jokus-I disagree. Paul recognized the Lord's voice - but Paul didn't HAVE to go to Damascus.This is like saying Jonah didn't have to go to Nineveh. God zaps Paul with blindness and tells him to enter the city and "what he must do". And you say Paul had a choice???
Paul could have interpreted this experience as something other than it was. Didn't the Pharisees see Christ IN ACTION? RAISING THE DEAD? A hardened heart will not turn to the Lord - because they will explain away all such attempts by the Lord to break through. Yes, Paul and Jonah had a choice. Jonah could have not said anything when the storm came up "it has nothing to do with me". No, Jonah was repentant and knew that this action was from God. Thus, he choose to conform to God's will, not out of necessity.
It is astonishing to me on these posts to see how many do not really believe in the grace of God.
WHO? What on earth are you talking about? Has anyone here said we do ANYTHING independently of God's grace? Stop trying to twist our arguments around to something that we are not saying. It's astonishing to me that you could make such an accusation.
This was Pelagius' view.
Pelagius said we can choose good without God. We don't need His initiative to receive faith. Is anyone making that statement here?
If God really wanted all men to be saved is this the action one would expect?
Again, you misunderstand Scripture. Christ says "I never knew you" DESPITE the "Lord, Lord", because that person is presumptuous of his salvation. By reciting the Sinner's Prayer, and going on and sinning all the more, Christ does NOT abide in that person. We can know God abides in us if we obey the Commandments with love. Yet, you would have it that God abides in even wicked "Christians" who commit half of the sins of 1 Cor 6:9-10 AFTER their "salvation"! Merely SAYING "Lord, Lord" isn't enough to justify such presumption. Isn't it clear throughout the Gospels that Christ expects ACTION from us?
This is consistent with the actions of God in the Old Testament-the actions many seem willing to deny
If you read the OT in light of the NT, it will make more sense to you. Otherwise, I can understand your confusion. Look at the Scriptures through the "mind" of Christ, the all-loving God who gave Himself up for the sake of the WORLD.
Regards
No, Jonah was repentant and knew that this action was from God. Thus, he choose to conform to God's will, not out of necessity.
Oh, brother.... Jonah sat inside a stinking fish for three days before he decided that perhaps it wasn't a very wise thing to run away from God. It is God who brings us to repentence (Rom 2:4, 2 Cor 7:9, 2 Tim 2:25) yet you are saying Jonah brought himself to a point of repentence. This is clearly Pelagius thinking and totally unscriptural. Jonah was far more holier than either of us will ever be yet God did not bring him to a point of repentance for three days-simply to show the world that he was a type of Christ, being in the belly for three days. Even in his rebellion to God, God used it hundreds of years later.
If you do not understand this fundamental concept, then you do not truly understand God's grace. While spiritually we are born again to a new hope, as Christians we are continuously rebellious children due to our sinful nature. God is constantly and lovingly reproving and chastening us to perfect us for His glory.
Has anyone here said we do ANYTHING independently of God's grace?
Pelagius said we can choose good without God.
I know this it the line of the Catholic Church to the masses. This isn't what Augustine stated nor history has shown to be the believe.
In opposition to Augustinianism, Cassian taught that though a sickness is inherited through Adam's sin, human free will has not been entirely obliterated. Divine grace is indispensable for salvation, but it does not necessarily need to precede a free human choice, because, despite the weakness of human volition, the will takes the initiative toward God. In other words, divine grace and human free will must work together in salvation. In opposition to the stark predestinarianism of Augustine, Cassian held to the doctrine of God's universal will to save, and that predestination is simply divine foreknowledge of who will chose God. - The Semi-Pelagian Theology of John Cassian
This is the very argument you are using. It was condemned by the Council of Orange. Now perhaps you may be like your Orthodox brothers that feels the Council of Orange was simply a local Council. However this places you squarely against Augustine.
Yet, you would have it that God abides in even wicked "Christians" who commit half of the sins of 1 Cor 6:9-10 AFTER their "salvation"! Merely SAYING "Lord, Lord" isn't enough to justify such presumption. Isn't it clear throughout the Gospels that Christ expects ACTION from us?
The only "action" we can do is what Christ does through us. Paul makes it very clear that Christians have a new nature and they will no longer want to go on sinning...
Rom 6:14-18 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
Oops...there's that "slaves or righteousness" again. How would you interpret being a "slave" to righteousness?
If you read the OT in light of the NT, it will make more sense to you.
Foolish me. I thought ALL scripture was inspired by God. I thought it was the Old Testament the Bereans "searched to see if these things were so". I thought it was the Old Testament that our Lord referred to when He told the Pharisees they "knew neither the scriptures nor the power of God". Please note what our Lord Jesus stated:
Joh 5:46-47 "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"
Our Lord Jesus stated a prerequisite for believing in our Lord Jesus' words was believing in Moses' writings. Your statement indicates you have this entirely backwards. If we don't understand the fundamentals then we don't understand the message of Christ-that He came to seek and save which He lost. God came and chose the Israelites to be His people. He nutured them and cared for them. He led them to the Promise Land. He didn't do this for everyone. He did it for Israel whom He had chosen.
That is what our Lord Jesus is doing for us. We don't come to Him. He choses us out of darkness and leading us to the Promise Land. We rest on His promise that what He has said, that He will do.
BTW-It was never the Old Testament that didn't make any sense to me. It was the New Testament especially John and Romans. Now it makes perfect sense.