Perseverance of the Saints

I think we would all agree that God is the one who prepares or improves the soil so as to make it produce.

The difference is our view regarding the effectuality of that work. Cals believe God does some kind of inward secret working to make man's heart (soil) good. But we believe scripture teaches that God uses various means to effect and impact men's heart (soil) (preaching, scripture, the church, envy, signs, circumstances etc) but these means of grace can be resisted, ignored, and exchanged for a lie, thus causing the soil of a man's heart to grow more and more calloused, "otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and [God] would heal them.' (ref. Acts 28)

 

Some of us Cals also believe that the Bible teaches that regeration/faith are at same time, so God uses those external 'tools" you listed to inwardly convict man, by renewing hearts/mids to be able to repent believe receive!

 

The problem with that view is that those outward means are resistible as evidenced by those who resist them.

 

It is God who makes grow (1 Corinthians 3:6), right? This would mean that the "good" soil is only good because it is sourced in God, Who alone is good (James 1:17). God alone can produce good.

Dave

 

win:

No its not. The good ground represents the heart, and no heart by nature is good. Jer 17:


9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Man must be given a New Heart to accept the Things of God..

 

believe the Baptist Theologian Millard Erickson does, and most of those that do fall more under the "baptist/4 points dispy" group than the strictly reformed calvinist camp!

 

Those would fall under the listing of 'close to Jesus" camp, as in Hebrews, as those who tasted/partooked, part of the Church "they were with us, but not of us, as they departed to go back out into the World"...

They would be who came close due to their "natura; flesh" trying to get to God, but Only those whose heart gets quickened, spirits woke up, can really repent believe and receive Christ jesus..

Shows us condition of those without work of God in their lives, very religious, even great faith towards "God and their own Messiah", but not "In Christ"

 

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this point Dave. The point of contention is regarding the resistibility of the means God uses in order to bring about such growth. Understand?

 

Sorry, but I'm not sure how this addresses the point I made regarding the effectuality of God's chosen means to bring change.

 

Just was showing that there will those who in their own efforts, by their flesh so to speak, will hear and receive the truth mentally assenting it, but heart still not changed/nor new natures, so still same old man, dead in old sin nature..

Another hears same message. god works through His chosen means, that person does both mentally assenting AND has a new heart/rebirth "In Christ"

 

Right, which means they resisted the means, which proves the point I was making. You had said that God uses means to effectuate change, and I said the problem with that view is that some resist those means, so there must be something more than just those means, so you reply to that point by saying that some resist those means but may appear to give assent, which doesn't address the point...it only acknowledges it's truthfulness.

So, its not the means that God uses, its the "rebirth/regeneration" that he really uses, which leaves the question...what do the means accomplish that regeneration doesn't?

 

The means are what God uses to accomplish faith being produced in the lives of those he has elected...

its the timing of God, in that He prepares the heart, person is giving the Gospel, thru various ways, radio/tv/pastor etc person at that moment has God thru Holy Spirit quickening him, opens him up to receive Jesus, person than exercises faith and believes on Christ...

Both of us would say each person needs to exercise their personal faith and receive/believe on Jesus, we just differ in IF someone can exercise faith apart from God quickening them/waking them up/breaking bondage of sin nature enough to believe and receive!

 

Which is the gospel along with "rebirth/regeneration" in your view, right?

 

Internal working by Holy Spirit
External working with Gospel

Both working together in that God prepares person to receive, grants them the actual meams to be able to respond in their faith towards Gospel and become saved.

hard for me to fully understand what is happening, since unlike most cals, do see regeneration to me being God producing within us the "heart" means to have real faith exercised, and once it is, that affects new birth in Christ, God might see the difference in timing, but from man viewpoint same time/thing!

 

Ok, so the external work of the gospel being preached accomplishes giving knowledge, right?
While the internal work accomplished changing the heart to that it will understand and certainly receive, right?

So, what does envy, signs and wonders, circumstances, persuasion accomplish that those two things don't?

 

Good question!

I am still "trying to put it all together" as I was in an Assemblies of God Church, than free Church, now a Baptist Church past 7 years...
Always been a believer in "baptist" theology, do believe in the TULIP as biblical BUT do not buy everything else a 'real" cal holds to like Covenant theology, Church repalcing Isreal now "Spritual Isreal" etc...

And am still trying to sort out concepts on regeneration/spiritually dead/election/faith etc...

I just dont have it as "nailed down" as some of the Cals/Arms who post here on BB!

 

I respect that. This is one of the reasons I ended up leaving Calvinism. I believe God COULD just flip a switch in someone's heart and make them willing to do whatever He wants, but I just don't think God works that way.

Jonah, for example, didn't want to preach to Ninevah, and God could have simply "quicken" or "awakened" or "enlightened" him by some effectual inward working to make him want to go, but He didn't. He use normative/outward means (storm/big fish). I think the same is true with how it works with us. He could do as Calvinists suppose by simply flipping a switch (i.e. regeneration) and make people willing to do what they didn't previously want to do, but how is that different from making the rocks cry out? I believe God uses means such as the preaching of gospel, teaching, debate, envy, circumstances, prayers, the church, nature, signs, etc etc, to persuade men to change their minds. These means are resistible, but nonetheless they are "of God." As such, God gets the credit for bringing what was needed for salvation, and man gets the blame for his resistance of the clearly revealed and understood truth...thus making them truly "without excuse."

 

OK, sorry.

If God starts a work in somebody, He always finishes it. (Philippians 1:6)

The question that needs to be asked is, if someone does not persevere, and they in fact did lose their salvation, Who failed, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, or all of the above?

There are promises made both by and through God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, that would be broken. Not just a few, but many.

The Holy Spirit could not be a seal (The signifigance of the seal is that only the person who makes the seal can break it--That's God). All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and I will not lose one of them, I will raise them up in the Last day. Jesus would not be the Author and Finisher of our faith. We would not be upheld by the power of God, but let go. Who ever is born of God would not necessarily overcome the world... etc., etc...

Tons of scripture would be broken. Too many to list them all. And one more, God cannot lie.

There is only one way to find harmony with the whole Bible.

"But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul."

"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us."


Dave

 

That begs the question that the work He is starting is an irresistible working. This verse says nothing about the work that may be resisted by an individual and thus never really "begun." Make sense?

I don't believe that someone who has truly been born again will "lose their salvation." That is not the point I'm arguing for. I'm of the mind that says, "if they go out from us they were never really of us."