Salvation: A Gift or a Reward?

[Forest]

I draw an illustration from a commercial I saw. God is standing in a room full of little girls, and He announces to the whole room, "I'm giving a big party, and whosoever will may come!" His only stipulation is that each one get an embossed personalized invitation, which He begings to hand out individually. There are twenty girls in the room and 7 get invitations but then there are no more invitations for any of the rest. "Too bad girls," an attendant says, " but you can't come, because you did not get an invitation." The girls say, "But He said whosoever will may come!" The attendant says, Yes, but He wasn't talking about you.

Some Christians allow themselves to think God is like this for some reason. That is not true, however, because God is not willing that any should perish, but wills for ALL to come unto the knowledge of the truth. Trying to redefine the word "all" to suit wrong doctrine will not be allowed by God.

Trying to say that God will's all mankind to be saved to suit wrong doctrine will not be allowed by God. Dan 4:35, Isa 50:2.

 

[preacher4truth]

Eternal salvation was accomplished by Christ upon the cross for all that the Father gave to him. Our regeneration is not when eternal salvation was accomplished, but it was at the time that Christ died for the sins of those that God gave him. There are a lot of salvation scriptures that are pertaining to deliverances we recieve here on this earth, but the security of our eternal salvation happened on the cross.

Yeah, go put that nonsense on your 'timely salvation' thread. It's not in line with this OP nor with Scriptural truth, so go play in your own sandbox. No need to derail this thread with your erroneous theology. OK? Thanks.

 

[Forest]

God makes a distinction between faith and works, so whosoever believeth (by faith) in Him should not perish. Some Christians mix up faith and works and say 'believing' is a work, when that is simply not so. Look at Rom. 4:5

"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Would some Christians prefer a 'better' wording like

"But to him that worketh not and believeth not (because that is also a work), God gives faith to some and withholds it from others for reasons known only to Him"?

John 3:16 does not say "whosoever WILL believe ( future tense)" it says whosoever believeth (present tense).

 

[Forest]

The whole premise of your thread is a [snip] and I have reported it to the mods for closure.

John

Debating and a discussion of the scriptures is what this forum is all about. Reporting someone to the administrators and moderators just because you disagree with their belief's makes me wonder why you are on this forum.

 

[Forest]

Yes, I agree that salvation is 100% a gift. A gift is something one can choose to accept or reject.

Maybe we should start a topic that exposes the truth of Calvinism. We could call it "Salvation: A Gift or an Attribute?". In Calvinism one has no choice on receiving the gift. It is something that is simply assigned to random people as an attribute.

The spiritually DEAD person cannot RECEIVE a spiritual gift from God. Eph 2:5.

 

[webdog]

The spiritually DEAD person cannot RECEIVE a spiritual gift from God. Eph 2:5.

This is probably the 50th time you have butchered this text. Please quote it in it's entirety...and in context.

 

[Greektim]

This is probably the 50th time you have butchered this text. Please quote it in it's entirety...and in context.

We've all heard before that spiritual death does not mean inability. However, considering the deplorable nature of death and all that goes with it, I think the connotation of being dead is inability by the very detestable nature of a corpse and the concept of death in the mind of the ancients. Nevermind the simple concept that the dead are unable to respond, dead are also unable to accept a good gift b/c they are so disgusting that they wouldn't want it. They can't b/c they wouldn't.

 

[Amy.G]

What if we looked at the gift from a different angle in this discussion?

If a stranger walked up to you and offered you a gift, you most likely would not accept it.

But if someone you knew and trusted offered you a gift, you would accept it.

When someone accepts the gift of salvation, it's because their eyes have already been opened to who it is that's offering the gift.

Many people are offered salvation through the preaching of the gospel and they reject it because the Holy Spirit has not opened their eyes to who the giver is.

When God opens your spiritual eyes, you see it is Christ that is giving you the gift of salvation and you gladly receive it because you know and trust the giver.


It's not enough to just hear the gospel, God must supernaturally reveal Himself or the gospel is just words with no power. This is what Jesus is talking about when He tells Nicodemus that the wind goes where it will. The Holy Spirit is like the wind and goes where and to whom He wills.

I hope this makes sense. It's in my head but I don't know if I can type it in a way that conveys what I'm trying to say.

 

[Forest]

So do most non-Cals.

No, that would be the cults.

I don't know of anyone on the board that believes that way.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Faith is necessary for salvation. However faith is not a work. Faith is not cooperation with God.

Who is cooperating?

It is evidence of our salvation, and for that reason we know that it is not a gift that comes before salvation, neither is their Scripture to support such a notion.

You are only half right. God did choose us. I won't argue that. But we also chose God. He gave us that ability. He did not create us as zombies or automatons.

Everyone of us acknowledge that salvation is a gift, the gift of God.
We all agree that salvation is not of works.
We all agree that salvation is "all of God."
Where we part is that God in his sovereignty has made us different than the animal kingdom in granting us a mind to reason, and will to choose. We choose to do right and choose to do wrong. We aren't forced. We choose to accept Christ or to refuse Christ. We aren't forced.

Who are you referring to here. Not me. Not anyone I know. There are no cults here. I don't know who you are addressing. There is no cooperation in salvation. Let's be clear about that!

Accepting and believing to get eternal salvation is a false doctrine. When we are born into this world we are born but natural beings void of the Holy Spirit. The natural man will not, and indeed, cannot accept anything of a Spiritual nature, 1 Cor 2:14, Ps 10:4 God quickens us when we are still in a condition of being spiritually dead, Eph 2:5.

 

[Forest]

Yes, do you have scriptural evidence for saying God delights to abandon those people to the eternal punishment of His wrathful judgment because they simply did not get His impartial mercy shown to others?

