Featured the "T" of the TULIP

That is just being mean spirited.

Romans 3:11.
Romans 1:16.

 

JD, can you not see how your view is a legalistic, works-based, means of salvation that is incompatible with what God tells us?

 

He does save those who believe on Him, JD.

But according to the parables of the sower and the tares, not everyone who "believes" is, in reality, a believer at heart.
There is no "simple" about it.

Either a person believes "from the head", or they believe "from the heart":

" For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." ( Romans 10:10 ).

 

JD,
If your thoughts genuinely run in the direction that you've just stated above, then it seems to me that you definitely won't like the God of the Bible:


" I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? [Was] not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob,
3 and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever." ( Malachi 1:2-4 ).

" At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.
27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and [he] to whomsoever the Son will reveal [him]." ( Matthew 11:25-27 ).


" When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32 and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth [his] sheep from the goats:
33 and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:" ( Matthew 25:31-34 ).

" Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:" ( Matthew 25:41 ).



" As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." ( Romans 9:13 ).


I'm not sure what you see, but I see a selective God throughout the Scriptures.

Some that He decides to have mercy on, and many that He does not ( Exodus 33:19, Romans 9:14-16 ).
Some that He decides to reveal Himself to, and many that He does not.

That is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob...
A God that does not love everyone with an everlasting love, like He loves His children ( or He would save them as well ).


So much so, that He is not willing that any of them perish, but that they all come to repentance ( 2 Peter 3:8-9 ).
So much so, that He is not willing that any of the ones that He has given to His Son should perish ( John 6:37-40, John 10:27-29 ). but that they be raised up at the last day.

 

Jn 12: 32 yet it does not mean they will all be saved. Drawing is not Salvation. It's an opportunity.
MB.

 

Works based, AustinC? C’mon now. You claim your salvation is all of God and yet you cannot point to a single passage in the Bible, the only place we can get the word of God now, where God says you are one of the elect. So, no, your salvation is not all of God until you can do that. You tell me you are elect but I have never seen one argue for Calvinism yet who will say they are not. Salvation is a subjective proposition for Calvinists. If you want me and others to believe you are elected by God to be saved before the foundation of the world then you will point me to your works in the absence of a testimony from God that he has selected you.

I have seen the way you men treat the wonderful word of God and IMO it is worse than the Mormons treats it. Total depravity as taught by Calvinism would be laughable if it were not so serious. It is not reasonable or logical and it certainly isn’t true. It is based upon a perverted view of man and death and life and God. I will start a thread on this subject in the near future and prove it.

Following might be a conversation between God and a Calvinist at Saint Peter’s gate.

God - why should I let you into my heaven?

Answer - Because you said I am elect.

God - Where did I say that?

Answer _______________

 

The Reformers presumed that the Catholic Church was a real church. The Reformers were wrong and so are the Reformed. That is really all one needs to know.

 

What is your position on the depravity of man? Since you do not endorse "Total Depravity", do you endorse 50% depraved?

 

Would this be true of the Reformed considering the “P” in TULIP? I ask this because one who has ever thought himself to be elect would have had a reason to believe it. How does believing from the head or heart work considering your teaching that God infuses faith to the elect as the gift of God.

Can you see that your position is unintelligible.

 

There is safety in believing Bible words to frame our doctrine. Total is not a Bible word and depravity is not a Bible word and total depravity is not a Bible phrase and it is not a doctrine that is taught in the scriptures anywhere.

I am not buying any of this depravity stuff.

 

So, you cannot see how you teach a legalistic, works-based means of salvation. Got it.

 

I want to stay on topic here but I will say that the Catholic Church was never the repository of truth. There were manuscripts from the beginning and there were believers who were not Catholics. They were not Reformed either and they did not believe what those Egyptian scholars taught about God.

I do not hate Catholics or Calvinists and please don’t be upset with me for telling you the truth.

 

Remind me what "truth" you have told.

 

Dunno exactly, as , I'm not "Reformed".
But in answering the question from my understanding of the Scriptures...

