Posted on 09/09/2001 4:45:32 PM PDT by RnMomof7
Last Thread The Savior Lifted up and faith
Mea maxima culpa.... I misunderstood what you've been saying. It's been a rough weekend-- i had to deal with heresies at the conference I was attending this weekend, and spent all my time researching to rebut those arguments.
My original question... I Timothy 2:4 says that "God our Saviour... will have all men to be savedand come to the knowledge of the truth." II Peter 2:1 tells of false prophets "who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them." How does this square with the Calvinist point of limited atonement, which as I understand it, teaches that Christ's propitiatory death was only applicable for those elect few.
Right???
Conversations over a Checkers board! - if ya know what I mean.
Let me submit to you the following premise; a premise fully supported by the Scripture. The children of God will use their free will to glorify God. We have no higher purpose than this. God's pursuit of glory and our pursuit of our personal satisfaction are identically the same thing. I will, of course, be completely charitable and defend this premise with scripture. Let me also say that I will proceed from the undeniable fact that God is Sovereign. If we cannot agree that God is Sovereign, then there is no hope that we can find enough common ground with which to discuss anything.
So, let me begin by saying that Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy and for Thy truth's sake. Why should the heathen say, "Where now is their God?" But our God is in the heavens; He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased. Thus, we establish a starting place for the Sovereignty of God. Our God, who is in heaven, does everything He pleases.
For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did He in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all deep places.
For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought; He maketh the devices of the people of no effect. The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.
"Remember this, and show yourselves men; bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors. Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is none other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, `My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,'
"And at the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me. And I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored Him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His Kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay His hand or say unto Him, `What doest Thou?'
There is none like Him. None of his purposes will be frustrated because he does everything He wills; He does everything He pleases; His every desire will be satisfied and He will enjoy himself forever. Of course, we know this naturally because if His purposes could be frustrated or He couldn't do everything He wills or He couldn't do everything He pleases then He could not be God. There would be a higher power that could stop Him when he desires to do something.
So, we will apply this basic understanding of the Sovereignty of God to 1 Timothy 2:4 and declare that we have a God who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now we have a problem. We have a God who does everything he wills and pleases but cannot do everything He desires because we definitely know that not all men will be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
If we stay with our declaration (and we will for a little while longer) that we have a God who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth we will have a God who will be Eternally left without all his desires satisfied. We will have a God who will be Eternally unsatisfied. And this presents a profound problem for the children of God.
to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in His Beloved:
that we, who first trusted in Christ, should be to the praise of His glory
which is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.
Of course, I could exhaustively cover the Bible to show how God is Glorified by Praising Him, but I will trust these quotes from Ephesians will be enough. So, His children use their free will to glorify God by Praising Him. I am the LORD; that is My name. And My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.
I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. - C.S. Lewis
His children use their free will to glorify God by Praising Him. But we truly only delight to praise what we enjoy as C.S. Lewis has pointed out. But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. How can we worship in truth when we praise a God which we do not enjoy? The Truth is, we can't. So, I will now retire to this well known expression: The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. Thus, I have returned to my original premise: God's pursuit of glory and our pursuit of our personal satisfaction are identically the same thing.
He would be a grumpy, not to be bothered Father. And this is certainly does not glorify Him. God cannot possibly satisfy a single person if he cannot satisfy himself. Think about it! Therefore, I conclude that God does not desire to save all men. Christ will save all that the Father gives to Him. This is His desire and He will be Eternally satisfied in it. Of course, this is not the most profound way to demonstrate the point, but it does serve my purpose because I will now declare my song to my profoundly Satisfied God:
O God, Thou art my God;
Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, to the end that my glory may sing praise to Thee and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto Thee for ever.
Early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee, in a dry and thirsty land where no water is, to see Thy power and Thy glory as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary. Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee. Thus will I bless Thee while I live; I will lift up my hands in Thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips, when I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches.
I will delight myself in my God, and have discovered that You are the desires of my heart.
As the deer panteth for the water brooks, so panteth my soul for Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?
RnMomof7, accept that God does not desire to save all men everywhere. This is not the purpose of Salvation. Come, Glorify God by tasting a deep satisfaction in Him that few will ever have this side of Paradise. Not, with Him and not by Him and not about Him but in Him. And you cannot do this unless you worship Him in the Truth. It is impossible in your position. Can you possibly see this? There is a reason Christ used the word Paradise, ya' know…
I will now laugh in anticipation of the objectors.
The Atonement is universally sufficient for All and Any man.
It is only efficaciously applied to those who actually come to the Son.
The Calvinist doctrine of Limited Atonement is the same as that of all Christian denominations: "Sufficient for All, Efficient only to the Elect". Other denominations propose that the "Elect" are self-chosen whereas the Calvinist maintains that the Elect are God-chosen; but all Christian affirm that the Atonement is Limited in the application of Atonement. Only the non-christian Universalists propose that the Atonement is efficient to All, i.e., is actually applied to every single Man who has ever lived and All Men will be Saved.
The Arminians pretend that they believe in "universal Atonement", but they don't. They, too, believe that God limits the application of the Atonement to the Elect. They simply maintain that the Elect are self-chosen, that's all.
But the non-christian Universalists are wrong. 1 Timothy 2: 4 is not a statement of causation ("will have"), but of receptivity ("will have"). It is not a statement of God's action, but of His permission. God permits all men to be Saved. But like the prisoners in our earlier example, none ever will come to the Son, but those whom the Father sends.
Actually jude...Wesleyans/Arminians would agree with the L in the tulip too...They would agree that the atonement is "limited" to those that believe
3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Here the whosoever is modified by the word believeth...thus the atonement is limited
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