Let's hash out the distinction between Original Sin and Total Depravity.

If you would give a straight answer, we could move on.

Do men possess the ability to receive the Gospel by nature like hearing men can respond to speech, or are they like deaf men who need their hearing restored in order to receive the Gospel?

What is it that the words of the Gospel changes about a man, that enables him to either receive or trade it for a lie? 25 words or less, please.

 

Yes, and the high school freshman lacks the mathematical knowedge of the mysterious Pythagorean theorem that the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse...

Ignoring the contradiction in your statement, and going with your drift, I can say that neither does the highschool freshman.

So a man is not changed prior to receiving the Gospel. He accepted it under his own power, and according to his own will, and own love for the truth. Which means the only difference between him and one who doesn't accept it, is that the former is just a bit better.

You can't escape it. You must either have some sovereign, irresistible work of God in one's salvation, or one's election is based entirely on his merit.

 

Oh great...now I'll be singing songs from The Pirates of Penzance all night. :laugh:

 

What is that power? Is it faith? Is it life? Is it sight? Opposable thumbs? What?

What is the power with which one is endowed through the hearing of the Gospel? Did the hearing of the Gospel merely unlock a man's potential like the hearing of Pythagorean's Theorem, or did it add something to him that he did not have before?

A Calvinist can answer the question concisely in 25 words or less. So can an Arminian. Let's see if one can who is attempting to mingle the two incompatible systems.

 

Or Martin's (of Frazier) version thereof...the scarey hippopotamus! :type:

 

The scriptures themselves explain what it is like.

Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

This is a picture of salvation. God has revealed himself through his word. His word begs us to be reconciled unto him. It is just as Jesus knocking on your door and asking entry. A man must simply be willing to open the door and invite him in.

Could the man be saved if Jesus did not come to the door first? No. Could a man hear unless Jesus knocked? No. But when Jesus does come to the door and knock, all the man has to do is open the door. It is a decision of the will.

God does not require us to do anything supernatural, God does all that is supernatural in salvation. He sends his word and convicts us of our sin. He tells us of Jesus who is ready and willing to save us if we are willing to receive him. All we have to do is say YES. When we do say yes to Jesus, when we open the door of our heart and invite him in, then the Holy Spirit comes in and supernaturally regenerates us.

Look, if we being spiritually dead cannot hear Jesus, then Jesus also cannot speak to us. You are limiting his power when you say Jesus must make us alive before we can hear and believe. Jesus has the power to speak to the dead, and the dead therefore have the ability to hear Jesus. And if the dead will hear and believe, then and only then are they made alive.

John 5:25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

Jesus said THE DEAD shall hear his voice, not the living. And he said "they that hear" (the dead) SHALL live. The verse proves the spiritually dead have the ability to hear and believe Jesus, and if they do they SHALL live.

 

A passage I believe to be relevant to this conversation, submitted for consideration (and critique...lol):



Hebrews 6

4For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,


First let me say that the initial response to this passage concerning the context of the discussion at hand is going to be...I am pulling this out of context and proof-texting to make a point.

I can assure you, I am not.

Here we see men enlightened, "tasting" of the heavenly gift, and made partakers of the Holy Spirit.

When we look at this verse in the context of the passage and understand the writer's (and ultimately the Holy Spirit Himself) intent in writing to his brethren, we understand we are looking at a warning not to return to Judaism.

Can born again believers do that? I believe the answer is no, not in truth.

We see here the very work of the Spirit of God in the lives of unregenerate men, and what He does in order to bring them to a place where they can believe, repent, and turn to Christ for salvation.

Think of Judas, casting out demons and preaching the Gospel...how were these works performed in the life of one that would do exactly what our writer warns against here? Pretty obvious, isn't it? By the power of God, the Holy Spirit working in him.



5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,


That God has worked in the lives of these men that our writer warns is indisputable, as is also clearly seen in the previous verse, but what happens if...


6If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.


It is repentance they is said cannot be renewed, not salvation, and why is that? Just as in ch. 10, the sacrifice of Christ, their only hope...is rejected.

