Posted on 05/17/2015 5:59:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
For every cursing there is a blessing through faith in His Providence.
Undeserved suffering is a common testing.
Consider Uriah. His record is now recorded in His Word as a testimony to all mankind of such an unjust predicament. He obviously will receive a crown in heaven for his perseverance.
It isn't lost on those surrounding the situation of David's sinfulness. When David invited Uriah to his home for dinner and encouraged him to spend the night with his wife, Uriah was dutiful and conscientious enough to assert he couldn't do such a thing as his brethren were still in the fight and he had to return to the front.
Later, when the battle was lost, and the Commanding General of the Israeli Army reported to David, the report addressed extremely obvious tactical blunders on the part of the Army's commanders.
(one such report was that valiant Israeli soldiers had been lost in battle when the old women poured boiling oil on the Israeli soldiers from atop the enemy walls. Obviously, the attack had failed to suppress the wall defenses before committing infantry into the assault. Such a blunder should have resulted in the immediate relief of those commanders for incompetence in battle command.
Instead, at the end of the report, the commander mentions that,, "Oh by the way, that Uriah fellow you sent down to us was killed in the same situation, (wink, wink...)".
A valuable lesson is to be found here. Even a believer who happens to fall out of fellowship by willful sinning, now becomes a target of other corrupt people who will attempt to further tempt and manipulate legitimate authority into corruption.
The Commander could read human character and immediately perceived something was afoot between David and Uriah, when he had been dispatched to the front. That commander just as picayunishly implied the murderous deed had been performed, in hope of a debt owed from his King for services rendered, even if they were criminal. Such is a worldly system of power, independent of God.
So David not only committed adultery with Bathsheeba, he also tried to conceal his sin by inviting Uriah back so any offspring would be confused as actually being Uriah's, but that plan failed due to Uriah's integrity. He then attempted to use Uriah's integrity as his weakness, by placing him in a position of likely failure. When observed by his fellow junior commanders, they perceived the corruption afoot, and attempted to aid and abet David's corruption by not only obeying his orders, but when they failed in battle, they sought to use Uriah's death as justification of their incompetence and failure.
Just as a man may commit adultery by how he looks at a woman, one may also be guilty of the sin of murder in our thinking. Not only was Did guilty of such a plot, he exercised action resulting in that death, so it also was premeditated and conspiratorial.
David was guilty of murder, adultery, and probably a litany of other sins associated with that incident.
The original issue is if we can lose salvation.
In order to properly understand the answer, one has to understand the vocabulary and doctrines of the terms used in the question.
You have a good grasp of many basic doctrines. I've found the question is more easily answered by studies of Common grace and Efficacious grace in their roles in our initial salvation and regeneration of our human spirit. Once created, that new man is eternal.
Nobody is ever condemned to the Lake of Fire for their personal sins. Those who fall out of fellowship don't "get away with something" by having already been saved. God has known every sin we would ever commit prior to salvation, when they were imputed upon Jesus Christ on the Cross and all Judged once and for all time.
The mere notion one can lose such a salvation stems from an unfaithful soulish anticipation of God's fiery indignation to sin and directing it at the sinner. THAT unfaithful thought arises because of original sin, where we now all have the knowledge of good and evil and are now tempted to substitute good and evil for our relationship with God in spirit by faith alone in Christ alone.
Those who doubt we can retain salvation are more prone to falling out of fellowship than criminal sinners, because they scar their souls into substituting their personal works for His work in us.
Again, it is not I who am wresting anything, but you ignore the context to make Paul warning believers against something they cannot become, and as applying to someone else but them.
Yet it is because no one can be justified by the law that they are warned against submitting to the Judaizers, for to do so is to fall from grace, supposing that they merit of law-keeping will justify them before God as holy enough for Heaven.
To make Gal. 5:1-4 to mean what you assert, it would basically read,
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free [though I am not writing to those who were made free], and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage [not that you can be, since Calvinism excludes that]. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing [of course, since I am not writing to believers who were set free then this is not a warning for you]. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you [not you who were set free and stand in grace, though that is whom I addressed], whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace [not that you can fall from grace, as if you were in grace, as you cannot, despite my warning against doing so]. (Galatians 5:1-4)
The redeemed are whose who "through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith," (Galatians 5:5) who But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end," (Hebrews 3:6) repenting when convicted they are not, and "are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul," (Hebrews 10:39) and thus believers are plainly clear warned against doing so.
