Posted on 02/28/2010 8:30:39 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.
Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.
No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don't operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, "everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world" — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom's hottest links.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
2 reasons:
1 - In the previous verse, he comes to his own, and they do NOT receive him...but to all who do - who DO!
11He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
2 - Receiving him is equated with believing in him. And it is spoken in the active sense, not the passive - we believe, not we receive belief.
This goes deeper into the Greek than I understand, but look for the word "active":
As many as received him (osoi elabon auton). Effective aorist active indicative of lambanw "as many as did receive him," in contrast with oi idioi just before, exceptional action on the part of the disciples and other believers.
To them (autoiv). Dative case explanatory of the relative clause preceding, an anacoluthon common in John 27 times as against 21 in the Synoptists. This is a common Aramaic idiom and is urged by Burney (Aramaic Origin, etc., p. 64) for his theory of an Aramaic original of the Fourth Gospel.
The right (exousian). In 5:27 edwken (first aorist active indicative of didwmi) exousian means authority but includes power (dunamiv). Here it is more the notion of privilege or right.
To become (genestai). Second aorist middle of ginomai, to become what they were not before.
Children of God (tekna teou). In the full spiritual sense, not as mere offspring of God true of all men (Acts 17:28). Paul's phrase uioi teou ( 3:26) for believers, used also by Jesus of the pure in heart (Matthew 5:9), does not occur in John's Gospel (but in Revelation 21:7). It is possible that John prefers ta tekna tou teou for the spiritual children of God whether Jew or Gentile (John 11:52) because of the community of nature (teknon from root tek-, to beget). But one cannot follow Westcott in insisting on "adoption" as Paul's reason for the use of uioi since Jesus uses uioi teou in Matthew 5:9. Clearly the idea of regeneration is involved here as in John 3:3.
Even to them that believe (toiv pisteuousin). No "even" in the Greek, merely explanatory apposition with autoiv, dative case of the articular present active participle of pisteuw.
On his name (eiv to onoma). Bernard notes pisteuw eiv 35 times in John, to put trust in or on. See also 2:23; 3:38 for pisteuw eiv to onoma autou. This common use of onoma for the person is an Aramaism, but it occurs also in the vernacular papyri and eiv to onoma is particularly common in the payment of debts (Moulton and Milligan's Vocabulary). See Acts 1:15 for onomata for persons.
http://www.studylight.org/com/rwp/view.cgi?book=joh&chapter=001&verse=012
xzins: “Receive vs resist. The latter condemns. “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” / Those who are lost own it by active resistance. Those who are saved have not actively done anything. They have passively received.”
No.
In the verse you quote, he that believes is ACTIVE, not passive. He that believes, not he that receives belief.
“16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Once again, belief is presented as something we do - a verb - not a noun we receive as a gift.
I have a copy of this answer. In fact, it’s like any other I asnwer I get from you...same stuff, different number. If you want to make a comment, make a comment in your own words, but cutting and pasting the same lines over an dover gets old.
################
Oh, rather like the very old & weak relentlessly repetitiously inane and absurd haughty anti-God questions and commentary???
The lack of hypocrisy would be wonderous,
. . . if I could find any such lack.
k50: “a belief is a willing acceptance of something on faith (trust) alone.”
Faith: “1 confidence or trust in a person or thing; 2 belief that is not based on proof”
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith
Faith is defined as one person trusting (believing, having confidence in) something or someone else. Faith is used to describe belief in someone or something, so belief generates faith.
INDEED.
Very well put.
“Calvin is but an idol to man’s self-centeredness and vanity.”
We receive Jesus when we believe. Believing is a verb we do, and as a result we receive Jesus. We receive HIM, not faith. A person, not a doctrine.
AGREED.
Biblically, however, Faith is also Given us of God.
“Biblically, however, Faith is also Given us of God.”
Verse?
I grant and agree that unless God reveals himself, none of us would have any belief at all.
FK, thank you for your well thought out reply. I think you did a pretty bang up job of putting your thoughts down on paper and answering to the best of your ability my own objections.
The problem as we all know it is that we see through a glass darkly. But someday, face to face.
Thanks again for the reply.
Marlowe
The plan of salvation is in John 1:12 as “receive.” It is in parallel with “believe.” You are mistaking active tense in Greek grammar with the meaning of a word.
Receiving a gift is not a self-intiated act.
Receiving is sliding down the slide that’s slicked down for the purpose of sliding down. Resisting is digging in your heels to the edge of the slide and refusing the natural slide to the bottom.
The second is willful rejection and justifies lostness.
The first is not willful but is succumbing to God’s Divine preparation.
“Receiving a gift is not a self-intiated act.”
I never claimed salvation is a self- initiated act. On the contrary, I have posted many times that it is God’s initiative, and his alone. And salvation is explicitly said to be a gift.
However, receiving is not passive. When I worked military test, contractors could provide cookies at meetings, but we could not receive a sandwich - we had to pay for anything beyond a cookie.
I have had a contractor offer me goodies, and had to tell them no.
We receive by believing. Believing is a verb we actively do. When we do, we receive - but we could reject as well by not believing.
“11He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
God initiates, and we choose to believe or not. If we believe, we will be born again. If not, we condemn ourselves.
So, you initiated having the gift of a sandwich made, and then offered, and then you refused? Do I have that correct?
Or did someone offer and then you resisted?
Did you receive or did you resist?
Excellent post, FK!
God uses the means in this world to do as he planned even if we don’t know how he plans on using them.
Since all major contractors know the rules and cannot afford to violate them (not in a meeting with hundreds of people!), the contractor required payment for sandwiches. If they had not, I would have refused the offer.
When someone discussed post-military employment, I simply told them I wasn’t interested. One small contractor offered me meals, and I said I couldn’t accept.
Like the Jews who rejected Jesus, I chose not to receive what I was offered.
We believe or not. That is an act. We actively do it. We do not receive belief as a gift. Faith (a noun) describes what we have when we believe (a verb).
Faith and believing are not gifts we are irresistibly given from God. The opportunity is a gift, and the salvation is a gift, if we receive by believing.
When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.”
“For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Jesus never says, “Receive belief in the Gospel.”
Yes, you resisted.
receive belief
It's in apposition, as indicated by the commas. "as many as received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave power..."
In short, an appositive is an indication of a parallel in intent between the two items positioned with one another. They are indicated as synonymous.
Jeepers kosta, it's bad enough that you make yourself the measure of God. Do you require everyone else on the planet to do things "your way?" I.e., nothing can be acceptable to you unless it meets your exact criteria for how it "ought" to be done in your view?
Just wondering....
“In short, an appositive is an indication of a parallel in intent between the two items positioned with one another. They are indicated as synonymous.”
Correct. Receiving him is the same as believing in him - and believing is an action verb. It is something we do, and thus we receive Jesus.
And regeneration follows that. It doesn’t precede it.
I like to think that I give a LOT of grace
to folks who are birds of rare plumage. I have to.
I like to be congruent and consistent with my own values and match my behavior with those values, too.
However, when someone is beyond the 3rd standard deviation from the mean . . .
and relentlessly relates to others in a word choice and style which makes “haughty” a wimpy word . . .
AND THEN demands of others something opposite to their own behavior . . .
What crumbs of respect may have been left get tossed to the birds.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.