Featured What is "good" in God's sight?

Here we go again. You choose to belittle me rather than simply stick to your views by suggesting there is complete uniformity on this matter with the Calvinistic ranks. This only serves to reveal your own lack of scholarship on the matter...

Or how about Martin Luther?

Now, go twist away and pretend this is not a confounding matter for even those within the camp... I really don't care anymore.

 

Biblicist takes for granted that folks are ignorant. He can spew out anything he wants and he believes he cannot be refuted.

Sin is defined by the sciptures itself;

1 Jhn 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

Biblicist does not like the scriptural definition of sin, it does not serve his fallacious teachings.

Sin is breaking God's law, it is that plain and simple. When you tell they truth, you have not sinned. When you return a lost wallet, you have not sinned. Do not be fooled by Biblicist's attempt to say that everything lost man does is sin. If everything a lost man does is sin, then God's laws have absolutely no meaning. You are just as sinful if you keep the law or break it, it would make no difference at all. This is the kind of nonsensical confusion Biblicist tries to pass off on people. He depends on people being ignorant and simple, Calvinism would collapse in two years if folks knew the scriptures.

When Eve looked at the forbidden tree she was tempted.

Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

When Eve saw the forbidden fruit, she got some wrong ideas. It looked good for food, it was beautiful and she admired it, and she desired it because it would make her wise.

Was this sin? NO. This was temptation, not sin. Sin is the actual transgression of the law. God told Adam and Eve that they could not EAT this fruit, not that they could not look at it and think about it.

Look what God asked Adam and Eve;

Gen 3:11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

Was God concerned that Eve looked on the tree and desired it for food? NO. Was he concerned that it was beautiful to Eve? NO. Was he concerned she desired it to be wise? NO.

He was concerned whether she ATE the forbidden fruit. He was concerned whether she broke his commandment.

Biblicist is teaching pure falsehood. Yes, anyone who sins comes short of the glory of God, but that is not the definition of sin. Sin is the transgression of the law.

 

Over and over again Biblicist tries to redefine sin. The scriptures clearly tell us that sin is the transgression of the law.

1 Jhn 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

The Pharisees were not hypocrites because they kept the law as Biblicist falsely tries to represent, they were hypocrites because they did not keep the law.

Mat 23:2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

Jesus told his hearers to listen to the Pharisees, and do what they tell you to do. But Jesus said not to do their works, for they say to obey the law, but they themselves do not keep it.

So, Biblicist distorts what we are told about the Pharisees in scripture. Biblicist tries to paint them as persons who were obedient to the law, but because they had wicked hearts God saw them as evil. This is not what the scriptures teach. The scriptures teach that the Pharisees taught to do well, and should be obeyed, but they themselves did not keep the law.

So again, Biblicist piles one falsehood on top of another to attempt to prop up his fallacious teachings.

 

I will admit that at times I think people know more than they do regarding debate terms and practices as I debated professionally for years back in school. A 'supposition' is commonly referenced as one side requests the others to 'suppose' X is true for the sake of an argument (i.e. if my suppositions are true then...). I was simply asking you to suppose our system's claims regarding free will true for the sake of an argument so as to demonstrate that even when you accept the claims of my 'system' there is NO VALID reason to accept the notion of 'meritorious works' or 'earned salvation.'

But it isn't worth all this...so never mind...

 

Again, Biblicist misrepresents what Jesus was saying here. Are murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies transgression of the law? YES.

Jesus had just told the Pharisees that they break God's laws with their tradition.

Mat 15:3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.
5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;
6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

Jesus was condemning the Pharisees because they were not obeying the law.

Biblicist wants to convince you that the Pharisees were keeping the law, but because they were evil, their good works were evil. This is not what the scriptures are teaching here at all. The Pharisees were not keeping the commandments.

Again, Biblicist misrepresents what Jesus was saying. Yes, the Pharisees did put on an outward show of piety, but the problem was they were breaking God's laws.

Mat 23:3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

Again, Jesus told his hearers to listen to the Pharisees and do what they say (so much for inability). But do not DO as the Pharisees do, for they say, but DO NOT. The Pharisees did not obey God's commands.

