did Christ die for the sin of unbelief?

Predetermined indeed.

 

I feel the same way about you.

This verse is talking about a man's inability to please God while in the flesh. IT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT MAN'S INABILITY TO COME OUT OF THE FLESH THROUGH FAITH.

If you were to say to your child, "Son you cannot please me while you are lying." Would anyone in their right mind interpret that to mean that your son couldn't tell the truth? Of course not.

Or, "Son you cannot clean your room if you are in the Kitchen." That must mean its impossible for the son to walk to his room! This is ridiculous, yet that is what you are doing with Romans 8.

This verse says nothing about how one stops living in the flesh because it says nothing about man's response to the gospel and it says nothing about Faith.

You go on to say that man need faith to please God and that "its a matter of ability."

If men are unable to have faith then why does Christ rebuke men for their lack of faith? Shouldn't he rebuke himself for not giving them the faith?

You need to read this last paragraph while looking into a mirror.

 

Larry, rather than trying to respond to you yet again and then having to read your insults in return again, I would simply want to remind you that you yourself stated that you have only read one or two pages of Calvin. I have read more.

I'm reasonably well aware of a number of things he stated. I have read Sproul and even worked with his organization for awhile. I have interpreted hundreds of his pages for the deaf and translated into ASL (American Sign Language) - compatible English hundreds of pages of John MacArthur's material. I know Calvinism better than a number of Calvinists I have met and talked to.

I have also read the Bible. A great number of times now. And I have sat under both Reformed and non-Reformed pastors in various churches we have visited and attended through the years. I have learned a lot from all of them. And I know I am not misrepresenting Calvinism. What seems to be a point of contention is that I am showing both the illogic of it and the unbiblical bent of it.


You are also exhibiting ignorance of the general subject when you say I am essentially an Arminian. I assure you most heartily I am not. I am not Arminian any more than I am Calvinist. That dichotomy is something Calvinists have made up, possibly to reassure themselves of their correctness!

But there is a third way.

It's called the Bible.

 

I didn't insult you Helen. We have both been very direct about talking about what we believe and you know as well as I do that that is not insulting.

But as you should know, reading Calvin is not the issue. I have read more Calvinists than you, I am quite sure. But that is not the issue. You are the one claiming to know what Calvinism believes and yet I am merely asking you to support your claims with actual Calvinists. When all is said and done, what matters is what Scripture says. The reason I don't need to read Calvin is becuase he doesn't matter to me. I am a devotee of Scripture.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps, as it seems in this forum, you simply think you know Calvinism better and in reality you don't. That is not meant to be offensive, but I cannot understand how someone claiming to know Calvinism makes these kinds of errors about what we believe.

This is funny Helen. Go out and start having conversations with people who have these conversations every day. This is the way they use the terms. Calling someone an "arminian" does not mean they adhere to everything Arminius taught. I am not accusing you of that. When the term "arminian" is used in general terms, it refers to someone who denies the personal sovereign election of God. Calvinists didn't make the dichotomy up. It is there.

But that is what I believe and follow. And you don't agree with me. How can you believe the Bible???

You see my point is that claiming to follow hte Bible is useless because both sides claim it. AGain, I have explained this multiple times. You can claim to believe the Bible all you want, but what you believe about the Bible has a name that is attached to it. It is Arminianism because you place the final say so in the individual, not in God.

I am sorry you are offended by that. Unfortunately, there are not other real options. You need to understand that labels are shorthand for what someone believes. If a Wesleyan tells me they are arminian, I understand it to me more than if an IFB tells me that. When I say you are an arminian, I understand what it means, as would most others in this debate. IN the end, you spend a lot of time claiming what you know about Calvinism, but never getting around to demonstrating it. We have answered every single objection you have put forth. We have done it without being personal or insulting. But when our allegiance is to Scripture, we cannot simply let exegesis of Scripture go by the wayside. We have to love it and follow it.

 

No insults, Larry?

