How can Jesus make this claim ...

I can't answer it because I do not support it. Not sure how many ways I can say that. I don't need to answer or defend that which I do not believe.

Now, why are you avoiding my question:

Why do you believe that people can lose their salvation?

 

That is quite sad, I hope you include this “truth” that the gospel message of salvation is not a genuine offer to all in that some have no true ability to ever believe so that at least your “gospel” message is transparent and truthful.
…actually, I believe you should just stay home and out of the way as per your belief in Deterministic predestination, maybe save yourself some tough answers about your joy of not having to personally respond and enthusiastically preaching assurance for others that they have an excuse having been made with inability when your day of judgment comes to explain your version of the Good News message, but I won’t go there beyond the scripture which spells out not only the revelation being to all the creatures who were made, but verifies this is why they “personally” will have no excuse, along where perhaps where some here should take note of some condemnation of those who were not thankful for the way they were made, (with volition - sense, reason and intellect) and don’t consider God’s loving “offer” a true “offer” at all, but rather, sadly, no real choice, a forced choice…

Rom 1:18-21

(18) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

(19) Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

(20) For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

(21) Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.


Free will, responsibility, the gift of God’s grace is conditional upon God’s judgment of an individual’s response to His drawing and His showing of truth to volitional creatures. The Bible clearly says the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as written, the just shall live by faith. It is also written that all God’s ways are judgment in truth. Yes, there is the true message of the ability of a response that comes with a promise: Rom 10:9-10

(9) That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

(10) For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Yep, a lot of “you” in the instructions of a Book that supposedly says “you” can do nothing.

The Doctrines of the Lottery Election of non-volitional creatures simply does not add up to the instructions of God to His creatures but rather makes human response and God’s judgment of that response logically void and untrue, pre-determinism logically bases salvation on a whim, does not logically account for evil apart from God’s predestination and therein unavoidably logically leads to Theological Fatalism.

 

he doesn't....

 

With respect sir, it seems that you put an awful lot of power on the supposed free will of men, when according to Scripture, man's will is biased against Him from birth ( Romans 1:18-32, Romans 3:10-17, John 3:19-20, Psalm 58:3 ).

You really see Scripture declaring that God's favor can be merited?
I'm sorry for that.

I've underlined the part in your last quote that strikes me as being works ( Romans 11:6 )...to me, you've clearly stated that God's grace is conditional upon what men do in addition to what God does, not what God does for men, with no contribution being made by them. Apparently, the focus of your own salvation is what you do and what you've done...not what God did for you.

From my perspective, you're turned the gift of God into a reward...and you seem to think that you can merit God's favor based on your own efforts, albeit with what God provided to you.

This is what I see being stated:

You = "Me and Jesus get me to Heaven".
Me = "Jesus gets me to Heaven".

In each of the above cases, who gets all the glory, and who shares in that glory for the work of salvation?

I'll put it another way...

In your version of salvation ( with some Scriptures as support ), I see God rolling out the red carpet to all men, and all a person has to do is to "step on it", and God does the rest. The flaw in the "logic"? God then violates that same "free will" and keeps His children saved by His own power ( 1 Peter 1:5 ).
In my version ( with Scriptural support that doesn't seem to make logical sense to you ), God rolls out the red carpet to His children, and places their foot on it, and God does everything. ( 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 3:4-7, 1 Peter 1:5 )

He gets all the glory for saving me, I don't share any of that glory with Him ( Ephesians 2:8-9 ).
Salvation is "of the Lord", not "of men". It is 100% of God, and in no way influenced by anything a person can do, or even will ( John 1:13 ).

Does that make you angry? Why?
It doesn't make me angry...I recognize His amazing grace towards me, a sinner who comes to Him blind and naked and hungry, with nothing to offer Him in my hands.

To me, you're looking at it from a "logical" point of view, instead of believing the very words on the page....your own understanding seems to be getting in the way, which God says not to do ( Proverbs 3:5-6 ). God's children believe His words and trust in them ( John 8:47 ) because they are Christ's sheep ( John 10:26 ), not in their own "volition".

"Logic" is an illusion of the corrupt flesh, sir, and not to be trusted.

I disagree.
To me, Romans 10:9-10 is what a person who IS saved will do, as a believer. Notice that the entire book of Romans is addressed to those who have already believed ( see Romans 1:7 )...not to all men. The Bible is written to and for His children...not to the devil's children ( 1 John 3:10 ).

If a person preaches the Gospel in any way different than the exact way the apostles preached it in the book of Acts, then they are preaching it laced with their own understanding of Scripture. I would never do that, and I would hope others wouldn't, either...but they do, and everyday.

For example, if a person comes up to me ( without knowing me ) and tells me that God loves me, even though the apostles in Acts never told anyone that God loved them until after they exhibited their belief on Christ, then that person is preaching something other than what the apostles did, and the way that they did in Acts.

That's the problem with many of today's "gospel" preachers...they tell everyone that God loves them, but use verses that speak only to believers as "proof" that He loves all men equally...when He doesn't.

Your version of the Good News, it seems, is to tell everyone how to be saved, and my version of the Good News is to tell someone about what Jesus did for sinners ( Acts 2:22-36 ), and if that a person believes it, God is telling them why they are saved, and that HE did it; They didn't have anything to offer Him, and were always at His mercy completely ( Titus 3:4-7 ).

