Difference between being redemptively "in Christ" versus Representatively in Christ?

Friend, you can't even understand what you are reading! Your conclusion is exactly the point I was making. There are things God "will" not do because of the limitations of His nature - that is my point. Likewise, it is the same with man. free choice is limited by his nature.


No, God can not do anything such as not be Truth or go against His own aseity. Scripture clearly states that God can not lie and that God is Truth; that is His nature. My friend, TRUTH, the very nature of God prevents Him from sinning, as GOODNESS, prevents Him from being evil. God can not choose to be evil or sin because there is no evil in Him and God does not change!



Are you incapable of reading English? Philippians 2:13 clearly and explicitly states that God is the cause in all saints for whatever they will or do that glorifies Him. Philippians 2:13 does not use the word "purpose" or makes general statements but specifically uses the word "to will." He is the cause behind the consequence of their willing to do whatever they do for the glory of God. If this is not a clear and definitive statement in regard to cause and effect relationship between God's will and the human will then the English language is pointless.

You present (Philip 2:13) as a proof text for Determinism yet avoid the issue that the influence is God’s goodness. The good pleasure of God is that we respond to His goodness; I also addressed “purpose”. It is his good work and pleasure to influence but you attempt to change His work into a determination on preselected elect.

I have NEVER denied that God's character and nature is wholly good without any taint of evil. I have NEVER attributed evil to God except as the indirect author of it through creation of free will. God did create free will didn't He? Free will is the modus operandi that men and Satan brought evil into the world isn't it? God does over rule evil for good does He not? You need to get a pair of glasses.


You attempt to project man as both totally deprived: meaning unable to respond in faith unless that very faith is predeterminately given him and at the same time say He gave man free choice. There is no strawman; Determinism and Volition are logically mutually exclusive and that is not misrepresenting the position you are trying to hold that both are possible.


No! I simply prove that like God, fallen man is subject to his own nature. God can will to do anything he pleases and so can man. Fallen man can will to do good as much as God can will to do evil. Since God cannot will to do evil becuase of his righteous nature, man cannot will to do good because of his unrighteous nature. It is not me that says this but God's word in clear readable English (Rom. 3:10-11; Rom. 8:7).

While you engage in the above fallacy you soft brush in God’s responsibility for evil saying, “However, there is the sovereign will of God that no man can flaunt. All evil and sin is by God's permission…” You then give (Psa 76:10) for a proof text but the context is that the wrath of God’s enemies shall cause others (His people) to praise Him; this shows the cause of evil is man and God using it for the good, IT DOES NOT SHOW GOD AS THE CAUSE OF ANYTHING BUT GOOD. .

Again, you simply can't read, or can't understand what you read! My point in giving Psalm 76:10 was to prove that God can only do GOOD and that He is not the author of sin but Sovereignly denies the existence of all sin that will not eventually work for His glory and our good. Romans 8:28 says "all things" and it means "all things" and Psalm 76:10 proves that "all things" means all sin in this world as well. SIN DOES NOT ORIGINATE WITH GOD BUT GOD DOES NOT PERMIT OR ALLOW SIN THAT WILL NOT GLORIFY HIM.


Deut 32:4 says that God is without moral evil, but you say God has this attribute as a part of His will. Again, I did not misrepresent your position, so no strawman.

I am afraid your mind is so perverted by nonsense you can't even understand the simple things of God's word. I am not accusing God of being evil but I am asserting God rules over all things including evil. Evil exists by His permission not by His desire.

I reject the Calvinist implications that would suggest total depravity to be mean walking corpse unable apart from predetermination of election to respond to Gods influences through His grace which is offered to all (1John 2:2). Simply you are trying to have it both ways while avoiding logic and it appears to me in some senses you are calling yourself a Calvinist but in reality are an acting Arminian while trying to hold on to volition.

