Calvinism and its glaring oversights .

I don’t really know a lot about John Calvin, so I am reluctant to say I agree or disagree.

Will you address John 3:19-21, which tells us the whole world has rejected Jesus Christ because they prefer evil, but those who practice truth come into the Light to reveal to the world their good works are, in fact, the result of the work of God?

peace to you

 

2 Thess 2.10-12 answers your question

 

Well, no it doesn’t. I’m asking you to address this particular passage; John 3:19-21.

World means world. The whole world rejected Jesus because they preferred evil. Those who are born again (practice the truth... come to the Light) do so to demonstrate their good deeds are, in fact, the work of God.

peace to you

 

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12

10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

very clear to me!

 

Mat 13:34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
Mat 13:35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
Mat 13:13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
Is all of scripture a parable? No it isn't in fact Jesus explained the parable to His disciples and His disciples explained the meaning of most of them to us.
Calvinist take this a step beyond and claim no one understands until they've been regenerated. Yet you Calvinist still don't understand this.
The second is true total depravity as in inability Man is sinful but only the Jews were cursed of not understanding.

Oh yes you believe in Jn 6 :44 and ignore Jn 12:32. Both spoken in different times and were both true except the latter is the only truth now.Yet both are spoken by the same God. So why do you ignore it?
MB

 

With all due respect, it's been done already and you have simply disagreed with the Scriptures presented.

As I see it, every passage that's been brought to bear that spells this out, has been met with opposition, doubt, or some kind of appeal to the Greek in order to make the words not say what they say.
It's as if you simply don't want to consider the Scriptures being presented, nor do you ever want to.

To address your continued view of salvation being an "offer":

Again, SBG... you're treating salvation and the gift of eternal life ( Romans 3:23 ) as being merit-based.
If it's an "offer" ( instead of a promise given to only those that believe ) then it's up to us to avail ourselves of the offer and do what is required...isn't it?
Seems very natural to me, only it's not Biblical with respect to God's grace.

Incidentally, that's exactly how the Law works and exactly how our minds as sinful men work;
Same pattern, same principles.
We as sinful men simply cannot conceive of a God that not only does as He pleases without our input...
We cannot accept a God that gives our fellow man a gift that they do not deserve by doing something to get it, at least not without giving everyone the same chance to get it.

Instead, we treat a God that gives something to someone "gratis" ( freely ) as having "respect" towards that person...
when in fact He is doing it to completely up-end our ideas of what is right and natural, and establish His own actions as righteous ( see 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 ).


He does it to bring to nothing the things that are established, as common practice, by us as men.
He operates contrary to our way of thinking in order to destroy our own ideas of what is right and fair, SBG.

Grace is only grace if we did absolutely nothing to get it ( Romans 11:5-6 ).

 

@SavedByGrace :
Moreover, if a person has to "take God up on His offer", then eternal life isn't really an unmerited gift, is it?

That's where election comes in;
Election makes eternal life not only a gift in the actual sense, but it also precludes men of being either worthy enough to merit it, or wise enough to seek it.
In other words, what you call "Calvinism" is the biblical teaching of salvation that completely strips us as men of having any advantage over our fellow man ( God is no respecter of persons, Deuteronomy 10:17, Job 34:19, Acts of the Apostles 10:34, Romans 2:11 ) when it comes to God's gifts...
Which is as it should be.

God saving men from His wrath and to an eternal relationship with Him and His Son should not be a meritorious reward that is gained by our good conduct or is the result of our being strong enough or wise enough to take advantage of the opportunity.
It should be a gift, and one freely given by God to those that He wishes to give it to.

If all you see when you look at John 3:16 is an offer made to all men, then to me, you're not looking at it with respect to everything else that God has said about how and why people come to Christ in faith and belief...
Like Philippians 1:29, for example.

In the end, either one is saved by meritorious works, or they are saved by unmerited grace.
There is no in-between.

Either the Lord does as He wishes and saves who He wishes, or something we do acts as the deciding factor...
Which makes God a respecter of persons when it comes to saving one person over another.

 

John 8:43-47.
1 Corinthians 2:6-16.

 

15 that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during,

16 for God did so love the world, that His Son -- the only begotten -- He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during.

 

You are the one who wanted to focus on John 3:16 +, not the 2 Thess passage. When I show you the full context of the passage you wanted to discuss, you cannot or will not address John 3:19-21.

Instead, you want to jump to another passage, without addressing the first; again which you chose.

And so, what could have been a meaningful discussion has reverted to talking passed each other once again.

Thanks for the conversation

peace to you

 

the Bible MUST be taken as a whole, and not parts picked and others rejected for the sake of "theology", or to try to prove some point. The overall teaching of the Bible is very clear, that God indeed loves the entire human race, and desires that none of them end up in hell, which is why the Bible says that Jesus came to call SINNERS, not just any "elect", to repentance and faith, and a new life in Him!

 

Indeed, even though the term "whosoever" is the entire human race, it is only those from this race who repent and believe, will be saved, the rest, because of their rejection of Jesus and the Gospel, will be sadly, damned. Another Reformed theologian, had this to say

“In Jno.iii.16, make ‘the world’ which Christ loved, to mean ‘the elect world’, and we reach the absurdity, that some of the elect may not believe, and perish…since Christ made expiation for every man” (Robert Dabney, Systematic Theology, p.525)

 

And so, you engage in the same conduct you condemn, all in the same paragraph, without conscious realization of what you have done.

I’ll leave it to you

peace to you

 

everyone who is believing is not the entire human race.

 

the Death of Christ is universal, however, only those who repent and believe will be saved. There is no universal salvation taught in the Bible.

 

You have just done the very thing you accuse me of, focusing on one verse and deliberately ignoring another. The difference is I selected one verse to show that TULIP is supported by scripture (which the OP claims was not so) and you have deliberately ignored that verse to play “scripture pong” and make false accusations against fellow members of the body of Christ.

 

begin English lesson::

WHOSOEVER = formal WHOEVER = THE PERSON WHO

[John 3:16 NASB]
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that [the person who] believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

:: end English lesson

God loves all without exception (the world).
God gave His Son that (the person who) believes shall not perish.

“the world” and “whosoever believes” do not mean the same thing.
Clearly, the whole world (every person without exception) does not believe.

 

As I read it, God does call all men to salvation (1 Timothy 2:1-4), however, no man will willingly come (Genesis 3:8; John 3:19-20; Romans 3:10-12), therefore God chose to act monergisticly to save some (John 6:44; Romans 8:29-30; Ephesians 2:1-10). That is why ALL of scripture is important.

 

have you heard of "teaching granny to suck eggs"?

 

herein lies the Reformed contradictions! God, who is ALL KNOWING, knew from eternity past that the greater majority of the human race will reject the Gospel and end up in hell. So, WHY would God "call ALL men to salvation", when He knows from eternity past, that this "call" would be rejected by the majority, and not simply call the elect, who, according to Reformed teaching, are "chosen to salvation", even before they are born??? Further, by accepting 1 Timothy 2:1-4, where it says "all", to refer to "all men", as in the human race, as your argument goes. Then you must also accept that the words in verse 6, also refers to these "all", "Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time", and therefore means that Jesus Christ has died for the entire human race.

Here ends this lesson in basic theology!