I wasn’t trying to say that Calvinism was “inconsistent with the preaching of the Gospel.” What I was trying to point out was that just like jude24 was making a comment about Arminianism, an Arminiast(?) could make the same claim about Calvinism, if you get my meaning.
The problem here is that you know that there are inconsistent Arminians that preach the gospel as if God is sovereign over salvation, even praying that God would move upon them, but you can't find any Calvinists who have any confidence in man's "free-will".
I suppose so. This I do know, if there are human beings involved you will have inconsistency and hypocrisy, count on it.
Thank God for such Arminians. Are you one of these?
Hoo boy, here goes.
Like I said, I fall in between the Calvinist and Arminiast camps. I believe both are true. ‘But how can that be’ you ask. Well, I will tell you.
God has three basic attributes(I’m sure you can come up with more, but I am focusing on these three). His first attribute is His Omnipotence. God is all-powerful. There is nothing God cannot do.
Secondly, God is Omniscient. He knows everything. There is nothing God does not know.
Thirdly, God is Omnitemporal. God is everywhere at the same time, and He is also everywhen at the same time. God is. To speak of God “looking into the future” or “remembering the past” is absurd if you think about it. There is no future or past with God. There is only the constant “now.”
Ecc. 3:15 illustrates this attribute of God by saying, “That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.”
Let’s take that attribute of God and see how predestination and free-will interact. I was saved on November 11, 1992. On November 10, 1992 I was a hell-bound sinner like the majority of humanity. However something happened to change that, I came to believe in Jesus Christ as my Saviour. From my perspective there had been a change in my position. The change was from a hell-bound sinner to a Heaven-bound Saint.
Let’s move on to God’s perspective. He decides to create the Universe. He counts the cost. God does not start a Creation and wait to see how it turns out. God is present at every event of the Creation at the same “time”(if we can still use that term when speaking about God). The Bible tells us that God does not change. When God created the Universe He knows my decision, He knows I am His. From the Eternal, I have always been His. There has not been a change in my status, indeed there cannot be a change in my status before God because if there were than that would cause Him to change and we know He does not change.
To God my decision is irrelevant because I am His, from the beginning of Time on into Eternity. Since I am His, He has predestinated me to become conformed into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, and so on and so forth.
To me my decision is everything. Without my belief in Jesus Christ as payment for my sins I am destined for Hell, and rightly so.
Well this post has gone on long enough. If you would like me to clarify something, just ask. I’ll be happy to try. ;^)
I liked that post. It pretty well sums up my position...although mine might be closer to the view that Calvinists and Arminians are both right in a way.
Calvinists are right in believing that there is an elect...the bible clearly teaches that. Arminians are correct in that God's salvation extends to all of mankind.
That seems to be a contradiction, but it's not. The elect are those who have been offered salvation in our present age. The rest will be offered salvation at the great white throne judgement, after the thousand year millenial kingdom.
Actually, so do Arminians and so do Calvinists, so it's no surprise to me. The big difference is in the extrapolation.
I wasn’t trying to say that Calvinism was “inconsistent with the preaching of the Gospel.” What I was trying to point out was that just like jude24 was making a comment about Arminianism, an Arminiast(?) could make the same claim about Calvinism, if you get my meaning.
Well, sure, an Arminian can make whatever claim he wants. He just has to lie about Calvinism first to make his claim.
Like I said, I fall in between the Calvinist and Arminiast camps. I believe both are true. ‘But how can that be’ you ask. Well, I will tell you.
If Arminianism is man's perspective and Calvinism is God's perspective as you say, which "mind" would you rather have? Would you rather have the immature mind of a son who doesn't speak for his father or would you rather have the mind of a son who speaks as if he is a replica of his father:
Jhn 14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have no known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say 'Show us the Father'?
And the Modalists thinks that Jesus is the Father. He just doesn't think like a Jew for this is a remarkably Jewish thing to say. (Perhaps this is where Jesse is going with his Issachar comment)
The choice is yours; you can continue on in the childish things, or you can begin to grow up and come into full agreement with the Father in all things. When you were born of God, when you received Him, you were adopted into the family of God, but you are not yet fully a son of God, speaking and acting with the full Authority of the Father:
John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become sons of God,... who were born... of God.
If you have received Him, meaning if you have been born of God, then you have the authority to become a son of God, speaking as if you are a replica of the Father. The choice is yours, but here is how the Son of God speaks:
"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day."
"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out."
"This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day."
"But there are some of you who do not believe. Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.