First, I have never called myself a Calvinist and never will. Second, your final authority is human logic rather than God's Word. Romans 8:7 clearly and explicitly states that the fallen natue is completely incapable of a proper response toward God. Man is a PHYSICAL living SPIRITUAL corpse (Deut. 29:4; Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14; Eph. 2:1-3; 4:18-19; etc., etc.).

In the context of Romans 8:7 Paul is speaking of being born from above in the spirit. Human beings are sinful and without God, incapable on their own of being righteous, they must be born again to be saved. There is no argument from me that without the aid of God man is unable to respond. Mt position is that God works through influences on the children of disobedience (Eph 2:1-2) Left to ourselves we would not choose to be with God. Judgment is rendered on our responsibility to respond to God influences; IF the influences are not sincerely given to all then not all can be held responsible.

Where in the Bible does it ever say once that depraved lost men are brought to God through "influences"???? The Bible clearly says that lost people have NO HEART for God and the things of God (Deut. 29:4; Eph. 4:18) and salvation is God giving them a NEW heart (Deut. 29:4; Ezek. 36:26-27; 2 Cor. 3:3-6).

I would still like you to share your salvation experience! Do you have a salvation experience?

 

God does not do His drawing by the force of Determinism while the man kicks and screams and claws at the dirt as the Calvinist position would have us believe. We freely respond in our faith, our intellect, our desire, our heart to give reciprocation of the great love He freely offers us in grace and truth. - originally said by Ben

The statement above shows a fundemental igorance of not only what he calls "Calvinism" but fundemental ignorance of the Scriptures.

Only a man left in his unregenerated state with a depraved will kicks and screams at the things of God (Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14).

Salvation is God giving them a NEW WANT TO (desire). He gives them a NEW HEART (Ezek. 36:26-27).

In regard to their own free will and responsibility to do right God says:

O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! - Deut. 5:29

In regard to SPIRITUAL ABILITY to perceive, see or hear Moses says of the very same people:

Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

In regard to the act of God giving such a heart to the same people, God says in regard to cause and effect:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.


Ezekiel 36:26 is quoted by Paul in 2 Cor. 3:3 as the New Testament Covenant of redemption. It is quoted by the writer of Hebrews in both chapters 8 and 10 as the "new" covenant salvation.

However, notice the words "CAUSE YOU" in Ezek. 36:27. Why must God give anyone a NEW heart and "put my Spirit within you"??? The answer is that the unregenerated heart is at "enmity with God and is not subject to the law of God" (Rom. 8:7) whereas the new heart is the "CAUSE" for "enmity" being replaced by submission and obedience to "my statues."

The last phrase "cause you...shall keep my judgemetns, and do them" is parallel to Philippians 2:13 "For it is God that worketh in you both TO WILL and TO DO of His good pleasure."

Who does Jesus give eternal life to? Whosoever is WILLING to believe the gospel is the answer from the CONSEQUENCE side. However, who is WILLING? Only "as many as THOU hast given me" is what Jesus said (Jn. 17:2) and that is the Divine side of CAUSE.

Who is it that will come to Christ in faith? "ALL that the Father giveth to me shall come" (Jn. 6:37). The Father giving such is the CAUSE for those coming to Christ. Why do "ALL" those given to Christ by the Father come? Because "no man can come except the Father draw HIM and I will raise HIM up at the last day." How many of "ALL" that the Father draws/teaches/instructs come to the Son? "EVERYONE" that has heard and been taught by the Father comes (Jn. 6:44-45).

Why is it that even those who profess faith in Christ and call themselves His disciples end up turning from Christ and walking no more with him? Because saving faith must be "given unto them by my Father" (Jn. 6:64-65).


They regard such a doctrine where God sets his love upon some and not upon others in regard to redemptive love as making God unrighteous/unjust:


As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. - Rom. 9:13-14


They regard such a doctrine where the human will is not the decisive cause in salvation but the elective will of God is the cause in savlation of some and rejection of others as unfair, unjust and which makes God responsible for sin:



Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? - Rom. 9:18-19

Ultimately they reject God's Sovereignty to do what He pleases with God hating, resistant sinners:

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

They reject that these scriptures say what they say! They try to reinterpret them to apply to nations, to Israel but verse 24 tells you explicitly who they apply to "EVEN US, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?"