However, as Calvinism excludes that as a possibility - and there are texts which also support this - then you must exclude such texts from saying what they plainly say, as they contract it. Therefore the real issue is the conclusions of Calvinism in this regard.
But your verses do not really prove what you claim, and leaves you open to attack when we point to such verses that plainly declare that God is the master of salvation from beginning to end.
That God is the master of salvation from beginning to end is true, both in enablement and motivation, as God convicts, draws, opens hearts, grants repentance and faith, (Jn. 6:44; 12:32; Acts 11:18; 16:14; Eph. 2:8,9) so that in conversion man does what he otherwise could not and would not do. And then he works in believers to do His good pleasure. (Phil. 2:13)
But which does not exclude man from being a "steward of the manifold grace of God," (1Pt. 4:10) and receiving the grace of God in vain, as while God elects whom He will, and enables and moves man to believe - which is a response - yet it is manifest that not only does God will all to repent and be saved, (Acts 17:30; 1Tim. 2:4; 2Pt. 3:9) but souls resist the grace of God, though some are given more than others.
Lost souls have enough grace given them that they can resist sin, and know who the true God is and worship Him to some degree, and do by nature the things contained in the Law, and yet become foolish and darkened idolators. (Gn. 4:7; Rm. 1:20,21; 2:14; cf. Acts 10:35) And which are damned for what they themselves did and are culpable for. (Rv.
And believers can grieve the Spirit, and can deny the faith, (1Tim. 5:8) and which does not mean man is the master of salvation from beginning to end, as both lost and saved owe everything to God, and only can do what God enables and allows. And while believers can only believe and walk in faith by grace, and can take no credit, in choosing to deny the faith then they cannot impugn the Almighty. Man cannot boast of believing in Christ, nor can he charge God with iniquity if man chooses to depart from the living God, and God allows it.
Thus the charge that allowing believers to do so - which they are warned against - makes them the master of their salvation, is invalid. If God enables and motivates them to choose to believe, then God is gets the credit, while if He allows them to depart from the faith, then God is still in control. That God could enable and move all souls to believe is true, but that He does not is what is manifest. Likewise that God could move all believers souls to remain in the faith is true, but that He does so renders the warnings against departing from the living God and drawing back unto perdition, making Christ of no effect and falling from grace, to be merely hypothetical.
We do not read the scriptures which command and warn against something and ignore the verses that say that God gives what He commands!
Actually, but holding that "gives" means the called cannot choose to not come to the wedding feast, or abide in Christ, then you must read the scriptures which command and warn against believers denying the faith and departing from grace and the living God and compel them to mean other than what they say, or relegate such to be merely hypothetical.
I must honesty conclude i see such warnings as being given to believers, and am not comfortable relegating such to be merely hypothetical.
Many who debate the issue if one can lose their salvation, fail to study the mechanics of salvation and the role of each member of the Godhead in that salvation.
Reformed theology well studied the issue and developed the doctrines known as Common Grace and Efficacious Grace.
The anthropology of humans also assists in this doctrine.
God made man in body, soul, and spirit. After the fall, man died spiritually and now requires regeneration of the human spirit for eternal life. Today, no human being is born with a human spirit. It is created by God the Father and implanted by God the Holy Spirit as His gift to us when we have something which justifies us for righteousness.
Without a righteous human spirit, anything we do is qualified as a dead work. It might be good works or evil, but nevertheless fails to qualify as a work living in God’s Plan. Accordingly, they won’t be recorded in the Book of Works as they fail to qualify in Holiness as having Perfect Righteousness and Perfect Justice.
In God’s Plan, every human is afforded an opportunity for eternal life. Since we are all unbelievers before we bcome believers, every unbeliever has 2 decisions to make which are non-meritorious, before a human spirit is regenerated by God for them to receive sonship into His Family.
1) The decision to listen to the Gospel.
2) The decision to accept the call of God by faith alone in Christ alone.
Both of these decisions made independently of God, will fail to exhibit faith in what only God can provide.
