IF CALVINISM IS TRUE, WHY AREN'T ALL BELIEVERS CALVINISTIC?

Where exactly is "faith" in this passage?

 

Skandelon said:
One is regenerated through faith in the word

Is this the written word, the preached word, or the Word of God as in Jesus Christ ? And, yes, as Pastor Larry asked, where in this passage does it say one is regenerated by faith in the word, whether written, preached, or the Living Word of God ?

 

I agree, but you inserted the word "faith" in there, and I was wondering on what basis you inserted that into Peter's words.

Right ... Most recognize a theological distinction between regeneration and sealing. Your earlier comments talked about the former. This passage talks about the latter. And it occurs after belief, as indicated by the circumstantial participle.

Again, not at issue. We agree completely with this verse, and since you brought it up, it was by "His own will" that he brought "us" (the believers) forth. It was not of the will of man.

Again, I would question the basis on which you add "faith" into the regeneration passage of 1 Peter 1.

 

Skandelon said:

However, notice the qualifiers here -"incorruptible" and "liveth and abideth forever".

I do not think the preached word or the written word is what is under consideration here. The preached word can be corrupted. Witness the proliferation of false preachers in the world today.
The written word can be corrupted. Notice that while there are good translations around besides the King James, there are those who are totally corrupt and whom even the most avid MV'ers will not call a Bible, not to mention the JW translations.

The word under consideration here could only be Jesus Christ, the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever -

Rev. 19:13 - And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

John 1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:13 - Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

God is the only cause and source of regeneration or being born again.

 

Yet faith is a spiritual activity, and being so, requires the New Birth first, for the unregenerate man does not possess that faith.

Faith is the result of salvation, not the cause of it.

 

No. John 1:12-13 -

 

Correctomundo.

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please [God]. Romans 8:8 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.

If you can't please God without faith, and you can't please God unless the Spirit of God dwells in you, then the Spirit of God must dwell in you in order to have faith. Not "draw" you. Not "woo" you. Dwell in you.

It doesn't get much easier to understand than that.

 

He was "brought to his senses" in teh pig sty, a reference to the spiritual awakening that caused him to return home. So regeneration, or efficacious enabling by God, enabled him to repent.

 

Probably indwelling ... The promise of the Spirit is never connected with the new birth, that I can think of.

 

Pastor Larry said:

Plus, he has always been a son. Wayward, yes, but always a son. Never ceased to be a son, even in the pig sty.

The elect, as far as God is concerned, have always been his people, lost and become dead thru Adam's wilfull disobedience, yes, but, sought by Christ and quickened by the Spirit.

 

How about "those who believe on his name"? In the context, being born precedes believing it seems to me.

 

One (IMO) significant point is that the translators have added the word "even" to "even to those who believe" in John 1. So the text actually equates "as many as received Him" with "those who believe in His name". "Those who believe in His name" refers immediately back to "as many as received Him". There's no order given, since the process is essentially instantaneous.

It's like the example of a blind man being made able to see. He sees the same moment his blindness is removed. Likewise, we believe the moment we receive Him and are (re)born of God.

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

I can predict that Arminians/Pelagians will inject into this process the necessity that we must be involved in receiving Him -- They will rewrite this scripture as an "offer", and we must reach out and take Him in order to receive Him. But this is not only rewriting scripture, it is rewriting it according to false human philosophy. As I have demonstrated with numerous examples, one can actively receive a gift, and one can receive a gift without any decision or action on the part of the receiver. It is therefore not a truism that receiving a gift takes action on the part of the receiver.

More important, there is not even a hint of an "offer" being made in this scripture. It's simply "as many as received, i.e., those who believe in His name, i.e., born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." All these three things are stated as parts of a whole (received, believe, born), not stated as one conditional upon another.

 

Skandelon said
But that still renders the text senseless because Paul is rebuking the Jews in general stating their hardened condition as the reason for such actions, while pronouncing that had they not been hardened that they "might see, hear, understand and repent." This alone proves their natural condition is not that of being Total Depraved and that not being able to see, hear, understand and repent is a direct result of being hardened.

No, Paul is rebuking UNBELIEVING Jews in general, and warning them of the consequences of refusing the Word. Some of his Jewish audience had believed his preaching; so it is to the rest he speaks. Look at the text, Acts 28: 24And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. 25So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word: "The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, 26saying, ... 28"Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!"

