Simple yes or no question...

This is suspect, at best, heresy at worst. "For BY GRACE you have been SAVED, THROUGH FAITH...."

Rev. G

EPH. 2:8-9

 

He created all with the possibility of being saved. He gave free will for them to choose according to the wooing of the Spirit. Some will accept and some will not.

Love involves giving a choice.

 

Baptist Believer:
You haven't really dealt with the argument that Pastor Larry set forth. He is dealing with the issue of "foreknowledge," not with "possibility." Is God's foreknowledge "perfect"? Is it "infallible"? Or is God's knowledge of the future limited?

Rev. G

 

Rev. G.;
God’s foreknowledge is perfect as long as we leave it at what it implies in everyday life and in scripture. Foreknowledge is an awareness of events before they actually happen. One need not necessarily foreordain, or dictate an event in order to have knowledge of said event. It is not in and of itself indicative of control or sovereignty. Considering God’s proximity to temporal time, his foreknowledge is not even a supernatural event.

 

Are you saying that's scriptural?

According to some folks, love means never having to say you're sorry, too. Want to wager on whether or not that's scriptural?

 

This may be the wrong place to say this, if so tell me and I will move it.

A problem with the view of some is the idea that we are created beings. (Not that our race were not created).

God did not create man sinful, Adam fell into that position.

All others have been born since, into that position, not actually created as such, but reproduced, with the inherent, original sin.

Perhaps this is the problem, to view each individual as being created would make it necessary for each individual to fall as did Adam.

Not sure if this is what is being thought, but it seems it would point in that direction.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

Are you saying that's scriptural?

According to some folks, love means never having to say you're sorry, too. Want to wager on whether or not that's scriptural? </font>[/QUOTE]I say it's scriptural, i'll take your wager....

What's your ante???

 

Are you saying that's scriptural?

According to some folks, love means never having to say you're sorry, too. Want to wager on whether or not that's scriptural? </font>[/QUOTE]I say it's scriptural, i'll take your wager....

What's your ante???</font>[/QUOTE]Well, you probably don't want my faith, since I got it for free, anyway.

 

Chappie:

Does God have complete knowledge of all that will take place in the future? Is there anything He does not know?

Rev. G

 

God does not bestow or dispense His Grace! God's grace is what he extends to us as his mode of operation.

His grace, like the rain which falls on the just and unjust alike, never has been targeted to specific individuals lest that be the situation of God respecting man, and we know that God is no respecter of man. All of Creation experiences God's grace equally. Grace is not a commodity that He hands out to the good guys and not the bad. Blessings, on the other hand, are those special gifts of God that He bestows on those that please Him.

"For by grace are ye saved through faith..." means that while God is gracious to his creation, we the created, can be saved from eternal damnation through our faith in God's only Son, the Christ. It is not the Grace that saves us, it is our belief in Jesus, even on his name, that saves us!

The only thing that man can do to effect his own salvation is to believe, which is not a work (no effort expended), on the name of Jesus. Belief in Jesus is a change in persuasion that takes place in our spirit, it is not mere head knowledge, but spirit conversion.

There is nothing that man can do to merit God's grace, therefore Grace is unmerited favor, and God grants His unmerited favor to all mankind and even the whole of creation. Not even the most devout believer in God can earn God's grace! God took pleasure in Noah, Abraham, etc. but none of them merited God's grace even though they lived righteously. Consider David, a man after God's own heart. It was not grace that God bestowed on David, it was blessing, in spite of all that David would do that was sin. Those blessings were bestowed on David while God was, and is, being gracious to His Creation.

God does not need to look forward to see those who would choose or reject Him. God is eternal, and there is no forward, backward, left, right, up, or down, in God! He told us that His name is "I AM" a phrase that has no motion, direction, or time. Though Scripture tells us it took 6 days do create all there is, there is no time in God. Time measurement is meaningless in eternity? There is no starting point and no destination, and no mile markers, only existence!

If one thinks on the issue of predestination from that perspective, it is not difficult to see that the battle between Calvinist and Armenian theology regarding predestination has no merit either way. God does not look back nor forward, He looks on what is!

 

Gen.18.17-19: "And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his childen and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgement; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him."

And Joseph speaking to his brethren: "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." Gen. 50.20

or,
Gen. 15.13-16: "And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not their, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they comoe out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full."

(Note vs. 17 it typifies the only action/accepting which is able to occur between God and man).

I live in an area where A.W. Pink use to pastor; he didn't have much success in preaching the truth as it is (to the degree it is difficult to find any of his writings in any local libraries, even WKU's library only has one work).

The truth that God has decreed all things is not popular, but, we are not able to so easily lay it aside. God has clearly revealed it in His Word to us.

We could note the promised seed as being through Sarai, yet in his will Abram took her handmaid and the child born has been a thorn in the flesh since. When we depraved men attempt to help God accomplish His Will, we only frustrate things.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

If there is no saving Grace, but only common Grace, then in your view all men shall be saved.

Common Grace is the dispensation of the blessings you speak of these are commonly felt by the righteous (not in works, but in the righteousness of God revealed in Christ) and by the wicked, yet this Grace (held in common) has not the wonderful effect of humbling the proud heart of some while it does others. Making (inherently) a quality in those who do believe lacking in those who do not believe, thus making it necessary for God to have been a 'respecter of persons.'

Rather, it is the effectual irresistable Grace of God given to those of His elect, elected according to His own Will, apart from any outside consideration or influence, which seperates these groups.

Those feeling this common Grace only carry the thought so far as to say, I am lucky, I was in the right place at the right time, my hard work paid off; always setting about to establish their own righteousness, they never submit themselves to the righteousness of God.

Yes, you are correct, God is no respecter of persons, this is why He has provided this common Grace that all (even the wicked) may enjoy this life they possess in this world; the difference is that any who would come to God through Christ, must do it by Grace through faith and that not of themselves...

it must be imparted to them from a higher authority.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas