Featured Where does faith come from? 2nd Rodeo

It is speaking of Scripture of course. It plainly says "For the Word of God is..."
It is what it says it is. No need to allegorize or make the statement figurative of something else. Take it literally.

Compare scripture with scripture:
Ephesians 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

 

The Holy Spirt revealed it to me. You would Have made a great Mormon.

 

Faith is simple confidence in the word of another. You can trust the words of that person's need or you can trust the words of God. It is the "words" that is the message, that you are trusting.
Faith is "confidence."

1 John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:

Perhaps that is the problem. You grew up in a privileged home. What if you grew up in a Muslim home and never had heard the gospel at all? Then you would need to have "confidence" in the message, the person, the promise, the author, etc.
Thus faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It is not this little magical or mystical ball that God comes and places in your heart. It is the confidence that one gains by listening to the Word of God.
When Lydia's heart was "opened" did God take a key and magically open it, or did she believe because she was convicted by the Holy Spirit all the while hearing the Word of God, by which she gained faith in the message of God?

Because God did not give Lyida the faith to believe. But rather her faith came from the Word that she was listening to. This is a straightforward statement from the Word. Your belief is not substantiated from the Bible, it is only inferred by a few verses taken out of context.

What pronoun do you prefer: he, she, it, one, a person, etc. I chose "he," meaning "a person," any person."

There are many illustrations here and all are inadequate.
Like, you (we) are still part of the bride and the marriage hasn't taken place yet.
It may have been inaugurated by God in some way (not your way), but the person was not forced to be a part of the bride, he (she) still, out of his own free will still had to say yes. My wife did.

We are humans. If something in our marriage goes wrong it is because we are frail human beings and we still live with a fallen nature. We aren't perfect.
But God is always perfect and his promises never faith. You have faith in your wife, and your wife may fail. It is not your faith that fails, but your wife. You have faith in God, but God cannot and will not fail. It is not our faith, but rather the object of our faith that is important.

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

I had to have a relationship of some kind through the Word first. If I was not confident of the message of Christ through the Word I could not be saved.

1Pe 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
1Pe 1:25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

 

God reveals truth to those who seek it. Despite my view on scriptures, I still managed to trust in and obey Messiah. All my children have amazing faith and love for God also. They are all taught this fact of scripture. They have no issue trusting in Christ. And their faith will not be shaken to hear scriptures are not perfect.

 

Trust has to be earned. I got to know her slowly.
That is true of the Bible message as well. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
How many people do you hear of that respond to the gospel the very first time they hear it. Probably about as many as marry their spouse the very first time they meet each other.

This is where the Cal and non-Cal differs. It is sin that separates us from God and sin that makes us the enemy. It estranges us from God but does not make us so dead that we are a corpse. It makes our spirit inoperable, not completely lifeless. It needs to be reconciled to God through an ambassador such as yourself, who has been given the ministry of reconciliation (2Cor.5:18ff).
BTW, even the believer is called the enemy of God in James 4:4:

James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

One doesn't find the term "saving faith" in the Bible. Faith is faith. And yes, faith and repentance happen at the same time. They are two sides of the same coin. If I put my faith in Christ as Lord, then as my Lord, I am his servant and obviously I have repented from being a servant of the world and the devil, and made Christ as Lord instead. It is a change of mind which repentance is. It happens at the same time.

 

But you live in a nation where the gospel can hardly be avoided.

That was not my point, and indeed you just dismissed it completely.

I keep repeating it because it is not getting through. The Bible clearly says in Rom.10:17 that the source is the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Nowhere does it say that God is the source. The source for that belief is Calvin, not the Bible.

OK. So far so good.

And nowhere in the Word does it say that God imputed faith to the believer. Righteousness, yes; faith no. "The Faith," yes. but not "faith" as in trust or confidence.

The definition of blasphemy in its simplest form is "to insult God." I believe your question is an insult to God. Why? Because Jesus himself asked the same question and never gave an answer or told us the reason why.

