Featured What is your definition of a Calvinist?

Disagree

 

Greetings,

Then you must have a problem with this:

Mat 11:12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Example:
Man with a Legion:

Mar 5:7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
Mar 5:8 For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
Mar 5:9 And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.
Mar 5:10 And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
Mar 5:11 Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
Mar 5:12 And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
Mar 5:13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand and were choked in the sea.
Mar 5:14 And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done.
Mar 5:15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.

Saul:

Act 9:3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
Act 9:4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
Act 9:5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Act 9:6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.
Act 9:7 And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.

Mary Magdalene:

Luk 8:2 And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,

Many other deliverance's and healing's:

Luk 7:21 And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight.
Luk 7:22 Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.
Luk 7:23 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.


The Lord bless you....
In His Love....

 

Greetings,

Those who oppose that the Lord Taketh the Kingdom by force, then they deny His Authority to do so.
Saul was saved against his will, his determination was to persecute, jail, and have Disciples of Christ murdered.
However the Lord had another plan for Saul, He took Saul by force, without Saul's permission....

The Same with the poor man with a Legion of demon's, he could not see or know the Lord until He removed the demon's.....Jesus Christ took this man by violence against the forces of evil, also without the poor man's permission.....

Mary Magdalene, possessed with 7 evil demon's.....Jesus cast them out with force, for ALL authority was given Him over the demon's and that authority was only used according to the Father's perfect will......without Mary's willing permission.....

The problem is that men's "self-righteous" position of fighting against this, total depravity truth, issue strikes them at their core, the core of Pride, and unbelief.........and Only the Power of the Holy Spirit, can cause anyone one of us to face the absolute reality of the worthlessness of our sinful and wicked heart, even while we are believer's.

Mat_16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.



The Lord bless you...
In His Love

 

I don't always agree with you and most certainly didn't on the atonement, but you're one of the few people on here who will actually discuss something and I appreciate that. My old fundamentalist Baptist preachers would say quite often that we needed to take the message very seriously because not only were you not promised another day on this Earth, but more importantly, if you felt any call or pulling of the Spirit to respond to the gospel and you refused again, it was possible that you would never be called like that again. In other words, there was a need of direct action of the Spirit for someone to be saved that was more than a blanket ability given to men in general. It sounds a lot like aspects of Calvinism but at the time I didn't know enough to even ask about it. I guess the difference is in the amount or force of the pull. Is it irresistible or not? I am mostly of a Calvinist persuasion but am not settled on all the metaphysical aspects because what attracted me to Calvinism was more the devotional writings of the Puritans than the debate over the TULIP.

 

I have similar questions. Since God is omniscient, He knows exactly how much influence by Holy Spirit is necessary for each person to come to Christ. Why do some receive enough Holy Spirit influence to come to Christ and others don’t?

To claim everyone is drawn “the same” really doesn’t help the position either. If God draws everyone “the same”, then He is deliberately passing over those He already knows will not respond to Holy Spirit.

The same kind of argument can be made concerning the “authentic offer” of salvation debate.

Those who oppose the doctrines of grace will often claim the offer of salvation is not authentic if only the elect will respond.

Since God already knows who will reject the offer, doesn’t that make the offer as inauthentic as the idea only the elect will respond?

peace to you

 

@Salty. You are right and I apologize. I used to be on a motorcycle forum and the worst sin you could do on there was hijack a thread. So I apologize. I won't be around for the next couple of days or I would start a new one. Thanks for putting up with us.

 

Having the free will to trust in the gospel message is not taking credit for ones salvation, it is saying that I can not save myself and I am trusting in God to save me.

 

Well logic would tell you if you were regenerated then you would already be saved so why would you need/want to be saved again?

 

Man has the God given ability to respond to the gospel message, that is not semi-Pelagian. God convicts man as we see in Joh16:8-9 so you could say that God is calling us via that. Where I run into problems with calvinism is their insistence that only the "elect" will be able to respond to the call. Not biblical but you still hold to that view.

 

Changing the terms used still does not change the problems found in the TULIP or TUDIP.

 

That just describes a bible believing Christian, no labels required.

 

You seem to have missed the whole thing when you misunderstand the conviction of the Holy Spirit. He convicts the world but not everyone responds to the conviction, that is free will just as God planned for it to be. God desires all to be saved but will not force anyone to be saved.

 

My view of “irresistible grace” (staying on topic Salty), is that regeneration is not salvation. Salvation (a right relationship with God) occurs when a person responds to regeneration, conviction, drawing of God Holy Spirit with faith in Christ and Him crucified.

The “regeneration or quickening” is a supernatural work of God Holy Spirit that frees their human will from the enslavement to their sin nature and allows them to respond to the truth of the gospel.

peace to you

 

Or not respond to the truth of the gospel?
Does God's quickening go away and they return back to deadness if they don't respond appropriately?

Does God make a person alive with Christ, even while they were dead in sins, only to have sin kill them again and thus defeat God's quickening?

How does this work in your view?

 

Calvinist: a loose term applied to any Christian that asserts God's sovereignty in Salvation, or that God has predestined those who will be saved.

Paul was a Calvinist. So was Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin and C. H. Spurgeon.

More accurately, TULIP was a response of the Synod of Dort (1618-19) to the five articles of remonstrance drawn up by the followers of Arminius in 1610: 1) Conditional election, 2) Unlimited atonement, 3) Total Depravity 4) Prevenient Grace 5) Conditional preservation of the saints. TULIP is not the definition or description of Calvinism.

The five points of TULIP are inarguably tenets of the Gospel, but to be called a Calvinist, one only needs to believe in Predestination, that God has foreordained those who will be saved.

It depends on who's using the terms.

 

It's not.

 

There can be no unity with noncalvinists.

 

Somebody needs a hug, .