Bob,
You said..
When you merely "ASSUME" that the Bible says "ALONE without CHRIST" is the definition of SAVED -- it is you that has to PROVE your own wild assumption not Arminians.
What is sad, is that you claim this is one of three "major" text that freewillism builds their doctrine on. Yet the very text itself does not support your view. The text clearly is talking about a church. You ASSUME that is is the persons heart.
Lets not forget that freewillism NEEDS this verse to say whay they want it to say. Without it their house falls. This verse MUST be talking of all of mankind, or the passage is no good to the freewillers.
This passage has to be talking about mens hearts, or one of the three "Pillars of Arminianism" falls. This is where Arminianism starts, and then looks to see if they can find truth later.
You ASSUME this to be as you wish it were. You want others to "take the next step". The next step is open to human speculation and theology slant. The next step is moving from exegesis into
eisegesis.
This is no way to build a top doctrine.
You also said..
As we see in 2Cor 5 "If anyone is IN CHRIST He is a NEW creation"
As we see in the Gospels "I will NEVER LEAVE you".
As we see in Rev 3:20 "I WILL COME IN and FELLOWSHIP with HIM".
The person that is in Christ is a believer
The person who Christ will never leave...is the believer.
The person Christ wants to fellowship with is the believer.
As we see John MacArthur also seems to get the picture.
Now can people draw other pictures from this text? Yes many do. John MacArthur is a case in point. But does John MacArthur build his whole theology of salvation from this passage? Would you care for me to post the full view of John MacArthur on salvation? Do you feel John MacArthur is a Calvinist, or a non-Calvinist? Or do you really know what he believes on the doctrines of grace and you are just trying to mislead to support your view? Seeing tibbits and sharing a picture is one thing. John has done nothing wrong here.
Building a doctrine on a text that does not support you is yet another thing.
Calvinism can see the truth of the text and admit freely that this is talking about the Church. They also can apply other truths found their. A Calvinist knows that it is the church, but can picture other things as well. But these other things will not build a doctrine. They are just that...pictures.
Having all this evidence from the Bible, from reason, from Fellow Calvinists stacked against your "deny-all" position you then ask "text please"????
Still waiting on your evidence. This should be easy to see, being that this is a main passage for your doctrine.
Yet where is it? Sorry Bob, not there.
Please apply some reason to your posting - join the discussion.
I'll try to do better.
In Christ...James