Featured Does Paul's conversion prove Calvinism's teaching on Irresistible Grace?

It says that these discples "through the Spirit" told Paul that he SHOULD NOT go up to Jerusalem.

Then that prophet told him what would happen if he goes up.

Paul disobeyed and went up, and he was taken prisoner just as Agabus told him he would be.

You can't rewrite scripture that doesn't suit you, the scripture shows that Paul was told not to go up to Jerusalem, but he went anyway.

 

If I respond will you actually consider what I say?

I doubt it.

 

Give me a break, you just showed me all sorts of scripture that said Paul MUST do this or that. You insist Paul had no choice in what he did.

But scripture clearly shows he had the ability to disobey, and in fact, he did.

 

We've been on this merry-go-round before. Any chance of a different result this time? I'm doubtful.

Guts or lack of sense... Peter seems to had a lot of the latter moments.

 

We have to remember that just because God has foreknowledge of how He will move a person to respond, and how that person will respond, it does not mean God somehow removed the freewill of choice of that person to respond. We see in the case of Pharaoh that he had a choice, and he even exercised that choice back and forth as to leaving the people go, but in the end God hardened his heart, but only after Pharaoh choose to harden it himself against God. This is why we read in Romans 9 - "What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction". There comes a point when God will say enough is enough and after enduring with much longsuffering He will fit these disobedient vessels unto destruction.

 

Probably not, but many others read these threads. That is why I continue to argue against Calvinism. I know that many here are hardcore and will never listen, but some folks might not be sure what to believe. So, I try to present the other side, but only they can decide for themselves which view more accurately represents what the scriptures say.

I like Peter. He was the only one who attempted to walk out on the water to Jesus. He doubted and sank, but he tried, and I like that.

But that shows something very important. Faith is not looking inward, it is not enduring, or holding on. When Peter looked at himself, and his surroundings, he failed, he began to sink.

But the very moment he looked to Jesus and cried out to him, IMMEDIATELY Jesus reached down and saved him.

Mat 14:28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.
29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.
30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.
31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

I think this is one of the problems with Calvinism, you do not have a proper view of faith. You think faith is something in you, like some sort of essence or magical force. It is no such thing. It is looking away from self and looking only at Jesus.

When Peter looked at himself he said, "What? I am a man, I can't walk on water!" and he began to sink.

But the moment he looked only to Jesus he was saved. This is saving faith.

Folks are looking the wrong direction.

 

And when scripture says God hardened his heart, it does not mean that God caused Pharaoh to be obstinate and rebellious, because God never as so much tempts any man to sin at any time.

But God knew how Pharaoh would react to him. He knew that Pharaoh would resist more and more. Just the fact that God contended with Pharaoh caused Pharaoh to harden his heart.

It's like when the Republicans fight with Obama. Obama just digs in and gets more stubborn and obstinate.

 

Good point.

I like Peter too. He is a great example of the radical change that Jesus makes in a man.

:thumbs:
So far so good...

...and you lost it....

How in the world so you think Calvinism teaches that "faith is something in [us], like some sort of essence or magical force"!?

That is 180 degrees from Calvinistic teaching. Literally, you couldn't have been more wrong if you tried.

Of course it is looking away from self and looking to Jesus. No one that I'm aware of debates that.

 

I consider all responses and I search the scriptures to see if these things be so. Jesus gave the reason Thomas believed. Will you accept the answer? Or will you defend TULIP at all cost?

But the real puzzling question is why is TULIP so appealing for you? It certainly must ignore all the invitational passages given by God. When Johnny Mac was asked about all those passages he simply said "I don't know". Is that really a fair and balanced approach to the precious word of God? Throwing one scriptural truth out for the sake of another? Both freewill and election is taught throughout the Scriptures. Saying a person has a choice but will always choose against God is not saying a person has a choice, think about that really, it is absurd.

To be honest and "rightly divide the word of truth" is to make these two great truths work together, not oppose each other. The only way the two can work in harmony is to rightly define God's foreknowledge. Get this wrong and all the rest will be wrong that come after. Same goes for 'Total Depravity", get this to an extreme and out goes all the Scriptures requiring a freewill choice towards God.

 

Most of my points are. :tongue3:

Actually, Peter stayed very much the same, he was the one Paul had to rebuke to his face. Peter was all heart, not so much brain.

I relish your approval.

Well, Calvinism speaks of faith like a substance, something you can hold in your hand, so to speak. They will tell you faith is something that an unregenerate man does not have, but God must give it to you.

A non-Cal believes faith is a mental judgment based on reason. I can examine a person's behavior to determine if I can trust them. If a person is a known thief and been to jail many times for car-theft, it is very unlikely I would loan him my car if he asked me to borrow it.

But if my best friend asked to borrow my car, and I know he has always been perfectly honest with me, I would trust him to take it.

Calvinists do not believe man can reason and believe the scriptures like that, they believe a man has to be supernaturally regenerated to have saving faith, an external force or essence must be applied.

I think I understand Calvinism quite well.

 

:applause: Well played.

