The message of reconciliation

[Barry Johnson]

MB,

I am someone who was once a Calvinist. I studied theology at a graduate level, taught Calvinism (when teaching theology), and held that soteriological position for a long time. Calvinism carries with it a set of presuppositions that affects how sermons are preached (depending on topic) and Scripture is interpreted. Often Calvinism does result in eisegesis. I left Calvinism not because I found error in what it stated but I became aware of error in what it presupposed (the philosophy behind Calvinism, the "worldview", was unjustifiable). That small error in what Calvinism assumes is magnified throughout the interpretive process.

I say this to agree with you that Calvinism does, in some areas, rob from the truth. But a Calvinist will never be able to identify the "fly in the ointment" simply by exploring Scripture because the "fly" is extrabiblical (the initial error is philosophical and extrabiblical).

You waste your time arguing Calvinism with a Calvinist because adherents of the position read the theory into Scripture without recognizing the action. I was the same way. What has to change is the presuppositions, the philosophies at the base of Calvinism as that is what separates the "camp" from others.

This type of "blindness" is not unique to Calvinism. I'm just focusing on Calvinism as that is the focus here.

Sometimes it is best to just let it go. Narrative, once accepted, is extremely difficult to overcome. That's just the way people are.

Thats really well put. Thank you . I too have presups I'm constantly trying to realise and work through.

 

[AustinC]

It's not the scriptures them selves. It's that you keep adding your Calvinism to the scriptures. Like "all sinned in Adam" scripture does not say that but you insist that it does if we understand it. There is nothing wrong with my understanding. It's you who does not understand because you cannot see past your Calvinism. You tend to imagine what clearly isn't there. This is what robs you of the truth.
MB

An amazingly false accusation.

 

[JonC]

Thats really well put. Thank you . I too have presups I'm constantly trying to realise and work through.

We all have presuppositions (that can't be avoided). I do not believe this is an issue as long as people are able to recognize the presuppositions they hold (at least to the best of their ability).

You will see people who will argue "the plain reading of the text" (along with the "plain meaning", "obviously", or the illusive "they") which is probably the best indicator that they have failed to recognize their own presuppositions. That is one failure that is, IMHO, unforgiveable because recognizing these differences is foundational to biblical literacy.

 

[Barry Johnson]

We all have presuppositions (that can't be avoided). I do not believe this is an issue as long as people are able to recognize the presuppositions they hold (at least to the best of their ability).

You will see people who will argue "the plain reading of the text" (along with the "plain meaning", "obviously", or the illusive "they") which is probably the best indicator that they have failed to recognize their own presuppositions. That is one failure that is, IMHO, unforgiveable because recognizing these differences is foundational to biblical literacy.

Again, well said . Thankyou .

 

[AustinC]

MB,

I am someone who was once a Calvinist. I studied theology at a graduate level, taught Calvinism (when teaching theology), and held that soteriological position for a long time. Calvinism carries with it a set of presuppositions that affects how sermons are preached (depending on topic) and Scripture is interpreted. Often Calvinism does result in eisegesis. I left Calvinism not because I found error in what it stated but I became aware of error in what it presupposed (the philosophy behind Calvinism, the "worldview", was unjustifiable). That small error in what Calvinism assumes is magnified throughout the interpretive process.

I say this to agree with you that Calvinism does, in some areas, rob from the truth. But a Calvinist will never be able to identify the "fly in the ointment" simply by exploring Scripture because the "fly" is extrabiblical (the initial error is philosophical and extrabiblical).

You waste your time arguing Calvinism with a Calvinist because adherents of the position read the theory into Scripture without recognizing the action. I was the same way. What has to change is the presuppositions, the philosophies at the base of Calvinism as that is what separates the "camp" from others.

This type of "blindness" is not unique to Calvinism. I'm just focusing on Calvinism as that is the focus here.

Sometimes it is best to just let it go. Narrative, once accepted, is extremely difficult to overcome. That's just the way people are.

