Faith a gift

Your analogy is based competely upon a wrong foundation and therefore your conclusions are equally wrong. The problem is not that man believes that God hates him as you suggest. The problem is that he loves darkness and hates light and God is light. The problem is that his heart is intrinsically evil and is the source of sin (Mt. 15:18-21). The problem is that both David, Jesus and Paul declare that there is none instrinsically good but one and that is God (Mt. 19:15; Romans 3:9-18 with Psalm 14:2). The problem is that there is NO MIDDLE GROUND between a good tree and a evil true - you are one or the other and the bad tree "cannot" bring forth "good" fruit and "faith" is a good fruit. The problem is presented by Job 14:4 and the question can anything good come out of something evil? His answer is no. That is why the solution is a "new" heart (Ezek. 36:26) not a reconditioned old heart.

This is not a problem of power of choice as man has that power of choice. The problem is that the will of man is nothing more and nothing less than the faculty by which the heart expresses itself. That is precisely why the two Greek terms translated "will" in the New Testament are "boulomai" and "thelema." The former is the will directed by thinking whereas the latter is the will directed by feelings.

The only reason the will cannot choose to hate darkness (repentance) and love light (faith) is because the human heart (thinking and feeling) are intrinsically evil. So the will is not the issue. What is the issue is a bad, evil heart and God's solution is to "give a new heart" not overhaul the old heart (Ezek. 36:26).

 

Would you please provide scripture to support everything you just said?

 

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:

You will notice there is no gap.

John 6:66 From that [time] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

A passage that shows they believed for a season, but did not have faith so they left.

 

Man can be willing.

Mat 26:41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

 

Again, a wrong foundation to draw your conclusion. This text is speaking of his disciples - saved people not lost people.

 

I realize this was his disciples, thanks for assuming I did not.

How could his disciples believe and be willing when they did not receive the Holy Spirit until after Jesus rose from the dead?

Jn 20:22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

Jn 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

You admit the disciples in the garden were believers and willing. How? They (and all others that had already believed on him) did not receive the Holy Ghost until AFTER Jesus rose from the dead.

How were all these people able to be willing and believe when they did not have the Holy Spirit yet?

Answer that.

 

Then you are born physcially with out sin. Pure and righteous like Christ is. That is totally unbiblical.
MB

 

Thus you have yoiur interpretation not God's intended knowledge.
MB

 

You are simply digging a deeper hole for yourself. The fact is they were already believers in Christ and so the giving of the Holy Spirit did not make any difference any more than it did with all the saints from Genesis to the cross (heb. 11). So your argument is mute. They were already believers (Acts 10:43).

 

First, the word is MOOT, not mute.

My argument is not moot, Calvinism teaches that people must be regenerated by the Holy Spirit (born again, made spiritually alive) in order to be able to be willing and believe, yet the scriptures show multitudes believed on Jesus before the Holy Spirit was given them.

Gal 3:2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Here Paul asks a question that naturally demands the answer that these Galatians received the Holy Spirit by hearing and believeing the gospel. See also Eph 1:13.

How can this be in your system? How can a person be born again without the Spirit coming into them? And how can they be willing to hear and believe without the Spirit?

These questions are not moot or irrelevant, they directly address the Calvinist view of Total Depravity that says natural man can be neither willing or able to believe.

Try answering this time.

 

The new birth was a pre-cross reality. Was not John 3:3-11 pre-cross? In the Old Testament the new birth was referred to as a circumcision of the heart or a new heart. So the Old Testament is not "mute" concerning the new birth but your text is "moot" in regard to the question we are considering.

The coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost had nothing to do with regeneration or filling of the Spirit as both were Old Testament realities. Bottom line is that your text is still a POST-conversion text and still "moot."

 

I quite agree :smilewinkgrin::applause:

 

You are confusing being sealed by the Spirit versus being filled by the Spirit. The disciples received and were sealed by the Spirit in Jn 20:22. On the day of Pentacost they were FILLED with the Spirit which is altogether different and is a special empowerment to witness (Acts 1:8)

And Gal 3:2 and Eph 1:13 were both AFTER the cross. Both verses show a person first hears the gospel, then believes, and only after believeing receives the Holy Spirit.

Jn 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his name.

Which came first, receiving and believeing on Jesus, or God giving the POWER to BECOME a son of God? Isn't becoming a son of God the same as regeneration or being born again? So once again, the scriptures show the natural man can receive and believe on Jesus, and to those that do, God gives the POWER to BECOME a son of God.

There is not one single verse of scripture that supports a man is born again before faith. I challenge you to show it.

 

The "new birth" is regeneration. Regenertion means to have eternal life. One does not have the "new birth", and not be saved/placed IN CHRIST. We are placed IN CHRIST by this "new birth". You can not be regenerated, and not have eternal life. Jesus stated, "EXCEPT ye eat of my flesh, and drink of my blood, YE HAVE NO LIFE IN YOU". To state otherwise, is adding an extra "step" in the salvation process that isn't even there.

 

Another thing to add to this wonderful post. :thumbs:

The Disciples were baptized unto John's baptism first. After Jesus died, and was risen, they received this baptism from Jesus. None were given this prior to Jesus' completed work on the cross. Not even the OT Prophets had the endwelling of the Holy Ghost. They prophesied while the Holy Ghost was working through them, and not in them, on a permanent basis, that is. The permanent endwelling happened after Jesus' completed work on the cross.

 

I think you may be confusing me with someone else. I never mentioned "sealing" of the Spriit in my posts. I only asserted that the new birth was a pre-cross experience as as well as other Spirit experiences such as being "filled" by the Spirit. It would be foolish for Jesus to tell Nicodemus he must be born again if he could not be born again until after the cross.


Regeneration was an Old Testament teaching and reality and so was "sealing" by the Spriit. Old Testament saints as INDIVIDUALS were indwelt by the Spirit as "any man" who was not was "none of his" (Rom. 8:8-9). There are only two possible conditions for any man at any time in history. They are either "in the flesh" (Rom. 8:8) or "in the Spirit" (Rom.8:9).

However, in regard to sainst as a PLURALity of members in one body or INSTITUTION - the New Testament congregation - they were first indwelt by the Spirit of God on Pentecost, and so every local congregation of PLURAL "you" is indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16).

The texts that you referred to refers to the new house of God as an INSTITUTION consisting of a plural "you" (His disciples that habitually gathered together with him - Acts 1:21-22) and the immersion in the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

The immersion in the Spirit was the common accreditation of every new house of God after it has been built (Ex. 40; 2 Kings 7; Acts 2:1).

Hence, this immersion in the Spirit has nothing to do with regeneration and sealing by the Spirit of individual believers and never has.

 

You completely ignored my challenge, please show even one verse of scripture that says a person is regenerated or born again before faith. Should be easy if Calvinism is true.

 

Is this sort of like hypothetical? I ask that because the Lord said the spirit had not yet been given and He did not come until pentacost.

 

1 John 5:1 use the present tense participle "beleiveth" with the Aorist tense verb "born" indicating simeltaneous action. Logically life precedes fruits of life as in the bullet and hole analogy but chronologically they are simeltaneous in action.