Reformed, Calvinist or both?

I can tolerate the difference between us on the love of God. This is a theological matter. I do not discuss it with the lost. To them I preach Christ & him crucified. But where you and I have the big difference is how you can believe that you can be lost after you have been saved. Do you not see that you have a lack of faith that Christ will finish what he started in you? Have you committed the keeping of your soul to him? Have you fully trusted in his position as saviour. The only satisfaction that will keep a sinner from God's eternal wrath? This is very serious.

 

Psa109,

Hi! :wavey: Listen, here's what I think others are trying to tell you. When you were saved, God sent the Holy Spirit to abide/live/dwell in you. Do you believe that? So when they tell you that Christ cannot deny Himself, they are saying that Christ cannot deny the Spirit that lives in you at the judgment or any time before that. If you don't experience the Spirit, it is because you have grieved, resisted, or quenched the Spirit by disobedience and you may think you have lost your salvation (2Pet 1:9). You haven't. You're just not experiencing the living abundance of the Spirit!

Paul said that "after that ye believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,..." Eph 1:13, "which is the earnest of our inheritance" lasting until our redemption!" You can't be "unsealed!"

When did God say the Holy Spirit would leave you? NEVER! "I will bever leave you nor forsake you." Heb 13:5-6 In fact, it's not "eternal life" you received if you can lose it, right?

This refers to the sheep," John 10:27-28. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ," right (Rom 6:23)? But you are claiming that it is NOT eternal by your testimony. That is what has us concerned for your theology.

But there is this one caution -- did you know that you can be saved by His life but not by His death (Rom 5:10)? I think that is another point some here are making. See, you will be saved from "hell on earth" if you live as He did, a holy life. BUT living that life doesn't save you. You MUST be saved by His death! That is, receive His finished work on the cross for yourself. And this is the point I believe you are trying to make to others, right?

Do you see how believing on Him for your salvation saves you eternally but you can actually feel unsaved if you are not living His life??

skypair

 

If I may, (I will hold my nickle on this one)

I would like to come along side brother jne1611 and say with all affirmation to his point of this being a serious matter.

Salvation is Christ alone - plus nothing and minus nothing.
This means from beginning to end - it is HIS work and not yours.

Scriptures like Chirst the author and finisher of our faith - How can YOU withdraw something that is maintained/held by another - much like Christ that holds you in his hand and no man (no one- even you) can pluck you out. For what He has given is ETERNAL Life. Note: it is everlasting that we may NEVER perish. It is not contingent upon us to keep but Him who is Faithful and this Eternal life is not later after death but NOW in our life before Death. Death were is your sting!
We as beleivers CAN NOT draw back from God for He WILL NOT ALLOW IT. That is the Chastening of the Father upon His children. That the correction WILL bring them back into a right relationship with Him. Also and lest we not forget we are His family by blood, His children and as such are forever in His family and His presense not becuase we are good boys and girls but because it was His pleasure to give us these things. Lastly my friend - God said HE will NEVER leave you, nor Forsake you. He did not say If you will be good enough then at the end I will stay. Rather He states: No matter what, I am your Father and will always be so.

The contexts of the scripture you are quoting of enduring till the end, you will be saved -
First - is a prophesy of the end time (Revelation or what have you) to the Jew. And endure can be seen more clearly looking at

Endure here (concerning continuing under persecution/affliction) is the same Mat 24:13 endure to the end. The "Shall be saved" is also the same with regard to the fulness of that salvation and rewards. We see this not only in the above but throughout scripture. Our works do not merit salvation or the maintaining of it, but a life lived for Christ will be rewarded that we may glory even more in the one who gave us the strength to endure!

Second - IF your verse means what you extrapilate from it (that being if we deny not Christ, He will not deny us) then we have a HUGE problem with Peter who denied Christ three times. But when Jesus confronted Him, He said nothing about the denials but asked Do you love me, and Peters remark was "Lord You KNOW I do."

This includes ourselves.

 

Good post Sky

 

Believing

Jesus will finish the work He started in a believer, but the truth still stands also. If we deny Jesus He will deny Us.

As long as we abide in Jesus we will be saved.

Our dependance for our salvation is Jesus, but if we turn away from Him, He will turn away from us.

