Posted on 02/08/2003 7:43:01 AM PST by Matchett-PI
God and man must both do something before a man can be saved.
Hyper-Calvinism denies the necessity of human action, and Arminianism denies the true nature of the Divine action.
The Bible clearly sets forth both the divine and human as essential in God's plan of salvation.
This is not to say, as Arminianism does, God's part is to freely provide salvation for all men, and man's part is to become willing to accept it.
This is not what we said above, nor is it what the Bible teaches. In order to understand what God's Word really says and to try to answer some "straw dummy" objections, we shall establish the subject one point at a time.
ONE: A man must repent and believe in order to be saved. No one was ever forgiven and made a child of God who did not willingly turn from sin to Christ.
Nowhere does the Bible even hint that men can be saved without repentance and faith, but to the contrary, the Word always states these things are essential before a person can be saved.
The one and only Bible answer to the question "What must I do to be saved?" is "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
TWO: Every one who repents and believes the gospel will be saved.
Every soul, without any exception, who answers the gospel command to come to Christ will be received and forgiven by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Philip Bliss put the truth to music when he said, "Whosoever will, forever must endure...
If we can be absolutely certain about anything, we can be sure that Christ will never void His promise to receive "all who come to Him." As old John Bunyan said, "Come and welcome" is the Savior's eternal word to all sinners.
THREE: Repentance and faith are not vicarious but are the free acts of men.
Men, with their own mind, heart, and will must renounce sin and receive Christ. God doesn't repent and believe for us~we repent and believe.
Turning from sin and reaching out in faith to Christ are the acts of man, and every man who so responds to the gospel call does so because he honestly desires to do so.
He wants to be forgiven and he can only be forgiven by repenting and believing.
No one, including God, can turn from sin for us, we must do it.
No one can trust Christ "in our place," we must personally, knowingly, and willingly trust Him in order to be saved.
Now someone may be thinking, "But isn't that what the Arminian teaches?"
My friend, that is what the Bible teaches-and teaches it clearly and dogmatically.
"But don't Calvinists deny all three of those points?"
I am not talking about, or trying to defend, "Calvinists" since they come in a hundred 'varieties.
If you know anyone that denies the above facts, then that person, regardless of what he labels himself, is denying the clear message of the Bible.
I can only speak for myself, and I will not deny what God's Word so plainly teaches.
"But haven't you established the doctrine of free-will and disposed of election if you assent man must repent and believe and it is his own act?"
No, we have neither proven freewill nor disproved election ... since it is impossible to do either.
We have merely stated exactly what the Bible says a man must do in order to be saved.
Let us now look at what the Scripture says a sinner is able to do and what he is not able to do.
FOUR: The same Bible that states man must repent and believe in order to be saved, also emphatically states that man, because of his sinful nature, is totally unable to repent and believe.
All of man's three faculties of mind, heart, and will, which must be receptive to gospel truth, have neither the ability to receive such truth nor even the desire to have such ability.
In fact the exact opposite is true.
Man's total being is not only unable to either come, or want to come, to Christ, but every part of his nature is actively opposed to Christ and truth.
Rejecting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is not a passive "non-action," but a deliberate volitional choice.
It is deliberately choosing to say "no" to Christ and "yes" to self and sin.
No one is "neutral" in respect to God and His authority.
Unbelief is just as much a deliberate act of mind, heart, and will as is faith.
This is what Jesus meant in John 5:40 when He said, "You will (you are deliberately making a choice) not to come to me."
Yes, unbelief is an act of the will. In fact unbelief is active faith, but unfortunately it is faith in myself.
To believe and preach points One, Two, and Three, without also preaching number Four is to grossly misrepresent the gospel of God's grace.
It is to give a totally false picture of the sinner and his true need.
It shows only half of the man's sin.
It misses the most crucial point of a lost man's need, namely, his lack of power or ability to overcome his sinful nature and its effects.
The "gospel" which is concocted out of this view is only a half gospel. It is at this point that modern evangelism so miserably fails.
It confuses man's responsibility with his ability, and falsely assumes that a sinner has the moral ability to perform all that God has commanded.
The "cannot" texts of scripture are either totally ignored or badly twisted by this perversion of the true gospel of God's saving grace.
Please note a few texts of Scripture that dogmatically state some things that a lost man cannot do:
Man cannot see-until he first be born again. (John 3:3)
Man cannot understand-until he first be given a new nature. (I Cor. 2:14)
Man cannot come-until he first be effectually called by the Holy Spirit. (John 6:44-45)
We do not have space to go into all the "cannots," but these three are sufficient to show that a sinner absolutely cannot (notice it is not "will" not) come to Christ until God first does something in that sinner's nature.
