Featured Biblical Assertion

I can't! It's the greatest thing in the world! God loved me enough to save me.
John 13:1. 'Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end' [or 'to the uttermost']

 

Two things here. First. The concept of irresistible grace seems to be true so it doesn't matter if I like it or not. And yes, the Holy Spirit is the determining factor. What makes this confusing from our point of view is that it's our wills that are affected thus it will always appear to us to be our choice - and it is, but what was the origin of that choice. And yes, God sovereignly determines by events, his plan for that persons life, their mental and physical makeup, and so on how the process of each persons salvation will occur - and it is according to a sovereign plan known only to God.

I would seriously ditch camping on the idea you can take the the general concept that God desires that all come to repentance and turn that into a primary doctrine. The fact that scripture declares a sense of caring from God, who is infinitely above us is good to know but it does not give you the right to make that the measuring rod of all other revealed doctrine. Atheists use that argument too when a person is the victim of a horrible situation. They say "Was God unable or unwilling to help that". You are using the same argument as an atheist.

That is precisely an argument that Owen uses except in his case he thinks it through. No one wants hell but do people want to give up their sin and turn to God or are they willing to love their sin and hold on to it and take a risk on the possibility that Hell is either not real or maybe God won't really send them there. You really should read Owen.

This is one of the questions where we do know the answer. As I said above, the answer is that "Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil". Without supernatural intervention that would include all of us.

 

That is obvious. Just to clarify. I have a real serious disagreement with some of the Calvinists who take the doctrines of grace and elevate them to primary gospel teaching. Understanding the sovereignty of God, predestination, supralapsarianism, and irresistible grace are not the gospel. They think they have developed a higher, superior understanding of these things and promote them so vigorously that they begin to rebuke people for obeying the gospel and repenting of their sins and trusting in Christ for their salvation. That is an abomination. Some are starting to accuse them of a type of modern gnostic tendency and there may be something to that.

You have to be born again, repent of your sins, and believe the gospel. But it's quite true that you would not do this without direct supernatural intervention in the form of a quickening, or an enlightening, or actually being born again or regenerated BEFORE you "decide" to believe. This is probably the true logical order. Chronologically, the time factor may be a millisecond - there is no evidence of born again unbelievers walking around. Faith can properly be considered a "gift". We are allowed to admonish people to repent and believe the gospel. What we don't want to do is start thinking that if we can somehow manipulate someone into making a "decision" that we have caused them to be saved.

That's my take on all this. I consider myself a moderate Calvinist although I hate labels. I dislike the "higher knowledge" arrogance of some brands of Calvinism. But don't kid yourself. If you are a Christian it is because God picked you out and saved you. However; being right on the order of salvation is not what determines your salvation. I believe that a majority of Christians in the world today follow what we call Arminian theology and they are just as saved as any Calvinist.

 

Every single person for whom Christ paid the sin debt on the cross will be saved. God never fails! GOD NEVER FAILS!

 

Christ most certainly paid the sin debt of all of God's elect.

Isaiah 53:4-8 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

 

Sounds like you think that when Christ died on the cross that it was an open question if anyone would be saved or not. Sounds like according to you, no one might have been saved since you condition salvation ultimately on the actions of sinners.

 

Salvation is conditioned on Christ alone. Period. Salvation is not conditioned on the sinner's actions or thoughts.

 

Perhaps any disagreement I have with Owen is most likely is due to his adherence to infralapsarianism, while I am a supralapsarian. I don't consider one's position on lapsarianism to be salvific. It is simply a view of the order of God's decrees. I think that supralapsarianism more closely fits the Biblical narrative, but it is not determinative of salvation, just as one's view on the timing of justification is not salvific(for the record, I adhere to justification from eternity).

 

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. If ἐάν is third class conditional which means potential action. The person that is thirsty {feels his need of salvation} has to make that choice to come to Christ Jesus.

And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!"
And let him who hears say, "Come!"
And let him who thirsts come.
Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

All these are invitations. The first two lines can be invitations to Christ for His return when looking back at prior verses or invitations to the lost to come to Christ Jesus for salvation when looking forward to the rest of the verse.

The last two lines are clearly invitations to come to Christ Jesus for salvation. Logically we can not command Christ to return or people to trust in Christ Jesus.

 

Christ is not "invited to return". He WILL return. Period. Being "invited" has nothing to do with it.

 

I rather think we have to take the word of God as it is written, and all the verbs are in the imperative, including the word 'Come.' Do you suppose that our Lord will not heed His people and not return?
With regard to the second part of the verse, we are to 'come' in repentance and faith. 'But now God commands all men everywhere to repent.' '

 

Are we to suppose that we can command Christ to return or that we can command people to repent and trust in Christ Jesus. By you logic and use of Act 17:30 are we to now conclude that you are promoting universalism. As you said it is a command.

 

I am sorry that you don't like the word of God at this point; I was only informing you of the grammar which will not change however much you disapprove of it.. We can certainly bid our Lord to do anything that He has promised to do. And we absolutely should command people to repent and trust in Christ, and warn them that there are dire consequences if they do not obey the Gospel command of Mark 1:15. Of course we have no power to enforce our command, and certainly we are bidden to plead with and implore sinners as well (2 Corinthians 5:20), but there is more to preaching than that 'Convince, rebuke, exhort....' (2 Timothy 4:2). 'Compel them to come in' (Luke 14:23).

