Cured

Strangely, enough, the NT presents a "missions minded" church. It is not built on a Christ that is about to be a Savior. He is the Savior, and he is the Lord. And salvation is for those who call on his name. There is no salvation apart from that.

As I said above, theology has to start with the Bible, not with philosophy. You are deficient in that area, and it shows in your theological assertions.

 

Feel free to put them 'back in context' and show folks that they don't mean what they are plainly saying.

 

Thank you, Gordon. You can consider yourself speaking for me regarding that post as well.

 

OK, I'll bite. What is it in the call, then? What is it that only the elect react? Mybe you're not as Calvinist as I thought.

skypair

 

Rippon

Are you not carnal, my Calvinist friend? "For while one saith, 'I am of Paul; 'I am of Apollos;' and 'I am of Calvin;' are ye not carnal?" 1Cor 3:6

What's your foundation, mr. "philosophical rumination?" Calvin or Christ? "But let evey man take heed how he buildeth thereon." 1Cor 3:10

Like I told Christian Youth, you speak "Calvin-speak" -- a tongue that the rest of us believers do not understand. Almost none of the terms common to Christianity have the same meaning Calvinists. You must be, as I also told Christian Youth, a "professional theologian" with your own theories about how Christianity works but requiring special terminology to make it all work.

Just keep looking down your nose at us and "professing yourself to be wise, becoming a fool" instead. You have "changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man," rippon! Your foolish heart has become darkened -- your sin will find you out sooner rather than later.

skypair

 

Oh, but that will be an exercise in futility, Helen, because you already know exactly who Peter was addressing in his letter.

 

That particular section of the letter is talking about all people and not just the people he was writing to. He was reassuring them regarding the end times and why it would seem so far off -- because God is not willing that any should perish. The verse does not say "any of you" or "any of the chosen" or "any of His" or "any of the elect." It says, simply, "anyone."

Of course all the letters are written to believers and churches! Does that mean that what they talk about in terms of the world is confined only to those people?

As for me, I have never thought it an exercise in futility to put verses into deep context. I have done so frequently in my years here on BB. I encourage you to do the same so that you can substantiate your accusation to me that I took verses out of context and so distorted their meanings.

Thank you.

 

I am not sure how that is not evident. The fact that Christ’s death is sufficient for all sins for all time is not the same as saying that Christ paid for all sins for all time. For the most part, the verses you picked addressed the first issue, not the second one. Detailed explanations could be given, but I don’t feel it judicious to take the time.

So far as I know, no one has yet to point out a verse that I ignore. It’s not about being slick in the least. There are direct conflicts between what Helen says and Scripture. When Scripture declares unbelief to be a sin, that means it is. (And if Jesus paid for all sin, then unbelief is also paid for.) When Scripture declares that man goes to hell for sin, that means he does. No system or precommitment of belief gets to change that. We must adjust our theology around Scripture.

 

There's nothing "in the call." It is the call that brings faith and life. God unilaterally enables men through the call so that they respond. Only the elect react because only they receive the effectual calling.

And I am probably way more Calvinist than you think. I think sometimes you are confused about what Calvinism is.

 

It's paid for, Larry. There is no insult left standing before God through eternity which justice has not taken care of. Christ was the one sacrifice for all, and all means all.

That is very different, however, from whether or not all sins are forgiven, which they most certainly are not.

 

So if unbelief is a sin, and all sin was paid for, then how does God remain just while sending people to hell for sins that were paid for?

I don't think your distinction between atonement and forgiveness is one that the Bible recognizes as you offer it here.

 

Go back to John 3:16-19, which I quoted earlier, and note that they go to hell because of unbelief. They don't WANT Christ, they REFUSE Him. That sin is atoned for, but their will is still allowed by God. "Seek and ye shall find" cuts both ways. They sought the lie and that is what they will get, and its consequences, simply because they want it. It has nothing to do with atonement.

If atonement and forgiveness are not different, then why are we told in 1 John to confess our sins when we sin so that He can forgive us? Forgiveness was not obtained at the Cross, although the possibility for it was. Atonement, eternal justice, was accomplished there. Jesus tasted death for EVERY man. So no one HAS to go to Hell. Many, however, will choose that direction even though the other way is open to them if they want it. It is the heart's desire which makes all the difference. Downhill is easy. Uphill requires Christ.

 

And where does that desire come from?

