Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
The doctrine of irresistible grace has to do only with salvational grace, the grace that changes the heart. If we had free will with regard to salvational grace, then no one would ever be saved, OR, we would have reason to boast.
If Adam and Eve could fall from grace, surely we can fall from grace as well.
Apples and oranges. You can't compare when the starting positions were so opposite.
Love is free and unconditional or it doesn’t exist. Jesus is love and mercy; the Reformed God isn’t, at least according to the WCF.
If you would say this then you must have hatred for the Reformed God. Perhaps this is evidence of your efforts to be like the Catholic Christ? :)
If those were His wishes than God is a partner with the devil according to the reformed because it is would be a sacrifice to create a soul for hell.Spin it all you want, but it is exactly that!
No spin is necessary. God uses the reprobate for His purposes. Look at it this way, when God created satan did He know what would happen with him? Yes or no. If God knew, then it appears you have Him in league with satan to get satan started out. :) God is no partner with satan. God is USING satan to accomplish much bigger things. If satan never existed then it is a certainty that each of us would have a much different personal relationship with God than each of us does now, right? God's "big picture" is amazing.
I can see clearly that this type of theology would lead the poor and people with hardship to think that they are of the non elect and lead to despair.
Why do you say that? I can't even imagine a reason. :) The Bible doesn't teach anything like that.
I am convinced that John Calvin was of satan for starting this type of theology and I actually get a chill whenever I see a picture of calvin,a very evil man by his own free will did not love our Lord,but rather his own mind and a book(the Bible) to which the Holy Spirit did not lead him to interpret. He did it his own selfish self seeking calvin way.
Well, Calvin DID love the Bible. I suppose that MIGHT mean he was from satan. ??? :) You appear to know quite a bit about Calvin's inner heart and especially about his personal relationship with God, e.g. that the Spirit did not lead him. May I ask from where does your judgment come, in Biblical terms? Does the Bible support THAT you make such a judgment?
***I understand why believing The Gospel is so hard for the EO and RC’s. If you did believe it the power of your Churches disappears.***
To the contrary. The Gospel provides the basis for the Church, and the rest of the NT describes the evolving Church and its responsibilities, as well as how they are carried out.
***Yes we are to persevere to the end, but if you think you have the free will to do that you are wrong.
Matt. 24: 12-13 And because lawlessness will abound the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.***
This does not prove predestination; as as matter of fact it indicates the opposite. If we were truly predestined in every act, then it wouldn’t have had to be stated over and over again throughout the entire NT.
***John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever- the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
Hebrews 13:5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said I will never leave you nor forsake you.
So yes, once you are saved by Grace through Faith in Jesus Christ you will not be lost. The Holy Spirit will indwell you and never leave you. Unless of course your saying your church is stronger than Jesus Christ.***
After all this debate and all these posts, you really don’t get it even yet? Let me try once again. God never leaves us. It is we who reject Him through sin.
***So yes, once you are saved by Grace through Faith in Jesus Christ you will not be lost. The Holy Spirit will indwell you and never leave you. Unless of course your saying your church is stronger than Jesus Christ.
John 10:27-28 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.***
It most certainly does NOT say that one cannot walk away from God. Scripture does indicate:
Matt 6:
14
11 If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
15
But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.
If you are not forgiven, then you remain in sin and will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
Matt 19:
16
11 12 Now someone approached him and said, “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?”
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He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good. 13 If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
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14 He asked him, “Which ones?” And Jesus replied, “ ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness;
19
honor your father and your mother’; and ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
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15 The young man said to him, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?”
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Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, 16 go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
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When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
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17 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
25
18 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?”
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Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”
27
Then Peter said to him in reply, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?”
28
19 Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
29
And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.
If one does NOT do these things, then will not be saved.
Matt 10:
22
You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end 10 will be saved.
23
When they persecute you in one town, flee to another. Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 11
24
No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master.
25
It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, 12 how much more those of his household!
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“Therefore do not be afraid of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. 13
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What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
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And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.
29
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
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Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
31
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
32
14 Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
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But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.
34
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
35
For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
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and one’s enemies will be those of his household.’
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“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
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and whoever does not take up his cross 15 and follow after me is not worthy of me.
