keep reading till you get it right:>)
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 Sproul put it all knowlege is always directly before God...
keep reading till you get it right:>)
Well, I'm not really talking about anything as grand as the plan of Salvation. All I am asking is, as that generation was leaving Egypt, did God know that that generation would not see Canaan?
Or, similar situation, when God chose Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, did God know that Moses himself would not enter Canaan? (Num 20:1-13)
Actually, if possible, I would like to keep the discussion strickly within the framework and events of the Book of Numbers. What I am asking is, when that specific generation of Israelites left Egypt, as they were leaving, did God know about their failure to trust in Him and listen to the spies negative report about Canaan? (Num. 13, 14)
Also, in a similar situation, did God know when He chose Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, did God know that Moses would strike the rock twice, thus preventing Moses to enter the land of Canaan? (Num. 20:1-13)
Are you asking me if I believe that God Himself is unchanging through time (and outside of time) or do I believe that God's actions within time are unchanging?
I tend to believe that Gods anger was before the actual event..probably as He planned creation..that does not make it any less real or less a threat to the people involved..BUT ..He made a resolution to his anger (much like one of us telling our misbehaving kid they can come out of their room if they say sorry)..He resolved the anger by foreordaining the desire to pray by Moses..
Well, I'm not really talking about anything as grand as the plan of Salvation. All I am asking is, as that generation was leaving Egypt, did God know that that generation would not see Canaan?
But ineffect you are..If God had destroyed the nation of Israel then the entire plan of Salvation would have had to be changed..
I find the episode interesting Because after Moses prayed and God relented then the people wanted to go in..and all the disobedient to Gods new command were killed .The rest died a natural death before Joshua led them in .Pony this was all about God's glory at this point..those that had no faith in Him and were not obedient were not to occupy the land...PERIOD..
I understand that, but the reason I brought out the Acts 2 passage is because it is very applicable in knowing how God works in history.
I could ask the same question you do about Christ's death. Did God know about the failure of the Pharisees and Saducees to trust in Christ? Did he know about the fact that they would crucify Jesus? Did God know that the people would choose Barabbas over Jesus? Did God know that Jesus would be put to death on a cross?
Acts 2 and 1 Peter 1 answer that question. Of course God knew all the events surrounding Christ's death on the cross. He knew because that's the way he pre-determined those events to happen. Not only that, but the Bible clearly says that those who carried out the murder of Christ are "wicked" for doing so.
Both things are true. I might not have the ability to explain to the finite human mind how this can be so -how both God ordaining certain events to occur and those who carried out those events are, at the same time, guilty and wicked for doing so. Nonetheless, the Scriptures clearly give us this truth.
Then there are those like the esteemed ftD who don't really like what the scriptures say and attempt to add words to the text. Foreknowledge becomes "foreknowing men's free-will actions". Sorry, it don't say that! If that ~were~ the ONLY determining factor in those events, then it would be a lie for the scriptures to declare that ~GOD~ ordained these events to be so.
No, the "foreknowledge" isn't indicative of men's "free-will" actions. "Foreknowledge" is indicative of God's omniscience. He simply KNOWS these things to occur. He KNOWS they will occur because he deterimined and ordained them to occur.
To look at things a slightly differnt way, consider God's promise to provide for us our basic daily needs (Matt 6:25-34).
Now, because God has promised to provide for our needs, do we simply sit around the house posting on FreeRepublic all the while waiting for the food to magically appear on the table and for the bills to magically be paid? Of course not, we need to work for what we get. WE are responsible for earning a living and providing shelter and clothing (1 Tim. 5:8), nevertheless, at the same time, it is GOD who provides.
BOTH causes are true!
Likewise, even though it is God who determines the course of history, it is man who is responsible for his own deeds.
Yes, God knew that Moses would strike the rock because he determined that this occur. Nevertheless, Moses is fully responsible for his sin and anger.
