Understanding God’s election
- Thread starter dougcho
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
You keep posting this heretical definition that is nowhere to be found in the bible. Are you trying to convince yourself because it's highly unlikely you won't convince anyone who holds to the Reformed Traditions of the Faith?
If prescience is the basis of God's salvation for his elect, then answer my question that I presented yesterday re Mat 7:23. Since Jesus said in that passage that he never knew those false believers then how can Jesus be the very God of God since he doesn't possess the attribute of omniscience? And...BTW...the term "knew" in this passage comes from the same Gr. term that is used in Rom 8:29 less the prefix "pro" that signifies "knowing beforehand" or "foresee" in this latter passage. But...the eternal Son of God here in Mat 7 claims he never knew anything about these people that he will condemn on the last day.
The gospel and Spirit are sufficient for all. They simply aren't effectual for all.
Some people claim baptism in water saves us, when the Bible says it is the pledge of a good conscience toward God, with the water being symbolic of the cleansing that has already taken place, the washing of water which is/by the Word of God Who is Himself God, Jesus Christ. I think there is some confusion over when heart circumcision takes place, as many contend that the heart of the natural man, which is hostile to God and unable to obey, will of its own accord turn and choose to believe, which is really only what a circumcised heart is capable of doing, since the heart of the natural man, aside from all else that is said of it, such as slave to sin, suppressing truth, captive to the will of the devil etc, it is also incapable of submitting to God, and the gospel message is foolishness to him. Heart circumcision makes it possible for the person to choose rightly because Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death. Paul talks about this law and makes it pretty plain he did not have free will in Romans 7, oh wretched man that he was! Don't get me wrong for I love Paul dearly...
Romans 7:15-20
As a Baptist I was always taught that water baptism was symbolic, like the Lord's Supper. Thus, although it is optional, I like it as a rite portraying the death and resurrection of Jesus more than washing (since soap isn't usually provided :^)
I think you are not confused about there being some confusion on CC over when heart circumcision takes place. I think the confusion arises when one--for some strange/unbiblical reason--views faith as a meritorious work. While the heart is hostile and sinful, God gives every sinner volition, thereby enabling him to eat the forbidden fruit or not. It is blasphemous to ascribe hatred of humanity to God by saying that His intentional will is NOT for all people to be saved but rather for most to be condemned to hell.
Even you did not pay attention to what I just posted regarding Abraham, who was saved by faith first, and THEN God deemed him to be righteous or spiritually circumcised. It is exactly that "own accord" part that makes a person accountable for sin and justly damnable for choosing wrongly, so we should not understand being a slave of sin as being a robot, or else you then make the devil accountable instead of the soul. Apparently the proto-gospel message was NOT foolishness to Abrahan, which is why he chose to believe it.
IOW, there are two types of freedom: the ability to repent/believe at which point he/she becomes indwelt by the HS and becomes free or has the teachability/humility to learn from the HS and manifest the fruit of the HS as he/she perseveres in faith, choosing rightly more and more of the time, growing spiritually toward maturity or being Spirit-filled most of the time.
In RM 7 Paul talks about the inward struggle between his will or desire to do good and the temptation of his will to sin.
I also love Paul (naming my son after him) and wish that Christians on CC would employ/agree on his hermeneutic.
They do misrepresent other people's positions to a high degree. It strains the bounds of common logic to believe it to be accidental.
And you utterly fail to understand that the Holy Spirit is as indispensable to one's salvation as the written Word (Gospel) is. In fact, the Holy Spirit is the agent of salvation!
And the dead have no power to open their ears. If spiritually dead sinners had that kind of power, Jesus wouldn't have had to perform miracles to do that very thing!
In Romans 7 Paul expresses that his will is not free until rescued from the law of sin and death. Using Abraham as an example for all is erroneous because after Abe everyone who wanted to be counted with him was to be circumcised regardless of their beliefs. So yes, he believed first but that is not the case for eight day old babies which is the rest of the world now and certainly Israel or the Hebrews back then. So I am not ignoring what you said, I just don't think it applicable since it is the natural man is who is under review, the UNCIRCUMCISED person, and being contrasted with the person who who has been circumcised, and I do not ascribe to the former what only the latter can CHOOSE to do. Which is what many here do... and then call being enabled being forced, if they can even so much as acknowledge the fact that Scripture does in fact teach that God enables people.
John 8:36 plus Romans 8:2 If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death.
Another lie. There are four kinds of hearts in the parable. Three of them are bad; the last one is good. Anyone who dies having one of the first three kinds of soil (heart) will suffer eternal condemnation.
The grammar in the Greek does not support that salvific faith is a gift.
Nor does the Greek support this distinction the way you are making it between faith and belief when in the Greek when is the verbal form of the noun.
One cannot put their faith/trust in Christ (action) until they believe IN his offer of eternal life.
I am impressed how far you will go, it is really quite sad how you lead people astray with this faulty soteriology.
Some love to squawk about Calvinism as if Arminianism does not teach the same thing.
They simply prove they don't know what they are talking about.
None of what you promote in this soteriology is scriptural it is Reformed.
That is right God only makes is effective for some in your soteriology.
1 Corinthians 4:7b; John 3:27; Romans 9:15-16 What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did also receive it, why do you boast as not having received it? John replied, "A man can receive only that which is given him from heaven." "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then, it does not depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
You teach that the evil heart of a natural man can love God. Who told you that???
Right, because he is making his grand selections, because salvation was only for the Jews according to you in the ancient times so obviously God is still making discriminating selections.
P0
Does everyone believe? Then by your own admission, the gospel isn't always effectual.
Where else did God send missionaries during the OC dispensation?
And did the "superior lifestyle that God raised up in Israel" include the captivities Israel suffered under Assyria and Babylon? Were the pagan nations attracted to those lifestyles?