Are You a Calvinist, Arminian or in-between?

BibleHelp.Org ^ | 1998-2003 | Michael Bronson

[opus86]

Salvation is 100% God's doing. My personal acceptance of salvation is 100% my choice.

[As you well know...]

Matt 10:12 is unscriptual?

[As you well know...]

Good catch. There are some scriptual passages that appear to say once saved always saved and there are some sciptual passages (already posted here) that appear to say even the righteous or just man can lose salvation if he stops cooperating with God's Grace.

That appears to teach Salvation is a process and Grace can be rejected - even after initially accepted and cooperated with.

[jam137]

Salvation is 100% God's doing. My personal acceptance of salvation is 100% my choice.

John 6:65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."

Romans 9:15-16 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

Does your statement agree with these Scriptures?

[opus86]

I'm not sure either is applicable to my statement. I do not dispute that God's Spirit draws people to salvation, only that they must make the ultimate decision. God, being sovreign and beyond time, knows who will and will not heed the call, but I cannot see how that means individuals do not have the freedom to choose life and death.

[jam137]

I do not dispute that God's Spirit draws people to salvation, only that they must make the ultimate decision.

It sounds like you don't view "getting saved," so to speak, as part of "salvation," since you say the above while also saying "Salvation is 100% God's doing." The point of the passages I quoted is that even "getting saved" is God's doing, not ours, and I would include this as part of "salvation."

[nobdysfool]

bump

[xzins]

Maybe there's a church somewhere in the middle. LOL.

People react to the apparent lack of freedom/reality in calvinism. God has predetermined everything, so what appears to be a choice isn't really because it's been predetermined.

I react to the apparent lack of freedom/reality in arminianism. Since God knows absolutely everything about the future, then he knew BEFORE CREATION (and he knows now) who would be saved and who would be damned. Therefore, what appears to be a choice isn't really, because the plot has already been written....nothing can change what God has foreseen.

My reality seems to indicate that things happen as a consequence of my actions. I decide to put up paneling in the garage. I am driving nails when I hit my thumb with the hammer. That strikes me as a cause/effect reality that is happening now. (My writing this is a response to your post.)

At this point, I don't think either calvinism or arminianism accomodates the reality I appear to live with every day.

[opus86]

Good points. I view "salvation" - the plan of reconciliation, redemption through Jesus's sacrifice - as all God's doing. We do nothing to merit His grace and mercy. However I believe that throughout Scripture people are told to choose God's provision for mercy, and warned against ignoring or turning away from His provision. That indicates to me that we have a choice. I picture myself as floundering in an ocean of sin. God sends me the life boat, His Son. I didn't deserve Him, and I can choose to ignore Him and drown, or accept His salvation and live.

[fishtank]

Lately I've been reading books (by RT Kendall and also by Jody Dillow) that deal with eternal security.

That issue is where I find myself "in the middle".

[jam137]

I agree with you that Jesus is like a life boat. I think Noah's ark is an important Old Testament picture of our salvation in Jesus. I also agree with you that there are many warnings "against ignoring or turning away from" Jesus. Lutherans take those passages seriously, and believe that even a Christian can fall away from grace (different from Calvinism, but there are more details that one could state for further clarification).

I would also agree that from a human point of view we might talk about a person making a "choice" when hearing the Gospel. But, from God's point of view (i.e., objectively), it is not as though the person first makes a "choice" and then He decides to save the person. Rather, through the preaching of the Gospel God makes a spiritually dead person alive. Notice how in Ephesians 2 Paul says that we were dead, but God made us alive in Christ. This is like two other passages. One is Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11. Another is Ezekiel preaching to the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. In these passages, we would not say that the dry bones "chose" to live, or that Lazarus "chose" to be resurrected. It is the same way with people hearing and believing the Gospel.

Let me know if you would like me to further address your points.

