Featured What is False Teaching or a False Teacher, can we agree on This?

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That's exactly what I did. I've also in this thread addressed the absurdity of post modern thought influencing the realm of truth - that is, that in opposing views, one that is false cannot be called false. To do so is mean spirited or whatever. Just an opposing view, not really false. That's post-modernism in a nutshell.

 

"not of the will of man" IMO has the meaning of a sacerdotal or ministerial priesthood ushering someone into the kingdom of God e.g. a Catholic priest baptizing a baby to save its soul from original sin and consequently bringing it into the status of sanctifying grace. So it is not the baby who wills it but a man - but the priest according to man based salvation.

The context of John 1;10-13

10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

lends itself to the correcting of the pride of man. The pharisees were deeply, pridefully and sinfully affected by being "the chosen" of God. This passage is a rebuke to them.

Those who are born the sons of God does not have to do with Hebrew blood lines, or becoming "bar-mitzvah" (which in Hebrew means - "a son of the law") No amount of flesh law learning can give birth to a child of God, no man (priest) can make anybody through any ritual a son of God, only God Himself through Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God.

Matthew 11
27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

I don't like attributing or correlating any passage in the scripture after deceased mortal men (i.e Calvin, Arminius) . The Matthew passage above tells who is the only human giver of revelation.

HankD

 

I don't believe that passages dealing with 'not the will of man' are teaching of one practicing sacerdotalsim on another person at all. It may apply to that, but I don't believe 'that's it'. For instance in John 1:12-13 those in 12 were the ones performing the action of 'receiving him' and that carries over to verse 13 that this was not 'by determination of the will of man' but of God. Thus it speaks contextually of the individual person not willing it on themselves, specifically so.

 

Perhaps, but I think not. Because the context has His own people/nation rejecting Him - He came unto His own and His own received Him not - Israeli religious authorities prided themselves on being the keepers of the kingdom and could excommunicate at will whether proselyte or native Jew holding the people in bondage. The Spirit of God through John rebukes them by blood lines, by the flesh (sarx) and the priesthood as powerless to save.

The Matthew passage I gave - sometimes called the Johannine bolt from the blue - shows that without a choice of a salvific revelation from Christ salvation is individually impossible.

Matthew 11
27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

There are more passages but I'm trying to avoid another (C/A) firestorm.

HankD

 

lolzzzzz....

OK.

You've provided us with your "IMO' and 'seems to me's' so far and then talked about how his own did not receive him as if that undoes what I showed you.

It doesn't and you haven't demonstrated that it does.

I provided you with a short exegesis, and you disagree. Without evidence as to why.

Show me in that simple exegesis how you disagree with that specifically and why. The argument of coming to his own people doesn't undo what I showed you in the passage. That is another subject tied to those who did receive him, and that this is not by the determination of their wills.

 

"Not of the will of man" it means that man cannot save himself by the power of his will, even though he may devote all the powers within him to save himself, it will avail him nothing. Regeneration is a divine work of God accomplished through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

Salvation is willed by God the Father and its Him who will send the Holy Spirit to convict the lost sinner of his sin and lost state and its by the word of God that he receives faith to believe Jesus as his Lord and Savior and repent of his sins.

But God will never drag any soul involuntary to the Cross, he will influence their hearts and wills so they will open the door of their heart to the Savior. He gently draws them to their Savior on the Cross but He does not make them come to Jesus unwillingly.

We are not robots programmed to go to the Cross to receive forgiveness of our sins and redemption. We are human beings created in his image and likeness, and even though this image has been marred and distorted by sin, the freedom to chose in us has not being destroyed. If that was true then there will be no responsibility at all in us and we would have been simply automatons without any freedom. This fatalism or determinism is not found in the God of the Bible, its a fiction of scientific materialism or man-made theology.

God is love and He by his Spirit woos us to the Cross, He influences our will but he does not violates it, doing so it will be against his will, plan and holy character. In Jesus Christ his Son, He calls the world to be reconciled thru the preaching of the gospel.

There is no fatalism or determinism in God, in his sovereign will he has predestined the salvation of the elect without violating their freedom and their human responsibility.