As unbelievers, we can’t understand things of God because they are spiritually discerned. Without a human spirit, we not only don’t understand the spiritual thing, but will lapse into soulish interpretation of the spiritual thing, which means we will even think it foolishness (because we lack the spiritual faculty to discern spiritual things).
God’s solution comes in Common Grace and then at the right time, Efficiacious Grace.
In Common Grace, God the Holy Spirit becomes our human spirit imparting a spiritual knowledge of the Gospel in our soul. As unbelievers, we have a decision point to either accept to listen to this spiritual understanding imparted to our souls or we can respond with negative volition and reject the spiritual knowledge given our souls in Common Grace.
After receiving the Gospel message and understanding it, at some point God the Father makes the Divine Call to the unbeliever. This call is per God the Father’s Plan in time and place. It is by His Volition, not ours. He is Spirit, and a Living God. Without a human spirit, we still lack the ability to discern such things, so He Provides God the Holy Spirit again. This Provision is called Efficacious Grace. In Efficacious Grace, the unbeliever who now understands the Gospel, receives the Divine Call and if he accepts the work of God the Son on the Cross as payment for all his personal sins, he exhibits faith alone in Christ alone on the Cross, convicted of our sin, His Righteousness, and the Judgment by the spiritual life of God the Holy Spirit and that simple faith in Him is made Efficacious for eternal life.
God the Father is free in His Perfect Integrity to create us a new man, a human spirit, which is then given to us by God the Holy Spirit. These are the mechanics of salvation.
We are then identified with the Son of God, as all our sins were imputed to Him on the Cross, His Perfect righteousness is now imputed to us, at the point of faith alone in Christ alone. ANYTHING added to that faith voids that faith for its efficacy in our salvation. This is because our faith is His work in us, and His work is received as good.
The more I understand Common Grace and Efficacious Grace, the more obvious that salvation is fully the work and gift of God alone.
When one studies sin and worldliness, is also becomes obvious that we hae become very scarred in our souls to worldly solutions to problems.
One such worldly system appeals to our membership in groups as a panacea for our fellowship with God. He also provides a body of believers, i.e. the Church, but one needs to be careful of substituting a counterfeit for what He provides.
A particular weakness in many arrogant “Christians” are those who are tempted to study the Bible academically, but who fail to exercise faith and simply receive Common and Efficacious Grace, prior to joining a manmade religious club, they identify as the Church.
Accordingly, there might be many who we consider to be believers, who have never tasted the Spirit, but instead interpret Scripture from a soulish perspective independent of the spiritual understanding, and become either legalists or antinomians.
If they then turn obvious unbelievers, they might not ever had received the Divine Call.
Heb 6:1-6 also indicates when an believer receives the Divine Call, accepts it, receives the human spirit, and things of the Holy Spirit, then falls away, it is not proper for another Divine Call to arise as that would re-crucify Christ. This does NOT mean the apostate believer loses their human spirit. It means the believer must return to God with what He has been given already, to return to fellowship by faith alone in Christ alone.
"For to do so," but can they? The "do so" is "be justified by the law." That is the literal statement of the verse. It does not say "if you submit to the Judaizers and TRY to be justified by the law, you fall from grace," it says "if you are justified by the law." The best reading is that Paul's meaning is: "If you are justified by the law, you reject grace, but you know that no one can be justified by the law nor be saved without grace."
Now this raises another question: If you merely TRY to be justified by the law, what about those confused Christians who believe that on some level their merit is necessary to preserve their salvation? Clearly, if they are trying to avoid major sins, trying to live better lives, trying to maintain a certain level of faithfulness, and they believe that this is their doing, do all these fall from grace? This would damn every Arminian and Catholic in the world, because all of them contradict the verse that says "It is not of him that wills, or him that runs, but God who has mercy."
(Hebrews 3:6) repenting when convicted they are not, and "are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul," (Hebrews 10:39) and thus believers are plainly clear warned against doing so.
