Grace: potential or actual

[Greektim]

Just another perspective or angle to debate the Calvinism "controversy".

Is God's grace in salvation merely an offer for the person to recieve?

or

Is God's grace in salvation a reality actualized for the elect?

To put it another way: does the Bible present grace as a potentiality or an actuality?

 

[preachinjesus]

Yes.......

 

[freeatlast]

Just another perspective or angle to debate the Calvinism "controversy".

Is God's grace in salvation merely an offer for the person to recieve?

or

Is God's grace in salvation a reality actualized for the elect?

To put it another way: does the Bible present grace as a potentiality or an actuality?

It is both.

 

[Amy.G]

Grace is given to all. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. God's word/bible is for all. But more grace is given to those who seek God (because of His initial grace).

So yes. Both. :tongue3:

 

[Van]

Grace is simply the bestowal of divine favor. Therefore we are saved by grace through faith. This grace is irresistible, it is God crediting our faith as righteousness and placing us spiritually in Christ. But God's revelatory grace, the gospel of Christ is resistible. So by the numbers:

(1) We were created with the capacity to understand the gospel message by the grace of God.

(2) We can by the practice of sin so harden our hearts that we can no longer understand the gospel.

(3) Some individuals for God's greater purpose have their hearts hardened, i.e. the Jews of Romans 11) and they too cannot understand the gospel.

(4) During our lives some of us are and some are not and some more than others cultivated such that we are more open to the gospel by the resistible grace of God.
It was by the grace of God I was born into a Christian family.

(5) Sometimes when first exposed to the gospel it is accepted in full or in part. It is by the grace of God that we are exposed at all, and if believers keep presenting Christ to us by words and deeds, such as showing us kindness, it is by the grace of God.

(6) If God accepts our faith and credits it as righteousness it is by the grace of God. And when He does, He puts us in Christ and nothing can snatch us away from our inheritance of eternal life.

 

[zrs6v4]

Just another perspective or angle to debate the Calvinism "controversy".

Is God's grace in salvation merely an offer for the person to recieve?

or

Is God's grace in salvation a reality actualized for the elect?

To put it another way: does the Bible present grace as a potentiality or an actuality?

I do not have a knowledgable answer to this question therefore my opinion (as see in others) would be mere speculation based on preconcieved notions to back my Calvinistic theology.

I believe an examination of the Greek in usages would be wise.

I had a professor a few years ago begin a course (Redemption and Reconciliation) by saying he does not like the terms: common grace and special grace. He used the term common goodness rather than grace because he believed that only true usages in the Greek for grace referred to salvation of the elect. He spoke fluent Greek so he was well aware of the fact that his claim did not use similar terms, just grace. He saw grace in a Calvinistic sense in that it was active and effectual towards its targets. In other words it worked in direct connection with God's will. So grace carries the power of God in bringing about His goodness and will for the elect in salvation.

Have I studied that claim, no, but I did think it was an interesting addition to your post.

 

[JesusFan]

Just another perspective or angle to debate the Calvinism "controversy".

Is God's grace in salvation merely an offer for the person to recieve?

or

Is God's grace in salvation a reality actualized for the elect?

To put it another way: does the Bible present grace as a potentiality or an actuality?

jesus death was NOT to pay for a "possible/potential" salvation of people, it was payment in full in reality that would get/be applied to the redeemed/saved of the Lord!

 

[Herald]

Just another perspective or angle to debate the Calvinism "controversy".

Is God's grace in salvation merely an offer for the person to recieve?

or

Is God's grace in salvation a reality actualized for the elect?

To put it another way: does the Bible present grace as a potentiality or an actuality?

How about we put it a third way? God's grace, in salvation, is effectual for the elect. As the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith describes it:

Chapter 10

1. Those whom God hath predestinated unto life, he is pleased in his appointed, and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.
( Romans 8:30; Romans 11:7; Ephesians 1:10, 11; 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 14; Ephesians 2:1-6; Acts 26:18; Ephesians 1:17, 18; Ezekiel 36:26; Deuteronomy 30:6; Ezekiel 36:27; Ephesians 1:19; Psalm 110:3; Canticles 1:4 )

2. This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, nor from any power or agency in the creature, being wholly passive therein, being dead in sins and trespasses, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit; he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it, and that by no less power than that which raised up Christ from the dead.
( 2 Timothy 1:9; Ephesians 2:8; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 2:5; John 5:25; Ephesians 1:19, 20 )

 

[Robert Snow]

God's grace makes clear the way to heaven for all who will choose to believe the Gospel.

 

[Rippon]

God's grace makes clear the way to heaven for all who will choose to believe the Gospel.

