Featured Gift from God?

What's your hidden agenda here Steve? You have been pushing it here for months. I think I know where you are going with this....and here is a hint, research Andrew Fuller because you will find your answer there.

 

He dead.:smilewinkgrin:

 

Aren't we all? :flower:

 

1) God gives life, which includes physical life and spiritual life.

2) God sets before us the choice of life or death and begs us to choose [spiritual and eternal] life.

3) We are conceived in a physically alive but spiritually dead state, thus we must be born anew.

4) We are made [spiritually] alive together with Christ.

5) Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

So when God puts us spiritually in Christ we are made spiritually alive, and when Christ comes again, we will be given glorified and eternal bodies, thus entering eternal life with Christ.

 

I've told you before --start your own thread on the subject of Andrew Fuller. But I don't think you know enough about him to do so. You don't even know about the articles of George M. Ella who castigates him. And you probably haven't a clue regarding Michael Haykin of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies who obviously favors him. Dr. Tom Nettles comes down around the middle.

 

God not only gives physical life but along with it gives purpose for giving that particularly physical life:

Jer. 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

1. Not the repetitive "before" prior to each phrase.
2. Notice who formed him in the womb.
3. Notice what purpose he was formed unto.
4. Notice his own will had no part to do with any of this "before" design.

 

See......I do not pay attention to you. I don't know Ella and I don't care about him, I don't know Nettles (not Really) nor do I care and I don't know or give a wit about Haykin.....but I have read enough about Fuller and Fullerites to form an opinion and its not favorable.......so stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

I gave the answer, just read what I said more closely as it is right there in the very first line.

 

Wow! So you are insisting that the meaning of the word include the very doctrine you want to prove!!!!!! Hence, if the "gift" of life did not turn out to be "good" in whatever sense you want to define or apply "good" then it is not a "gift" from God!!! Wow!

Suppose the "gift" of life was a life from birth that the principle of death is at work? Suppose the "gift" of life was a physical life in spiritual separation from God? Suppose the "gift" of life was conceived in iniquity in regard to a fallen nature from birth? Is that the purpose you are trying to circumvent by your demand that "gift" must be "good"?????? Wow! Talk about circular reasoning!

 

So that is your intent! You are demanding that "good" be defined in an absolute "good" sense - without INHERENT bad or evil defects PHYSICALLY OR SPIRITUALLY but "GOOD" IN AN ABSOLUTE SENSE RATHER THAN A RELATIVE SENSE. Thus, if God gives physical life it must necessarily mean the "spiritual" condition in connection with the "physical" life be in an absolute sinless condition. However, that is easy to disprove because NO PHYSICALLY LIFE is absolute "good" as even doctors will tell you that all human beings are born with DNA defects that are sometimes manifest even before birth while in the womb. Death occurs in the womb demonstrating the physical life is not absolute "good." Thus the "gift" of physical life is only relatively "good" and must be "good" in that sense as all the gifts of God are good, even the gift of rain an sunshine (which are not "good" in the absolute sense but only in a relative sense).

In the sight of men the works of men are only relatively "good" because they are not regarded as "good" in God's sight until AFTER being created in Christ Jesus UNTO good work..." (Eph. 2:10). He is not referring to the works of the law, or becoming a Jew but to "good works" AFTER salvation. Hence, they had no "good" works in God's sight prior to being "created in Christ Jesus UNTO good works." If they had no "good works" prior to new birth then at physical birth they had no ability to do "good works" in God's sight.

Since "good" works are the RESULT of being first "created in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:10) then does not that necessarily demand that "good works" is the gift of God bestowed in being "created in Christ Jesus" simply because it is the RESULT?????? Isn't that the part of the "gift" in Ephesians 2:8 that is inclusive of that creative work of God in salvation???? Hence, "good works" is the "gift" of God only to those "created in Christ Jesus" first????

 

The options are limited. Since the gift is "life" the only other option would be "death." So is "life" a better gift than "death"? Obviously! A living dog is better than being a "dead" lion.

However, the "life" given is not absolutely "good" as it inherent with defects as any doctor can tell you. Moreover, the "life" given cannot produce "good" works in God's sight as Ephesians 2:10 plainly and explicitly states that "good works" in God's sight is the effect of being first "created in Christ Jesus" and thus "good works' are the product of SPIRITUAL LFIE which is also the "gift" of God rather than "physical" life.