If it was God's will for all mankind to be saved, He has the power to carry out his will, but we know that all mankind will not be saved. God accomplishes his will, Dan 4:35, Isa 50:2.

 

[jonathan.borland]

What non-Calvinist here on the BB is saying that a sinner can respond to God in faith and repentance without the special conviction of the HS? I haven't seen anyone espouse that here, so don't straw man em to death, ok?

 

[Forest]

So God created sin and evil for His own glorification and praise, allowed men to fall into complete degeneration after making everything "very good" in the beginning, and makes it necessary for Jesus to die for the sins of a few, and then simply makes men saved for no reason other than His good pleasure?

Why didn't God just make men saved to begin with? He could have let Jesus off the hook when He prayed, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." He could have banned sin, the serpent, and the tree of life from the Garden of Eden before the whole sin fiasco developed, and that would have eliminated thousands of years of the endless suffering and deaths of billions of people.

But you believe God wanted all of this suffering to take place, even delighting in the fact that billions of those He made hopeless sinners must now be fried in Hell forever and ever for being the sinners they were made by God to be? Something smells fishy here and I don't think it is the Bible.

God did not make Adam sin, but because he willingly choose to sin, sin fell upon all mankind. God by his forknowledge foreknew this would happen is why he choose an elect people before the foundation of the world, Eph 1, for Christ to reconcile them back to him. God's ways are much higher that our ways that we cannot understand his purposes, so it is not in our capability to understand why God did not choose to save all mankind. We understand this to be true by harmonising the scriptures.

 

[quantumfaith]

Trying to say that God will's all mankind to be saved to suit wrong doctrine will not be allowed by God. Dan 4:35, Isa 50:2.

If that be true and accurate, then you have no need to state such. God can most certainly take care of the matter. Are we semantically arguing "will", I think the message of the scripture in Peter, is clear, God is not willing that any should perish (It is not his desire that any should perish)

 

[Forest]

DHK, he is saying that when we use our freewill to accept the gift of salvation, that we are 'cooperating" with God and that makes it a reward.

In other words, we aint really saved if we think we have to accept the gift of salvation.

He even stated that we cant get saved by praying for salvation????uh???

I reckon he thinks salvation just 'comes upon' us as we sleep without our knowledge.

What drivel

John

Don't cut God short. I believe that you are saved in spit of your false doctrine of ACCEPTING AND BELIEVING to get eternal salvation. Anyone who has a desire to know God and his teachings is already a regenerated child of God. 1 Cor 2:14. The natural man would not seek to know God.

 

[jonathan.borland]

Okay, Forest, I'm not messing around this time but want a serious answer. Many Calvinists simplify the system thus: you have to decide who's in control, God or man. So which is it? they say. So was Adam in control or God when sin came into the world. Non-Cals say God was in ultimate control but did not make Adam sin. God knew he would sin but did not predestine it. Do you agree?

 

[Greektim]

Okay, Forest, I'm not messing around this time but want a serious answer. Many Calvinists simplify the system thus: you have to decide who's in control, God or man. So which is it? they say. So was Adam in control or God when sin came into the world. Non-Cals say God was in ultimate control but did not make Adam sin. God knew he would sin but did not predestine it. Do you agree?

If God knew Adam would sin, and God cannot be wrong, isn't that pre-knowledge still determinative? In other words, for God to know something before hand, also knowing full well it must happen the way he knows b/c he cannot be wrong, and then to go ahead with it anyways is still a predetermined plan isn't it?

Therefore, don't we have to reconcile the fact that God in a predeterminative way more than allowed Adam to sin, but actually was the final determining factor since he started the entire chain of events knowing what would happen and knowing that no other outcome would exists?

Saying God allowed sin but didn't create it doesn't really skirt the issue.

Sorry to answer for Forest. He can add his own view. I just wanted to throw this out there too.

 

[Forest]

You can call it cooperation if you like. See here where God encourages the cooperation also:

"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat of the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." (Isa. 1:16-20).

We should encourage all men to cooperate with the Lord (like encouraged here in Isa.) when seeking Him for salvation.

As I have said in many other placeses and times, If you believe that all salvation scriptures are pertaining to eternal salvation you will never understand the truth. There are far more salvation scriptures that pertain to timely deliverances than there are that pertain to eternal. Our timely salvations are brought about by our obedience to God's commands (timely salvation by works).

 

[jonathan.borland]

Don't cut God short. I believe that you are saved in spit of your false doctrine of ACCEPTING AND BELIEVING to get eternal salvation. Anyone who has a desire to know God and his teachings is already a regenerated child of God. 1 Cor 2:14. The natural man would not seek to know God.

So some get eternal salvation without accepting and believing? You should communicate a little better before calling their doctrine false. Some is just semantics. When Paul talks to the philosophers on Mars hill he says God arranged everything so that all might seek after him and perhaps feel him and find him (acts 17:27), though we know that this "wooing" is from the HS and not of ourselves, for God has arranged this for all the people of the nations. What a great God!

 

[marke]

God did not make Adam sin, but because he willingly choose to sin, sin fell upon all mankind. God by his forknowledge foreknew this would happen is why he choose an elect people before the foundation of the world, Eph 1, for Christ to reconcile them back to him. God's ways are much higher that our ways that we cannot understand his purposes, so it is not in our capability to understand why God did not choose to save all mankind. We understand this to be true by harmonising the scriptures.

You don't have to remain in ignorance about God's purposes where He clearly reveals them to you. Harmonizing scriptures is exactly how those purposes are revealed, so harmonize this:

"Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?
Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye."
(Eze. 18:29-32).

 

[jonathan.borland]

Yes, Tim, you're consistent and a straight shooter. I want to see if Forest is also.