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16 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
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“Whoever receives you receives me, 17 and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
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18 Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward.
42
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”
Therefore it is plain that it is possible to lose your salvation.
***Unless of course your saying your church is stronger than Jesus Christ.***
Our Church was created by Jesus Christ and has all authority from Him. Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church. Calvin is not - he was a poseur who created a theology of death.
***You keep talking like that, and we’ll make a Calvinist out of you yet. :>)***
Now you’re getting nasty...
***No, I think a dog can understand “if I do this then I get a yummy treat or a pat on the head which I like”. That’s not too complicated for them, and it IS understanding. Dogs don’t obey commands for no reason, at least at first. And just from personal experience our dog treats every individual family member differently, based on his perceived station for us. I am the “king”, etc. That HAS to involve some understanding.***
Are you comparing a dog getting a yummy treat to our everlasting life? We really do have completely different theologies, sir. And a completely different understanding of God.
***From this quote I see no sense at all of God requiring evil. I see God making choices. Whatsoever came to pass was His choice, not because He was forced or compelled to by need. The “freely” is the giveaway.***
Moving off center, are we? The Reformed God requires evil to exist in His Creation.
***The second part of the paragraph talks about second causes, which negates your above assertion. God did ordain that evil will happen, but He did not create it as if it was a “thing” to be created. He set the circumstances to get the desired results, not based on need.***
Yes. The Reformed God created evil as a part of Creation and utilizes it.
***ne holds to simple logic of course it does (the WCF says that logical deductions from scripture are fine). If SOME are predestined to Heaven, and only THOSE go to Heaven, then it means that SOME are NOT so predestined and there is only one other destination.***
That is why the elimination of the Magisterium from interpretation is so wrong. Calvin interpreted one way, Luther another, Mary Baker Eddy yet another and so on.
All of them different and all of them to one extent or another, wrong.
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
[What] if God, willing to shew [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? – Romans 8:20-24
Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor [myself], and repent in dust and ashes. – Job 42:1-6
To God be the glory, not man, never man.
I see. So for you being filled with the Holy Spirit really refers to YOU, and what YOU make of your spiritual life, helped by God of course. I'm virtually speechless. :)
So are historical events. What I mean by the irrelevance of the history is that Christ's proclamations are true yesterday, today and tomorrow. They are timeless. They are irrelevant of the geographic location, culture or politics, and, yes, history too. Even factual history.
Why do you accept that Christ's proclamations in scriptures are absolutely true, but that the rest of the Bible is subject to and DOES suffer from grave error? If you believe this, why would God make sure Christ's statements are correct in His word, but not really care about the rest of it in terms of accuracy?
FK: Inconvenient elements of the story can be dropped without penalty.
Certainly that is true of anything. "Be merciful" can be ignored.
Not really, since the point is whether the historicity is correct or not. If it IS accepted as correct, then there is much less wiggle room spin-wise. But if it is rejected, then anything goes. There is the danger of rejecting the history that God gave us, anyone can make up anything, and who's to say it's any less credible than the myth of the Bible?
***The doctrine of irresistible grace has to do only with salvational grace, the grace that changes the heart.***
The frogmarching grace you mean. :)
***If we had free will with regard to salvational grace, then no one would ever be saved,***
Really? Then why does Jesus spent most of the Gospels instructing us on what to do and what not to do?
Rom 11:
22
See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but God’s kindness to you, provided you remain in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.
23
And they also, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24
For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated one, how much more will they who belong to it by nature be grafted back into their own olive tree.
Paul is saying that it is possible to lose one’s salvation and that it is possible to be lost and then to regain one’s salvation.
***Apples and oranges. You can’t compare when the starting positions were so opposite.***
They started without sin and they disobeyed - which is the first definition of sin in the OT - disobedience to God.
***If you would say this then you must have hatred for the Reformed God.***
I find it difficult to hate something that doesn’t exist. Global warming comes to mind.
***Perhaps this is evidence of your efforts to be like the Catholic Christ? :)***
We are all called to imitate Christ. My imitation is a rather poor one and I would not like all Christians to be judged according me.
