Why...

You contradicted yourself. If God does not lie because of self-discipline, then it is possible for God to lie. He chooses not to lie through self-discipline. But the Bible clearly states that it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to lie. I guess that means (to you) that God is not omnipotent.

 

I will say this and then likely bow out since we have once again stooped to absurdity.

That’s not fate. How many times do we have to say that before you accept it?

God is free. I am not sure how you are confused. Freedom does not mean the ability to do anything. Even in your view of free will, man is not free because he can’t rise up and fly. You have wrongly defined freedom and then expect to pin God down based on that.

It goes to the heart of who God is.

Yes, that among others. Adam was our federal head. Adam’s sin in imputed to all of Adam’s race.

We are right because our answers come from Scripture rightly interpreted. Your’s do not.

Yes.

Because that was part of his plan to demonstrate his glory and grace.

They do have a choice. No one is forced to sin.

That’s offensive to me to. And that’s not what I said. God doesn’t work out his purpose in utter disregard of his creatures. You just make stuff up.

Pure nonsense.

More pure nonsense. Does not even begin to make sense. He changes his mind in eternity past? There was no time then. How did he change his mind? You are so tied to the logic your mind can understand that it causes you to say absolutely silly stuff in an attempt to argue against Calvinism.

Not as you have described him here.

 

Good thinking.

 

Uh ... No.

He can everything which is a proper object of his own power. He can't make a rock so big he can't move it. He can't make a round square. He can't sin. Those are not proper objects of his power.

I think you are finally on the right track here. Yes, Adam was guilty for all of us. He does not take the place of Christ, however. It is the opposite. Christ takes the place of Adam. That is why the Bible calls Christ the "last Adam." Christ did for us what Adam did not.

And this goes to the heart of salvation. Becasue we are guilty by the imputation of Adam's sin, we can be righteous through the imputation of Christ's righteousness. If we become guilty through our own acts of sin, then we must become righteous through our own acts of righteousness. That is hte point of Romans 5.

No, they sin willfully. They are not forced to. No one is holding a gun to their head. They act on their wills.

He considers their frame that they are dust. He loves them. He sent his son for them. He considers them in many way.

He responds to them in grace and mercy when they ask for it. Your whole deal here is based on a false understanding. (Same song, millionth verse).

Not only would I do that. I have done it. I have no other answer. Do you really prefer a universe that is out of control? What if God had willed it to be different? It would have been different. At my own MIL's funeral, we took great comfort in that, as we did when my wife miscarried our first child. If I didn't believe it was God's will, I would have walked away from Christianity.

What do you tell a widow at her husband's funeral? That God loved her husband but wasn't loving enough or powerful enough to stop it?

No, that's not what caused your mother not to set foot in a Baptist church again.

No, it's not. God's will is purposeful, working for his glory. Fate is not.

No, I accept foreknowledge. I don't know where you got the idea that I reject it. I think that is just more of you making stuff up.

I think you need some more study. He "changed his mind" because the circumtances changed. Wayne Grudem has a good short section on this in his Systematic Theology. Pull it off the shelf and read it. I konw you must have a copy because no one would be so dogmatic about this topic without having exposed themselves to te topic.

Yes, God will answer. He may not answer as I would like, but he will answer.

Did I say something about bowing out of this absurd discussion??? Oh why don't I listen to myself.

 

Pastor Larry:

Except when it comes to seeking God. They have no free will in that regard. :laugh:
I guess once you're elected and regenerated (with no will of your own involved), then God gives you a gift of free will. Now you have choices. Before salvation, you sinned because you could do nothing else, it wasn't a choice. Now, you sin because you're "acting on your will". Now, you sin because you choose to.

Why not keep us in that "no free will" state after savation, then we would not have the choice to sin?

 

But they do. They are free to seek God if they wish to.

This is where "free" and "bound" get a tricky. Free will means that they are free to do whatever they want to do. Their wills are bound by their sinful nature. Therefore, they sin because they want to.

