"It is Finished!"

You left out option Number 4:

4. I have finished all of the work, all of the punishment as your penal substitute. The Holy Spirit will spread this message throughout the earth so that you, My beloved, can rejoice, while still in jars of clay, in Me and through Me to the Father, and enjoy the hope of an eternity in the favorable presence of God.

One rejoicing,

Ken
Were it not for grace...

[ July 02, 2002, 07:28 PM: Message edited by: Ken Hamilton ]

 

4. I have fulfilled the work I was sent by my Father to do.

Trying to go any further than that is to add to the words of Christ.

 

I won't answer your question because we are of like precious Faith and you know what I believe on the matter!... How do we know "IT IS FINISHED"... because his Father put his stamp on it by raising him from the dead!... My surety is in Jesus Christ because I believe what he said!... "IT IS FINISHED!" and I for one can rest in that fact!... Brother Glen

 

I believe that God did not predestinate the reprobate to hell because they were headed there anyway, as all of us are until God intervenes. Election is always unto salvation, not reprobation. God sees to it that His people hear His word spiritually, not just physically.

One redeemed by Christ's blood,

Ken
Were it not for grace...

 

Ah, but we were predestined to sin - we were predestined to fall - we were, therefore, predestined to go to Hell, according to the Calvinist position. Either God is the primary cause of all things, or he is not. How could they "be headed there anyway?" How were we created to be headed there anyway? An eternal decree must equal God's predestining people to sin - that's where Calvin's idea of double predestination came from.

 

From Pink's Sovereignty of God:

"Clearly it was the divine will that sin should enter the world or it would not have done so. God had the power to prevent it. Nothing ever comes to pass except what He decreed--- God's decree that sin should enter this world was a secret hid in Himself." (7)

 

Primitive baptist I agree with what you said and was being a little cautious because of the Absolute Predestination brethren among our ranks. I agree with you God predestinated people not things and according to the following verse we know when he did it!

Romans 9:11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth

12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sakes.

29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:

31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

Notice the 28th verse which is my personal favorite... Are these Gods elected predestinated children?... Can't be anything but!

I'll throw this one in for good measure!

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

When Jesus said "IT IS FINISHED"... He finished it forever for all inward Jews!... Brother Glen

 

there is another thing that God has finished. that is, imputation of the Original Sin to everyone. With that, everybody became spiritually dead and condemned. And with that spiritual death which, again, was caused by God's imputation of the original sin to everyone, everyone sins. in fact even if someone do not commit a single sin all his life he remains condemned because of that imputation of the original sin by God.

with this, here are some conclusions:

1. if you call it grace when Christ died for only a selected few, what do you call it when God place a man to condemnation foremost because God Himself imputed this Original Sin in Him? Sovereignty?

2. God did place everyone into condemnation because Christ can die only for the condemned. That is why God placed everyone to condemnation even if they do not commnit their first sin yet but by imputing Adam's sin on them. God did not wait for someone to commit sin before condemning him. God already condemned him so that Christ's death will automaitacally reach him. Now that is a far superior grace than what the TULIP theology teach.

 

Scott,

As I said before, I am a single predestinarian and an infralapsarian when it comes to the decrees of God. I am not going to try to defend double predestinarians or supralapsarians as I don't believe in the decrees of God as they do. You'll have to find one of them to discuss this issue with.

One redeemed by Christ's blood,

Ken
Were it not for grace...

 

Ken's #4 is the right answer. To assert that people will be saved without hearing the message of the gospel is to deny the very plainest text of Scripture. It is to suggest that sin is not as serious as it really is because you do not even have to know that you are a sinner with something to be saved from. We rightly get upset when someone preaches a deficient gospel -- one that ignores or redefines sin, or one that minimizes it. Yet here, when someone like PB denies that it needs to be understood to be saved, he has removed the heart of the gospel -- a sacrifice that reconciled man from a problem that he could do nothing about himself.

 

Pastor Larry you know that I'm a PB too!... What are you going to do with those Jews who didn't believe the gospel in the following verse?... who by the way are Gods elect!... They had the greatest sin... Unbelief!... As did the Gentile brethren before them!

Romans 11:28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sakes... Brother Glen

 

Yet you said, the reprobate go to hell "because they were headed there anyway." And then you say you are an infralapsarian, which seems to mean that God permitted the fall of man, and then decided to elect a few people. These two things don't seem to go together. If God can such permit a man to commit evil, does that make him less sovereign?

 

They go to hell for their sin. Their election spoken of here is obviously corporate election, not personal election. They did not lose their status as a member of the favored nation because of their unbelief. The promise to the fathers is still good (yet another support of a clear distinction between Israel and the Church in the NT).

 

It seems that you are the one who makes these verses completely unnecessary and show Christ saying something that was not true. Again, we are talking about the plain text of Scripture, not the conditions that you would like to read into it. Scripture says that salvation comes by faith, faith by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ. Other references are equally compelling. I believe that God works his sovereign will in response to prayers. He answers according to his will which gives us comfort in prayer. I have not removed the responsibility of man; you have.

And the same Bible and the same apostle told us that God has given us the ministry/message of reconciliation and begged us to be reconciled to God. I agree that reconciliation and redemption are not possibilities. But I also believe that when Scripture talks of the necessity of faith for salvation, that's what it means. I do not have the option to change that because in my mind, it "adds" something to the work of Christ. I think when Christ said, "Whoever believes has eternal life and whoever does not believe is condemned already because he does not believe, he had his finished work in mind. There are simply too many passages that require belief in Christ for salvation for you to assert your own position in spite of it.

I agree about the quickening and making alive. But I believe that making alive includes a spiritual consciousness by which one responds to the message of the seriousness of sin and the sacrifice of the Christ.