“No Mr R, those scripture are entirely consistent with what xzins said. Your deceitful heart must be changed before you can receive Christ.”
Odd. What it says is:
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand...”
Access means entry - we enter into grace thru faith.
Think about it. What is the one critical thing Calvin teaches gives us everything else? Election. If you are elect, everything else is included. And no one can enter unless they were picked by name before creation. Our salvation depends on God picking our name, and nothing else. If picked, God will give us every other benefit.
But scripture says the one critical thing is faith. How do we gain access to the SS Christ, destined for Heaven, with the passengers coming to be like Christ? Thru faith - believing in Him. If we have faith in Him, we will receive all the benefits:
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Therefore remember...that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
Here is a review of what John says about believing and life:
Jhn 3:15 “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Jhn 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Jhn 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Jhn 4:14 “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jhn 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Jhn 5:39-40 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”
Jhn 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
Jhn 6:40 “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Jhn 6:47 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
Jhn 6:51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Jhn 6:54 “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
Jhn 20:31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
We receive life when we come by faith. We do not receive life, and then receive faith as a gift.
“Did you change your own evil heart and did your yearning for Christ come from within your deceitful spiritually dead stone cold heart, or did it come from a heart for God which was spiritually changed before you ever turned to Christ and received him?”
“”But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father...”
Did the father come and give his rebellious son life, or did the son realize what a sinner he was and repent? “But when he came to himself...”
I can show you uncounted verses where faith is something that we do in response to God. Can you show me one where God gives faith as a gift after regeneration? Other than as a special gift of the Spirit for the edification of the congregation?
While Paul uses ‘dead’ as a description of us, he also describes us as “separated from Christ, alienated...strangers...having no hope and without God”.
I think you are skipping an important element. At what point do you exercise faith? It is while you have a nature that is in opposition to God or does it occur after God changes your nature and interferes with your natural free will opposition to God and creates in your heart the longing for God which accompanies belief, repentance and the exercise of faith.
Election is clearly something that occurred before you were ever conceived. Even as an Arminian you must recognize that before God ever allowed you to be conceived he knew in advance whether you were one of his chosen, one who would be with him forever in eternity. The question then becomes whether or not that election was based on his foreknowledge that you would turn out good enough to exercise some faith on your own apart from God changing your nature or whether he knew that he would change your nature so that you would "naturally" be attracted to him and "naturally" repent, believe, exercise faith and be saved.
It is not that everything else is "included" in election, but it is that everything else follows naturally.
And no one can enter unless they were picked by name before creation.
Unless God had no idea that you would decide to choose him, then you cannot deny that fact. Do you deny that your name was written in the book of life before the foundation of the earth? Cause if it wasn't then, then it isn't now.
I can show you uncounted verses where faith is something that we do in response to God.
I'm not so sure that it is something we "do" as much as it is something we have. The question then becomes "why do we have it"? Did we get it on our own through our own good works, or is it something that God gave us? If it is your own faith that saves you, then you save yourself. If it is faith given to you by the grace of God, then it really belongs to God and your salvation is wholly and totally in His hands.
Tell me, is your salvation in your hands or God's?