The only way someone can believe from the heart, is if the heart has been changed by the gift of the new birth to be made receptive to it...
Please see Acts of the Apostles 16:14.

Otherwise, man will not believe because the last thing an unrepentant person wants to do is to come to Christ...
knowing that He will command them to turn from their sins ( John 3:19-20 ).

Speaking for myself,

I didn't know I was "elect" when I first believed on Christ for the forgiveness of my sins back in 1978.
I heard the word of God...
How that I was a sinner worthy of death and that Christ died for my sins and was my only hope of salvation.

I didn't "discover" that I was elect until the Lord made me aware of it in 2003.

In other words, just as I believed ( by faith ) the word of God in 1978 concerning my sin problem, God's coming judgment and my only escape...
So I also believed the word of God regarding my being foreknown, predestinated, called, justified and glorified ( Romans 8:28-30 ), being chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world ( Ephesians 1:4 ) and being chosen to salvation ( 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 ).

While it's a mystery to me why He even bothered with my worthless hide, nevertheless I believe not only the preached word, but also the written.
Every word.

 

Easy...

I believe, then I look at the Scriptures that tell me why I believe.
Then I believe those as well.
Line by line, precept by precept.

In other words, I take what is explicitly stated on the pages of Scripture, and read it back into my own life...
I believe what He says by faith, trusting that anything I don't immediately understand, He will show me as I seek Him through His word.

I've found that understanding of the Bible builds on itself the more that I study it.

Not in the least.

"Logic", "reason" and human intelligence have nothing to do with believing God's words.
I trust Him and His every word, as should all who name the name of Christ ( Proverbs 3:5-7 ).

That is what faith is all about.
It bypasses reason and causes Christians to believe things that no one else "in their right mind" ever would.

 

I realize that you were directing this at Wesley, but I'd like to make my own reply.

I believe the Bible, and every word.
I know that I'm safe in believing Bible words to frame my doctrine, because I don't feel the need to go outside of it to find answers about it.

However, I do find that some historical terms are useful when I discuss what I see the Bible teaching on many subjects.

To me, that is what's known as a "technicality".
Of course we all know that the phrase "total depravity" is not found in the Bible, just as the words "Trinity", "Sunday", "Saturday", "rapture", "get saved", and many other equally familiar terms are not.

"Total Depravity" is one such phrase or term originating many years ago, and while it seems misleading on the surface ( because "depravity" has taken on a different meaning in modern English ), it is stated as such:

1. Total Inability or Total Depravity

"Because of the fall, man is unable of himself to savingly believe the gospel. The sinner is dead, blind, and deaf to the things of God; his heart is deceitful and desperately corrupt. His will is not free, it is in bondage to his evil nature, therefore, he will not--indeed he cannot--choose good over evil in the spiritual realm. Consequently, it takes much more than the Spirit's assistance to bring a sinner to Christ--it takes regeneration by which the Spirit makes the sinner alive and gives him a new nature. Faith is not something man contributes to salvation but is itself a part of God's gift of salvation--it is God's gift to the sinner, not the sinner's gift to God."




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I am, and I'd be happy to tell you why:
I looked up the definition of depravity and I found that I agree with it, for the most part.

Depravity:
" moral corruption; wickedness."
" a wicked or morally corrupt act."
" the innate corruption of human nature, due to original sin." ( Romans 1:18-32, Romans 5:12-21 ).



In fact, I don't feel the need to buy it...
I simply read Genesis, the Psalms, the Proverbs, and Romans 1:18-32 and believe what those passages describe...

Mankind in all its rebellious and sin-loving "glory" before God.

That's why I needed Jesus Christ to save me...
Because from the Lord's point of view, I was depraved before He graciously rescued me from myself.

Before I heard the Gospel, I didn't care one whit whether or not I had offended Him.
Now I not only do, I realize that He loved me and sent His Son to die for me...

And that He has taken my sins and cast them behind Him as far as East is from West.

 

Micah 7:19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.