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Where does believing faith come from part 3
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No, and I don't believe that God forces people either.
Are you now admitting that God, by force, (and only according to your theology and point of view) makes robots out of men, for he simply forces them to do what he wants without any free will at all.
I can make a robot, program him to bow down before me and say all day long "I worship DHK; I worship DHK, etc." But God didn't do that; although it seems that you believe he did. God gave man a free will to choose or not to choose to worship him. He is not forcing man to worship him.
psalms109:31
Active Member
Believers are the body
Believers are the body and they are the one's who here the Gospel of thier salvation having believed. They are the whosoever believed.
Believers are the body and they are the one's who here the Gospel of thier salvation having believed. They are the whosoever believed.
OldRegular
Well-Known Member
Each coin has two sides.
The unbelievers are the ones that chose not to believe. They are in hell and someday will be in the lake of fire forever and ever. They are "the elect of God for damnation" by default.
I don't fault God for anything.
He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
He gave man the choice to believe whether or not he would accept his free gift of eternal life. Some do and some don't. It is a gift--a free gift, as declared over and over again by the Scriptures.
The gift of God is eternal life--Romans 6:23
OldRegular
Well-Known Member
No, no, and 1000 times NO! What is it with you and your fascination with "robots"?
I (at least I know that I) do not believe that God personally "micro-manages" every distinct action of people. For the non-elect, God simply leaves them to the dictates of their free will. Therefore, according to their nature, they freely choose against God's will. They do exactly what they want to do!
For the elect, the Holy Spirit through the Word of God changes their nature so that they are now spiritually alive, born again, and desire the will of God. He changes their nature, which frees their free will, enabling them to make free choices that please God. They do exactly what they want to do!
No. God did not create robots. Man planted himself in the miry clay and only God can pull Him out. God does not micro-manage their decisions, but He is in the soul-saving business. He is in the regeneration/rebirthing business. He is in the life-changing business. He frees people's free wills so that they are free to please Him with their own free choices.
Yup. And when man is left to his free will without God rescuing him, he will always reject Him (Romans 8:5-9).
Nope, but if man is going to have the volitional capacity to worship God after depriving himself, he needs God's effectual helping hand.
Ah, we ALL choose not to believe. 100% of mankind. You and Me. There are none good. There are none seeking God. Even the supposed good/righteous things we do are filth in God's eyes. We all rebel against God and break His holy Word and deserve eternal damnation.
So where does that leave all mankind? By our own free will and choice, it is HELL. God doesn't have to "elect" anyone to hell; we go there of our own volition and justly condemned.
That God should save anyone, changing/regenerating them so that they COULD repent and believer, is a humungous mystery to me.
Take the free will out of man and he becomes nothing more than a robot.No, no, and 1000 times NO! What is it with you and your fascination with "robots"?
True enough
In other words God makes them robots.
Try a different wording. God does not simply change their nature, as you say (just because you say they are elect). They were unsaved. God knew beforehand that they would be saved. Before the time of their conversion they were no different than any other unsaved individual.
God the Holy Spirit convicted them of their sin. They out of their own free will chose to respond to that drawing, that conviction. They are not forced. They are not robots. It is not as if "God simply changes their nature." No, their nature is not changed until they put their faith, voluntarily, in the Lord Jesus Christ. "For by grace are ye saved through faith."
You have this backwards. A man must have faith before he can be saved; before he can be changed. Believe and be saved. Faith always comes first. Faith is not a gift. God does not give gifts to unsaved man.
I don't believe that he created robots either. But most Calvinists I know--including yourself--speak as though he did.
That is very true. And man must have the faith and believe that as he stretches out to grasp that hand that is pulling him out that it is strong enough to do so. He puts his faith, his trust in the power of the hand pulling him out. His faith and life is completely in the hand of the one pulling him out of the miry clay. It is a good illustration.
It is not random is it. God doesn't pull out of the random clay those who don't want to be pulled out. They do have a choice whether they want to be pulled out or not.
The choice to be freed is man's choice. God does make that choice for him. Faith in Christ and in his sacrificial work is the choice that man has--not a forced faith that God has given him. Faith always precedes regeneration/salvation.
God won't rescue him unless he wants to be rescued; unless he exercises faith in the rescuer. Faith comes first; always.
The help is only through the Holy Spirit; how he convicts one of sin, righteousness and judgment. God doesn't force him to believe. He believes on his own free will.
Romans 4:3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
--Belief comes first--all the time.
Abraham believed, and then was counted righteous.
I was raised a Roman Catholic. I never heard the gospel until I was 20. At that point in time I had to make the decision whether to trust Christ or to reject him. I did not have that choice before that time. Thankfully I made the right choice.
psalms109:31
Active Member
The other coin
We do need to see that side to. God placed two roads before us through the message to believe and be saved or not and and be already condemned
We do need to see that side to. God placed two roads before us through the message to believe and be saved or not and and be already condemned
Is it relief? I never saw that as an attribute of God? Can you point that one out to me Rippon?