Is there a reason why these verses cannot be read within the context I established in my post 104? Clearly the non-elect may be baptized, formerly enter into the covenant, be illuminated to some degree, taste of the heavenly gifts, approach unto the throne of grace, and yet fall short because he was not of that "good ground" prepared by God for the seed of the Gospel to grow. So that there are those who "pull back" from the grace they received, "deny the faith," resist what graces they have been given and fall into hell, and yet not contradict the verses I used in 104 that explicitly declare that the true Christian never falls away, at least permanently. And on that note, a Christian may certainly fall away for long periods of time, like David, and yet still be given repentance by God at some point.
yet it is manifest that not only does God will all to repent and be saved, (Acts 17:30; 1Tim. 2:4; 2Pt. 3:9) but souls resist the grace of God, though some are given more than others.
See my post 104, and you will see that grace is clearly not given to all people. But in your system, grace indeed must be universal, even if it is not given equally. Because if God does will the salvation of all, then He must offer all men the means to be saved, even if He offers only very basic means. In other words, all these must be given some revelation that Jesus is the Christ, and be given the ability to have faith in him and persevere in that faith! To command all men everywhere to "repent" does that mean He gives this grace to all. And the "all" in Titus can be interpreted as "every kind of men," since he speaks beforehand of Kings and other classes of men, which in fact is a very common usage among the Jews and scripture. In their Talmud they often refer to "every man in the world," or the "whole world," and yet they mean, sometimes, even just the Jews of a single synagogue, or sometimes the Gentile world in general, or all kinds of men in general. And the verse in 2 Peter 3:9, if you follow the pronouns, is spoken to the Elect of God, not of the "they" who are spoken of as being the object of God's wrath.
But which does not exclude man from being a "steward of the manifold grace of God," (1Pt. 4:10)
But to what extent are they stewards? There are many gifts from God, and certainly many of them must be "stewarded" in a sense, but is the gift of salvation held in our hands such that we can hold onto it by our own willing and running? The scripture denies this.
And which are damned for what they themselves did and are culpable for. (Rv.
Of this there is no doubt, but are they given the same revelation that Peter received, not of his or other's "flesh and blood," but from the Father, that Christ is the Messiah? Clearly some are given this, others not.
Man cannot boast of believing in Christ, nor can he charge God with iniquity if man chooses to depart from the living God, and God allows it.
It is always possible to boast of their believing in Christ. To believe in Christ necessarily involves a submitting to Christ, in being humble, in calling oneself sinful, and next in holding on to this faith until the end. If we read the scripture your way, in the parable of the sower, the scripture itself declares that this ground "is good" that preservers to the end. So why withhold from these people who persevere the title of good, it being a quality of their person and not given to them by God? And furthermore, consider this: in your system, you can have two people, each given the same gifts and same proportion of grace, and yet one falls and the other doesn't. What is the difference then? The difference must be in the person. And if there is a difference in the person, it cannot be taught in scripture, as it clearly is, that the only thing that causes men to differ from each other is Grace. Because in this example, the two men HAD the SAME Grace, but they still differed from each other in significant ways.
making Christ of no effect and falling from grace, to be merely hypothetical.
They don't need to be hypothetical, because God does not permit all men to have assurance of their salvation (sometimes He does not give men this peace until very late in their Christian walk), but puts His "fear in them" to keep them holy. See my post 104.
But the second reason I say that the word "murder" does not apply to the broader matter of David's eternal salvation (which your view contradicts) is the principle that when David's heart was persistently trusting in Jehovah and His Messiach, and constantly walking in the Spirit all his life (except in the matter of the Hittite and his wife), God justified him from his youth, imputing the righteousness of His Son to David, and instantly remitting David's sins upon his confession, cleansing him from all unrighteousness:
"Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite" (1 Ki. 15:5).
"And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die" (2 Sam. 12:13).
I do not feel I have the liberty to allow your handling of the Word sufficient to give me much confidence in your methodology or opinion in this matter.
At the root of the topic of this article, the answer is the same given before:
David did the sinning, and God did the saving, as all Scriptural contexts prove; and your thesis of David's condemnation based on supposed "murder" is not verifiable.
"Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward" (1 Sam. 16:13 AV).
At least from that point, David was committed to Christ, justified, and saved unto absolute eternal life.
David's life is one which denies that one's salvation onc granted by God's grace through faith in His insuperable ratification can be "lost."
