What We Believe...Are You Listening?!?

Since all of this has been discussed ad nauseum, that is really an interesting way of getting out of dealing with Romans 7.

And Hislop not a scholar? oh help....

 

Dallas, you didn't give the whole thing

John 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall WE do, that WE might work the works of God?

Jn. 6:29 Jesus answered and said This is the work of God, THAT YE BELIEVE on him whom he hath sent"

Man Can and does have the Ability accept or deny Christ. To do the work of God or not.

 

We come to love God the same way you elect fellas claim. We were just not so totally depraved as you fellas. God did not have to irresistibly grace us. We heard and were moved by the grace of God. How about that, a depraved man moved by the goodness of God. Now that glorifies the goodness of God. I do not claim there to be anything good in me, guess i was just not as depraved as calvinist.

How does it feel; in order to explain your theology, you have to start looking for every negative scripture in the bible. Do you know that God actually speaks of his love for man in the bible.

Have you majored on the negative, leaving the positive up to someone else. Someone seeing Christ in your posts for the first time, what kind of Christ would they see. Is God really that ugly, or does his love explain his anger and stands it just even in man's sight.

Your theology produces nothing but depression and fustration. It needs a good PR man...

My evidence is i do not project total depravity out untill it results in something never mentioned in the bible. No irresistible grace in the bible, no efficacious grace in the bible. No grace and common grace. Just grace.... They are the imaginations of a depraved mind. If not, please show them to me in the scriptures.

Show me, one time, the word "grace", preceeded by the word "irresistible" or "efficacious".

[ October 29, 2002, 06:15 PM: Message edited by: Chappie ]

 

The point of this section of Romans isn't to describe the difference between unregenerate and regenerate. Paul uses the comparison between the unregenerate and the regenerate, as well as his current condition, to explain that there is a war between the spirit and the flesh.

He is here illustrating that the spirit recognizes that the law is good, but that his flesh wants to sin. That should be clear from the following, (which uses the present tense, by the way).

If his point were to describe his unregenerate condition, surely Paul would have said, "For I know that in my unregenerate state, nothing good once dwelled." But that's not what he says. He says that although his spirit recognizes NOW what is good, his flesh NOW keeps pressing him to do otherwise. And here's the point he's trying to get at -- he, personally, doesn't have the power to overcome this problem.

Are you saying that he's under the law because he's saying that he agrees that it is good? Do you not agree that the law is good? I certainly do.

To simplify what he's saying: "I agree with the law that I should have no other Gods before you, LORD, but I couldn't help but watch football this Sunday instead of going to church. The fact that I, as a spiritual being, KNOW what I'm doing is wrong, yet I do it anyway, makes it obvious that there are TWO forces at war here -- one that wants to obey the law, and one that wants to do whatever it wants to do." Lo and behold, that's what he says next, as you point out:

Yes, he does. That will is the Spirit of Christ living in Him. By the way, here is the word translated "sinful nature":

4561 sarx {sarx}
probably from the base of 4563; TDNT - 7:98,1000; n f
AV - flesh 147, carnal 2, carnally minded + 5427 1, fleshly 1; 151
1) flesh (the soft substance of the living body, which covers
(strong's number 4561)

Like I said, this passage describes the war between the spirit and the flesh.

I would.

Amen to that. Everyone of us should flee to Christ when we find ourselves engaged in that war between the spirit and the flesh, because only Christ can win that battle. We cannot do it on our own.

So how do we know this "will" is the Spirit of Christ in him? Let's back up a moment, and have a look at what Paul said just before chapter 7.

An alternate translation of verse 20 should be enlightening (Young's Literal):

The word "free" is eleutheros, meaning "free" as in "not under the control of."

1658 eleutheros {el-yoo'-ther-os}
probably from the alternate of 2064; TDNT - 2:487,224; adj
AV - free 18, free woman 3, at liberty 1, free man 1; 23
1) freeborn
1a) in a civil sense, one who is not a slave
(strong's number 1658)

So Paul says that before we were saved, we were slaves to sin and free from righteousness. And after we are saved, we are slaves to righteousness/God and free from sin. It doesn't say we never did anything good as slaves to sin, nor does it mean we never do anything bad once we're saved. It simply means that we have one master when we're unsaved, and another when we're saved. This passage doesn't really say anything about how we get from one state to the other. That isn't the point of this passage. His ultimate goal is to point out that we are powerless to help ourselves in this problem, and that only Christ can come to our rescue.

Even the section that describes the transition from unsaved to saved: "But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered." doesn't lend a clue as to what motivated them to obey from the heart. If there's a clue at all, it's in the words, to which you were delivered. It doesn't say, "which you chose to obey of your own free will."

In other words, this passage isn't describing what I think you think it's describing.

 

Sure.