Consider: Ten lepers came to Jesus. Jesus healed all ten. But only one came back to give thanks and worship him. Only one believed He was the Messiah and was saved.
Jesus answered: "Where are the nine"? It is the same question you are asking. What about the others that did not come back, that did not get saved, that did not respond as this one did. And he was a Samaritan, whereas the others were Jews and had much more exposure to the Word of God.
Where are the nine!!
It is the same question you are asking. Jesus doesn't say or doesn't explain why they didn't come back to give thanks or worship him. And yet you want me to answer a question that Jesus didn't answer??
That either is insulting (blasphemous) or overly arrogant.

Either Jesus in his humanity didn't know, or didn't tell. But you want me to tell you.

No, not your doctrine; Calvin's maybe, but not yours. .
Why didn't the nine return? Do you have that answer also?

Nowhere does it say God "imputes faith". Where is the Biblical evidence for that?

Let's not read somebody else's theology into this, but only what is stated.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is given in John 16:8-11. Thus it is God the Holy Spirit that opens her heart as he convicts of sin.
Faith is faith. God does not differentiate between saving faith and innate faith. Many times Jesus said "according to your faith so be it." In fact he emphasize a person's faith, never referring to his own faith when healing others.

The Word is the source of faith, not God directly.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Not, Believe with God's faith on the Lord...

 

God gave us our hearts and minds too. Does that mean we have God's heart and mind? 'Believe in me with all My heart, soul, mind, strength'?

'The Word is the source of faith, not God directly'? What twisted logic, in fact it is a formal fallacy.

God has spoken the Word, which is His Word, proceeding from Him, and is all truth, and from whence faith is given, yet faith is not from God directly? Wow!!!! Talk about missing the forest for the trees! It's like denying that the worlds and all creatures actually came from God Himself, and, that these only came from His Word which He used to create them. That's senseless and utterly ridiculous and it is the same logic you are arguing.

The Word is directly from God yet you attempt to draw a false dichotomy between what He has spoken and who He is. Ridiculous.

 

Are you sure about that? This was Paul's complaint:
Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
--This is the essence of a question you asked previously. Has everyone heard?
Perhaps those that haven't heard, will die and go to hell because you did not go as God's ambassador and tell them of this great message, and then their blood will be upon your hands. Is that a possibility? I don't know. I know that I have met many in my travels who have regretted going to the mission field when long ago they felt God's call to go, but didn't (that is what I am actually referring to). I also realize that it is true for many if not all of us that there are times when the Holy Spirit speaks to our heart and says go speak to that person (on a bus, waiting for a bus, in a mall, restaurant, store, etc.), and we neglect the opportunity, and later feel guilty about it. ("I should have spoken to that person"). Will we be held accountable in some way at the Judgement Seat of Christ? Will their blood be upon our hands?
I don't believe things are so hard and fast as you make them to be. I believe that God has given his people greater accountability to get the gospel out. Their salvation is in our hands. That is an awesome and terrible thought.

When the Lord ascended into heaven he left the 11 with a Great Commission of evangelizing the world. He had no back up plan. What if they had failed? Praise God they didn't.

That is close. God works through the Gospel from which comes faith. Thus his ears are opened. Then you say it won't go any further unless God acts... I believe it is the Holy Spirit that acts through convicting the person of sin (John 16:8-11), not in God giving the person faith. It seems to be a slight difference but perhaps an important one. I can back this up with Scripture but I don't see the imputation of faith in the Scripture. Either way the person is convicted of his sin and is saved--the Holy Spirit working in and through the Word of God.

Salvation/regeneration are simultaneous. But the gospel must be preached first and then it must be assimilated and understood so that one can accept it by faith. Regeneration/salvation are a consequence of that. Believe on the Lord Jesus, and (then) thou shalt be saved.

No antics this time.

True. And at all times He was fully God and perfect humanity. He never, at any time, was not deity.

Jesus did not always use the powers of his deity. On the way to the cross he had the full power of his omnipotence available to him. He told Peter to put up his sword. He then told him, "Do you not know that I could call 12 legions of angels from my heavenly Father." 72,000 angels could have delivered him at that time. But that was not the Father's will. It was His will to go to the cross as a man and be crucified and suffer as a man, not to exercise his divine omnipotence.
In the same way, when he asked about the nine, he chose not to use his divine omniscience. "Where are the nine," he asks as a man, not as God. Why didn't they come back to be spiritually healed? As I said it is the same question you are asking.