That "something" is what the Bible calls regeneration, or the new birth, and it is the exclusive work of God the Holy Spirit.
Man has no part whatever in regeneration.
FIVE: The new birth, or regeneration, is God giving us the spiritual life that enables us to do what we must do (repent and believe), but CANNOT DO because of our bondage to sin.
When the Bible says man is dead in sin, it means that man's mind, heart, and will are all spiritually dead in sin.
When the Bible speaks of our being in "bondage to sin," it means that our entire being, including our will, is under the bondage and power of sin.
We indeed need Christ to die and pay the penalty of our sin, but we just as desperately need the Holy Spirit to give us a new nature in regeneration.
The Son of God frees us legally from the penalty of sin, but only the Holy Spirit can free us from the power and death of our depravity in sin.
We need forgiveness in order to be saved, and Christ provides complete forgiveness and righteousness for us in His death.
However, we also need spiritual life and ability, and the Holy Spirit provides it for us in regeneration.
It is the Holy Spirit's work of regeneration that enables us to savingly receive the atoning work of Christ in true faith.
God is a triune God, and no person can understand His 'so great salvation" until he sees each blessed Person of the Godhead playing a distinct and necessary part in that salvation.
No man can declare the "glorious gospel of grace" and leave out the Father's sovereign electing love and the Holy Spirit's regenerating power as essential parts of God's work in saving sinners.
To speak of "God's part" in salvation as only being one of "providing" forgiveness and man's part as "being willing" to accept it is to ignore both the Father's work of election and the Spirit's work of regeneration.
This not only makes man a full "partner" with God in the work of salvation, it credits man with playing the decisive roll in the deal.
How dreadful, and ridiculous, to give Christ the glory for His work on the cross, and then give sinners the credit for the Father's work in eternity (election) and the Spirit's work in our hearts (regeneration).
It does great dishonor to the Sovereign Spirit to say, "The Holy Spirit will perform His miraculous work of quickening you unto life as soon as you give Him your permission."
That's like standing in a graveyard saying to the dead people, "I will give you life and raise you up from the grave if you will only take the first step of faith and ask me to do it."
What a denial of the sinner's total spiritual inability.
Amazing!
The root error of the Arminian's gospel of freewill is its failure to see that man's part, repentance and faith, are the fruits and effects of God's work and not the essential ingredient's supplied by the sinner as "man's part of the deal."
Every man who turns to Christ does so willingly, but that willingness is a direct result of the Father's election and the Holy Spirit's effectual calling.
To say, "If you will believe, God will answer your faith with the New Birth," is to misunderstand man's true need and misrepresent God's essential work.
SIX: The Scriptures clearly show that faith and repentance are the evidences and not the cause of regeneration.
Suppose a man who had been dead for twenty years greeted you on the street one day.
Would you conclude that the man had gotten tired of being dead and "decided' to ask a great doctor to perform a miracle and give him life?
I'm sure you would instead, exclaim in amazement, "Man what happened to you? Who brought you back to life?"
You would see he was alive because he was walking and breathing, but you would know these were evidences of a miracle having been performed on him from without and not the results of his own power of will.
Just so when a spiritually dead man begins to perform spiritual acts such as repentance and faith-these spiritual "fruits" show that the miracle of the new birth has taken place.
Let me illustrate this with a Biblical example. Acts 16:14 is a clear proof of the above.
By the way, as far as I know, this is the only place in the New Testament that uses the phrase "opened heart," and the Bible gives the whole credit for this "opening" to God's power and not to man's will.
Modern evangelism does the exact opposite and credits the opening of the heart to the power of man's "free will."
Remember that we are not discussing whether man must be willing to open his heart. We settled that under points One, Two, and Three.
We are looking now for the source of power that enabled man to perform that spiritual act.
Arminianism insists that man's free will must furnish the willingness or power, and the Bible says that the Holy Spirit of God furnishes that power or ability in the new birth.
Let us examine the one text in Scripture that uses the phrase "opened heart" and see if it agrees with our previous points:
"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)
The NIV says: "The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message."
First of all we note that Lydia did indeed "attend" or listen to the words of Paul.
She gladly heard and willingly believed his message. As we have already shown, she had to do this in order to benefit from the gospel and be saved.
Lydia's attending," or hearing and believing, illustrates points One, Two, and Three above, and refutes hyper-Calvinism, (which says the elect will be saved regardless of whether they hear and believe the gospel or not).
Lydia did choose to believe, and she herself did it only because she wholeheartedly wanted to.
She did not do it "unwillingly" nor did God hear and believe for her.
It was her own response and it was a most willing response.
Next, we notice exactly what God did. We see here demonstrated what God must do before Lydia can be saved.
(1) He provided a salvation of "by grace through faith" that could be preached. Obviously "the things spoken" by Paul were the gospel facts concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and surely this Lamb is God's gracious provision.
(2) God also brought the message of His provision to Lydia. He sent a preacher to tell her about this great plan of salvation.
God went to a lot of trouble to provide such a gospel-He gave His only begotten Son up to death.
He went to great ends to provide such a preacher as Paul-read about it in Paul's testimony in Acts 22.
It is at this point that Arminianism departs from the Bible and proceeds to apply human logic to the above truths.
They tragically fail to look at the rest of the Biblical text and see that God must do something else.
(3) God must open Lydia's heart (or give her spiritual life) so she will be able to believe.
Her natural mind is blind, her natural heart is averse to God, and her will is in bondage to sin and spiritual death.
Only the power of God can free her from this graveyard of spiritual depravity.
The giving of this life and power is solely the work of God.
Notice that the Bible explicitly gives God alone the credit for Lydia's heart being opened.
It is impossible not see that in this text unless you simply refuse to accept what God clearly says.
Look at the words carefully: . . whose heart the LORD OPENED...
Notice also how clearly the Holy Spirit teaches us the relationship between the cause and the effect in the conversion of Lydia.
God was the One Who opened Lydia's heart, that is the cause, and He did so in order that she might be able to attend to the truths that Paul preached, that is the effect.
Now that is what the Word of God says!
Do not bluster about "dead theology" or throw Calvin's name around in derision, just read the words themselves in the Bible.
If you try to deny that the one single reason that Lydia understood and believed the gospel was because God deliberately opened her heart and enabled her to believe, you are fighting God's Word.
If you try to get man's "free will" as the one determining factor into this text, you are consciously corrupting the Word of God.
God's grace not only provides salvation, but His power also gives us the ability to both desire and receive it He works in us "both to will and to do."
His working in us to "will" is the new birth, and, I say again, this work of regeneration (new birth) is totally the work of the Holy Spirit.
The moment we lose sight of this distinction between being "saved by faith" (the act of man) and being "born again by the Holy Spirit" (the act of God), we are heading for confusion and trouble.
We will be convinced that man is able to do what the Bible emphatically states he is unable to do.
The necessity of the Holy Spirit's work being thus theologically denied, it will not be long before it is ignored in actual practice.
This is the plight of modern day evangelism.
Since the evangelists are convinced that the new birth is within the power and ability of man's will, their man made "me theology" has become far more important than the theology of the Bible, and organization and advertising are absolute essentials to success while the necessary work of the Holy Ghost is all but forgotten.
It is true that lip service is given to the need to "Pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance," and cards asking people to "promise to pray every day" are always sent out months in advance of the big campaign.
However, some people are not sure if the promise to pray or the other pledge (to give money) which is always included ( "only your gifts can make this great campaign possible") is the most important to the success of the campaign.
But that's another subject for another day....
As you may know, chapters 13 and 14 relate the story of the twelve spies being sent out to scout the land of Canaan, the Promised Land that was promised to the descendents of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-9), Isaac (Gen 26:2,3) and Jacob (Gen 28:13), the land that the LORD told Moses he was going to give for His people (Ex. 3:8). Moses was confident in promise that the LORD has made (Num. 10:29). However, when the spies came back from their mission, they gave a negative report saying that “we are not able to go up against the [inhabitants of Canaan], for they are too strong for us.” (Num. 13:31). Two men of the twelve believed God’s promise Joshua and Caleb (13:30, 14:6-9) but the rest did not. Thus, as a result of lack of belief in God (Num. 14:11) they incurred the LORD’s anger and punishment.
Now, my questions are:
1) Did the LORD fully intend for THAT generation to enter into Canaan or did the LORD have knowledge that that generation was not going to enter Canaan?
2) If the LORD did NOT fully intend for that generation to enter into Canaan, because of His foreknowledge of what would happen, why would His anger be kindled at something He Himself knew would happen anyway?
3) After the Israelites decided not to enter Canaan, did the LORD fully intend to “dispossess them” and make the descendents of Moses a “nation greater and mightier than they” as he told Moses He would do? (Num. 14:12)
4) Did Moses’ intercession on behalf of the Israelites do anything to change the mind (and actions) of the LORD, or was the LORD merely being declamatory in Num. 14:12? (Note: please take into account the LORD's response in 14:20 before you respond).
I eagerly await everybody’s input.
You are clearly not a Cleveland Browns fan:)
All these years and still no Super Bowl.....
I don't know that I've seen you post on this specific issue before, but I have seen it posted on FR by FRAminians that sin exists ~BECAUSE~ God created man with Free-Will. This is a bit different than saying "in this present state of things" the possiblity of sin exists because of Free-Will.
