Free will

[BD17]

Owen’s arguments ring a series of changes on this dilemma. Finally, in the fourth book, Owen shows with great cogency that the three classes of texts alleged to prove that Christ died for persons who will not be saved (those saying that He died for “the world,” for “all,” and those thought to envisage the perishing of those for whom He died), cannot on sound principles of exegesis be held to teach any such thing; and, further, that the theological inferences by which universal redemption is supposed to be established are really quite fallacious. The true evangelical evaluation of the claim that Christ died for every man, even those who perish, comes through at point after point in Owen’s book. So far from magnifying the love and grace of God, this claim dishonours both it and Him, for it reduces God’s love to an impotent wish and turns the whole economy of “saving” grace, so-called (“saving” is really a misnomer on this view), into a monumental divine failure. Also, so far from magnifying the merit and worth of Christ’s death, it cheapens it, for it makes Christ die in vain. Lastly, so far from affording faith additional encouragement, it destroys the Scriptural ground of assurance altogether, for it denies that the knowledge that Christ died for me (or did or does anything else for me) is a sufficient ground for inferring my eternal salvation; my salvation, on this view, depends not on what Christ did for me, but on what I subsequently do for myself. Thus this view takes from God’s love and Christ’s redemption the glory that Scripture gives them, and introduces the anti-scriptural principle of self-salvation at the point where the Bible explicitly says: “not of works, lest any man should boast.” You cannot have it both ways: an atonement of universal extent is a depreciated atonement. It has lost its saving power; it leaves us to save ourselves. The doctrine of the general ransom must accordingly be rejected, as Owen rejects it, as a grievous mistake. By contrast, however, the doctrine which Owen sets out, as he himself shows, is both biblical and God-honouring. It exalts Christ, for it teaches Christians to glory in His Cross alone, and to draw their hope and assurance only from the death and intercession of their Saviour. It is, in other words, genuinely Evangelical. It is, indeed, the gospel of God and the catholic faith.

It is safe to say that no comparable exposition of the work of redemption as planned and executed by the Triune Jehovah has ever been done since Owen published his. None has been needed. Discussing this work, Andrew Thomson notes how Owen “makes you feel when he has reached the end of his subject, that he has also exhausted it.” That is demonstrably the case here. His interpretation of the texts is sure; his power of theological construction is superb; nothing that needs discussing is omitted, and (so far as the writer can discover) no arguments for or against his position have been used since his day which he has not himself noted and dealt with. One searches his book in vain for the leaps and flights of logic by which Reformed theologians are supposed to establish their positions; all that one finds is solid, painstaking exegesis and a careful following through of biblical ways of thinking. Owen’s work is a constructive, broad-based biblical analysis of the heart of the gospel, and must be taken seriously as such. It may not be written off as a piece of special pleading for a traditional shibboleth, for nobody has a right to dismiss the doctrine of the limitedness of atonement as a monstrosity of Calvinistic logic until he has refuted Owen’s proof that it is part of the uniform biblical presentation of redemption, clearly taught in plain text after plain text. And nobody has done that yet.

“You talked about recovering the gospel,” said our questioner; “don’t you mean that you just want us all to become Calvinists?”

 

[BD17]

This question presumably concerns, not the word, but the thing. Whether we call ourselves Calvinists hardly matters; what matters is that we should understand the gospel biblically. But that, we think, does in fact mean understanding it as historic Calvinism does. The alternative is to misunderstand and distort it. We said earlier that modern Evangelicalism, by and large, has ceased to preach the gospel in the old way, and we frankly admit that the new gospel, insofar as it deviates from the old, seems to us a distortion of the biblical message. And we can now see what has gone wrong. Our theological currency has been debased. Our minds have been conditioned to think of the Cross as a redemption which does less than redeem, and of Christ as a Saviour who does less than save, and of God’s love as a weak affection which cannot keep anyone from hell without help, and of faith as the human help which God needs for this purpose. As a result, we are no longer free either to believe the biblical gospel or to preach it. We cannot believe it, because our thoughts are caught in the toils of synergism. We are haunted by the Arminian idea that if faith and unbelief are to be responsible acts, they must be independent acts; hence we are not free to believe that we are saved entirely by divine grace through a faith which is itself God’s gift and flows to us from Calvary. Instead, we involve ourselves in a bewildering kind of double-think about salvation, telling ourselves one moment that it all depends on God and next moment that it all depends on us. The resultant mental muddle deprives God of much of the glory that we should give Him as author and finisher of salvation, and ourselves of much of the comfort we might draw from knowing that God is for us.

