Posted on 05/03/2014 7:07:17 AM PDT by GonzoII
Further,
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death…in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:2-4).
Notice the emphasis on the fact that man is truly made just so much so that he can fulfill “the just requirement of the law.” It doesn’t get any more just, or righteous, than that!
Thus, Romans 3:10ff simply does not teach total depravity in a Calvinist sense. It cannot when the context is understood.
Quite revealing what Staples OMITTED from his quote of Romans 8:1-4. Here is that passage:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The righteous requirement of the law CHRIST fulfilled and fully met by His perfect and sinless life and by His sacrifice on the cross FOR US. Jesus didn't die for us so that we could turn around and fulfill the requirements of the law and be made just - HE justified us through faith and NOT by our works. It's too bad Staples doesn't see the context clearly because his view is fogged up by the Roman Catholic accursed gospel of salvation by faith AND our works.
Calvin WAS correct and Scripture backs him up over and over on this point. We cannot ever be as righteous as we need to be in order to merit salvation. Even one sin makes us guilty of the whole law and all the good deeds cannot pay for the tiniest sin. Only by the shedding of blood is there remission/forgiveness of sins and atonement. If righteousness comes by the law, Christ is dead in vain.
Calvin’s “Total Depravity” means that every human, without exception, must experience physical death; and that, though possessing the knowledge of good and evil, cannot initiate communication with The God at any level.
You CHOSE to believe?
Except Mary; who NEVER died and is now Jesus' executive secretary.
John 6:44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
A very wise elder once told me “When speaking of things of God, use His words”.
Of course I chose, but notice the order. I did so in the day of His power. I did so in the day He made me willing. I knew only basic Bible stories and doctrine, so at the time I thought I had made a decision on my own. It would be many years before I understood what really happened and just how gracious He had been to me.
Now I know the Bible teaches I would never have chosen Him had He not first chosen and drawn me. That’s how it is for every single person who will ever be saved. And all the Father chose in eternity past will one day choose Christ, but they do so not on their own power, but His. Natural men cannot and will not choose Him. If He draws a man, that man will come to Christ. He makes you willing. He overcomes your natural will by giving you ears to ear and eyes to see. He teaches those He is drawing. Once a sinner can really see his spiritual poverty, his ruin in Adam, he will run to Christ.
“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37)
“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. (John 6:44-45)
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” (Romans 8:29-30)
Again, we are born again not by an act of our own will, but His.
“Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:13)
So we have LIMITED free will in this world?
When God gives to a man a heart to see, hear and believe, a heart of flesh, in other words, replacing the dead heart of stone, the man responds by faith. In other words, he indeed chooses Christ, but only after Christ first chose Him.
Joh_15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
John Calvin: “The will is so utterly vitiated and corrupted in every part as to produce nothing but evil” (Institutes, Bk. II, Chapter II, Para. 26)." 2Ch 31:20 Thus Hezeki'ah did throughout all Judah; and he did what was good and right and faithful before the LORD his God. Php 4:13 I can do all things in him who strengthens me
While I question some things Calvin held to, the above does not contradict Total Depravity, as what Christ did and a believers does is due to God's quickening grace, not because he has inherent goodness of his own.
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. (Romans 3:10-11)
Thus man must be given grace to come to Christ and by Him be made righteous.
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)
...This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. (Isaiah 54:17)
In conversion, man does what he otherwise could not and would not do.
1. It is God who chooses the elect, they do not choose Him.
If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. (John 15:19)
We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened , that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. (Acts 16:14)
He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. (Psalms 40:2)
2. It is God who grants repentance and gives faith to souls who were dead in sins and trespasses:
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; (Ephesians 2:1)
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) (Ephesians 2:5)
When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. (Acts 11:18)
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8)
3. The believer is justified by faith thru grace, though this is the kind of faith that is expressed in baptism.
To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 10:43-45)
And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should the word of the gospel, and . And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith . (Acts 15:7-9)
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)
Note here that while Cornelius did many objectively good things by God's grace before he was saved, he was not saved by them, but needed the believe on the Lord Jesus to be saved, by their hearts being purified by faith .
Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. (Acts 11:14)
And because it is by faith alone ( (sola fide, yet not a faith that is alone in what it effects) and not the degree of merit one has, that appropriates justification, thus all believers are made "accepted in the Beloved" at conversion, and made to sit in heavenly places were Christ is, (Eph. 1:6; 2:6) being translated into the kingdom of God, (Col. 1:13) and baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ, (1Cor. 12:13) the one entirely true church and bride of Christ. (Eph. 5:25) And thus all who die in faith will go to be with the Lord. (Lk. 23:42,43; Acts 7:59; Rv. 20:6; 2Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23,24; 1Ths. 4:17)
The damning difference btwn Scriptural justification and that of Rome is that in the former faith is counted for righteousness, justifying the UnGodly, "For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." (Romans 4:3; Gn. 15:6) Which was before he offered up Issac, (Gn. 22) which act justified him as one having true faith, for faith without works is dead. But it is not the effects of faith that justifies, but faith appropriates justification on Christ's expense and righteousness.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. (Romans 3:28)
"The Law" is used here because if any system of salvation by merit could be salvific it would be the Law, "or if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." (Galatians 3:21) and thus it encompasses all systems of works-righteousness as being salvific, ,and thus Titus 3:5, being written to a Gentile, broadly disallows all "works of righteousness" as salvific.
Yet again, as James shows, one can be said to be justified by works since works are faith in action, yet is the faith behind works that actually instrumentally appropriates justification, on Christ's expense and credit.
