Explain This:

And how does a "desperately wicked" heart that desires "only evil continually" generate the faith to believe?

The Archangel

 

Believing is necessary for continued life just like breathing is necessary fro continued life.

But life precedes breathing just as it does believing.

You were born that you might BREATH and breathing you might have life.

If you are born and you don't breath then you will not have life. That does not mean that you never had life.

Breathing is necessary to have physical life and believing is necessary to have spiritual life.

But physical life precedes breathing and spiritual life precedes believing.

 

Why don't you make this about the subject instead of the people. Saying they are "blinded" is an attack on the person, not the subject. I don't think you are "blinded" just wrong. I don't insult you, I just explain what I believe the Bible is teaching.

 

Thanks for this.

 

Faith is faith. It is trust, confidence, etc.
Why do you make faith into some magical mystical esoterical unexplainable experience that only God can supernaturally give and that you cannot therefore understand. This is the most ridiculous position I have heard, and yet it is the position of almost all Calvinists.

Faith is very simple, and saving faith doesn't come from God. If it did we would be no more than robots in the hand of God. God did not create us to be robots. He gave us a free will; free choice; a choice to do good or evil; a choice to accept or reject Christ. In God's sovereign will, within His sovereign paramaters, He has chosen to give man the choice even though he knows the outcome of that choice. It could be no other way. Man is responsible for the choices his makes. He is not a robot.

Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God.

Faith comes first--always.
That faith is not provided by God. The only faith that is provided by God is when a person is a believer. God does not give the unsaved, the unregenerate, faith. That goes exactly contrary to Scripture and nowhere in Scripture does it teach that, except if one twists Scripture to squeeze that doctrine out of it. God does not give faith to the unsaved; the unregenerate.
He must put faith in Christ of his own free will.

But, the Calvinist will reply: He is dead. How can a dead person do that?
Now, the Calvinist must learn what the meaning of the word "death" is in the Bible. It doesn't mean annihiliation, without physical life, etc.
Death always means separation.
Physical death is separation of the spirit from the body.
Spiritual death is separation from God because of sin.
The Second Death is separation from God for all eternity--the final and ultimate sentence of God.
Death always means separation.

A person that is separated (dead) still has the power to call out to God. He still has the power to have faith. He is only separated from God. It doesn't mean that he can be likened to a lifeless corpse. You have the wrong analogy. That is not the meaning of death. It is separation.

Faith is not difficult to understand. As I can put faith in my wife (confidence or depend on her), so I can put faith in Jesus Christ. Faith has an object. Saving faith's object is Jesus Christ.

 

He provided several verses that unequivocally prove that faith is a gift from God and you totally ignored them all and went on a rant without providing a single passage of Scripture to support what you purport.

What does this say? It says, perhaps, that one position, the one supported with Scripture, is based in Scripture and the other is based on faulty training and preconceived notions.

 

Ask away. I can support everything I stated with Scripture, and also show how some of the Scripture used was used out of context.

 

I gave what I figured was the reason you did not respond to his passages and why you posted such along post without a single passage- that your position is not founded in Scripture but in ideas you received from your raising.

I'd rather see you respond to post 79 and 82.

 

Romans 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:


We are justified by faith, therefore faith must precede the new birth because you cannot be born again and unjustified at the same time.

 

1 John 5:1 is the verse of last resort for Calvinists, it is the only verse they can hope to twist to support that regeneration precedes faith, all the while ignoring at least a dozen verses that plainly say a person must first believe to have life. No real scholar would base their doctrine on one controversial verse when it is clearly refuted by many verses, but that is the desperation you resort to.

 

YEa, this is not true. We have given you numerous verses and you never respond to them. We show you, as I did in post 79, how you are twisting an abusing the Scriptures you use and you never respond.

You just color verses red and blue and call all of us morons.

 

Doesn't follow.

No one is arguing that one can be justified apart from faith.

But one must be made alive so he can believe so he can be justified.

Jesus said, "Except ye be born again ye cannot SEE the Kingdom of God."

He said in John 6, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him... EVERYONE who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me..."

 

If you are made alive then you are born again. If you are born again before you have faith in Christ, then you are a born again, unjustified sinner. That is not possible.

 

More attacks, no substance. Typical.

Engage the verse rather than employing the "Liar Liar Pants on Fire" response...it's so 2nd grade.

The Archangel

 

There are many texts which affirm beyond doubt that regeneration is indeed monergistic ... that the implanting of the new heart is what gives rise to understanding, love of Christ and faith. One of the most important texts is where Jesus was speaking to some fellow Jews who did not believe in him (John 6:64) . He said to them:

"… no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." ( 6:65) and just a few verses earlier said “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” ( 6:37) ”

I borrowed this:

 

Why, then, does Jesus tell Nicodemus that he must be born again? Now remember: the "born again" language of John 3 is all passive, meaning that this is something that Nicodemus cannot do; it must be done to him.

The Archangel

 

DHK, your post above explaining spiritual death and faith was excellent and scriptural.

 

Why is it not possible?

It is only not possible in your mind Amy- and that is simply because it goes against what you have always believed- not because it is not biblical.

It is biblical as we are showing you.

 

Except it did not have a single Scripture in it!:laugh::laugh:

 

It's not possible because scripture says that we are justified by faith. If life comes before faith, then you are not justified, but you are born again. That does not make sense according the word of God.