And when we come to preach the gospel, our false preconceptions make us say just the opposite of what we intend. We want (rightly) to proclaim Christ as Saviour; yet we end up saying that Christ, having made salvation possible, has left us to become our own saviours. It comes about in this way. We want to magnify the saving grace of God and the saving power of Christ. So we declare that God’s redeeming love extends to every man, and that Christ has died to save every man, and we proclaim that the glory of divine mercy is to be measured by these facts. And then, in order to avoid universalism, we have to depreciate all that we were previously extolling, and to explain that, after all, nothing that God and Christ have done can save us unless we add something to it; the decisive factor which actually saves us is our own believing. What we say comes to this—that Christ saves us with our help; and what that means, when one thinks it out, is this—that we save ourselves with Christ’s help. This is a hollow anticlimax. But if we start by affirming that God has a saving love for all, and Christ died a saving death for all, and yet balk at becoming universalists, there is nothing else that we can say. And let us be clear on what we have done when we have put the matter in this fashion. We have not exalted grace and the Cross; we have cheapened them. We have limited the atonement far more drastically than Calvinism does, for whereas Calvinism asserts that Christ’s death, as such, saves all whom it was meant to save, we have denied that Christ’s death, as such, is sufficient to save any of them. We have flattered impenitent sinners by assuring them that it is in their power to repent and believe, though God cannot make them do it. Perhaps we have also trivialised faith and repentance in order to make this assurance plausible (“it’s very simple—just open your heart to the Lord...”). Certainly, we have effectively denied God’s sovereignty, and undermined the basic conviction of religion—that man is always in God’s hands. In truth, we have lost a great deal. And it is, perhaps, no wonder that our preaching begets so little reverence and humility, and that our professed converts are so self-confident and so deficient in self-knowledge, and in the good works which Scripture regards as the fruit of true repentance.

It is from degenerate faith and preaching of this kind that Owen’s book could set us free. If we listen to him, he will teach us both how to believe the Scripture gospel and how to preach it. For the first: he will lead us to bow down before a sovereign Saviour Who really saves, and to praise Him for a redeeming death which made it certain that all for whom He died will come to glory. It cannot be over-emphasised that we have not seen the full meaning of the Cross till we have seen it as the divines of Dort display it—as the centre of the gospel, flanked on the one hand by total inability and unconditional election, and on the other by irresistible grace and final preservation. For the full meaning of the Cross only appears when the atonement is defined in terms of these four truths. Christ died to save a certain company of helpless sinners upon whom God had set His free saving love. Christ’s death ensured the calling and keeping—the present and final salvation—of all whose sins He bore. That is what Calvary meant, and means. The Cross saved; the Cross saves. This is the heart of true Evangelical faith; as Cowper sang—



“Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed church of God
Be saved to sin no more.”


This is the triumphant conviction which underlay the old gospel, as it does the whole New Testament. And this is what Owen will teach us unequivocally to believe.

 

[BD17]

Then, secondly, Owen could set us free, if we would hear him, to preach the biblical gospel. This assertion may sound paradoxical, for it is often imagined that those who will not preach that Christ died to save every man are left with no gospel at all. On the contrary, however, what they are left with is just the gospel of the New Testament. What does it mean to preach “the gospel of the grace of God”? Owen only touches on this briefly and incidentally, but his comments are full of light. Preaching the gospel, he tells us, is not a matter of telling the congregation that God has set His love on each of them and Christ has died to save each of them, for these assertions, biblically understood, would imply that they will all infallibly be saved, and this cannot be known to be true. The knowledge of being the object of God’s eternal love and Christ’s redeeming death belongs to the individual’s assurance, which in the nature of the case cannot precede faith’s saving exercise; it is to be inferred from the fact that one has believed, not proposed as a reason why one should believe. According to Scripture, preaching the gospel is entirely a matter of proclaiming to men, as truth from God which all are bound to believe and act on, the following four facts:

(1.) that all men are sinners, and cannot do anything to save themselves;

