Does the Holy Spirit draw the unsaved to Christ?

Some good reformed authors would be:

RC Sproul
Michael Horton
john calvin

 

You are right to bring this up. Doubtless I should have made it plain that no one is saved apart from the word of God. However, it is not the word that saves, but God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The means He uses is the word. 'Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth' (James 1:18).

However, none of this alters the fact that men will not receive the word unless they are led to do so by the Spirit. 'Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word' (John 8:43).

Steve

 

The message of the Gospel has the power of God to accomplish its intended mission from God...

To be used by the HS as part of the process to bring the elected by God to personal saving faith in Jesus Christ!

To those who will be getting saved, it is indeed power of God unto salvation, but message of condemnation to those who refuse Christ and still stay in their sins!

 

those who refuse Christ and still stay in their sins! .....And what are these folks called? perhaps the hard to understand word "Reprobate"

1 Peter 2;7-8 "Now to you who believe, this stone (Jesus Christ) is precious. But to those who do not believe, 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, ' and, 'A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.' They stumble because they disobey the message---which is also what they were destined for."

 

You say that as if they are mutually exclusive. As I quoted before, Jesus said, "The words that I speak to you are spirit and life." When you say, "...it is not the word that saves," you are in error. It is not either/or, but both/and. Understand?

I agree, thus God, by his word, saves. It would be incorrect to say the word doesn't save when it is the means by which he does save. This is the same with faith. Yes, we are save 'by Grace through faith.' But that doesn't make it incorrect for someone to say, "Your faith has saved you," or "I've been saved by Grace," or "God has saved me." All of those are true because they aren't mutually exclusive.

Example: The firemen used the jaws of life to rescue the trapped victim. Sometime later the victim tells the story saying, "The jaws of life saved me." Is that incorrect? No. It may not tell the full story, but it is not incorrect. The jaws alone didn't save her, obviously. Just as faith alone wouldn't save us. We needed God's grace and Christ's work of atonement. Likewise, the words themselves were used by God to save, thus it is not incorrect to say that the words saved me.

And WHY were they unable to listen to his words?

There are two possible answers to this question:

1. Because they were not elected, born totally depraved and thus naturally unable to understand his words. (Calvinistic answer)

OR

2. Jesus said, "For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: "He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn--and I would heal them."

They weren't born unable to hear these words. They grew hardened over time after continual rebellion and NOW they were being sealed or blinded into their rebellion so that God could accomplish a great redemptive purpose through their unbelief. (see Acts 28:21-28; Mark 4; Matt 13; Rom 11)

 

I'd recommend :

Practical Christianity
Profiting From the Word
Comfort For Christians
Attributes of God

Of course he's most noted for his classic:The Sovereignty of God.

When you want to go deeper get :Doctrine of Reconciliation.

Acquire Iain Murray's updated bio of A.W.P. and Richard Belcher's too.

 

If you are trying to make a distinction between convict and draw then the scripture does not say the Spirit draws us. It only says he convicts us.

 

They were hard against the message due to the fact that being sinners, their natural selves/flesh was at war against God, and refused by 'act of their will" to come to Christ, as they loved darkness more then light!

1 Corinthians 2:14
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Gospel message would fit that definition, being of the HS !

 

You can lead a mule to the water but you cannot make him drink.

 

You may be right here. I think I may be the one who caused this thread to come about. I stated in another thread that the Spirit draws, and agedman asked me for scripture to support it. I may have misstepped. In John 12:32, He stated "if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." I need to study this more, but I might very well be wrong.

 

Hold his head under long enough, and he might get a sip. :laugh:

 

As well as the works that Rippon recommended, try Pink's Life of Elijah. Wonderful stuff! I have just finished reading Gleanings from Elisha which is excellent in bringing out the typological meanings of all those miracles. His commentary on Hebrews is the best I've read. Gleanings from Paul which is the prayers of the Apostle and The sayings of the Saviour from the Cross are also good.

