Featured Is Acts 17:30 only the elect or the entire human race?

No, I just don't accept labels.

HankD

 

So you don't accept the label of Christian? Interesting...

 

Many with Proverbs 1:29 assume that because God says to someone choose, or because someone doesn’t turn at His reproof that it automatically means they have the ability to do that. The principle is true, that God does require that people do what they cannot naturally do it. Matthew 5:48, for example, be perfect for I am perfect, and nobody can do that, I’m sorry. Notice God gives the standard of perfection which is Himself. Be perfect because I am perfect. How about 1 Peter 1:16, “Be holy because I am holy.” He gives the command to be holy, gives the command to be perfect and he gives it to the sinners who are not holy, and the imperfect cannot achieve perfection because they are imperfect. You see, we in reformed circles would say that God is the standard of righteousness. He is the one who requires perfection because He is perfect. It doesn’t mean we’re automatically able to do it. 1 Peter 1:16, God grants them their holiness or imputes it, that He, gives them what they cannot do on their own. I’m making this case from scripture and showing you that’s the case. So when you go to Proverbs 1:29 and you want to say that when God says they did not turn at God’s reproof means that they have to be able to do that, these scriptures, counter that argument. John 1:12-13, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

 

errata post #121: "I just don't accept man's labels".

HankD

 

Humans came up with the term "Christian." It was initially a derogatory term. Do you not accept the term Christian? Do you reject being a Christian?

 

Humans? - "Christian" - a label through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit...

1 Peter 4:16 Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

HankD

 

Yep, humans.

Acts of the Apostles 11
[26]When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. (It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.)

The term was originally a derogatory statement.

Do you reject the label, Hank?

I think you get my point. You are being a bit snooty in trying to skirt around labels that help define our reading of God's word.

You either believe in sola gratia or you don't. It is either grace alone or you add more to it by stating that humans must do something to be saved.

Calvin, Luther and Zwingli all believed in sola gratia.

 

What is your problem M?

I am a Christian - a label approved by the scriptures.

I am saved by grace alone.

HankD

 

Yet, you shun Calvin, who is a brother in Christ; someone who let the Bible speak for itself without imposing a philosophy of free will upon the text.

Your shunning of labels strikes me as being unwilling to let the text define your belief.

You accept the label, Christian, even though it is a man-made term. The early church called themselves "The Way." Was that a label you would accept or reject?

There is nothing wrong with labels, Hank. Own them.

From what I read in your comments, you hold to a semi-pelagian belief.

 

You have free will to believe whatever you want about me.

HankD

 

That has nothing to do with salvation.

Sola gratia means salvation by grace alone.

Grace alone means that human will (an action of work from you) cannot be added. When you add your will to salvation you remove grace and add your own work to salvation. You make it so that God is removed from choosing you and you replace it by declaring that you take Yahweh off the pantheon shelf of god's by your own free choice. God becomes a passive observer of your actions, but he finds pleasure in your good choice.

Free-will eliminates grace from salvation.

Do you believe in grace alone?

 

I do not really like the attitude displayed by the author of the op but this is just completely false. He never said God is weak and therefore should not be saddled with such an accusation. A strawman at best, lack of integrity at worst.

 

Didn't Calvin also plead with Servetus not to come to Geneva simply because he knew what would happen to him?

 

As is with them it is also true of you. It is ungodly to misrepresent their arguments and their positions. I am convinced they are fully persuaded of their position, whether right or wrong, and they have no need to admit to anything. I disagree with much of their theology but they do have a defensible position. Being wrong does not mean their position is indefensible. Something incorrect can and often is defensible. It doesn't make them right but it does mean they are being sincere and honest to the best of their ability.

 

I think that when we go thru the portal into Heaven, on our side we will see "whosoever will may come", and once thru, it reads " chosen from the foundation of the world"

 

What is your view of Acts 17:30 as a verse related to unlimited atonement and universalism, Revmitchell?

Present your case.

I find the attempt to create the basis of theology from a historic narrative to be poorly built. What say you?

 

Whether you agree or disagree with the doctrine of the elect, we are commanded at the end of Matthew to give the Gospel to the world. There's not a single person who knows who will or won't be saved and it's not our business to try and find out. Obedience regarding going "into all the world and preach the Gospel" is our command. It is then the work of the Holy Spirit alone.

 

Where do I claim he literally said those words?
His views present God as being weak. I stand by that claim.

 

I see we are at 7 pages of denial of the obvious. Every born anew person is "perfect." The fact that you would assert otherwise demonstrates selective study of scripture. Ditto for Holy. God tell us to be reconciled to God. Can we do that? No. But God can set us part in Christ through faith in the truth, where we are justified, made perfect, holy and so forth.

What you really deny is that we can grasp spiritual milk, the fundamentals of the gospel and respond such that God credits our faith in Christ as righteousness.

Finally John 1:12-13 teaches God gave the right to become children of God to those who believe.... Thus again God giving the right to become child to believers.

To come full circle, God desires all men to be saved - according to His purpose and plan - which is for us to respond to the gospel and for God to evaluate our faith, and then for some professing faith in Christ, to credit their faith as righteousness and transfer them into Christ.