If we are not free to choose than God is not love but an omnipotent dictator who rules the universe with an undisputed tyranic power and sin would be not our choice. A god like that is not the God of the Bible it's only the description of a god who can be allpowerful and almighty with many other attributes but lacking in his essential character love, holiness and righteousness.

God desire and wish is the salvation of the whole world and He send his Son to die on the Cross for the whole world and not only for the Elect but He knows that in reality only a minority will repent and believe Jesus and these are the ones he has already choosen according to his foreknowledge. Hell was created for the Devil and demons, he predestinated it for them.The Bible does not say anywhere that God made hell for men too, if that was true, than the majority of the world would have been created for the sole purpose to go to hell.

God did not predestine any human being to hell, sinners fit themselves for hell by their free choice. God only predestined those He chose to be conformed to the image his Son and this way He prepares his saints for heaven and eternal life with Him.

 

Because those who did not receive Him were those who crucified Him because they feared they were going to lose their positions of authority and their power over the people which included certain entrance rituals into the "kingdom" without which one was doomed. Jesus is/was the ultimate authority over the earthly manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth, namely Israel and He threatened them.

Matthew 21
42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.

John 11
47 Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
48 If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.
49 And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,
50 Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
51 And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;

John 9:22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.

John 16:2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.

Again - in my opinion "the will of man" in John 1:13 refers to the chief priests and pharisees positions of human authority to perform the rituals of bris and mikvah as entrance and purification rites into the kingdom of God along with the authority to excommunicate (put out of the synagogue) and/or put to death the same unto damnation.

Just as the blood line from Abraham ("not of blood") or education (bar mitzvah) in the law ("not of the will of the flesh" - sarx) neither do the rituals of sacerdotalism ("not of the will of man") grant the birth/sonship status of God but God alone.

Again - Could my view be wrong, yes, but I don't think so.

HankD

 

Matthew Poole's Commentary
Which were born, not of blood; not of the blood of men and women; or, not of the blood of Abraham (which was the boast of the Jews, We have Abraham to our Father). Nor of the will of the flesh; nor from the lusts of the flesh. Nor of the will of man; nor from a power in man’s will, or men’s free act in adopting other men’s children. To be born, signifieth to receive our principle of life: those who are the children of God hard not the principle of their life, as they are such, from the motions of nature, nor from the will of men.


John Gill;
Nor of the will of the flesh; man's free will, which is carnal and corrupt, is enmity to God, and impotent to every thing that is spiritually good: regeneration is ascribed to another will and power, even to the will and power of God, and denied of this:

nor of the will of man: of the best of men, as Abraham, David, and others; who, though ever so willing and desirous, that their children, relations, friends, and servants, should be born again, be partakers of the grace of God, and live in his sight, yet cannot effect any thing of this kind: all that they can do is to pray for them, give advice, and bring them under the means of grace; but all is ineffectual without a divine energy.
Meyer's NT Commentary
John 1:13. Οἵ] refers to τέκνα θεοῦ (the masculine in the well-known constructio κατὰ σύνεσιν, 2 John 1:1, Philemon 1:10, Galatians 4:19; comp. Eurip. Suppl. 12, Androm. 571), not to τοῖς πιστεύουσιν, because the latter, according to John 1:12, are said to become God’s children, so that ἐγεννήθησαν would not be appropriate. The conception “children of God” is more precisely defined as denoting those who came into existence not after the manner of natural human generation, but who were begotten of God. The negative statement exhibits them as those in whose coming into existence human generation (and consequently also Abrahamic descent) has no part whatever. This latter brings about no divine sonship, John 3:6.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
13. S. John denies thrice most emphatically that human generation has anything to do with Divine regeneration. Man cannot become a child of God in right of human parentage: descent from Abraham confers no such ‘power.’ A bitter word to Jewish exclusiveness.were born] Literally, were begotten. Comp. 1 John 5:1; 1 John 5:4; 1 John 5:18.not of blood] The blood was regarded as the seat of physical life. Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:11; Leviticus 17:14, &c.nor of the will of the flesh] Better, nor yet from will of flesh, i.e. from any fleshly impulse. A second denial of any physical process.nor of the will of man] Better, nor yet from will of man, i.e. from the volition of any earthly father: it is the Heavenly Father who wills it. A third denial of any physical process.

