Choice Or Grace?

True, but man can choose to reject it.

 

I think pride runs deep on both sides of the fence if my decision to repent and turn to God by way of the cross could be considered pride.The fact that any could say God has saved me and rejected my neighbour who never had any hope seems quite pridefull to me.
Adam and Eve who by free choice,chose to disobey God condemning us ALL to a Devils Hell.If the grace of God is taken to the extreme cited by some above,why are we told all through the NT to go and evangelize the world ? Why would God need my help for anything ? what does God ask of you ?
You may notice that I have chosen not to use bible verses to fight my case,a long time ago I found that eternity would not be long enough to argue the matter !!!!!!!!
I'm glad jesus will someday tell us face to face the proper translation of His Word.
If free choice is correct then the evangelist is more likely to hear well done at the judgement seat of Christ I expect.
Have a good day ER

 

No, each would be a bald faced lie if no choice is given.

Only the elect should repent, nobody else matters.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you, you aren't elect. You CAN'T repent, so I am not talking to you. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you, you are elect and you will repent no matter what I say or do and no matter what you say or do, so...never mind.

So, just wait until God does this for you, you have no option in the matter.

Whosoever doesn't mean whosoever, it really means only a few of you.

Again, I don't mean you because YOU are going to perish anyway, I am just talking to the elect. Belief no longer is the deciding factor but merely ONE of the aspects of salvation.

So does John 3:16 and the dozens of times "whosoever" is used in the NT.

If Bill Gates offers me a billion dollars and I accept it, who gets the credit for my being a billionair?

Where is my pride in admitting that I am as low as the lowest scum of the earth. The only pride I see is in thinking that God's offer to "whosoever will" isn't really to "whosoever will" and that THAT makes sense.

 

Only the elect should repent, nobody else matters.</font>[/QUOTE]Non sequitur. By your reasoning, even free will has this problem. Only those who God foreknows will repent of their own free will should repent. The rest don't matter, since God already knows they won't repent. Therefore it is no longer true that all people are sinners and should repent. Obviously both this and your statement are non sequiturs and are false.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you, you aren't elect. You CAN'T repent, so I am not talking to you. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you, you are elect and you will repent no matter what I say or do and no matter what you say or do, so...never mind.</font>[/QUOTE]That's a way of putting it in an attempt to make God seem unfair, but that's actually very close to what Jesus says.

Matthew 13:10 And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?"
11 He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13 Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

John 6:63 "...The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. 65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."

Regardless, it is obvious that it is true that if you don't repent, you won't be saved. That holds true for election or free will, and therefore there is no reason why one should not preach it.

So, just wait until God does this for you, you have no option in the matter.</font>[/QUOTE]Again, you don't seem to be able to deny that it is true, so you try to make it seem like it is somehow offensive if we are not involved in God's decision. Yet God says exactly that:

Romans 9:16 It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

Romans 11:32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Whosoever doesn't mean whosoever, it really means only a few of you.</font>[/QUOTE]It means whosoever believes. Did you know that whosoever has fair skin will burn easier in the sun? Do they therefore have fair skin of their own free will? Did you know that whosoever is color blind believes green is red? Do they believe that of their own free will? If not, then "whosoever believes" means simply that -- whosoever believes.

Again, I don't mean you because YOU are going to perish anyway, I am just talking to the elect. Belief no longer is the deciding factor but merely ONE of the aspects of salvation.</font>[/QUOTE]Again, tugging at emotions, but do you deny the fact that if you don't beleive, you are going to perish? Whether or not election is true, does that not also remain true? What do you hope to accomplish by avoiding these simple and obvious facts and address them instead with emotional pleas?

If Bill Gates offers me a billion dollars and I accept it, who gets the credit for my being a billionair? </font>[/QUOTE]Analogies are a trap because you end up arguing over the analogy instead of the point, but I'll risk taking the bait in this case. If Bill Gates offers a billion dollars to another person and he rejects it, to what do you ascribe the difference? What is it about you that you would accept the money and he would reject it? To whom do you credit that difference?

 

"To what do you ascribe the difference"? Different uses of free will.

"What is it about you that you would accept the money and he would reject it"? One person uses free will one way, one in another.

"To whom do you credit that difference?" That depends. God created men with free will. One person may use that free will to respond in the affirmatitive, another in the negative. But you ask the wrong question. You assume that any response to any offer somehow implies "pride" or "superiority" on the part of the recepient or some deterministic cause other than use of free will.

