Why I am a Calvinist

http://www.apuritansmind.com/TULIP/WhyIAmACalvinist.htm ^ | 7/27/02 | C. Matthew McMahon

[Tantumergo]

Of course - for as well as bestowing the free gift of faith, it is God's grace that enables His sons to perform meritorious good works - Christ has merited our ability to merit.

[restornu]

I do not believe that Calvin formed a church. He was a theologian . He studied and wrote. His work influenced the reformation and John Knox

Thank you R7 now it helps me to understand why the religions of the same name is Free or Reform. I think I got it. I don't think in the 50-60's they had such debates over this as now. I think in some ways there was more love and unity towards one another.

But the oppostition stir things up and today in stead of finding things that bind us, we spend time findings things that divide us, and devils laughts!

[JesseShurun]

"A man cannot have salvation, except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church he can have everything except salvation.

And Illbay the Mormon says I can't have it unless I join his temple.

What is a church made up of? Is it Christ alone? Or is it a group of people? In your case and in Illbay's case it's that and a bunch of opinions of men that you want me to believe over the revealed word of God who teaches me Himself. You both want me to embrace the traditions of men and leave the traditions of God. You both would have me throw out the revealed and holy Word for the writings of theologians and prophets who do not fit the strict guidelines for prophets revealed to me by God. You both want me to be in awe of your big edifaces and your wealth. You want to bring a pantheon of semi-deities of gods and goddesses before me and have me bow down to them, kiss their rings in some instances. God has told me what He'll do to me the day that I do, and it's not pretty. Illbay wants me to learn the rules of tithing before he will agree to baptize me. And on and on. All this idea of religion is manmade. You hold it up and it makes you proud as a papa, like you have done it all yourselves, which you have. You thus worship yourselves, not God. He said all he wanted was the tabernacle not made with human hands for His abode. Hint: You will find it in the desert eating bread and Tishbite stew. Shalom my friend.

[RnMomof7]

Where does faith come from? Is it generated by man?

Faith is a gift of God is it not?

Rom 12:3   For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think [of himself] more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:

Eph 6:23   Peace [be] to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hbr 12:2   Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The ability to believe in faith is a gift of God

Phl 1:29   For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;

It is a gift of the Holy Spirit

1Cr 12:9   To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

Believing is an act of God

Act 11:21   And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.

1Cr 2:5   That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Jesse Abraham was elect of God. Not based on his own merits..he was elected by the good pleasure of God. The faith that Abramn was not the cause of His election..His election was the cause of his faith

Phl 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

[RnMomof7]

As a former Calvinist who has now come home to the one true Church, I find it reprehensible that you should denigrate one of our greatest Doctors by accusing Saint Augustine of providing the bases for Calvin's heresies.

You may have known the doctrines of Calvin...that would make you a Calvinist in name..

[RnMomof7]

You know codie I thank God that I am out from under that law..Thank you Jesus!

[RnMomof7]

Salvation is not of tradition of men..it is not a building or a pope ..salvation is not a piece of bread

Salvation is a mighty work of the grace of God..

I hope you are pleading as hard to have the gospel preached to the heathans ...many of your number think they are fine prayer partners.....that shows a total lack of discernment.

[RnMomof7]

I'm saying any believer has a better chance of final perseverance and eternal salvation in Christ's Church than a Church where only part of the Gospel is preached, admixed to varying degrees with grave error.

tell the pope

[Codie]

Bored?

[RnMomof7]

I know Steve is heaven bound..He has done exactly what the scripture demands..Repent and believe

No extras..plain and simple

pity the man that thinks there is salvation in rules and regulations...that is how he will be judged..and he will be lost because of it because no man can keep any law perfectly except Christ

I mourn for my lost family...they tried so hard...but no man earns heaven

[RnMomof7]

"It is almost finished, but you might have to do some time in purgatory to seal the deal?"

thats ok xzins thinks it's only almost finished too..

[RnMomof7]

You are correct !Salvation IS Christ alone..

There are going to be alot of people crying "Lord, Lord ..didn't we do this and that? You know us..

And Jesus will say I NEVER knew you

Salvation by works is not the plan that God laid before the foundation of the earth..His plan was Christ and the cross.....

