Featured A Question for Calvinust here (Part 2)

I've wrestled with your first point for some time, Icon, and I still don't totally feel comfortable with an answer. I've sought how a just and holy God - as you wrote "a thrice holy God - can deliver someone to eternal damnation without ever allowing them an opportunity for repentance. If, as we agree, nature reveals unto them God, but as we also agree, nature is incapable of preaching the gospel, then we have entire groups of people who are shown God and thus condemned of their sins, but never given the gospel in order to come to faith and repentance. From my point of view, and from my study, that just doesn't seem to fit the nature of God revealed in Jesus Christ as God Incarnate in the flesh.

As I replied in the "Can a non-elect person be Saved?" thread, this line of thinking seems to establish that God created a vast number of people purely for damnation. I come to that conclusion from the statement in Matthew 7:13-14 that "13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Granted, this passage seems to indicate a choice and active participation of man, which seems antithetical to some discussions we've had.

 

you were trying to read Romans 2 and Romans 10 -- but apparently your attempt did not succeed in mastering the details of those two chapters. I will quote them for you again later.

 

I believe a close look at Romans 2 quoted in my previous post addresses the question.

 

Bob It looks like you're advocating a work salvation we know that is not possible is that what you're saying and Romans to that Gentiles we never heard the gospel is saved by works

you need to clarify your statement also are you saying that the new covenant of Hebrews 8 is given to Gentiles and never heard the gospel so they can obey it, is that your position?

 

I am advocating the obvious point that Paul is telling the truth in Romans 2.

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Romans 2

4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

this chapter is in the context of the "Kindness of God" and of "repentance"

6 who will render to each person according to his deeds: 7 to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life;
8 but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.
9 There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
11 For there is no partiality with God. 12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law;


Next we see the NEW Covenant promise of the LAW written on the heart in Heb 8 found in Romans 2 for the gentiles who have no Bible at all.



13 for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.


In that last verse above we find "Gospel" Judgment - not "no Gospel at all" as some have imagined.


And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

In that quote above we find the example of saved Gentiles who condemn those Jews that are lost and the work of the Holy Spirit on the saved - both Jew and Gentile - which is how the gentiles ended up with the Romans 2:13-16 Law of God written on their hearts - in true New Covenant fashion.


"Do we then make void the Law of God by our faith? God forbid! In fact we ESTABLISH the Law of God" Rom 3:31


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you have chosen to "redefine terms" again -- now calling Romans 2 "works based salvation' so as to ignore the word of God at that point.

But I say that Romans 2 demonstrates the very Gospel point you claim does not exist when it comes to your eskimo example - and so now to oppose the Bible on that point - you call Paul's Romans 2 teaching "works based salvation"??

 

BobRyan;

no need to lie Bob....I do not believe in a works salvation. What I am sure of is that you have no idea what Romans 2 is about.

No...your understanding is faulty....it is a made up novelty. It is not speaking of saved gentiles at all...that is not the point.
Without Jesus no one gets saved....gentiles do not save themselves by law keeping....this has nothing to do with the discussion of jn 12....

you have shown clearly you cannot support your statements on All mankind being drawn....you have drifted into fantasy instead of reality....

you have no scripture to support your view

this is not in romans 2...that is not taught there...this Is fantasy

 

This was something I struggled with in my change from free will to DoG. I was always taught God loved everyone, and would truly deisre none perish. But go and read Exodus and especially with what He told Moses to tell Pharoah. Not one message of reconciliation did He command Moses to tell him. Then there's the Hittites, Jebusites, Perizzites, &c. They were left to their own devices and served other gods. The only dealings the Israelites had with them was to drive them from the land God promised to give to them through Abraham. The Philistines had their god, I think it was Dagon. Not once did they ever have a message of reconciliation, iirc.

God made Adam and then Eve. He didn't make you and I. They were created, we were procreated. Major difference...

 

PreachTony

Hello PT, Con1 's post reminded me to answer you:thumbs:

Many struggle with these issues.These issues dealing with life and death of real people in real time.We need to get them right PT...

To come to a full understanding of this issue we need to start with God's perfection and holiness....and mans sinful ,dead and alienated condition.

