Posted on 07/17/2003 9:53:46 AM PDT by Frumanchu
Just give me a rhetorical answer. :-)
He knows God's requirements. Sinner, whatever it is God requires of you, Christ knows what they are, and he is ready to meet them.
This seems to apply to all sinners. Christ is ready to meet what God requires of all sinners, not merely a select few.
He is fully equipped for the discharge of his mediatorial office, and those that put their trust in him shall find that he will bear them through.
Seems to me that if the Father regenerates people before they come to Christ, then what does the sinner need a mediator for? Seems to me that if regeneration occurs before we come to Christ, then the mediator is superfluous as we are already approved by the Father before we even go to the Son.
I thought it was because we have come to Christ that we can now go to the Father. Isn't that the order? Or are we somehow made holy by the Father so that we can come to Christ?
Paul replied, You stupid Pelagian heretic, you can't save yourself. There is Nothing you can personally do that will have any effect on your salvation. You are either doomed from before your birth because you were chosen to be a reprobate or you were saved from before your birth because you were chosen for salvation for no particular reason. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved..."
Surely you are daydreaming. Given the overwhelming dominance of the Anglicans by low-Church individuals (don't you know how infrequently these folks even celebrated the Eucharist in most of their Churches until very recently???), this was an obvious "not at all close to reunion" situation. The High Church party attracted to Orthodoxy and Rome has always been a distinct minority, even since the so-called Catholic revival of the 1840's. Please give me credit for knowing my ex-Church.
After that we have focused primarily on the oriental orthodox
Oriental Orthodox = "Monophysites" = Copts and Syrians and Armenians. I mentioned them.
We have an ongoing and strong dialogue with the evangelicals, though I know you find this to be shocking.
No MM, I'm not shocked. In fact, I've read most of the work of Fr. John Romanides regarding his role in this dialogue, and how much distance he felt there was. Its obvious from reading the work of Orthodox theologians involved in these endeavours that they feel that the greatest chance for any success at reunion is with the Copts and Syrians, while the greatest disgust about ecumenism ("The Pan-Heresy") is aroused by participation in the WCC with the Protestants and the rest of the deniers of ecclesiastical order and sacramental grace.
This is still a TOTALLY DEPRAVED, TOTALLY INABLE man. How can he even ask the POSITIVE, HOLY QUESTION, "What must I DO to be saved?"
The cannot be regenerated yet, because he is not a believer yet. Paul tells him he has only to believe and THEN he will be saved. As yet, he is not saved, therefore, he cannot be regenerated. Therefore, he MUST still be totally depraved.
But also, he must be under "enlightening conviction." He must be under prevenient grace that opens his eyes to see and to ask the proper, holy question, "What must I do to be saved?"
These stories are changing everything I had been thinking.
There is no way around it. In this story convicting, prevenient grace PRECEDES believing and salvation, and, therefore, regeneration. It's obvious, plain common sense.
xcept, xzins, there "ain't no such thing" as "Prevenient Grace".
You guys just made it up out of thin air.
Jean
Did I make an argument that Wesley made? What straw man argument did I make that Wesley also made? Great minds must think alike, eh?
But here this totally depraved person is asking a perfectly holy and proper question BEFORE he is regenerated.
"What must I do to be saved?" is the question.
The word trinity doesn't appear in scripture either. Prevenient grace simply means that God enlightens and convicts you prior to your believing unto salvation.
I'd never looked at this story like that before. It change A LOT of what I'd been thinking.
Good point. If he was enlightened enough to ask the question and he wanted to be saved, then he was regenerate. If he was regenerate he could see the Kingdom. If he saw the kingdom he would not have needed to ask the question, because he would have already known the answer... Which was... He was ALREADY SAVED!
I said you utilize the "straw-man".
Jean
Where does scripture say that he was not yet Regenerated when he asked that question?
It doesn't. You're desire to hold on to your Arminian "Free-Will" Philosophical Paradigm causes you to eisegetically see that. It's ain't there xzins.
Jean
How did I do it, and how did Wesley do it?
Wesley did the same thing.
Read Wesley's sermon titled: Free Grace
Then read George Whitefield's response to this sermon in his: No, dear Sir, you mistake
Jean
"Either"???? Where did I say that the words "Prevenient Grace" do not appear in the Bible. (Do you have to start back up with your reading comprehension classes?)
No, xzins, the doctrine you guys call "Prevenient Grace" is no where to be found in Scripture. It is merely an invention of Arminian theology to make their "Free-Will" philosophical paradigm jive with the Bible.
"Let's see, how can we Arminians keep both Total Depravity and our beloved Free-Will philosophical paradigm???""Oh, yes, we can say that the Holy Spirit "enlightens" the natural man."
"Quick, somebody go find some Bible verses that might appear -if we really stretch things- to teach this. And let's call it "Prevenient Grace"."
That's called Eisegesis, xzins. Prevenient Grace was contrived to support Free-Will. It was not deduced from the Scriptures naturally.
Jean
What belief do you not hold that you think that I think that you hold?
And why don't you just tell me in your own words what Wesley said that was wrong and how Whitefield corrected him.
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