Featured 6 Myths of the Non-Cal Position

You make your own case against yourself. Read your own words. (1) We must allow him, He is waiting for us to open the door. (2) Your definition of the sovereignty of God is really the sovereignty of man. (3) If God loves all men and died for all men why would there have to be a drawing ? You just simply accept what he has done for you. You free-will people fail to see, Christ is your salvation, his love for me and his death for me is my salvation. (4) Salvation is not left up to chance, it is not a game of chance. (5) Can a man have assurance in the fact that God loves everyone the same and he died for everyone, even those in hell. If I tell my wife I love her but I also say, I love every other woman the same, is this assurance to her that I really love her and will keep my covenant to her ? (6) There are plenty of non- cals that believe you can lose your salvation.

 

Any time a gift is presented, it must be received or rejected. This does not change the inherent power of the gift-giver. When God draws a man unto salvation, it is seen as the words of Jesus saying "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Rev 3:20) Our belief, at least in my neck of the non-Cal camp, is that Christ is revealed to us through the preaching of the gospel and the drawing of the Holy Ghost. Consider the drawing power of the Spirit equivalent to the knock at the door Jesus spoke of. If a man chooses not to answer, then he does so to his own damnation. If he opens the door, Jesus has said He will enter in. It is an exercise in God's sovereignty in giving us free will.

This is pretty well spoken, SW, though I know some will disagree with it. The alternative to what salzer mtn wrote in reply is that man has no will whatsoever, and that God has predestined everything that will happen to us, from the biggest event to the smallest. If God has already set up these events, then we struggle to see the necessity of calling on the name of the Lord (Rom 10), or opening the door (Rev 3), or having faith (Eph 2). Of course, under that same umbrella, God had to have predestined me to write those words...

Are there non-Cals who believe that? Probably. But by and large, SW is right. While we believe man has free will to make these decisions. He can only make them once God moves on him with convicting power. SW's last line, that the drawing is resistible, is a nice summation of this portion of non-Cal belief.

If the non-Cal belief here damns some to Hell, then the Cal belief is just as guilty. Under the non-Cal belief, man has the ability to accept or reject the gospel upon its being preached to him and the Spirit drawing. Under the Cal system, it wouldn't matter if the gospel was preached or if missionaries showed up and beat these islanders over the head with Bibles. If God had predestined them to damnation, no amount of preaching could stop that. Under the non-Cal system, there is at least opportunity and hope. The Cal system sometimes becomes this bleak edifice of salvation and damnation bordering on a type of fatalism. (Please note: I'm not saying the Cals here are like this, although a couple have been known to take Calvinism to the extreme.)

Some folks use the phrase "I put my trust in Jesus..." I prefer to say "The Lord saved me." The concepts are not all that different. Both required faith on my part after having heard the preached gospel and feeling the drawing power of the Spirit. Both required me to, as I've already noted, "open the door" to the Lord. But me believing is not a work that saved me. Jesus Christ had already accomplished the work. I had to accept it. To say man does not have to accept the atoning work of Jesus in order to be saved really does call into question the necessity for evangelism. If man does not, as Paul wrote, have to call on the name of the Lord to be saved, then what else could we say Paul was in error about? It's dangerous ground that is not at all theologically sound.

Every non-Cal that I encounter on a daily basis, or go to church with, all believe in an eternal salvation; that we are sealed unto the day of redemption. Yes, man is able to backslide into sin. Man is going to sin after salvation. To think he doesn't would call into question the salvation of basically everyone I have ever known. We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. At the end of the day, no matter how much Bible study, prayer, and fasting I engage in, I am still nothing more than a sinner saved by grace.

 

Very Good! :thumbsup: Also under #4, even if another person does not preach to these isolated individuals, it has been reported abroad how some have been visited by an angel in dreams or even Jesus Christ Himself, which sparked a harvest of sheep for God in remote areas. God is not limited to us, God is Sovereign and can do as He so pleases, even allowing folks to make a freewill choice if He so pleases.

 

Brother, although I disagree with your beliefs in regards to soteriology, I do truly appreciate the manner in which you graciously conduct yourself on here. You, as well as Brothers Tony and Quant, wear the grace of God very well, it appears. Thank you Brother Sapper Woody for serving our great country :thumbsup: I will be as gracious towards you as you have me....

If we have to 'allow' Him to do what He wills, and it is up to us to open the door, then how is it 'all of God'? God doesn't set back and wait for us to come to Him, but nay, He seeks us out one at a time. He is the Hunter. The problem stems from people having a faulty view of regeneration. Regeneration ain't conversion, or vice versa. I've heard it pretty much all my life..."you need to repent and be born again", but that's backwards. You need to be born again so that you can repent. Faith, repentance, regeneration, conversion, sanctification(the initial act of sanctification), and glorification are all solely the works, the gifts of God. Not all w/o exception will be given these gifts, either.

If God can only save those who choose to be saved, then God's sovereignity has been impugned. I agree that we choose Him, I am not denying that. But, God has to first choose them..."I have chosen you, you have not chosen Me". The choice God made was not in man's time, but decreed by God from the foundation of the world.