The consequence of the fall was real death...spiritual, and physical.

.

You assume that if they are given the gospel they will make a good choice somehow, despite their alienated condition of being truth suppressors?

Pt....does your study include this?

2 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

PT...from your pov and study......this is the same God correct?

Is it okay to command the destruction of these women and children?


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Jesus urged them to the way of salvation....There is not really a choice here as much as a warning.....would you agree?

 

Boy, you must either be DHK in "incognito" or DHK, Jr. to keep saying my posts say what they don't say.

Here's what I meant. My WHOLE life I was taught through the free will perspective. Even as a sinner, I was told we had free will. That's all I knew. Even the churches I would occasionally go to as a sinner, they all taught free will. It's all I was ever taught!!!! Even after being saved, I approached the scriptures with the free will view. It was when God began showing me the Doctrines of Grace, I trembled, because this was new to me. I was afraid I would misrepresent Him. Change is never easy.

Whatever dude...

Not once did God draw Pharoah, and you can't show He did.

 

There is something to be said for the actions of God in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. In the case of Pharoah, we do read that the Egyptian king had already hardened his own heart against God and God's people, so God gives him even further over to a situation that is, if you will, of Pharoah's own making. Remember, too, that we don't have a record of every word ever spoken by Moses or Pharoah, so we don't know every conversation. I'm not using this as an excuse, as I think a message of reconciliation would've rated inclusion in the text, but I do say it so that we remember and respect the places in which the Bible is silent on a topic.

The same situation exists for the tribes of Canaan, though the scripture shows fairly clearly that these tribes were ordered destroyed. For what it's worth, and this is neither a condemnation nor a condoning of anyone's actions, we would be wrong to conflate the fate of the physical body with the fate of soul.

Fair points, but also consider this:

Per this verse, God seems to have interest in the formation of a body in the womb. Now, it could be argued that Jeremiah was a special case, or it could be argued that God still takes part, however fully or limitedly He may choose (and yes, I know I just invented the word "limitedly").

 

Is that not what every evangelist, from the Calvinist to the Arminian to the Free-Willer, does? The most we can do in preaching the gospel is deliver the word as instructed and guided of God. It is then up to the hearer of the Word to do what they will. If they feel God drawing them to repent, then we must pray they repent. If none are willing to move forward in their spiritual life, or if they outright deny our Word, then we as preachers or witnesses must, as Jesus commanded, shake the dust from off our feet and move on.

I believe the Bible is clear that not everyone will receive Him. Many will turn Him away. That is not the fault of the preacher. So long as the gospel is preached, then the warning has gone out. If a watchman on a wall sounds the trumpet, and no one moves to defend themselves, is the watchman to blame? He warned them as best he could. Similarly, I don't think we should concern ourselves with worrying about how we are received. Rather preach the gospel, teach the word, and be a willing worker. If any increase is to come, it will be from God.

As I said to Brother C1, we do have to respect the things on which the Bible is silent, and do believe we are allowed to make inference from scripture. For example:

Here we have two consecutive verses, but between them some 13 years passed. Was Abram sitting around doing nothing for 13 years? Doubtful. But whatever he was doing simply wasn't included in the scripture.

Similarly, we do not know every detail of the day to day lives of the people of Amalek (or, for C1, the Perrizites, the Kenites, etc.). We do know this, that Paul wrote:

While someone may want to debate this passage, I see here a divinely inspired Paul admitting that God is evident to all, having shown Himself through the very creation He made to the very creation He made...but the creation did not recognize Him as God (which I take to mean they did not worship Him or hold Him up as God), but instead professed themselves wise, and came to celebrate the creation more than the Creator.

Applied to Amalek, we see a people who saw God revealed in nature/creation, but who instead took the revealed power and awe of God and recognized it in the form of idols and pagan worship. Just like Pharoah, in their on hubris they stood apart from God, and God gave them over even further to their own selfish pride.

Absolutely, it's a warning. But if I warn you that a hailstorm is coming and it might damage your car, you still have the choice of putting your car in the garage or leaving it out to face damage. I've warned you, but you still have to choose how to respond to the warning.

Good points you brought up, Icon. I enjoyed that.