Next, the hardening of the majority of Israel is a special hardening, one that determines that only a remnant will be saved, generation by generation, until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. Then ALL Israel shall be saved. This hardening does not disprove Total Depravity, because this hardening relates to God's dealing with the nation, not merely with the individual. All men, Jew and Gentile, have hard hearts. God had promised to give Israel a new heart; but in His mysterious will, He determined that that would not happen at once. Rather, the majority of the nation would be cut-off from faith and the many gentiles would be brought in instead. That cutting-off from faith, is called hardening by the apostle. They are left - unnaturally, so to speak - in their natural blindness. No matter how much gospel is preached to them, only a remnant will be saved, until that promised Day.

And you and I both know that more Gentiles are lost than are saved so if the Gentiles were no different from the Jews, in that both groups have mostly hardened "non-elect" people, then what is Paul's point in rebuking the Jews and going after the Gentiles? Aren't they both in the same boat?

It is not correct to equate the Jews with the Gentiles when considering God's saving work among them. The Gentiles are naturally blind, like the Jews, but they were not promised national salvation. The Jews were. Only a minority of the Gentiles will be saved, but that is not of the same significance as saying the same thing of the Jews. That ANY Gentile would be saved was a marvellous thing. That MOST of the Jews would be lost was just as staggering.

Ok! Stop and look at this passage again Ian. There are two groups of people being discussed in this passage. You seem to think its the elect and the non-elect, but it is not. It is the Jews and the Gentiles. The text is very clear to draw the distinction by even naming them for us.

Yes, but if you hold it does not separate them into believing and unbelieving, then you must hold that Paul said ALL Gentiles would be saved. Manifestly that was not the case.

As I pointed out above, the Jews were composed of those who did believe Paul's word and those who rejected it. Paul then said he was going to the Gentiles, who would hear/believe. NOT all Gentiles, only the elect.

Secondly, there are two conditions being discussed here. Hardened and Unhardened. Those able to see, hear and understand and those who are not. The Jews, before their being hardened, WERE able but now they are not. The Gentiles who have yet to hear are clearly still able, thus they are not hardened in the way that the Jews are.

No, look at the text. It is not mere ability that is being discussed, but saving faith. 'Hear' is not merely hear with the physical ear, but hear the Shepherd's voice. Hear spiritually. To hear is to heed in this context. All the Jews heard physically, as did the Gentile masses, but only the elect really heard.

The passage doesn't divide the groups this way. He is speaking in general terms about Jews, who are being hardened as a nation and the Gentiles who are being ingrafted as a nation. (NOT EVERYONE--only those who believe) The Jews, for the most part, cannot believe but the Gentiles can.

You are doing the same thing you say I'm wrong in doing! You say the Gentiles are being ingrafted as a nation - but then you qualify that by saying, only the believing Gentiles. That is my point, Paul is distinguishing between believing Gentiles and unbelieving ones; between believing Jews and unbelieving ones.

This is where you derail! Look at the passage Ian. In Acts 28 Paul is persuading them with the law and convincing some but not others and then Paul turns to all the Jews who didn't believe him by telling them that they are hardened. Is he lying to some of them by telling them the reason they don't believe is because they are hardened when really they are not????

Did Paul mean that ALL who heard him that day and didn't repent were the hardened? I think that unlikely. The text seems to indicate some disputing among even the unbelievers. What Paul said was a warning to all who refused the word at that time. 'Beware lest this prophecy be found true of you personally.' It certainly was true of the majority of Jews; but might not be true of any individual.

You have the same problem in Romans 11. You have those believing and then "the rest" who have been blinded and then Paul asks, "But have they (clearly refering to "the rest" who were blinded) stumbled beyond recovery? Certainly NOT!. So once again you have Paul saying that those who were blinded/hardened HAVE NOT stumbled beyond recovery, yet you try to claim that the elect aren't apart of the hardened/blinded crowd. That is absurd and I doubt any scholar hold to that view (can you show me any?). I think you have just backed yourself into it and don't want to admit you are wrong. Just my opinion.

