Reformed, Calvinist or both?

I could not agree more!

 

Are you saying that we cannot know that we are saved except for when we are living right? It seems, that in one breath you take a stand for eternal security, then flip over to say "we" that is Christians can be lost or be destroyed. Which one is it? Are we keeping ourselves? Are you keeping yourself? How do you know you are saved? Are you as saved now as you will be in heaven or do you believe what you have now, you can lose? That is the question. Give a plain answer. So that we will know your stand.

 

Now jne1611;

You know better than to ask for a plain or simple answer to the question of Salvation.

 

Belief

Our belief is a seed.

It can be planted on rocky ground and satan can still it, or we can let trials and tribulation choke it out.

It is at the end of the race that you win the prize.

How can you win the prize if you don't finish the race.

Listen to this song


Bob Carlisle

Cursing every step of the way, he bore a heavy load
To the market ten miles away, the journey took its toll
And every day he passed a monastery's high cathedral walls
And it made his life seem meaningless and small

And he wondered how it would be to live in such a place
To be warm, well fed and at peace; to shut the world away

So when he saw a priest who walked, for once, beyond the iron gate
He said, Tell me of your life inside the place...
And the priest replied...

We fall down, we get up
We fall down, we get up
We fall down, we get up
And the saints are just the sinners
Who fall down and get up

Disappointment followed him home; he'd hoped for so much more
But he saw himself in a light he had never seen before

Cause if the priest who fell could find the Grace of God to be enough
Then there must be some hope for the rest of us
There must be some hope left for us

We fall down, we get up
We fall down, we get up
We fall down, we get up
And the saints are just the sinners
Who fall down and get up

 

But surely Jesus Himself, in explaining the parable of the sower to His disciples, said in Luke 8.11: "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God." He didn't say "The seed is your belief."

Maybe you weren't referring to the parable at all, but with seed, rocky ground, Satan stealing it, and trials and tribulations choking it it certainly seems that you did have the parable in mind.

May God bless you,

 

This would be all well and good if we were to build our doctrine on songs & the idea that salvation is a prize to be won, but since we have the Bible, I'll stick with it.

 

I know. I could not help but ask.:smilewinkgrin:

 

Scripture

Our belief comes from the word of God or it is just man made.

Paul teaches it is those who finish the race that gains the prize. That he must beat his own self into obedience so he himself wouldn't be disquilified for the prize.

He knew that it is those who endure to the end that will be saved.

Men really think that faith without deeds will save them.

We are going to fall down, but we get up and keep going looking for Jesus for our guidance and strength.

We no longer follow after the flesh but after the Spirit of God through the words of our Lord and Saviour.

Trust in Jesus and none of you will be disappointed

 

Yes that is true. As Romans 10.17 says: "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." But that is a different matter entirely than saying that our belief (or our faith) is the seed (the Word of God), as you said in your last message.

Which men think that faith without deeds will save them? Certainly, the Reformers spoke of "Five Great Alones" - that salvaltion is by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, on the authority of Scripture alone. But when they said that salvation is through faith alone, they did not mean that deeds are unimportant. They meant that sinners are not saved by their works or deeds, but for good works. This is stated for us in Ephesians 2.8-10:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

If a person claims to be a Christian, but his life remains just as it was previously, then they are deluding themselves.

Who do you mean here by "we"? If you mean Christians, then I agree with those words. Christians do fall; I know that only too well from my own experience, to my shame. When they do, they confess their sins to Him, and seek His guidance and strength. But if by "we" you mean "everybody" I cannot see how your words about "falling down" and "getting up" would fit with what the bible says about unsaved sinners being dead in their trespasses and sins. Lazarus provides a good picture of what I am trying to say. When Jesus arrived at Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. He couldn't have raised himself up, pushed the stone away from the mouth of his tomb, and come to Jesus to ask Him for help. Jesus first had to speak the commanding words, "Lazarus, come forth!"

Are you really suggesting that some of us on the Board believe something different? Surely all of us on the Board believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and that those who trust in Him will not be disappointed.

 

Psalm109:31 whwere did you learn your Bible doctrine?Are you what they call by denomination a Free Will Baptist?

I am not a calvinist nor am I reformed in my theology.People here will bear that out . I must say I have never come across a baptist who was or is as Wasleyan in his theology as you.Please give us a little background so we can see where you are comming from.:godisgood:

 

scripture

I am a follower of the word of God, it is scripture that we come to our conclusion from.

Baptist that I knew when I was a child, that at the cross God has given men the ability to believe or not to believe, God did not incline anyone's heart to believe, but the scripture teaches He gives us a choice and the consequences for our choice.