I think this fundamentally misunderstands the point. The person before salvation is not incapable of doing something other than sin. They can do good things, acts of civil good or personal kindness. They can tell the truth and be moral citizens. But that is not righteousness. They do not seek God and are morally unable to please him. After salvation, the same thing is true. They are able to sin, even what we consider gross sins.

So I think the issue of "free vs. bound" is a little bit more nuanced than some are making it here. It does not deal with a person's ability to choose moral good as a civic issue, but rather the nature of a person's relationship with God.

 

Actually, this is pretty much the Arminian position. According to Arminius, man is totally depraved and completely unwilling and unable to choose Christ or even move in that direction. Preventing/prevenient grace (rather than regeneration) restores man's condition enough to make a free-will choice. So substitute prevenient grace for regeneration in your statement, and you have classic Arminianism.

I know that's not what you believe, which is why I don't call the free-willers on here "Arminians". The free-willers here are actually semi-pelagians.

 

I know I said I was bowing out, but like Pastor Larry, I changed my mind

Where have I "made the same comeback?" (I'm assuming that American English phrase means "replied in the same way"). Certainly in one message I wrote:

"The very same arguments that you bring against the Reformed doctrines could apply just as well to those doctrines you espouse, (such as freedom of the will, inate ability to choose Christ, and so on. Such doctrines have been formulated at different times in history, particularly by the followers of Arminius."​

and in a later one I wrote:

"But both "sides" on this issue have works written by their proponents. Just because people have written books about the doctrines of grace/ reformed doctrines, that doesn't automatically mean that those doctrines must be unbiblical. There have been plenty of books written from your standpoint, too, remember."​

But I did not write:

"Skypair's beliefs are based on human writings,"​

in the way that you have repeatedly said on this thread that I base my beliefs on the writings of Calvin.

Yes, belief did come first as far as I was aware. In other words, I wasn't sitting around as an unsaved sinner thinking to myself, "Well, I am not going to take any notice of what my bible-bashing friends say. What is the point of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ if I am not one of the elect?" But having been saved, I noticed that the bible said things like: "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God," (Romans 8.8) and "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him." (1 Corinthians 2.14). Does it please God when a sinner believes on His Son? Of course. So how was it possible for "in-the-flesh me" to please God by believing? Amongst other passages, I came across Ephesians 2.4-6, where Paul wrote the the Ephesian Christians:

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.​

Not "ill in trespasses and sins" but "dead". How could I have believed in Christ if I was spiritually dead? Only if Christ had first given me new life.

I must admit to not having heard of the "paradigm of the mustard tree", though I do know of the parable. Jesus said He told it to explain what the kingdom of heaven is like. I am not sure how you are applying it to the current thread, though.

I have never once tried to show you "a God that predestined everything before He foreknew it." I don't even understand what you mean, for if He predestined something, He would foreknow it too. Neither have I said that I believe in a God "who takes no mind of what His creation does or doesn't do". The Flood is an example. God saw the evil of mankind, and destroyed all but eight people. Why save any? Genesis 6.8 says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

If I apparently only see one, it is probably because I have not explained myself very clearly. Our wills are free, but they are bound to serve our master. Before we are saved, that master is Satan. Charles Wesley (definitely not a "Calvinist"), wrote of this in his hymn, "And can it be?" One verse says:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.​

Jesus talked about setting people free, in John 8.34-36:

34 Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.
35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.
36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."​

And in John 10.26, He does not say to some unbelievers who questioned Him: "You are not of my sheep because you do not believe." Rather, He says:

"But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.​

I assure you that I would never be so rude as to say, "I have no time for you." All I wrote was:

"I am "bowing out" of this thread because I don't have the time to continue with it." ​

All I meant by that was that other responsibilties I have mean that I do not have the time to join, or continue on, all the threads on the Baptist Board. I am sorry you mistakenly understood me to mean something more personal.

 

But , Mr. SP , if you could check your attitude and convoluted reasonings and return to a more biblical stance -- you'd be a pretty good poster !

