Congratulations! If you were not dead in trespasses and sins, in other words, it is just a useless metaphor, and you are able on your own to meet the conditions of believing, then you have saved yourself. All God did was provide the opportunity of salvation, the atonement, but it is useless unless you agree to accept it and God is helpless to assist you, otherwise it would be God who coerced you into something on further reflection, you may not have wanted to do.
All protestations that the faith exercised is not works are but feeble attempts to rescue the sovereignty of God from the Invictus syndrome, “I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul....”.
“Congratulations! If you were not dead in trespasses and sins, in other words, it is just a useless metaphor, and you are able on your own to meet the conditions of believing, then you have saved yourself.”
That is a stupid statement.
Metaphors ARE useful, provided they are understood for what they are, and not taken as the literal end-all. Are we dead in our sins? YES! Was the Prodigal Son dead to his father? Yes! Are we alienated from God, with no communion with him? Yes. Are we helpless to save ourselves? Yes!
But scripture uses a number of other metaphors, and to refuse to read them, acknowledge them or incorporate them is to deceive ourselves and others.
When Jesus calls us sick, who are you to deny his words? When Jesus calls us lost, who are you to deny his words? Who are you to reject what God says about and to Cornelius? Who are you to reject what Jesus says when he commands repentance, and belief?
Who are you to defy the Word of God?
You have yet to offer a single passage that shows faith is something God gives as a gift to man after regeneration by election.
NOT ONE!
If that is the plan of salvation since before creation, don’t you think God’s word would mention it? Somewhere? Sometime?
In an earlier post, Dr E admits she can’t recall ever meeting anyone who was a Calvinist at conversion...that every Calvinist she has met ‘grew’ into that understanding. Isn’t it just a bit odd that no one gets saved as a Calvinist? And how are we saved, if none of us believe the REAL gospel when we are saved?
Here is what you cannot get around by scripture:
1 - For God so loved the world...
Not the elect. Not his ‘chosen’ people. God so loved the world!
2 - that whoever believes in him
Not, whoever I regenerate and give belief to, not whoever I’ve chosen to make believe, but “that whoever believes in him”. That is a condition, AND God’s choice for salvation.
3 - That God’s offer is often rejected. “...his own people did not receive him”. That is a choice of individuals: “you refuse to come to me that you may have life”!
4 - “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God...” Receiving him - which is equated to believing in him - comes BEFORE regeneration as children of God, not after.
At some point, Calvinists need to take scripture seriously. God said what he meant, and meant what he said, and it takes a powerful act of the will to replace it with Calvinism!