(2.) that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is a perfect Saviour for sinners, even the worst;

(3.) that the Father and the Son have promised that all who know themselves to be sinners and put faith in Christ as Saviour shall be received into favour, and none cast out (which promise is “a certain infallible truth, grounded upon the superabundant sufficiency of the oblation of Christ in itself, for whomsoever [few or more] it be intended”);

(4.) that God has made repentance and faith a duty, requiring of every man who hears the gospel “a serious full recumbency and rolling of the soul upon Christ in the promise of the gospel, as an all-sufficient Saviour, able to deliver and save to the utmost them that come to God by him; ready, able and willing, through the preciousness of his blood and sufficiency of his ransom, to save every soul that shall freely give up themselves unto him for that end.”

The preacher’s task, in other words, is to display Christ: to explain man’s need of Him, His sufficiency to save, and His offer of Himself in the promises as Saviour to all who truly turn to Him; and to show as fully and plainly as he can how these truths apply to the congregation before him. It is not for him to say, nor for his hearers to ask, for whom Christ died in particular. “There is none called on by the gospel once to enquire after the purpose and intention of God concerning the particular object of the death of Christ, every one being fully assured that his death shall be profitable to them that believe in him and obey him.” After saving faith has been exercised, “it lies on a believer to assure his soul, according as he find the fruit of the death of Christ in him and towards him, of the good-will and eternal love of God to him in sending his Son to die for him in particular”; but not before. The task to which the gospel calls him is simply to exercise faith, which he is both warranted and obliged to do by God’s command and promise.

Some comments on this conception of what preaching the gospel means are in order.

First, we should observe that the old gospel of Owen contains no less full and free an offer of salvation than its modern counterpart. It presents ample grounds of faith (the sufficiency of Christ, and the promise of God), and cogent motives to faith (the sinner’s need, and the Creator’s command, which is also the Redeemer’s invitation). The new gospel gains nothing here by asserting universal redemption. The old gospel, certainly, has no room for the cheap sentimentalising which turns God’s free mercy to sinners into a constitutional soft-heartedness on His part which we can take for granted; nor will it countenance the degrading presentation of Christ as the baffled Saviour, balked in what He hoped to do by human unbelief; nor will it indulge in maudlin appeals to the unconverted to let Christ save them out of pity for His disappointment. The pitiable Saviour and the pathetic God of modern pulpits are unknown to the old gospel. The old gospel tells men that they need God, but not that God needs them (a modern falsehood); it does not exhort them to pity Christ, but announces that Christ has pitied them, though pity was the last thing they deserved. It never loses sight of the Divine majesty and sovereign power of the Christ whom it proclaims, but rejects flatly all representations of Him which would obscure His free omnipotence. Does this mean, however, that the preacher of the old gospel is inhibited or confined in offering Christ to men and inviting them to receive Him? Not at all. In actual fact, just because he recognises that Divine mercy is sovereign and free, he is in a position to make far more of the offer of Christ in his preaching than is the expositor of the new gospel; for this offer is itself a far more wonderful thing on his principles than it can ever be in the eyes of those who regard love to all sinners as a necessity of God’s nature, and therefore a matter of course. To think that the holy Creator, who never needed man for His happiness and might justly have banished our fallen race for ever without mercy, should actually have chosen to redeem some of them! and that His own Son was willing to undergo death and descend into hell to save them! and that now from His throne He should speak to ungodly men as He does in the words of the gospel, urging upon them the command to repent and believe in the form of a compassionate invitation to pity themselves and choose life! These thoughts are the focal points round which the preaching of the old gospel revolves. It is all wonderful, just because none of it can be taken for granted. But perhaps the most wonderful thing of all—the holiest spot in all the holy ground of gospel truth—is the free invitation which “the Lord Christ” (as Owen loves to call Him) issues repeatedly to guilty sinners to come to Him and find rest for their souls. It is the glory of these invitations that it is an omnipotent King who gives them, just as it is a chief part of the glory of the enthroned Christ that He condescends still to utter them. And it is the glory of the gospel ministry that the preacher goes to men as Christ’s ambassador, charged to deliver the King’s invitation personally to every sinner present and to summon them all to turn and live. Owen himself enlarges on this in a passage addressed to the unconverted.

