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If you are a Five point Calvinist.
- Thread starter 37818
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Like all who came before us...
The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
~ John 10:3
1689Dave
Well-Known Member
When I was 20, the Lord converted me over a period of 3 days. I began telling people that I didn't know what was going on but I think Christ is real and he is dealing with me.
The joy of the Holy Spirit and God's love had become real and excited me. And I didn’t want it to stop but feared that it might. On the evening of the 3rd day my happiness turned into remorse. God convicted me of sins I didn't even know existed. I began praying, sobbing and asking his forgiveness.
I also asked Jesus into my heart. I heard you are supposed to do this, probably as a child in Sunday school. I fell asleep exhausted in tears only to awake the next day absolutely convinced Christ had saved me.
I had never been so excited about anything. I began telling friends and others. I saw a whole string of conversions in and around people I knew. They believed me and wanted in on it too. None of us were churched, so we began experimenting with going to different churches. We and our girls rattled a few churches with our enthusiasm.
Not wanting to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, I gave up my career and began living the sermon on the mount (Matthew 6:24-34). Seeking first the kingdom of God as a career.
To make a long story short, I began working unskilled labor part-time as unto the Lord. And retired early out of my own pocket, never missing a day's work even though two major recessions and job closings happened along the way. The Lord is faithful.
I am not a Calvinist. I must say that the one liners that get thoroughly recycled in an attempt to discredit Calvinism are all easily refuted.
Even though it is easily answered in Calvinistic doctrine, does it matter?
U and I make how irrelevant.
37818
Well-Known Member
[Note: Those who do not ascribe to limited atonement believe all those passages apply to the unlimited atonement.]
1689Dave
Well-Known Member
How did I find out Christ died only for me as a believer? I was in a 4 point Calvinist Church that taught universal atonement. Before that, I ran in Arminian circles. So I never knew about "Limited Atonement" until they began teaching against it. But in that setting, I heard the doctrine clearly stated for the first time in their effort to disprove it. It was as though nothing in the world made more sense to me than Limited Atonement. I reasoned with others that if Limited Atonement is true, then all that they teach about faith and salvation is false. That was when I dropped out of Church and began studying Reformed and early 1600s Baptist theology.
From there I challenged and got rid of everything I'd been taught in my Arminian, Pentecostal, and Dispensationalist's past.
From there I challenged and got rid of everything I'd been taught in my Arminian, Pentecostal, and Dispensationalist's past.
They do so without biblical support as is easily proven;
5 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
The unsaved have no peace, they are not justified
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The unsaved do not have access as they do not have faith, they do not stand and rejoice.
3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
The unsaved do not glory in tribulation
4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
The unsaved do not have the Holy Spirit, He is not given to them
Now follow through the passage in this way, and you will see it.
6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
37818
Well-Known Member
Yeah, the unsaved do not believe Romans 5:8, ". . . But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . ." Which Paul wrote to the church in Rome Christians, which included himself. And unless one some how presumes "we" applies also to one's self as well. The understanding of an unlimited atonement would allow that belief.
37818
Well-Known Member
The full Calvinist must believe the same unlimited atonement passages as everyone else. Since such passages only apply to those who believe those passages anyway.
Are you just being obtuse on purpose?
He did not just write one verse to them on a postcard, He wrote the whole book.
Chapter 5 is speaking to the justified by faith. If you do not want to read it, stop asking questions about it. It is not written to be applied to the unsaved who desire to remain in rebellion to God.
There is no unlimited atonement passage anywhere, as the atonement is a Covenant transaction
Read and heard the message of the Gospel, and believed in the Lord Jesus to save me from my sins!
Ok. They don't have to agree with your interpretation of it.
same way all saved do, by hearing and believing that Jesus was and is Lord!
It always strikes me as odd when people claim they only accept some points but not all. It's like saying I only drive a car with four wheels, but no steering wheel or no engine. It's like saying the human body can work without one of the systems. "I like the circulation system, the nervous system, but I don't like digestive system." No one would do that. You need all systems.
Remember that the 5 points of Calvinism were a counter response to the 5 points of the Remonstrants (disciples of Arminius). Calvin never broke his observations of the Bible down to 5 essential points of salvation. His disciples in Holland did this.
It seems that many people cannot wrap their mind around Jesus atonement being only effective for those who believe precisely because God chooses to have mercy on some and not on others. Ultimately the battle is in each person's mind as to how much they will demand from God that they have sovereign control over their salvation. Will a human submit to the idea that they are utterly incapable of doing anything to save themselves, including choosing YHWH over any other gods? Will a human admit they were utterly defeated and hopelessly enslaved in chains and only Christ Jesus could unlock the key?
It doesn't matter if one "accepts" that the chains are off and they walk out of the jail cell. It matters that Jesus has unshackled them and set them free.
The life after being set free is the process of escaping the prison of sin. The escape is not the cause of the salvation, it is the effect of the salvation.
I am also persuaded that human pride just has a hard time accepting that we can do nothing to save ourselves!
just to clarify ... that statement was never in a serious theological discussion to substantiate any "ism" ... and I won't take it personal you think one of my father's off hand statements is odd.
He is a disciple of Jesus Christ ... absent from the body and present with the Lord. I was blessed with being there when it happened.
I find it odd how we tend to label things with the name of someone we think is credible. But I never hear "Lukeism" Just The Gospel according to Luke.
It happened during the time of the Apostles.
1 Corinthians 3:4-5 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
We also see that false teachers abounded, to which the writers in the New Testament responded with corrective teaching.
37818
Well-Known Member
Well, that is how you have come to interpret the whole of the New Testament on the atonement. It is not clear without an unlimited atonement how anyone can include one's self in it prior to believing in an atonement to include one's self.