were first given grace, by which they believed.
[Act 18:27 KJV] 27 And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace:
[Act 13:48 ESV] 48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
For those who truly believe that belief was given to them as a result of their salvation
[Phl 1:29 KJV] 29 For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
No one can truly understand salvation in order to believe unless their sins have been first forgiven them
[Luk 1:77 KJV] 77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
God must first unblind the spiritual minds of those who are to come to true belief. God does not do so for everyone - only for those
He has saved.
[2Co 4:3,4 KJV]
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
The astute will notice no quotation marks on that paraphrase.
What is odd is your ignorance of the rest in that vein, the seven Scriptures teaching divine omnilove: 1John 4:7-12, Rom. 5:8, Matt. 5:44&48, Gal. 5:6&14, Eph. 3:17b-19, Eph. 5:2 and 1Tim. 2:3-4, which might be deemed the “7 pearls”.
Christ died to show God’s love and the possible salvation of all (Rom. 5:6-8) including His enemies: those who are ungodly, atheist, anti-Christ, pseudo-Christian (Matt. 7:21, John 8:42-44).
God also is just (2Thes. 1:6a, cf. Rom. 3:25-26 & 9:14, Deut. 32:4, Psa. 36:6, Luke 11:42, Rev. 15:3). Explanations of God’s Word should not impugn God’s justice and love for all people (Joel 2:13, John 3:16). This parameter is affirmed in the OT (Psa. 145:17): “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” Even the wrath of God is an expression of His love and justice.
Nice discussing with you again.
LIC, GWH
You two just taught me something I do not remember noticing before: It is Satan, not God, who blinds "natural" people
in the second verse as well as the first. Thanks for enlightening me, and I will see where to add it on our website, and I
must point that out to Mag.