For a more detailed exposition of God's providential actitions, read the article I posted yesterday:
The Church's Witness to the World
Jean
I do not see that much of a difference in the questions Pony...If you have a God that arbitrarily changes His mind..how can you rest on His promise of salvation? He may change his mind
Mal 3:6 For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Hbr 6:18 That by two immutable things, in which [it was] impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
Here is Wisdom. If you were to study Jewish thought and the implications that it holds for all Israel, you will be wise indeed.
If you look closely, you might see God's grand plan of salvation. Gal 3:8 "And the scripture, forseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith..."
Scripture always look forward. The prophetic character of scripture is everywhere and history is prophesy.
Moses is the lawgiver, the River Jordon represents death, the lesson is the same. The children of Israel could not inherit the promise under the law. The law could not do what do what grace does.
Foreknowledge means to know something before it happens, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father(1Pet.1:2, Rom.8:29)
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".
Gee, I do not read foreknew in 1Pet.1:20, I see foreordained.
You must be running to the Greek again or another translation. The NASB translates 1Pet.1:20 as foreknown.
But the NIV translates it as chosen , as does the CEV,NCV,NLT.
How about pre-1611? The only one that translated the word as foreknown was the Roman Catholic (Pelegian!) Douey Rheims version.
Even the Calvinistic Geneva has ordained, not foreknown.
(aside to ponnyespresso: The Greek word for "foreknow" is proginosko. It is precisely the same word the KJV translates "foreordained" in 1 Peter 1)
Aside to Jean the word is Foreordained because of its context as noted by other versions who translated it as chosen.
For example, find me a modern translation that has the 'correct' English number for Matthew 28:1 Sabbath when the 'Greek' is in the plural not the singular.
Due to context the singular is correct as is the Greek text in the plural (there were two Sabbaths that week)
"Yours, sad to say, isn't." Oooooooooh! Goooooood come back! LOL!
Typical Calvinistic 'scholarship'.
As applied to redemption this would mean that in election God has decided to save those who accept His Son and the preoffered salvation and in forordination He has determined effectively to accomplish that purpose. (Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology, p.345)
Only a Calvinist would think that God would 'decree' that which He condemns as being evil, yet is what He really wants!
Your 'faith' sounds more like Hinduism, where 'good' and 'evil' blend into one.
I haven't seen anything to convince me otherwise.
But ofcourse, I am going by the Scriptures not Philosphical speculation that makes God a liar in what those Scriptures actually say. (1Tim.2:4, 2Pet.3:9, 1Jn.2:2, Jn.3:16, Ezek.33:11 etc, etc)
That would prevent the Calvinists from appealing to their little set of proof-texts.
Being 'cultic' in nature, they are unable to do so.
What I am asking is, when that specific generation of Israelites left Egypt, as they were leaving, did God know about their failure to trust in Him and listen to the spies negative report about Canaan? (Num. 13, 14) Also, in a similar situation, did God know when He chose Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, did God know that Moses would strike the rock twice, thus preventing Moses to enter the land of Canaan? (Num. 20:1-13)
Yes, God 'foreknew' both, but God did not cause both!
The issue is Omniscience which knows all the possible as well as the actual.
What that generation was going to do was always foreknown by God, but they did not have to choose as they did. Had they chosen correctly God would have had another plan for them.
What a joke!
The author mentions the typical Calvinistic proof-texts and doesn't address 1Tim 2:4 (see Spurgeon), or 2Pet.3:9 (see Calvin) or 1Jn.2:2, Heb.2:9, Isa.53:6, Rom.5:18, Heb.10:39, 2Pet.2:1 etc.
This is really pathetic.
"Foreknowledge" of what????
The text simply does not say "men's free-will decisions". How ~convenient~ of you to add that into the text. I would have just as much legitimacy to insist that Christ's task was based on God's foreknowledge that a Dutch Belted Cow has a big black band of fur around it's midsection as you have insisting that Christ's task was based on God's foreknowledge of men's free-will decisions.