 

walkinspirit

ok

ok

110 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

2 The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

4 The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

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We make choices, but our wills and the choices we make are bound by our natures.

Islam is fatalism. Gods eternal purpose is found in the bible indeed.

could you show biblical proof of this statement

Did King Nebuchadnezzar want to eat grass by his own choice?
32 And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.

33 The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws.

ok

You go back and forth contradicting yourself.

men are not free but bound.

you make a caricature that no one believes.

Not true in the way you are posting it.

wrong...you deny the Covenant nature of the atonement.

How does He know? Did He have to learn who would believe, or has He determined and ordained to life those who believe.....

48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

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you are using a wrong view of foreknowledge

carnal speculation

7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,

8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.

 

He can't. He's like the other non-Calvinists who say we're not robots(as if we believe that), that God does not drag us(but draw in John 6:44 & John 12:32 the word used for 'draw' means to drag off), that God does not violoate our wills(if He didn't, no one would be saved), that we open our hearts(as if a stone has a door), &c. Go figure.

 

I bet I can quote some.

 

In this statement, I suppose that you take the view that God in some manner makes the person "willing." That God takes the fallen "will" and manipulates it.

I am not of that persuasion. Rather, God gives a new (not renewed) will as part of the new nature in which that person is drawn to Christ and to the things of God.

Of course, the old nature (including fallen will) rattles in its cage and more often the desires of the will from God is shouted down by the desires of the will of the flesh and the lusts thereof.

Therefore, I don't go along with the thinking of some preceding/prevenient grace has to somehow manipulate the old will and nature into some level of ... so one comes willingly.

Belief is not a matter of will.
The will is a matter of belief.
What one believes determines the will.
Therefore, with Christ's determination one to believe then there is the expression of the new will - that part of the new creation.

For example: Christ walking up to fishermen and saying, "Follow me" is hollow without His determination to draw and keep them for Himself. Along with that determination came belief resulting in a willingness to follow. One does not follow (at least for very long) what they first do not believe.

I realize this is a small area of difference, but one that I thought I might mention.

 

Perhaps only if he lived under a bridge travel on by goats. But are we not supposed to be sheep?

Rather than throwing out an accusation, prove the accusation.

I am not disputing that IT may be correct. He may well have some soundness for the statement. How is one to make a considered decision?

For example: Here is why I have difficulty with Bill and Gloria Gaither's music writing. Although they have written a great many songs, and many are used in assemblies and by believers, one must be very careful of the theological perspective of the writers.

While responding to a question about the song, "The King is Coming" this was written in the letter.

"Regarding the interpretation of the song The King is Coming, of all songs that song has been a gift from God. Bill and Gloria," that is Mr. and Mrs. Gaither, "do not profess to be theologians. The song came quickly to them and they do not care to discuss the theology of it. In fact, they feel that to dissect the song would be tampering with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who inspired the song." (taken from GTY sermon: Our God Breathed Bible) (emphasis mine)​

With all that has been written by posters on the BB, it is important that accusations that are at the level made by IT's claim pertaining to foundational truth of Scriptures, be proved with at least one quote of documentation.

 

Hi agedman.
But it is possible agedman. Here is one reason that it might be and might be satisfying to you.

Ephesians 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Obvious it is primarily God's will. Also obviously we don't know what that counsel consisted of.
What were the parameters which determined His choice of those who would receive the inheritance.

Free will thinking folks would say - well He knew who would believe on Christ so those are the elect.
However it is probably not so.

But again we are not told what the deciding factors are.

Take Israel for instance God knew full well that they would NOT be faithful to Him yet He chose them and we are told the reason:

Deuteronomy 7
6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

We are not told why - (apart from His own glory), why the NT elect were chosen and by what criteria He used.

One thing we know - we (each and every one of us - elect or no) were/are in a helpless, hopeless and powerless condition to save ourselves.

What then is the deciding factor in His counsel on an individual basis?
I don't think I would have chosen me.

HankD

 

ok