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How can Jesus make this claim ...

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Yeshua1

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The very request is flawed, Tom. Man has a free will in spite of the fact that our flesh is still in bondage. This doesn't just apply to a lost man; it applies to you and me as well.

Paul was most certainly a saved man when he wrote, "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." Romans 7:22-25

Paul clearly illustrates and challenges us to exercise our free will when he said, "Let not [do not let] sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should [choose to] obey it in the lusts thereof.
13 Neither yield ye
[Choose not to yield] your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield [choose to yield] yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."
Romans 6:12-14

In other words, we do not have to sin. When we do sin, we have chosen to sin. We have yielded - we have obeyed the law of sin in our body.


You may not agree with my interpretation, Tom, but I'll always have a verse to back up my posts.
We are still free to do what we want to do, just the sin nature limits us to what we desire to actually do!
 

Wesley Briggman

Well-Known Member
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The very request is flawed, Tom. Man has a free will in spite of the fact that our flesh is still in bondage. This doesn't just apply to a lost man; it applies to you and me as well.
Man has freewill and is in bondage simultaneously? Who or what is he in bondage to? Does being so bound limit his freewill? If his freewill is so limited, is he aware of his limitations? If his freewill is limited, how can he free himself from being limited?
 

Wesley Briggman

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Charles H. Spurgeon
August 2, 2018

Morning Reading


Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. —Ephesians 1:11

Our belief in God's wisdom supposes and necessitates that He has a settled purpose and plan in the work of salvation. What would creation have been without His design? Is there a fish in the sea, or a fowl in the air, which was left to chance for its formation? Nay, in every bone, joint, and muscle, sinew, gland, and blood-vessel, you mark the presence of a God working everything according to the design of infinite wisdom. And shall God be present in creation, ruling over all, and not in grace? Shall the new creation have the fickle genius of free will to preside over it when divine counsel rules the old creation? Look at Providence! Who knoweth not that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father? Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. God weighs the mountains of our grief in scales, and the hills of our tribulation in balances. And shall there be a God in providence and not in grace? Shall the shell be ordained by wisdom and the kernel be left to blind chance. No; He knows the end from the beginning. He sees in its appointed place, not merely the corner-stone which He has laid in fair colours, in the blood of His dear Son, but He beholds in their ordained position each of the chosen stones taken out of the quarry of nature, and polished by His grace; He sees the whole from corner to cornice, from base to roof, from foundation to pinnacle. He hath in His mind a clear knowledge of every stone which shall be laid in its prepared space, and how vast the edifice shall be, and when the top-stone shall be brought forth with shoutings of "Grace! Grace! unto it." At the last it shall be clearly seen that in every chosen vessel of mercy, Jehovah did as He willed with His own; and that in every part of the work of grace He accomplished His purpose, and glorified His own name.


This has been brought to you by the following ministries: Blue Letter Bible
 

1689Dave

Well-Known Member
How would you explain this verse, atpollard?
John 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

Or this one?
Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
I think if a person believes the offer they will respond. But they must already be saved to believe the offer. The unbelievers will walk away. The passage separates the sheep from the goats, so to speak.
 

Dave G

Well-Known Member
Some may see it as semantics, but I don't regard salvation as an "offer".
If it were an offer, as in, "you do this and I will do that", then, in my opinion, eternal life goes from being a gift, to being a reward for doing the right thing.


To me, salvation is then reduced to a marketplace deal, placed on a table and hung with a sign that says, "whosoever will may come"...and then completely ignores the rest of what the Bible says about why a man comes to Him in belief.


That's what my former churches did...they reduced salvation to a relatively large handful of verses, including the "Romans Road", select quotes like 2 Peter 3:9, 1 John 2:2 and John 3:16, and never read the ones that were "hard to understand" ( 2 Peter 3:16 ).
 
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atpollard

Well-Known Member
who says that?
It is an inescapable logical consequence of the initial assumption.
Can you explain to me how someone has the free will to choose to believe or disbelieve, and if they choose to believe, then they loose their free will because they no longer have the ability to choose to later reject that belief?
 

Yeshua1

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I think if a person believes the offer they will respond. But they must already be saved to believe the offer. The unbelievers will walk away. The passage separates the sheep from the goats, so to speak.
God regenerates them , and then they come to the water to be saved!
 

Yeshua1

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It is an inescapable logical consequence of the initial assumption.
Can you explain to me how someone has the free will to choose to believe or disbelieve, and if they choose to believe, then they loose their free will because they no longer have the ability to choose to later reject that belief?
How can someone whose very nature is in rebellion towards God, and is ignorate to spiritual things sufddenly will theselves to now believe?
 

Revmitchell

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It is an inescapable logical consequence of the initial assumption

So you don't actually know of anyone. Got it.
.
Can you explain to me how someone has the free will to choose to believe or disbelieve, and if they choose to believe, then they loose their free will because they no longer have the ability to choose to later reject that belief?

I have never made that argument. Strawman
 

Revmitchell

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I disagree. It is a good question. If a lost man can choose to believe why can't a saved man choose to not believe?

I can answer that. Can you?

I never commented on if it is good or not. I have never argued nor do I support the position as he worded it. Therefore is is a strawman. I do not hold to the position he stated.
 

TCassidy

Late-Administator Emeritus
Administrator
I never commented on if it is good or not. I have never argued nor do I support the position as he worded it. Therefore is is a strawman. I do not hold to the position he stated.
Why dodge the question? Can you answer it or not? I can. :)
 

Revmitchell

Well-Known Member
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Why dodge the question? Can you answer it or not? I can. :)

"Dodge the question", "ignorant" etc. Don't talk about people calling something you hold to evil if this is how you are going to post. I don't have to call it evil but I sincerely believe it is. Since you seem to lack any reservation about the things I quoted you as saying, I'm not going to be worried about speaking out about your sincerely held belief that I sincerely believe is evil.

I do not hold to what he posted, I reject that position, therefore I have no need to defend that which I disagree with.

Why do you believe that people can lose their salvation?
 

Cinnamon Apples

New Member
[John 6:44 NIV] "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them ..."

If men have FREE WILL, then how can Jesus make the claim that "No one" can (is able to) come to him?
Doesn't free will mean that some, if not most, that do come to Jesus come because they chose to?
Psalm 115:3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

John 6:37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

John 6:65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

Read Acts 4 and particularly verses 26-28. All things are predestined to occur for the glory of our Sovereign God. And for our good.
 

TCassidy

Late-Administator Emeritus
Administrator
I do not hold to what he posted, I reject that position, therefore I have no need to defend that which I disagree with.
Why are you so afraid of the question that you have to run away from it?

Why do you believe that people can lose their salvation?
Why do you have to insinuate that which you know is untrue? Trying to throw up some dust and dirt to hide behind so you can avoid answering the question?

I can answer the question with bible proof. Why can't you?
 
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