No, your insistance on adding "of men's free-will actions" to "foreknowledge" is based on your inability to philisophically reconcile that men are responsible for their free-will actions while God ordains all events to occur. That is the clear declaration of Acts 2:23! Yet, you deny it! But, let's see how experts (i.e. certainly ~not~ you!) define "foreknowledge" and "foreknow":
According to Crosswalk.Com:
Foreknowledge (prognosis) means:
1. foreknowledge
2. forethought, pre-arrangement
Since there is no object of "foreknowledge" in the Acts 2:23 text, I would think the context would dictate that "foreknowledge" means "pre-arrangement". I do know for certain that it does NOT mean "to pre-know men's free-will actions or decisions." Why? Because it simply doesn't say that! You are adding that to the text because you don't like the ramifications of the only alternative.
Foreknow (proginosko) means:
1. to have knowledge before hand
2. to foreknow
a. of those whom God elected to salvation
3. to predestinate
Again, in the 1 Peter 1:20 passage, there is no object of "proginosko", therefore, the context would seem to indicate that definition 3 is the proper translation. And thus the KJV translators correctly translate "forordained" in this passage.
However, if we go to 2 Peter 3:17, we see another use of "proginosko". But we note that there is an object of the "pre-knowing": "these things"
Therefore, the context indicates that this "proginosko" is simply to "to have knowledge before hand" or to "know before" as the KJV translators correctly translated.
Jean
Well, that is the million dollar question isn't it?
The Bible never states what Foreknowledge is speaking of.
Thus, the need to deal with the results of making it the same as foreordination in the case of evil.
That would make God the author of evil, which if you are willing to go that route (as did Pink) then you just have to reject the clear scriptures that state that God hates evil (thus having God responsible for the very thing He hates)
The text simply does not say "men's free-will decisions". How ~convenient~ of you to add that into the text. I would have just as much legitimacy to insist that Christ's task was based on God's foreknowledge that a Dutch Belted Cow has a big black band of fur around it's midsection as you have insisting that Christ's task was based on God's foreknowledge of men's free-will decisions. No, your insistance on adding "of men's free-will actions" to "foreknowledge" is based on your inability to philisophically reconcile that men are responsible for their free-will actions while God ordains all events to occur. That is the clear declaration of Acts 2:23! Yet, you deny it! But, let's see how experts (i.e. certainly ~not~ you!) define "foreknowledge" and "foreknow": According to Crosswalk.Com: Foreknowledge (prognosis) means: 1. foreknowledge 2. forethought, pre-arrangement Since there is no object of "foreknowledge" in the Acts 2:23 text, I would think the context would dictate that "foreknowledge" means "pre-arrangement". I do know for certain that it does NOT mean "to pre-know men's free-will actions or decisions." Why? Because it simply doesn't say that! You are adding that to the text because you don't like the ramifications of the only alternative.
You think the context would dicate 'pre-arrangement!
Your opinion of the context has nothing to do with what is being said in that passage.
Thus, my opinion is as good as yours, since the passage only states that through God's Foreknowledge something was determined.
Now, that means for your view to be correct, that God would be the author of sin since He is responsible for the acts of those who put Christ on the Cross.
My view removes God from being responsible for that crime.
Foreknow (proginosko) means: 1. to have knowledge before hand 2. to foreknow a. of those whom God elected to salvation 3. to predestinate Again, in the 1 Peter 1:20 passage, there is no object of "proginosko", therefore, the context would seem to indicate that definition 3 is the proper translation. And thus the KJV translators correctly translate "forordained" in this passage However, if we go to 2 Peter 3:17, we see another use of "proginosko". But we note that there is an object of the "pre-knowing": "these things" Therefore, the context indicates that this "proginosko" is simply to "to have knowledge before hand" or to "know before" as the KJV translators correctly translated.
.
Yes, they did correctly translate it 'foreordain' since in the case of Christ going to the Cross, what was Foreknown was what God would do with no contingency in it. (Heb.10:7, Psa.40:7).
In the case of what man would do to Christ, there was a contingency involved, man did not have to crucify Christ, Pilate could have let Him go, Judas did not have to betray him, etc.
That they would choose to crucify Him was Foreknown and then Decreed as being certain.
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