Is Acts 17:30 only the elect or the entire human race?

[Revmitchell]

Where do I claim he literally said those words?
His views present God as being weak. I stand by that claim.

You assigned that to what he said therefore you claimed it was his position. He never said it was his position therefore assigning to him is dishonest.

You say it presented God as being weak but does he believe that makes God weak? If he doesn't then you have misrepresented his position. Maybe you should be more clear that you see his position as weak rather than suggesting he does.

I say the particular position presents God as weak. Your position presents God as one who cannot reach into the heart of man and convict him unless he is first regenerated. I say God is much greater than that and can convict man to the point of making a choice to receive Him or not without regenerating Him. In fact He can do it anyway He wants to. The lack of regeneration is not a problem for Him.

 

[HankD]

That has nothing to do with salvation.

Sola gratia means salvation by grace alone.

Grace alone means that human will (an action of work from you) cannot be added. When you add your will to salvation you remove grace and add your own work to salvation. You make it so that God is removed from choosing you and you replace it by declaring that you take Yahweh off the pantheon shelf of god's by your own free choice. God becomes a passive observer of your actions, but he finds pleasure in your good choice.

Free-will eliminates grace from salvation.

Do you believe in grace alone?

Yes.

HankD

 

[Yeshua1]

There is a BIG difference between God ALLOWING something to take place, and DOING something. Are you saying that God CAUSED Judas to betray Jesus? This would make Him the AUTHOR of Judas' actions. Because God KNOWS all things, does NOT mean that He CAUSES all things. There are things that God DOES, and others that He PERMITS. God in His foreknowledge SAW the evil actions of Herod, Pilate, Judas, etc, against Jesus, and USED these for the purpose of His WILL. Otherwise there is the problem that God actually MAKING these do evil against Jesus, and then also punish them for doing something that He instigated?

A good example can be found in the account of king Ahab:

"Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left. And the Lord said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ The Lord said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the Lord said, ‘You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’ Therefore look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you.” (1 Kings 22:19-23)

Here we read of a spirit that came before the Lord as said that he would be a lying spirit in the mouths of these prophets, who would give false instructions "in the Lord's Name" to go to war and die, so that the purposes of God might be accomplished. Because the Lord ALLOWED this to take place, He did not DO it Himself, as the spirit did it, it could be said, "The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours". It is IMPOSSIBLE for God to CAUSE any person to lie, and therefore sin, but PERMIT this to take place as He does use evil deeds to accomplish His ultimate purposes.

God used Judas own desires to betray Jesus, as was prphecied that one near him would do that to Him, but God also determined that Jesus would die on the cross, and sinful men did as they wanted and put Him there!

 

[Robert William]

I see we are at 7 pages of denial of the obvious. Every born anew person is "perfect." The fact that you would assert otherwise demonstrates selective study of scripture. Ditto for Holy. God tell us to be reconciled to God. Can we do that? No. But God can set us part in Christ through faith in the truth, where we are justified, made perfect, holy and so forth.

What you really deny is that we can grasp spiritual milk, the fundamentals of the gospel and respond such that God credits our faith in Christ as righteousness.

Finally John 1:12-13 teaches God gave the right to become children of God to those who believe.... Thus again God giving the right to become child to believers.

To come full circle, God desires all men to be saved - according to His purpose and plan - which is for us to respond to the gospel and for God to evaluate our faith, and then for some professing faith in Christ, to credit their faith as righteousness and transfer them into Christ.

Howdy Van, the ONLY way that a Born Again Christian is Holy is ONLY because of Christ, but really they are sinners who deserve to be right now thrown into Hell. We Christians will be sinners until the day we die, that's why we need a Savior!

The natural man considers the gospel to be foolishness, so why would he/she choose it?? Nicodemus did not receive what the world's best preachers preached to him, why, because he wasn't born again. RE: John 3:3.

1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

 

[Robert William]

I see we are at 7 pages of denial of the obvious. Every born anew person is "perfect." The fact that you would assert otherwise demonstrates selective study of scripture. Ditto for Holy. God tell us to be reconciled to God. Can we do that? No. But God can set us part in Christ through faith in the truth, where we are justified, made perfect, holy and so forth.

What you really deny is that we can grasp spiritual milk, the fundamentals of the gospel and respond such that God credits our faith in Christ as righteousness.

