God's grace towards His own is not resisted though!
-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Calvinist Confusion
- Thread starter steaver
- Start date
- Status
One is not "His own" until he is "in Christ".
No Steaver not quite like that.
How about...
1].All men are sinners since the fall and under the wrath of God.
2] God in mercy has given a multitude of guilty sinners to the Son.
3] At a point in time scripture declares each and everyone of this multitude will come to Jesus being drawn by the unseen work of the Spirit.
4] Have you come to Jesus yet? If not what besides your love of sin hinders you?
That is just for starters...
No one is choosing to go where they have already been condemned to go from birth through Adam's sin.
God. (according to Calvinism)
God hinders nobody from coming to Him. You are confusing Calvin with his evil younger brother Hypercalvin. I have given this example so many times here that I'm sick of it but here goes!
John 6:37. "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me......' There is your Calvinism, your particular redemption. God has given a people to Christ to redeem and He will save every one of them. See also verse 39.
'........And the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.' The door of heaven is wide open; whoever wills may come, and Christ will not cast him out. See also verse 40.
The sinner's warrant to come to Christ is not that he believes that he is one of the elect, but that he is a sinner, and Christ saves sinners. If a sinner will come to Christ in repentance and faith, He will not cast him out. However, the fact is that unless God draws them, people will not come to Christ (e.g. John 3:19), not because God is preventing them in some way, but because they have wicked unbelieving hearts.
Dave G
Well-Known Member
Videos don't do the situation much justice, if you ask me.
I have a suggestion:
Why not read the book of Acts, and list out the things that Peter and Paul preached, and the way they preached them?
Each time they were in front of an audience, take careful note of what they said, how they said it, and who was being spoken to...
Perhaps a firm understanding of what their messages actually contained, may help to clear up the difference between how the Gospel is preached today, and how it differs from what Peter and Paul preached to those who they were sent to.
I can tell you this...
In the entire book of Acts:
Neither Peter nor Paul told the masses that God loved them.
Neither Peter nor Paul ever told the masses that Jesus Christ died for them.
Neither Peter nor Paul ever told anyone to "dedicate", "surrender", "accept" or otherwise "make a decision" for Christ, in any way.
I see a marked difference between the two styles of preaching...the traditional way, and the biblical way.
Last edited:
Wait.....are you seriously claiming that Christians did not resist God's grace?
I've even heard (somewhere....probably just rumor) that the Apostle Paul resisted God to the point someone even spoke of him as kicking against the goads.
I know C.S. Lewis resisted God's grace and even tried to reject Christianity. Martin Luther did not convert right off either.
I think you mean God prevails.
Dave G
Well-Known Member
There are Scriptures which declare that God blinds men ( Mark 4:11-12, John 12:37-41, Romans 11:7-8 ), Satan blinds men ( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 ) and men blind themselves ( Matthew 13:10-17 ).
There are Scriptures that declare that false teachers were made to be taken and destroyed ( 2 Peter 2:12 ), appointed to stumble at the word ( 2 Peter 2:8 ) and that God has made vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy ( Romans 9:22-24 ). Some fitted to destruction, and some prepared to glory.
If anyone comes to the Lord in belief, it's because they were called through the Spirit by His word.
If anyone doesn't, it's based on a short list of things.
God does not reveal Himself to anyone but His children ( Matthew 11:27, Luke 10:22, John 14:21 ).
I agree.
No one chooses to go to Hell.
Everyone deserves to go to Hell.
Most people disagree on how to get out of going to Hell.
God's word tells us that it is by His grace through faith...not by faith, and that it is of grace..otherwise, grace is no more grace ( Romans 11:5-6 ).
A person gets put "in Christ" from before the foundation of the world...that is what is written ( Ephesians 1:4-5 ).
God has chosen believers "in Christ" before the foundation of the world.
That's how a person gets "in Christ".
With respect, they don't do something to get there, God did something to put them there.
Belief of the Gospel is evidence of God putting that person "in Christ"... not a prerequisite.
That's why believers have nothing to boast in, except His mercy and grace.
Last edited:
Dave G
Well-Known Member
The Devil's children resist God's Spirit all the time.
God's children do not resist His Spirit when He calls them to Himself.
Paul resisted before he was born of the Spirit, and stopped resisting after...
Last edited:
The problem is we are talking about God's grace of drawing men. I never bought into the idea that men can be both regenerated and lost (born again and then drawn to God). I guess I always found the logical order a bit illogical.The Devil's children resist God's Spirit all the time.
God's children do not resist His Spirit when He calls them to Himself.
Paul resisted before he was born of the Spirit, and stopped resisting after...
Dave G
Well-Known Member
They go there to pay for their works ( Revelation 20:12-13 ).
Sins and rejecting God.
Since Jesus did not atone for the sins of the lost, then God does not see the blood "on their doorposts", and Death does not pass over them.
The first Passover is a picture of what God does for His children, when He sees the blood of His Son.
Believers are washed, spiritually, in His blood and made clean in God's sight.
Last edited:
Dave G
Well-Known Member
OK.
Neither have I.
The way I understand Scripture describing it, He "draws" ( John 6:44 ), then regenerates with His word ( Ephesians 5:26, Titus 3:5-6 ), then seals with the Spirit ( Ephesians 1:12-13 ).
But he only does it for them that are saved, not them that perish ( 1 Corinthians 1:18 ).
Those that are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
I'm a highly logical person, in the flesh.
But one thing that the Lord has shown me, is to take the words as they are, and wait for Him to change the logic.
Last edited:
I'm not sure I'm following. All who are saved were at one time perishing.OK.
Neither have I.
The way I understand Scripture describing it, He "draws" ( John 6:44 ), then regenerates with His word ( Ephesians 5:26, Titus 3:5-6 ), then seals with the Spirit ( Ephesians 1:12-13 ).
But he only does it for them that are saved, not them that perish ( 1 Corinthians 1:18 ).
Those that are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
I'm a highly logical person, in the flesh.
But one thing the Lord has shown me, is to take the words as they are, and let Him change the logic.
Dave G
Well-Known Member
You may wish to look at that again, and study it out thoroughly.
I can tell you this from my own reading ( and it took quite awhile to sink in ):
Believers were at one point the children of wrath by nature, but not actually the children of wrath ( Ephesians 2:3 ).
At no point was their salvation ever in jeopardy ( Ephesians 2:4-10, 2 Peter 3:8-10 ).
We love him, because He first loved US ( 1 John 4:19 ).
Look at 1 Corinthians 1:18 closely...two groups are represented.
"Them that are perishing", and "us that are saved".
Look at 1 John 3:10...
"The children of God and the children of the Devil".
Last edited:
I have looked it at....several times. We disagree on that point. I believe "children of wrath by nature" is actually children of wrath.You may wish to look at that again.
I can tell you this:
Believers were at one point the children of wrath by nature, but not actually the children of wrath ( Ephesians 2:3 ).
At no point was their salvation ever in jeopardy ( Ephesians 2:4-10, 2 Peter 3:8-10 ).
We love him, because He first loved US ( 1 John 4:19 ).
Dave G
Well-Known Member
OK.
Then we'll have to agree to disagree, which is fine.
I see the key words, "by nature", which I understand to mean, "before I was born again, I was, by nature, a child of wrath."
The children of God were no different, in their sin natures, than the children of the Devil before the work of the Holy Spirit made them born again.
That's how I see it now...but I didn't always see it that way.
May God bless you.
Last edited:
What do you mean? Do tell.
- Status