“Consider the infinite condescension and love of Christ, in his invitations and calls of you to come unto him for life, deliverance, mercy, grace, peace and eternal salvation. Multitudes of these invitations and calls are recorded in the Scripture, and they are all of them filled up with those blessed encouragements which divine wisdom knows to be suited unto lost, convinced sinners.... In the declaration and preaching of them, Jesus Christ yet stands before sinners, calling, inviting, encouraging them to come unto him.

“This is somewhat of the word which he now speaks unto you: Why will ye die? why will ye perish? why will ye not have compassion on your own souls? Can your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is approaching?... Look unto me, and be saved; come unto me, and I will ease you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest unto your souls. Come, I entreat you; lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; put me off no more; eternity lies at the door...do not so hate me as that you will rather perish than accept of deliverance by me.

“These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead and urge upon the souls of sinners.... He doth it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you.... He hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations which are given you in his name, 2 Cor. v. 19, 20.”

 

[BD17]

These invitations are universal; Christ addresses them to sinners, as such, and every man, as he believes God to be true, is bound to treat them as God’s words to him personally and to accept the universal assurance which accompanies them, that all who come to Christ will be received. Again, these invitations are real; Christ genuinely offers Himself to all who hear the gospel, and is in truth a perfect Saviour to all who trust Him. The question of the extent of the atonement does not arise in evangelistic preaching; the message to be delivered is simply this—that Christ Jesus, the sovereign Lord, who died for sinners, now invites sinners freely to Himself. God commands all to repent and believe; Christ promises life and peace to all who do so. Furthermore, these invitations are marvellously gracious; men despise and reject them, and are never in any case worthy of them, and yet Christ still issues them. He need not, but He does. “Come unto me...and I will give you rest” remains His word to the world, never cancelled, always to be preached. He whose death has ensured the salvation of all His people is to be proclaimed everywhere as a perfect Saviour, and all men invited and urged to believe on Him, whoever they are, whatever they have been. Upon these three insights the evangelism of the old gospel is based.

It is a very ill-informed supposition that evangelistic preaching which proceeds on these principles must be anaemic and half-hearted by comparison with what Arminians can do. Those who study the printed sermons of worthy expositors of the old gospel, such as Bunyan (whose preaching Owen himself much admired), or Whitefield, or Spurgeon, will find that in fact they hold forth the Saviour and summon sinners to Him with a fulness, warmth, intensity and moving force unmatched in Protestant pulpit literature. And it will be found on analysis that the very thing which gave their preaching its unique power to overwhelm their audiences with broken-hearted joy at the riches of God’s grace-and still gives it that power, let it be said, even with hard-boiled modern readers—was their insistence on the fact that grace is free. They knew that the dimensions of Divine love are not half understood till one realises that God need not have chosen to save nor given his Son to die; nor need Christ have taken upon him vicarious damnation to redeem men, nor need He invite sinners indiscriminately to Himself as He does; but that all God’s gracious dealings spring entirely from His own free purpose. Knowing this, they stressed it, and it is this stress that sets their evangelistic preaching in a class by itself. Other Evangelicals, possessed of a more superficial and less adequate theology of grace, have laid the main emphasis in their gospel preaching on the sinner’s need of forgiveness, or peace, or power, and of the way to get them by “deciding for Christ.” It is not to be denied that their preaching has done good (for God will use His truth, even when imperfectly held and mixed with error), although this type of evangelism is always open to the criticism of being too man-centred and pietistic; but it has been left (necessarily) to Calvinists and those who, like the Wesleys, fall into Calvinistic ways of thought as soon as they begin a sermon to the unconverted, to preach the gospel in a way which highlights above everything else the free love, willing condescension, patient long-suffering and infinite kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, without doubt, this is the most Scriptural and edifying way to preach it; for gospel invitations to sinners never honour God and exalt Christ more, nor are more powerful to awaken and confirm faith, than when full weight is laid on the free omnipotence of the mercy from which they flow. It looks, indeed, as if the preachers of the old gospel are the only people whose position allows them to do justice to the revelation of Divine goodness in the free offer of Christ to sinners.

