Faith # 7

[Brightfame52]

Why all men dont have Faith ?

We have already pointed out one reason why all men don't have Faith/Believe, yet another reason is because not all men are the Beloved of the Lord, Chosen from the beginning unto Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth 2 Thess 2:13

13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

The word belief here is the same noun faith in 2 Thess 3:2

So all men don't have belief of the truth because they're not Christ sheep and they are not of those "the Beloved of the Lord, Chosen from the beginning unto Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth"

 

[Ben1445]

Why all men don't have Faith ?

2 Thess 3:2

And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.

Its because all men are not Christs Sheep Jn 10:26

26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

Because the lost are incapable of having any faith in anything at all??

Riiiiight, they believe in nothing. They are faithful to nothing.

You always push the cart with the horse. It doesn’t have to be that complicated.

 

[Brightfame52]

Because the lost are incapable of having any faith in anything at all??

Riiiiight, they believe in nothing. They are faithful to nothing.

You always push the cart with the horse. It doesn’t have to be that complicated.

Ben1445, you are making a massive category error by confusing natural human faith with supernatural saving faith.

Nobody is claiming that unregenerate men lack the biological capacity to believe in a political party, a chair, or a pagan idol. That is natural human faith, and it requires zero spiritual life. The "faith" Paul is talking about in 2 Thessalonians 3:2 and Jesus is talking about in John 10:26 is specifically saving faith directed toward God.

Let's look at who is actually putting the cart before the horse according to the direct grammar of Scripture:

1. The Causal Sentence Structure of John 10:26

You claim I am flipping the sequence. Let's let Christ's own syntax settle the order:

“But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep...”

Look at the word because (the Greek causal conjunction γάρ - gar). It acts as a strict causal arrow.

• Your Synergistic Order: "You are not my sheep because you do not believe." (Faith determines election).
• Christ's Actual Order: "You do not believe because you are not my sheep." (Election determines faith).

Jesus explicitly states that their lack of faith is the direct consequence of their non-elect status. They don't fail to become sheep because they refuse to believe; they are incapable of believing because they were never chosen as Sheep in the first place.

2. Saving Faith is Not a Native Human Capacity

You say it doesn't have to be complicated. It isn't. The reason "all men have not faith" (2 Thess 3:2) is that saving faith is not a native superpower that sinners can generate from their dead hearts. Scripture explicitly defines saving faith as an infused, sovereign gift:

• Philippians 1:29: “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him...”
• Acts 18:27: “...helped them much which had believed through grace.”

If faith were a natural capacity available to all men, Paul’s statement that "all men have not faith" would be completely meaningless. He isolates faith as a distinct possession belonging only to a specific group.

Conclusion

I am not putting the cart before the horse; I am keeping the Creator before the creature.
Man cannot drive the cart of faith until God provides the horse of regeneration. You are trying to make a spiritually dead corpse perform a supernatural act of saving faith while remaining a wolf. But Jesus completely crushes your timeline: you must be a Sheep by sovereign election and monergistic quickening before you can ever hear His voice and exercise the gift of faith.

---

 

[Ben1445]

Ben1445, you are making a massive category error by confusing natural human faith with supernatural saving faith.

Nobody is claiming that unregenerate men lack the biological capacity to believe in a political party, a chair, or a pagan idol. That is natural human faith, and it requires zero spiritual life. The "faith" Paul is talking about in 2 Thessalonians 3:2 and Jesus is talking about in John 10:26 is specifically saving faith directed toward God.

Let's look at who is actually putting the cart before the horse according to the direct grammar of Scripture:

1. The Causal Sentence Structure of John 10:26

You claim I am flipping the sequence. Let's let Christ's own syntax settle the order:


Look at the word because (the Greek causal conjunction γάρ - gar). It acts as a strict causal arrow.

• Your Synergistic Order: "You are not my sheep because you do not believe." (Faith determines election).
• Christ's Actual Order: "You do not believe because you are not my sheep." (Election determines faith).