Finally John 1:12-13 teaches God gave the right to become children of God to those who believe.... Thus again God giving the right to become child to believers.

To come full circle, God desires all men to be saved - according to His purpose and plan - which is for us to respond to the gospel and for God to evaluate our faith, and then for some professing faith in Christ, to credit their faith as righteousness and transfer them into Christ.

Van, all does not mean all all the time.

 

[bygrace4012]

You assigned that to what he said therefore you claimed it was his position. He never said it was his position therefore assigning to him is dishonest.

You say it presented God as being weak but does he believe that makes God weak? If he doesn't then you have misrepresented his position. Maybe you should be more clear that you see his position as weak rather than suggesting he does.

I say the particular position presents God as weak. Your position presents God as one who cannot reach into the heart of man and convict him unless he is first regenerated. I say God is much greater than that and can convict man to the point of making a choice to receive Him or not without regenerating Him. In fact He can do it anyway He wants to. The lack of regeneration is not a problem for Him.

Well you are right and wrong.
You are right about the bad critique of Icthus' position.
But you are wrong about your position, no matter j=how sincerely you hold it. (-:


let me explain. First, for arguments sake, lets assume man is not regenerated first. I don't believe they are regenerated before faith. Where you fail in your analysis of the situation.
Here is what you said:

I say God is much greater than that and can convict man to the point of making a choice to receive Him or not without regenerating Him.

Is that a Biblical point of view, or just one based on tradition?
Well its not in the Bible at all.
So how do you know it as a truth?
You don't.

Let me ask you a personal question. Why did you choose to receive Jesus?
Your answer will show the emptiness of your tradition.

 

[Van]

Howdy Robert,

We (born anew believers) become holy, perfect, and justified (just as if we did not sin) when God puts us spiritually in Christ.

Therefore the command "be perfect" is something achievable. Just as "be reconciled" is something achievable. The whole effort to claim God gives us commands that we cannot achieve is bogus, fake theology.

No verse or passage says the gospel is foolishness to all natural men. As I said before "the things of God" refers to spiritual meat in 1 Corinthians 2:14, not spiritual milk. 1 Corinthians 3:1 clearly teaches men of flesh can understand spiritual milk.

All men refers to all humankind.

John 3:3 teaches we must be born anew to enter and therefore see heaven from the inside.. Lots of people reject the gospel, and then some (a few) subsequently repent and fully embrace the gospel.

 

[Van]

Howdy Robert, I watched the first few minutes of video, but it appeared to offer the same old discredited TULIP.

To be spiritually dead is to be spiritually separated from God and unable to do anything of our own to get across that separation.
However, in Matthew 23:13 we see spiritually dead (unregenerate) men entering the kingdom of heaven until blocked by false teachings. We know they were not under the influence of "Irresistible grace" because they were blocked, and therefore fallen natural men have some limited spiritual ability.

 

[HankD]

There is no past, present or future tense in eternity.
I suppose an argument could be made for a neverending present tense but IMO even that is to narrow a window.

We see eternity and eternity events here on planet earth through a tiny peephole.

The new birth is an eternal event : before, after IMO does not apply.

Before what? After what?

I suppose we could say that there is/was/will be a changed life after it happens.
Perhaps God snatched it out of eternity into our individual time stream.

But even in the act of physical birthing there is conception and then a time of incubation before the actual birth event.

Just musing.

HankD

 

[old feith defender]

"Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

Now, Calvinists teach that the will of man is in bondage, and therefore no able to chose whether to follow the Lord Jesus or not. This, they say is only what the "elect" can do, since they have been predestined, and enabled by the Holy Spirit to come to Jesus.

However, the Holy Bible, as we can very clearly see here, states that GOD COMMANDS ALL MEN EVERYWHERE TO REPENT, something that is IMPOSSIBLE, if ALL MEN, that is, the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE, does not have the God given capacity to repent. How can God COMMAND something from the WHOLE WORLD that is IMPOSSIBLE, if, as the Calvinist would have us believe, that they CANNOT?