Then, in the second place, the old gospel safeguards values which the new gospel loses. We saw before that the new gospel, by asserting universal redemption and a universal Divine saving purpose, compels itself to cheapen grace and the Cross by denying that the Father and the Son are sovereign in salvation; for it assures us that, after God and Christ have done all that they can, or will, it depends finally on each man’s own choice whether God’s purpose to save him is realised or not. This position has two unhappy results. The first is that it compels us to misunderstand the significance of the gracious invitations of Christ in the gospel of which we have been speaking; for we now have to read them, not as expressions of the tender patience of a mighty sovereign, but as the pathetic pleadings of impotent desire; and so the enthroned Lord is suddenly metamorphosed into a weak, futile figure tapping forlornly at the door of the human heart, which He is powerless to open. This is a shameful dishonour to the Christ of the New Testament. The second implication is equally serious: for this view in effect denies our dependence on God when it comes to vital decisions, takes us out of His hand, tells us that we are, after all, what sin taught us to think we were—masters of our fate, captain of our souls—and so undermines the very foundation of man’s religious relationship with his Maker. It can hardly be wondered at that the converts of the new gospel are so often both irreverent and irreligious, for such is the natural tendency of this teaching. The old gospel, however, speaks very differently and has a very different tendency. On the one hand, in expounding man’s need of Christ, it stresses something which the new gospel effectively ignores—that sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart. On the other hand, in declaring Christ’s power to save, it proclaims Him as the author and chief agent of conversion, coming by His Spirit as the gospel goes forth to renew men’s hearts and draw them to Himself. Accordingly, in applying the message, the old gospel, while stressing that faith is man’s duty, stresses also that faith is not in man’s power, but that God must give what He commands. It announces, not merely that men must come to Christ for salvation, but also that they cannot come unless Christ Himself draws them. Thus it labours to overthrow self-confidence, to convince sinners that their salvation is altogether out of their hands, and to shut them up to a self-despairing dependence on the glorious grace of a sovereign Saviour, not only for their righteousness but for their faith too.

 

[BD17]

It is not likely, therefore, that a preacher of the old gospel will be happy to express the application of it in the form of a demand to “decide for Christ,” as the current phrase is. For, on the one hand, this phrase carries the wrong associations. It suggests voting a person into office—an act in which the candidate plays no part beyond offering himself for election, and everything then being settled by the voter’s independent choice. But we do not vote God’s Son into office as our Saviour, nor does He remain passive while preachers campaign on His behalf, whipping up support for His cause. We ought not to think of evangelism as a kind of electioneering. And then, on the other hand, this phrase obscures the very thing that is essential in repentance and faith—the denying of self in a personal approach to Christ. It is not at all obvious that deciding for Christ is the same as coming to Him and resting on Him and turning from sin and self-effort; it sounds like something much less, and is accordingly calculated to instil defective notions of what the gospel really requires of sinners. It is not a very apt phrase from any point of view.

To the question: what must I do to be saved? the old gospel replies: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. To the further question: what does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? its reply is: it means knowing oneself to be a sinner, and Christ to have died for sinners; abandoning all self-righteousness and self-confidence, and casting oneself wholly upon Him for pardon and peace; and exchanging one’s natural enmity and rebellion against God for a spirit of grateful submission to the will of Christ through the renewing of one’s heart by the Holy Ghost. And to the further question still: how am I to go about believing on Christ and repenting, if I have no natural ability to do these things? it answers: look to Christ, speak to Christ, cry to Christ, just as you are; confess your sin, your impenitence, your unbelief, and cast yourself on His mercy; ask Him to give you a new heart, working in you true repentance and firm faith; ask Him to take away your evil heart of unbelief and to write His law within you, that you may never henceforth stray from Him. Turn to Him and trust Him as best you can, and pray for grace to turn and trust more thoroughly; use the means of grace expectantly, looking to Christ to draw near to you as you seek to draw near to Him; watch, pray, read and hear God’s Word, worship and commune with God’s people, and so continue till you know in yourself beyond doubt that you are indeed a changed being, a penitent believer, and the new heart which you desired has been put within you. The emphasis in this advice is on the need to call upon Christ directly, as the very first step.



“Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him”


—so do not postpone action till you think you are better, but honestly confess your badness and give yourself up here and now to the Christ who alone can make you better; and wait on Him till His light rises in your soul, as Scripture promises that it shall do. Anything less than this direct dealing with Christ is disobedience of the gospel. Such is the exercise of spirit to which the old evangel summons its hearers. “I believe—help thou mine unbelief”: this must become their cry.

