Featured Does God Always Get His Way With Man?

The God of the Bible does not beg His creatures for anything. The God of the Bible is not like the Greek gods of mythology or the "superheroes" of modern day movies, who are basically just really powerful humans but not sovereign. Yet, so many people who call themselves "Christians" proclaim a god much like the Greek gods of mythology or the "superheroes" of modern day movies.

The God of the Bible is not like His creatures:

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." Psalms 50:21

 

John Owen wrote that the greatest offence that a man could do to God was to refuse the offer of the gospel. So it appears to me that in such a case God's will is not being done. Of course Owen was a high Calvinist and had a high view of God's sovereignty in man's salvation. But it seemed he used his theology as guard rails for orthodoxy rather than a box which affects every plain scripture passage one reads. Jonathan Edwards seemed to do the same thing. So God's primary will is not being done when we sin or refuse to do God's will and it is our fault, not God's.

 

1) Some theologians define God's sovereignty as God causes or allows whatsoever comes to pass.
2) If God's will is to allow all people to be saved according to His redemption plan, then God's will has not been thwarted.
3) God's redemption plan says God requires for the lost to believe in Jesus, the person God has sent as our Christ.

Now the verb believe, in John 6:29 is grammatically in the subjunctive mood, indicating something that may or may not occur.​

 

My statement is God causes or allows, not just allows, because He does intervene.
Yes, we agree, Christ died as a ransom for all, becoming the means of reconciliation for the whole of humanity, 1 John 2:2.
So in summary, God allows the lost to seek God and put their faith in Christ, but God alone causes the lost, if He credits their faith as righteousness, to be transferred into His kingdom.

 

My dear Sibling in Christ, you have just exhibited a hallmark of Christians, the integrity to admit error.

I am not a Calvinist or an Arminian, both believing the lost need to be enabled to seek God and trust in Christ, but I believe the lost, fallen and depraved, can seek God and put their trust in Christ. And Paul did not teach no lost person is ever able to seek God. Only that all the lost have turned aside and fallen short of the glory of God, which is not in dispute. Thus no person seeks God when sinning! And we all have sinned.

I have no interest in finding fault with your stated beliefs, but I am committed to presenting the truth of scripture, according to my understanding which is different from Calvinism and Arminianism.

 

...whew. then there's hope for you yet...

 

Proverbs 21:30. 'There is no wisdom or understanding or counsel against the LORD.'

 

A.W. Pink on Total Depravity:

"....Put the question in another form: Is man now in such a condition that he cannot be saved without the special and direct intervention of the triune God on his behalf? In other words, is there any hope for him apart from his personal election by the Father, his particular redemption by the Son, and the supernatural operations of the Spirit within him? Or, putting it in still another way: If man is a totally depraved being, can he possibly take the first step in the matter of his return to God?...:

 

No man is left alone by God and though all men who are justified by God are justified on the basis of Christ's merits and his redemptive work, it is not by believing in his name and work that justification always takes place. How do I know this? It is because of the 4 thousand years of human history that chronicles multitudes being justified by their faith before Jesus appeared on the earth. If sinners are justified by God, the Judge of all the earth, on the basis of faith, then their faith cannot be in Jesus Christ, but it must be by what God said to them. It , then, must be faith in the word of God that cause men to act in a certain way that pleased God. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn.

This brings the idea of the conscience into the conversation. All men have a consciousness of good and evil. There was 2500 years of human history during which men lived and died before there was a single written word of God and then only to one nation. God has dealt in the past with men through their conscience.

Rom 2:12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another
16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

The Bible is logical and reasonable.and sensible if we will believe what is said.

Romans 3:24
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

That was then

This is now

Romans 5:9
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Nature, that which was mentioned in Ro 2:14 is given as the means of God speaking to the gentiles in the absence of the wruitten law of God.

Ps 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

Ro 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Here are OT people being described from the creation until the resurrection and these people are not totally depraved as the phrase is defined by Calvinists.

24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

It is important in the scriptures to note the then and now verses.

30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

There has never been a time in history that sinners were not responsible to believe what God had revealed to them, but only what God revealed to them. That has changed over the years but when we get to the cross all sinners must believe the gospel of Jesus Christ because all those who believe are baptized into the church, the body of Christ and become a collective one with him.

Calvinism and Calvinist scholars are a tragedy and defining depravity as not being able to know and obey God is a lie.

 

'Whosoever calls', God has already wrought within, quickened. Dead people don't call or come or seek, etc, nor do they hunger or thirst [Matthew 5:6]

 

Well I really didn't intend to join this thread but I was struggling through some Hebrew in Isaiah 26:12 and came across a passage that reminded me of it.


Lord, You will establish a peace for us,
Since You have also performed for us all our works. (NASB 2020)

O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us. (NRSV)

O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
for you have indeed done for us all our works. (ESV)

Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us:
For thou also hast wrought all our works || in us. (AV 1873)

|| or for us​

O ETERNAL ONE!
*May You appoint well-being for us,
Since You have also requited all our misdeeds. (RJPSgs)

*26:12 Meaning of verse uncertain.
​

Have fun!

Rob

 

The "inability" is of a moral nature and therefore more of a description of us in our natural state - as we desire to be according to our own free will. Calvinist preachers, whether Puritan era, or Spurgeon era, or modern Reformed Baptists believe that we should be able hear God's word and respond to the gospel. If you take the time to wade through Owen's writings you find him explaining this in that he said the problem is our wonderful "free will". You then say "how could we be prone to evil, rather than just morally neutral, unless God did something to us in the Fall"? Edwards would say that just like the absence of the sun results in darkness without the sun itself actually causing darkness, God withdrawing his grace from men results in depravity without God actually causing our sinful condition.

The question of course is whether this grace is actual regeneration or if it is primarily awakening and enlightening and thus enabling us to come to faith. And the other thing is whether this has not been made available in some degree to all men or if it is applied to select men in an absolutely effective manner.

I hope everyone can see from the responses on here, that even in Calvinism there is a range of understanding, with some saying that God has nothing to say to the non-elect and that there is no "offer" of the gospel. They bristle at the idea of faith being a "condition" of salvation even as described by Owen or Edwards (who taught that faith is indeed a condition of salvation). What make it even more difficult is that Owen and Edwards did not believe that faith is a condition in the way that many non-Calvinists describe it. They did not believe that God was saying in effect "This is my final proposal and I will see what you are going to do with it because I have done my part and now you do yours".

What happens in all these discussions is that we are using the same words with different meanings. That's one problem. Another is that honestly, we as humans don't really know how to explain how we come to believe in something or what exactly our free will is and what control do we have over it. And lastly, we have no way of knowing how God see's the future and so questions like can God see future events and does everything that happens become "necessary" is total speculation on our part, and on all sides.

So JD, when you make a statement like above you need to realize that taken to it's logically endpoint there is no reason to be born again. You simply need to decide for God and follow him. That has been repeatedly considered error since before Calvinism was invented as a system.

 

Cheap emotionalism. Probably singing 'Just As I Am' and 'Softly And Tenderly Jesus Is Calling' over and over and over. I grew up in a hyper evangelical, hyper dispensational SB church; witnessed it a thousand times.

Peter's audience was DEVOUT Jews, and it wasn't Peter that was speaking.