Here, from that last long post of yours -- and I'm not going to take the time to look up all the others where you have slammed me with similar:

We have answered these questions from Scripture many times and it didn't make any difference to you then so I don't suppose that it will now.

this is back to the same old line from you that you just won't give up.

you are twisting our beliefs to conform to what you wish us to believe

Maybe this does not sound insulting to you, but it does to me.

In the meantime, you wrote:
He wasn't saved already. I don't know why you would even think that. He did need to believe. I don't know of any Calvinist who would deny this. The fact that you make this charge shows that you are twisting our beliefs to conform to what you wish us to believe. We do not believe this.

..."Election" is not equal to "salvation."

...If you have the Calvinists writings there in front of you, please give evidence for a Calvinist who believes that election is the same thing as salvation. You have said that here. Please show us someone who believes that.

First of all, it would be unheard of in Calvinist doctrine for any one of the elect not to be saved. The two groups are identical, which does mean that, effectively, election = salvation. But as for your challenge, OK, here:

Here's something from Calvin himself:
I will not hesitate...to confess with Augustine that the will of God is necessity, and that everything is necessary which he has willed...[and] that the destruction consequent upon predestination is also most just... The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that he should: why he deemed it meet, we know not. It is certain, however, that it was just, because he saw that his own glory would thereby be displayed...
[Instututes, trans. by Beveridge, pp 8,9]

from Boyce:
[This decree] is made 'independent' of all such foreknowledge God has of what will take place in time [and] predestines certain specific individuals to eternal life and others it leaves to justice. This is an election unto salvation and... is utterly unconditional...
[as quoted by White, in "The Potter's Freedom" p. 125-6]

Larry, I have to get going, but there is no other election other than to salvation in Calvinist theology.

Now, you are separating the two, and that leaves you in a bit of a dilemma. For if election does not equal salvation, then the WORK of man in believing (for Calvinists accuse it of being a work if it is before salvation...) must be added for salvation to be efficacious. You can plead secondary cause here, but that does not work, for as I quoted before, it is claimed by Calvinists that even my typos are God-ordained, so even though I make them and I qualify then for that 'secondary cause', Calvinistically God has taken responsibility for that by ordaining that I should.

So second causes do not work theologically is God is totally responsible for everything that happens.

Remember, please, responsibility does not equal control of the situation...I will never claim God is out of control for one second!

But election to salvation means that election equals salvation. To separate those two, if even by time, is silly, because God is outside of time and His election, just like Christ's sacrifice, was as done from the creation.

As far as Arminius goes, Arminian doctrine is quite different from much of what he preached and was. I doubt he would recognize it now. Please do some reading on the subject of the Council of Dort and about the life and writings of Arminius himself before you go throwing those terms around.

The fact that you 'don't know any other way to characterize' my position is not my fault. I am not Arminian and I resent that you should insist on labeling me as that.

 

Here is Romans 8, Prove your points!

B: THE CHRISTIAN'S SPIRITUAL LIFE

The life of the spirit

1. Thus, condemnation will never come to those who are in Christ Jesus,
2. because the law of the Spirit which gives life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
3. What the Law could not do because of the weakness of human nature, God did, sending his own Son in the same human nature as any sinner to be a sacrifice for sin, and condemning sin in that human nature.
4. This was so that the Law's requirements might be fully satisfied in us as we direct our lives not by our natural inclinations but by the Spirit.
5. Those who are living by their natural inclinations have their minds on the things human nature desires; those who live in the Spirit have their minds on spiritual things.
6. And human nature has nothing to look forward to but death, while the Spirit looks forward to life and peace,
7. because the outlook of disordered human nature is opposed to God, since it does not submit to God's Law, and indeed it cannot,
8. and those who live by their natural inclinations can never be pleasing to God.
9. You, however, live not by your natural inclinations, but by the Spirit, since the Spirit of God has made a home in you. Indeed, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10. But when Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because you have been justified;
11. and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.

12. So then, my brothers, we have no obligation to human nature to be dominated by it.
13. If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the habits originating in the body, you will have life.

Children of God

14. All who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons of God;
15. for what you received was not the spirit of slavery to bring you back into fear; you received the Spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out, "Abba, Father!"
16. The Spirit himself joins with our spirit to bear witness that we are children of God.
17. And if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, provided that we share his suffering, so as to share his glory.

Glory as our destiny

18. In my estimation, all that we suffer in the present time is nothing in comparison with the glory which is destined to be disclosed for us,
19. for the whole creation is waiting with eagerness for the children of God to be revealed.
20. It was not for its own purposes that creation had frustration imposed on it, but for the purposes of him who imposed it,
21. with the intention that the whole creation itself might be freed from its slavery to corruption and brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God.
22. We are well aware that the whole creation, until this time, has been groaning in labour pains.
23. And not only that: we too, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we are groaning inside ourselves, waiting with eagerness for our bodies to be set free.
24. In hope, we already have salvation; in hope, not visibly present, or we should not be hoping, nobody goes on hoping for something which is already visible.
25. But having this hope for what we cannot yet see, we are able to wait for it with persevering confidence.

26. And as well as this, the Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words;
27. and he who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit means because the prayers that the Spirit makes for God's holy people are always in accordance with the mind of God.

God has called us to share his glory

28. We are well aware that God works with those who love him, those who have been called in accordance with his purpose, and turns everything to their good.
29. He decided beforehand who were the ones destined to be moulded to the pattern of his Son, so that he should be the eldest of many brothers;
30. it was those so destined that he called; those that he called, he justified, and those that he has justified he has brought into glory.

A hymn to God's love

31. After saying this, what can we add? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32. Since he did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for the sake of all of us, then can we not expect that with him he will freely give us all his gifts?
33. Who can bring any accusation against those that God has chosen? When God grants saving justice
34. who can condemn? Are we not sure that it is Christ Jesus, who died, yes and more, who was raised from the dead and is at God's right hand, and who is adding his plea for us?
35. Can anything cut us off from the love of Christ, can hardships or distress, or persecution, or lack of food and clothing, or threats or violence;
36. as scripture says:
For your sake we are being massacred all day long,
treated as sheep to be slaughtered?

37. No; we come through all these things triumphantly victorious, by the power of him who loved us.
38. For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing still to come, nor any power,
39. nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Helen, I don't think you want to go down this road again. It has not been that long since you tried it, and I responded by showing from your posts where you did the very thing you accused me of. That means there is an inconsistency on your part. I have no problem with you being direct and sayign what you think. In fact, this morning I edited a post of someone who said something inappropriate to you. The bottom line is that you have accused me of twisting Scripture; you have accused me of lying; you have accused me of twisting your beliefs. In short, you have done to me everything you complain about. You know when you come in here that it is not a ladies' tea party. If you don't like that, then perhaps you should reconsider posting. But do not try to enact a double standard.

But not necessarily at the same time. Election is from eternity past. Salvation happens in time.

I agree, but that wasn't the point you made. You said 16. "The unsaved elect"???? How can the elect be unsaved? I am stunned that intelligent people can argue in such circles and do it with a straight face. I don't mean that to be insulting, but I am truly amazed. The answer is that the elect are always unsaved until they believe. Their salvation is assured, but that does not exempt them from believing. You very slyly tried to change the subject.

BTW, I read your quotes. I am not sure how that was relevant to what we were discussing. The point I asked was for you to show a Calvinist who did not believe that election was from eternity while salvation was in time.

Scripture separates them by saying that election is to salvation.

It is a part of it.

Secondary causation is accepted by most Calvinists I think. I don't know of any who deny it.

Not any more than election to the presidency equal the presidency. Every single president this country has ever had has been elected before he was president. Now, there is about a 75 day window when he is "elect" but not "president." The same is true in salvation.

I completely agree. I have known that for a long time. The same is true of Calvin. 500 years has brought a lot of refinement to be sure. I don't "throw these terms around." I use them the way they are generally used, as I have explained.

I didn't say it was your fault. I said I use the terms as they are generally used. The fact that you don't like it or don't accept it is not my fault. Call yourself what you want; it really doesn't bother me. But be accurate in your descriptions of what I believe.

 

Larry, all you seem to be doing is arguing for the sake of arguing. You avoided completely the quotations YOU asked me for in evidence of my points before.

I might also mention that just because the majority of anyone, Calvinists included, accept or believe something, does not make it true. If you are going to separate election from salvation by a matter of time, and that salvation is not efficacious until belief kicks in, then what are you going to say regarding the Old Testament saints who believed on the Redeemer of Job and were saved through that faith? Christ had not yet been crucified according to earth time -- was their salvation sham?

======

massdak, I'll get back to you later on election. It is only used about thirty times in its two forms in the New Testament and I am going to look each of them up in context. That will take a bit. It does not matter a whit what MY take on it is; it matters what the Bible says about it.

 

Actually, I am discussing for the sake of truth. I would really like to see you start trying to connect the dots here. There are some big gaps in what you are saying.

I didn't avoid them. I commented on them. I said, they did not appear to be relevant to what we were discussing. Those citations say nothing about election being the same as salvation, or about election not requiring belief. The citations may have some things that we could discuss about them. There is nothing greatly controversial in them, as I read them. The most controversial thing for most is that God deemed it necessary for the first man to fall. But we must ask the question, if the death of Christ was determined in eternity past, before there was creation and therefore sin, for what purpose did God ordain teh death of Christ? If there was a chance that Adam would not have sinned, then there was no reason for God to ordain the death of Christ in eternity past.

You might argue that God "knew" Adam was going to sin, but didn't cause it or ordain it. My response is "What is the practical difference?" Once God "knows" something, it is inevitable, meaning that Adam no longer had a real choice, to use your terms. If God "knows" that Adam will sin and ordains the death of Christ to pay for sin prior to sin, the Adam must sin. Otherwise, God's knowledge fails to be accurate and the character of God as all knowing is compromise (i.e., God is no longer God).

Put your logic to work on that thought

I have no doubt about that at all.

No, not at all. Salvation is always secured by the atonement of Christ. Yet in the OT, people were not told to "look ahead to the cross and have faith" to be saved. Their faith was in God; the content of their faith was different. What exactly did Job understand by "Redeemer"? We don't know. It was be pure speculation that he envisioned a MEssiah hanging on a cross.

But none of that has nothing to do with election. Election is in eternity past (Eph 4:1; 2 Thess 2:13). Therefore, election precedes everybody and everything. Salvation has to be separate chronologically from that. I pointed out this verse earlier: 2 Timothy 2:10 For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.

What we learn is that there are some chosen who have not yet obtained the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. It seems as explicit as it can get.

We could also include 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 13 But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. 14 It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here we see that
1) Election was from the beginning, i.e., before creation.
2) Election is to salvation.
3) It is worked out through the setting apart of the Spirit (the effectual call) and the belief in the truth. In other words, election precedes belief.
4) Election is worked out through the gospel, meaning the message.

So it seems clear that the Scriptures that election is from eternity past, that it precedes belief, and it is worked out in conjunction with the gospel message.

[ January 26, 2004, 08:52 AM: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

massdak,

This is a fascinating study. I am learning a lot. I am still working on it. So far I have spent about four hours researching every time 'elect' or 'election' is used and all the references the various authors used in verses containing these words. In addition I want to cross-check that word in the Greek to see if it is translated any other way and what those ways indicate.

I have to get my day started now apart from this, so it will still be some time before I can post you a response. I want to thank you for this challenge. I truly am amazed at what I am learning. Because the paper I am putting together is ten pages on the Word file right now, I'll start a new thread with it when I am finished. I hate for that much work to be buried down here!

Thank you again for your 'inspiration.'

Helen