What do the lost religious men and saved but unenlightened men of this world do with these clear and explicit but abrasive Biblical truths?

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. - 2 Pet. 3:15-16

 

My friend, do you have a problem with reading English? You told me that God is not capable of willing to do evil because his nature is righteous. Should I draw from that admission that God does not have a free will simply because His will is in bondage to His nature????? Or should I draw the conclusion that His will is free within the confines of His righteous nature and that is why he cannot sin, lie, or do evil? What is hard about drawing this conclusion concerning God????

Now, simply apply the same logic you admit about God Who has a righteous nature to any being who has a unrighteous nature! The unregenerate unrighteous nature of man (Rom. 3:10-11) cannot will to love and submit to God's righteousness (Rom. 8:7). Does that deny that man has a free will? No more than the same exact problem in God denies that God has a free will. Man's free will is confined to his unrighteous nature just as God's free will is confined to His righteous nature. Man cannot will to do good any more than God can will to do evil. Why? Not because either lack free will but that freedom is confined to their respective natures. So why is it illogical to say that God has a free will but can only choose righteousness and never unrighteousness because of His nature? So why is illogical to say that man has a free will but can only choose unrighteousness and never righteousness because of his nature. If you deny one you must deny the other. Are you willing to admit that God's free will is capable of willing contrary to His righteous nature and therefore can freely choose to sin, lie, sin and do evil? If not, then why not? Because of his nature!

Now you claim you are logical and that logic is essential. So use it instead of abusing it.


Calvinism forces its adherents to believe illogical impossibilities. They will insist they believe unregenerate man has a free will, but can only choose against God and never for God.

I mean, they will actually say a man is utterly enslaved to his nature, and in the very next breath say the man has a free will.

How are you going to reason with someone who believes in an illogical impossibility?[/QUOTE]

 

Usually, when a person wants to be fair minded they will quote standard authorities that represent a position rather than searching for obscure persons that few have ever heard about.

You are obviously not interested in the truth but in arguing and building straw men to further your arguments. Notice that 95% of your arguments are void of scriptures whereas those you oppose make their arguments primarily with scriptures. This is telling on you and your position.

God is not the author of Sin and most evangelical Calvinist do not charge God to be the author of sin. The doctrines of grace do not demand that God is the author of Sin. However, God is God and sin that originates with "free will" in created beings is not sovereign over God. Although God is not the author of sin He is not controlled by sin nor are His purposes overruled by sin.

If you cannot comprehend that God overrules sin and even restrains sin that would overrule His eternal purposes then you do not serve the God of the Bible because the God of the Bible restrains all evil that will not work for His ultimately glory (Psa. 76:10) as He works "all things" after the counsel of His own will (Eph. 1:11; Rom. 8:28). A God who cannot restrain sin or overule sin is not God and certainly not the God of the Bible:

For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

 

My friend,

I noticed that you rarely respond to the Biblical evidence placed before you. You are more concerned with what uninspired men say than inspired men.
I can name just as many "Calvinists" who deny that God is the author of sin as you can name who attribute sin to God. However, in the final analysis what does it matter what any man may or may not say?? I could name Armininians that are consistent Arminians and deny eternal security or salvation by grace without works and most of them do. However, I know many who believe in eternal security. So what point is there in pitting Arminians against Arminians or Calvinists against Calvinists???

I have placed many scriptures before you that you simply ignore because of your zeal for unspired men and their writings or your zeal for human logic.

