I agree that it is amazing God's grace and mercy. I deserve hell, so do you and all sinners. It isn't until you realize you are a sinner deserving hell saved by God's grace do you understand the Gospel fully. I have deep respect of that truth taken to heart among Calvinists. Even though I disagree with you all on how to interpret scripture.
-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Were non-Calvinists predestinated to be non-Calvinists?
- Thread starter George Antonios
- Start date
- Status
I agree that it is amazing God's grace and mercy. I deserve hell, so do you and all sinners. It isn't until you realize you are a sinner deserving hell saved by God's grace do you understand the Gospel fully. I have deep respect of that truth taken to heart among Calvinists. Even though I disagree with you all on how to interpret scripture.
Because they are evil. What do they do when the light is shown on them any way
Jn 8:12 is an offer and invitation.
MB
37818
Well-Known Member
That is the fundamenal issue. We have the cpmmon ground of the New Testament. And presumably we each know God through Christ and believe the same essentials.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
So can God ... that’s what Hell is for.
False accusation? I have not worked for my Salvation. The saved do not go to hell because they've been forgiven. IOW'S they no longer deserve it the slate has been wiped clean. There is a huge difference between deserving and being forgiven. We will never see hell after being forgiven. The Lord has paid our penalty.
MB
I get what you are saying, it was a little hard to understand. I agree.
Well I agree. As I think Dave G said, it is not as though we think we have an unbiblical doctrine that we are promoting on purpose.
Whichever of the two sides winds up wrong, they did so out of ignorance. If we altered the Gospel, as given a few times explicitly in scripture, or taught falsely on purpose, then we are truly false teachers. As it is we are potentially blinded by deception, a terrible thing worthy of our efforts to understand the scriptures and seek to expound on what we believe scripture teaches.
Last edited:
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
Sundry answers, and only 1 man answered the OP...
Dave G
Well-Known Member
Which is what all of us are ( Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 1:18-32, Romans 3:10-18, Romans 3:23 ).
The only thing that makes us good or righteous in God's eyes,
is Him cleansing us from our sins ( Romans 8:33, 1 Corinthians 6:11, 1 John 1:7 ) by the blood of His Son.
We reject it, and Him, just as Romans 3:10-18 and John 3:19-20 clearly state.
The Lord Jesus told the Pharises why they would not come to Him:
" Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. 40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
41 I receive not honour from men.
42 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.
43 I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
44 How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that [cometh] from God only?
45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is [one] that accuseth you, [even Moses, in whom ye trust.
46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" ( John 5:39-47 ).
Look at it carefully, MB...
There's a reason why people come to Him and why they do not.
It's a heart issue, and one only God can change.
This is dealt with in John 6 and many other places.
Last edited:
Dave G
Well-Known Member
To me, John 8:12 is not an offer...
It is a declaration of who has the light of life and who does not:
" Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." ( John 8:12 ).
It states, in no uncertain terms, that whoever follows Christ shall not walk in darkness, but shall have ( present tense ) the light of life.
Where do you see an offer anywhere in that, MB?
Does your mind see the declaration that whoever follows Him shall have the light of life, and by implication come to the conclusion that if you agree to follow Him, you shall have the light of life?
For some reason I don't see this when I read it, MB.
I see a plainly stated and worded declaration, not an offer of "come to me and I will give you the light of life".
Again, may He bless you greatly in your studies, sir.
Dave G
Well-Known Member
I'll answer it, George.
Answered in post # 2.
But if you want a more straight-forward answer, I'll say,
"Yes", and I'll qualify it this way:
As I see it, all of God's children ( that He loved from the foundation of the world ) were predestinated conformed to the image of His Son, predestinated to their adoption as the sons of God, and they both hear ( John 8:43-47 ) or willingly receive God's words and eventually come to a fuller understanding of them by the Holy Spirit that indwells them ( 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, 1 John 2:20-27 ) over the course of their studies.
Therefore,
My best advice to anyone who has truly believed on Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, is to study to show themselves approved unto God, so that they will someday rightly divide the word of truth ( 2 Timothy 2:15 ).
George,
As I see it, you're asking this question to trap people and have them admit to whether or not what you call "Calvinism" is the true doctrine of God's people...
That their salvation rests in God and His work alone,
and that anyone outside of eventually coming to see this is not saved.
Since you've put me in a spot that my best endeavors will not allow me to answer without causing offense,
Then in my honesty and integrity I will offer up my best answer and let those chips fall where they may as well.