First of all, I'm not going to argue about Hunt. His work in exposing Catholicism, the occult in the churches today, and a number of other things stands alone in today's writings as being thoroughly referenced and reliable. You may not like what he wrote concerning Calvinism, but his scholarship there was, in my humble opinion, just as good.

Hislop -- do you even know who he was? He was a minister and a scholar -- an excellent scholar. His work in Two Babylons tracks linguistic, historical, and theological material using research by many, many others, a number of whom he read in the original Greek and Latin. His work actually presupposed a higher degree of classical education in the reader than any of us have today, and I had to do quite a bit of extra reading simply to understand fully what some of his footnotes were referring to! Don't mistake his passion for lack of scholarship. The man did an amazing work with that book. For the record, I have nothing to do with Chick and do not like his lack of honest scholarship or his inability to keep up with science or admit when he has been wrong. However a number of authors I have edited for have used Hislop as a reference in matters of both linguistics and theology. He is widely respected by other scholars.

Now, if you will notice Romans 7 again, you will find that Paul nowhere says he was searching for God or Jesus. He was simply unable to do the good. He said he did not understand what it was he did, because it was not what he wanted to do. He said he desired to do good, but could not carry it out.

This has nothing to do with seeking God. It has to do with the war in every unregenerate heart. It has to do with the reason people are so easily deceived by yoga and TM and such -- they desperately want inner peace that that war will not allow.

The closest Paul get's to even mentioning God in that section is to talk about God's law. And that is written on the hearts of men -- Romans 2.

The unregenerate man can hate God and still want to do good himself.

The unregenerate man certainly cannot please God. We know that. But he does want to please himself, and that is where the war is centered. As Paul is saying, he is not pleasing himself, but instead doing the very things he does not want to do. No one is pleased seeing themselves do that!

The unregenerate man does not have to understand things of the Spirit (which he cannot, as you referenced), and yet he may want to be a decent, hard-working, 'good' man. That is what Paul is talking about. He is not talking about the unregenerate seeking God there. He is not talking about understanding spiritual matters or thinking the gospel less (or more) than foolish. None of that is in dispute, and so the references you asked me to reconcile with Romans 7 are clearly not in conflict with it.

Now, I ask you, would or could a saved person state any of the following?

"I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin."

"I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep on doing."

"What a wretched man I am!"

"So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."

Here, in contrast:

"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ."

"You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."

"So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God."

Rev. G, you cannot be under the law and dead to the law at the same time. Which one is Paul talkng about in the discussed verses in Romans 7?

One cannot be a slave to sin and a slave to righteousness at the same time. Which one is Paul talking about in the discussed verses in Romans 7?

 

If that is the case, then all of his work must be junk. This Anti-Calvinism book is a lying, deceptive treatise. He spends the first part of his book slandering the character of John Calvin to attempt to prejudice the reader in favor of the poor case he makes in the rest of the book against the Biblical doctrines of God's grace. Dave Hunt's book is a perfect example of how not to to Biblical scholarship(he claimed a few months before he had hardly read anything by the Reformers). He has now cast into doubt his arguments against Catholicism because of his shoddy efforts in this book. Frankly, he should have kept his mouth shut, his pen in the drawer, and his fingers off of the keyboard.

Ken
A Spurgeonite

 

Rev. G., no one is saying repentance is not part of the Gospel. It is fundamental to being born again. One must first be willing to die to self, and that's darn hard. It is impossible without a deep disgust with self and desire to change -- something we refer to as repentance.

But the gospel does not end there, does it? People did not flock to Jesus because He was yelling and screaming at them about repentance. They came because of His kindness and love. It was that which they saw as stark contrast to themselves, and many were thus led to repentance.

We love because He first loved us. Without that love we cannot love. That would make it impossible to obey either of the two great commandments, wouldn't it?

The point made by the lives of every believer in the Bible is that God DOES have an incredible (a step past wonderful) plan for each life He has created. He is not a waster of human beings.

Ken -- I doubt sincerely you have read much of Hunt. On a purely non-Calvinist argument level, I strongly recommend at least "The Occult Invasion", and "Whatever Happened to Heaven?" Those are two outstanding books that I am quite sure any Christian would appreciate.

 

Personally speaking, I've read and heard too much of Dave Hunt and, frankly, I have no interest in reading or hearing him again unless he retracts what he said in his anti-God's amazing grace book.

Ken
A Spurgeonite

 

New Schaff-Herzog Ency. Rel. Knowl. II:15-16.