Just the opposite for me. I was a free-will synergist and the more I read scripture, the more I could see the massive presuppositions that tainted my ability to connect all of scripture. This was compounded by the fact I had been steeped in dispensationalism, which by it's very name dissects the whole into miniature sections so you are nearly incapable of seeing the whole. Reading Ephesians 2:1-10 was a nightmare in hoop jumping because my presupposition would not allow God to be entirely in control of my salvation. Romans 9 had to be avoided or argued around in such a lopsided way that it became almost comical.
The truth of God's full supremacy was a breath of fresh air.

 

[Iconoclast]

Then please go through the verses and explain why you think " the natural man ' is a unbeliever please . Not just stating the words from that one verse, means something ,because of doctrine or that one verse is teaching something on its own .

From preceptaustin;

Amplified - But the natural, nonspiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are folly (meaningless nonsense) to him; and he is incapable of knowing them [of progressively recognizing, understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them] because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated.

Barclay - A man who has no life but physical life cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God. To him they are foolishness and he cannot understand them, because it takes the Spirit to discern them.

NLT - But people who aren't Christians can't understand these truths from God's Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means.

Wuest Expanded Paraphrase - But the unregenerate man of the highest intellectual attainments does not grant access to the things of the Spirit of God, for to him they are folly, and he is not able to come to know them because they are investigated in a spiritual realm.

Now several men quoted here do not believe in the doctrines of grace,nevertheless they see clearly what is in view;observe-

But - Whenever you encounter this term of contrast, pause to ponder and ask what is being contrasted? The contrast is between the lost and the saved, respectively referred to as the natural man versus the spiritual man. We are all born natural men in Adam (Ro 5:12-note), but when we believe the "word of the Cross" (1Cor 1:18), we are transferred from our position "in Adam" to our eternal position "in Christ" (by grace through faith). As Peter says we "become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust (a description of the natural man's life)." (2Peter 1:4-note)

A natural man - This person is lost, unsaved, unregenerate, devoid of the Spirit of God, one who has only physical life. In this passage Paul states that the only way a natural man can accept and understand the supernatural Word is via a supernatural Source, the Spirit of God.

Adrian Rogers describes the natural man this way - Now, if you're a natural man and never have been born again—and a natural man is a man who's only had one birth. He was born into the natural world and he is bound by the material world. He's only had one birth and he can never ever know the things of the spirit of God until he has a second birth.

NET Note on natural man (psuchikos… anthropos) - “an unspiritual person, one who merely functions bodily, without being touched by the Spirit of God.”

Natural (5591)(psuchikos from psuche = soul) is literally "soulish" with affinity to natural sinful propensities, the person in whom the sarx, the flesh, is more the ruling principle.

Psuche is the nonphysical element which makes one alive, conscious of the environment, and is to be distinguished from pneuma or spirit, which is a distinctive of man as the element of communication with God.

Jude describe men who had crept into the assembly seeking to turn the grace of God into licentiousness (Jude 1:4-note) as "the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded (psuchikos), devoid of the Spirit." (Jude 1:19-note)
And so the natural man does not have the Holy Spirit. Paul amplifies this in Romans writing "you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." (Ro 8:9-note) \

And so the natural man does not belong to God, is not part of God's family, which explains why he cannot understand the "family language" so to speak. In 1Cor 2:12
see pt2-

 

[Iconoclast]

pt2.
Paul describes himself as a spiritual man who is the antithesis of the natural man, for the spiritual man has not received "the spirit of the world, but the Spirit Who is from God."

In that same passage Paul presented another distinction between the spiritual and natural man, namely that the spiritual man (Paul speaking of himself) can "know the things freely given" by God, but the natural man cannot know (or understand) them (1Cor 2:14).

Wuest - The word “natural” is the translation of a Greek word which Paul uses to describe to the Corinthian Greeks the unregenerate man at his best, the man whom Greek philosophy commended, the man actuated by the higher thoughts and aims of the natural life. The word used here is not the Greek word which speaks of the sensual man. It is the word coined by Aristotle to distinguish the pleasures of the soul, such as ambition and the desire for knowledge, from those of the body.
The natural man here spoken of is the educated man at the height of his intellectual powers, but devoid of the Spirit of God.

