Religions > Bible > Calvinists are not all about ' predestination '... they're all about Sovereign grace...
| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"old man joe" |
| Date: |
25 Nov 2006 06:06:13 AM |
| Object: |
Calvinists are not all about ' predestination '... they're all about Sovereign grace... |
no question about it... Calvinists were given a bad name for their
position on predestination.
predestination is a word found 6 times in the New Testament in the
NASB. its also found in Jeremiah 1:5; Isa. 49:1; Lk.1:15; Acts 13:48;
Ro. 9; and numerous other places by way of example.
to deny that God has predestined all of the events concerning the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sins of His people, ( Acts 2:23 )
and the salvation of His people ( Eph. 1:3-12 ) is to call God a
liar...
... and that is a serious matter, because those who are saved are
those who believe the Word of God.
the Calvinist is all about Sovereign grace alone as God's only means
of saving a people to His name.
what the Calvinist means by Sovereign grace is that he believes in
his heart what the Scriptures say about his hopelessly lost condition
as Paul explains in Eph. Chapter 2.
he knows that he is one " having no hope and without God in the
world. " ( Eph. 2:12 ) in his unregenerate state. he knows that
" every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually " ( Gen. 6:5 ) he knows that salvation is " not by the
will of man " Joh. 1:13
he knows that he can not initiate eternal life in himself because he
is compared in Scripture to Lazarus... who could not come forth from
among the dead except the Lord first, calls him to come forth.
this leaves the Calvinist to only one hope... that the living God
draws him unto Jesus Christ and gifts him with grace unto salvation as
in Joh. 6:44
he knows he can not gain nor contribute to his own salvation by
making a decision for Christ... because that, is not in Scripture.
he knows he did not believe in Christ by his own wit and wisdom...
by his own ' free will .' he knows that believing unto salvation is a
Sovereign act of grace bestowed on him as the Scriptures say :
" as many as had been appointed to eternal life, believed." Acts 13:48
he agrees whole heartedly with Jesus Christ who said that believing
is God's work, not man's as in Joh. 6:29
he knows that among men it is impossible to be saved... Mt. 19:25,26
because " salvation is of the Lord " Ps. 3:8
he is ' blessed ' because while in rebellion again God he was raised
from among the spiritually dead and given life by the Living God
simply because it pleased the Maker of all things to act with
undeserved merit towards him. Eph. 1:5
" Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach
unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts." Ps. 65:4
he is ever thankful to God that by God's gracious mercy he was taken
away from his former spiritually dead life and made to be a new
creation in Christ.
he knows that there was no such thing as faith in his heart before
he came alive in Christ for that would mean he believed by some wit
and wisdom of his own all the while dead, without hope and without God
in his world of rebellion.
the Calvinist knows " the Scripture shut up all under sin, so that
the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who
believe " Ga. 3:22
it is the " faith of Jesus Christ " that saves and it is a gift of
God and not of himself. Eph. 2:8
********************************************************
Sovereign grace is the simple belief that the Bible teaches we sinful
men are beyond all self help and without God in the world as far as
his relationship to God is concerned.
we are wholly dependant on the Lord making the first move in our
sinful rebellious state and thereby removing our heart's of stone and
giving him a heart of flesh unto salvation.
this belief makes him different from everyone who trusts in some
sinners prayer or in some decision he has made.
" He made us alive together with Christ " for he is saved solely by
grace... Sovereign grace... the same hand of the Father who raised
Christ from among the dead also raised us while we were dead.
this grace, or unmerited favor, is said to be Sovereign because the
Bible teaches that God in under no compulsion from any source other
than Himself... " according to the purpose of Him who works all things
according to the counsel of His own will " ( Eph. 1:11 ) it was God
who framed the world and sustains it... all good things come from
" the Father of Lights " ( Ja. 1:17 ) ... salvation included.
this is what Paul means when he says :
" Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, To the
praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in
the Beloved. " Eph. 1:5,6
it is not an accident that the Apostle Paul should write the things
he did concerning the grace of God towards His elect, for God guided
his hand to write exactly what he did... just as the rest of Holy
Scripture. 2 Tim. 3:6
Sovereign grace excludes every device of man to enter the courts of
the Most High by any other means ( Isa. 65:4 ) ... as if to enter the
sheep fold by climbing over the fence. Joh. 10:1
for God's act of gracious kindness towards us while we were yet
sinners, raising us up with Christ from among the dead, we give
unceasing thankfulness. we exult His Name as we endure the wrath
hurled at us from those who hate us for being saved by grace apart
from works.
.
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| User: "Randy" |
|
| Title: Re: Calvinists are not all about ' predestination '... they're all about Sovereign grace... |
25 Nov 2006 09:44:48 AM |
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On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:06:13 -0500,
in article <167gm21qtvko1v3gvbdi8rj70f1a0p2s24@4ax.com>,
old man joe <not@home.com> wrote:
no question about it... Calvinists were given a bad name for their
position on predestination.
predestination is a word found 6 times in the New Testament in the
NASB. its also found in Jeremiah 1:5; Isa. 49:1; Lk.1:15; Acts 13:48;
Ro. 9; and numerous other places by way of example.
to deny that God has predestined all of the events concerning the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sins of His people, ( Acts 2:23 )
and the salvation of His people ( Eph. 1:3-12 ) is to call God a
liar...
... and that is a serious matter, because those who are saved are
those who believe the Word of God.
the Calvinist is all about Sovereign grace alone as God's only means
of saving a people to His name.
what the Calvinist means by Sovereign grace is that he believes in
his heart what the Scriptures say about his hopelessly lost condition
as Paul explains in Eph. Chapter 2.
he knows that he is one " having no hope and without God in the
world. " ( Eph. 2:12 ) in his unregenerate state. he knows that
" every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually " ( Gen. 6:5 ) he knows that salvation is " not by the
will of man " Joh. 1:13
he knows that he can not initiate eternal life in himself because he
is compared in Scripture to Lazarus... who could not come forth from
among the dead except the Lord first, calls him to come forth.
this leaves the Calvinist to only one hope... that the living God
draws him unto Jesus Christ and gifts him with grace unto salvation as
in Joh. 6:44
he knows he can not gain nor contribute to his own salvation by
making a decision for Christ... because that, is not in Scripture.
he knows he did not believe in Christ by his own wit and wisdom...
by his own ' free will .' he knows that believing unto salvation is a
Sovereign act of grace bestowed on him as the Scriptures say :
" as many as had been appointed to eternal life, believed." Acts 13:48
he agrees whole heartedly with Jesus Christ who said that believing
is God's work, not man's as in Joh. 6:29
he knows that among men it is impossible to be saved... Mt. 19:25,26
because " salvation is of the Lord " Ps. 3:8
he is ' blessed ' because while in rebellion again God he was raised
from among the spiritually dead and given life by the Living God
simply because it pleased the Maker of all things to act with
undeserved merit towards him. Eph. 1:5
" Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach
unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts." Ps. 65:4
he is ever thankful to God that by God's gracious mercy he was taken
away from his former spiritually dead life and made to be a new
creation in Christ.
he knows that there was no such thing as faith in his heart before
he came alive in Christ for that would mean he believed by some wit
and wisdom of his own all the while dead, without hope and without God
in his world of rebellion.
the Calvinist knows " the Scripture shut up all under sin, so that
the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who
believe " Ga. 3:22
it is the " faith of Jesus Christ " that saves and it is a gift of
God and not of himself. Eph. 2:8
********************************************************
Sovereign grace is the simple belief that the Bible teaches we sinful
men are beyond all self help and without God in the world as far as
his relationship to God is concerned.
we are wholly dependant on the Lord making the first move in our
sinful rebellious state and thereby removing our heart's of stone and
giving him a heart of flesh unto salvation.
this belief makes him different from everyone who trusts in some
sinners prayer or in some decision he has made.
" He made us alive together with Christ " for he is saved solely by
grace... Sovereign grace... the same hand of the Father who raised
Christ from among the dead also raised us while we were dead.
this grace, or unmerited favor, is said to be Sovereign because the
Bible teaches that God in under no compulsion from any source other
than Himself... " according to the purpose of Him who works all things
according to the counsel of His own will " ( Eph. 1:11 ) it was God
who framed the world and sustains it... all good things come from
" the Father of Lights " ( Ja. 1:17 ) ... salvation included.
this is what Paul means when he says :
" Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, To the
praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in
the Beloved. " Eph. 1:5,6
it is not an accident that the Apostle Paul should write the things
he did concerning the grace of God towards His elect, for God guided
his hand to write exactly what he did... just as the rest of Holy
Scripture. 2 Tim. 3:6
Sovereign grace excludes every device of man to enter the courts of
the Most High by any other means ( Isa. 65:4 ) ... as if to enter the
sheep fold by climbing over the fence. Joh. 10:1
for God's act of gracious kindness towards us while we were yet
sinners, raising us up with Christ from among the dead, we give
unceasing thankfulness. we exult His Name as we endure the wrath
hurled at us from those who hate us for being saved by grace apart
from works.
I wholeheartedly agree salvation is entirely by the sovereign
grace of God, and not by the choice or will of man. This is
clearly established in passages like John 1:12-13, and Romans
9. Any system of theology that tries to make trusting Christ
as Savior, an act of the human will, as if the unregenerate
were capable of making a favorable decision for God, is a
gospel of merits, which will result in eternal damnation.
The only problem I have with Calvinist understanding of the
Bible, is regarding the doctrine of limited atonement. God
can be sovereign, and yet permit things to happen that he does
not want to happen.
For example,
Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often
would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Christ wept over Jerusalem, and wanted it to be gathered under
His wing for salvation and protection, but Jerusalem would
not. This shows that God can want someone to be saved,
without sovereignly electing to save them to personal
salvation.
In John 12, Jesus said he came not to judge, but to save the
world. Calvinist theology says this means the "elect" world.
In fact, every time they see a verse that says "all men",
"every man", "the world", "the whole world", etc., they are
forced to insert the word "elect", into that, as if it only
applies to the elect. However, the context of the John 12,
doesn't support that interpretation.
Those who ultimately reject Christ's gospel, this passage
says, will not be judged by Christ, but by the gospel which
they rejected. You can't be guilty of rejecting the gospel of
Salvation by faith in Christ, if the gospel never applied to
you in the first place.
Further, there are passages like:
2 Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the
people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who
privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the
Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift
destruction.
False prophets and teachers who proclaim "damnable heresies",
deny "the Lord who bought them". This means Christ bought
people who not only never trust Him as their Savior, but who
go about proclaiming damnable heresies.
The Calvinist objects that if Christ paid the debt of every
man's sin, then that requires universal salvation, because a
person can't be punished for sins which Christ has already
paid for, and He paid for all their sins, including the sin of
unbelief.
The problem with that idea is that faith is the method by
which God applies the benefits of Christ's atonement to an
individual's account. Even the elect remain lost, until such
time as God imparts saving faith to them.
Just as it was not enough that the Passover lamb was slain,
but also, the blood had to be applied to the doorpost of an
individual's house, in order to save them from the angel of
death, so it is not enough that Christ was slain, if His blood
is not applied, by God, to an individual's account through
faith.
The lost go to hell, not because Christ's atonement was
finite, but because the value of His infinite atonement was
never applied to the doorpost of their soul through faith.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about Calvinist theology, is
that it has to rob the gospel of any objective value, in order
to deny Christ's atonement is unlimited. A Calvinist can't be
sure that Christ died for anyone, when they are proclaiming
the gospel. And what is a person supposed to believe? How
can a person believe that Christ died to pay for their sins,
if there isn't a verse of Scripture that says He did? And how
can there be a verse of Scripture that convinces people Christ
died for them, if there isn't one that says He died for
everyone, since it cannot be established, before someone gets
saved, whether they are elect or not?
You can't offer someone faith in an objective gospel, if
atonement is limited only to the elect, because no one knows
who the elect are. Thus, when a Calvinist presents the gospel
to someone, they do not give a person any objective basis for
believing Christ died for their sins.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. You
can't have faith that Christ died to pay for your sins, if the
Bible doesn't say Christ died to pay for your sins. And you
can't have a verse that says Christ died to pay for your sins,
unless His atonement is unlimited.
--
Christ died for our sins, and God raised Him from the dead.
Rely on this work alone to escape hell and receive eternal
life (Jn. 3:16; 1 Cor. 15:1-3; Eph. 2:8-10; 2 Thess. 1:8-9).
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Calvinists are not all about ' predestination '... they're all about Sovereign grace... |
25 Nov 2006 08:49:01 AM |
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old man joe wrote:
no question about it... Calvinists were given a bad name for their
position on predestination.
predestination is a word found 6 times in the New Testament in the
NASB. its also found in Jeremiah 1:5; Isa. 49:1; Lk.1:15; Acts 13:48;
Ro. 9; and numerous other places by way of example.
to deny that God has predestined all of the events concerning the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sins of His people, ( Acts 2:23 )
and the salvation of His people ( Eph. 1:3-12 ) is to call God a
liar...
... and that is a serious matter, because those who are saved are
those who believe the Word of God.
the Calvinist is all about Sovereign grace alone as God's only means
of saving a people to His name.
what the Calvinist means by Sovereign grace is that he believes in
his heart what the Scriptures say about his hopelessly lost condition
as Paul explains in Eph. Chapter 2.
he knows that he is one " having no hope and without God in the
world. " ( Eph. 2:12 ) in his unregenerate state. he knows that
" every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually " ( Gen. 6:5 ) he knows that salvation is " not by the
will of man " Joh. 1:13
he knows that he can not initiate eternal life in himself because he
is compared in Scripture to Lazarus... who could not come forth from
among the dead except the Lord first, calls him to come forth.
this leaves the Calvinist to only one hope... that the living God
draws him unto Jesus Christ and gifts him with grace unto salvation as
in Joh. 6:44
he knows he can not gain nor contribute to his own salvation by
making a decision for Christ... because that, is not in Scripture.
he knows he did not believe in Christ by his own wit and wisdom...
by his own ' free will .' he knows that believing unto salvation is a
Sovereign act of grace bestowed on him as the Scriptures say :
" as many as had been appointed to eternal life, believed." Acts 13:48
he agrees whole heartedly with Jesus Christ who said that believing
is God's work, not man's as in Joh. 6:29
he knows that among men it is impossible to be saved... Mt. 19:25,26
because " salvation is of the Lord " Ps. 3:8
he is ' blessed ' because while in rebellion again God he was raised
from among the spiritually dead and given life by the Living God
simply because it pleased the Maker of all things to act with
undeserved merit towards him. Eph. 1:5
" Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach
unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts." Ps. 65:4
he is ever thankful to God that by God's gracious mercy he was taken
away from his former spiritually dead life and made to be a new
creation in Christ.
he knows that there was no such thing as faith in his heart before
he came alive in Christ for that would mean he believed by some wit
and wisdom of his own all the while dead, without hope and without God
in his world of rebellion.
the Calvinist knows " the Scripture shut up all under sin, so that
the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who
believe " Ga. 3:22
it is the " faith of Jesus Christ " that saves and it is a gift of
God and not of himself. Eph. 2:8
********************************************************
Sovereign grace is the simple belief that the Bible teaches we sinful
men are beyond all self help and without God in the world as far as
his relationship to God is concerned.
we are wholly dependant on the Lord making the first move in our
sinful rebellious state and thereby removing our heart's of stone and
giving him a heart of flesh unto salvation.
this belief makes him different from everyone who trusts in some
sinners prayer or in some decision he has made.
" He made us alive together with Christ " for he is saved solely by
grace... Sovereign grace... the same hand of the Father who raised
Christ from among the dead also raised us while we were dead.
this grace, or unmerited favor, is said to be Sovereign because the
Bible teaches that God in under no compulsion from any source other
than Himself... " according to the purpose of Him who works all things
according to the counsel of His own will " ( Eph. 1:11 ) it was God
who framed the world and sustains it... all good things come from
" the Father of Lights " ( Ja. 1:17 ) ... salvation included.
this is what Paul means when he says :
" Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, To the
praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in
the Beloved. " Eph. 1:5,6
it is not an accident that the Apostle Paul should write the things
he did concerning the grace of God towards His elect, for God guided
his hand to write exactly what he did... just as the rest of Holy
Scripture. 2 Tim. 3:6
Sovereign grace excludes every device of man to enter the courts of
the Most High by any other means ( Isa. 65:4 ) ... as if to enter the
sheep fold by climbing over the fence. Joh. 10:1
for God's act of gracious kindness towards us while we were yet
sinners, raising us up with Christ from among the dead, we give
unceasing thankfulness. we exult His Name as we endure the wrath
hurled at us from those who hate us for being saved by grace apart
from works.
.
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