Featured Reformed Salvation

SBG. Take care.

 

No, I'm saying being born again is not something we can do. So if saved means born again, your argument is nullified because we do not regenerate nor save ourselves. (And, I argue regeneration and saved are not synonymous).

The Archangel

 

Funny, you are an island of one and you make this silly assertion. The greatest revivals God has brought to the church have been through Reformed teaching of salvation where God receives all glory and praise. Would you therefore call these movements of God heretical? sbg, you need to have a turn of heart. Do you know what the Bible calls such a turning? If so, that is what I am calling you to do.

 

It's easy to make the charge without any proof--as you've done here. "Liar-liar-pants-on-fire" is not a legitimate tool of debate.

The Archangel

 

Question for you Austin, just to clarify, are you saying that Rom 11:32 only applies to Israel and does not include the Gentiles?

So is that what you are saying, that God has not consigned all to disobedience just all the Jews. If so that would mean there are some Gentiles that were not consigned to disobedience. So if those Gentiles were not consigned to disobedience/sin why do they need a savior?

The context does say that ALL are consigned, Jews & Gentiles and so that God MAY HAVE, not will have, mercy on all. That is not universalism that is just the gospel message.

You were right on one point about Romans, you really should study the whole book as it will clear up a lot of your misunderstandings of scripture and salvation.

 

Does that include all sin and evil, as that is the way your theology requires it to be. Not biblical just the error of your theology.

 

That sounds like a nice escape hatch there, but if God ordains all things that happen even if He just lets those things happen then that makes Him the one responsible. That is why we see free will in the bible. God knows all things that are going to happen but He does not ordain them, thus He is not responsible for mans actions man is. Calvinists insist that God is sovereign but then say hold on here He can't be so sovereign that He can allow man to have an actual free will. And why do they say that, well if man had an actual freewill then that would mean they could actually choose to follow or reject Christ Jesus and the Calvinist just cannot have that as it would ruin their man made theology.

 

You agree with what some man has told you that the bible says about salvation. Now you need to understand what the bible says.

 

And it seems you miss all the times we are told to make choices. But perhaps those texts are not in your special bible version.

 

Does anything ever happen outside of God control then, are things done that He did not know of, or could not stop?

 

Where did Jesus or Paul preach "free will" gospel?

 

We are free to choose, but not all choices available to us!

 

People are saved through the preaching of the gospel message and we have had some great preachers. It is not that people get saved by Calvinist preachers, they do, it is what they teach people after they are saved. I know this may shock you but people get saved by non-Calvinist also. It is not the preacher it is God that saves.

 

Then how is that free to chose. And who are you to decide what is available to man to choose.

 

Read your bible. Joh 3:16-18 would be a good place to start.

 

Right. That's what they mean by "ordain". That there is a sense in which God is responsible for all things. And in the case you mentioned - if a person chooses not to repent during their time of life, and God knew it even before they were born, and let them be born anyway and grow up and make such a bad choice, then in the reformed sense, God ordained that they would be lost. That does not mean that it's God's fault - they really were free and God did not intervene to save them. They indeed made their own free choices. But it is still true that God in his own wisdom chose not to intervene and thus in that sense is responsible. Now this is the most important point: The only proper response to this is to be thankful to God if you are a believer that he did intervene in your case. Anyone Calvinist or not who thinks that their good sense or intelligence or wisdom had something to do with their being saved is guilty of a great sin.

 

Absolutely. And liking Calvinist theology is not necessary to be a Christian and I hope I never put anything on here to suggest any different.

 

I think what you fail to understand is that under Calvinist theology when they say God is sovereign they mean that nothing happens that He does not allow to happen. Now they will say He permits it to happen but that is just an escape hatch for them. As even what He permits is something that He has decreed to happen. So if someone does not come to faith in Christ Jesus under the Calvinist view it is because God has decreed that to be so.

Dave you say "They indeed made their own free choices." but then latter you contradict that when you say "Anyone Calvinist or not who thinks that their good sense or intelligence or wisdom had something to do with their being saved is guilty of a great sin" It takes a free will to make real choices and it takes good sense, intelligence or wisdom in order to do so. God expects us to make real choices and holds us responsible for those choices. That in itself points to a free will.

Try as they might the this is a trap of their own making. The early Church fathers said we had a free will and even Augustine said we had a free will and only changed that when he run to the far end of the logic pool when he fought against Pelagius.

"On Grace and Free Will," (see especially chapters II-IV) St. Augustine states: "He [God] has revealed to us, through His Holy Scriptures, that there is in man a free choice of will," and that "God's precepts themselves would be of no use to a man unless he had free choice of will, so that by performing them he might obtain the promised rewards." (chap. II) Augustine