Featured Calvin on "total depravity"

Matthew 5

43“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47“If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Who are God's enemies and who are the Elect's enemies?

Are they not the same thing?

Did Jesus Love and die for his enemies?

 

No, my individual sin debt was plalced in full upon Him at the Cross, as God will judge individuals, not corporate bodies! he died in the place of individuals, to take away sins of te elect in Him, not all humaity!

 

2 Peter :1:5-11
5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith iwith virtue,5 and virtue jwith knowledge, kwith steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, lwith brotherly affection, and brotherly affection mwith love. 6 are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or nunfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ois blind, having forgotten that he was pcleansed from his former sins. 7 be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and qelection, for if you practice these qualities ryou will never fall. san entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Peter says that you are wromg!

 

Jesus was/is God in Human flesh.....

 

The Lord Jesus was the sin bearer, the One on whom my sins and yours was laid upon, as he was the paschel lamb, and suffered full wrath of God on the Cross, correct?

 

Jesus was chosen...but he wasn't a Pharisee...so that means there is no connection to being chosen and being a Pharisee. This means your correlation...like your theological position...is false.

 

Whn one denies the plain truth of the scriptures, real weirdness results spiritually!

 

I'm sorry to have taken so long to come back on this post, but this reply will take a little more time than I've had until now.

I think you'll find it does.

The Greek word sarx has the natural meaning of 'flesh' (ie. bodily flesh). It is true that is often refers to sinful human nature, especially in Paul, and especially when contrasted with pneuma, 'Spirit.' But that is not by any means its invariable meaning (eg. Romans 2:28; 9:3; 1 Corinthians 3:3; 15:39; Galatians 6:13; Philippians 1:21-24; 1 John 4:2; Jude 8. Not at all an exhaustive list).

Now let us consider Romans 8:5-9.

'For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded [Gk. sarx] is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal [Gk. sarx] mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.' Clearly here, 'flesh' means sinful human nature. To be 'flesh' is death; it is enmity against God; those who are 'in the flesh' cannot please God. And if the Holy Spirit indwells someone, which is surely the definition of a Christian, that person is not 'in the flesh' in that sense.

Your problem is that you have too high a view of human nature and too low a view of the power of God in salvation, which is the same power that raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.. The Christian is not 'in the flesh' in the sense of being under his old sinful nature. He is, as we have seen in 2 Corinthians 5:17, a new creature, a new creation. The old sinful nature is gone. He does not have an improved heart, but a new one (Ezekiel 36:26; John 3:6). He has had a new birth, being born of the Spirit, and as we see in Romans 8, the Holy Spirit does not share premises with sinful human nature.

So let's look again at Romans 7:18-25, for Paul will not contradict himself. We will briefly note that the Greek word translated 'carnal' in Romans 7:14 is sarkikos, not sarx:

For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practise. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law [not in me but] in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is [not in me but] in my members. O writched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord!''

There are those who take the view that Paul is talking about himself before he was saved, but I do not agree with that. Paul is talking about the life of a Christian, one who, as he has just said in Chapter 8, is no longer 'in the flesh' in the sense of fallen human nature. Therefore, when he says that nothing good dwells 'in his flesh,' he cannot mean his fallen human nature because as a Christian he doesn't have one. He is talking about his physical body. The real Paul- his 'inner man' (cf. Ephesians 3:16)- delights in the righteous (moral) law of God and desires above all things to keep it. But there is something in his 'members' (Gk. melos; 'limb,' 'part of body.' cf. James 3:5) which is dragging him down into sin.

We see the same thing in Galatians 5:16-17 and in Colossians 3:5. 'Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness.......etc.' This sinful something, which is not in us but in our mortal bodies has to be stamped out.

So the Christian has died to sin (Romans 6:2; Colossians 3:3). If Paul sins, he can say, 'If I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it.' So who is doing it, Paul? 'But sin that dwells in me' [ie. not in the inner me, but in my members, my mortal body]. So to the Christian, sin is an alien thing; something he hates, but still exercises a malign influence upon him. Now let me ask the Christians on this forum: is that not something we feel? That we delight in God's righteous laws and long to keep them, but there is this thing that is dragging us down into sin? It is not our sinful nature, because in our nature (the 'inner man') we delight in God's laws, but it is a relic of that old nature and praise God, when we finally shed this old body, we shall rise to meet the Lord in a new resurrection body and be finished with sin forever.

 

John 13:1. 'Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end' [or 'to the uttermost'].
God makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good; He sends rain upon the unjust as well as the just; He is kind to the unthankful and evil; He does not desire the death of the wicked; the Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem. But He loves His own and loves them to the uttermost.

 

Do you still not understand? Did you take the trouble to read my post all the way through? I am both these things; 'Justus et peccator.' But you have not even considered Romans 8:5-9. Here it is again:

'For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded [Gk. sarx] is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind [Gk. sarx] is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.' Clearly here, 'flesh' means sinful human nature. To be 'flesh' is death; it is enmity against God; those who are 'in the flesh' cannot please God. And if the Holy Spirit indwells someone, which is surely the definition of a Christian, that person is not 'in the flesh' in that sense.

Please comment on this text. Galatians 5:17 does not contradict it.

 

You truly don't grasp the amount of mercy and grace God extends do you.

Every person who knows God's sovereign choice understands how undeserving they are. I will never stop preaching God's grace. It is the gospel of God.

 

Correct, there are no works added to salvation. However, our sanctification is worked out through trials ordained by God.