[WhatNot]

Notice how in Ephesians 2 Paul says that we were dead, but God made us alive in Christ. This is like two other passages. One is Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11. Another is Ezekiel preaching to the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. In these passages, we would not say that the dry bones "chose" to live, or that Lazarus "chose" to be resurrected. It is the same way with people hearing and believing the Gospel.

The problem with this is, your comparing the physically dead with the spiritually dead. You're right when you say Lazarus and the dry bones had no choice, they were physically dead, they also could not read God's word, meditate on scripture, read a Gospel tract, be invited to a Church service, go to a Harvest crusade, pray the sinners prayer or do any other thing that a person who's only spiritually dead is fully able to do, and in fact, people who are only spiritually dead, choose to do these type of things everyday.

[jboot]

The problem with this is, your comparing the physically dead with the spiritually dead.

It's not the first time someone has done that:

Romans 8:5-8

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

[WhatNot]

That's why we all need to ask Jesus to come into our lives, because only when we have Him living our lives for us, can we walk in His Spirit.

[jboot]

I agree. Salvation only comes through Jesus, praise Him! Our only differences of opinion lie in how much part He has in it.

[jam137]

I agree with jboot's point using Romans 8. I would also add 1 Corinthians 2:14:

"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

I agree that a spiritually dead person can "read God's word, meditate on scripture, read a Gospel tract, be invited to a Church service, go to a Harvest crusade, pray the sinners prayer or do any other thing that a person who's only spiritually dead is fully able to do." And, God does use means such as the preaching at a Harvest Crusade to save people. But, it is not as though God and the individual work together to make the individual spiritually alive. Instead, it is God alone, working through means, who saves the person. In the case of the "sinner's prayer," the only way that a person can pray it in faith is if God has already converted that person through means such as preaching or the written Word.

[WhatNot]

"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

How true, I don't think we will ever see the natural man laying hands on some sick person, asking the Lord to heal them.

I agree that a spiritually dead person can "read God's word, meditate on scripture, read a Gospel tract, be invited to a Church service, go to a Harvest crusade, pray the sinners prayer or do any other thing that a person who's only spiritually dead is fully able to do."

I don't get it you agree with the above and then you say:

But, it is not as though God and the individual work together to make the individual spiritually alive

What is the individual doing when he does the things you agree with, if not taking an active role?

Instead, it is God alone, working through means, who saves the person

I would say God through His Son Jesus, provided the gift of Salvation for the person, and the person just needs to take the gift. But, since you believe what you wrote, perhaps you can answer my question in reply #14, nobody else has been willing to.

[fortheDeclaration]

Amen!

That is a statement I can totally agree with.

[fortheDeclaration]

Glad to see a Lutheran come into the threads.

If you put even 1% with man, then you are in the synergestic camp, a camp which Luther totally rejected.

As for your points, I would agree with them all with one slight modification.

I would say that salvation is 100% God's doing and 100% ours receiving.

All the work is His, thus it is all of Grace.

Faith not being a work (Rom.4:4-5)

I hope we hear more from you and other Lutherans.

[jam137]

What is the individual doing when he does the things you agree with, if not taking an active role?

People do these things for all sorts of reasons which one might imagine. They might be bored on a train and find a tract to read. They might go to the Harvest Crusade because they are part of a youth group and they want to belong with everyone else. And so on.

Regarding post #14, you quoted Rev. 20:12-15. Yes, each person is individually judged by his works. The key issue, however, is whether the person is in the book of life, as it says in v. 15.

I think you are not correctly distinguishing Law and Gospel. Here's a long quote which is on point regarding both individuals "seeking" God as well as the judgment seat of Christ:

9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. 10 As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one." 13 "Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit"; "The poison of asps is under their lips"; 14 "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 And the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

If you wish to make it into heaven because of your own righteousness, you will fail. But, if you wish to make it into heaven because of the righteousness of God, you will succeed. We receive this gift through/by faith, not because of our faith (as though our faith is the one thing we must bring to the table in order to be saved) -- the original Greek of the New Testament is very precise on this point. And, God awakens this faith in our hearts through the Gospel.