It is very clear from the many posts on this forum, that Calvinists have a PROBLEM, in that THEY do NOT want to see EVERY LOST SINNER repent and come to Jesus Christ for salvation. They will also CHANGE the meaning of words like "WORLD" in John 3:16-17, to refer to only the "elect", even though JOHN CALVIN himself is AGAINST this! So, we challenge the Calvinist of twisting the meaning of the Bible, and instead of admitting this, which is what they do, and repenting from this, they instead attack you and issue warnings! SUCH is the love that they have for their fellow brothers! I wait to see how they deal with this passages from Acts, and see that cunning they use to make it say other than what is intended by the Teaching of the Holy Bible. That is if this post is not removed and I banned by some who really cannot stand being wrong!

 

[TCassidy]

I wait to see how they deal with this passages from Acts

We believe it. It is our desire that all people everywhere come to Christ as Savior and Lord.

Your false charge has been corrected many, many times, but you continue to post it.

"Calvinists don't want everybody to be saved" is a straw man of your own making.

 

[HankD]

Welcome old feith,

Indeed this passage is (or has now become) a bone of contention here at the BB.
But the BB is a place of debate and no one will remove you unless you issue doubts as to someone's salvation.

So, I am not a calvinist and I believe Acts 17:30 means what it says without any further explanation.

Personally there should be no upset among calvinists for this verse even if they take it at it's obvious meaning.

It could possibly be a test command as when Jesus at the feeding of the 5000 said to His disciples

Matthew 14:16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.

Impossible - without God's intervention of course.

Another such passage is :

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.

Hmm, "will" and "freely" in the same clause!

HankD

 

[old feith defender]

I am not a Calvinist I am a Baptist, the Doctrine of Free Grace was preached and advocated 1500 yrs before John Calvin was born by Jesus Christ and his apostles. If you would read the 3rd chapter of Romans the Apostle Paul addressed you issue at length. I am not trying to be-little you don't take this the wrong way but you're understanding of the doctrine of justification is why you can't see this truth, my advice to you is that you make an in depth study of how God justifies sinful man while remaining just himself.

 

[MennoSota]

You assigned that to what he said therefore you claimed it was his position. He never said it was his position therefore assigning to him is dishonest.

You say it presented God as being weak but does he believe that makes God weak? If he doesn't then you have misrepresented his position. Maybe you should be more clear that you see his position as weak rather than suggesting he does.

I say the particular position presents God as weak. Your position presents God as one who cannot reach into the heart of man and convict him unless he is first regenerated. I say God is much greater than that and can convict man to the point of making a choice to receive Him or not without regenerating Him. In fact He can do it anyway He wants to. The lack of regeneration is not a problem for Him.

What does the Bible say? God has shared with us how he brings reconciliation. You seem to claim that God may break his declared process merely on a whim and a desire to change. Your argument is not logical.

 

[MennoSota]

Yes.

HankD

Calvin must be your friend.

 

[HankD]

Calvin must be your friend.

He is and my brother as well.

We don't see eye to eye on a few things, but who am I?

HankD

 

[MennoSota]

He is and my brother as well.

We don't see eye to eye on a few things, but who am I?

HankD

Indeed, I don't agree with every comment Calvin made. He, like you and I, is a flawed individual who sees God in a clouded mirror. We do our best to rightly discern the words of God.

 

[old feith defender]

Welcome old feith,

Indeed this passage is (or has now become) a bone of contention here at the BB.
But the BB is a place of debate and no one will remove you unless you issue doubts as to someone's salvation.

So, I am not a calvinist and I believe Acts 17:30 means what it says without any further explanation.

Personally there should be no upset among calvinists for this verse even if they take it at it's obvious meaning.

It could possibly be a test command as when Jesus at the feeding of the 5000 said to His disciples

Matthew 14:16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.

Impossible - without God's intervention of course.

Another such passage is :

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.

Hmm, "will" and "freely" in the same clause!

HankD

The invitation to come and the command to repent doesn't make the person capable of obeying same as getting a letter from your banker demanding payment doesn't means you have the money to do so

 

[HankD]

The invitation to come and the command to repent doesn't make the person capable of obeying same as getting a letter from your banker demanding payment doesn't means you have the money to do so

Doesn't mean you don't either.

BTW and IMO (but close to a conviction) "grace alone" and "free will" are not mutually exclusive.

HankD

 

[Revmitchell]

What does the Bible say? God has shared with us how he brings reconciliation. You seem to claim that God may break his declared process merely on a whim and a desire to change. Your argument is not logical.

I don't seem to say that at all. That is your imposition on my words.