What it comes down to is this: Could God have created man with Free-Will (or 'Free-Agency') ~WITHOUT~ the possiblity that he would "choose against" God? (or "could God have created a 'different state of things' where Free-Will or Free-Agency existed WITHOUT the possiblity that man would "choose against" God?)
The Calvinist would heartily answer, "Yes!"
As far as I can tell, the Arminian would answer, "no."
Jean
You are clearly not a Cleveland Browns fan:)
Yea, but I grew up a California Angels fan and the first year I move overseas to England to live, they win the World Series. I wonder what that says about me though, lol
Remeber, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, even in things like the Super Bowl, so hang in there.
An eternal reality co-existing alongside of God is not the same thing as a concept existing in (the mind of) God.
If you admit that sin exists co-eternally alongside of God, then you deny God's ultimate sovereignty. He is not "all powerfull" for he must necessarily co-exist along side of Sin. The God and the Anti-God must naturally be in relationship together. Yin-Yang!
"So in an outside-of-time picture, God's knowledge is essentially what we would call simultaneous; thus, it would be eternally co-existant. It would still be subject to God, and is not independent of him, while he is of it, but it would be co-existant."
But that is far different to say that it eternally co-exists "alongside" of God. The alternate reality of Tyre and Sidon, had God done things differently, exists "in the mind of" God, but that is not to say that Tyre and Sidon co-exist eternally "alongside" of God.
Jean
They were all predestinated to do what they did even though God reproved them for it.
God doesn't really tell us what His will is in the Bible (1Tim.2:4, 2Pet.3:9, John.3:16)
Now, just put down that Bible and read Calvin, Sproul, Piper, Pink, Spurgeon etc to find out what God really thinks.
By the way, because the cut-off age was 20 years or older that died before entering the Land, I am thinking that that may be the age of accountability.
What do you think?
You get that feeling on FR sometimes. I'm convinced that too many Christians (not just here but everywhere) spend way too much time reading about the Bible and not enought actually reading the Blessed Book itself. As Protestants, aren't we supposed to be pretty keen on the idea of Scripture alone?
What do you think?
When man who was born blind (John 9) was being grilled by the most prominent and knowledgable scholars of the Scriptures, he said, "I don't know what you say about Him, all I know is that I was blind but now I see." That is pretty much all I know too.
Fair enough. But, I guess what I am trying to figure out is that, even though God set in motion the events of history, it seems (again, just what I read in Scripture) that He is relating to His creation within time. So then, is God being disingenuous with his creation by saying he will dispossess Israel (Num 14:12; or for another quick example, the LORD's declaration that Hezekiah is going to die in 2 Kings 20:1) since He knows fully well He will not dispossess Israel?
Acts 2
23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
Your ignorance is absolutely ASTOUNDING!
Jean
Now, what does that have to do with Numbers?
I also see the word foreknowledge of God, gee, do you think God foreknew what their free will decisions would be in rejecting their Messiah?
Your ignorance is absolutely ASTOUNDING
Yours, sad to say, isn't.
Amen!
What do you think? When man who was born blind (John 9) was being grilled by the most prominent and knowledgable scholars of the Scriptures, he said, "I don't know what you say about Him, all I know is that I was blind but now I see." That is pretty much all I know too.
Amen!
No, the text does not say anything about "free will decisions". You're, once again, adding that into the text because you don't like what it says.
1 Peter 1
20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
The Scriptures are CLEAR that Jesus Christ's work was pre-determined by the will of God and the hands that carried out the murder of the Christ were "wicked".
(aside to ponnyespresso: The Greek word for "foreknow" is proginosko. It is precisely the same word the KJV translates "foreordained" in 1 Peter 1)
"Yours, sad to say, isn't."
Oooooooooh! Goooooood come back! LOL!
Jean
I don't think so. God's wrath was just and would have been carried out if not for Moses prayer. Without Moses prayer surely God would have dispossed Israel. Considering that God is a person with emotions and that circumstances warrant an emotional reaction then some additional circumstances may warrant a different reaction. So, circumstance A (C1) warrants action A (A1) but then circumstance B in relation to circumstance A(C2A) warrants a different action (A2). Without circumstance (C2A) {Moses prayer} then God would have most certainly carried out action A1 (disposses Israel).
I'm totally lost as to what you mean by a "just so" inverse cubed universe as opposed to an inverse quad(rilateral?) universe. Most of the equations would be over my head anyway, I'm sure, so I'll take your word for it. That said, I'm not necessarily saying that even I believe the position I've been espousing. I'm just indisposed to the "outside-of-time" assumption.
Do you believe God is immutible?
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