Dr. E always asks a good question: how does one resist the Holy Spirit? One can reject him, I suppose, but I'm not sure that's the same thing. Is it the same thing? Anyway, what I'm wondering is at what point of resisting grace does one lose their salvation or peform poorly enough not to earn it? However that's properly understood. IOW, is it a continuous resisting of grace or is it the final resistance seconds before you die that sends you to hell? I read that some of the Christian big-wigs used to postpone full acceptance of Christianity until they felt their mortality really closing in on them, then they would begin to take the faith and the sacraments seriously. Constantine is probably a good example of what I'm talking about here.
Earlier on in the thread someone remarked that Love is a dance, and Dr. E noted that it was a good metaphor, and added that it was God who was in the lead.
I thought that was good. But it might even be a better metaphor than previously suspected, especially from a Calvinist POV.
I studied dance in my earlier years and so I began to really think about the metaphor and it came to mind that God not only leads, HE is the Choreographer par excellence. And anyone that has taken any dance lessons knows that it's the choreographer that designs the whole dance and that in order for a performance to come off without a hitch there can't be any improvisation. It's a higly studied, indefatigably rehearsed routine. Modern dance is a little different, but I leave that metaphor to anyone that wants to go there.
The only people who successfully reject the Holy Spirit are those who have not been predestined to grace.
The important thing to remember is that all those who reject the Holy Spirit do so because that's what they want to do. Their fallen natures have not been been graced "by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3:5).
Anyway, what I'm wondering is at what point of resisting grace does one lose their salvation or perform poorly enough not to earn it?
No one can "earn" their salvation, and if someone successfully resists the Holy Spirit then they never had God's grace to begin with.
Either/or.
The moment when we realize our own salvation by Christ's atonement is determined by God. And like the thief on the cross, it will happen when God wants it to happen. From that point on, it grows, it ebbs and flows, but it eventually blooms into repentance, gratitude and a new life lived in Jesus Christ.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." -- Galatians 5:22
I like your choreographer metaphor. As we learn the steps we appear to be improvising, but our movements are actually devised by the originator of the dance.
I would say the L&E thread was a confirmation, but I think I actually made the switch toward the end of my mentoring. The funny thing is that I didn't know there was a name for all these things I believed, and had no idea there were masses of people who thought exactly the same way. :) Once my mentor really got me to understand that it was all about Christ, then I think I was home.
Dr. E always asks a good question: how does one resist the Holy Spirit? One can reject him, I suppose, but I'm not sure that's the same thing. Is it the same thing?
That's a very interesting question. In my opinion, in this context "rejecting" and "resisting" are the same thing. To me, both connote some notion of an advancement by, or an offer made by, or at least a presentation (of some sort) by the one rejected or resisted. Since I follow the doctrine of irresistible grace, I don't see how either is possible. For the reprobate, the Holy Spirit never shows up to face either rejection or resistance. I might use a word like "deny", as in "the existence of". In that case, no knowledge is required, and the Spirit doesn't have to be involved at all to be denied. ....... It's probably a thin line. :)
Anyway, what I'm wondering is at what point of resisting grace does one lose their salvation or perform poorly enough not to earn it? However that's properly understood. IOW, is it a continuous resisting of grace or is it the final resistance seconds before you die that sends you to hell?
Apart from what we "think" or what our "experience" is, I think the actual fact is that our salvation is completely out of our hands altogether. Part of my transformation was to come to believe that there was never anything I could have ever done to either win or lose my salvation at any time. If that is correct, then it would not be possible for me to have refused any grace given by the Spirit for my eternal life. Whatever part of me that could have possibly attempted to refuse (reject, resist, etc.) was automatically trumped by the grace in the first place. IOW, when I was a lost person God didn't ask me if I wanted the grace. He just gave it to me, and that was that. --- In my opinion, it is a person's sin that causes him to go to hell, period. (I don't see it as a matter of any decision to resist, etc.)God may or may not have decided to bail him out of that, but whatever that decision was, it was final.
I studied dance in my earlier years and so I began to really think about the metaphor and it came to mind that God not only leads, HE is the Choreographer par excellence.
I agree, and like the metaphor also. In my clumsy way I would say that Christ is the dance instructor and we stand on His feet. :)