Please Explain the "I" in TULIP

Reply to Skandelon

I certainly do not agree with all of that!

We must be drawn but enable suggests some sort of core spiritual alteration, i.e prevenient grace which is not taught in scripture.

Your description of Irresistible grace is ok.

And I certainly do not believe the only way God draws is through the gospel. Scripture says God draws by His lovingkindness, of which the crowning expression is the gospel of Christ. But God's love is well expressed in the OT.

 

I don't understand. Are you saying you DON'T believe we must be enabled to come to Christ?

Good thing I didn't say that then, huh?

 

Yes, we do not need to be supernaturally altered in order to hear and learn from God. Naturally, if we never hear the gospel, we were never "enabled" to trust in it, but that is not what you are implying. Both prevenient grace and irresistible grace, needed to reverse "total spiritual inability" are works of fiction with no basis in scripture, just as total spiritual inability is a work of fiction.

Holy Spirit's work of drawing is through the Gospel is what you said which suggested to me you meant the only way. Sorry if I misrepresented your implication.

 

Regeneration simply means rebirth. This occurs when God spiritually places an individual in Christ and not before. No one not spiritually in Christ has been "quickened, made alive, regenerated, reborn, or born again. That view is without support in scripture. How are we made alive? Together with Christ! When are we given the right to become children of God. After we believe. It is a lock.

The issue is not that regeneration, the changing of the heart, does not occur. The issue is when! No one's heart is changed before God puts them spiritually in Christ where they undergo the circumcision of Christ and arise a new creation. No one!!

 

No one here denies that fact. We disagree as to the effectuality of the means He has chosen to accomplish this.

 

"Pert neer" impossible to get this point across. Unless you just want to wave the white flag and accept "defeet".

 

Define you meaning of "enabled".

 

Looks like someone well on road to Semi Pelagianism!

 

Deuteronomy 30:2-6

2and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3then the LORD your God will restore your fortunesa and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. 4Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. 5He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. 6The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

 

Never seems to take too long for that accusation to be trotted out.

 

Actually, Van and I agree on this particular point. I was simply asking for clarity on his point of view and he gave it when he said, "Naturally, if we never hear the gospel, we were never "enabled" to trust in it."

In John 6 Jesus said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

The question is why aren't these people able to believe and come to Jesus and what must God do in order to enable them?

There are two ways to answer that question:

Calvinistic Answer:
They aren't able to believe and come to Jesus because they were born Totally Depraved by nature, thus God must regenerate them in order to enable them to believe and come to Christ. Thus, this is true of all mankind for all time.

Biblical Answer:
"For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: "He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn--and I would heal them." -John 12:39

Israel was being judicially blinded from the truth of who Christ was, thus they were unable to believe and come to him.

"But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." -John 12:32

After Christ is crucified by the Jews who have been hardened and he is raised up, he will send his chosen remnant into all the world to preach the Gospel, the power of God unto salvation, and thus the MEANS God has chosen to ENABLE or DRAW all men to himself.

The reason the audience in John 6 couldn't believe isn't because they were born "totally depraved," but because they were rebellious for generations and God was now hardening them in that rebellion for a time in order to accomplish redemption for the world. Thus, the way God must enable them is by sending the Gospel as he does once he is lifted up (Acts 1:8) and the Holy Spirit as he does at Pentecost (Acts 2) and look what happens. Many of the same people who cried out "crucify him" were the same people who believed Peter's message and were saved.

 

Don't think that he is ONLY one that fails to see that truth though here on BB!

 

BINGO, which BTW, is a cautious word in Alabama right now.

 

True, what's said is that we don't even know what Pelagius actually taught because all his actual teachings were burned. All we have is what his opponents said about his views. Sometimes I wonder if he was even a Semi-Pelagian. :laugh:

 

I haven't ever run across someone here in the decade I've been posting that would deny this.

I think, as just explained in detail, that you do not understand HOW we believe God DOES enable mankind. Like I said, we simply disagree as to the effectuality of those means.