And the old gospel is proclaimed in the sure confidence that the Christ of whom it testifies, the Christ who is the real speaker when the Scriptural invitations to trust Him are expounded and applied, is not passively waiting for man’s decision as the word goes forth, but is omnipotently active, working with and through the word to bring His people to faith in Himself. The preaching of the new gospel is often described as the task of “bringing men to Christ” if only men move, while Christ stands still. But the task of preaching the old gospel could more properly be described as bringing Christ to men, for those who preach it know that as they do their work of setting Christ before men’s eyes, the mighty Saviour whom they proclaim is busy doing His work through their words, visiting sinners with salvation, awakening them to faith, drawing them in mercy to Himself.

It is this older gospel which Owen will teach us to preach: the gospel of the sovereign grace of God in Christ as the author and finisher of faith and salvation. It is the only gospel which can be preached on Owen’s principles, but those who have tasted its sweetness will not in any case be found looking for another. In the matter of believing and preaching the gospel, as in other things, Jeremiah’s words still have their application: “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” To find ourselves debarred, as Owen would debar us, from taking up with the fashionable modern substitute gospel may not, after all, be a bad thing, either for us, or for the Church.

More might be said, but to go further would be to exceed the limits of an introductory essay. The foregoing remarks are made simply to show how important it is at the present time that we should attend most carefully to Owen’s analysis of what the Bible says about the saving work of Christ.

III.
It only remains to add a few remarks about this treatise itself. It was Owen’s second major work, and his first masterpiece. (Its predecessor, A Display of Arminianism, published in 1642, when Owen was twenty-six, was a competent piece of prentice-work, rather of the nature of a research thesis.)

The Death of Death is a solid book, made up of detailed exposition and close argument, and requires hard study, as Owen fully realised; a cursory glance will not yield much. (“READER.... If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to go out again—thou has had thy entertainment; farewell!”) Owen felt, however, that he had a right to ask for hard study, for his book was a product of hard work (“a more than seven-years’ serious inquiry...into the mind of God about these things, with a serious perusal of all which I could attain that the wit of man, in former or latter days, hath published in opposition to the truth”), and he was sure in his own mind that a certain finality attached to what he had written. (“Altogether hopeless of success I am not; but fully resolved that I shall not live to see a solid answer given unto it.”) Time has justified his optimism.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

BD17: (J.I.Packer?) ‘One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God Who enables man to save himself.’

HP: I suppose if it was the purpose of this individual to have something to shoot at, the creation of his paper duck argument should serve that purpose.

Why don’t you invite your friend over for some ‘one on one’ friendly discussions of this issue? I would be happy discussing with you, but since you seem only willing to cut and paste your friend’s paper ducks, you eliminate any real discussion between us.

If you are really interested in discussion, try putting your arguments in your own words. The paper ducks of others will never provide the impetus for meaningful discussion between those of us on this list.

 

[BD17]

HP: I suppose if it was the purpose of this individual to have something to shoot at, the creation of his paper duck argument should serve that purpose.

Why don’t you invite your friend over for some ‘one on one’ friendly discussions of this issue? I would be happy discussing with you, but since you seem only willing to cut and paste your friend’s paper ducks, you eliminate any real discussion between us.

If you are really interested in discussion, try putting your arguments in your own words. The paper ducks of others will never provide the impetus for meaningful discussion between those of us on this list.

Packer explains and has Major Cred to his name, you will just ignore any argument I give you anyway. Paper ducks?

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

BD17: Packer explains and has Major Cred to his name, you will just ignore any argument I give you anyway. Paper ducks?

HP: Yes, baseless paper ducks, a figment of his own blinded imagination. Bring him to the list if you can for some one on one discussion.

Those baseless estoppels of argumentation. Credentials!!!

 

[BD17]

HP: Yes, baseless paper ducks, a figment of his own blinded imagination. Bring him to the list if you can for some one on one discussion.

Those baseless estoppels of argumentation. Credentials!!!

Why HP you will only ignore the truth which happen to be things you as a fallen human do not like and then try to tell us "Calvinists" what we really mean when we say we believe the things we do. It is an endless circle that has no real importance, for your beliefs will not be changed nor shall mine. I can show scripture for what we "Calvinists" believe that falls in live with the ENTIRE Bible from begining to end, yet you will ignore or choose to believe in what makes you feel good inside yourself, choose to believe the in a god that suits what you believe he should be and decide what role he is allowed to have in your life, you all will continue to carry on living your life in less than complete surrender to the person you say is your Lord and Savior, yet has no real power over your life, because it would violate your unrealistic views of free will. Your will continue to drive-up to your Burger King Theology window and "Have it your way." You will make your god into a Mr. Potato head god and give him the attributes you like and take away the ones you do not. If you do not like the way he looks just give him a new nose, or lips, or eyes, as long as it suits your tastes, and does not interfere with YOUR wants or DESIRES than he can stay. Yet once those wants and desires get interfered with you find new ways to make scripture say what you want it to.

So you see there really is no reason to play your game of "This is what Calvinists really believe even though I really do not know what it means to be Calvinist."


Packer has been a Theologian for probably longer than you have been alive.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

BD17: Why HP you will only ignore the truth

HP: Why do waste precious time trying to shoot the messenger?? Why do not you produce this truth you say you have. Set forth a real argument instead of cutting and pasting the thoughts of others that are not part of this discussion nor evidently desire to be. Show us clearly the Scriptures or reason why we I or others are in error and you in the right. Put up your club and contend for the truth. I am willing, as has been evident, to address every Scripture or thought you or others put up. Where are these Scriptures in Romans you say that we ignore?

 

[Blammo]

Why HP you will only ignore the truth which happen to be things you as a fallen human do not like and then try to tell us "Calvinists" what we really mean when we say we believe the things we do. It is an endless circle that has no real importance, for your beliefs will not be changed nor shall mine. I can show scripture for what we "Calvinists" believe that falls in live with the ENTIRE Bible from begining to end, yet you will ignore or choose to believe in what makes you feel good inside yourself, choose to believe the in a god that suits what you believe he should be and decide what role he is allowed to have in your life, you all will continue to carry on living your life in less than complete surrender to the person you say is your Lord and Savior, yet has no real power over your life, because it would violate your unrealistic views of free will. You will continue to drive-up to your Burger King Theology window and "Have it your way." You will make your god into a Mr. Potato head god and give him the attributes you like and take away the ones you do not. If you do not like the way he looks just give him a new nose, or lips, or eyes, as long as it suits your tastes, and does not interfere with YOUR wants or DESIRES than he can stay. Yet once those wants and desires get interfered with you find new ways to make scripture say what you want it to.

Based on what you believe, is any of this even possible?

 

[BD17]

HP: Why do waste precious time trying to shoot the messenger?? Why do not you produce this truth you say you have. Set forth a real argument instead of cutting and pasting the thoughts of others that are not part of this discussion nor evidently desire to be. Show us clearly the Scriptures or reason why we I or others are in error and you in the right. Put up your club and contend for the truth. I am willing, as has been evident, to address every Scripture or thought you or others put up. Where are these Scriptures in Romans you say that we ignore?

You have done nothing but use the same arguments EVERYONE else uses to show us Calvinists where we are supposedly wrong. You have provided no proof yourself except that you seem to believe you are the final authority on how scripture is interpreted.

Man is a slave to his sinful nature, he is "free" to continue in that sin, his desire is to do what is in him and that is sin, he will never choose Christ on his own without Christ first calling him. You are to "BLIND" to see your own self-rightousness and deny that you are a sinner incapable, of choosing things that are Holy. If it makes you feel better than that is all that matters.

 

[BD17]

Based on what you believe, is any of this even possible?

Yes a person chooses to do what is in their nature, if their will is sinful then they will choose to do that which is sinful, really it is not a choice if you want to get specific but their is no terminolgy that will allow a better understanding. So, in our minds we choose when in actuality we are just doing what is natural. That is to sin.

 

[Helen]

Then the love of a mother for her child must be terribly sinful, for many who are not born again Christians show deep and compassionate love -- actually not only for their own children, but for others as well.

Being ethical in business must also then be terribly sinful, especially since many who claim to be Christians do such a poor job in this area while others who are not Christians hold themselves to extremely high standards.

