Total Depravity

There are many, many Greek scholars that disagree with this assertion that faith is a gift in Ephesians 2.
Even John Calvin did not teach this.

In Cor. faith is given to support the gifts that are given.

You have no verse then that teaches saving faith is a gift.

Scripture teaches that everything we have has been given of God.


1 Corinthians 4:7b; John 3:27; Romans 9:15-16

An understanding of this subject might help you.

You are convinced in your mind.

But the bible verses I read convince me differently.

We are made of two components.

The flesh and the Spirit.
Read creation. The Spirit comes from God and is life. The flesh is corrupted by sin,

Can you say that our flesh has not been corrupted in that we ... only use 10% of our brains, ... are born with genetic issues .... inherit character traits .... and are selfish from a young age.

The flesh, carnal nature, emotional nature , is worldly and has a pernsity/ desire to follow the lusts of the flesh.

True the outside environment does not help.

But if we all had no perpensity to sin then we could create a perfect environment with perfect people.

We must be born AGAIN because the flesh is corrupt.

Born of the Spirit.

You say the flesh becomes evil as we experience the evil world and I agree but can you understand that the perpensity to be evil was there from the start.

Gal 5:16-17
16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

Just so your clear, ...having a sinful nature is not a sin. The nature is selfish, but we are not guilty of sin until we act.

Actually there are three "components" to human beings -- (1) the body (no need to call it flesh, since it is flesh and bones), (2) the soul which is immaterial, and called "the heart" by Christ, and (3) the spirit, which is "dead" or does not function until a person is regenerated (born again).

But God sees the spirit as the primary component: And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thess 5:23)

The soul and spirit are very closely connected, yet distinct. So how did you miss this?

you may need to skip Romans 9

They keep ignoring it because it does not fit into their theology.


1 Corinthians 4:7b; John 3:27; Romans 9:15-16

Are sinful the desires Chriistians may have "given by God"?

Why do you equate "dead" with "does not function"?

Reading through the thread before formulating a reply, it occurred to me that I wished I could understand the exact grammar given in Genesis 3:21 that tells us that, "God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them," with the serpent's covering conspicuously missing except for dust. Coupled with scripture that tells us that we are clothed in His righteousness, and (if) this is indeed exactly what He clothed Adam and his wife in... that would give me something else to consider into the equation in the attempt to evaluate the question of what we are actually born with.... and whether we all do demand our inheritance to squander away (as exampled by the prodigal son) ... or...

At any rate, my experience in familial relationships, it's always so very complicated and nothing very easily reconciled in simple terms, so it might take me some time to work this thought through to come back around to how regeneration happens, and without supposing anything, especially. Even so, I can't say that I haven't already reached some supposes.

The TULIP craze is starting to ring true to me....

The verse that him home was, Mathew 22:14

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

22 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

If faith is not a gift from God, then how did we get it?

1 Corinthians 3:6-7 ~ I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
Thank you for the inspiration .

Do dead people function?

Correct. Saving faith is not a gift. It is generated by the hearing or reading of the Gospel, while the Holy Spirit convinces that person that the Gospel is true.

But after a person is saved, there is also a gift of faith. And since all believers already have saving faith, it would appear that this is extraordinary faith given to some (such as George Mueller).

Then we have one of the fruits of the Spirit which is faith. This too is for those who already have saving faith.

The reason saving faith is not a gift is that if it were a gift, then absolutely everyone wuold be saved. After all, God desires the salvation of all humanity, but He wants individuals to believe and obey the Gospel. And the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all draw men to Christ. But in the end some will obey the Gospel and some will not.

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God [the Gospel]. Romans 10:16,17)

See my post #414 above this.

In the conrext of the grammar of the text, faith cannot be what tje gift is. The Greek word for "this" is touto, which is grammaticallt neuter. So faith cannot be the referent of touto. Salvation is feminine
Apparently so. Some Christians who say the unregenerate are dead argue that those same people who are dead can commit sins; and people who are dead are suffering torment in Hades. And yet the also say that dead means cannot function.

I'm following the bible.

Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Is the soul a 3rd component or the result of 2 components. ??
Be careful new age teaching has caused many to presume that a soul is a seperate component.

Ecc 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Jas 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Look up the word in Gen 2 and man became a "living soul."

Living nephesh creature

Same word in Gen 1:24..., Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing,

A living soul is flesh and the breath of life from God.

Psa 146:4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

The soul dies. Because it is referring to us.
Our flesh goes to nothing and the life in us goes to God.
Eze 18:4 .....the soul that sinneth, it shall die. 20... The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

This question seems to me to be at the very core of the issue of all these "does God choose us or do we choose Him debates".

Maybe a bit repetitive but a little about me in these regards. I do not, nor never have, identified as a Calvinist. I had never read a single word John Calvin wrote before coming here about a dozen yrs ago. I am now very familiar with the 5 points of Calvinism, commonly referred to as T.U.L.I.P. I agree to some extent with most of them.

I was saved in a Calvary Chapel that could hardly be considered Calvinistic. For the past 12 yrs I've attended a Nazarene Church which is impossible to mistake as a Calvinistic Church. My Pastor and I disagree on a great many doctrines, but I firmly believe "in essentials unity, in non essentials liberty, in all things love". And my Pastors messages on Grace, and how to apply it to our lives are incredible, and something I need.

So no one "taught" me that God chooses us, and NONE of us would willingly choose Him first. Reading Scripture, and searching my heart, through the Holy Spirit got me there.

Now on to the faith question. First, I think the amount of twisting one has to do to make Ephesians 2 NOT say that faith is a gift from God is amazing.

So WHERE does faith come from?
You rightly refer to romans 10: 16-17
16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

But verse 17 actually means our faith, put inside us by God, is ACTIVATED by the hearing of the Gospel. God "quickens" us, or brings us to life THROUGH that faith, God gave us, that is activated by the hearing.

Here is the Greek word for "cometh by":

1537. ek or ex
from out, out from among, from, suggesting from the interior outwards.


So we literally have faith, put there by God, that is dormant, and then drawn out by the hearing of the Gospel.

If we don't believe that then we must ask the following questions;

Are we better than others that hear the Word yet reject Him?

Are we smarter than those that hear the Word yet reject Him?

Are we more moral, and less of a sinner than they that hear and reject Him?

So no matter how deep we dig, God is ALWAYS there as the total and complete reason we believe and are saved.

Romans Nine has been de- Calvinized by many writers, by many times over and with proper exegesis and written in the broader context of the letters. And very well done.

But once someone adopts a lens that is all they can see, I have the benefit have dropping that lens 10 years ago, in terms of spiritual growth best thing that ever happened.

Didn't we have this conversation 2 years ago.

If faith is the condition that God sets why would He do so, if we cannot be persuaded of the TRUTH of the Gospel and have the moral capacity to do so.

God doesn't save us because faith somehow earns it. And faith itself doesn't save us. God saves us, as a gift, because we met His gracious condition, faith.

John Calvin stated "faith is the out stretched hand" I do agree he captured it perfectly.