The gospel went forth

Repent and believe

[RnMomof7]

Bored?

A bit..I am tired of telling people there is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ codie....

Men are proud..they want to do it themselves...to bad they will pay the price for that alone in the pit

[George W. Bush]

But your own church fathers and the ancient martyrs are all repudiated by Rome's present refusal to evangelize Jews, to kiss the Koran, to pray with the Dalai Lama and with the animists, to receive the blessings of Shiva, to participate in most any religious practice.

So your pope does not practice what your church fathers teach. What use are your ancient authorities when you disregard them entirely. You can't use them to demand exclusive salvation within the Roman church and yet pretend that followers of false religions may be saved through works and adherence to natural law.

Either the ancient church fathers were wrong or the present day practices of the church of Rome is wrong. The two are demonstrably not the same church in their most basic doctrine.

[Codie]

I'll stand on the teachings of the Fathers.


Clement of Alexandria

"[T]he blessed Peter, the chosen, the preeminent, the first among the disciples, for whom alone with himself the Savior paid the tribute [Matt. 17:27], quickly grasped and understood their meaning. And what does he say? ‘Behold, we have left all and have followed you’ [Matt. 19:27; Mark 10:28]" (Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 21:3–5 [A.D. 200]).



Tertullian

"For though you think that heaven is still shut up, remember that the Lord left the keys of it to Peter here, and through him to the Church, which keys everyone will carry with him if he has been questioned and made a confession [of faith]" (Antidote Against the Scorpion 10 [A.D. 211]).

"[T]he Lord said to Peter, ‘On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. . . . Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to you the keys, not to the Church; and whatever you shall have bound or you shall have loosed, not what they shall have bound or they shall have loosed" (Modesty 21:9–10 [A.D. 220]).



The Letter of Clement to James

"Be it known to you, my lord, that Simon [Peter], who, for the sake of the true faith, and the most sure foundation of his doctrine, was set apart to be the foundation of the Church, and for this end was by Jesus himself, with his truthful mouth, named Peter, the first fruits of our Lord, the first of the apostles; to whom first the Father revealed the Son; whom the Christ, with good reason, blessed; the called, and elect" (Letter of Clement to James 2 [A.D. 221]).



Origen

"[I]f we were to attend carefully to the Gospels, we should also find, in relation to those things which seem to be common to Peter . . . a great difference and a preeminence in the things [Jesus] said to Peter, compared with the second class [of apostles]. For it is no small difference that Peter received the keys not of one heaven but of more, and in order that whatsoever things he binds on earth may be bound not in one heaven but in them all, as compared with the many who bind on earth and loose on earth, so that these things are bound and loosed not in [all] the heavens, as in the case of Peter, but in one only; for they do not reach so high a stage with power as Peter to bind and loose in all the heavens" (Commentary on Matthew 13:31 [A.D. 248]).



Cyprian of Carthage

"The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.’ . . . On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all [the apostles] are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).



Cyril of Jerusalem

"The Lord is loving toward men, swift to pardon but slow to punish. Let no man despair of his own salvation. Peter, the first and foremost of the apostles, denied the Lord three times before a little servant girl, but he repented and wept bitterly" (Catechetical Lectures 2:19 [A.D. 350]).

"[Simon Magus] so deceived the city of Rome that Claudius erected a statue of him. . . . While the error was extending itself, Peter and Paul arrived, a noble pair and the rulers of the Church, and they set the error aright. . . . [T]hey launched the weapon of their like-mindedness in prayer against the Magus, and struck him down to earth. It was marvelous enough, and yet no marvel at all, for Peter was there—he that carries about the keys of heaven [Matt. 16:19]" (ibid., 6:14).

"In the power of the same Holy Spirit, Peter, both the chief of the apostles and the keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, in the name of Christ healed Aeneas the paralytic at Lydda, which is now called Diospolis [Acts 9:32–34]" (ibid., 17:27).