I disagree of course, but it was a nice comeback.

In some ways. His recklessness and "do first think later" attitude seems to have stuck around for a while. But his life changed remarkably. The man you first meet in Matt 4 is very different from the one who wrote 1 and 2 Peter, I think that really comes through in his writings and the other NT writings about him.

Hey I thought you'd be happy to get a second :thumbs: today.

Calvinism speaks of faith being a gift (so does scripture BTW)yes, but not a physical or ethereal substance. You know you are just misrepresenting us with that.

No... It's not that unbelievers can't reason. It's that they are in bondage to sin - enslaved to it, and would rather be in darkness than light. The Spirit first intervenes, overcomes the bondage to sin and gives the person the ability to see the glory and excellence of God.

Faith is a simple mental judgement.

You haven't shown it yet.

 

It's what I do.

He certainly was courageous and bold after the Spirit was poured out on him.

You will not believe this, but I hate being the center of attention. If I went to a party, I will find a corner and sit down, or go out in the kitchen. I don't need adulation at all.

Well, I don't think I COULD explain it. To the Calvinist, it is a spiritual quality. How do you explain that?



I love this scene where Gene Wilder shouts, It's alive!!

That's kind of how Calvinism sees regeneration.

To a non-Calvinist, faith is a judgment or attitude about another. I know exactly who I trust and who I don't, and I can easily tell you why I trust one person and do not trust another. It is not some mysterious thing.

And this is where you are very, very wrong. When scripture says we are servants to sin, it is not saying that you are irresistibly compelled to sin. It is saying you BELONG to sin, like a slave did in the ancient markets. The moment you sin, you are SOLD under sin (Rom 7:14). Sin (personified) now owns you and you cannot escape him except through DEATH.

It doesn't mean you have to sin. A slave can disobey his master, a slave can run away from his master, but the master will call the authorities and they will send out men to capture you and bring you back. The only way you are getting out of this situation is to die.

And that is exactly what happens when we trust Jesus. When we trust Jesus we are baptized into this body and we literally died WITH HIM on the cross to sin. We are DEAD to sin.

Rom 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

You are dead to sin now, he no longer holds power or authority over you.

Fortunately, we are also raised to new life in Jesus. We are risen WITH HIM. We are no longer under the law of sin, but grace.

But just as we were not compelled to sin when we were servants of sin, neither are we compelled to do righteousness when we belong to righteousness. We can still sin, and often do.

Scripture shows we can obey the gospel while we were yet sinners.

Rom 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

Note that we are servants to whom we "yield" ourselves, "whether" (option) of sin to death, "or" (option) of obedience to righteousness.

We can choose to yield ourselves to sin or righteousness. We are not compelled by our nature to sin as many falsely teach.

Now note importantly, Paul says we WERE the servants of sin, but we have obeyed the gospel from our hearts.

But here is the most important part, verse 18, were it says "being THEN made free from sin" we "became" the servants of righteousness.

Read that again carefully. It was AFTER we obeyed the gospel while we "WERE" servants of sin, it was AFTERWARD that we were "THEN" made free from sin.

You WERE the servants of sin ----> you obeyed the gospel -----> being THEN made free from sin -----> you BECAME the servants of righteousness.

Do you see that? That is HUGE.

This scripture here completely and utterly refutes the doctrine of Total Inability.

 

I did not say that, nor anything like that. So, as predicted, you are changing the subject to your fictional strawman. I said Saul was zealous for God. Now I repeat, Saul was zealous for God. Do you deny Saul was zealous for God. Of course not. So you have no answer, how could Saul be zealous for God when he was rejecting Jesus as the Messiah?

You will provide no answer. Just more shuck and jive.

Irresistible Grace is a fiction as demonstrated by Saul being zealous for God while rejecting Jesus.

 

Could Paul have "dusted himself off ... and gone his merry way...?"

I do not believe he could have rejected Christ on the road to Damascus.

Here is my reasoning. God can know our hearts, and therefore can know what we will do, given a circumstance. Recall Jesus saying if the folks in another town had seen His miracles, they would have repented."
Jesus knew Paul's heart, and I believe arranged circumstances that He knew would result in Paul's repentance. This in no way uses or relies upon the fiction of irresistible grace. Others, who were also believers in God, and were looking for the promised Messiah, accepted Jesus as the Messiah.

 

I know what you are saying. God foreknew Paul would believe, and his foreknowledge is infallible.

Now, I know you don't believe that, but I and many others do.

Nevertheless, Luke 16 shows that if men do not want to believe, even a miracle will not convince them.

Luk 16:30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Luke 16:31 pretty much destroys Irresistible Grace.

 

Lets leave it, you and I believe very different things. But we agree Irresistible Grace is a fiction. According to Calvinism no one ever seeks God, yet Paul was zealous for God, so according to Calvinism he was under the influence of Irresistible Grace. Yet he rejected Jesus, so the grace was resistible.

Wait for it, some Calvinist will now claim God sometimes uses two separate applications of Irresistible Grace to fully achieve faith in God and His Christ.