Our efforts as men merit nothing.
That is why eternal life is declared to be a gift, not a reward.



You may call it "Determinism" or "Calvinism" if you want to, but I call it the Bible, and it can be supported from Scripture, in each and every detail.



May God bless you in the knowledge of His mercy and grace, sir.

 

With respect back, it seems…, no, actually it is very apparent that you have fallaciously avoided my actual argument which is biblically set against you and, yes, your “logical reasoning” - (whether or not you believe or admit that your reasoning is based on your human philosophical constructs of interpretations rooted in deterministic systematic influences) - to your dark (1John 1:5) and sadly false preaching that the “offer” of the gospel is conditional upon deterministic predestination wherein I have cautioned you about ignoring God’s “truth in judgment” (Duet 32:4) and the making of “excuses” (Romans 1:18-21) to support “your gospel” wherein also likewise I have questioned your motive (Romans 1:21), challenged you to be transparent and truthful when giving such a “gospel” – which is an absurdity for you to call “Good News” or a message of “Hope” being you have shifted away from the condition of faith (1 Cor 1:23) - and given you a friendly reminder of the true judgment you will face for your message that God’s offer is not really an offer to all His creatures that He made in love but a mere unconditional step, not based on God’s judgment or man’s responses to His loving influences that are seen and understood by all the things He made as scripture clearly reveals (Romans 1:20) but rather a gift forced upon preprogrammed puppets.


No, you avoid my actual argument and want to start building a strawman of synergism, as if such is your original reasoning (without logic of course) wherein you claim to have been biblically enlightened rather than systematically influenced and programmed to repeat this argument that faith is a work, merited synergism – like I haven’t heard this systematic attempt to defend Determinism 100s of times under the same pretenses.

But I have a minute to deal with your only recourse to build a synergism strawman: Non Cs do not believe that both God and man “work” together in salvation. We believe that we are saved “by faith from first to last”:

Rom 1:17

(17) For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

The Bible clearly shows that faith is antithetical to works:

Rom 3:20-28

(20) Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

(21) But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

(22) Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

(23) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

(24) Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

(25) Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

(26) To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

(27) Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

(28) Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.


Your attempt to separate “faith” from God’s, according to His judgment (Duet 32:4) accounting it righteousness disagrees with the scripture’s version that it is not works:

Rom 4:2-5

(2) For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

(3) For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

(4) Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

(5) But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Not only do you deny this ability of faith but you don’t seem to acknowledge that one is justified by his faith in Jesus Christ:

Gal 2:16

(16) Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Gal 3:2

(2) This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?


Gal 3:5-7

(5) He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

(6) Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

(7) Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

Clearly faith is not works:

Eph 2:8-9

(8) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

(9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.


Php 3:9

(9) And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:


It is a misnomer to label Non C soteriology as synergistic in the strictest sense of the word, but there is no contradiction to the claim Determinists make that they are preselected and forced to have faith rather than come by it through God’s loving influence and His judgment to reveal the truth to His volitional creatures. No, sadly, Determinists want to claim they had no choice and neither do others, like you they even deny true hope of the offer of the Gospel to all, like the Jews they preach it is a matter of preselected privilege, a done deal predetermined from the beginning of time, - but sorry, the Bible not only says God is active in His judgment and influences but able to raise even stones to have faith:

Mat 3:9

(9) And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Believing what is clearly seen is not a work and Determinist are not special to be preselected to believe without faith in their own heart. You may not like that condition but... - that sounds more like an excuse of the unthankful in how they were created...

 

Benjamin,

Is there ever a time when "logic" failed you? When your "sight" failed you?
That you believed anything by faith?

That you trusted anything that God said, simply because He said it?


" And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed." ( John 20:28-29 )

Sometimes I wonder about you, sir.

You really do not understand where faith comes from, do you?
It's a gift.

Salvation was never an offer...it's a promise, given only to those that believe.

 

Why do you want to have established reall and full free will though? As the Will of God is supreme, so why not be content that he will always being doing the right in regardsto working out His plan of salvation?

 

Lord, I was blind! I could not see
In Thy marred image any grace;
But now the beauty of Thy face
In radiant vision dawns on me.

Lord, I was dumb! I could not speak
The grace and glory of Thy name;
But now, as touched by living flame,
My lips Thine eager praises wake.

Lord, I was dead! I could not stir
My lifeless soul to come to Thee;
But now since Thou hast quickened me,
I rise from sin's dark sepulchre.

Lord, Thou hast made the blind to see,
the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak,
The dead to live: and lo, I break
The chains of my captivity. [William Tidd Matson, 1833-99]

Praise God for irresistible grace!

 

indeed, for If He had instead left it fully up to own own "free will"

 

What is the verse, that says Bondage under sin?

 

The Holy Spirit works brings a sinner to a free will decision regarding Christ. We know this conviction is a series of free will decisions. Positive responses are required or the Holy Spirit will leave you alone after a while. The decisions are made in the free will.

 

Romans 6:20

 

The lost sinner will alweays reist God and refuse to get saved though!

 

Matthew 6:24, Romans 6:6, Romans 6:16, and Romans 8:2, just for starters.

 

that is not it

 

Servant also means slave.

 

"bondage of sin? quote ?