The word translated “receiveth” does not imply an active appropriation, but a certain attitude of passive acceptance when favorable, and of rejection if unfavorable. This man, whose powers of apprehension are limited to the exercise of his reason, does not admit these spiritual things into his heart. The reason for this rejection is that they are foolishness to him. (Ibid)

Friberg summary of psuchikos = of life in the natural world and what pertains to it; (1) as governed by sensual appetites and lived apart from the Spirit of God natural, unspiritual, worldly (1Cor 2.14; Jude 1:19); (2) as being a characteristic of the earthly body physical, natural (1Cor 15.44); neuter as a substantive - what is physical (1Cor 15.46). Jude 1:19 calls the teachers of error worldly (lit. ‘psychic’) people, who do not have the Spirit. (Analytical Lexicon)

Barclay - Even then it is not every man who can understand these things. Paul speaks about interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people.

He distinguishes two kinds of men.

(a) There are those who are pneumatikos. Pneuma is the word for Spirit; and the man who is pneumatikos is the man who is sensitive to the Spirit and whose life is guided by the Spirit.

(b) There is the man who is psuchikos. Psuche in Greek is often translated soul; but that is not its real meaning. It is the principle of physical life. Everything which is alive has psuche; a dog, a cat, any animal has psuche, but it has not got pneuma. Psuche is that physical life which a man shares with every living thing; but pneuma is that which makes a man different from the rest of creation and kin to God. So in 1Cor 2:14


Paul speaks of the man who is psuchikos. He is the man who lives as if there was nothing beyond physical life and there were no needs other than material needs, whose values are all physical and material. A man like that cannot understand spiritual things. (His interests and aims do not go beyond physical life). (1 Corinthians - William Barclay's Daily Study Bible)

As Dr DeHaan says "Regeneration… is a supernatural act of God whereby a spiritual creation takes place, and we behold things which are utterly unknown and must remain completely unknown even to the most cultured, sophisticated, educated of those of Adam’s race who have never experienced the new birth. And now we come to see the striking contrast in our Scripture. The natural man, the unregenerated man, sees none of these glories of this Book and of salvation and of God’s plan of redemption. He lives in an entirely different world, the world of sense and of sight, touch and sound. The tangible world is the habitat of the natural man in his unregenerate state, and he is, therefore, totally ignorant of the spiritual realm which transcends all of these things." (1 Corinthians Commentary)

Barclay on natural man - He is the man who lives as if there was nothing beyond physical life and there were no needs other than material needs, whose values are all physical and material. A man like that cannot understand spiritual things.

Chuck Smith on natural man - That is the way you were born, the nature you inherited from Adam. The theologians have a term, "The Adamic nature". It refers to what they term the unregenerate man. This is every man who has not be born again.
Jesus said to Nicodemus, "You must be born again, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit." Paul in another place refers to the natural man as the old man. (Ro 6:6) "knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin" Paul described the characteristics of the natural man in Eph 2:2-3 and Eph 4:17-19. (Chuck Smith Sermon Notes)

 

[Iconoclast]

MB,

It's not the scriptures them selves.

It starts and ends with the scriptures.....teaching comes from scripture.

It's that you keep adding your Calvinism to the scriptures.

You and others who oppose themselves suggest this, but it is flat out a wrong conclusion. You are welcome to your conclusion, but it is away from the historic confessional faith.

Like "all sinned in Adam" scripture does not say that but you insist that it does if we understand it.

That is exactly what scripture does say. It said it yesterday, it says it today, and will say it tomorrow .
All sinned at one point in time.....it is never going to say anything else.....All sinned in the fall.

precept austin;
The aorist tense here is referred to as "timeless aorist" which gathers up the whole human race for all time into this condemnation (see also A T Robertson).
There are no exceptions save Christ Jesus as Paul has made clear in the preceding indictment in (Ro 1:18-3:20)

Godet agrees writing that the aorist tense "transports us to the point of time when the result of human life appears as a completed fact, the hour of judgment."

