God orders man to participate in Salvation

[Yelsew]

To whom are these verses targeted? Elect or non-Elect?

[Mark 1:15] `The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel.'

[Luke 13:5] They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.'

[Acts 2:38] `You must repent,' Peter answered, `and every one of you must be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

[Acts 3:19] Now you must repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out,

[Acts 8:22] Repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that this scheme of yours may be forgiven;

[Acts 26:20] On the contrary I started preaching, first to the people of Damascus, then to those of Jerusalem and all Judaean territory, and also to the gentiles, urging them to repent and turn to God, proving their change of heart by their deeds.

[Rom 2:5] Your stubborn refusal to repent is only storing up retribution for yourself on that Day of retribution when God's just verdicts will be made known.

Why Are we required to repent if the "Holy Spirit only", regenerates us? The Calvinist position has oft been stated as being that we are not capable and that we have no part in our own salvation. Acts 3:19 states that one must repent and turn to God. How is that possible if one must be "regenerated" first?

It has also been stated that All our sins are already forgiven by Jesus' atonement. Yet Jesus' apostles declare that we must pray that the Lord forgive our sins and schemes.

This appears to be a contradiction. So who is the target audience for each of these scriptures?

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by Yelsew:
To whom are these verses targeted?

Sinners.

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by Yelsew:
Why are we required to repent if the "Holy Spirit only" regenerates us?

The natural result of regeneration is to come to Christ Jesus in repentance and faith.

 

[Ray Berrian]

You and the Bible are correct. God does require human responsibility and repentance.

John Wesley said in the 1760's something like this. If God decrees the saved and the lost, technically there is no need for regeneration. When God decrees something it happens.

Without belief in Jesus their is no salvation/regeneration. [John 14:6] If regeneration was first we would more likely worship the 'experience of regeneration' rather than the Lord of this world and universe. He remains the only way the truth and the life. We praise the Redeemer on the center Cross and not the concepts of Reformation theology.

 

[The Archangel]

Yelsew,


You said:

Why Are we required to repent if the "Holy Spirit only", regenerates us? The Calvinist position has oft been stated as being that we are not capable and that we have no part in our own salvation. Acts 3:19 states that one must repent and turn to God. How is that possible if one must be "regenerated" first?

This is a misrepresentation of our position. I do not think you meant to misrepresent us, but you did.

We do not say that we have no part in our salvation. Quite the contrary, we say that we must choose God.

HOWEVER, we also say that our ability to choose God is non-existent before the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. It is the HS that breaks the chains of slavery to sin; removes the stone heart and replaces it with a flesh heart (which ever metaphore you prefer). At that point we are enabled to choose.

Before the HS, we could not choose. After the HS, we can and do choose God. In other words, we have been given eyes to see and ears to hear.

Please take this into consideration in your representations of us in future posts.

Blessings!

Archangel

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
If God decrees the saved and the lost, technically there is no need for regeneration.

Huh? What if regeneration is part of what God decreed? Your logic (and I use the term very loosely) is like saying that if God decrees that we eat food, there must not be any need to cook it.

 

[Pastor Larry]

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
You and the Bible are correct. God does require human responsibility and repentance.

As Calvinism clearly teaches.

Without belief in Jesus their is no salvation/regeneration. [John 14:6]

What does John 14:6 have to do with this?

If regeneration was first we would more likely worship the 'experience of regeneration' rather than the Lord of this world and universe. He remains the only way the truth and the life. We praise the Redeemer on the center Cross and not the concepts of Reformation theology.

the concepts of reformation theology do praise the redeemer on teh cross. In that, we are alike. But the experience of regeneration is what brings about the life by which we respond to God.

 

[Yelsew]

Archangel,

Quandary for Calvinists

Quite the contrary, we say that we must choose God.

HOWEVER, we also say that our ability to choose God is non-existent before the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

If our ability is non existent, and we know that it is Jesus telling us in Mark 1:15 "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel.", and that the Holy Spirit has not yet been poured out on mankind, and would not be until Pentecost. So how did those who Jesus was talking to get regenerated, so that they could believe unto salvation?

 

[Harald]

[Mark 1:15] `The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel.'

[Luke 13:5] They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.'


Yelsew. I took these two verses which you quoted. Be it known to thee that the Greek New Testament of Christ informs us that the verbs in the last clause of Mark 1:15 are both present active imperatives, not aorists:

"Be ye repeatedly repenting and keep on believing in the Gospel!"

Now I ask you, how does this theological fact of the verbal aspect being linear relate to your view of regeneration??? To me it seems in your view repenting and believing the Gospel precede the new birth. Then with this verse in mind I ask you, Yelsew, how long or how many times must a sinner repent, and for how long a time must he believe in the Gospel before regeneration occurs??

Likewise Luke 13:5, the main verb for "to repent" is also here present active, subjunctive, not aorist:

"Except ye keep on repenting ye shall all likewise bring perdition to yourselves"

How does this truth relate to your view of regeneration?? How long were the Jews addressed by Lord Christ obligated to keep on repenting until regeneration might occur? Awaiting an answer with interest.

Harald

 

[Yelsew]

Harald,

Let us add just a bit more context here.

Mark 1:14, 15 Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

Were the Galilean's previously regenerated by the Holy Spirit so that they could keep on repenting and believing the Gospel?

Galilee is a place, a geographical location, the inhabitants had not yet become believers, after all Jesus had just returned from being tested in the wilderness. The chuch had not yet been born, so how did the Galilean's come to believe in Jesus who is the Gospel?

 

[npetreley]

Sounds like a headline to me:

"God orders Man to participate in salvation"

Fortunately, the Man obeyed, or we'd be in deep doo-doo.

 

[Yelsew]

Yelsew, how long or how many times must a sinner repent, and for how long a time must he believe in the Gospel before regeneration occurs??

A sinner must repent as oft as the sinner sins, and one must come to believe the Gospel before regeneration is possible!

Likewise Luke 13:5, the main verb for "to repent" is also here present active, subjunctive, not aorist:

"Except ye keep on repenting ye shall all likewise bring perdition to yourselves"

How does this truth relate to your view of regeneration??

You sin, you repent, you're forgiven and cleansed from All unrighteousness and have life; then you sin again and the wage for sin is death! You're right back where you were before. What can you do but repent again? and Again? and Again? Keeping on repenting as long as you keep on sinning! Regeneration is a different subject, because one can only be born again once!

How long were the Jews addressed by Lord Christ obligated to keep on repenting until regeneration might occur? Awaiting an answer with interest.

Repentance brings change of heart or attitude, Regeneration, belief in the Gospel who is Jesus, cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So if the Gospel is believed on first encounter, then regeneration occurs on that first encounter. Repentance must occur whenever one realizes or is convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin which requires repentance. One does not "receive" the Holy Spirit who is not regenerated, but anyone who realizes that what they do is "harmful" must repent in order to be forgiven, that applies to both the saved and the unsaved. That is, repentence is what humans do regardless of the state of their salvation.

 

[William C]

Yelsew I would like to add another verse to your case:

Acts 17:30
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead."

How does God judge all men everywhere for not obeying this command when according to Calvinist he hasn't granted the abilty of repentance to all men?

Can you judge someone for something they are not capable of fulfilling?

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Yelsew:
You sin, you repent, you're forgiven and cleansed from All unrighteousness and have life; then you sin again and the wage for sin is death! You're right back where you were before.

This perceived problem led to the concept of purgatory. The idea was that if you died while some sins were not confessed, you had to go to purgatory to work them off before you could get to heaven.

 

[Ray Berrian]

Yelsew,

You have asked an interesting and potent question. In effect you said before the day of Pentecost how did John the Baptist's believers repent before God, if the Spirit was not yet on the scene during New Testament times. Your post is dated March 29 at 10:20 p.m.