Books that are not recommended include Gleanings from Genesis, and the Commentary on John.

Steve

 

You seem to have forgotten to put any proof-texts in here. Allow me to supply Psalm 51:5; John 3:3ff; 10:26; 1Cor 2:14.

God has certainly used election to accomplish a great redemptive act (Rev 5:9-10; 7:9-10), but you provide no evidence for your view that these people were not born dead in trespasses and sin (Eph 2:1ff). You are riding your hobby-horse again, but I'm afraid I'm not persuaded to jump on i with you.

Steve

 

That says, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." Not, "I was sinful at birth and even after God sends you Christ, the apostles, the scriptures, the church, and the gospel appeal you will not be able to willingly respond." You do know we affirm the doctrine of original sin, right?

Again, we all agree that we must be born again and that the spirit does as he pleases... The question for debate is whether or not it pleases him to effectual save a preselected few for no apparent reason known to us, or if it pleases him to save those who freely humble themselves and repent in faith. You believe the former, while I believe the latter, but this verse doesn't specifically support either view except by presumption.

This verse is a perfect parallel to John 12:39, which I quoted earlier. His sheep, or the first fruits, those first brought into the fold are of Israel. These are the "remnant" who were reserved from the hardening process by which God temporarily blinded Israel from the truth so that they would kill Christ and make room for the Gentiles. He reserved a remnant so that God's purpose in electing Israel would stand and they would be the nation that brought the message of redemption to the rest of the world. The second fold of sheep are those who believe in their message. So, this verse actually supports our premise as well.

Keep reading into the next several versus, because the "brethren" can't accept these same "deep spiritual truths" (vs. 10) because they are living carnally/natural lives. You must understand the means God has chosen to reveal these mysteries. Paul, a chosen apostles inspired to write scriptures, is one of those means, so for him to say THESE SPIRITUAL TRUTHS must be SPIRITUAL DISCERNED, could very well mean that HE, a spiritually inspired author, needs to explain them to the church, just like he explained the milk of the gospel to them earlier. This would explain why the 'brethren' were also unable to receive them.

That is because I don't believe that. Like I said before, I affirm the doctrine of original sin, I just reject the Calvinistic notion that unbelievers have the excuse, "I wasn't ever granted faith." I beleive they were given everything they needed to be reconciled to God and they chose to reject him willingly, thus they deserve what they get without question. I actually believe the natural man is far worse than Calvinists do because I believe that God did all that was necessary for their salvation and they STILL, in spite of God's love and gracious provisions, chose to reject and rebel against Him. They truly deserve hell because they chose it...literally. God didn't chose it for them, they themselves have NO EXCUSE.

I went point by point through your arguments and I would hope you would respect me enough to do the same for mine.

 

John 16:7-11, "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. "

 

The logos (translated word) that John refers to in John 1 is not the word of God but a philosophy held among a number of philosophers present in the world that the time. John is saying that Jesus is the essence of life. Many philosophers pointed to the essence of life as the logos and John declares that Jesus is it. John is bringing together what so many philosophers were declaring but falling way short and refuting them by pointing to Jesus as the logos.

 

MANY of the new theologians have actually rejected the classic view that John was using Greek philsophy regarding use of the LOGOS as a term for Christ...

They would see John as appealing instead to wisdom in OT, as jesus being the very bodily personification of the Wisdom of God among us in bodily form!

 

That seems to curtail what John actually refers to. I believe that he is dealing with the wisdom of men down through the ages and the wisdom of God at the same time. While many philosophers of that time and way before pointed to the logos as the essence of life, John points to Jesus as the essence of life.

When we share our faith we also deal with the wisdom of the day and the wisdom of God in order to show the superiority of Jesus and the wisdom of God in comparison to the changing wisdom of the day and lack of truth in it.

I have asked philosophy students if any of the philosophers ever found the truth and the answer is usually the same, maybe some or none. Yet those philosophers used the term logos.

We know that there were religious and secular philosophies of the day that John dealt with.