MacDonald writes that the aorist tense pictures the fact that "Everybody sinned in Adam; when he sinned, he acted as the representative for all his descendants. But men are not only sinners by nature; they are also sinners by practice.

Leon Morris - The aorist pictures this as past, but also as a completion. It certainly does not mean that sin belongs wholly in the past, for Paul goes on to a present tense when he says fall short of the glory of God. Elsewhere in Romans the glory is often future (Ro 2:7, 10; 5:2; 8:18, 21). But there is also a present glory, for God “made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6; cf. 2 Cor. 3:18; John 17:22). But this is something Christ produces in believers. Sinners fall short of it. Not only did all sin in the past, but they continually come short of God’s glory. (Ibid)

Vincent writes that the aorist tense means "looking back to a thing definitely past — the historic occurrence of sin."

Remember that men and women sin because we are sinners by nature. A plum tree bears plums because it is a plum tree. The fruit is the result of its nature. Sin is the fruit of a sinful heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jer 17:9).

There is nothing wrong with my understanding.

I believe you think that. I also believe many of us see it differently.
We live in a day where many people claim many things, but truth is not subjective.

It's you who does not understand because you cannot see past your Calvinism.

You are quite free to believe that if it works for you. I do not think a non cal can understand or he would be a Calvinist.There have been some to claim they were Calvinists,[ and moved past it] and yet demonstrate no capacity to give an accurate explanation of these truths.
If I claim to be an expert car mechanic, but cannot tell you the difference between a fuel injector, and a brake caliper you might doubt my claim to be an "expert car mechanic:"

I notice that you have never worked through any link posted by any Cal and offered what you believe would be a scriptural correction.
Have you done that anywhere? Maybe I missed it!

You tend to imagine what clearly isn't there. This is what robs you of the truth.[/QUOTE]

well I offered some lengthy portions on 1 cor2:14, and rom3:23 quoting even Adrian Rogers, and Chuck Smith of all people.[non cals]
They agreed with what I have posted. Did they imagine it also?
Can you show how they all missed it!

 

[Iconoclast]

Just the opposite for me. I was a free-will synergist and the more I read scripture, the more I could see the massive presuppositions that tainted my ability to connect all of scripture. This was compounded by the fact I had been steeped in dispensationalism, which by it's very name dissects the whole into miniature sections so you are nearly incapable of seeing the whole. Reading Ephesians 2:1-10 was a nightmare in hoop jumping because my presupposition would not allow God to be entirely in control of my salvation. Romans 9 had to be avoided or argued around in such a lopsided way that it became almost comical.
The truth of God's full supremacy was a breath of fresh air.

I have heard many such testimonies. Sometimes those who oppose God the most, turn out to be the most intense followers.
Look at Saul/ Paul....

 

[Barry Johnson]

Could you walk through 1cor2.14 with the surrounding verses in context. By just posting a bunch of theologians with their thoughts it demonstrates you have given up your sense making by appealing to authority you dont understand why Paul is saying what he is saying and what he is saying ( in context).

 

[Barry Johnson]

pt2.
Paul describes himself as a spiritual man who is the antithesis of the natural man, for the spiritual man has not received "the spirit of the world, but the Spirit Who is from God."

In that same passage Paul presented another distinction between the spiritual and natural man, namely that the spiritual man (Paul speaking of himself) can "know the things freely given" by God, but the natural man cannot know (or understand) them (1Cor 2:14).

Wuest - The word “natural” is the translation of a Greek word which Paul uses to describe to the Corinthian Greeks the unregenerate man at his best, the man whom Greek philosophy commended, the man actuated by the higher thoughts and aims of the natural life. The word used here is not the Greek word which speaks of the sensual man. It is the word coined by Aristotle to distinguish the pleasures of the soul, such as ambition and the desire for knowledge, from those of the body.
The natural man here spoken of is the educated man at the height of his intellectual powers, but devoid of the Spirit of God.