You see it as God's offer (1,000,000,000,000 etc)plus man's response (1 or 0) would somehow make it 1,000,000,000,001 as if we can ADD to God's gift and have something about which to boast. The correct way of looking at it is 1,000,000,000,000 x 1 = 1,000,000,000,000 or 1,000,000,000,000 x 0 = 0. In other words, if we say "yes" GOD gets all the credit; if we say "no" WE are to blame for not receiving His gift.

 

True, but man can choose to reject it. </font>[/QUOTE]Doubting....

But your testimony and my testimony and indeed the testimonies of all Christians is that we did not reject it and in fact could not reject it the moment we accepted it.

Something pushed us over the edge.

What was it?

I suspect it was the Holy Spirit in full Convicting Power which tipped the scales - Not something within us called "free will".

 

The Bill Gates Analogy breaks down when you interject choice into it.

If Salvation is like Bill Gates bestowing a Billion Dollars on me then this is the way it happened.

One day my Checking Account Balance Read - $999,999,999.99

He used the other $1,000,000.00 to pay my MasterCard, My Visa, My Discover, My Home Mortgage, My Auto Loans, My Farm Loan, My College Loans, My Taxes and all my Annual Living Expenses.

All my statements unexpectedly came in the mail - marked "Paid in Full, Thank you for paying so promptly."

I can't imagine anyone saying no to that kind of Blessing - Can you? Would you refuse it? I wouldn't.

How much greater the Salvation of the LORD!!!

 

I also can't imagine an angel in heaven, in the very presence of God, choosing to rebel--can you? The fact is Satan and 1/3 of the other angels DID rebel despite being created upright and living in God's Holy presence. Why? They were created with free will? But why would they that? Did God CAUSE them to? Certainly not, for then God would be the author of sin. Why then? Because for some reason unknown to us they CHOSE to rebel.

So why would two different people, under the very conviction of the Holy Spirit, respond in very different ways to God's grace? It's not something inherent in the individual that "pushed him over the edge" to receive salvation while the other lacked that very (hypothetical) thing which allegedly made the difference. It's the voluntary use of free will that causes somebody to reject God despite being convicted of the truth of the Gospel by the Holy Spirit. Why would one do that? I don't know, but I also don't know how angels in the very presence of God could rebel against Him. It's a mystery, and I'm content to leave it at that.

 

In the first place are you saying that God's Spirit deals with each unbeliever with the same intensity and with the same amount of conviction?

If so then where do you get scriptural support for that view?

In the second place you're right it's not something inherent within the individual that prompts him to respond to Salvation - It is from without and it's identity is the Holy Spirit.

In the Third Place you seem to be saying that "free will" is equally potent within each individual and has the "inherent ability" apart from any personal prejudices, inclinations, and preferences to make an unbiased and free choice.

Seeing as how Angels do not experience Salvation as we do I would say that the subject of Angels rebelling in Heaven remains a mystery.

 

No bait, I guess it is the school teacher in me. I always try to reduce things to the essentials. If God gets all of the credit for my accepting His offer then I get NONE of the blame for rejecting it. God brings us to the point where we can make a free choice (we can't get there on our own). We can accept and be rewarded or reject and be punished but, the choice is ours. If we have no choice then this whole thing is a sham. I can see some of your points as reasonable (at least not far fetched) but the concept of no free will equals fatalism and renders everything meaningless.

 

Question... How can Man (particularly the first Man) who is finite... temporal... mortal and fleshly... Reject a COMMAND from GOD... Who is infinite eternal and omnipotent and SOVEREIGN?

... Do you have within you the ability or choice to reject GRACE after you are saved?...If not, why do you sin after you've been regenerated? If God's grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts (Titus 2:11), and we can't by choice reject God's grace, how can a believer engage in these sins? Since it is God who works in us to will and do His good pleasure, why aren't we sinless if we can't reject His gracious action in our lives? How can you who are saved..BOUGHT WITH THE BLOOD FROM THE LAMB OF GOD... WRITTEN IN THE LAMB'S BOOK OF LIFE BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD... WRITTEN BY JESUS THE CHRIST'S OWN BLOOD!... CAN YOU EVER DEFY GOD'S GRACE SIN AFTER YOU ARE SAVED???