Jesus explicitly states that their lack of faith is the direct consequence of their non-elect status. They don't fail to become sheep because they refuse to believe; they are incapable of believing because they were never chosen as Sheep in the first place.

2. Saving Faith is Not a Native Human Capacity

You say it doesn't have to be complicated. It isn't. The reason "all men have not faith" (2 Thess 3:2) is that saving faith is not a native superpower that sinners can generate from their dead hearts. Scripture explicitly defines saving faith as an infused, sovereign gift:

• Philippians 1:29: “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him...”
• Acts 18:27: “...helped them much which had believed through grace.”

If faith were a natural capacity available to all men, Paul’s statement that "all men have not faith" would be completely meaningless. He isolates faith as a distinct possession belonging only to a specific group.

Conclusion

I am not putting the cart before the horse; I am keeping the Creator before the creature.
Man cannot drive the cart of faith until God provides the horse of regeneration. You are trying to make a spiritually dead corpse perform a supernatural act of saving faith while remaining a wolf. But Jesus completely crushes your timeline: you must be a Sheep by sovereign election and monergistic quickening before you can ever hear His voice and exercise the gift of faith.

---

Ah! I see. You have hitched the horse up to the wrong cart. I don’t know any real Christians (and there are plenty of people who are not Christians) who know that in God we live and move and have our being.
But you demean the work of Christ by saying that it is ineffective to salvation. It is not the Holy Spirit who saves us. The Holy Spirit is not the Name given whereby we must be saved.
You cause a stumbling block at the gate of salvation. You are overemphasizing the illustrations.
Scripture says believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. It doesn’t say that you may believe if you have been pre-generated. You forget that God has already created all men and seeks to redeem His creation, the creation He calls made in His Image. By stepping into the role of God, and saying that God doesn’t want some people, you make God out to be a respecter of persons. This is the exact opposite of the way God has revealed Himself.

“Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”

And that is not a general statement. “He” is a very specific person and not a representation of “a select some.” He is “one of any.”

God has not forbidden any that they have the ability to fear Him and work righteousness.

 

[Brightfame52]

But you demean the work of Christ by saying that it is ineffective to salvation. It is not the Holy Spirit who saves us. The Holy Spirit is not the Name given whereby we must be saved.

Yes the Holy Spirit does save them Christ died for in a complimentary role in His Saving work, explain Titus 3:5-6

5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

 

[Brightfame52]

Ah! I see. You have hitched the horse up to the wrong cart. I don’t know any real Christians (and there are plenty of people who are not Christians) who know that in God we live and move and have our being.
But you demean the work of Christ by saying that it is ineffective to salvation. It is not the Holy Spirit who saves us. The Holy Spirit is not the Name given whereby we must be saved.
You cause a stumbling block at the gate of salvation. You are overemphasizing the illustrations.
Scripture says believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. It doesn’t say that you may believe if you have been pre-generated. You forget that God has already created all men and seeks to redeem His creation, the creation He calls made in His Image. By stepping into the role of God, and saying that God doesn’t want some people, you make God out to be a respecter of persons. This is the exact opposite of the way God has revealed Himself.

“Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”

And that is not a general statement. “He” is a very specific person and not a representation of “a select some.” He is “one of any.”

God has not forbidden any that they have the ability to fear Him and work righteousness.

Ben, your response does not merely hit the wrong cart; it completely derails into a dangerous division of the Triune Godhead and a severe misreading of the text. By trying to pit the work of the Son against the work of the Holy Spirit, you are preaching a fragmented gospel that strips God of His absolute glory as the sole Author of salvation.
Let’s look at the theological and exegetical collapse of your argument:

1. Pitting the Son Against the Spirit is Trinitarian Heresy

You state: "It is not the Holy Spirit who saves us. The Holy Spirit is not the Name given whereby we must be saved."
Think carefully about the gravity of what you are saying. The Bible never pits the Person of the Son against the Person of the Spirit. Salvation is an inseparable, sovereign work of the Triune God.

• The Legal Phase: The Son perfectly purchased His people on the cross in 33 AD, paying their debt in full.
• The Vital Phase: The Holy Spirit effectively applies that blood-bought redemption to the elect corpse by sovereignly quickening them into life.

To say the Holy Spirit does not save us directly flatly contradicts Scripture. Paul explicitly declares that God saves us by the Holy Spirit:

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;”
—Titus 3:5

Without the Vital Phase—the sovereign quickening of the Holy Spirit—the finished work of Christ would remain completely unapplied to a single dead sinner. The Spirit doesn't replace Christ; the Spirit applies Christ!

2. The Absolute Myth of a "Resperter of Persons" in Election

You claim that by holding to a sovereign election where God chooses a specific people, I am making God out to be a "respecter of persons."
You are completely misinterpreting what that phrase means in the Bible. As the great high-Calvinist commentator John Gill masterfully noted on Romans 2:11, "respect of persons" is a forensic term relating strictly to courts of law: [1]

• A judge is a "respecter of persons" if he lets a guilty wealthy man off the hook because of his bribe, or condemns a poor man out of prejudice. It means showing partiality based on outward plumbing, social class, or race. [1, 2]
• However, a sovereign King is never a respecter of persons for bestowing free grace, favors, or alms on whomever He pleases. If a king chooses to forgive a debt for one man, but demands justice from another who refuses to pay, he is not a respecter of persons; he is simply being merciful to one and strictly just to the other. [1, 2]

If God chose the elect based on their future faith, their good choices, or their ancestry, then He would be a respecter of persons, because He would be preferring them for something found in their flesh! But High Calvinism maintains that God's election is based entirely on His own sovereign good pleasure, completely independent of anything in the creature (Ephesians 1:4-5). God doesn't choose you because you are better, smarter, or more willing; He chooses because He wills to choose.

3. Squeezing the True Meaning of Acts 10:34–35

You weaponize Peter's words to Cornelius: “God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him... is accepted with him.” You claim this means anyone has the native ability to fear Him.

You have completely ripped this text out of its historical context. What was the massive shift happening in Acts 10? The gospel was finally going to the Gentiles. For thousands of years, the Jews thought God only loved people with Abrahamic blood. Peter’s sudden realization in Cornelius’s house was not an endorsement of free-will ability; it was the realization that God does not respect ethnic boundaries! As John Gill writes on this verse, God doesn't value a man more because he is a Jew, nor value him less because he is a Gentile. [1, 2]


Furthermore, you are putting the cart before the horse again. You think Cornelius feared God in his natural, unregenerate strength. But a dead, hostile, unregenerate man has no fear of God before his eyes (Romans 3:18).

If Cornelius genuinely feared God and worked righteousness, it is because the Holy Spirit had already performed the Vital Phase of quickening in his heart, causing him to seek after God. His fear of God was the evidence of his election, not the cause of it.

The Bottom Line

You claim that I am causing a "stumbling block at the gate of salvation" by saying a man cannot believe until he is quickened. But you are trying to make a decomposing corpse step through a gate before it has legs or breath.

Scripture's order is absolute. Man cannot practically perform a supernatural work until he is vitallly made a new creation. You want a salvation where Christ provided a potential bridge, but man's self-generated faith supplies the final, decisive difference.

I reject that carnal timeline. Salvation is of the Lord from first to last. The Father purposed it (Eternal Phase), the Son purchased it (Legal Phase), and the Holy Spirit infallibly applies it (Vital Phase), producing the faith and obedience of His chosen people (Practical Phase). Halleluiah!

 

[Ben1445]

Trinitarian Heresy

Now you are looking for matches to burn me at the stake.

You state: "It is not the Holy Spirit who saves us. The Holy Spirit is not the Name given whereby we must be saved."
Think carefully about the gravity of what you are saying. The Bible never pits the Person of the Son against the Person of the Spirit. Salvation is an inseparable, sovereign work of the Triune God.