My answer to that is that we can guess a lot, and invite ourselves to err by reading something into Scripture that we cannot say is there. But refusing that temptation, we can say for a fact that we do not know Uriah's situation in detail enough to know whether or not he deserved the imminent call of the death angel. Nowhere in the story can we know what Uriah's standing before God was. Only God Himself knew that. But we can know what God's determined will for Him was, and that was his time, date, and mode of physical death.
However, we can also know that for whatever just and momentous eternal reason, Uriah's demise permitted the legitimate union of David and Bathsheba to produce four sons, the last of whom was the God-gifted Solomon from whose life flowed at least three wisdom guides to the followers of the Messiach, incorporated into our Bible, as well as the chronicles of Israel's history under his leadership.
It may be that had not David and Bathsheba been involved in this peccadillo, that God's plan already might have been for Uriah to die at the same time, place, and mode as he did; and that David and Bathsheba would wed without recrimination for it.
What I can read into the story is that between the lines I can guess that if Bathsheba had been more prudent in bathing and more faithful to Uriah by denying David's invitation, she probably could have avoided being embroiled in an adulterous situation.
And it was not particularly sensitive of Uriah to be seen offering a sharp reproach to his senior commanding officer for not being in the field with him, and furthermore of getting drunk rather than going home and having it out with his wife. Did he perhaps have an inkling of his home situation, and contrive this embarrassment to politically strike back at his king? Timewise, David seems not to have arranged a warrior's end for him until Uriah wrote his own death warrant, so to speak.
Who is it now that reads these characters' minds, or God's? It is not us, and we should avoid the temptation. With all respect, I do not see it necessary to have written a script as you have done here just to provide a provisional explanation.
Cvengr: The original issue is if we can lose salvation.
What we are to gain from this episode is that God's graciousness permits him to keep on saving those whose hearts and minds are fixed on Him and His trustworthiness, and thereby justified for all time and eternity, even through temporary and very serious lapses in dreading to disobey or disappoint Him, not fully anticipating the swiftness of His chastisement of His regenerated servants.
Cvengr: Those who doubt we can retain salvation are more prone to falling out of fellowship than criminal sinners, because they scar their souls into substituting their personal works for His work in us.
To me, it is clear that those who dismiss His power to do the saving must be treated as not yet having a justifying faith, nor the indwelling, comforting voice of the Holy Ghost.
Seems to be so.
My dear Husband commented on this...”just because you stand in your garage, it doesn’t make you a car.”
Reads as though you have blamed your juniors for obeying your direct orders when it led them into failure. Now when reading of Uriah, it is easier to blame Uriah for the crimes of others, than to change the mind.
Yet it is because no one can be justified by the law that they are warned against submitting to the Judaizers, for to do so is to fall from grace, supposing that they merit of law-keeping will justify them before God as holy enough for Heaven.
"For to do so," but can they? The "do so" is "be justified by the law." That is the literal statement of the verse. It does not say "if you submit to the Judaizers and TRY to be justified by the law, you fall from grace," it says "if you are justified by the law." The best reading is that Paul's meaning is: "If you are justified by the law, you reject grace, but you know that no one can be justified by the law nor be saved without grace."
Not, that is only what the text must be compelled to say in order to conform to OSAS, while Paul is very clearly warning believers who were set at liberty from the Law against going back into bondage, and who had been placed under grace against falling from grace.
Here it is again, with more context:
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Galatians 4:4-7)
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free , and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
The subjects her are clearly souls who were set at liberty from the Law, having found salvation in Christ, and which very subjects are warned against going back into bondage.
Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
Circumcision represents assent to the gospel of salvation thru the merit of law-keeping, which makes the atonement of Christ superfluous.
For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:1-4)
Here Paul tell the same believers that to be circumcised, which signifies assent to salvation under the Law, is to deny salvation by grace, and make Christ of no effect, which would mean forfeiting what faith appropriated.
It does not say "if you submit to the Judaizers and TRY to be justified by the law, you fall from grace," it says "if you are justified by the law."
No, as this is addressing the consequences of their apostasy according to what their theology presumes, and that " Christ is become of no effect" to those who are justified by the law denotes a change of status, from Christ being of salvific effect by faith, to no effect [katargeō], or "profit."