Men make choices all the time, yet, their choices are in accord with their nature. A cow can not choose to eat meat, because it's not in their nature to do so. A lion will never eat hay or grass, because it's not in their nature to do so. A peach tree can never grow apples, because it's not in it's nature to do so. The unregenerate will never move favourably towards God, because it's not in their fallen nature to do so. This is why it is of the upmost importance to understand how, where, and why regeneration takes place in the conversion of the lost.

Salvation is not by chance, but rather by, divine decree. If one goes all the way from birth to the grave and was never saved, they were not one of His chosen. It was by chance that they died lost. It was the fact that God's word had no place in them, they were not the ones who Christ prayed for in John 17, nor the ones Jesus died for in John 10, Romans 5:8, Ephesians 5:25, &c. I agree that no one can come to Him unless drawn, but once He sets His sights upon you, then He will effectually draw you to Himself.

There had been many who died and never knew about Jesus, neither heard of His glorious name. Yet, they will stand before Him condemned. Jesus said that 'all the Father gave Him, He lost none save one, the son of perdition, so that the scriptures might be fulfilled'. If someone died lost, if all w/o exception were given to Him, then that saying is not true. Christ died for His sheep, and not one of His sheep will die outside of the sheepfold.

I, too, believe in eternal security. Not one of His will taste eternal death.

I am surrounded by many who believe you can serve God for 40 years, and on your deathbed forfeit your salvation and die lost. I am surrounded by this teaching!! :tear:

I pray that you take no offense to my response. I hope it doesn't come off as 'snarky'.

 

That's teetering on gnosticism. There is nothing in the 66 books that is properly exegeted that will back such a ridiculous claim such as that which I bolded and underlined.


That's nothing more than pure gnosticsm.

 

Wonderful job there!!! Kudos!! Take a bow!!


You have just spit in the face of every missionary that ever hazzarded their life to further the gospel of Jesus Christ and some even died doing so. This gnosticism you've promoted here needs to go. God saves by the gospel, and no, not Calvinism/TULIP, so don't even go there.


You can not find one verse to support this, and since the canon of scriptures is closed now, God works via the gospel of Jesus Christ. God speaks to us now via His written word.


Mormons state the same thing when Joseph Smith was visited by the 'angel' Moroni. I guess if you believe that which you've posted then you're a Mormon...


--for I am not ashamed of the good news of the Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to every one who is believing, both to Jew first, and to Greek.(Rom. 1:16 YLT)

--for, seeing in the wisdom of God the world through the wisdom knew not God, it did please God through the foolishness of the preaching to save those believing.(1 Cor. 1:21 YLT)

--in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth -- the good news of your salvation -- in whom also having believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise,(Eph. 1:13)

--and by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace that [is] towards me came not in vain, but more abundantly than they all did I labour, yet not I, but the grace of God that [is] with me; whether, then, I or they, so we preach, and so ye did believe.(1 Cor. 15:10,11 YLT)


No preaching of the gospel means no saving of the soul.

 

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me.
And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

You really need to kep up with Christian world news. Do some research. Do not blasphemy the works of the Holy Spirit around the world. God is Sovereign, He does not need to work within the confines of man's theology.

 

Notice I said once the canon of scriptures were closed. This was before the canon of scriptures was closed. You're a mystic and gnostic if you truly believe what you post.


God saves via means and the means is the gospel. You'll go to any length to support yourself, even beyond the bounds of God's word....

 

You have dared to oppose calvinism and now you must be destroyed.

 

Read up on what he has previously posted. He stated that people have said that angels and even Jesus Christ Himself has went where no preacher/missonary could get to. That's nothing but mysticism and gnosticism.


The Mormon prophet was given the book of Mormon which was conviently written in the stlye of the KJV.....

 

This recent squabble with steaver has nothing to do with Cal v. Arm. It has to do with gnosticism and mysticism.


What he is purporting is not in line with the bible....

 

Well I have not read it all but your last post (attack) in him was uncalled for and over the top not to mention just flat out wrong.

 

Here's what he posted.....

That is not within the confines of orthodoxy....

 

And let me guess why that bothers you. It in fact is in direct contradiction to the calvinist view of election. You guys need to think that God leaves some people groups having never heard the gospel. That way you can hold on to your errant definition of election.

Since what he said contradicts that you felt it was necessary to attack him.

 

Why does it bother me? It's not the Cal v. Arm thingy, but it impugns the preaching of the gospel.


God can save all, some, or none. There's not one person He can't save, but there's many, that in reality, He won't save. If He sent an angel or Himself, then why send preachers and/or missionaries? God works through means, and those means are met via the preaching of the gospel.


Joseph Smith has fooled millions by an 'angel' of the Lord....

 

This is in clear contradiction to Romans 1:16, 1 Cor. 1:21, and Eph. 1:13. That is what is in contradiction with steaver's mysticism and gnosticism....

 

There ya go again with the over the top comparison. You cant just disagree and quote scripture. You have to make excessive comparisons. This is why the discourse with cals is so difficult.

 

Look, his belief that he quoted is foreign to the bible. Most Cals and Non-Cals alike won't agree with what he posted.


You're the most disagreeable person on here, so don't go pointing that crooked index finger at me....

 

It is to be sure

Uh no im not. I am most likely the most disagreable with cals. Not so much because of your doctrine but because of just exactly what you have been doing.