The word translated “receiveth” does not imply an active appropriation, but a certain attitude of passive acceptance when favorable, and of rejection if unfavorable. This man, whose powers of apprehension are limited to the exercise of his reason, does not admit these spiritual things into his heart. The reason for this rejection is that they are foolishness to him. (Ibid)

Friberg summary of psuchikos = of life in the natural world and what pertains to it; (1) as governed by sensual appetites and lived apart from the Spirit of God natural, unspiritual, worldly (1Cor 2.14; Jude 1:19); (2) as being a characteristic of the earthly body physical, natural (1Cor 15.44); neuter as a substantive - what is physical (1Cor 15.46). Jude 1:19 calls the teachers of error worldly (lit. ‘psychic’) people, who do not have the Spirit. (Analytical Lexicon)

Barclay - Even then it is not every man who can understand these things. Paul speaks about interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people.

He distinguishes two kinds of men.

(a) There are those who are pneumatikos. Pneuma is the word for Spirit; and the man who is pneumatikos is the man who is sensitive to the Spirit and whose life is guided by the Spirit.

(b) There is the man who is psuchikos. Psuche in Greek is often translated soul; but that is not its real meaning. It is the principle of physical life. Everything which is alive has psuche; a dog, a cat, any animal has psuche, but it has not got pneuma. Psuche is that physical life which a man shares with every living thing; but pneuma is that which makes a man different from the rest of creation and kin to God. So in 1Cor 2:14


Paul speaks of the man who is psuchikos. He is the man who lives as if there was nothing beyond physical life and there were no needs other than material needs, whose values are all physical and material. A man like that cannot understand spiritual things. (His interests and aims do not go beyond physical life). (1 Corinthians - William Barclay's Daily Study Bible)

As Dr DeHaan says "Regeneration… is a supernatural act of God whereby a spiritual creation takes place, and we behold things which are utterly unknown and must remain completely unknown even to the most cultured, sophisticated, educated of those of Adam’s race who have never experienced the new birth. And now we come to see the striking contrast in our Scripture. The natural man, the unregenerated man, sees none of these glories of this Book and of salvation and of God’s plan of redemption. He lives in an entirely different world, the world of sense and of sight, touch and sound. The tangible world is the habitat of the natural man in his unregenerate state, and he is, therefore, totally ignorant of the spiritual realm which transcends all of these things." (1 Corinthians Commentary)

Barclay on natural man - He is the man who lives as if there was nothing beyond physical life and there were no needs other than material needs, whose values are all physical and material. A man like that cannot understand spiritual things.

Chuck Smith on natural man - That is the way you were born, the nature you inherited from Adam. The theologians have a term, "The Adamic nature". It refers to what they term the unregenerate man. This is every man who has not be born again.
Jesus said to Nicodemus, "You must be born again, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit." Paul in another place refers to the natural man as the old man. (Ro 6:6) "knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin" Paul described the characteristics of the natural man in Eph 2:2-3 and Eph 4:17-19. (Chuck Smith Sermon Notes)

Could you walk through 1cor2.14 with the surrounding verses in context. By just posting a bunch of theologians with their thoughts it demonstrates you have given up your sense making by appealing to authority you dont understand why Paul is saying what he is saying and what he is saying ( in context).

 

[Iconoclast]

Could you walk through 1cor2.14 with the surrounding verses in context. By just posting a bunch of theologians with their thoughts it demonstrates you have given up your sense making by appealing to authority you dont understand why Paul is saying what he is saying and what he is saying ( in context).

[snip]

I have some solid books I am reading, [snip]
If I and these men are mistaken, you need to go line by line and demonstrate it. I know you cannot begin to do it, but I offer you that chance...go for it.

 

[JonC]

Just the opposite for me. I was a free-will synergist and the more I read scripture, the more I could see the massive presuppositions that tainted my ability to connect all of scripture. This was compounded by the fact I had been steeped in dispensationalism, which by it's very name dissects the whole into miniature sections so you are nearly incapable of seeing the whole. Reading Ephesians 2:1-10 was a nightmare in hoop jumping because my presupposition would not allow God to be entirely in control of my salvation. Romans 9 had to be avoided or argued around in such a lopsided way that it became almost comical.
The truth of God's full supremacy was a breath of fresh air.