 

PreachTony

?

What you believe about God, Man after the fall, and how salvation takes place makes a difference on what your presentation is....

:thumbs:

If they are dead, and holding down the truth....they will not come for the right reasons....so the preacher or teacher should not try and trick or manipulate them to "do something physical". this is what is at dispute.

PT....pause.....I am not being a wise guy here....question?

Who do you pray to? The sinner himself ,or God?

We both would answer God:thumbs:

Now what do you ask God for when you pray for this person?

Do you ask God to do something towards, and in the sinner?

or do you just stand by with God.....and hope the sinner does something all on his own because he figures it out?

If you agree we have a dead sinner, bound by sin, and blinded by satan...

does he.....first give himself life, unbind himself, and have power over satan, without the Spirit at all...in the strength of his own flesh?

Or do we need to follow the scriptural language of God granting, God saving, God giving Divine enablement?

,

I understand what you are saying and how you mean this, and am not trying to jump on your words.....but I will just a bit

Does a dead sinner have a spiritual life to move forward in? or are they in the realm of spiritual death even if they are religious in a cult, or religious and unsaved among living church members?

yes for sure.. plant the seed the leave them before God

Again you say this because we know that many are cast into the second death. Where we differ is- you suggest some can ,and some cannot based on their own strength and will.

I believe the natural man cannot do so. If we see any indication this is going on, then we have reason to believe God is working inside that person.

All will turn away unless God intervenes in mercy.

:thumbs:

From what I see so far.....I believe you seek to do this much more than you take what is revealed plainly in scripture.


Most everyone of your objections, [and many others as well] are based on your feeling, or your pov rather than scripture itself.

When God does not include something...we do not need to know it, or speculate on it then.

But God tells us they were wicked persons under His Divine wrath and not escaping His judgement .

consider how God describes the Amorites here..
16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full

You word this in a way that makes their sin and wickedness ,idolatry , and degrading sexual perversions sound like they made a slight mistake, or some poor judgement. It was willful deliberate rebellion against God.....Paul says...haters of God.

 

Anthony,

This is a very good point (phrased in a question). If Armianism is true that it is useless to pray to God for anyone's salvation. The most an Arminian can do is pray that God brings them to the water, but the sinner is the one who has to choose to drink. So, an Arminian prayer would sound like, "Father, I pray that you let my mother hear the gospel." That is it. The Arminian cannot pray, "Father, I pray that you call my mother to yourself through the glorious message of the gospel, for Jesus sake. Amen."

 

I was trying to point out that the evangelist, as much a human being as the person being preached to, can only deliver the message. Regardless how I might present a message when compared to how a full 5 Point Calvinist might present a message, the fact remains that there is nothing neither of us can do to make an inward change in the hearer.

We've been over this before, in that I believe man has an ability to choose whether or not to accept Christ as Savior. From what I gather from Calvinist, man has no ability, and therefore man has no choice. To me, that does not flow with scripture. To the Calvinist it does. Goes a long way toward showing differing interpretation methods.

While I have no qualms at all with an altar call, something I've found many here on the BB to oppose, I wouldn't necessarily label that a trick or manipulation, at least not in the malicious sense of the word. In a broad and rhetorical view, anything anyone does in the presence of anyone else is going to be manipulative, as we are all always trying to get something from somebody. Doesn't have to be money or power, can be something as simple as a smile...but we do tend to try things to make people give us what we want.

You obviously are correct in that no one would pray to the sinner. I suppose my words were a bit of a figure of speech. I was meaning it in a hopeful sense, though we do pray for God to have mercy on a sinner and allow them time to repent. In your view, I take it, the sinner doesn't repent until God moves them to. But in that case, what do you make of scripture like Rev 2, in which the Jezebel of the church at Thyatira was given a "space to repent" and she did not? How does God show anger at someone for not repenting when God never moves them to repent in the first place? I know, we can debate the standing of God's Holiness in dealing with His own, but it still does not fit with the vast majority of scripture in which people were told to repent.