I also tell you this knowing full well that I've allowed you to back me into that corner from which I cannot answer it without causing offense,
and knowing this, I also confess that I have nothing to lose by telling you what I believe to be the truth, except my esteem among men.
Here is my answer for anyone who is in doubt:
I believe that what is commonly called "Calvinism" is not only the truth,
but that those who never come to see what the Scriptures teach about their salvation being totally and completely of God ( and angrily resist it until the day they die ), are probably not saved.
You may now report my post and request that I be banned from this board if that's what the moderators and admins wish to do to me.
As always,
I wish you and yours well and God's blessing upon you,
Both in your daily life and in your eternal one;
and may He grant you the privilege to see what I have seen...
His amazing mercy and electing grace through His Son and His taking out of the nations a people for His namesake.
Last edited:
Predestination is for the conforming of man to the likeness of Christ. It is not for Salvation or election.
MB
You were clearly answered. You simply despise the answers you have received. Either respond to the answers that were given or keep speaking falsely. Your choice.
An Arminian can’t say anything but Yes.
A Calvinist shouldn’t say anything but No.
Here’s why:
An Arminian believes he is correct in assuming that God predestines based on knowledge of the future actions of men, and therefore God merely does what fate (a settled future that He is mostly merely a spectator of) makes Him do.
A Calvinist believes he is correct in assuming God predestines all things from the beginning (or earlier), leading to a settled future, based on His own plans, but that means God’s plans include making some of His believers to believe a lie, which He would never do to His children.
If neither are correct, then there must be a third option, which does not require a settled future, except for the things God wants to accomplish, leaving man to decide whether to believe in Him, based on the evidences He has graciously provided.
The rewards of that belief are the accomplishment of the predestined characteristics He wants all believers to have and to grow in.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
If you were right I would not have declared that 1 person did answer. And now 2 people in total: @atpollard and @Dave G
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
Um, ok, as long as we're finally getting a direct honest answer.
Well, well, well.
Not going to happen. I have too much peace of mind in Christ regarding my salvation to be so troubled by the outlook of a heresy that places God in the position of Satan (and worse) while regarding the person (the Bible's way of saying "brown-nosing") of God.
And I won't give you the pleasure of presenting yourself as some kind of victim.
Seems like you've been under the tutelage of Greg Boyd and other open theists...
LOL, God in the position of Satan...
You lift Satan to a position he has not and never will attain.
Moreso, you make yourself the judge of God.
Thus, you struggle to accept/believe that God ordains the affairs of men.
Daniel 4:34-35 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”
Isaiah 14:24,26-27 The Lord of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand, This is the purpose that is purposed concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
Ephesians 1:11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
Your question is answered, George. I'm sure you won't like it, but your question is answered.
Many have answered. Few have been chosen...[emoji57]
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
I added "and worse".
Just because I and literally hundreds of thousands of other Christians don't espouse your non-Biblical extreme application of Daniel 4:35 to the point at which God foreordains the being and motion of every physical and volitional event doesn't mean we "struggle to accept/believe that God ordains the affairs of men". We argue that you don't understand what those verses mean because of your Calvinistically coloured philosophical lenses which mine the Bible for language that sounds correlative to your gnostic fatalistic deterministic view of God and his work.
We struggle with your refusal to accept the Biblical and reasonable truth that God only foreordains certain events - not all - and that even then, when it comes to volition-requiring events, he by his wisdom can navigate the free will of men to arrive at his desired event.
We struggle with your view of God as a spiritual and emotional weakling who can't prophesy anything unless he determines and causes it, who, as the supreme spoiled, fragile brat, cannot brook his will being thwarted at any time, and who isn't sovereign enough to allow, in his sovereign choice, such a free will to men as to deny his own will.
We struggle with your "God-as-author-of-all-iniquity" philosophy while you daftly swear that somehow God still isn't the author of sin even as he authors it.
We struggle with your God-as-hypocrite-cruel-mental-torture-master view of God, whereby he programs men to refuse his call while he holds them responsible for refusing it.
We struggle with your "holier and humbler than thou" Pharisaical spirit and your great pride in your great humility, the stench of which you cannot smell because your olfactory senses have been thereby overloaded into numbness.
We struggle with you being elected outside of Christ, your system relegating Christ to being the means of election rather than its cause, rendering him out to be the mere taxi-driver of your elected royal rump to heaven.
We struggle with the fact that some of you are ready to reckon us believers as lost to hell because we reject your fatalistic view of our God.
We struggle with your utter refusal to let scripture define scripture.
Such things we struggle with, not "that God ordains the affairs of men" as Biblically understood.
Last edited:
- Status