However the angels in heaven do rejoice when one sinner comes to Christ.
If you look in a dictionary you will find that there is a difference between relief and rejoice, though they do both start with "re"
The Archangel
Well-Known Member
You are certainly free to think what you like. Of course Paul's usage doesn't agree with what you think. I'll take Paul over anyone.
Tension of two separate facts is nothing new in scripture. For example: the word "trinity" is never used. Yet we see three separate and distinct persons of the God-head--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, while the Bible never speaks of "trinity" and while it is an impossibly difficult concept to comprehend, we know that, because scripture states it is so, it is so and the tension remains unresolved.
...well it doesn't say Abraham was an idolater
Actually, it does. The Hebrew will not allow for your interpretation. It says the fathers lived beyond the river and worshiped other gods, but then it goes on to list those fathers...and that includes Abraham. The verb served is plural and, thus, is translated as they served.
I understand your presuppositions, but here is a case where they run directly against scripture. Holding extra-biblical references as more authoritative than scripture is a dangerous game. Yoda would say "once you start down [that] dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."
Blessings,
The Archangel
The Archangel
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This is not what most of us claim, although there are some. Most Calvinists believe that everyone is damned by the fall.
So, when God elects some, He does so actively. Those whom He does not elect are passively rejected.
Your statement, as common as it may be, suggest that you and those in agreement with you see man as basically neutral and, at some point, God chooses either to save or damn. We reject this idea--man is not neutral. Man, essentially, is condemned and dead already. God chooses to regenerate some. Why? I don't know. The patented answer is "for His own good pleasure."
Blessings!
The Archangel
The Archangel
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Well, no...that's not true in Greek. Perhaps English, but certainly not Greek. If this was the case, I wouldn't have had to memorize those infernal paradigms.
The facts are these: The passive is formulaic and it is indefatigably and by definition an action done to the subject, not by the subject.
And the "context" changes at v. 20 (I'm not sure the translation you prefer...it looks like NIV). More after the verses you quote...
Verse 20 contains the post-positive particle γάρ which introduces a clause which is more explanatory. So, Paul is explaining that at one point in time the recipients of the letter were slaves to sin. Also, there is Greek parallelism here, for which Paul is well known.
Now, Paul does exhort to present their own members as slaves to righteousness, but that is based on his ongoing argument (most notably v. 18) stating they were set free from sin (passive) and they became slaves of righteousness (again, passive).
Paul is exhorting the Roman Church to live in accordance with their freedom from sin, which he declares they have been given. The entire contexts shows, without a doubt, the emphasis is on what God has done (setting free from sin) and our faithful response to Him.
Blessings,
The Archangel
...yet Paul had the opportunity to use "choose" and didn't.
You are overthinking. If Scripture states it is so, it has been resolved.
Abraham is listed in the next line of thought, not as part of the idolaters.
I believe you are wrong and it supports the understanding Abraham was not a wicked idolater as you allege. I never claimed they were "more authoritative than Scripture", btw.
And that is Biblical. I believe the same as well. When Adam fell, sin entered into the world and plunged the entire universe under a curse; a curse which cannot be fully removed until Christ comes again.
The difference here is a time element. Calvinists are so pre-occupied with the elect, the ones chosen before the foundation of the world, that it gives one the impression that they have no concern for the present. Why the great emphasis on "the elect." The Bible says that "The Lord knows them that are his." It does not say that any one of us knows them that are His.
When we speak to someone what do we tell them. "Can I show you from the Bible how to become one of the elect?"
That is not what the Great Commission commands us to do.
It commands us to preach the gospel to every creature.
That gospel must be received by faith--actively, as you say.
We deal with the present, not with what happened before the foundation of the world.
No, I also believe man has a sin nature. But I don't believe that he is so depraved that he cannot choose to believe in the shed blood of Christ. "Being justified by faith we have peace with God" (Romans 5:1). It says nothing there about the elect. The stress is on faith, not faith given by God, but faith that comes from the person that has a choice to believe in Christ.
Romans 4:3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
--Again it Abraham that believed and thus was made righteous.
Throughout the Bible it is faith first, then regeneration/salvation.
Those who think differently are primarily Roman Catholics, and thus the need for infant baptism The Catholics believe that the new birth of John 3 is effected through baptism. John 3:5 "of water and of the spirit"--The water refers to baptism according to the RCC.
When the Calvinist says that regeneration precedes faith, how is his faith much different than a Catholic's?
The Catholic says he must baptize before confirmation (when the child is old enough to exercise faith). The similarity is uncanny.
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