Ephraim the Syrian

"[Jesus said:] Simon, my follower, I have made you the foundation of the holy Church. I betimes called you Peter, because you will support all its buildings. You are the inspector of those who will build on Earth a Church for me. If they should wish to build what is false, you, the foundation, will condemn them. You are the head of the fountain from which my teaching flows; you are the chief of my disciples. Through you I will give drink to all peoples. Yours is that life-giving sweetness which I dispense. I have chosen you to be, as it were, the firstborn in my institution so that, as the heir, you may be executor of my treasures. I have given you the keys of my kingdom. Behold, I have given you authority over all my treasures" (Homilies 4:1 [A.D. 351]).



Ambrose of Milan

"[Christ] made answer: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church. . . .’ Could he not, then, strengthen the faith of the man to whom, acting on his own authority, he gave the kingdom, whom he called the rock, thereby declaring him to be the foundation of the Church [Matt. 16:18]?" (The Faith 4:5 [A.D. 379]).



Pope Damasus I

"Likewise it is decreed . . . that it ought to be announced that . . . the holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven . . . ’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. The first see, therefore, is that of Peter the apostle, that of the Roman Church, which has neither stain nor blemish nor anything like it" (Decree of Damasus 3 [A.D. 382]).



Jerome

"‘But,’ you [Jovinian] will say, ‘it was on Peter that the Church was founded’ [Matt. 16:18]. Well . . . one among the twelve is chosen to be their head in order to remove any occasion for division" (Against Jovinian 1:26 [A.D. 393]).

"Simon Peter, the son of John, from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, brother of Andrew the apostle, and himself chief of the apostles, after having been bishop of the church of Antioch and having preached to the Dispersion . . . pushed on to Rome in the second year of Claudius to overthrow Simon Magus, and held the sacerdotal chair there for twenty-five years until the last, that is the fourteenth, year of Nero. At his hands he received the crown of martyrdom being nailed to the cross with his head towards the ground and his feet raised on high, asserting that he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord" (Lives of Illustrious Men 1 [A.D. 396]).



Pope Innocent I

"In seeking the things of God . . . you have acknowledged that judgment is to be referred to us [the pope], and have shown that you know that is owed to the Apostolic See [Rome], if all of us placed in this position are to desire to follow the apostle himself [Peter] from whom the episcopate itself and the total authority of this name have emerged" (Letters 29:1 [A.D. 408]).



Augustine

"Among these [apostles] Peter alone almost everywhere deserved to represent the whole Church. Because of that representation of the Church, which only he bore, he deserved to hear ‘I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven’" (Sermons 295:2 [A.D. 411]).

"Some things are said which seem to relate especially to the apostle Peter, and yet are not clear in their meaning unless referred to the Church, which he is acknowledged to have represented in a figure on account of the primacy which he bore among the disciples. Such is ‘I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ and other similar passages. In the same way, Judas represents those Jews who were Christ’s enemies" (Commentary on Psalm 108 1 [A.D. 415]).

"Who is ignorant that the first of the apostles is the most blessed Peter?" (Commentary on John 56:1 [A.D. 416]).



Council of Ephesus

"Philip, presbyter and legate of [Pope Celestine I] said: ‘We offer our thanks to the holy and venerable synod, that when the writings of our holy and blessed pope had been read to you . . . you joined yourselves to the holy head also by your holy acclamations. For your blessednesses is not ignorant that the head of the whole faith, the head of the apostles, is blessed Peter the apostle’" (Acts of the Council, session 2 [A.D. 431]).

"Philip, the presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See [Rome] said: ‘There is no doubt, and in fact it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins: who down even to today and forever both lives and judges in his successors’" (ibid., session 3).



Pope Leo I

"Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . has placed the principal charge on the blessed Peter, chief of all the apostles, and from him as from the head wishes his gifts to flow to all the body, so that anyone who dares to secede from Peter’s solid rock may understand that he has no part or lot in the divine mystery. He wished him who had been received into partnership in his undivided unity to be named what he himself was, when he said: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’ [Matt. 16:18], that the building of the eternal temple might rest on Peter’s solid rock, strengthening his Church so surely that neither could human rashness assail it nor the gates of hell prevail against it" (Letters 10:1 [A.D. 445).

...

"Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . established the worship belonging to the divine [Christian] religion. . . . But the Lord desired that the sacrament of this gift should pertain to all the apostles in such a way that it might be found principally in the most blessed Peter, the highest of all the apostles. And he wanted his gifts to flow into the entire body from Peter himself, as if from the head, in such a way that anyone who had dared to separate himself from the solidarity of Peter would realize that he was himself no longer a sharer in the divine mystery" (ibid., 10:2–3).

"Although bishops have a common dignity, they are not all of the same rank. Even among the most blessed apostles, though they were alike in honor, there was a certain distinction of power. All were equal in being chosen, but it was given to one to be preeminent over the others. . . . [So today through the bishops] the care of the universal Church would converge in the one See of Peter, and nothing should ever be at odds with this head" (ibid., 14:11).

[Tantumergo]

What is a church made up of? Is it Christ alone? Or is it a group of people? In your case and in Illbay's case it's that and a bunch of opinions of men that you want me to believe over the revealed word of God who teaches me Himself.


I can't speak for Illbay, but Christ's Church is made up of Him as the Head and we who are His covenant family. I don't know what you consider to be the revealed word of God, but we consider Christ to be the revealed word of God. If you mean the Old Testament then you received that from the religion of Israel - if you mean the New Testament then you received that from that horrible religion which is the Catholic Church.

You both want me to embrace the traditions of men and leave the traditions of God.

I don't think I've ever asked you or anyone else to embrace the traditions of men - but I would ask you to embrace Christ on His terms and not yours!

You both would have me throw out the revealed and holy Word...

No - I would have you know the Holy Word...

You both want me to be in awe of your big edifaces and your wealth.

The Catholic Church may be wealthy in your country, but in mine She has only been "legal" for about 150 years because men thought that they could have God for their Father without His bride as their Mother. I would rather you keep your awe for God and the magnitude of His love for YOU - that love which is prepared to go to the length of becoming present under the appearance of bread and wine so that you may eat His flesh, drink His blood and receive his very own life and nature in you.

You want to bring a pantheon of semi-deities of gods and goddesses before me and have me bow down to them, kiss their rings in some instances.

Can't do that - it would be breaking the first Commandment.

All this idea of religion is manmade.

Illbay's may be, but the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ - He said "On this rock I will build my CHURCH..." He did not say "In this book that fell out of Heaven unto thy ungrateful lap will I reveal myself to thee individually and personally in egotistcal isolation from all thy siblings..." - never wrote a word as far as I know.

He said all he wanted was the tabernacle not made with human hands for His abode.

You are quite right on this one - he wants your tabernacle to be baptised so He can tabernacle in you and make you a new creation in covenant with Him.

Pax

[George W. Bush]

The usual tired list.

I note that you avoided the actual question: the dilemma between historical orthodox Christian belief of salvation only in Christ and the modern doctrine of Rome of salvation found everywhere.

It is not the Roman hierarchy who upholds Christian orthodoxy in this matter.

Now that Rome refuses to evangelize Jews because it considers them saved by a belief in a coming messiah, does that mean that Jesus shouldn't have recruited Jews as His disciples? Were the apostles, all Jews) wrong to convert to Christian belief and to die for it? If modern Rome is correct in its new theology, they were wrong to follow Christ.

[Tantumergo]

salvation is not a piece of bread

No Christ is our salvation and he has the incredible humility to come to us under the accidents of a piece of bread in order that we might have eternal life.

John 6:54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.

Do you think it is a coincidence that after this teaching that many disciples could not bear and left Him that Jesus identifies Judas as a devil? Was not Judas' loss of faith in Jesus initiated by the rejection of His doctrine of the Eucharist - the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

St. Paul also sees this as a sin worthy of damnation:

1 Cor 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.
30 Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep.

And of course he is writing to people who have at one point repented and believed, but he doesn't seem to see that to be sufficient to avoid judgement.

[Codie]

I note that you avoided the actual question: the dilemma between historical orthodox Christian belief of salvation only in Christ and the modern doctrine of Rome of salvation found everywhere

Pick up and read the CCC ,when you can find the time.

[drstevej]

***What is the doctrine of "the middle state"?***

Is this something from Lord of the Rings? Better ask Corin.