We have a lot in common. When I began studying the topic as an undergraduate I held to what would be called Classic or Reformation Arminianism. Basically, I agreed with the articles of the Remonstrance except that I did hold to the doctrine of eternal security. I was also steeped in dispensationalism (many do not realize that Dispensationalism began as a uniquely Calvinistic doctrine).

Throughout my experience at a Christian university I debated Calvinists. By the time I entered seminary I was a Calvinist. What changed my position (from Reformation Arminianism to Calvinism) was Ezekiel 53. I reasoned that if salvation was entirely a work of God and dependent on a new birth then the synergist position is flawed (I still hold this position).

There are things that you and I would still have in common. I still hold to unconditional election (and double-predestination). I still confirm that man can do nothing to "save himself" or approach God, that God's will is gong to be done regardless of man's will, that Christ died to save the "sheep" or those who believe (not the reprobate), and that we are secure in Christ.

I have rejected Calvinism because I have come to see its presuppositions as flawed, not because of its observations of Scripture. But that does mean that I hold the "five points" in a distinctively un-Calvinistic manner, along the lines of Jonathan Edwards rather than Beza. Part of this is, of course, Edward's writings and their influence on my thinking. I do not base my view on Edwards, but at the same time I do not find fault with his comments on divine predestination and the will.

Anyway, we should always grow, learn, and mature. I am glad to see that you have come to an understanding and are able to articulate your position reasonably.

 

[Dave G]

The Bible never says we die in Adam.

" For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." ( 1 Corinthians 15:22 ).

 

[Barry Johnson]

This empty response shows to me and others that you are not interested in the truth, but just seeking to oppose at all costs.
I have some solid books I am reading, and learning from, so to see you just dismiss godly teachers without any real comment exposes you and what you are about.
If I and these men are mistaken, you need to go line by line and demonstrate it. I know you cannot begin to do it, but I offer you that chance...go for it.

Avoidance noted .

 

[Iconoclast]

Avoidance noted .

The avoidance is on your part.

 

[JonC]

Could you walk through 1cor2.14 with the surrounding verses in context. By just posting a bunch of theologians with their thoughts it demonstrates you have given up your sense making by appealing to authority you dont understand why Paul is saying what he is saying and what he is saying ( in context).

You have made a legitimate observation.

As we study we may use commentaries and the works of other men. BUT when we argue, debate, and form our own doctrine we have to first take what those men teach and learn it so that we can use our own words and reason through Scripture.

This is vital because people do not always esteem the same teachers and it is too subjective a criteria.

 

[Iconoclast]

Could you walk through 1cor2.14 with the surrounding verses in context. By just posting a bunch of theologians with their thoughts it demonstrates you have given up your sense making by appealing to authority you dont understand why Paul is saying what he is saying and what he is saying ( in context).

I am not going to do your study for you. I have given many sources that you ignore, so until you engage those teachers do not bother to ask anything as you are not looking for an answer.

 

[Barry Johnson]

I am not going to do your study for you. I have given many sources that you ignore, so until you engage those teachers do not bother to ask anything as you are not looking for an answer.

I know what some commentarys say ect . Sometimes we can get some insights from some interesting views ect . But of course we don't give up our sense making to other mens differing views . I assume because a person uses a verse quite heavily that they also can articulate their understanding of the verse . Its context. Why the Author is writing; who he's writing to ; what's the central idea and what he wants the audience to understand, ect .

 

[Barry Johnson]

I am not going to do your study for you. I have given many sources that you ignore, so until you engage those teachers do not bother to ask anything as you are not looking for an answer.

This reads " I've overloaded you by appealing to Authority, as I haven't arrived at my own conclusion, using my own sense making . And I'm satisfied with the theologians who have done the work for me . "