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

[MennoSota]

I don't seem to say that at all. That is your imposition on my words.

Here's what you said.

I say God is much greater than that and can convict man to the point of making a choice to receive Him or not without regenerating Him. In fact He can do it anyway He wants to.

You are trying to force God to go against His word. Read your last sentence if you still struggle with your own words.

 

[Revmitchell]

Here's what you said.

You are trying to force God to go against His word. Read your last sentence if you still struggle with your own words.

First you have not proven that I have done this. You just make a claim unsubstantiated. Second, your interpretation of scripture in no way means I try to force God to go against His word. This attitude and debate tactic you are employing here is why these discussions go south.

 

[TCassidy]

BTW and IMO (but close to a conviction) "grace alone" and "free will" are not mutually exclusive.

I disagree, Hank. If the will of the lost man was free (free from the bondage of the law of sin and death) there would be no need for Grace.

 

[MennoSota]

First you have not proven that I have done this. You just make a claim unsubstantiated. Second, your interpretation of scripture in no way means I try to force God to go against His word. This attitude and debate tactic you are employing here is why these discussions go south.

I quote you. You are arguing against yourself at this point.

 

[MennoSota]

I disagree, Hank. If the will of the lost man was free (free from the bondage of the law of sin and death) there would be no need for Grace.

Grace would not exist. Works would be our means of salvation.

 

[HankD]

I disagree, Hank. If the will of the lost man was free (free from the bondage of the law of sin and death) there would be no need for Grace.

OTOH Grace is possibly the means (actually the only possible means) from whence free will would get its power.

The question then becomes to whom is it granted?

After all if God is doing it then the scope could be "ALL" or "all" of the elect to choose or not to choose (of course then it would seem that the elect would only have an "apparent" choice and therefore only "apparent" free will.

Personally I have no problem with a brother or sister of either (or something inbetween) persuasion.

I'm still undecided - somewhere inbetween.

Ya, I know - How long halt you between two opinions?

Till I meet Jesus either in the air or I wake up with Him standing there.

HankD

 

[HankD]

Grace would not exist. Works would be our means of salvation.

No, because then only those who were given grace would be able to do the required works.

HankD

 

[TCassidy]

OTOH Grace is possibly the means (actually the only possible means) from whence free will would get its power.

But if it is of Grace, it is no more of works (personal will), or Grace would not be Grace.

 

[MennoSota]

No, because then only those who were given grace would be able to do the required works.

HankD

There is no required work. There is only grace, given by the foreordained will of God. God grants grace and gives the gift of faith. Anything after that is our obedience to our new master now that we are a new creation in Christ.

 

[Yeshua1]

We believe it. It is our desire that all people everywhere come to Christ as Savior and Lord.

Your false charge has been corrected many, many times, but you continue to post it.

"Calvinists don't want everybody to be saved" is a straw man of your own making.

Is that why many of the greatest soul winners as preacher and missionaries movenents were calvinists also?
How could that be true?

 

[Yeshua1]

There is no required work. There is only grace, given by the foreordained will of God. God grants grace and gives the gift of faith. Anything after that is our obedience to our new master now that we are a new creation in Christ.

Jesus and Paul agreed that the only "work" required is to put faith into Jesus

 

[Yeshua1]

Howdy Robert,

We (born anew believers) become holy, perfect, and justified (just as if we did not sin) when God puts us spiritually in Christ.

Therefore the command "be perfect" is something achievable. Just as "be reconciled" is something achievable. The whole effort to claim God gives us commands that we cannot achieve is bogus, fake theology.

No verse or passage says the gospel is foolishness to all natural men. As I said before "the things of God" refers to spiritual meat in 1 Corinthians 2:14, not spiritual milk. 1 Corinthians 3:1 clearly teaches men of flesh can understand spiritual milk.

All men refers to all humankind.

John 3:3 teaches we must be born anew to enter and therefore see heaven from the inside.. Lots of people reject the gospel, and then some (a few) subsequently repent and fully embrace the gospel.

there is NO biblical evidence that Paul referred to those who are unsaved as receiving milk or meat!

 

[HankD]

There is no required work. There is only grace, given by the foreordained will of God. God grants grace and gives the gift of faith. Anything after that is our obedience to our new master now that we are a new creation in Christ.

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

HankD

 

[MennoSota]

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

HankD

Whose work?
The work of men or the work of God?
Who gives you the faith? Is it you, by your free will or is it God?

The answer is in the verse you quoted, Hank.

 

[HankD]

Whose work?
The work of men or the work of God?
Who gives you the faith? Is it you, by your free will or is it God?

The answer is in the verse you quoted, Hank.

We still need to believe it : ...that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

HankD

 

[MennoSota]

We still need to believe it : ...that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

HankD

You will think it to be foolishness unless God makes you alive and gives you belief (faith).

 

[TCassidy]

We still need to believe it : ...that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

HankD

Can a cold, dead, God hating heart believe in Christ? Or does it require a living, loving, believing heart?

Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

 

[HankD]

Can a cold, dead, God hating heart believe in Christ? Or does it require a living, loving, believing heart?

Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

John 5:25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

The dead who hear will live.

I was dead in trespasses and sins and I heard Him.

HankD

 

[HankD]

Hmm, I think I've gone down a rabbit hole!!

HankD

 

[TCassidy]

The dead who hear will live.

Yes, corporeal resurrection. Several instances of Him raising the dead. Lazarus, Jairus's daughter, the widow of Naim's son to just name a few.

I was dead in trespasses and sins and I heard Him.

Dead ears hear nothing. A dead brain understands nothing, a dead man can do nothing. Only the living hear, understand, and obey.

1 Corinthians 2:14 Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

If you heard, you were already alive in Christ, by the regenerating Grace of Almighty God.