Featured The 5 Points that lead me out of Calvinism

And how do the lost get saved??

 

NO text says "our gospel is hidden from all the lost" as your extreme inference appears to "need it to say".

Therefore the salient point of your speculation remains unproven -- it is merely asserted and oft repeated.

hint: both Calvinists and Arminians admit that there indeed "exists" such a thing as a lost people that never accepts the Gospel.

The unproven -- merely-assumed argument that you need to proveis that you can rightly bend that text to say "the gospel is hidden from all the lost" it is a claim you make - but have no text for it.

You merely "assume the salient point" of your own argument (a point that is made only by extreme inference at that.)

 

Paul says quite clearly that his Gospel is hid and that permanently, to Them that are lost 2 Cor 4:3-4 !

 

By Christ, their Saviour ! I have explained that in my threads !

 

NO text says "our gospel is hidden from all the lost" as your extreme inference appears to "need it to say".

Therefore the salient point of your speculation remains unproven -- it is merely asserted and oft repeated.

hint: both Calvinists and Arminians admit that there indeed "exists" such a thing as a lost people that never accepts the Gospel.

The unproven -- merely-assumed argument that you need to proveis that you can rightly bend that text to say "the gospel is hidden from all the lost" it is a claim you make - but have no text for it.

You merely "assume the salient point" of your own argument (a point that is made only by extreme inference at that.)

In fact you repeat the tactic of "avoiding proof for the salient point" of your own argument as if "we will not notice"

hint: both Calvinists and Arminians admit that there indeed "exists" such a thing as a lost people that never accepts the Gospel.

NO text says "our gospel is hidden from all the lost" as your extreme inference appears to "need it to say".

So You merely "assume the salient point" of your own argument (a point that is made only by extreme inference at that.)

In fact you repeat the tactic of "avoiding proof for the salient point" of your own argument as if "we will not notice"

 

You (like all other Calvinists arguing your point) cannot respond to Romans 10 substantively - so you "avoid the text". as noted above.


You cannot respond substantively to these texts


[FONT=&quot]Matt 23:37-38[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]John 1[/FONT]:11

[FONT=&quot]Matt 23:37-38[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Luke 7:28-29[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Is 5:4[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]as we noted here - #246

So you avoid them entirely.

 

Those in a lost state, the Gospel is hid from them, permanently 2 Cor 4:3-4 !

 

Those in the flesh cannot please God Rom 8:8 and since believing is Faith which pleases God Heb 11:6 No lost person in the flesh can do Rom 10:9-10 !

 

hint: both Calvinists and Arminians admit that there indeed "exists" such a thing as a lost people that never accepts the Gospel.

NO text says "our gospel is hidden from all the lost" as your extreme inference appears to "need it to say".

So You merely "assume the salient point" of your own argument (a point that is made only by extreme inference at that.)

In fact you repeat the tactic of "avoiding proof for the salient point" of your own argument as if "we will not notice"

 

BOTH Calvinists and Arminians agree that the lost do not "please God" but where we differ is that Arminians believe the "Lost are part of the WORLD" and that "God so LOVED the (lost) World that HE Gave... yes really -- that WHOSOEVER believes on Him might not perish but have everlasting life... yes really" John 3:16

Paul says the gospel is going to the unsaved in Romans 11 " 14 if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them."

The God of the Bible "came to seek an save the lost". Luke 19:10, Matt 18:11


The very sequence you object to is found there - "light shining out of darkness" and those who are lost being converted in the very sequence identified by Paul - the same author -- writing to the Romans.

Romans 10
“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

The very sequence Calvinism forbids - the Bible affirms! The gospel goes to the lost - those who are not saved, and not at all righteous -- and then -
"with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."

Without all the "extreme inference" injected into 2Cor 4 - this all works just fine.

 

The Gospel is hid to them that are lost 2 Cor 4:3-4 ! Those in the flesh cannot please God Rom 8:8 so they cannot believe !

 

hint: both Calvinists and Arminians admit that there indeed "exists" such a thing as a lost person that never accepts the Gospel.

NO text says "our gospel is hidden from all the lost" as your extreme inference appears to "need it to say".

So You merely "assume the salient point" of your own argument (a point that is made only by extreme inference at that.)

In fact you repeat the tactic of "avoiding proof for the salient point" of your own argument as if "we will not notice"

Meanwhile all have noticed that the Gospel goes to the lost - to save them.