How can they "crucify the Son of God afresh?" Quite simply, because they are laying again a foundation which is forbidden them at the beginning of this chapter. This is not a reference to personal sin, but a return to the first principles that "crucified Christ in picture."


7For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:

8But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

The earth is given as a picture of mankind. Here, his point is that the gospel is given to all men, but with differing results. And just as the herbs, thorns, and briars are no more involved in the rain coming upon them, neither is man involved with the work of the Holy Spirit which convicts the unregenerate of sin, rightousness, and judgment.

All men are in need of Christ, and they are moved to belief through the work of the Holy Spirit, apart from this work, they cannot believe.

And apart from being in Christ, which is Who the Holy Spirit testifies, they cannot have life.

God bless.

 

Skan,

1The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

2Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.
3To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.

4An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.


Skan......if plowing is considered as a neutral activity..or even a good work....why are we told the plowing of the .....wicked.......is sin?

] Why can this person be called "wicked"?

] Why when He plows is it sin?

 

This is an excellent post, Aaron.

:thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:

 

NO!!!!!!! It is NOT a "picture of salvation!!!!!!!!


Some would grab at ANY verse and apply it to what it was never meant to mean.

Look in the context. John is recording what Christ is saying to THE CHURCH in the ancient city of Laodicea. Christ is talking to the SAVED not the lost. Christ is telling the SAVED that their need is exactly opposite of what they think. That he is knocking on THEIR door. NOT the unsaved heart!!!

If you think that I am wrong - prove it by the context of the passage.

Because you miss applied the Scriptures to claim what it was not intended to support, the rest of the argument fails.

Again, you are taking a Scripture out of the original meaning.

Dead - are those who are dead, physically - examples found in every graveyard.

When and why shall the dead hear? When Christ speaks for them to "come forth" - example Lazarus.


This passage is NOT referring to the unsaved and the saved.

 

Per John Calvin?

Look, there would be no need for Jesus to be knocking on the door, desiring to come in to one of His own. He said He would be with us all the way, even to the end of the world. If He is knocking, wanting to come into sup with one of His own, that would make Him on the outside looking in.

 

I have heard the above passage from Revelation misused for many years. I believe you are essentially correct!

 

Revelation 3:20 is not an invitation for the lost to be saved. Its context does not support this. I know, many here want to argue against this, that's OK too, you're just simply mistaken.

Many church people have heard this used through the years as such, but this familiarity doesn't change the fact that the context doesn't support such an application, nor can this change it's opriginal meaning or context. You may get goose bumps hearing it presented as salvific, but this doesn't mean it's presented truthfully, it simply means it supports what you always thought it meant.

 

I just read Albert Barne's commentary on Rev 3 and I agree with him that it is speaking to both saved and unsaved. The church at Laodicea was on the verge of death. They were so repulsive to God that He wanted to vomit them out of His mouth.
There were some in the church that were nothing more than professing Christians and there were some who had lost their love of God and the brethren.
Jesus stands on the outside of this church because both groups are in need of Him. Some need salvation and some need to repent.

I would post the commentary, but it's long and I doubt anybody would read it.

 

I agree. If Jesus is standing on the outside of His body wanting to come in, something's wrong.

 

I am of the opinion that the Laodiceans were the most problematic to God.

If they were unbelievers, then they would be "cold" - that is without the Holy Spirit and therefore it is improbable that they would be claimed as lukewarm.

But, carnal, and just caring enough through emotional and psychological manipulation that the average believer never realized the real presence of the work of the Holy Spirit would be more likely.

This church is (as is in our time) too shallow to stand in the judgment of God as He sifts each church. He finds nothing of real value in its doctrine and its stand against sin is without strength. This church does not with stand the evil of this world, rather seeks no limit of inclusion and agreement in impressive desires never to make the ungodly "uncomfortable" and rather bring shame upon themselves rather than suffer the rebuke of the cross. It is so that one can scarcely separate the world from the assembly.

This is the last of the representative churches spoken to by Christ for the next event is the great and terrible tribulation.


I think Laodicean is the direction of the modern churches throughout the world.