IOW,in your view man clinches the deal of salvation,right?

 

[Iconoclast]

This section is pretty straight forward;

11But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;

12Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

13For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

14How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

15And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

 

[Robert Snow]

IOW,in your view man clinches the deal of salvation,right?

My view, which is the biblical view, is that God offers salvation and man responds. If you don't like it, take it up with God, not me.

 

[The Archangel]

My view, which is the biblical view, is that God offers salvation and man responds. If you don't like it, take it up with God, not me.

I don't think we're arguing against God offering salvation and man (certain persons) responding in repentance and faith.

However, what possesses a man or woman who has a heart that "desires only evil continually" to come to Christ in repentance and faith?

That's the question.

The Archangel

 

[freeatlast]

I don't think we're arguing against God offering salvation and man (certain persons) responding in repentance and faith.

However, what possesses a man or woman who has a heart that "desires only evil continually" to come to Christ in repentance and faith?

That's the question.

The Archangel

That is like asking what possessed Adam to sin who was only good and had no evil in him?

Both are answered with the same answer. Free will. Man is unlike any other creature on earth. He can choose. Even the most evil person can choose to do a good deed. Man can be convinced that he needs to come to repentance and faith.

 

[David Lamb]

My view, which is the biblical view, is that God offers salvation and man responds. If you don't like it, take it up with God, not me.

Robert, when you write, "My view, which is the biblical view," I hope you are not suggesting that those of us with a different soteriological view hold that view in spite of what the bible teaches.

I know that I and others with similar beliefs to me (such as Herald and Martin Marprelate) don't say to ourselves, "Well, I know the bible tells me that Jesus died to make salvation possible. but I'm going to have things my way, and I want to believe that Jesus died to make salvation actual!" Rather, we believe that Jesus making salvation actual is the biblical view.

None of us has perfect understanding of God's Word, which is surely why there is a diversity of understanding among genuine Christians on various topics, including this one of soteriology.

 

[Robert Snow]

Robert, when you write, "My view, which is the biblical view," I hope you are not suggesting that those of us with a different soteriological view hold that view in spite of what the bible teaches.

I know that I and others with similar beliefs to me (such as Herald and Martin Marprelate) don't say to ourselves, "Well, I know the bible tells me that Jesus died to make salvation possible. but I'm going to have things my way, and I want to believe that Jesus died to make salvation actual!" Rather, we believe that Jesus making salvation actual is the biblical view.

None of us has perfect understanding of God's Word, which is surely why there is a diversity of understanding among genuine Christians on various topics, including this one of soteriology.

It would be impossible for me to believe that what Calvinism teaches is compatible with scripture. After all this is the point of disagreement.

 

[JesusFan]

That is like asking what possessed Adam to sin who was only good and had no evil in him?

Both are answered with the same answer. Free will. Man is unlike any other creature on earth. He can choose. Even the most evil person can choose to do a good deed. Man can be convinced that he needs to come to repentance and faith.

actually, ONLY Adam was able to 'exercise" free will in the sense that Non cals ascribe to that term...

He freely chose to sin against god, NOT having sin nature, so his crime made all of us get same 'reward" spiritual/physical death...

So NONE of us from Adam forward have same 'free will" as he id, so that is WHY we need God to enable to us to have that capacity again!

 

[JesusFan]

My view, which is the biblical view, is that God offers salvation and man responds. If you don't like it, take it up with God, not me.

God offers the Gospel to all men, but ONLY those whom that he has enabled to receive it will get it and place faith in Christ!

 

[JesusFan]

I don't think we're arguing against God offering salvation and man (certain persons) responding in repentance and faith.

However, what possesses a man or woman who has a heart that "desires only evil continually" to come to Christ in repentance and faith?

That's the question.

The Archangel

ONLY Adam was able to exercise 'Arminian" theology and get 'saved" as he was without Sin nature, and could 'freely" choose God...

ALL others since than are dead in their sin nature and in their sins, so need God to enable us to have 'free will" respond again!

 

[Amy.G]

actually, ONLY Adam was able to 'exercise" free will in the sense that Non cals ascribe to that term...

He freely chose to sin against god, NOT having sin nature, so his crime made all of us get same 'reward" spiritual/physical death...

So NONE of us from Adam forward have same 'free will" as he id, so that is WHY we need God to enable to us to have that capacity again!

First of all, the bible never says or implies that Adam had free will and we don't. If so, please post it. And secondly, after Adam fell, he was still able to hear God calling to him. He was fully aware of his sin (as are we) and hid (as do we). But God called out to him (as He does to us) and Adam was able to answer (as are we).