 

Yes, I agree. And go to Rev 21:8 and Rev 20:11-15 and Rom 6:23 that tells us they go to hell for other sins as well.

Calvinism agrees.

The sin is not atoned for. Atonement is a payment, not a possibility.

Forgiveness is possible because of the atonement to be sure. But it is also ensured where there is atonement. You might view is atonement taking place at a particular point with Jesus, and forgiveness taking place at confession because of atonement. But all sins that are atoned for will be forgiven. That is what atonement means.So you still have people going to hell for sins that Jesus paid for, which is an affront to the atonement of Christ and the justice of God.

 

Andy, God has given us the gift to choose as we will. That is because we are created in His image.

Why do we will as we do? I don't know. Why do some people want the truth and others want a lie? Sometimes I think it might have something to do with how secure they were as kids, but then a lot of very insecure young people end up turning to Christ...

The Calvinist can, and often does, back up to this position and say that God determined who would will what, but this flies in the face of the message of the entire Bible -- choose this day whom you will serve! If that free choice were not possible for all men -- a free choice EITHER way -- then the Bible is nonsensical and God a sadist. There is no way I subscribe to either of those points.

Romans 1 says all are presented with enough truth in creation itself to know God is real and to know some of His characteristics. What people do with that truth sets them on the road they will travel. People often seem to prefer the lie to feel superior, protected, or whatever. Selfishness, greed, fear....I suppose they all play into it. Why want the truth? I ask myself why I wanted the truth? I remember not wanting my child to grow up as confused as I had been in a non-Christian household. I remember being sick of the lies I had told growing up and which were all around me even when I stopped lying. I remember loving and respecting my father who demanded the truth (and who, when he died, was a Christian, by the way).

Why do we react to the world around us in the way each of us does? All of psychology and psychiatry and sociology and much theology tries to deal with that. None of them succeed. For the simple truth is that God allowed each of us something really bizarre called free will. Really and truly free. And that makes each of us finally accountable for what we do with it.

 

from Pastor Larry: And go to Rev 21:8 and Rev 20:11-15 and Rom 6:23 that tells us they go to hell for other sins as well.

Let's look at those verses in context, Larry.

Rev. 21:8 -- He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murders, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolatoers and all liars -- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

Who is it who drinks from the water of life? Him who overcomes; the one who is thirsty.

Who is it who goes into the fiery lake? The others, the unbelievers, and these are the things they are involved in. They would not be involved in them if they were believers.

Romans 1:28 and on explains who these people are: "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to RETAIN the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity...."

That is why they do the things listed in your Revelation verse. Because they chose to suppress what they knew was true and chose the lie. Romans 1 is extraordinarily clear about this. Their lifestyles were the result of what they had chosen, and those lifestyles were filled with sin. But it was not because of those actual sins they were in hell, but because of the choice that led to them -- refusing God.

The judgment verses of Revelation 20:11-15 indicate that all of us will be judged according to what we have done. Believers too? Yes, and Paul makes this clear a number of times, one time being in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15: "If any man builds on this foundation [Christ] using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames."

However, works aside, your Revelation passage makes it very clear that if a person's name is NOT in the Book of Life, the person is condemned, regardless of works. And John 3:16-19, again, makes it extremely clear that condemnation is determined because of belief.

Your last verse is Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

No one is arguing that. However, in Hebrews, again, we read: "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone."

So the actual debt of death, the wages if you will, have been paid for, as Hebrews says "everyone." That means that sin cannot send you to hell. Unbelief does. This being said, the mark of the unbeliever, especially as he or she gets older, becomes more and more a lifestyle of sin, which is what is addressed by your verses in Revelation.

Again, pay attention to the full of what Jesus was telling the Jews in John 8:23-24: "But he continued, 'You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be [literally, in the Greek, 'that ego eimi' -- I am I AM], you will indeed die in your sins.'"

Thus, dying in one's sins is the result of a matter of belief in Christ.

 

Helen, I may be a little naive on this point, but I have never heard a Calvinist deny free will. It think it is understood in a different way than a non-Calvinist might. Certainly, no one from my predestinarian faith would deny free will.

But look at the nature that is doing the willing! It seems from scripture that our will can only take us farther from God. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." I Corinthians 2:14

That is why God changes our hearts, to enable us want the things of God, which by nature we would never choose. I am not sure I agree with everything in this passage (pretty sure I don't in fact), but it illustrates the point well.