It is the calvinist who have clouded thier vision.

We are saved by grace through faith, that faith is in Jesus.

They go hand in hand you cannot have one without the other.

Belief and faith are two different things, but both comes from God through His word.

Belief is just the beginning. It either matures to faith or it dies.

God wants all men to be saved, you can limit to what men wants you to believe or you can believe God.

I choose to believe God.

I know that my faith will be tested and I count it pure Joy.

God loves the world that He sent His Son. Jesus was not sent into the world to condemn it but to save it and we are messngers of it.

God has set all the rules and regulations aside and given us a better hope in which we draw near to God through Jesus Christ.


God loved the world not in which all men will be saved, but He loved the world in which He has given them a hope through Jesus Christ. And He has made us the messenger. That whosoever believes in Him shall be saved and those who do not have been already been condemned not because they were not chosen but because they did not believe in the one He sent.

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.' "[Psalm 95:7-11]

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."[Psalm 95:7,8]

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.

I am to follow God not men. Calvinist agree with many scriptures I agree with, but I will not stand still while they reconcile scripture out of the Bible that doesn't agreee with thier doctrine.

1 John 4:1
[ Test the Spirits ] 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.

 

I think Allan & others here would strongly conclude my views as Calvinistic, though I do not claim the title "Calvinist", but, this issue we are dealing with right now has nothing whatsoever to do with Calvinism twisting Scripture. Allan is no Calvinist, show one place he has misused the text to prove a man made doctrine as you call it. All we are asking is for you to talk plain. Give a simple answer to this question: "Can a Christian be lost after he has been saved?" A simple yes or no. That will clear a lot of questions here.
When you say that God cut the elect off for unbelief, do you believe they lost their salvation? Yes or No? Thanks!

 

I concure 100% with Nathan (jne1611)

Just simply answer these questions put forth. Both the Cal. and Non-Cal. alike hold the same biblical truths on these simple questions. Yet as far as we can disipher from your criptic writing that which you hold is in stark contrast (that we can follow) most times and yet at times not. So what we are asking for is clarification on your specific view of scripture in this area of truth.

BTW - Belief and Faith are the same thing as in the same word. We can see their differing of fuction as scripture shows one at times a noun and the other at times a verb.

 

scripture

I do not teach a losing of salvation, but in leaving you never had it.

Finishing the race, enduring to the end and you shall be saved.

Falling is part of the race, but we get up and run again, because we know that the prize is for those who finish the race God has placed out for us.

Those who endure to the end shall be saved.

I cannot deny other scripture, but live on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus and belief and faith are different things.

Our beliefs can change as we grow, but faith cannot.

 

What exactly do you consider enduring to the end?
Do you believe a Christian can be chastised unto death?
What do you consider "leaving"?
Thanks for answering the question.

 

Faith

1 John 2:19
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

God will never give us more than we can handle. Even being stoned to death we should forgive those who cast the stones and praise Jesus and lift Him up. If we perserve through the small trials we can get through the big one's.

Trials and tribulations God uses to make us stronger, so count it pure joy.

 

Well that still is no answer to those questions or is it? Maybe I can take it through your answer that you do not believe God does sometimes chastise unto death.

 

I am glad to know you believe that (assuming you mean: "If someone says that they are a Christian, but later it turns out they are not, it shows that they were never saved in the first place.") As well this belief (that if a person is really saved by Jesus Christ, they cannot be lost) being biblical, it is one of those "five points" you seem to oppose.

Can you give biblical support for your view that belief and faith are different things? In the Authorised Version ("King James Version" in the United States) and also in the New King James Version, The word "belief" occurs just once, in 2 Thessalonians 2.13:

But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth,

I don't know Greek, but my concordance tells me that the Greek word for "belief" there is "pistis". That Greek word occurs 244 times in the New Testament. In the Authorised Version, it is translated into English in these ways:

"faith" - 239 times
"assurance" - once
"believe" - once
"belief" - once
"them that believe" - once
"fidelity" - once

In the New King James Version, it is translated as:

"faith" - 238 times
"faithfulness" - twice
"assurance" - once
"belief" - once
"fidelity" - once
"believe" - once

I must stress that I'm not trying to be pedantic here, and if you show me that God in His Word says that belief and faith are different things, then I must believe it (and would do so gladly). But at the moment, I cannot find anything in the bible to even hint that the two things are different.

Yours in Christ by God's grace alone,

 

I have found no evidence for this either.

 

Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.....

Lovely lovely Lord Jesus Christ, Baruch haba b'shem Adonai.

http://www.baruchhaba.net/mp3/faithful.mp3

My Lord and my God!