Where does faith come from? 2nd Rodeo

[SovereignGrace]

In the other thread that is now closed, I never got a chance to respond to Brother DHK's response to me. So here we go...

DHK quoted this:

Remember that faith is based on a relationship.

I then said:

And what relationship(communion) does darkness(unregenerate) have with Light(God)?

Then he responded by saying this: I will quote the whole response here and then break it down so I can answer each point I am making.

Absolutely none. Therefore God would never give the unregenerate His spiritual gifts or His fruit of the Spirit which you steadfastly maintain.
Faith is listed as a spiritual gift along with "Apostles, teachers, prophets, healers, workers of miracles, etc.
Why wouldn't God make an Apostle or a prophet out of an unregenerate person? It was a spiritual gift. The position is absurd.

Now, I will break this down point-by-point to make my point(s):

Absolutely none.

Great! Hallelujah! Glory to God! An accord!

Therefore God would never give the unregenerate His spiritual gifts or His fruit of the Spirit which you steadfastly maintain.

Wait a minute. Faith is a fruit of the Spirit, yet you say faith is based on relationship. If the unregenerate have a fruit of the Spirit(I.E. faith), how can they have faith if it is based upon a relationship with God? The unregenerate are God's enemy. That would be like saying USA had a relationship with Adolf Hitler.

What I am saying is that innate faith is something everyone possesses. But that faith is directed towards everything, everyone but God. The faith it takes to be saved is God-given. Once regenerated by God and infused with saving faith and repentance, they are no longer unregenerate, but regenerate and NOW have a relationship with God, and not before.

Faith is listed as a spiritual gift along with "Apostles, teachers, prophets, healers, workers of miracles, etc.

If everyone has/had faith in this manner, everyone would be saved. God adds us to the body and places us where He pleases to do so. Paul addressed this very thing in that some are a foot, some are a hand, some an eye, some a finger, some a nose, &c. Not everyone can be one body part. That is why some were Apostles, some are now preachers, some are teachers, some a just 'pew-sitters', but all have their place in the body. But everyone makes up some body part in the body of Christ and plays a vital role.

Why wouldn't God make an Apostle or a prophet out of an unregenerate person?

He did. Judas Iscariot. He sent him out with the other eleven to do miracles, and I have no reason to not believe he did some miracles. However, the bible never speaks one way or the other, so it is just speculation. I am not dogmatic about this, but it does appear he did have the same authority over demons, sickness and death the other eleven had.

It was a spiritual gift.

Yes it is. Faith is a spiritual gift...saving faith, not innate faith.

The position is absurd.

Thank you for a quick preview of your view here. I agree, it is absurd.

 

[SovereignGrace]

What I am trying to say Brother DHK is this: you say faith is based upon relationship. Now, how can the unregenerate have any faith in God when they do not have a relationship with Him? That's like trying to cross the Grand Canyon without using a bridge.

 

[SovereignGrace]

Brother DHK,

In your analogy of gaining trust(faith) in your wife, it was in regards to relationship. You first went out with her, and then another date, another date, and so on. She gained your trust so much that you decided she was the one for you. I agree with this scenario, and is the ultimate example of innate faith, which everybody has. Even little children do.

Now, translate this over to one's relationship with God and there's a massive disconnect. As unregenerate, we have no relationship with God whatsoever, in fact, we are His enemy. There is no way we can exercise faith in Him, because, as you previously said, faith come by relationship. We were fighting against Him and not seeking to place our trust in Him. We were running from Him and not to Him. So, the analogy of you trusting your wife does not translate to our relationship with God. The faith you exercised in regards to your wife resonated from within you, being innate. The faith you have in God resonates from God, being God-given via the new birth of the Spirit of God.

 

[Internet Theologian]

If God doesn't give the unregenerate any Spiritual gifts then how do they become regenerate? It is an impossibility to be regenerate, or to be brought into this state without any gifts given, it is the gifting of the Spirit of Christ that makes one alive and one is not made alive without these gifts which include faith.

The dead in sin are given life, and these are those in an unregenerate state. That life is only Christ, as He is life itself; John 1:4; 1 John 5:12; Colossians 3:4. It is not that Christ gives faith to only the regenerate, (no Scriptures support DHK's false teaching) He only gives this to those He elected and He gives them this while in their unregenerate state.

Note Ephesians 2:1, we who were dead were made alive. This life given was given to the dead, the unregenerate, as were all spiritual gifts given at this state. DHK has the cart before the horse as is typical and this he must do in order to support his ideologies.

Furthermore DHK has also failed to provide any Scriptures that show that biblical faith is the same faith contained in a dog, the same as trusting a parachute, crossing a bride, sitting in a chair and the such like. DHK needs to leave behind his adding to Scriptures and carnal illustrations that truncate the true Gospel of Christ.

But where exactly does DHK get his teachings? As much as he loves to disagree here his teachings are hand-me-down teachings from none other than C G Finney. Finney taught the same things to which he was called out on in his day as being false. In fact it is Finney who taught that man makes a decision to be saved by determination just the same as if he chooses a certain career path. Sound familiar? Of course it does because this is exactly what DHK teaches via his carnal illustrations and misinterpretations. But the carnal man loves this kind of teaching, 'Man, man, man. Ability, ability, ability' then insert a little bit of God in there and claim it to be Soli Deo Gloria and Sola Scriptura when it plainly is not. Instead his teachings are Sola Finney.

Faith is a gift of the Spirit given to the unregenerate; Philippians 1:29; Romans 12:3; Romans 10:17. Yet again, DHK will wrest these Scriptures which give all the glory to God in conversion and argue for and exalt man. It's just a carry over teaching that started in the garden and has deceived man ever since.

 

[Internet Theologian]

What I am trying to say Brother DHK is this: you say faith is based upon relationship. Now, how can the unregenerate have any faith in God when they do not have a relationship with Him? That's like trying to cross the Grand Canyon without using a bridge.

More of his carnal reasonings. There are no Scriptures that say faith is based on a relationship. If that were the case, none would be saved because none have a relationship with God until they are converted, and not prior. Faith is based upon Grace, Ephesians 2:8ff, and not upon a reciprocal relationship.

So his position is unbiblical, unsubstantiated and carnal at inception. Anything, and I mean any reasoning that comes to mind that is void of Scripture will do, and that is what we are seeing in his position. It is absent any authority and to those mature it doesn't ring true because it is not truth, Hebrews 5:11-14.

 

[SovereignGrace]

Any takers? Anybody?

 

[TCassidy]

's like trying to cross the Grand Canyon without using a bridge.

I've done that several times.

 

[TCassidy]

If God doesn't give the unregenerate any Spiritual gifts then how do they become regenerate?

Our Arminian friends would say on the basis of their innate goodness. Rolleyes

 

[Iconoclast]

Any takers? Anybody?

http://www.brucespeaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/head-in-the-sand.jpg

Oh no.....I wish those Calvinists would just stop!

 

[SovereignGrace]

I've done that several times.
View attachment 334

Touche'.

Now, is that tooshay or touchy? Lullz.

I know it is French and is tooshay...

 

[SovereignGrace]

If faith is based upon relationship and one builds up faith during the relationship, then one must court/date God before getting married. The relationship we have with Christ is a Groom/bride relationship.

So, do we date God before we place our trust in Him?

 

[SovereignGrace]

I've done that several times.
View attachment 334

Prop job. Crop duster. Sputtering machine. Nothing I want to climb in and fly.

 

[Don]

Actually, Tom, if they're true arminians, they'd quote Arminius:

But in his lapsed and sinful state, man is not capable, of and by himself, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good; but it is necessary for him to be regenerated and renewed in his intellect, affections or will, and in all his powers, by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, that he may be qualified rightly to understand, esteem, consider, will, and perform whatever is truly good. When he is made a partaker of this regeneration or renovation, I consider that, since he is delivered from sin, he is capable of thinking, willing, and doing that which is good, but yet not without the continued aids of Divine Grace.
James Arminius

 

[TCassidy]

Prop job. Crop duster. Sputtering machine. Nothing I want to climb in and fly.

Champion Citabria. Airbatic. Great little plane. And more fun to fly than anything I have ever flown and that is just about everything from a Cessna 150 to a Beechcraft King Air to a Republic F-105 Thunderchief.

 

[TCassidy]

Actually, Tom, if they're true arminians, they'd quote Arminius:

But in his lapsed and sinful state, man is not capable, of and by himself, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good; but it is necessary for him to be regenerated and renewed in his intellect, affections or will, and in all his powers, by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, that he may be qualified rightly to understand, esteem, consider, will, and perform whatever is truly good. When he is made a partaker of this regeneration or renovation, I consider that, since he is delivered from sin, he is capable of thinking, willing, and doing that which is good, but yet not without the continued aids of Divine Grace.
James Arminius

What most Arminians don't realize is that James Arminius was a "4 point Calvinist" differing only with "Unconditional Election." He believed in Election via the foreknowledge of God. It was his followers who twisted his faith all out of shape after his death.

 

[SovereignGrace]

What most Arminians don't realize is that James Arminius was a "4 point Calvinist" differing only with "Unconditional Election." He believed in Election via the foreknowledge of God. It was his followers who twisted his faith all out of shape after his death.

Clarify his stance please. Someone on here said they believed that way, too, only to say God knew beforehand, and therefore, elected them because He knew they'd be willing to receive Him.

A Brother I go to church with a while back said he was a predestinarian, only then to spout off that God knew beforehand those who would believe, and elected them based upon that secular definition of foreknowledge. He then said that Christ ultimately died for the elect, as they were the ones who would receive the blood atonement. Yeah, he's one confused predestinarian.

 

[SovereignGrace]

Actually, Tom, if they're true arminians, they'd quote Arminius:

But in his lapsed and sinful state, man is not capable, of and by himself, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good; but it is necessary for him to be regenerated and renewed in his intellect, affections or will, and in all his powers, by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, that he may be qualified rightly to understand, esteem, consider, will, and perform whatever is truly good. When he is made a partaker of this regeneration or renovation, I consider that, since he is delivered from sin, he is capable of thinking, willing, and doing that which is good, but yet not without the continued aids of Divine Grace.
James Arminius

That's well and all, but what about the OP? Do people 'date' God and then marry Him? That is what DHK is more or less espousing when he stated that faith is based upon relationship.

 

[Don]

That's well and all, but what about the OP? Do people 'date' God and then marry Him? That is what DHK is more or less espousing when he stated that faith is based upon relationship.

I'm only responding to a generalized comment about arminians.

 

[Don]

What most Arminians don't realize is that James Arminius was a "4 point Calvinist" differing only with "Unconditional Election." He believed in Election via the foreknowledge of God. It was his followers who twisted his faith all out of shape after his death.

No argument there. Just commenting on the broad-brush statement.

 

[TCassidy]

Clarify his stance please. Someone on here said they believed that way, too, only to say God knew beforehand, and therefore, elected them because He knew they'd be willing to receive Him.

That is Arminius's position in a nut shell.

(By the way, the Remonstrance, usually attributed to him, actually came out a year after he died. 1610)