John Calvin on Rom.11: 11. 'Have they stumbled, etc. You will be greatly hindered in understanding this argument, except you take notice, that the Apostle speaks sometimes of the whole nation of the Jews, and sometimes of single individuals; for hence arises the diversity, that onewhile he speaks of the Jews as being banished from the kingdom of God, cut off from the tree and precipitated by God’s judgment into destruction, and that at another he denies that they had fallen from grace, but that on the contrary they continued in the possession of the covenant, and had a place in the Church of God.
'It is then in conformity with this difference that he now speaks; for since the Jews for the most part rejected Christ, so that perverseness had taken hold almost on the whole nation, and few among them seemed to be of a sane mind, he asks the question, whether the Jewish nation had so stumbled at Christ, that it was all over with them universally, and that no hope of repentance remained. Here he justly denies that the salvation of the Jews was to be despaired of, or that they were so rejected by God, that there was to be no future restoration, or that the covenant of grace, which he had once made with them, was entirely abolished, since there had ever remained in that nation the seed of blessing. That we are so to understand his meaning is evident from this, — that having before connected a sure ruin with blindness, he now gives a hope of rising again; which two things are wholly different. They then, who perversely stumbled at Christ, fell and fell into destruction; yet the nation itself had not fallen, so that he who is a Jew must necessarily perish or be alienated from God.

Note the last two sentences.

Let me add, some of the difficulty comes from confusing the hardened part of the nation with the nation as such, for sometimes it is referred to in those terms and we are expected to know the difference. So 'blindness in part' refers to the nation; but the individuals concerned make up only part of the nation. Where's the asprin?


How do you know what first lead them to acknowledge God as God in their life? Were you there? Does the scripture tell us all of their testimonies of faith? What about Lydia or Cornelious who feared God and Lydia even worshipped God? How do we know what level of revelation brought them to fear God or to acknowledge his existance and follow thier God given conscience. I'm not saying they were ever righteous enough to earn eternal life, I'm saying that its possible they like Abraham could have been credited with righteousness based upon their faith.

I'm not denying the witness of nature and conscience, just its saving ability. The saints you mentioned were SAVED by the gospel, never mind how much or little light they had before. And Abraham especially - he had God's DIRECT communication, not just nature or conscience.

Maybe so, but it seems clear to me from Romans 1 that people have everything they need to acknowledge God as God, which is why they are without excuse. How do you know there are not people in our world who only have their God given conscience and the natural revelation who do acknowledge God and who fear and worship Him? Would not their faith be credited to them as righteousness? I'm just exaiming all facets of this doctine, granted some Arminians don't go this far in searching out why we believe this doctrine. Honestly, I could take this another way to defend Arminian doctrine, but I want to fully examine why we believe that men are unable to believe God and worship God from whatever level of revelation he brings to them that makes them without excuse. Being "without excuse" seems to me to mean you have everything you need to be saved and that the only thing preventing that from happening is the person himself and not a natural condition. Think about it, if it were impossible for the lost to acknowledge God and his divine attibutes then what would be Paul's point in saying that they were without excuse. Being revealed something without the ability to act upon what you know doesn't make anyone without excuse.

Paul explains this in Romans. The exact same problem exists for the Jew under the Law as for the heathen with nature and consciece only - their evil hearts will not respond toward God, but always against Him. The heathen is therefore without excuse; the Jew even more so, since God had given him so much more light. The gospel must come in the power of the Holy Spirit for any man to be saved.

If the heathen in far off jungles who never heard the words of the law or the gospel message cannot be saved then what is Paul's point in Romans 1 in saying they are without excuse? They clearly saw and understood but chose not to act upon what they knew to be true, thus they are condemned justly and without a defense. To say that they can't be saved is to say that they didn't clearly see and understand what they needed to be saved and therefore would have an excuse. "I didn't know!" It may not be a sufficient excuse but according to Paul it was obviously sufficient enough to address as being handled by natural revelation. What do you think?

If an unevangelised man responded with faith and repentance toward God as revealed in nature and conscience, they he would be saved, or at least God would get the gospel to them. It is his evil heart that prevents it. If he is truly able, why is the gospel sent to him? It is because man is unable to do what is right that the gospel must come. It is God's appointed way of salvation. None other.

The degree of light is not the problem or the answer. It is the state of the heart. Men even blasphemed the Holy Spirit when they knew Christ's good works were done through Him. The answer is to be given a new heart. God gives that to His elect in their hearing of the gospel.

In Him

Ian