Featured honest question to PB's and Reformed's

I'll give a response...

Bear with me as this is from personal experience and an opinion about certain scripture.

Early on in my salvation experience I felt that the "elect" had been given a predispositioning to faith which preceded their flesh birth though I never thought it through as to what would happen if there were those who went through this life and never heard the gospel with no opportunity to respond.

I wondered about this because when I came around to actually reading through the scripture (Book of John especially) for the first time, I knew Him in a personal manner, not just about Him but I knew Him and I heard Him calling me personally. Where did this personal knowledge come from? Was it implanted, when? In this life or from the foundation of the world?

Or was it my imagination?

Granted, my life was turned upside down from what it was before the - He found me/I found Him - experience which proved it was not anything I had conjured up because I certainly had a deep realization of my sinful self.

It was easy for me to identify this experience with being "born anew".


HankD

 

God did not redeem with a strong hand every individual from the House of Bondage, no, He made a clear distinction between the Hebrew and the Egyptian.

Very, very few of those that He redeemed with a strong hand from the House of Bondage believed and obeyed God to go in and possess the Land of Milk & Honey, no, with most of them God was not well pleased, and He swore in His wrath that they would not enter into His rest. He 'shut the door' on them, Moses and Aaron included, and caused them to wander in the Wilderness for the remainder of their lives.

Yet during all their wandering/chastening in the Wilderness He still yet gave them shade by day and light by night, He fed them manna, gave them water, their clothes never wore out, their feet didn't blister, etc., He was with them always.

 

I dont know, should I answer him (my brother Penoy) & risk being called a Hyper Calvinist?

 

Yea.....what the heck...... most of us Old Schoolers believe that our faith has nothing to do with our eternal destiny but everything to do with the benefits to be had from obedience to the gospel here, now, in this realm.

As you were saying, God Himself has settled all eternal aspects of our salvation. It's up to us to believe that, to rest in it, trust Him, adhere to Him, rely on Him, love Him, love our neighbor, and enjoy the table He has set before us. And this is where I stand....firm in that belief.

 

I don't know. Logically a case can be made from what I said - that the atonement is limited to the "elect".

But a case can also be made from scripture which says the opposite, that it is available to all.

I think we can all agree that there is no limit to the power of the blood of Christ to take away sin both in kind and number.
This is why I shrink from "limited atonement" especially in light of John 3:16.

We are told to test the spirits.

If a person's life is producing the fruit of the Spirit (which the flesh cannot produce) then in my mind that outweighs the C&A controversy concerning whether one holds to limited or universal atonement.

If you held a gun to my head I would go with universal atonement but limited appropriation.


HankD

 

I agree with you, but I believe that God will make away for His elect to hear and believe

 

I had never thought of it this way, but it's true. God told them that none but Joshua and Caleb would enter into that promised land. And He still made them provisions.

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

The type holds true, even after all the wickedness Israel had done in the wilderness after leaving Egypt (unbelief, disobedience, murmuring, idolatry, fornication, rebellion, etc.), and even with Balaam wanting so badly to curse Israel, God made Balaam to declare:

He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob; Neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: Jehovah his God is with him, And the shout of a king is among them. Nu 23:21
(Blessed is the man to whom, the Lord will not reckon sin. Ro 4:8)

But the Exodus Generation still yet reaped (IN THIS TEMPORAL REALM) for their wickedness after being redeemed from Egypt, they wandered for forty years in the waste places when they could have possessed the promised land.

 

Am I understanding you PB right that there are people here on earth that have the atonement of Christ blood on their soul's yet they come from the womb and go to the grave and never know it and further more never care for it ?

 

What do you mean by "never care for it"....are you implying rejecting the HS calling / regeneration?

 

The meaning of my question is, from what I am reading in this thread is there are people that will go to heaven un-aware they were bought with the blood of Christ and therefore lived all their lifetime as the world does having no interest in the things of God.

 

So you're saying Moses and Aaron were denied access to the land were also denied access to heaven? Am I understanding that correctly? Obviously the disobedient were denied, but are you counting Moses and Aaron among the "disobedient"?

 

ETA:I have no idea how this-----> ended up in the "post title" at the very top of this post.

God told Moses to speak to the rock, and it would bring forth his water. Moses disobeyed and smote it...TWICE. He did not do what God commanded him to do, yet, God blessed them with the provision of water. God told him that none would enter into the promised land. Moses, being 120 y/o, his eyes not dim, God took him to the top of the mountain, let him view the promised land. Then God took and buried him. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, when they died, their eyes were dim, and werely very sickly, too. Moses appeared to be in very good health when God took and buried him.

Moses asked, "must we fetch water for you out of this rock"? It seems they were taking credit for it, or so it appears. Either way, the rejected God's command, paid for it here, yet they, Moses and Aaron are "resting from their labors".

 

I think what he is saying is that the Jews although redeemed and were brought out of the bondage of Egypt were disobedient and God caused them to wander around in the wilderness for forty years till that generation died and they didn't inherit the promised land which was the land of Israel, Moses and Aaron included. I think he is also making a comparison to the land of Israel as gospel salvation which everyone that has eternal salvation like the disobedient Jews, Moses and Aaron will not experience. The PB see's gospel salvation and eternal salvation as two different salvations.