Let me guess. The sinners activated their free will to believe in Jesus' forerunner, {not John Calvin} but John the Baptist. {how fitting}

 

[Yelsew]

Originally posted by npetreley:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Yelsew:
You sin, you repent, you're forgiven and cleansed from All unrighteousness and have life; then you sin again and the wage for sin is death! You're right back where you were before.

This perceived problem led to the concept of purgatory. The idea was that if you died while some sins were not confessed, you had to go to purgatory to work them off before you could get to heaven. </font>[/QUOTE]No, This is not a "perceived problem" it is actual and that is why the Apostle John said, "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." He was speaking to "Born Again Christians" everywhere. How often will God forgive? He commands us to forgive one who sins against us 70 times 70 times. God is infinitely greater than we, therefore I must conclude that God will forgive us 70000 times 70000 times! But he will not forgive us even once for sin we do not confess!

 

[Yelsew]

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
Yelsew,

You have asked an interesting and potent question. In effect you said before the day of Pentecost how did John the Baptist's believers repent before God, if the Spirit was not yet on the scene during New Testament times. Your post is dated March 29 at 10:20 p.m.

Let me guess. The sinners activated their free will to believe in Jesus' forerunner, {not John Calvin} but John the Baptist. {how fitting}

The scripture I quoted is Jesus speaking, but to answer your question; "faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God!

 

[Yelsew]

Originally posted by npetreley:
Sounds like a headline to me:

"God orders Man to participate in salvation"

Fortunately, the Man obeyed, or we'd be in deep doo-doo.

What, No ready answer for my questions?

 

[Harald]

I must say Yelsew you are a peculiar fellow. I rarely see lads who are so dead serious about free-willism and human ability. I like you in spite of your heretically faulty notions and wrong interpretations. Now, as for the people to who Lord Jesus preached commanding them to be repenting and believing in the Gospel, namely Jesus the Lord, as you did rightly state, granted. It seems to me Mark in the verse under discussion gives the onus of Christ's preaching in Galilee. He did not in that verse state that Christ preached these things to all Galileans indiscriminately. The information of the text is that Christ commanded men using a plural imperative, it does not say how many or how few he commanded. It seems to me that He commanded such who the Spirit of His had regenerated, not dead men, dead in trespasses and sins. His commands were so called Gospel commands, pertaining to the preaching of the Gospel of the kingdom. Paul says in Galatians that no law exists which is able to make alive, this also applies to all and any commands and prohibitions of the word of God. Thus these commands which He preached were not given to Galileans in order to regeneration, but on account of regeneration already having occured in the hearts (by the Spirit's sovereign and instantaneous operation) of such to whom the incarnate God had good pleasure. These commands to regenerated individuals drew forth Spirit-wrough faith into fruitful exercise by the Spirit's attending power in repeated repentance toward God and repeated trusting in and feasting upon Christ the Bread of Life by a true and lively faith.

An unregenerate man is soulish, not having spirit, Jude 19. How can you then say free will resides in the spirit, and that exercise of free will results in the new birth, which birth according to the NT conveys to the person of the sinner a new spirit and a heart of flesh? You have a major contradiction and logical fallacy at your hands, Yelsew. God is not the God of disorder, but of concord, 1Cor. 14:33. Theological and doctrinal contradictions against the whole counsel of God's written word are the hallmarks of a heretic. I sincerely wish that the sovereign and merciful Lord pity you and convert you from the error of your way if it be His good will. Not that He convert you to "5 point Calvinism" or any other ism, but to the knowing Himself as a Just God and a Saviour, whom to know is eternal life, according as it is written, John 17:3.

Harald

 

[ScottEmerson]

Originally posted by Harald:
Not that He convert you to "5 point Calvinism" or any other ism, but to the knowing Himself as a Just God and a Saviour, whom to know is eternal life, according as it is written, John 17:3.

Sounds an awful lot like you're saying the guy isn't saved, Harald.