Catechisms

Free will is never taught regarding salvation. We do not have the capacity to choose God. God must choose us. This is clear in scripture.

God doesn't call all men. If He did, all men would come and would be redeemed.

What is correct is that God chose his Apostles and commissioned them.

Here we see the false mixed with truth so as to muddy things.

 

The thief never chose God. Jesus chose the thief. Look at what is said.

Luke 23:40-43

Jesus holds the power as King. Jesus decides who enters the Kingdom. Jesus chooses. It is right there in the passage.

Your version declares that the thief chose God and therefore had reason to boast that his own choice got him into the kingdom. But, that is not expressed at all in the passage. In fact, the thief knew he was justly condemned. It is purely by God graciously choosing the thief that the thief is redeemed. (By the way...no water baptism required.)

If God had wanted all...every person at the crucifixion and every human in the world would be redeemed. God's will cannot be thwarted.

You proclaim God as weak and man as strong. It is what Rome has taught for centuries and it is a false teaching. Synergism oozes from the pores of Rome.

 

The thief doesn't choose. The thief makes a request that the King remember him. The King is under no compulsion to grant him the request, but the King, showing amazing grace, chooses to allow the thief into the Kingdom.
In no way, shape, or form does the thief choose God.
Before this moment, we see that the thief had been observing and seeing how Jesus responded to his persecutors.

As for baptism it is never required for salvation. None of the Apostles were baptized other than Paul. However, baptism is an ordinance of obedience where we make our declaration of citizenship in the Kingdom. It is entirely separate from salvation.

If you declare baptism as a necessary work for salvation then you declare grace empty and void.

I anticipate you will attempt to use
Acts 2:37-38 as an argument. Let's look at it.

When you read this verse in the Greek language you see that Peter emphasizes repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The verse can be rendered, Repent, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and be baptized and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The key to forgiveness is repentance, not baptism.

In conclusion:
Salvation is not a synergist activity where you cause God to act and graciously save you because you chose him and chose to be baptized. Such a belief places all the glory on the human who rationally and smartly chose the correct God.

Instead, salvation is a monergist activity where God caused you to be made alive and gave you faith so that you would repent and therefore obey His ordinance of baptism. It is all God doing the work in causing you to respond to His adoptive work on your behalf. You get zero credit. No reason to boast.

Sadly, synergism runs rampant. People demanding that they have control and God react to their decisions. In this area, the Reformation failed. Humans and churches lift up themselves and have a small view of God. The Roman Catholic Church is preeminent in synergism and small God thinking.

 

A request is not choosing. It is an acknowledgement that one cannot do anything. The person does not have the capacity to choose. The person only has the capacity to ask.
The fact is God moved his heart and caused the thief to ask. Somehow, between the thief's trial and his sentencing on the cross, the thief was drawn by God to acknowledge he was a sinner in need of reconciliation. It went against his nature to repent. His nature was to rebel against God. But...God...made him alive with Christ...for by grace He was saved... (Ephesians 2)

I take what is the biblical conclusion. You create a conclusion through philosophical rationalism.

 

Why did he believe though, and not other thief?

 

Matthew tells us.

Matthew 3:11-12 He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The repentant thief is the wheat Jesus gathers. The unrepentant thief is the chaff Jesus burns with unquenchable fire.

The entire Bible declares God's choice of whom he wills to redeem. The repentant thief repented because Jesus chose him and the unrepentant thief did not repent because Jesus did not choose him.

 

God enabled me to believe unto Jesus to be saved!

 

Either God wanted some to get saved, who are, or else all shall be saved in the end!

 

Do you ignore scripture I share?

We see that God gives sinners to Jesus that will repent.

John 6:36-39 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

Jesus specifically tells us the decision process, which we see take place in the repentant thief.

John 10:25-28 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Adonia, it seems that you refuse to read these words of Jesus and accept them. Why?
If what Jesus says is true...that makes your church a liar. Who is more important to you, Jesus or your church?

 

To many Roman Catholics, Jesus and the Mother Church same thing!

 

No just many Roman Catholics, but to ALL Catholics, the Church is the body of Christ. (cf. Eph 5:23, Col 1:24)

The Church therefore is an extension of the incarnation. It is the body of Christ, continuing in time and thus it is a divine institution. The reason this is so shocking to Protestants is because no Protestant sect claims to be a divine institution. Hence, they are nothing more than religious Elks Clubs.

 

the true church of Jesus Christ is NOT Rome, nor Baptist, but of all of the redeemed saved since Adam forward!