That is how the "unreconciled" become saved as they respond to God's call where he "begs them to be reconciled to God" 2Cor 5

As Christ stands on the outside of the christless-lost "I STAND and KNOCK - IF anyone hears My voice AND OPENS the door I will come in" Rev 3

 

Denying the scriptures can't help you, the scripture says that the Gospel is hid to them that are lost 2 Cor 4:3-4 !

 

That is precisely my point to you and you have "no text" no... "not one text" that says "God only came to seek and save those that please Him" ...

you have no text , no not one text that says "first man must please God then God will offer him the Gospel" ... no not one text of that form

you have no text that says "the gospel is hid from all who are lost" no not one text.

Which you bend via extreme inference to insert "Gospel is hid from all that are lost"

JW's do this with Christ when they quote a text here or there that says that "I go to My God and your God" John 20:17 or "The Father is greater than I" John 14:28 -- they argue that IF we ignore all the Bible texts pointing to Christ as "With God and the Word WAS God" then we can happily imagine a Bible that teaches Christ is not really God.

You are doing the same thing - you insist that we if limit ourselves to 2Cor 4 and allow you to insert into the text "the Gospel is hidden from ALL that are lost" then we can happily imagine that God is not attempting to "seek and save that which is lost" and that the Romans 10 text does not exist ...

Even Calvinism was born out of the Protestant Reformation but what Catholic doctrine would not thrive in the "ignore all those texts that refute my position" solution that you propose when you eisegete ideas into 2Cor 4 that are not there while ignoring scripture that directly refutes the ideas you are trying to bend into that text? Your enthusiasm for Calvinism leads you to an anti-Bible position that even the RCC could have used against Protestants to defend any doctrine of their choice - without limit.

in Christ,

Bob

 

None in a Lost state can believe the Gospel, because as Paul wrote, the Gospel is hid to them that are Lost ! Not my word, God's Word, read it for yourself 2 Cor 4:3-4

3 But if our gospel be hid, it [The Gospel] is hid to them that are lost:

4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

The Gospel will not be hid from the saved, simply because to them it is the Gospel of their Salvation which they possess Eph 1:13 !

 

Holy freakin' heresy, Batman!

 

So the gospel is permanently hid to the lost (which no scripture says, but instead says "IF our gospel is hid, it is hid to the lost") and the lost are saved by Christ. In other words, the scripture in Ephesians 2 (by grace are ye saved through faith, not of works) and in Romans 10 (Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the preached word of God, or the gospel) is not accurate. The great commission, in which the apostles were commanded to go out and teach all nations and baptize (something that happens AFTER salvation, unless you want to defend infant baptism) was not an accurate statement.

No one denies that Christ is Savior. The method by which Christ saves, though, is scripturally taught to be through the gospel preached to the lost, and the lost are convicted of their sins and brought to repentance. In your theology, apparently, Christ saves people without presenting them any option to accept or reject Him.

I still don't understand why you have latched on to this skewed interpretation of 2 Cor 4. Your notion that Paul's conditional statement that IF we hide our gospel, we hide it from the lost, in fact means that the gospel is permanently hidden from the lost is a logical leap that no one else on this forum has shown a willingness to make. Are you saying that every one of us is wrong in holding to the long-established interpretation and knowledge of the scripture in question?

 

Yes, the Gospel is permanently hidden to the lost as stated in 2 Cor 4:3 -4 the word hid is in the perfect tense , meaning that it is something done once and for all in the past with a results to the present, and this is my second time saying this so why can't you pay attention ?

 

Of course you are wrong to not believe the scripture , who you think you are ? You and everyone like you that rejects scripture to cleave to tradition is Wrong !

 

So what did Paul mean when he wrote the following?

See, I read that as Paul saying that he preached the gospel to the people at Corinth, and they heard the word and received it, and that saved them. For a person to be saved they first have to be lost.

But according to what you are saying, these people would have already been saved before Paul got there to preach to them, because if they were lost the gospel would have been hidden to them. Applying your stated theology, IF the Bible is correct in stating that faith (by which we are saved) comes by hearing the preached word, then no one can be saved. The only way to be saved is to be lost first, but according to you the gospel is permanently hidden from the lost. Otherwise, savedbymercy, you have to at some point own up to the fact that belief your theology means also believing that parts of the Bible are either blatantly wrong or unfortunately erroneous.