Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
See post 118
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Calvinism Made Me Doubt My Salvation
- Thread starter Regulus
- Start date
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
If faith is defined as a ceasing from working and putting your case totally in Christ's hands, or as an embracing and acquiescing to God's method of salvation by total dependence on Christ's work as the merit for one's salvation, then I don't think your understanding of the background theology matters at all.
It is possible to make faith into a meritorious work by believing that it is an embracing of a certain set of doctrines or facts and those astute enough figure out how important this is and do so thus saved. That is dangerous. And it is possible to have faith in "faith" as it were, or faith in your election, which is not warranted for purposes of your salvation. I'm not saying you do that, just that some of your explanations and condemnations of other theologies seem to indicate that.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Again I see Faith as a gift of Gods Grace worked into the heart of the regenerated. This Faith believes in and rests in the Person and work of Christ of Christ that saved Gods elect.
I'm concerned with post #107.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Also see post 115
Calvinism Made Me Doubt My Salvation
"By Grace through faith you are saved..." Faith in what? From reading your posts I see your faith in Christ is that he made your salvation possible. He didnt actually save you but made it possible for you to get saved if you believe. Im I right about it ?
www.baptistboard.com
BF, God gives the faith to believe, but He can't unless man when he hears the Gospel admits he is a sinner in his heart and needs a Savior.
The Calvinists believe we are saving ourselves and we have something to boast about, when in reality we are responding to the conviction of the Holy Spirit admitting who we are, and then we are given what we need to believe Him.
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
This could be true and everyone should ask if the shoe fits. If it does then they should correct their thinking. But it's also true that many Calvinists teach that Christ's work indeed made it possible to get saved and that this goes for anyone who comes to Christ by faith. They state it as such. The fact that their theology declares that the "elect" will inevitably hear the gospel and come to Christ by faith in actual time, does not negate that coming is essential and can be presented to everyone as God commanding everyone, everywhere, to repent and believe, with the understanding that anyone who does so will be saved. Period.
We of course will argue forever on whether the logic of Calvinism allows the above to really be true, but that is what they stated. Taken far enough this always gets into absurdity. A high Calvinists will say that salvation is all of God but that at some time a person who is to be saved must come to Christ by faith and the benefits of Christ's death are not applied to them until they do so. So then someone says "but what if they don't". The Calvinist then replies that then you must be saying that if it depends somewhat on your decision then you must mean that you are the decisive factor and you have the final say in your salvation and thus contribute to your salvation.
The problem is that a lot of good preachers say exactly the above (that if you are not saved it is totally on you and not any lack of atonement) and this includes Calvinists like Owen, Bonar, and Edwards. This also includes moderate Calvinists like J. C. Ryle and non Calvinists like G. Campbell Morgan.
Speaking only for myself I don't know if such distinctions are important nowadays. I have no idea why they were as important as they were in a historical context either.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
I believe thats false teaching. Christs work made it certain that the elect be saved.
I believe this
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
This is really good and I think it points out our utter dependence upon God even to come to Christ, yet, I just don't see how we can get around the fact that at some level we must actually respond and our will is definitely involved, at least as there being a real danger that we might resist and reject until God determines that no more calling or conviction is proper.
Where I think strict Calvinists get into trouble sometimes is when they forget that while God is completely sovereign, and would have a right to justly condemn anyone or everyone had he so chosen to do so, he also operates according to his nature, and he tends to for some reason love us. Therefore as the Calvinist Horatius Bonar said, no one should ever imagine a scenario where a man could possibly desire to come more than Christ would want him to. I'll leave it to people to decide for themselves if Calvinism as a theology logically allows this - but I think this is why even non Calvinists love to read Bonar, Spurgeon and Bunyan.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
God gives the Faith to believe in Christ to those whom Christ saved by His Person and work.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Does the Spirit convict you that Christ made salvation possible ? Because thats what you believe
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
Yes. They also would believe that. This is why I say that at some point we get into the weeds metaphysically. I think that Calvinists are saying that what God says will happen will happen, but yet that does not mean that the free decisions of the people involved are not in full and true operation. Non Calvinists cry "baloney" but then cannot answer the counterpoint which is that it is impossible for anyone, even God, to predict something ahead of time because the "free" and autonomous decisions have not been made yet, and even if they were, by definition, they could be changed at will, thus changing the foreseen prediction, making it once again impossible to truly predict.
I would say avoid the metaphysical weeds except for us nerds having internet discussions and just go with what the Bible says.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Likewise, its possible to make faith a meritorious work or inherent grace thats meritorious by believing its a condition in us for salvation b4 God will save us or apply salvation.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Maybe you need to Judge what I believe by what you see me post, not by what other folk have posted or you read of them.
DaveXR650
Well-Known Member
Like I said in an earlier post, it's on the extreme edges of the theological systems that you get into trouble and you seem to be there. It is a simple fact, that Owen, Edwards and most of the other great Calvinist theologians indeed put faith as a "condition" if by that you mean that with it you are saved and without it you are not. I think you are smart enough to see the theological wiggle room there but for some reason you seem to absolutely refuse to accept the fact that in some sense it is a condition.
My own personal belief is that it is a condition in a stronger way than that. I believe it is indeed a condition as the common definition stands and it is required by us, though as Charlie said above we are dependent upon God's grace for it. Why confuse people and put up fake barriers. People should be told to come to Christ for salvation and promised on warrant of scripture that if they do so they will be saved. And it is not wrong for people to perceive that they are coming because they want to and because they decided to - no matter which theological system turns out to be the most accurate.
Rom. 5:10
"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."
Man was the enemy of God before the Atonement of Christ.
Through the Atonement Christ has taken the place of man in his sin, we are now reconciled to God.
Reconciled in the Greek is "Katalasso" it means "to change, exchange, to reconcile those at variance."
Since the Atonement man is no longer the enemy of God with Christ now being "the satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."
The Atonement is the first step of God toward depraved man to save him.
Until everything could be arranged for this Atonement to take place, God in His mercy used the blood of an innocent animal in sacrifice as the means of Atonement that represented Christ fulfilling this reconciliation for us in The Sacrifice for man.
I have a strong feeling you have no desire to understand this, BF.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Likewise, its possible to make faith a meritorious work or inherent grace thats meritorious by believing its a condition in us for salvation b4 God will save us or apply salvation.
Brightfame52
Well-Known Member
Again Does the Spirit convict you that Christ made salvation possible? Because thats what you believe
The Spirit confirms the truth of Scripture when it's heard.
If your heart is open to His truth and not your own.
Even Calvin would tell you there could be no salvation without the Atonement, seeing we all were separated from God by sin.
If you can't see that through the Atonement Christ has made our salvation possible based on Grace through faith, then I see myself failing to properly explain it.