Leaning Calvinist, Push me in, or Pull me back

Amen! And if he relies totally on the word of God, and not on the fallen philosophy of men, he will come to accept all 5 points.

 

The fall ruined man. All of him. Body. Soul. And Spirit. The totality of man, all three parts, were affected by the fall.

And, do you believe that Christ died on the cross for your sins, was buried, and rose again the third for your justification? Faith is the proof of election. If you believe you are one of the elect. Only you can know that you really believe, but we will take your word for it.

What condition of absolute perfection did you meet that forced God to have to save you?

Will all unbelievers, demons, and Satan be saved? If not, then you too limit the atonement to believers.

What part of God's Grace failed to accomplish what He intended it to accomplish? And if God is such a failure, can He be trusted with anything else?

If a person cannot lose his salvation, he will, by definition persevere, because he is preserved in Christ, and Christ cannot deny Himself.

I believe all 5 Heads of Doctrine are what the bible clearly teaches when we approach it with an open mind and without a preconceived bias.

 

So are you claiming that, before you were saved, you had some sort of sinless perfection that allowed you to come to God on your own merits apart from Christ?

No Bob. And the fact you try to claim it is a red herring is evidence you can't honestly answer the question. The fact is that you too believe, teach, and preach a limited atonement. You even admit it in the next response.

You indicate you think the atonement has something to do with us. It doesn't. It is all about Christ. Those whose sins have been atoned are without sin and on their way to heaven. Those whose sins have not been atoned are still in their sin and on their way to hell. You say the atonement has been applied to everybody. That cannot be true for if it were applied to everybody, everybody would be saved. The fact is that the atonement is only applied to believers.

You believe, teach, and preach limited atonement!

Yes. God's Grace is efficacious. It always accomplishes exactly what He intended it to accomplish.

And His Saving Grace will save everyone He intended it to save.

 

But you said you had perfect obedience just like the OT saints.

Here is what you said, "The same level of perfect obedience that was met by the Children of Israel when they applied the blood of the lamb to their doorposts. And, it was Hebrews 6:18 that forced God to save me, hallelujah! I met His condition and He kept His word!"

And you used Hebrews 6:18 to support your assertion. The problem is that the Jews being spoken of in that passage were "heirs of the promise." Not lost people! When you were lost you were the enemy of God. Not an heir of the promise made to Israel. So there is no possible way you met the condition.

No, Bob, you didn't. And what you did was only quote a small part of what I said. I explained my response in the part you edited out. And you edited because you can't respond to it.

But not all humans. Only those who believe will be saved. Nothing dishonest about it. Just pointing out what you actually believe.

No. The Atonement is never offered to us. It is offered to the One Who was offended. It was offered to God and, like the blood on the door post in Egypt, placed there on behalf of the household.

The door post was not offered the Atonement. The door post did not accept or reject the blood. The door post had nothing to say about the matter.

The Atonement was not offered to us to accept or reject. It was offered to God. Unless you think God offended us and owes us an atoning sacrifice, which I suspect you don't believe.

How can it be when the door post, us, has nothing to say on the matter? And this is the problem with thinking the atonement is "available" to us. It has never been offered to us. Once we come to an in depth understanding of what the atonement is and to Whom it was offered, all this confusion goes away.

No. The Atonement is applied TO believers, the door posts, by the One Who received it, God.

You are correct except for your inclusion of the word "universal." If it is universal, it saves everyone. If it does not save everyone, it is not universal. It is limited.

 

I prefer Total Inability to turn to God without His intervention. Arminians believe the same.

I don't have ontological certitude that I'm of the elect and have no idea about the status of any other person, so you're fine in my book.

This is, in fact, the point on which I have the most problems. Augustine believed that perseverance is a gift of God, yet he was not sure that all of the elect would be granted that gift.

Actually, I think TULIP, while useful in broad terms, overly simplifies soteriology and God's wonderful plans and sometimes leads to unedifying shouting matches.

 

A fairly common error about predestination is caused by a misunderstanding of Romans 8:29. There we are told that God’s predestination is grounded in His foreknowledge.

This statement has been misunderstood to mean that God looked down the corridors of history, foresaw what you and I would do, and and adjusted His plan accordingly.

This view does not take into account the fact that God created time, and therefore all events in time, when He created the world, so that He does not look down through history but looks at history as a complete whole.

We must also understand that Romans 8:29 does not say that God foreknew certain decisions on our part. It doesn't even say that God foresees our faith, and because of our faith predestinates us. That's not what it says.

Romans 8:29 says that God foreknew certain people. When we study "knowledge" in the Bible we see that it involves a choice of close, intimate relations (when Adam “knew” his wife and she conceived).

Romans 8:29 means that God “fore-loved” certain people, and thus predestinated them. He chose them; they did not choose Him.

Romans 9 makes this clear. Paul discusses God’s sovereign choice of Jacob over Esau, a choice based on nothing either had done (Romans 9:11).

Paul’s answer to the question in verse 14, "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God?" is found in verse 15, where Paul tells us that God decides whom He will save and whom He will not, and for a bible believer, that should be the end of the debate.

For a more complete examination of this issue see
Ligonier Ministries