For example, I have pointed out that Jesus said in John 6:44 that the same "him" that is drawn by the Father is the same "him" grammatically that is raised by the Son to everlasting life. I have pointed out that the "all" in 6:45 is the "EVERYONE" in John 6:45 that comes to the son. This is explanatory of why "ALL" that the father gives the son in John 6:37-39 come to the son and NOTHING IS LOST.

These contextual and Biblical undeniable facts completely destroy your whole logical and philosophical position. You must deny them in order for your theory to survive. NONE that are given fail to come and NONE that come fail to be saved. Giving is the cause for coming (vv. 37-40). NONE can come except the Father draw "HIM" and Jesus promises to raise "HIM" that is the one drawn by the Father so NONE are lost (v. 44). ALL the Father teaches are "EVERYONE that is taught and NONE fail to come (v. 45).

In regard to those "given" by the Father Jesus later says that out of "all flesh" only "as many as" God given to the Son are given eternal life (Jn. 17:2). Being GIVEN is the condition for being given eternal life if you take His words as inspired.

My point is, your arguments are primarily composed of logic and pitting what men say against me without much use of scripture. In direct contrast, those you oppose use primarily scripture alone but yet you primarily ignore the scriptures and rely upon uninspired human logic primarily originating out of misrepresentation of those you oppose.

I would still like to hear your personal salvation experience.

 

No, I do not consider any quotation that you must INFER that a person believes that God is the author of sin to be credible unless they explicitly say they believe God to be the author of sin. You have produced no such quotation yet. However, even if you do produce such a statement that does not mean that this person represents all Calvinists.

Many of these men are simply trying to explain that sin is not out of God's control or to say it another way, Sin is not the Sovereign of the Universe. How they explain God's sovereignty over sin may be inappropriately be perverted by their adversaries to infer they believe that God is the author of Sin when in fact they do not believe such.

However, Again, I would like to hear your own salvation experience.

 

No, it is not a word game. The difference is critical. The difference is between explaining how God controls an issue in contrast to God being the source of the issue. If they are making such a distinction but you are representing them as making no such distinction then you are misrepresenting them rather than representing what they are actually saying.

 

I gave you my testimony in detail just a few posts ago. I was regenerated by the Spirit of God before I received Christ as my Savior. I know that I was regenerated before I received Christ by profession because what was going on inside me before I professed Christ was not of my doing. I was being convinced and convicted of sin and it was not a pleasant experience.

It is not what I did but what God did in me that caused me to do what I did. I love him because he first loved me. I chose him because he first chose me.

What you do not understand is the Romans 8:28-33 passage. You do not understand that God's PURPOSE logically precedes God's FOREKNOWLEDGE and God's FOREKNOWLEGE precedes God's PREDESTINATION and God's PREDESTINATION precedes God's CALLING and God's CALLING precedes God's JUSTIFICATION and God's justification precedes God's GLORIFICATION and that every one that God works all things for their good are THE CALLED according to his eternal PURPOSE and THOSE foreknown according to His purpose are also THOSE predestinated according to His Purpose and THOSE predestinated are also THOSE called according to His purpose and those called are also THOSE justified according to His purpose and those justified are also THOSE glorified according to His Purpose and therefore if God be for US then who can be against US and that US is defined explicitly as those the Father sent His son to die for (v. 32) which are God's "ELECT" (Rom. 8:33).

You cannot honestly deal with the grammar or its context but must reject it because the same "THEM" is confined by context to the "elect".

 

I will tell you another passage you cannot deal with honestly or objectivey and that is Romans 9.

Paul deals with an objector to the doctrine of election. You can know if what you believe about election harmonizes with the objections by the objector or with Paul's presentation of election.

Your arguments are the arguments of the objector and thus the one being condemned by Paul for a wrong view of election.

Now, this is not NATIONAL ELECTION that Paul is considering but the very reverse. Like Jesus, Paul is denying that simply because you are a Jew you are guaranteed salvation (vv. 3-11). He is not simply talking about God's election of individual Jews to salvation but GENTILES as well:

Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? - Rom. 9:24