Ok: Explain TULIP? (I recognize OSAS as 'once saved always saved'). Acronyms sometimes confuse discussion for those of us unfamiliar w/ them. Thanks--J
GE:
Allow me to answer with the following as it happened in a conversation of mine with someone not so unfamiliar with the acronym ...
If you wanted some ‘sign’ that THESE are God’s only one Church, observe the ONLY ‘sign’ there shall ever be of God’s one Church: WATCH FOR HOW THE CHURCH IS ATTACKED, SLANDERED AND PERSECUTED FROM EVERY SIDE BY ANY AND EVERY OF THE MYRIADS OF FALSE CHURCHES AND CHRISTIANS ESPECIALLY AT THE HEART OF THE CHURCH, ITS DOCTRINE OF FREE AND SOVEREIGN GRACE, ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED …TULIP!
Objector:
Um, what exactly is your point? Calvinism is a SALVIC issue because TULIP produces nothing but a false salvation.
GE:
'TULIP' produces nothing but a false salvation???!!!
'TULIP' for:
'T' for Total Depravity of man ...
'U' for Unconditional Election ...
'L' for Limited Atonement ...
'I' for Irresistible Grace ...
'P' for Perseverance of the saints ...
THAT 'TULIP' not "Salvation"?!
That is how Salvation and Redemption and Blessedness and Happiness and Everlasting Life are spelled in Christian Idiom. Most precious inheritance of the Reformation!
‘TULIP’ for:
‘T’ for UNREGENERATE ‘man’ in his Total Depravity …
‘U’ for GOD in His Unconditional Election …
‘L’ for CHRIST in His Limited Atonement …
‘I’ for HOLY SPIRIT in His Irresistible Grace …
‘P’ for REGENERATE 'man' in his Perseverance unto Glorification …
“your life hid WITH CHRIST IN GOD” …
...at the Return of Christ and the resurrection of the body...
the one and only GOSPEL of Jesus Christ!
Objector:
'TULIP' produces nothing but a false salvation!!!
GE:
So one must infer,
Total Depravity of man ... is “nothing but a false salvation”;
Unconditional Election ... is “nothing but a false salvation”;
Limited Atonement ... is “nothing but a false salvation”;
Irresistible Grace ... is “nothing but a false salvation”;
Perseverance of the saints ... is “nothing but a false salvation”.
Result: We sit with “nothing but a false salvation”— a false ‘Gospel’. And the truth is,
T. Man is not totally depraved and the Scriptures lie that he is;
U. God cannot elect unconditionally, He must choose the good and the bad without distinction, and the Scriptures lie that all men are wicked and only believers are forgiven their sins; also that God in truth shows mercy to whomsoever He wills and forgives their sins;
L. Christ’s atonement in far the most cases is ineffective and wasted and no one knows whether any of the few remaining ‘saved’ individuals will be actually redeemed in the end. Who knows who’s not a pretending hypocrite? So the Scriptures promote a hallucination of peace made with God through Christ’s finished atonement. (Hence the Seventh-day Adventists’ ‘Investigative Judgment’— condemning not only of Seventh-day Adventism, but of the whole of the Arminian bulwark of ‘free will-Christianity’, now-a-days going under the misnomer of ‘Evangelicals’.)
I. We sit with an irresistible and powerless Power of God the Holy Spirit, “nothing but a false salvation” and false ‘Gospel’, a hopeless atonement, and an aimless Divine Purpose. In a word, an imminent catastrophe that is going to end in the total destruction of the whole universe, awaits us if the Grace of God through the operation of the Holy Spirit is going to be ineffective, resistible and rejectable. Speak of fatalism, speak of free-will Christianity.
P. If the Perseverance of the saints isn’t true, the opposite must be true, the failure of the saints. And what is left of ‘salvation’? No! it must be said of Arminianism – free-will dogmatism – that it is “nothing but a false salvation”.
Summed up:
Goodness of man ... is “nothing but a false salvation” and the pride of man before his demise;
Conditional Election ... is “nothing but a false salvation” and hopeless future;
Unlimited Atonement ... is “nothing but a false salvation” and faith without foundation;
Resistible Grace ... is “nothing but a false salvation” and blatant blasphemy;
Failure of the saints ... is “nothing but a false salvation” and the devil’s very first lie making God the liar.
Spurgeon:
“ “He only is my salvation.” It was He who turned my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I can in very deed, say with Doddridge and Toplady-
“Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o’erflow;”
and coming to this moment, I can add-
“‘Tis grace has kept me to this day,
And will not let me go.”