Why Calvinism preaches a fraudulent gospel to some of the lost.

Hint, you were saved as a believer before you did this, or you would have declined.

 

Notice neither of those say salvation is the gift. Ones says eternal life, the other says that grace/faith are the gift.

 

In the context of salvation, a person responding to God’s intervention in their lives by “receiving” salvation through faith in Jesus does not constitute a “work”.

peace to you

 

You have it exactly backward. Faith is a fruit of the Holy Spirit you must already have before you can believe in the bible sense.

 

So, you are saying a person must have faith before they have faith, otherwise they cannot believe before they believe?

And you think I have something backward.

A person responds to God’s intervention with faith that Jesus is Savior.

I understand faith is a gift, but saying you must have faith before you have faith is nonsensical.

It is enough for me to praise God as responsible for salvation from start to finish.

peace to you

 

Human faith, the kind you buy used cars with cannot discern Christ, but only an imaginary idol bearing His name. It cannot save. This is Roman Catholic faith for example. And any system that must meet conditions before salvation takes place. = Works = legalism.

You must be born-again (saved) before you can discern the true Christ and believe.

 

I'll quote it again so you can see it, Mark:

To me, you've said in the above that the Bible teaches that man's choice to either respond to the Gospel and receive it,
or to respond to the Gospel and reject it, results in God saving someone.

But according to those very same Scriptures, I see that eternal life is based on God's choice ( Romans 8:29-30, Romans 9:13-24, Ephesians 1:4-5, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Psalms 65:4, John 6:37-47, John 6:64-65, John 17:2 ), not ours.

 

Yes, we do, because the person had to perform an act to get what they were offered.
They then get credit for performing the act....otherwise they would have never gotten it.

It really is very simple, wouldn't you agree?

Speaking for myself, I understand the difference between a person making a deal with someone that involves responding to an offer,
and a person giving something to someone without the need to accept it or reject it;
The first is a reward limited by the terms of the offer, while the second is a gift freely given and freely received.

From my perspective, what you keep describing to me is a reward for "services rendered"...
it's also basic economics and according to the rules of doing business in this world;
I hand over money, the store then gives me the agreed-upon amount or number of product(s) that it was selling.
You don't see the similarities?
"Man does this, and God grants him or her that."

My friend, that is exactly how the Law works, and there's only one Man who was ever able to meet the demands of that...
Jesus Christ, God's own Son.
Because of that, it only has one purpose towards God's children, and it is and was as their schoolmaster to drive them to Christ .
It shows us that with God, that system ( both in letter and in spirit ) does not work, because we cannot live up to it perfectly.

In fact, we cannot even get close to living up to it.
Please see James 2:10-13.

So my question to you is,
"Why do you keep going back to the spiritual principles of the Law, when the believer is completely set free from all of it by Jesus Christ?"


That was the first covenant, and it was abolished in Jesus Christ ( Ephesians 2:14-18 ).

 

You appear to be equating “regeneration” with “salvation”. If so, I disagree.

While regeneration by Holy Spirit is a necessary step in salvation, the actual “salvation” occurs with faith in Jesus, immediately followed by indwelling Holy Spirit.

It could be the whole “process” is near instantaneous at a certain point.

Bottom line, salvation is a work of God from start to finish. Everything is is arguments not really worth having, certainly not worth removing fellowship over.

peace to you

 

Logic has no part to play with how we trust and accept His every word, Mark.

We as believers receive them by faith, do we not?...
Regardless of whether or not they "make sense" to us at the time.
Why?
Because we know that they are God's words, and we can trust them because unlike men, God does not lie...ever.

I think a good example of that is in John 6, where the Lord tells the crowd that He is the Bread of Life and uses the illustration, or analogy, of eating his flesh and drinking His blood... and most of them thought it hard to accept and balked at it.
But what did Peter say when the Lord asked him, "Will ye also go away?"

"....Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God."

You and I disagree on the basis, Mark.
To me, man's response either has everything to do with it, or absolutely nothing to do with it.

Either God's decision is based on granting mercy and compassion to whom He will ( Exodus 33:19, Romans 9:13-24 ), or God's decision is based on Him granting to all of mankind the terms of a contract to which He makes a set of requirements...
no matter how "easy" it seems to us to fulfill.

But we know that that didn't work the first time around, and we have the witness in the Old Testament ( and the Law given to Israel ) to prove it...
so how is it that anyone thinks it will work a second time around?

My friend, that is what the Lord set His people free from.
The Gospel is the message of God setting "the whosoever believeth" ( from the heart, see Romans 10:8-17 ), free from all of that, not putting us back under the burden of it...
The principles, in spirit, of the Law, not just the "letter" of it.


May God bless you.

 

so someone accepting a bday gift is also responsible for having given it to themself?

 

But acccording to scripture the credit begins and ends at God I man and action. Regardless of man’s response he still gets no credit because he has no authority to give it, design it, nor provide the legal justification. Since the needed response of man was designed and provided for by God alone what man does after that is irrelevant.

The receiver of a gift is never given credit for giving himself the gift just because he reach out and accepted it. That’s never been a consideration and it’s not even logical.

John 1:12-13 says the very thing I’m talking about contrary to the misinterpretation of my reformed brethren. Which , again, isn’t logical.

 

You cannot discern the true Christ unless first born-again. This is the basis of the salvation experience. Faith happens as the Spirit bears witness with our spirit. It's an experience you cannot doubt happened to you unless you are not born-again. Then it's all theory and arm-chair conjecture.

 

If they respond before being born-again, it is a false Christ of their making. An idol they trust in to save them that cannot save.

 

Your idea of the gospel does not work so your problem is with it, not the Calvinists. Get the true gospel and limited atonement is not guilty of what you say it is.

 

Again, you are equating being “born again”, I.e. regeneration, with salvation. Salvation occurs, logically anyway, at some point after regeneration. Holy Spirit enables us to understand the gospel and come to Christ in faith.

At salvation, God Holy Spirit indwells us, and then testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

You are very quick to declare someone has a “false faith” based on disagreements with your understanding of the salvation process.

peace to you