1 Corinthians
Chapter 11
1
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
2
1 I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you.
He said it... and I had a happy face :>)
:)
But that doesn't match the language the Bible uses. When you love someone, do you say you have been given something? No, if anything you are the giver (of your love). So, the Bible can't mean that you just start loving the Spirit. It's much more than that. Jesus said He will SEND. That is something from Him TO us. The language used is not metaphorical.
It's not a matter of convenience and I am not dropping the OT God, just the perception the Jewish people had, and some Christian groups have, of Him. Our perception of the OT God is that He is (by necessity) Christ-like and that if He appears not as the Christ of the Gospels then it is not a correct perception of God. It's not a matter of convenience but of what standard we use. In our case, we use Christ. I think that would be the definition of a Christian.
Well, the problem with this truncated view of God is that it means you follow One God revealed in One Person. That is NOT the definition of Christian. :) The correct standard is the totality of scriptures, which reveal three distinct Persons.
John even said he was not fit to tie Jesus' sandals. I give him a pass. Maybe Paul was thinking of these followers when he didn't want to baptize people.
But, unlike Jesus, John preached angrily and violently. Jesus' message was fundamentally opposite of John's.
That just can't be right, or Jesus would not have said what He said about John. Yes, their styles were very different, but the message was essentially the same. If John's message was opposite to that of Jesus, then it could not "have fulfilled all righteousness" for John to baptize Him. Jesus calls him MORE than a prophet (Matt. 11:9).
I know enough to turn my stomach and see the evil behind calvin,dear brother
All of the early church fathers and Saints (without exception) believed the Eucharist is Christ fully present- Body ,Blood ,Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist.
Calvin denied this ,thus elevating himself above the miracle of the Eucharist and leading others to do the same.
I believe with all of my heart this calvinism is the work of satan,fk,,and will do everything to teach Catholic's and others searching for answers to understand the evil behind calvin and his theology.
Calvin's denial of the Sacrament of Eucharist spits in the face of all of the Martyr's and the Saints - many who gave their lives for the Church and Our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist
calvin’s abuse of scripture is vomit .
I pray for the reformed to rebuke John calvin and to open their heart to Our Blessed Lord.
Good Night .
I wish you a Blessed Evening!
FK: But that moral is determined by men, NOT by God. Therefore, the hope that you have must be in those men that you follow, that they were true believers and knew what they were talking about.
Provided the authors of the Bible wrote what they wanted, yes. But we believe that God revealed Himself to them and they, as best as they could, interpreted them within the context of their time and personal disposition. So, yes, they all contain some kernels of truth, whether they be moral truths, facts, or elements necessary for context.
The Bible contains "some kernels of truth"? Do Patristic writings also contain some kernels, or is there more truth in them?
If I had to summarize Christian morality, I would say it is based on love and mercy.
Would it be moral in a Christian sense for a country to defend itself if attacked? That would involve neither love nor mercy (if done right).
Then when did the hierarchy of the Apostolic Church become uncorrupted and perfect in teaching, as it supposedly is today? How did that happen?
The message of the Bible is timeless, because God is timeless. Truth is truth no matter when, where or how it is revealed. The Bible reveals the Truth through Christ our Lord. Christians always believed that the only way we can reach Truth is through Christ, and that He is the Truth, the Way and the Life.
That's nice, but it doesn't work and is not what you practice. :) It is only BECAUSE you reject the historicity of the scriptures that you are able to simply declare that the Bible has only one message. You accept Christ's words in the Gospels, but you reject God's words in the OT, and God's words through others in the NT. That is the problem when one has no base. One can simply invent what the message is.
When He says "love your neighbor as yourself" that is transcendentally true and historically irrelevant.
It's totally relevant, especially if someone came along and asserted it never happened, that the Apostles just made it up because it sounded good. That would change everything. There is NO BASIS to say that Christ DID say those words, but that God never told Joshua to sack Jericho.
***Then when did the hierarchy of the Apostolic Church become uncorrupted and perfect in teaching, as it supposedly is today? How did that happen?***
When and where did any of us claim that the Church hierarchy is uncorrupted. Bernard Law comes to mind.
Say rather, that the Church understands Scripture and can interpret it for all of mankind. As opposed to Mary Baker Eddy or Joseph Smith or Ulrich Zwingli or Jean Cauvin or...
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