A Challenge to prove...

Proverbs 16:4 ....
Romans 8:29....
Acts 4:28.....
Romans 9:11....
Ephesians 1:4,5.....
Deut. 7:6-8....
Psalm 4:3.....
2 Tim. 2:10.....

i can keep going but thats enough at this point... who are the "elect"??? are they chosen by God and absent of the free will to accept his salvation or reject Him??? these verses...all or most are your arguement im sure for Calvanism....God is in control but his elect are those who freely believe in Him....who were convicted by the Holy Spirit to choose Spiritual Life over Spiritual Death...NOT some predeterminded select segment of humanity...all of humanity is called to be saved...to repent and turn to Christ from their sins....

 

Okay, doug44, it's put up or shut up time. Let's Get Ready To Rumble!

Prove that Calvinism is bad theology - Scripturally, book, chapter, and verse - no prooftexting, no picking out a verse here and there, put everything in context from Genesis to Revelation. Show us your systmatic theological thinking that proves your point. Forget the perjoratives. Forget the quotes of others. Use the Bible alone and in its entirety.

</font>[/QUOTE]While I do not fit the description of your requested poster, on the behalf of an anti-Calvinist may I make a suggestion?

Either you want Book, chapter, verse or you don't. Do you want specifics or not? No one has the time or energy to reproduce any doctrine in Biblical entirety. I strongly feel you are placing yourself on a pedalstool you do not belong on, as you yourself would have to pick out certain passages, albeit in canonized chronological order, or not quote any. This is not an attainable goal and I feel you and everyone else knows that.

--Moi

Oh, and "Forget the quotes of others," from an all too blissful Spurgeonite?

 

2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering towards us, NOT WILLING that any should perish but that ALL should come to repentance"

 

Good verse. I love that verse. It's one of my favorites. Let's look at it.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness;

Who is being given a promise?

but is longsuffering to us-ward,

Longsuffering toward us. Who is "us"?

not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Any of whom? Remember the preceeding was talking about and to "us".

(something to kick around)

Stevie

 

We have already answered this doug. Read it where we have answered and accept it. Do not continue to beat it up.

Why are these two groups separate? What is your biblical basis for separating them?

 

Greetings again Pastor Larry,

i wasn't separating who the elect are...its one in the same group....those who have come to salvation..who Christ foreknew would accept His saving grace....as i said...not predetermined to salvation but foreknew who would accept the gift of salvation. its been an interesting discussion....

 

Brother Glen Here we go again getting the cart before the horse!... Brother Glen of the Primitive Baptist brethren!

 

YOu have separated them. You say it is this group, not that group. I am saying this group is that group. Scripture says that God chose us for salvation (your second group) through santification of the Spirit and belief in the truth (your first group). Why do you separate what Scripture joins?

 

i have to say Pastor Larry that it appears you are the one who has created this idea of 2 separate groups who the elect are. There is only one "elect" people of God....one "group". All of humanity could be saved..thanks to Christs death and resurrection....God knows who will choose Him and who will reject Him...the saved...the regenerated in Christ...one group..one elect.

 

clarification....Pastor Larry...better stated by me would be to have said that you interpreted what i wrote as a reference to there being 2 separate groups of elect. didnt mean to put words in your mouth if thats how it came across.
the point is...i only believe in one elect called of God to salvation. its a bummer when things get lost in the translation.

 

question??? the elect are those who Christ foreknew, who would be saved by freely accepting His call to be saved? or are the elect who Christ foreknew would be saved because of what was already predetermined? thats why pastor Larry sees a reference (that isnt there) to 2 groups of the elect. as far as i understand...only a calvinist would think it was predetermined who would be saved.

 

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us... Doug44 show me one place in here where it says you have any part in accepting that call?... Its all a work of God and like Pastor Larry said he sets the ways and the means. You will always answer in the affirmative because it is Gods call and Gods work in reference to eternal Salvation.

Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

Now if God writes his laws in your heart and mind how can you resist it? He that writes it will remember your sins no more... Brother Glen

 

Now if God writes his laws in your heart and mind how can you resist it? He that writes it will remember your sins no more... Brother Glen
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it would grieve me deeply if i thought God programmed me for salvation...i leave robots to science..the more ive learned about Calvinism the more of an error in theology i see it to be. saved by grace i pray we share in common.

 

It shouldn't!!! However, programmed is not exactly what happens. If someone showed you that you were in danger of death then provided a means of escape, they wouldn't be programming you, just making use of what was already there- your survival instinct. Likewise, every person has an instinctive need for God which can rightly be called "programmed." When God gives us the faith to recognize and accept His gift of grace, he is simply providing the means to satisfy a desperate need. While we are not programmed, we are nevertheless compelled to believe in the same way a drowning man grasp for a rope.

The scriptures make it very clear that man, left to his own devices, will not choose God or His plan. If God the Holy Spirit had not convicted you then "when you were yet without strength" you would not have sought Him.

That is a shame. As I read these threads, I think the distinction between Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism is often blurred. Calvinism is biblical. In my opinion, Hyper-Calvinism has less biblical merit than Arminianism. It assigns responsibility for sin to God and completely discounts the will of man.

I believe the basic rub between Calvinism and Arminianism is not whether man has a free will or not but instead what he will do with it unless God intervenes.

Likewise... recognizing that it is only by God's grace that we heard and accepted.

 

Scott J....i appreciate the way you respond in this discussion...with a sweet and sincere heart and spirit...

 

Scott J that doesn't sound like Calvinism to me!... What part of TULIP don't you understand?... There is a great chasm between our will and Gods will. The way I understand Calvinism that God gives us the will and according to Total Depravity the will given is irresistible because the man is dead... Body, soul, and spirit! He gives us the will and the to do! Now where does mans will fit in... in reference to Eternal Salvation?... Brother Glen

 

mans will in the plan of salvation??? its been stated countless times already....free will of man to choose or reject Christ....giving us the ability to think for ourselves to choose right or wrong...it takes nothing away from the Sovreignty of God...He..through His Sons sacrifice..His work...made it possible for us to be saved...He calls us to salvation....God leaves it up to us to decide what to choose...Eternal Life or Death....

 

Doug 44 said:

After you have been born again not before. You had no choice in your natural birth and you have no choice in your spiritual birth! Read John Chapter 3... Brother Glen

 

you read it wrong Glen...God does let us choose our eternal destiny...heaven or hell...