Similar to the point above, I probably got a bit ahead of myself in writing. The preached gospel goes to the lost for salvation, but it also has a dual role as edification of the believer. Some believers, even though they believe, become very obstinate and back-slidden. I had intended that comment to reflect the lost rejecting the word and the saved-but-backslid refusing to grow in it. My apologies for the confusion.

I'm sorry you feel that way, Icon. I have admitted that I will use scriptural inference. I do not neglect the plainly revealed scriptures, though. However, I see it as this, which some BB members have written in the past: Much of the Bible is written to specific audiences at specific times. If we hold only to literal, face-value interpretation (plainly revealed), then we have to admit that parts of the Bible simply aren't relevant to a modern audience. I do not believe that. I believe that scripture is relevant to us today, in both historicity and modern application. Some portions of our core doctrines are based on scriptural inference. The Trinity, for one, is nowhere clearly defined as a doctrine within the Scripture, yet many of us believe just that. Does that make us wrong, because such a doctrine required scriptural inference?

I've had discussion before with folks who said that, because the Bible doesn't discuss these blocks of time in the Patriarchs' lives, or because it goes silent on the life of Christ from age 12 to around age 30 that we shouldn't even think about it or speculate. To someone like me, who I feel blessed by God to have an inquisitive mind and a pretty solid imagination, I kind of felt like this was their way of telling me not to think. No, I'm not going to drive and derive doctrine from these silent periods, but I don't see it as a some heinous theological crime to consider what was going on.

I never intended it to sound that way, Icon. I was really just intending to show how Paul's encapsulation of humanity in Romans 1 was applicable to the way of life of the Canaanite tribes and those like Amalek.

 

I have been in my share of evangelical prayer meetings where those who would say they do not care for the doctrines of grace pray as if they developed the 5 pts all by themselves. They confess our sinful condition before our Holy God, they thank God that He has determined to show mercy to millions,they ask if it be possible would God draw grandma to Himself. They thank God for His perfect work on the cross, and they ask for God to keep and preserve all the saints:thumbs:
Some if they prayers were recorded would be more Cal, than the cals:thumbs::thumbs:

 

PreachTony

.
2 Corinthians 4:7

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

Agreed:thumbs:

You have expressed this idea.

Calvinists gather this from scripture PT....romans 8:7, 1cor 2:14

man chooses many things....but he will never choose God unless allowed and enabled by God. He must be born from above...It is a MUST

Sure it does......
37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,

and ye would not!

What is missing? What is missing is EPH2:4

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

EPH 2:4...fixes the flow....like this PT-

and ye would not!........But God, who is rich in mercy

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be........But God, who is rich in mercy

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned

.............But God, who is rich in mercy

[part of finneys new measures}

Those who do this are sincere....very sincere, but wrong .The God given proper response to the gospel is baptism and church membership.

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I do not see anything comparable by the Apostles...just preaching of the word as ordained by God.

Sinners do not want to repent. Biblical repentance is granted by God....

18 When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

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That is why I offer to you acts 11...above

PT...God has commanded all men everywhere to repent.
They are responsible to repent. the goodness of God is meant to lead men to repentance;

2 But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.

3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?

4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:

8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,

9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;

This is a separate thread...biblically.. backsliding is apostasy.

I did not reject all scriptural inference...however many wrong ideas go under the banner of good and necessary inference:thumbs: that's why there are Padeo Baptists,




I've had discussion before with folks who said that, because the Bible doesn't discuss these blocks of time in the Patriarchs' lives, or because it goes silent on the life of Christ from age 12 to around age 30 that we shouldn't even think about it or speculate. To someone like me, who I feel blessed by God to have an inquisitive mind and a pretty solid imagination,

To go very far down that path can only lead to error.

More often than not....such carnal speculation leads to error because it leads to explaining away of scripture.

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I know you did not, I am not trying to catch you in your words or expressions.
I am trying to see your concerns and react to them.:thumbs:

 

So here's a question from someone outside the Cal camp: How does Calvinism view the notion that God commands all men everywhere to repent when the same God does not move within them to make them repent?

You quoted Matt 23:37, and I'll be honest I don't often see Cals use that verse to back up their theology, as it shows that God was willing to draw them unto Himself (and given what I understand about Calvinism, that should not have been difficult for God) and yet the people did not come to Him.