Taking care of the environment is obviously sinful! So many sinners are concerned with this.

What a mixed up world it must be for the Calvinist!

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Blammo: Based on what you believe, is any of this even possible?

HP: I take it you are asking this to BD17. What is amazing to me is that through all the theological rhetoric that BD17 and others of like feather put up, they not only act in direct opposition to it every minute, but they EXPECT others to be as well. They deny in theology what they practice every day.

We were not created as the mere inanimate replication of a rock, but as human beings, with minds, a free will, and emotions.

God is love. Love is not the mere expression of arbitrary acts of a cosmic tyrant, nor is it the predetermined munitions of a wound up tin soldier. God has created man as the cause of his intents, and for those moral intents man will be judged. Is God to judge the intents of some as evil if in fact they had no possible way to be anything other than what they were created to be by God Himself????

The argumentation of BD17 and others even with ‘major credentials’ of like feather, land one in the trap of determinism and fatalism, and of necessity makes God the source of all evil and that without exception. I reject such so-called credentialed enlightenment as unscriptural and illogical.

 

[BD17]

Then the love of a mother for her child must be terribly sinful, for many who are not born again Christians show deep and compassionate love -- actually not only for their own children, but for others as well.

Being ethical in business must also then be terribly sinful, especially since many who claim to be Christians do such a poor job in this area while others who are not Christians hold themselves to extremely high standards.

Taking care of the environment is obviously sinful! So many sinners are concerned with this.

What a mixed up world it must be for the Calvinist!

Not mixed up at all because all those things not done with a love for the Lord are sinful. Does not matter if they are good in our eyes, everything we do that is done without a love for the Lord is rags in His eyes, and sinful.

Thank you Helen you gave me the perfect example of someone who falls into the catagory of I am not that bad I do good things therefore the Lord must see me as a good person. I know many atheists that are loving parents do their part for the environment etc, etc. the hard truth, they are going to hell.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Helen: Being ethical in business must also then be terribly sinful, especially since many who claim to be Christians do such a poor job in this area while others who are not Christians hold themselves to extremely high standards.

HP: It has been some time since I read stories concerning heathen philosophers, and the life some of them lived. As I recall, it was amazing how they seemed to find the power to overcome the flesh and its demands, all without the seeming help or aid of the Holy Spirit. Possibly someone on this list might be far more familiar than I with these men, and desire to share with the list somewhat about the lives some of them lived.

 

[BD17]

HP: I take it you are asking this to BD17. What is amazing to me is that through all the theological rhetoric that BD17 and others of like feather put up, they not only act in direct opposition to it every minute, but they EXPECT others to be as well. They deny in theology what they practice every day.

We were not created as the mere inanimate replication of a rock, but as human beings, with minds, a free will, and emotions.

God is love. Love is not the mere expression of arbitrary acts of a cosmic tyrant, nor is it the predetermined munitions of a wound up tin soldier. God has created man as the cause of his intents, and for those moral intents man will be judged. Is God to judge the intents of some as evil if in fact they had no possible way to be anything other than what they were created to be by God Himself????

The argumentation of BD17 and others even with ‘major credentials’ of like feather, land one in the trap of determinism and fatalism, and of necessity makes God the source of all evil and that without exception. I reject such so-called credentialed enlightenment as unscriptural and illogical.

Yada, Yada, Yada, once again YOU deny it because YOU do not agree with it, typical Armeniast response, and still fails to see the illogiacal conclusions to their own arguments, such as Christ died for noone and nothing because it is quite possible that NNE EVER WOULD CHOOSE CHRIST, so his blood is shed in vain.

Now watch as they dance around that in the same manner they say us calvinists do. Which shall it be a waltz, or maybe the more complicated minuet.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

BD17: Not mixed up at all because all those things not done with a love for the Lord are sinful

HP: What is love? Is love merely a way of feeling predetermined by God for us to express as a shining rock reflects the glistening of water in the pond, or is it the results of an intent formed by a being endowed with the capacity of contrary choice and the distinct ability to do something other than what he does under the very same set of circumstances, and as such the rightful recipient of moral blame or praise for such expressions?

 

[J.D.]

Helen, I'm going to break my self-imposed limit on my own sovereignty and waste my time by giving you a scripture to read:

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags