Featured Biblical Assertion

And also after the elect have been regenerated by God and granted the gifts of faith and repentance. We are never free from the effects of the fall of Adam while in these corrupt human bodies, see Romans 7:13-25.

 

God chose His elect before the world began(Ephesians 1:4). Faith is the result of regeneration, not the cause. To claim that one's faith is the cause of regeneration is a doctrine born out of human pride and self-righteousness.

 

AGREE!

 

The key there is "necessity of nature". Our tendency to sin is not a necessity of nature like our need to breath or eat food. But it is a real tendency based on what we want to do and choose to do that is 100% proven true for every man who ever lived except Jesus. Each time we sin we could indeed have chosen not to - except we didn't want to.

But the question is where do you want to take this. If you take it far enough you could reduce the gospel to telling people to stop sinning and start obeying God's laws. But we know that that doesn't seem to work. (Not to mention the problem of paying for what was already done).

 

life or death, not "salvation"

 

It is not that it doesn't "seem" to work. It doesn't work. Period. Never has. Never could. Never will. "if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law" - Galatians 3:21

 

That's true but it is perfectly legit to suggest things that are observed in the human condition. Quoting scripture is fine, and it is the main basis of argument. But Van is quoting scripture too. Jonathan Edwards said he believed that the total depravity of man was something we can observe in ourselves and others. So I thought it would be useful to appeal to reason. But it probably won't be.

 

I'm sorry, sir, I cannot seem to find this ( or even its closest summary ) anywhere in the Scriptures.
What I do find is very condemning, and contrary to the above statement...especially the bolded part.

I think if you look closer, you'll find that this is spoken to the nation of Israel by Moses, not to all men indiscriminately;
In other words, God set before them, under the Law, the choice of life or death.
They were given, under the terms of the covenant of law, the choice to obey God, or not.

They were also informed of the consequences of their obedience and disobedience to it.

Romans 1:18-32, Romans 3:10-18, Psalms 10, Psalms 14 and John 3:19-20, for example, tell me that mankind couldn't care less about God or His commandments.
According to God's word, we love sin and hate Him, as a race.

In fact, He tells His own chosen physical nation of Israel:

" Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? [then] may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." ( Jeremiah 13"23 ).

Amen.

 

It is in fact a quotation from the 1689 Baptist Confession (9:1). The Scripture proofs attached are Matthew 17:12; James 1:14; Deuteronomy 30:19. I think you need to read the rest of Chapter 9 to understand better what the writers of the 1689 Confession (and the WCF, I think) mean.

 

I am totally worthless. There is not a shred of anything in me or done by me that God can credit as righteousness - not my faith, not my thoughts, not my actions, NOTHING! ALL of my righteousness is in CHRIST and IN HIM ALONE.

Van, if you want to stand before God and point to your worthless faith, go ahead. I will point to the righteousness of Christ alone and His faithfulness.

 

I did no such thing as all. Van, you are just bound and determined to take credit for your salvation - that it your faith that your will brought forth that made the difference between being a lost sinner and a saved sinner.

But what saith the Scriptures?

For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. - Romans 9:15-16