Brother Reed,
Before I get to your comments I want to clearify something.
We both agree that God has predistined the elect since the foundations the world to be saved. We also agree that God regenerates us before conversion, gives us the faith and causes us to believe on his Son.
Where we disagree is that I believe we must be trusting on the person of Christ. Not some omnious God we know nothing about or we just make up our god and believe on him.
I don't believe someone needs to know anything from the Bible except that Jesus Christ as the Son God and Savior of mankind. That if they believe on him and not themselves or Jesus plus some other God or way - Jesus Christ they will be saved. Period - nothing more, nothing less.
Ok now on to your comments:
Your Statement:
"Bro., first of all let me clarify that PBs are not Calivinist."
My Response:
Understood. I understood this before when you said PBs are more similar to Calvinists but you do not believe in perserverance, but preservation.
Your Statement:
"Secondly, let me pose a question to you. Do you believe that all of God's children will hear the gospel?"
My Response:
Will they hear it? maybe, maybe not, but they will have to believe it in order to be saved. So I guess if God supernaturally decided to reveal to the pigmee in Africa that his Son, Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins and the pigmee accepted the Gospel that God supernaturally revealed to him than he would be saved.
Your Statement:
"I don't think any of us are trying to ease anyone's conscience. We believe what we do because God has placed that belief in our hearts."
My Response:
While I acknowledge that PBs are not Calvinists as you say, I do believe the origins of your beliefs are from hyper-calvinists.
I would suggest that you do as John wrote:
"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world."
1 John 4:1(NIV)
Is this belief that man does not have believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved from God?
Like I have said, I would consider myself a Calvinist, although I somewhat struggle with concepts of Limited Atonement and Peserverance of the Saints(I would probably be closer to your preservation of the saints there).
Having said that, I think I and those who believe like me are not afraid to say that in God's electing some to eternal life, his has left others to eternal damnation they rightly deserve for their sin. God does not and did not have to save anyone.
If the pigmee in Africa never hears the Gospel because God did not call someone and cause someone to bring him the Gospel then so be it. God could have forordained that he would not regenerate anyone in that area and bring them to conversion so he did not send anyone there.
But I will not change the Gospel and say, even though no one goes to Africa, and even if God does not supernaturally reveal his Son Jesus Christ as Savior, that people are saved even if they don't trust in him.
Your Statement:
"I believe what he is saying here is that, after we believe, we can see the hope of our salvation. Our belief doesn't make us saved.[/u]We have it because we are saved."
My Response:
In this paragraph you make the most unbiblical statement a professing Christian could make - "Our belief doesn't make us saved. We have it because we are saved." Please show me one verse in all the New Testament that says we were or are saved before we believe. The scriptures are crystal clear that we are predestined to be saved, not that we are before we actually believe.
Your Statement:
"When he says we were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise after our belief, I believe he is saying that our complete salvation, both timely and eternal, has been filled to where we have a complete salvation in all of his saving grace."
My Response:
I never see him once saying anything anything about "timely" salvation. Does anyone get to heaven without "complete salvation"? Can we be half saved and go to heaven?
Your Statement:
"I believe you can see this in the following verses when he prays for them to be enlightened with the truth of understanding. If they already believe and understand the gospel, why is he praying that they may now get wisdom and understanding from it?"
"13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory.
15For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength,"
Ephesians 1:15-19(NIV)
So to answer you question "If they already believe and understand the gospel, why is he praying that they may now get wisdom and understanding from it?" -
He clearly says in the passage that they "were included in Christ" and when did he say this occured? "when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed". Hearing the Gospel, whether God supernaturally reveals it to you in a vision, or God uses a human being to proclaim it and then believing that Gospel is the requirement for salvation.
Then he says in verse 15 - "15For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus" - whose did they place their faith in - the Lord Jesus. And when he says "For this reason" he is refering to what he said in verses 13 and 14 about them hearing the Gospel and believing the Gospel.
So in verses 15 - 19 he is praying that they will grow in their knowledge of the Lord. He says these things are "for us who believe". Certainly we can grow in our understanding of election. Most people don't understand how they came to the point of salvation when they are first saved. Later they learn and understand God's purpose in election.
Your Statement:
"So, the question still remains, will all of His children believe on Him? Yes, at some time in their life they will be brought into that regenerative state."
My Response:
Well at least you believe they will be brought to belief in something. But what do they have to believe, can they believe anything saves them and they get to go to heaven. Can they make up their own god?
One other question, when you say that all the elect will be brought to a "regenerative state", do you also believe they will all be brought to a "converted state". This is the 100,000 dollar question - if skip any of my other questions don't skip this one.
Your Statement:
"But the question is now, how do they believe? Because God places that belief in their heart. Does that mean they will have ever seen or heard the bible? No, just look at the thief on the cross, or the Roman guard at the foot of the cross. so, if we are to believe on whom, and it HAS to be on his name, what name do we call him?"
My Response:
Like I said at the begining, I agree that belief in Jesus Christ is brought about by God. When we hear the Gospel(whether through a supernatural revelation or by God using a man to preach it to us) and believe it is all the work of God from begining to end.
But, just because it is God's work from begining to end(our believing the Gospel) that does not negate the point that is must happen in order for us to be saved - that the crux of our huge disagreement here.
As to your "what name do we call him" straw man argument - let me see if I can help you, and I really want to.
It is not about the language as much as it is about the person. When the New Testament exhorts us to call on the name of the Lord(Jesus Christ) to be saved, it is not wrapped up in a word - it is the person.
The thief and the guard trusted in the person of Christ.
II Corinthians 11:1-4(NIV)
"1I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that. 2I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough."
So when we say you must trust in Jesus Christ alone for you salvation, sure you may have a different name for him in your language, but it is still the person of the Bible. Paul was worried because they were allowing people to teach different versions of Christ, and different versions of the Gospel. But if it does not matter who you place you faith in or what Gospel you believe than why was Paul so concerned?
In fact he proclaims by the authority of God in
Galatians 1:9(NIV):
"As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!"
Why are people condemned to hell?
John 3:14-17(NIV)
"14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son"
People are condemed to hell because they do not believe. That is abundantly clear throughout the scriptures. Why are people saved - it is because they believe on the only one who can save them - Jesus Christ.
Election is how God regenerates us, gives us faith and ultimately belief in his Son. But faith and belief in his Son is what saves us. Belief in anything or anyone else, or even "another Jesus" as Paul writes is not salvation.
In fact, why are people condemned to hell - John tells us it is "because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son".
Your Statement:
"As I've said before, I don't believe it is we who get that belief, rather it is a belief that God places in our hearts. When we do begin to read the Bible and study upon it, that is when his second salvation will come upon us. That is when we are saved here in this world."
My Response:
Once again, I agree that God puts the belief in our hearts, but I ask you my friend - what belief is that?
As far as when we read the Bible, we grow in the Lord. It is not our "second salvation" - no where can such terminology - or even such a concept be found in the New Testament. There is one Gospel, and one Salvation - period.
So to sum it up, please show me in the New Testament where someone was saved before they believed?
Also show me this timely verses eternal salvation taught in the scriptures.
Since you said "So, the question still remains, will all of His children believe on Him? Yes, at some time in their life they will be brought into that regenerative state. But the question is now, how do they believe? Because God places that belief in their heart."
so you believe that all the elect will believe - but what will God cause them to believe?
I look forward to you responses.
IFBReformer
[ September 13, 2003, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: IfbReformer ]
