Featured Faith # 2

It teaches immortality of the soul too. James 5:20, Ezekiel 18:4, Matthew 10:28, teaches otherwise.

 

I won't play the endless Greek game. I've never seen going back to the "original languages" ever settle anything when it couldn't be settled in the English. Who knows, I may live to see the day, but so far I haven't seen it. So please forgive me if I study obtained in my Bible, and yes I know that different Greek verbs are used, and again, there is not one case of Greek verbs being consistently used in a perfectly categorical manner (ex: the whole phileo-agapao distinction is a joke for anyone who studied it).

So the text alone:

I don't know if obtained is exclusively active or exclusively passive.
Comparing scriptures with scriptures, sometimes it's passive:
Acts 27:13 And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete.
And sometimes it's active:
Acts 22:28 And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.

From the text alone:

I don't know whether faith is a reference to saving faith exclusively or to New Testament revelation exclusively.

From other scriptures I know that:

In parallel to 2Peter 1:1 Paul speaks of the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith (Ro.1:17), there clearly referencing Old Testament faith (revelation) VS New Testament faith (revelation).

In parallel to 2Peter 1:1, Paul blesses the already-saved-through-faith Ephesians by wishing them faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph.6:23).

I have no problem applying the obtaining of faith to both saving faith and to the larger body of revelation whereinto believers are to grow in faith.
It was God indeed that revealed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God to Peter himself, the author of 2Peter 1:1.
It was God indeed that opened Lydia's heart that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
Both these could testify that they obtained their saving faith from God.

But how did they obtain that faith from God? By a supposedly mysterious and apparently random pre-creation decree of God to irresistibly overcome their sinful will by making them believe?
Or was it not rather through the on-their-own-sufficient-means ordained of God: the preaching of the gospel and the conviction of the Holy Spirit?
Lydia and Peter were already people seeking God (and for every Romans 3:11 I'll show you 3 verses where men are said to seek God) and who were honest with the light that God had already shown them when he opened up their heart to hear further revelation concerning his Son.
The Holy Ghost sets up the gospel, and the Holy Ghost convicts a man, and when that man believes it of his own free will, he is the one that believed, but he also obtained that faith since it was the Spirit that gave him something to believe and moved him to believe it.

Every heresy builds on a grain of truth.


Now please tell us how:


· through the righteousness of God and our Saviour

means:


· "by a mysterious pre-creation decree to irresistibly make us believe when we could not believe".

And not:


· "by preaching the gospel to us and opening our honest hearts to attend to it"

 

To the boldened...

the answer is yes.
Although it may only be you who thinks God is random in his choosing.

 

No, just confused about sin and grace. I believed much like you. This changed when God led me out of one of the most deadly cults (Southern Baptist with a "Word of Faith Message"), in American history. One evening as they taught against Limited Atonement, I heard it for the first time and knew it is right and they were wrong. Time proved God saved me and my family from their false ideologies.

 

Death is not the cessation of being. If God kills the soul too you have only eternal suffering to look forward to.

 

It is my position that without a general redemption no one can know Christ died for him. Now Christ died for the whole world, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 5:19, 2 Corinthians 5:14, Romans 8:34.

 

But the Baptist 1689 Confession teaches the soul to be immortal. Which is really an unBiblical interpretation.

 

Here's where you miss it. I Know Christ died only for a few in contrast to the many lost. And that I believe because I was one of the few He died for. Had he not died for me, I'd be like the rest. Faith tells you he died for you or you would not have any.

 

If it teaches it, you must be wrong.

 

Ezekiel 18:4 and James 5:20 teach the mortality of the soul. As does Jesus in Matthew 10:28.

 

Faith is not exclusive to the gospel, the faith Jude 1:3. There is no knowledge about anything without faith.

 

Faith does not cause anything to be true.

 

Defining terms and expressions with scriptures, rather than through a pre-molded theological lens, the expression give repentance to Israel simply means that God was still giving Israel a chance to repent even after they had crucified Christ.
It's just like: Acts 14:27 And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.

God was still giving a door of repentance to Israel.

I understand how compelling such expressions sound to a Calvinist because their tenor is correlative to the system, but again, the Bible defines and assigns connotations to its own expressions which never jive with the Calvinistic system.

 

But Jesus teaches eternal suffering of the damned.
“And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” Mark 9:43–44 (KJV 1900)

 

Faith is a fruit of the Spirit you must have before faith can develop.

 

“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” Matthew 25:41 (KJV 1900)

 

There is general faith, Romans 10:17-18. Faith in the gospel, Romans 1:16. There is the gift of faith, 1 Corinthians 12:9, and faith of the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22.

 

And a body of faith. Good list.