Featured About a Pastor who was twice a 5 point Calvinist.

That is one of the problems in dealing with the average calvinist. They want God to control all things and nothing happens without Him decreeing it yet they balk the idea that He, under calvinism, caused all things including sin.

But you did actually show what I have always maintained, man has a free will and has never lost it. Does man sin yes but to say man has no free will so as to trust in God is to make God responsible for all those that are in hell.

You have this convenient way of looking at scripture.

Did God foreknow it YES
Did God allow it to happen YES
Did God cause it to Happen NO
This is biblical

But the problem for the calvinist is that they require God to determine all things not just some things. How many times have I been told, by calvinists, that nothing can happen outside of God's control right down to the movement of a molecule. So for the calvinist to say that God allows something to happen is just their attempt to avoid the reality of their theology.

Did God foreknow it YES
Did God allow it to happen YES
Did God cause it to Happen YES
This is deterministic calvinism

 

In the event that it involves an ETERNALLY SAVED soul;

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit,
that we are the children of God:"

The reason the person had a Spirit that bears witness with God's Spirit,
is because them being lost and dead in trespasses and sins
were BORN AGAIN, by The HOLY SPIRIT.

5 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?

10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: John 3:7-14

 

Because the Lord Jesus tells us, "The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." Therefore anyone who has come to Him should have assurance of salvation. There is not the slightest possibility of someone coming to Christ in repentance and faith and being turned away. But when one has come, it is because God has loved him with an everlasting love and drawn him with lovingkindness, otherwise he never would have come (John 3:19).

 

What are you saying Alan?
1] the soul was saved from before time {elect from the foundation of the world}
or
2] the soul is saved from the time the person places their trust in the living God?

One view is biblical the other is not. Which one do you mean?

 

There is a branch of Calvinism that teaches eternal justification. The elect were saved from the beginning of time and what we observe when someone becomes a Christian is them personally realizing that they are elect. I don't believe this and I know that R.C. Sproul, in one of his books said that an elect person before he is saved - is lost. Most Calvinists that I know of believe that time works as time and that is where we operate as humans. What I think all Calvinists agree on is that something God truly purposes to be will be - but it still must actually happen.

 

Dave am I understanding you correctly here. God in His Omniscience knows all that will happen but does not cause it to happen?

 

He causes directly some things that he wants to happen. Other times he allows things to happen then uses it for his purposes. (Think of Joseph's brothers.) Always, he is sovereign over what happens, meaning he is monitoring and intervening according to His wisdom and plans. In all this, men are operating under this sovereignty, yet are acting according to what they want to do at the time so they are morally responsible for their actions even though it ultimately turned out God was using it for his own purposes. This is different than the modern free will idea where God knew because he can see the future but has no input into the situation. This idea of free will has been refuted conclusively by Jonathan Edwards for example. I cite him only because I am familiar with his argument.

I have also noticed that the modern free will thinking, or Arminianism is more radical than the original ideas of general Baptists or of Arminius himself. For that matter, I know of no ancient or classical era people who believed in "free will" like we do in modern times.

 

'I sought the Lord, and afterwards I knew,
He moved my soul to seek Him seeking me;
It was not that I found, O Saviour true
For I was found by Thee.

Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked, and sank not, on the storm-vexed sea.
'twas not so much that I on Thee took hold,
As Thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but Oh, the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee!
For long beforehand Thou didst bless my soul;
And ever hast loved me.'
The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1907

 

Lol, no, old man, it's more like you poke and provoke in order to get a fix for your addiction.

You're deceitful in your tactics, just like some Calvinists that I know.

If I wind up burning in hell, then I get what I deserve. If I find myself in Glory with my Saviour, it'll be by the grace of God and absolutely nothing else.

And, you're just as bad as the Calvinists when it comes to understanding, or rather accepting, the 'works' of those in whom God has wrought. If they understood, they'd cease their anti-scriptural mantra of 'justification by the gospel alone'.

 

The Particular Baptists of Gill's day, BEFORE Andrew Fuller, indeed held to 'Justified from Eternity'.

Well, if R.C. Sproul said it it's just gotta be true, right? Not.

I challenge you to show from scripture that 'saved' means 'saved from hell' and 'lost' means 'bound for hell'. You'll be hard part to find a distinction other than 'sheep' and 'lost sheep'.

 

'put'

You'll be hard put to find a distinction other than 'sheep' and 'lost sheep'.

 

If that is a reference to post #55, the bullets are just quotes from the article describing the author “changing his mind” and only the last paragraphs contain my exposition on his “flip flopping”.

I have no axe to grind with either General or Particular redemption. I can see how someone can arrive at either position from scripture (and the Baptist Distinctives grant everyone the freedom to do so). I personally, find the case for Particular Redemption more logically compelling (an Occam’s Razor thing). Wesleyanism adds parts that do not seem necessary. Doesn’t make it wrong, just makes it less likely (my opinion).

Either way, ATONEMENT is not a hill that I am willing to die on. I doubt that any argument that I made would change God’s mind either way, so who Jesus died for is more Jesus’ business than my business.

 

Well the best way to understand free will as I understand it and as the bible shows it. Man has the ability to hear and believe or to reject the gospel message. That is as simple as it gets. Ephesians 1:13
For those that say man can not do that because God has ordained all that will be saved because He is "sovereign" do not seem to understand what sovereign means. They seem to over look the fact that by their view of sovereign God has to be responsible for all the sin and for those that are lost. This of course they balk at but I really do not see any other way to understand their view.
Now at this point I am sure there are calvinists on here that will say I just do not understand calvinism. One thing I do know for sure, if whatever you are teaching contradicts the bible then you are wrong and that is as simple as it gets.

 

KY as I said you may call it what you like but I will continue to contend for the truth of scripture. KY if you think that you need to do something outside of trust in God for your salvation then your are lost as you are now depending on your works to save you.

 

Lol, like I said, an addict grappling for his fix, and a deceitful one at that (but aren't they all? Deceitful?).

 

Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

 

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

 

Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

 

I'm saying, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."