 

I actually already answered that. Paul was, like Israel as a whole, zealous without knowledge. He had "a" zeal for God, but not a true love for him.

And yes actually you did say that and i did not set up a strawman. You said:

You conflate love and zeal here, and claim that Paul loved God even while rejecting Jesus and persecuting the church. His zeal was the cause of his persecuting the church was it not? Therefore, if you are going to be consistent, you must say that Paul's love for God caused him to persecute Christians.

And you also demonstrate that you are confused on what irresistible grace means. When God overcomes the sinners resistance to the gospel, that person loves God and receives the gospel. It's impossible to be, as you claim, influenced by irresistible grace and hate Jesus simultaneously.

 

So... we're enslaved to sin and in bondage to sin and the only way to escape sin is to die... yet we aren't compelled to sin? Do you not see how contradictory that is? Also, is there any evidence, anywhere that enslaved sinners seek to escape the bondage of sin? I can't think of any off the top of my head. (Then again I haven't had my caffeine yet either ) All I can think of is that men love darkness (sin) rather than light (righteousness).

I have no problem with this per se. Though I would say you need to go back a few verses to see the basis for this. It is our union with Christ in his death and resurrection that enables us to walk in "newness of life" (v4). We are released from the body of sin because it has "been done away with" (NASB v6) and therefore we are freed from our slavery to sin. What follows is this "newness of life" verse 4 speaks of.

Regarding your last bit there. Yes we still sin. However this is talking about who is our master. A slave to sin will have a life consistent with living in sin since it is their master. A slave to God will live a life of obedience to God. Not perfect obedience, but a pattern of obedience rather than sin.

This new way of living is only possible with believers as it is grounded in our personal identification with our murdered and risen Savior. Only the believer can "yield" himself to obedience. Paul is not saying, in v 16 that the believer can still yield himself to sin unto death, if that's so then eternal security/perseverance of the saints goes right out the window! He is pointing out that whatever you obey as your master, sin or righteousness, has it's own, appropriate, final result. If you live as a slave (better translation than servant BTW) to sin, you will die; if you live as a slave to obedience (to God) you will live in righteousness.

Verses 17 and 18 really make this obvious:

[Rom 6:17-18 NASB] 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

Believers were, that is formerly - in the past- slaves to sin. But no longer. We have obeyed the gospel and become slaves of righteousness. We are first freed from sin and then become God's slaves.

This passage really doesn't support Calvinism or Arminianism over the other since this is all talking about how things work from our perspective, both Calvinism and Arminianism deal with the "behind the scenes" actions, if you will. Also this passage is primarily about sanctification, not justification.

[Rom 6:19 NASB] 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

Regardless, this is a great passage showing the indicative/imperative relationship.

These things are already facts in the Christians life (indicative):
We have died to sin (Rom 6:1)
We have been united with Christ (v3-5)
Our old self was crucified with Christ (v6)
We are under grace not law (v14)
We are now slaves of righteousness and of God (v18, 22)

Based on these established facts, we do the following (imperatives):
We consider ourselves dead to sin and alive in Christ (v11)
We do not let sin rule us (v12)
We turn from sin and turn to righteousness (v13)
We present ourselves as slaves to righteousness (v19)

In other words, Paul is saying you are dead to sin, so put sin to death. You are free from sin, so be free from sin.

This topic alone is worthy of it's own thread, IMO.

Unsurprisingly, I disagree, for several reasons.

First, both sides say that we are freed from sin when we obey the gospel. That's not up for debate.

Second, you are building your entire doctrine here off the translation of a single word in the KJV. Every other translation I looked at says "having been freed from sin" or something similar. This could be understood several ways (so can the KJV really), either that we were made free from sin before, after or simultaneously with obedience to the gospel.

I think simultaneously makes the most sense.

Slave of sin ---> Obeys the gospel/Made free from sin ---> Slave of righteousness

Third, Paul is not discussing our ability or inability to receive the gospel in 17 and 18. He simply presents the believer's obedience to the gospel as a fact. He does not explain how one comes to believe the gospel, whether through some innate ability we have or through a supernatural work of God. That's not the purpose of the passage.

Though I would say that the language of enslavement to either sin or God and the necessity of being freed from sin (not freeing yourself) supports the inability of man to do this on his own. But again, it would be improper I think to be dogmatic here either way.

 

The Disciples were regenerated, yet not converted. Jesus told Peter that when he was converted...after Christ's resurrection, and before His ascension..to strengthen the Brethern. They walked by sight, moreso than by faith. Christ told them "while you have the Light, believe in the Light, that you may become children of the Light".

They all forsook Him when the Roman Soldiers laid hold to their Master. They were not yet converted, and some times were downright cowards. After they were filled with the Spirit, they were bold soldiers, and would die for Him, even rejoiced that they were found worthy to be beaten for their Master's name.


At that point in time, in regards to Thomas, he was regenerated, yet not converted. Coversion took place in Acts 2 as they were filled with the Spirit, imo.

 

Regenerated and Conversion are one in the same. Can you define for us what you see a distinction as being between the two?