You rely to heavily on this answer. It ultimately is a hard determinism which leads to fatalism.

It has never been answered, only asserted.
There is no scripture that "asserts" or teaches that faith is a gift of God given to the unregenerate. This is the Calvinistic position but it cannot be backed up with scripture.

Man was made in the image and likeness of God. He was made differently than the animals created before him. Part of that difference is that he was given the power of reason, to make decisions, to choose between right and wrong, and to do so without being coerced.

Then demonstrate from the scriptures where God gives faith to the unregenerate. It can't be done or at least hasn't up to this point.

Faith is not given and neither is repentance.
In Acts 17 God commands all men everywhere to repent. He does not give them the ability to repent, he commands them of their own ability to repent. They are the ones that must repent, not God.

Not grace, but mercy.
He allows the sun to shine upon the just and the unjust alike. That is mercy.

His grace is shown through Jesus Christ in making salvation available to all.
That is the gift of salvation which must be received. If it is received by faith then and only then can that person be saved.

 

Brother DHK,

The reason you have no answer for Brother Sovereign is because Brother Sovereign's question is a logical one and exposes how your theology is faulty in that it is illogical. Those believing in the doctrines of grace have an answer for this question, and it is a logical answer- one believes the gospel and another doesn't believe the same gospel preached by the same man because the one has been given a new heart by God, therefore he believes, while the other still has a stony heart, therefore he does not believe. It is a simple question and the answer is simple as well, however you are unable to answer his simple question because you believe both hearts are the same before the gospel is preached, thus you can't reconcile why one would respond differently. If the cause of faith is the gospel preached (this is what you believe), then the effect would be universally the same when the cause is being exerted upon two individuals that share the same unregenerated nature. The fact that you have people who believe and some who don't proves that one must first be regenerated to believe and disproves your theology.

 

Not at all.
The jailer got saved. Why not all the prisoners who saw all the same phenomena, one may ask?
This insane question is questioning the sovereignty of God, and therefore an insult to God. You are questioning why God does the things the way He does, as if He does things wrong!! That is why I used the rather sharp word of "blasphemy." The definition of the word is "to insult God." When you question his ways are you not insulting him.
God knew before the foundations of the world who, out of his own free will, would choose to believe and who would not. On that basis he chose them.
But we don't know that. Neither do we know the reason why some men choose to accept and some men choose to reject.

The invitation is always there as it was with Israel.
"Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." Did they all choose to serve Jehovah?
The record shows that they of that generation did.

Joshua 24:31 And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.
--They chose to serve the Lord for two generations. And then they fell away.

Why not just one generation, or why not three generations? You are asking me to tell you what God's plan is, or to question whether or not God did right?

 

Hi Brother DHK,

It is called using logic, not blasphemy! You are resorting to ad hominem type attacks against Brother Sovereign and I by basically calling us blasphemers as you have no other answer to resort to. Your doctrine is illogical, that is why you cannot provide an answer, but there is an answer (and a logical one at that from the other side), from the doctrine you despise and refer to as "Calvinism". I will leave it at that and withdraw from the discussion as I am out of town till Tuesday.

God bless,

Brother Joe

 

No I meant no insult to you, that is why I tried to choose my words carefully by defining what "blasphemy" is in the simplest form or definition. I know it is a highly offensive word, and I apologize if you took it that way.
I tried to explain that IMO, to ask this question, that no one can answer but God alone, is to question his sovereignty. So why do you ask me those questions that only God can answer. I will just leave it there.

 

I do believe God initiates salvation, even prepares the soil via the work of His Holy Spirit.
But there still is the matter of free choice in salvation. There must be. We see it all throughout the Bible.
"According to your faith, so be it."
The repetitive command to "believe," or "repent," or "Call," etc. These are imperatives with an understood subject of "you."