Are we beating a dead horse?

[El_Guero]

Brother Bob,

May I indicate agreement with: We preach God's Christ and His repentance. and everyone that goes to hell will have their blood on their hands and not on ours?

We are doing something about it. We preach repentance to all and if they miss Heaven it will be at their own hands and not God's fault.

 

[npetreley]

How can one boast "look what I have done" in accepting a free gift?

Because according to your soteriology, there are people who choose not to accept it, too. The people who accept it make the better decision. The people who do not accept it make the worse decision. The people who make the better decision have reason to boast because they chose better than the others. Now - why did the people who chose better do so? Were they wiser? Smarter? More open to the Holy Spirit? Love truth more? What was it about them that made the difference?

If God does the choosing, however, man has absolutely nothing about which to boast. One person is not wiser, smarter, more open to the Holy Spirit, [fill in the blank here], than another person. They were chosen. That's what the Bible says.

 

[psalms109:31]

boasting

Us boasting in that is like you boasting that God choose you over the other folk's

 

[webdog]

Because according to your soteriology, there are people who choose not to accept it, too. The people who accept it make the better decision. The people who do not accept it make the worse decision. The people who make the better decision have reason to boast because they chose better than the others. Now - why did the people who chose better do so? Were they wiser? Smarter? More open to the Holy Spirit? Love truth more? What was it about them that made the difference?

If God does the choosing, however, man has absolutely nothing about which to boast. One person is not wiser, smarter, more open to the Holy Spirit, [fill in the blank here], than another person. They were chosen. That's what the Bible says.

There is no "better decision" there is only "A" decision: accept or reject. Based on where our faith is (God or ourselves) we both believe we are making the "better" decision. Neither of us have a reason to boast. During a test, half the room can choose one answer, the other half another. Neither half has reason to boast, because we don't know the results of the test. Same here on earth. We won't know the "results" until we are dead, and at that point we STILL won't have a reason to boast, as salvation is from God.

 

[webdog]

Us boasting in that is like you boasting that God choose you over the other folk's

...or that they know the "truth", that being calvinism, and we don't. Plenty of that boastful type attitude here on the BB.

 

[skypair]

Because according to your soteriology, there are people who choose not to accept it, too. The people who accept it make the better decision.

That's what Calvinist dogma says anyway. Does it make sense to you?? Do you see free will Christians boasting about what they have done to save themselves?? Or are they giving the glory to Christ for dying on their account?? Isn't it true that them wishing you would receive Christ is what is so obnoxious to you?

Let me tell you a story from Reformers and their Stepchildren[/b]. "In the day" -- Calvin's day -- Calvinists and Lutherans hated "rebaptizers." Rebaptizers cast aside infant baptism as a means into the kingdom which the Reformers taught. The "stepchildren" knew that baptism merely represented the fact that a born again person was buried with Christ and raised by the baptism of the Holy Spirit unto life. They believed that baptism was only done AFTER repentance and a profession of faith in Christ.

Know what? That wasn't in the Calvinist "playbook." Infant baptism was good enough. Then just teach 'em as they grow and if they're not "elect," they will stray proving, not that baptism was not effecacious, but that they had not been regenerated thereby! And the truly "elect" would prove it by works (whether they had repented and received Christ or not)!

Do you find it somewhat the same today? That you dislike those who say "pray the sinner's prayer?" That you see no purpose in "rebaptism?" That you believe in infant baptism/regeneration?

 

[skypair]

...

Couldn't edit my previous post for some reason but consider this: rebaptism went right to the heart of both Catholic and Reform error -- that infant baptism saved and that the duty of the church threreafter was to sanctify the "believer."

We see that today, don't we? Reform and Catholic dislike free will born agains. In their minds, choosing/receiving Christ is SO unnecessary. They are already in the kingdom (they think).

skypair

 

[Rippon]

Roman Catholics , by and large have no problem with the notion of free will -- in the Creed of the Council of Trent they anathamatize those who deny it . Most of mainline Christianity is at one with Rome in this regard .

Roman Catholics burned those who denied free will in the 16th century .

 

[skypair]

Roman Catholics , by and large have no problem with the notion of free will -- in the Creed of the Council of Trent they anathamatize those who deny it . Most of mainline Christianity is at one with Rome in this regard .

Roman Catholics burned those who denied free will in the 16th century .

You've got a point there, rippon. They didn't like the "reboatizers" is what I shoulda said. Thanks.

skypair