 

Of Course we can. And we can because after we are saved we have a free will, something we did not have before we were saved. Before salvation man has a will that is inclined and enslaved to sin. He is not free. But thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, he frees us from sin's grip and makes us free indeed.

 

Wait a minute--it's only by grace that we can do anything good whether before or after we're "saved". So, what, we pat ourselves on the back when we do the right thing after salvation, but not before? I thought Bro'Glenn said we couldn't reject grace (and grace is grace whether its before "getting saved" or after)?

You mean that the unsaved must sin ALL the time? They can't ever do anything good or heroic? They can't choose NOT to steal, murder, rape, fornicate, and lie? They are compelled to constantly do those things? Every unsaved person? They can NEVER tell the truth or love their children or be generous? That's funny, since Jesus said that even "evil" men can give good gifts to their children (Luke 11:13). Apparently there are many unsaved people out there who CHOOSE not to abuse their children. And Paul says in Romans 2:14 that even unsaved Gentiles can "BY NATURE do the things in the law" at times. How can that be, if by being "slaves to sin" one means we have no free will and have no choice but to do evil constantly?

 

Doubting,

You're not reading your Bible very carefully. All our righteousness (choices to do good), the Bible says, is as filthy rags.

Of course man is not always as depraved as he can be before salvation. But whether he kisses his wife goodnight every night or comes home drunk and beats her he is doing nothing that pleases God in an eternal salvific sense.

And yes, after a person is saved, we are commanded by scripture to obey our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and be obedient to him. That requires commitment (action) on our part.

I cannot please God by my actions before I am saved, but I sure can please and displease him after I am saved. All of the New Testament is filled with admonitions for Christians to live Godly lives, filled with the Spirit, Obedient unto Christ.

 

Doubting,

Are you a Southern Baptist? It seems to me that West Rome Baptist is a Southern Baptist Church if I remember correctly.

 

I'm well aware of that. That's Isaiah 64:6. Compared to the Infinite Holiness of God any good that man may do is quantitatively and qualitatively worthless in achieving salvation.

But that's not the point. The point is that man, though unsaved, can CHOOSE to do good rather than bad in a given situation. Otherwise he WOULD be as depraved as he could be. (And besides that, if he couldn't choose to do otherwise he wouldn't be responsible in a moral sense for his action, if by nature he was compelled to do evil--and only evil--constantly) I'm not denying that unsaved man has the tendency to sin. I'm saying that despite this, he does at times choose to do good, even if not in "an eternal salvific sense".

Right.

But it's still by God's grace that we can please him afterwards, as it is God's grace which teaches us to deny ungodliness and wordly lusts. We're in a sense rejecting God's grace when we choose to disobey him and engage in ungodliness and worldly lusts after being "saved". Likewise, those who receive God's salvation must give all the glory to God, since, unless God had drawn him to Himself and had convicted him, he would be unable to receive it. On the flip side, those who reject God's grace only have themselves to blame as they freely chosen to "despise the riches of His goodness, forebearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads [them] to repentence." (Rom. 2:4)

PS: WRBC is an SBC. You are correct.

 

I do not remember ever saying that man does not make a choice for salvation.

But he will not chose God until God makes it possible, instead he will continue to reject God because he cannot will it otherwise.

 

I agree with that.

 

Assuming it's an "offer" then what you say seems perfectly logical. If God takes all the credit for accepting your offer, then God should take all the credit for you rejecting it.

But this logic works against the argument for free will if you take it to its natural conclusion. If you must assign blame to the person who rejects the offer, then you must assign credit to the person who accepted it. Now grace is no longer grace, but grace plus what man did to deserve salvation (that's what credit is -- what you deserve). Therefore by your own logic, a free will choice contradicts the Bible in many, many places, because it asserts that we are saved by grace plus works.

Election, on the other hand, starts with the assertion that we do not and cannot deserve to be with God. Therefore when God elects someone for salvation, it is entirely of God, and all the credit goes to God. When someone is not elected, his condition simply has not changed. He never deserved to be with God in the first place. God didn't take away his salvation. He never had it. So there is no issue of who takes credit -- he just continues to deserve what he always deserved, as the Bible says (emphasis mine):

He isn't shifted from some other status (neutral, saved) to condemned because he chose not to believe. He was condemned already, because he started out in that condition.