John 16:13-14
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

 

[Ben1445]

As the great high-Calvinist commentator John Gill…

Ah! The the disciple of Gill identifies himself, glorifies Gill, and follows Gill right into his errors.
Why am I not surprised?

 

[Ben1445]

You weaponize Peter's words to Cornelius

You wince where the Word of God hurts your ideology most.
Thank you for your compliments. I do intend to use the Sword of the Spirit as a Sword.
I don’t know if I will convince the gainsayers like yourself that Jesus has extended grace to mankind as a whole and individually all may partake of that which has been offered to the whole and the unfaithfulness of men does not negate the power of God to provide salvation. But God is just and will render to each individual according to their own work. If their work is found to be wrought in God, it will be rewarded the same way.

John 3:21
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

If their work is found to fall short, they will be imputed sinners rather than righteous.

Your preaching of limited extension of the grace of God is foolishness.

Exodus 20:6
And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Deuteronomy 5:10
And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

Deuteronomy 7:9
Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

Nehemiah 1:5
And said, I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments:

Daniel 9:4
And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;

John 14:15
If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Ephesians 2:4
But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

Micah 6:8
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?

But I gather from your posts that you glory in exclusion rather than love mercy. For shame!

 

[Ben1445]

You claim that I am causing a "stumbling block at the gate of salvation" by saying a man cannot believe until he is quickened. But you are trying to make a decomposing corpse step through a gate before it has legs or breath.

You are confused. There are none that have life without salvation. Salvation is being born again. Salvation is life restored. You cannot have life without salvation. All outside salvation are lost and dead in sin. You have a foolish religious construct built on pharisaical philosophy.

Scripture's order is absolute.

And you represent it backwards.

Acts 16:31
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

Romans 10:9
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

John 20:31
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

1 Timothy 1:16
Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

Absolutely! Believe first and life afterwards. You are certainly right that Scripture does point out the order in absolute terms.

Man cannot practically perform a supernatural work until he is vitallly made a new creation.

Man is not doing anything supernatural. You must have missed Ephesians 2:8-9 101. Maybe even the bonehead class.

You want a salvation where Christ provided a potential bridge, but man's self-generated faith supplies the final, decisive difference.

Not mere potential but an actual bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge, the Mackinac Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge- these are not potentially bridges. They are real bridges that anyone may use if they avail themselves. Go ahead and, tell some New Yorker that the Brooklyn bridge is only a potential bridge and watch them laugh in your face.
You don’t seem to understand the work of Christ. Are you sure that you are the elect? How could you be sure? How can you know whether or not you have been hardened into the wrong way and intentionally blinded to the way of salvation?

I reject that carnal timeline. Salvation is of the Lord from first to last. The Father purposed it (Eternal Phase), the Son purchased it (Legal Phase), and the Holy Spirit infallibly applies it (Vital Phase), producing the faith and obedience of His chosen people (Practical Phase). Halleluiah!

Thanks for the cliche. It sounds cute but it denies the efficacy of the work of Christ.

 

[Brightfame52]

You are confused. There are none that have life without salvation. Salvation is being born again. Salvation is life restored. You cannot have life without salvation. All outside salvation are lost and dead in sin. You have a foolish religious construct built on pharisaical philosophy.


And you represent it backwards.

Acts 16:31
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

Romans 10:9
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

John 20:31
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

1 Timothy 1:16
Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

Absolutely! Believe first and life afterwards. You are certainly right that Scripture does point out the order in absolute terms.

Man is not doing anything supernatural. You must have missed Ephesians 2:8-9 101. Maybe even the bonehead class.


Not mere potential but an actual bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge, the Mackinac Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge- these are not potentially bridges. They are real bridges that anyone may use if they avail themselves. Go ahead and, tell some New Yorker that the Brooklyn bridge is only a potential bridge and watch them laugh in your face.
You don’t seem to understand the work of Christ. Are you sure that you are the elect? How could you be sure? How can you know whether or not you have been hardened into the wrong way and intentionally blinded to the way of salvation?