In contrast, justification under Rome begins with a soul being formally justified via the act of sprinkling, even if the soul is morally incognizant and incapable of fulfilling the stated requirements for baptism, that of whole hearted repentant faith. (Acts 2:38; 8:36-37)
As the Catholic Encyclopedia>Sanctifying Grace states,
Although the sinner is justified by the justice of Christ, inasmuch as the Redeemer has merited for him the grace of justification (causa meritoria), nevertheless he is formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness (causa formalis),
And except in the rare case of perfect contrition (contritio caritate perfecta), "then the sanctifying grace can only be imparted by the actual reception of the sacrament" of baptism.
Thus having begun with a soul actually becoming good enough to be accepted by God, so this process of salvation typically ends with a soul atoning for sins and becoming good enough to enter Heaven thru the fire of "purgatory" commencing at dead, which is not Scriptural.
Rome rails against salvation by faith (sola fide) alone by charging that it merely covers up sin but does not make the sinner actually righteous, as well as rendering all believers equally as righteous as the Mary of Catholicism. However, under sola fide while it is faith alone that actually appropriates justification, this only occurs in the conversion of regeneration, in which the souls is forgivnes and washed of all his sins, as Peter said, "purifying the hearts by faith." Thus the souls is washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11)
And rather than ignoring distinctions of virtue btwn believers, sola fide upholds this, as while one has his essential acceptance with God by true faith, so that both the "good thief" and pious Cornelius are "accepted in the Beloved" and "made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," and have "boldness to enter the holiness" by the sinless shed blood of Christ, (Heb. 10:19) yet there are differences btwn believers "which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness" (Rm.5:17) in how much this imputed righteousness and washing of regeneration has its practical outworking.
Thus the exhortations to continue in the faith, and against drawing back into perdition, (Gal. 5:1-4; Heb. 3:19,12,14; 10:38,39) and which faith God rewards in grace, via recognition of what it effects. (1Cor. 3:8ff)
Works, "things which accompany salvation" attest to true faith, thus believers are judged by their works, yet no one enters Heaven due to the merit of works done, unlike under Rome. Thus while in Scripture, besides Paul stating "whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord," and looked forward "to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord," (2 Corinthians 5:7,8)" all the Thessalonians were told that they would immediately go to be forever with the Lord if He returned in their lifetime, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
Trying to argue these all had atoned for all the sins and became holy enough for Heaven as those in purgatory as held as having to do, is absurd. Instead, while Christ will reward each person according to their labor, it is not because they attained a certain level of works and holiness that they gain eternal life with God by, but because they are justified by faith on Christ's expense and righteousness, a faith that is manifest as true by their works. That is the best i see it, which is giving God the glory, not man.
Of course, this objection was noted, but it is a contradiction of The Holy Scriptures.
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment: . . ." (Heb 9:27 DRB)
και καθ οσον αποκειται τοις ανθρωποις απαξ αποθανειν μετα δε τουτο κρισις . . . (Heb 9:27 TR)
Without exception.
men = anthropoi = humans
His Mother, Mary, physically died, and her works will be judged at the Bema Seat of Jesus, The Anointed One and Lord of all, contrary to the expectations of some, who have speculated otherwise. As will the works of the head of His family, Joseph, Mary's husband.
Who is the ye and you?
Back up to John chapter 13 and continue reading and you'll find that it is the disciples, who were sitting at the Passover table.
HE did, indeed, CHOOSE them.
How can anyone read the text and STILL fail to see this?
Note how he also says "ye have NOT chosen me," showing that their following of Him is predicated on His choice alone to ordain them to everlasting life and fruitfulness. This is a theme throughout the entire Gospel of John, and is consistently applied to all believers, so one cannot say that this only applies to the Apostles alone.
John 6:65 "no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."
Joh 6:37 "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me" In instance after instance, God is the active agent in salvation who does the "choosing," and man, who responds, without fail does so and comes to Christ. While the infidels are told that the reason for their faithlessness is because they were not chosen by the Father, are "of this world," and not for any other cause.
Joh 6:64 But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) Joh 6:65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."
snicker
I guess I must just be awfully dense, because I am not grasping the sense of your question. Exactly what does "this" refer to, if you please?
Thus, choosing to believe is something we do of Free Will; knocking absolute predesitination into the ashpile.
*2 Peter 3:9
Gambling?
Shocked I say!
You would be sincerely wrong, since, if "all" are 'chosen' to receive salvation, then all would be saved, since "all that the Father giveth me shall come to me," and, "whoever comes to me I shall not cast out." You also didn't reply to the the other verse wherein Christ explains the reason for the unbelief of the Jews, which declares quite plainly that it was not given to them to believe at all, and that is why He told them "no man can come to me unless it is given to Him by my Father."
One final point, if you had free will, so it follows then that you can freely choose at any time, under any circumstance, one way or the other, as your will is in not any way under the bondage of your own sinful desires. But this contradicts the scripture (among many others) which declares "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost" 1 Co 12:3. If your will must depend on the Holy Ghost revealing Himself to your first, then, your will is in bondage, and, at most, you can say that you only have the "freedom" to choose until the power is given to you from above. In which the question then is, "Can I refuse then?" And that answer is, again, no, for whomever Christ frees, they are free indeed, and what God hath begun in you, He sees through to completion (Php 1:6, John 8:36).
It is indeed man's duty and God's great desire that all men every repent and be saved, in the same way it is His desire that all men repent and sin no more; however, the problem is that in man's "free will," he has no desire to fulfill his duties, and only freely chooses to sin. And that is why God is the active agent in salvation, as otherwise none would be saved, as all of us are "gone astray" and "do not seek" or "understand" God (Romans 3).
But as for why God does not save one person or another, or why He does not save all, the answer is "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Romans 9). When God saves anyone, it is in mercy that He does so, and when He judges anyone, it is in perfect justice that He destroys them.
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