So, scripture is not teaching that the Pharisees were obeying the commandments "externally" as Biblicist says, they were NOT obeying the commandments, and this is why it was sin. Sin is transgression of the law.

As for a tree being good or corrupt, again, Jesus showed that a man can determine whether he is a good tree that produces good fruit, or a corrupt tree that produces corrupt fruit.

Mat 12:33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.

Biblicist will tell you over and over that a evil tree can only produce evil fruit, but he will not tell you that Jesus showed that a man determines whether he is a good tree or a corrupt tree.

Jesus clearly shows that a man can "either make" himself a good tree that produces good fruit, "or else" he could make himself a corrupt tree that produces corrupt fruit.

Biblicist will skip over this scripture because it destroys his view.

 

Mat 12:33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.

So, that's your argument? That you cannot see how Matthew 12:33 argues that Jesus taught a man can determine what kind of tree he is, "either" a good tree that produces good fruit, "or else" a corrupt tree that produces corrupt fruit?

And you cannot see that Jesus used the word "make" to show man's ability to determine which kind of tree he is?

You are seriously going to offer this as your argument?

Good luck selling this one. :laugh:

 

Once again, Skandelon uses sound bite quotes which he has lifted from anti-Calvinist sources to ‘prove’ his Arminian ordo salutis.

I quote from Richard Muller’s Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation.

“Although it is certainly suitable to speak cautiously about the development toward a conception of the order of salvation, or ordo salutis, among the Reformers and their successors in the Reformed tradition, it would be a significant historiographical mistake to speak of Calvin’s or Vermigli’s or Beza’s, Perkins’, Ames’, or indeed Turretin’s doctrine of ordo salutis inasmuch as the term had not yet come into use in its later technical or dogmatic sense.”

http://books.google.com/books?id=jU...8#v=onepage&q=Calvin's ordo salvation&f=false

 

You are reading without comprehension...

The key argument respecting "Ordo Salutis" is simply whether regeneration precedes faith.....
That's all that matters, that's it.

Nothing else does.

Now let's make this REEEAAALLLY simple for you:

One key argument of Arminians is that the Bible teaches that Faith precedes re-generation (as opposed to re-generation preceding faith).

Skandelon has demonstrated that BOTH Calvin and Luther CLEARLY taught that Faith precedes re-generation (as did C.H. Spurgeon whom all Baptists admire).

Now...the commonly taught "New Calvinism" or the present-day form of avant-garde Calvinism extant must insist that re-generation precedes faith.
That's not Scriptural.

Your quote only says this:

Duh....

What Skan has already proven, is that whether the sexy two-dollar word "Ordo-Salutis" (<---if that's what makes Theologians feel smart ) exists or not...the principle has been vetted and debated long before we conjured up a stupid and unnecessary Latin term for it centuries after Latin was a dead language anyway.

You just quoted a guy saying that since that the Old Reformers didn't use the obnoxiously unnecessary Latin term "Ordo Salutis"....(he's right) and you subsequently concluded that neither Calvin nor Luther could possibly have an articulated and sophisticated Theology of the necessary processes for salvation...

That's simply stupid...
I don't agree with their well-articulated and quite sophisticated Theology of Salvation...
But you take this to mean that

Since the pretentious term "Ordo-Salutis" hadn't been conjured up yet, that Luther and Calvin didn't have one....
That's among the stupidest things I've ever read on this board.

Here's a hint:

There'd BE no such thing as a sophisticated Theology of an "Ordo-Salutis" if it weren't for men like Calvin and Luther.

Congratulations....
You've just quoted someone who demonstrated simply that a robust Terminology like "Ordo-Salutis" wasn't commonly used, and concluded for yourself that therefore, since the term "gravity" wasn't developed until Newton....
Then presumably, no Scientist before him ever noticed that things fell downward from three-story buildings.

 

2 Timothy 2:19-21
New International Version (NIV)
19 Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”

20 In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. 21 Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.

Hebrews 3:3
Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.

I believe regeneration before faith is ridiculous until we accept Jesus Christ into our heart and let Him destroy who we once was and rebuild us into the new creation ,we can do no good. It is not the house that ever gets the glory and praise but the builder