Thanks for the cliche. It sounds cute but it denies the efficacy of the work of Christ.

Ben1445,

You are confusing the infusion of spiritual life (Phase III: Vital) with the manifestation of salvation to the human conscience (Phase IV: Practical). By quoting text after text that commands men to believe, you think you’ve proven that faith is the cause of life. In reality, you are trying to make a decomposing corpse step through a gate before it has lungs or breath.


Let’s dismantle your synergistic timeline and your broken bridge analogy piece by piece.

1. Reversing Your Proof Texts (John 20:31 & Acts 16:31)

You cite John 20:31 ("that believing ye might have life through his name") to argue that believing comes first and life comes afterwards. This is a classic category mistake made by those who don't understand that faith is an evidence of life, not the engine that creates it.

The great High-Calvinist theologian John Gill thoroughly exposes your misinterpretation in his exposition of John 20:31. Gill proves that faith does not give life, but rather receives and experiences the life that Christ has already monergistically infused:

"Not that faith gives life, for Christ gives that; but faith receives Christ, and life from him; and they that believe have life, spiritual life, a right to it, and the beginnings of it, and shall have eternal life."

When Scripture says "Believe and thou shalt be saved," it is speaking of salvation being manifested and enjoyed in the practical phase. A dead man cannot process the spiritual testimony that "Jesus is the Christ" (1 Cor 2:14). The optical faculty must be re-created by the Holy Spirit before the eye can see and process the light of the gospel.

2. Slaying Your Brooklyn Bridge Analogy

Your bridge analogy completely backfires on you. You claim that Christ built a "real bridge" like the Brooklyn Bridge that "anyone may use if they avail themselves."

Think about the mechanics of your own analogy: A bridge across a massive chasm is an incredible feat of engineering. But if you line up a row of decomposing corpses at the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge, how many of them are going to "avail themselves" and walk across it? Zero. They lack the biological capacity to take a single step.

By your logic, Christ did nothing more than build a structure and sit on the other side, helplessly hoping dead men would find the self-generated strength to walk across. That doesn't make the cross an actual bridge for the sinner; it makes it a mere potentiality.

We preach a Christ who didn't just build a bridge—He is a Savior who goes down into the canyon of death, picks up His dead elect, vitally breathes life into them (Phase III), and carries them across. Salvation is a sovereign rescue mission from first to last.

3. The Irony of Your Attack on My Assurance

You ask me: "Are you sure that you are the elect? How could you be sure?"

This is the ultimate irony of the synergistic position. Under your timeline, assurance is a theological impossibility. If salvation hinges on man's self-generated faith and his ongoing choice to "avail himself" of the bridge, then your salvation is only as secure as your volatile human will. If you have a bad day and stop choosing to submit tomorrow, your bridge collapses and you drop into hell.

To a High Calvinist, my assurance does not rest on my independent ability to walk. It rests on the unchangeable decree of the Father (Phase I) and the legal satisfaction of the Son at Calvary in 33 AD (Phase II). I know I am the elect because the Holy Spirit has vitally quickened me in time, giving me the spiritual capacity to look at Christ and rest in Him. My faith is the infallible fruit of my eternal security, not the fragile mechanism maintaining it.

You claim my framework denies the efficacy of Christ's work. The exact opposite is true. Your view cheapens it by leaving the final, decisive choice up to the willpower of a corpse. Christ does not share His glory with human decisions. He is the absolute and finished Author and Finisher of our faith. Halleluiah!

 

[Ben1445]

In reality, you are trying to make a decomposing corpse step through a gate before it has lungs or breath.

I don’t know where you live, but unsaved people where I live have lungs and breathe. Maybe if you get out of the cemetery, you will find some people who are more receptive to the gospel we are commanded to preach.

 

[Ben1445]

The great High-Calvinist theologian John Gill

You have the same problem as the Jack Hyles crowd. It’s a good thing Gill didn’t wear horn rimmed glasses. No wait. It looks like he did!!