There will be times when we are weak and have not trusted fully in Jesus that we will deny Him, but if the end we deny Jesus He will deny us.

It doesn't matter if we started in the the last hour or in the first hour we will receive the same payment.

It is the end of the race that we win the prize.

If you can return back to the vomit and never turned back, you have not believed the truth that is in Jesus, and you don't know Jesus and Jesus doesn't know you.

Our hope is in Jesus alone, and after I preach, I have to beat my own body in submission, so that I myself will not be disquilified for the prize.

If the seed can be choked out or stolen you have not accepted the truth.

Your salvation is your dependance on Jesus, not yourself, do not be draged into the lie that trusting in Jesus is work for your salvation. Endure to the end, do not let men bring you a false hope.

 

I definately want clarification on this statement.

Are you saying the atoning and redemptive work of Christ is not good enough for securing, maintaining, and fulfilling of so great a salvation on our behalf?!

Anything otherwise would fall into the catagory of heresy, and or false doctrine.

 

Absolutely, but you are leaving out the WHOLE truth -- that Christ cannot deny Himself. So what does that leave us with? That those who deny Him are NOT saved!

You are merely repeating the dicotomy that I already made -- 1) that you are saved in this life and lose that salvation by not living the Christ-life AND 2) you are also saved in eternity but can NEVER lose this salvation from the moment you trust Christ until you appear before Him and throughout eternity!! Do you realize that some churches want to hold you a slave to how they teach that you ought to behave instead of making you a bondslave to Christ? And they do it by saying you can lose your salvation.

Again, you understand but you just don't acknowledge the truth.

See, you just said it yourself. You are working toward the "prize"/"reward" --- not toward salvation. You can lose the "prize," you can't lose salvation.

Psa -- this is a very dangerous interpretation of Mt 13. You were obviously never saved if the seed didn't germinate and the "evil one" took it away.

It is quite another thing if life came forth from the seed but never produced fruit. In order to produce fruit, one has to 1) make their roots go down deep through Bible study, fellowship, etc. AND 2) clear the choking, worldly issues out of their lives through godly repentance (2Cor 7:9-11). Many Christians use this parable of the sower to crush the salvation profession of people who really did turn to Christ when what these converts really need is help in living Christ's life! God never meant for the Christian life to "show" fruit until his/her life matured. Many believers have, thus, been "still born" or left in infancy because some well-intentioned saint told them or acted as if they weren't saved rather than embracing their testimony and discipling them! 3/4's of the seed were saved, Psa. Only 1/4 showed "fruit."

skypair

 

Drown in lies and deceit

We are to keep our eyes on Jesus or we drown in the lies and deceit of this word.

Jesus said He is going to save believes, and non-believers are going to be condemned.

That is what God has placed before us.

If you are not abidin in Jesus you are on the road to destruction.

The narrow road is Jesus.

Thier way has not made anyone perfect.

We have a better hope than they are given us, to draw near to God through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Jesus has did our work for our salvation, but Jesus says, God is only going to save believers.

Your dependance is on Jesus.

I have been dealing with lies from calvinist/universalist since 1993. They have have have the truth and deny the abiding in Christ or we are good for nothing but the fire. We must endure to the end, do not let the goats lead you into the pit.

Do not be drawn into thier lies, stay close to Jesus, and He will keep u a float.

 

Dont get hung up on it.

Be the best Christian you can be.

God takes care of the rest.

 

Dependance

When we depend on ourself saying we are the elect of God no one can cut us out, not even our own rejection of Jesus then we are very arrogant.

When we depend on Jesus we will never be alone.

 

Who says the elect of God will reject Jesus? This makes no sense. Rejection of Jesus is something that the unregenerate do. If you have been saved, then there is no rejecting of Jesus, there is only immense gratitude and love for Him (and a desire to please him). As others have stated, the elect are kept by God from falling away.

 

Do not be arrogant

If God did not spare the natural branches He will nort spare you either.

Our dependance on our election to salvation is Jesus not calling ourselve the elect of God.

How we know who the elect are, it is simple believers, non- be lievers will be condemned.

Romans 11:20Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 21For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

22Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.

Hebrews 3
Warning Against Unbelief
7So, as the Holy Spirit says:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
8do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert,
9where your fathers tested and tried me
and for forty years saw what I did.
10That is why I was angry with that generation,
and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.'
11So I declared on oath in my anger,
'They shall never enter my rest.' "
12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15As has just been said:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion."

16Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed[Or disbelieved ]? 19So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

 

Amen! Amen!

 

Amen to that! I'll add one thing to this. Paul said that we are sealed with the Spirit unto the day of redemption. The only time that seal will be broken is when "Praise God" we get our glorified bodies!

 

To these things I also agree! You know the truth of Christ Bro. Allan. This is a great blessing!

 

Yes, that is probably why baptists on this side of the Atlantic who hold to the "Doctrines of Grace" are more likely to describe themselves as "reformed baptist" or "grace baptist", rather than "Calvinist".

 

"psalms109:31" wrote:

"Man's flesh is evil, and the scripture teaches that. It does not say that your whole being is corrupt only your flesh. "

Doesn't it? Was Jeremiah writing about the fleshy organ that pumps blood round the body when he wrote in Jeremiah 17.9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" Had the Ephesian Christians died bodily and been raised bodily, for Paul to write to them in Ephesians 2.1 "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins"?


"psalms109:31" wrote:

"Do not let men give you an excuse that you cannot enter because you are depraved."

I agree. The bible teaches that we are all sinners, and none of us deserves to enter. But, praise God! "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." (1 Timothy 1.15) Jesus Himself gives the balance between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, when He says in John 6.37: "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." No one who ends up in hell will be able to say, "Well, I so much wanted to repent, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved, but You didn't elect me; it's not my fault!"


"psalms109:31" wrote:

"The Holy Spirit is right at the door of your heart through the words of Jesus asking to open the door and let Him come in."

The idea of God (whether Father, Son or Holy Spirit) standing outside the door of the unsaved sinner's heart, meekly awaiting permission to enter, just doesn't seem to me to agree with the conversion accounts we have in Scripture. There, we read of Lydia "whose heart the Lord opened". We read of Saul/Paul, who, far from asking Jesus into his heart, was breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord" when God broke into his life in that remarkable way on the road to Damascus. Certainly in Revelation 3.20, Jesus says, " "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me." But is that about unbelievers? No, for look at the context. The words are not addressed to unsaved sinners, but to backslidden believers in the church at Laodicea!

"psalms109:31" wrote:

"God will cut the very elect out for unbelief."

"Elect" simply means "chosen". The idea of God choosing someone for salvation, then "cutting them out" seems incongruous in the extreme. Have you a scripture reference to back up the idea?

"psalms109:31" wrote:

"If you do not endure to the end you will perish elect or not."

Certainly if someone says to themselves, "I'm elect; nothing can harm me now, so I'll live as I please!" something is dreadfully wrong! The person has either been poorly taught, or they were never saved in the first place. However, if someone is truly amongst God's elect, and not just fooling themselves, they will not perish.

"psalms109:31" wrote:

"When you hear the words of Jesus you are being elected,"

Not according to the bible. There, in Ephesians 1.3-6, we read: "3 ¶ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. "


What a glorious Saviour! What an amazing and undeserved salvation!

 

scripture

I have given scripture that the elect have been cut out for unbelief and that we who believe do not continue in God kindness will also will be cut out.

Even if God came down from heaven and told us that God loved the world that He sent His Son. You would believe your man-made doctrine over His word.

The scripture clearly shows that believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit.

If you are a non-believer and you think you are still sealed by the Holy Spirit because you once believed.

You will be the one Jesus said I never knew you go away you evil doer.

 

Yea. And when exactly does it say we are sealed unto? "The day of redemption" You do not know anything but man made doctrine. Else you would know that the elect he is talking about are not the Jews! But Jews & Gentiles in the body of Christ, Chosen in him before the foundation of the world! Don't you know the word chosen has the same meaning as elected?

 

scripture

With the scripture that has been given to you, you would know that the Jews are the elect of God.

They were cut out for unbelief, included with the believing jews were gentiles when they heard the Gospel of thier salvation and believed.

If you are a non-believer you will be cut out for unbelief.

So do not be arrogant but afraid if God did not sparee the natural branches He will not spare us either.


It has been believers that have been predestined before the foundation of the world to be saved.

If you are not a believer, you are not sealed by the Holy Spirit.