Here is Spurgeon preaching on that very text:
'Sinner, in God's name I command you to repent and believe. Do you ask me whence my authority? I am an ambassador of heaven. My credentials, some of them secret, and in my own heart; and others of them open before you this day in the seals of my ministry, sitting and standing in this hall, where God has given me many souls for my hire. As God the everlasting one hath given me a commission to preach his gospel, I command you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; not on my own authority, but on the authority of him who said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature;" and then annexed this solemn sanction, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." Reject my message, and remember "He that despised Moses's law, died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God."'

I understand that this was Spurgeon's most successful sermon ever in respect of the numbers who trusted in Christ after its conclusion. Several hundred at least obeyed his command and were saved. Here is the sermon in full.
The Spurgeon Library | Compel Them to Come In

 

...such as John the Baptist filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb, Abraham prior to Gen 15:6, David made to hope while on his mother's breast, Isaac born after the Spirit by the time of his weaning, Paul separated from his mother's womb to preach Christ among the Gentiles, and other scripture that indicates a heart circumcised long before conversion.

...lol, you didn't quote him, so I guess 'Owen' missed these examples of 'irresistible grace'.

 

Now that's what I'm talkin about. I have 55 works of Owen, poorly indexed, and on Kindle, so I'll have to check but from what I know of Owen, he probably has not missed those examples. And he probably explained it in Greek, Latin and English, sometimes all in the same sentence. By the way, the Kindle edition of that costs 5 dollars!

 

I am sorry that you show such a lack of logical reading skills. Your correct we can bid Christ Jesus to return but we can not command Him to do so just as we can not command that people repent. We can tell them that they need to repent but that is the extent to which we can go. You refer to 2 Timothy 4:2 'Convince, rebuke, exhort....' . and Luke 14:23 'Compel them to come in' but do you not notice that it is still the person or persons that have to respond. They have to exercise their God given free will no matter how much you think we can command them to repent.

That was a great preaching event and as you said many did respond to Gods command to repent. But the question is, if it is a command of God, as you seem to think it should be understood, would not all that heard Spurgeon have repented?

I did note that you did not respond to what I posted re your use of Acts of the Apostles 17:30. Are you going to tell me that Gods command to repent only applies to those that actually do repent and that the "all men everywhere" in Acts 17:30 are really just the "Calvinist elect"?

Martin if we use your understanding of command in this verse then you are prompting universalism and nothing less. But since we know that God desires all to come to repentance and that man will be held responsible for how he responds to the gospel message then we can be sure that your understanding of Gods command here is wrong.

 

So your going to hold to the false idea that you can command God to do your bidding. Oh the arrogance of some people.

 

Dave when I read through your post I find that you want to give all the credit to the HS but you fail to realize that by doing that you also give Him all the blame. You like the idea of irresistible grace but that also means irresistible reprobation. You can not accept the idea that man actually has the ability to make rational choices based upon available information.

Funny how you say that something that God actually states should not be considered, that He desires all to come to repentance, but we should hold to the idea that God determines everything that one does or thinks but then not accept the logical outcome of that errant idea. Why would you say that I am using the same argument as an atheist when I quote scripture. Do you not believe that God actually want all to be saved?

Sorry but your use of Owen really shows your Calvinism. Owen is just writhing from his biased point of view. I would suggest that you actually trust what the bible says and not what some man tells you the bible says.

Joh 16:8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Joh 16:9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me;

Question, why would the HS bother convicting anyone if it was impossible for them to turn and trust in Christ Jesus? For that matter why even present the gospel message or have Christ go to the cross? God must believe that man can change so why don’t you or Owen?

Joh 20:30 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;
Joh 20:31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

John even went so far as to inform us as to why he wrote his book.

Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
Rom 3:22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Rom 3:24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Rom 3:25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
Rom 3:26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Joh 20:30 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;
Joh 20:31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Dave I do not deny the Holy Spirit’s conviction or the influence of Gods creation on turning man toward God. What I do deny is the idea that God has to treat man like a puppet as you are suggesting.

 

Maybe you should have read this passage before commenting about my post. Like I wrote: He WILL return. Period.

Acts of the Apostles 1:10-11 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

 

Dave you and I will have to disagree on the logical order of salvation.

Eph 1:13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,

Note the order that Paul shows us here. We hear, we believe, we are sealed.

Rom 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Rom 10:10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Does man believe unto righteousness as scripture says or does the man believe after he is made righteous as Calvinism teaches. Is his confession made unto salvation as scripture says or is confession made after salvation as Calvinism teaches.

Notice that I'm asking what does scripture say not what you think it teaches.

Rom 10:13 for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."
Rom 10:14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

Note the order Paul describes here.
1) The saved are those who call on the name of the Lord.
2) They call because they believe.
3) They believe because they heard.
4) They heard because a preacher shared the Gospel.
Working backwards, Gospel → Hearing → Believing → Calling → Salvation.

Faith is not a gift rather it is a response to hearing the gospel and believing in Christ Jesus for one’s salvation. I understand that you hold to a deterministic view of salvation which is something that I do not find in scripture. The flaw I see in that view is that if God picked out ones to be saved then He by exclusion He picked out those to be lost. Now you may say well we all deserved to be lost, which is true, but since only those He picked could be saved then He did pick those to be lost. Remember under determinism He controls all things not just some things.

If one is to be saved it is because they responded to the information that was presented to them and freely trusted in God for salvation.

By the way I do not like labels so I just consider myself to be a disciple of Christ Jesus.