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) "One of the greatest English theologians." "One of the most voluminous of English authors, and one of the best." – Schaff-Herzog, II:15. He was a leader on the Non-conformist side in the Savoy Conference. He left the Church of England 3 days before the Act of Uniformity was passed. His theology which modified the Calvinism of Baxter's day somewhat, made him unpopular with his contemporaries and caused a split among the Dissenters of the eighteenth century. "As summarized by Thomas W. Jenkyn, it differed from the Calvinism of Baxter’s day on four Points: (1) The atonement of Christ did not consist in his suffering the identical but the equivalent punishment (i.e., one which would have the same effect in moral government) as that deserved by mankind because of offended law. Christ died for sins, not persons... (2) The elect were a certain fixed number determined by the decree without any reference to their faith as the ground of their election, which decree contemplates no reprobation but rather the redemption of all who will accept Christ as their Saviour. (3) What is imputed to the sinner in the work of justification is not the righteousness of Christ but the faith of the sinner himself in the righteousness of Christ. (4) Every sinner has a distinct agency of his own to exert in the process of his conversion. The Baxterian theory, with modifications, was adopted by many later Presbyterians and Congregationalists in England, Scotland, and America (Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, and many others)."

So how many Calvinists would side with Baxterian theology? Perhaps Hunt was right.

 

I heard because the persuasiveness of the call that God placed in my life was loud enough and strong enough to get my attention. I was moved to appoint of curiosity concerning the truth of what I had really, always known. That truth being that there is a God. My curiosity was, is this him? And what was it that he was trying to tell me.

I was at first reluctant to hear him because he wanted me to give up the things that I had always turned to for pleasure. (Sex, booze, and rock and roll) Yet his continued persistence in touching my life; finally got me to take a serious look at the things that caused me pleasure, the harm that they caused me (selfish but sufficient for God) and the others that I loved. The beauty of his truths finally gave me more pleasure than the pleasures that this world had to offer.

Considering my hatred of God: When I searched my heart for that hatred in the classic sense: It was not there. And never had been. He was either a non entity in my life, or he was to my great shame ignored. But he was never consciously hated. So that obviously left me calling the scriptures a lie, which I know better than to do.

So I had to do a little research in order to reconcile my life with scripture.

Theostuges ^2319^, from theos, "God," and stugeo (see B), is used in <Rom. 1:30>, KJV, and RV, marg., "haters of God," RV, "hateful to God"; the former rendering is appropriate to what is expressed by the next words, "insolent," "haughty," but the RV text seems to give the true meaning. Lightfoot quotes from the Epistle of Clement of Rome, in confirmation of this, "those who practice these things are hateful to God."#
(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words)
(Copyright (C) 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers)

I did not hate God, I did the things that God hates. The word “hate” by which you deem men to hate God, means that "those who practice these things are hateful to God."

[ October 29, 2002, 07:38 PM: Message edited by: Chappie ]

 

From your text:

the former rendering [haters of God] is appropriate to what is expressed by the next words, "insolent," "haughty,"

In other words, the context points to that rendering. Here's the whole context:

Why would one wedge "hateful to God" inbetween "gossips, slanderers -- isolent, arrogant and boastful, etc?" It's jammed into a long stream of words and phrases describing those things that are hateful to God, so isn't it stylistically inconsistent and redundant to insert "hateful to God" in there?

It would be like saying, "Here's what I don't like to eat: I don't like to eat liver, onion soup, things I don't like, raw beef, or tomato soup."

Even if this were uninspired text, Paul could write better than that.

 

Perhaps there are some other points which would clarify this. They became FILLED. In other words, they were not filled with these things before, but perhaps only dabbled in them, preferring their ways to God's and suppressing the truth that was revealed to them.

In other words, it was more of a "you want it? you got it!" situation. They had consistently chosen against the knowledge of the truth and of God that they had, and that consistency had finally been acknowledged by God and taken to its final conclusion.

However, what needs to be understood as well is that something of truth HAD been revealed to them. Now, you can't reveal something visual to a blind person. It doesn't work. In the same way, the idea of them having knowledge of God and having some truth revealed which they then wilfully suppress does indicate that God was giving them enough indication that they could have chosen otherwise. This is the clear indication of Romans 1.

You cannot 'prefer' something compared to something impossible for you. For example, you cannot prefer to breathe air instead of water because water is not an option. Therefore your 'preference' means zero. Preference only counts when two or more options are actually available to the person making the choice.

Therefore the people who are condemned by the end of Romans 1 did have a choice, as indicated clearly in verses 18-21.

Verse 28 also makes the point of saying that "since they did not think it worthwhile to RETAIN the knowledge of God, he gave them over...."

Thus they became God-haters. They did not start that way. Being a God-hater is one of the "every kind of wickedness" that they became filled with. There is no indication they started that way.

 

That's a much more reasonable explanation, IMO.

 

Take another look at my post my friend. Two questions were asked of me reguarding my personal walk with Christ. I answered it truthfully and honestly.

I have never taken the time nor the energy necessary to hate God. How reasonable would it be for me to hate him, i did not even know him. My response stands as posted. I never hated God, yet I did do things that God hated, which makes it possible for one to say that i was hateful to God.

Just as it would be a lie for me to say that I loved him, it would be just as great a lie for me to say that i hated him. This is my personal testimony, not scripture.

Would you like to see the questions that were asked of me.