In addition. Robertson's says,'' Who would be justified by the law (hoitines en nomōi dikaiousthe). Present passive conative indicative, “ye who are trying to be justified in the law.”
Now this raises another question: If you merely TRY to be justified by the law, what about those confused Christians who believe that on some level their merit is necessary to preserve their salvation? Clearly, if they are trying to avoid major sins, trying to live better lives, trying to maintain a certain level of faithfulness, and they believe that this is their doing, do all these fall from grace? This would damn every Arminian and Catholic in the world, because all of them contradict the verse that says "It is not of him that wills, or him that runs, but God who has mercy."
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. (Romans 9:16) refers to being chosen in election before birth, and not that any response is required, that of believing in the Lord Jesus with repentant faith, which ability and desire God grants. Justification/acceptance on the basis of the merit any works is excluded, except in the sense that works justify the believer as having salvific faith, and as one who is to be rewarded under the covenant of grace to unworthy sinners. (Heb. 6:9; 10:35; Rv. 3:4)
As regards your question, no, confused Christians who believe that on some level their merit is necessary to preserve their salvation would be a denial of faith is they actually believe their merits gain them acceptance by God, but which is not the same are holding that one must respond (by God's grace) to God to be saved, and they they must have a faith which effects works. Neither of which merits salvation. And as far as I know, Arminians do not believe their works merit them salvation.
Is there a reason why these verses cannot be read within the context I established in my post 104? Clearly the non-elect may be baptized, formerly enter into the covenant, be illuminated to some degree, taste of the heavenly gifts, approach unto the throne of grace, and yet fall short because he was not of that "good ground"...
Because neither Gal. or Heb. 3,10 are addressing a mixed multitude as such, but the texts clearly are addressing believers as believers, who were set at liberty, who were in grace, and who knew God and was know by them, having had received the Spirit of God, and had access into the holiest by the blood of Christ, thus were warned against going back into bondage, or falling from grace, of departing from the living God, or drawing back into perdition.
See my post 104, and you will see that grace is clearly not given to all people.
That is not even a Calvinistic position, as clearly God gives unmerited favor to all men, who has nothing they have not received, from the air they breath to being able to see that there is a creator God, versus idols, and to be able to resist sin to varying degrees, and becoming vain in their imaginations, becoming fools, and having this foolish heart darkened. (Rm. 1:19-23; Gn. 4:7)
Which renders them accountable for rejecting this degree of grace, which is the basis for their condemnation, who are sentenced according to light and grace given, (Revelation 20:13; Mark 12:40). And by rejecting the light they have - obedience to which is enabled and motivated by God - they are in essence rejecting Christ, who lights every man which comes into the world.
God is not obligated to give all the same degree of grace to all, and perhaps you were referring to "saving grace" in saying grace is clearly not given to all people, but i see that as a further degree of grace.
Because if God does will the salvation of all, then He must offer all men the means to be saved, even if He offers only very basic means. In other words, all these must be given some revelation that Jesus is the Christ, and be given the ability to have faith in him and persevere in that faith!
And if He wills the damnation of some and are damned due to Adam, then He offers no grace, leaving them no other alternative but to remain sinful and sin, thus effectively damning them due to a condition they were not personally culpable for, which what God declares He does not do. (Deuteronomy 24:16; cf. 2Ki 14:5,6; 2Ch 25:4; Jer 31:29,30; Eze 18:20)
But if the lost are damned due to the light and grace they spurned, as is the case in Rm. 1 and other texts, then God remains gracious, if not irresistibly to them, and they only have themselves to blame.
But it does not follow that God being in favor of something means He must give all the same amount of aid to accomplish all that He desires. It is certainly the will of God that Christians live wholly sanctified lives, and not lose rewards, which He certainly is able to accomplish if it was His determinative will, but which is not what God does, as instead some believers sin, and will lose rewards. God gets the glory for the holiness and good that we do, as He enables and motivates it, and man gets the blame for what we do wrong, as that is our choice.
God can favor the salvation of all, and give them light and grace, which He does, thus the Gentiles in Rm. 1 knew who the true God was, and that sodomy, etc. was wrong, as they can "do by nature [innate sense of morality] the things contained in the Law,"(Rm. 2:14) which, if obeyed, would result in more light, leading to Christ.
Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. (John 12:35)
Which the elect follow, while the non-elect do not, and in so doing they essentially reject Christ, even if they never heard of Him.
Thus God is not unjust by damning souls for a condition and actions that they had no other choice but to be in and do, but is gracious to all, though they elect see more grace, and some elect see more than others.
To command all men everywhere to "repent" does that mean He gives this grace to all.
Thus you have man condemned for not doing what he could not do. But as in giving, damnation is “according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.” (2 Corinthians 8:12)
And the "all" in Titus can be interpreted as "every kind of men,"
There is no reason to resort to that, as "the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men," (Titus 2:11) could be explained as meaning it is has appeared, though having eyes, they (the lost) see not.
But i find making such as texts as, "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4) to read "all kinds of men" rather forced.
And the verse in 2 Peter 3:9, if you follow the pronouns, is spoken to the Elect of God,
Is spoken to the Elect of God, telling them God is not willing that any should perish, not willing that they do, and He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live," (Ezekiel 33:11) and thus the Lord wept over Jerusalem which was slated for destruction due to rejecting the light and grace given them. Yet God could have brought Sodom to repentance by giving more grace.
God's basic will can be that all be saved, responding to the level of grace He gives, but also will that the wickedness of man be manifested, by them rejecting the degree of grace given, but manifesting His greater grace to the elect. Who do what they otherwise would not and could not do. apart from God's grace, thus God is exalted, though He rewards man for his God-wrought obedience of faith.
But to what extent are they stewards? There are many gifts from God, and certainly many of them must be "stewarded" in a sense, but is the gift of salvation held in our hands such that we can hold onto it by our own willing and running?
No, we do not hold onto it by our own willing and running, as that is God's doing and to His credit, but we are the one's who let go, and to some degree we do so every time we give into sin which we should have resisted. . It is consistent to hold that you cannot fall from grace because if God allowed it then it would impugn His will and ability, but then hold that He allows you to sin, unless you hold that to do so if God's will.
And which are damned for what they themselves did and are culpable for. (Rv.
Of this there is no doubt, but are they given the same revelation that Peter received
I have it clear some are given this, others not, but God shows grace toward all nonetheless.
It is always possible to boast of their believing in Christ.
Only in ignorance, versus, "But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." (1 Corinthians 15:10)
If we read the scripture your way, in the parable of the sower, the scripture itself declares that this ground "is good" that preservers to the end. So why withhold from these people who persevere the title of good, it being a quality of their person and not given to them by God?
As your premise is false, so is your conclusion. It does not follow that the ground being called good means that it was a quality of their person and not given to them by God. And contrary to your assertion, i made clear that any good quality of a person is given to them by God, and said before, "in conversion man does what he otherwise could not and would not do," and "both lost and saved owe everything to God, and only can do what [good] God enables and [the evil He] allows."
And furthermore, consider this: in your system, you can have two people, each given the same gifts and same proportion of grace, and yet one falls and the other doesn't. What is the difference then? The difference must be in the person.
By now I hope it is clear to you that both lost and saved have varying degrees of grace given to them, and it is their fault if they follow their natural inclination to turn from it, while it is to God's glory that He enables and moves man to do what is right and good.
making Christ of no effect and falling from grace, to be merely hypothetical.
They don't need to be hypothetical, because God does not permit all men to have assurance of their salvation
But they texts are not about unconverted souls, but the converted. If you cannot concede that then there is little warrant in continuing, and we must agree to disagree.
No, he is born with a human spirit, but since the Fall it is dead to God's Spirit (Job 6:4, 10: 12, etc.; Ps. 32:2, 51:17, etc.; Prov. 16:19, 17:22, etc.; Rom. 2:29, 1 Cr. 2:11, Heb. 4:12, erc.).
Without a human spirit, we not only don’t understand the spiritual thing, but will lapse into soulish interpretation of the spiritual thing, which means we will even think it foolishness (because we lack the spiritual faculty to discern spiritual things
No, it is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, communicating with one's human spirit made aware and obedient, in union with His Spirit, that gives spiritual discernment (1 Cor. 2:16c, Php. 2:5, Heb. 5:14).
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