 

I just can't pass this one up. I've been in the widow's situation, and the only thing that gives real hope is knowing that this is God's plan, that even in the death of a loved one, God is working his good purpose, making all things work together according to his good plan. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Job found comfort in that, and so do I.

I won't speculate as to why someone else wouldn't find comfort in that idea, but if you take away a pastor's ability to point those who are experiencing the loss of a loved one to God's good plan for their lives, you've taken away his ability point them to the whole grounds for their hope and trust in God.

 

Knowing those things help, too, but the most comforting thing of all is knowing that his death and the timing of it had purpose, so it wasn't meaningless. He didn't die, leaving a young son to go through his teen years without a father for no good reason.

It's no coincidence that my husband's favorite passage while he was ill was Psalm 139. What comfort it gave him (and all of us) to know that his days were determined by God! That even in the trial of his illness and impending death, God was working all things together for good according to his plan.

It isn't a highty debatable issue. It's given to us straight up all through scripture. God numbers our hairs. Does he not number our days? Not even a sparrow dies apart from God's will. Are we less important to him than sparrows? Speaking of the death of his children, Job says, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes way." And then there's David: "All the days God ordained for me were recorded in his scroll before one of them came into existence." Paul says that God works all things together for good, and God works all things after the counsel of his will.

This truth is given to us straight up throughout the scriptures as a comfort to us. It's given to us so we won't worry. It's given to us so we can be contented in our circumstances. If God told us this in order to comfort us and to get us through difficult times, then we should use this truth to comfort the grieving, and not feel hesitant to do so as if we somehow know better or have better judgment than God. In the long run, avoiding this wonderful truth when we give comfort is giving people less than all the help that God gives them in his word.

 

I have tried (as have others far more eloquent than I) telling you on several occasions that my theology is based on the bible - granted, not the same understanding of bible as you seem to have, and certainly not a perfect understanding.

Yes, you said that spiritually dead means "soul dead and brain dead," but does the bible support that view? Paul wrote his Ephesian letter to Christians whose brains (and bodies) had not been dead before they were converted. Yet he tells them that they had been dead in trespasses and sins.

Once again, that is your understanding of Scripture. I respect it, but I cannot agree with it. I don't understand the bible to say that the spirit = the brain. If it were, I would expect some headline-making autopsy reports every time a saved person died in suspicious circumstances, for their brains would be with the Lord! I can imagine a conversation between Quincy and Sam:

"See here, Sam! The cranal cavity - there's nothing in it!"

"OK then, Quince, we'll have to look somewhere else for cause of death."

"No, Sam, you don't get it! When I said there's nothing in it, I didn't just mean I could find nothing unusual there to explain the death - I meant there is NOTHING there; it's empty!"​

Who said anything about the brain having to be switched on? I'm fairly sure I didn't. Certainly, God must do something to enable the "natural man" to "receive the things of the Spirit of God," for 1 Corinthians 2.14 says the "natural man" cannot do that. The word translated "natural" includes the will. Indeed in Jude 1.18-19 it is translated as "sensual":

...mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.
19 These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.​

Yet the scripture says that those who are "in the flesh" cannot please God. I'll put those words in context, in Romans 8.6-9:

6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.​

So we cannot please God unless the Spirit of God/the Spirit of Christ dwells in us. God must come to us before we believe. Jesus said that no one could come to Him unless the Father draws him

Can I just check that you are talking about this parable, in Matthew 13.31-32?

1 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field,
32 "which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."​

If that is the one you mean, where does it say anything about denominations, or about evil ones lodging in the branches?

As you final comment was placed just below my remarks about what I meant by bowing out of this thread for lack of time, are you saying that you thought my reasons for bowing out were the same as Larry's? If so, I don't know if you are right on that - he said he was bowing out because he felt the thread had "stooped to absurdity". If on the other hand "coming in on Larry's side" means "believing the same things Larry does", then, to judge from his postings - I have no other yardstick as I do not know him personally), he and I are probably "on the same side" theologically speaking.